Web Development Archive

Did You Pass Math, Spammer?

February 1, 2007 · Category: Web Development

Historically, I have been very happy using Akismet to filter out comment spam on my blog. Certain spammers seem to be getting the upper hand against Akismet lately, however, and I've been receiving a dozen or so spam comments each day. To help remedy the problem, I've installed the Did You Pass Math? plugin, which asks a simple math question (e.g., "Please add 4 and 2") and requires a correct answer before the comment can be submitted. My initial testing suggests the plugin is working properly and should solve the problem -- at least until enough people are using the plugin that ...

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Are You a Wine Lover?

December 18, 2006 · Category: Personal, Web Development

Happy holidays! One reason my why my blogging has been so sparse in recent months is that I've been working hard, together with my friend Marshall Sontag, to launch a new business in the wine industry. Our new company, which we've named WineQ, is a "meta" wine club ($4.95/mo) that lets you queue up wines like movies, read plenty of reviews from other consumers while choosing your wines, and receive FREE shipping on orders of $35 or more. Essentially, we allow people to create their own wine club: Instead of someone else choosing the wines you're sent, you get to choose. Instead of ...

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Importing from MT to WordPress

March 29, 2006 · Category: Web Development

UPDATE: (Oct 23, 2010) Please read the comments below, especially the ones toward the end, for some relevant warnings about the latest versions of WordPress. This week I spent several hours figuring out how to import all my entries from MoveableType to WordPress. It turns out the task is non-trivial when you're converting to WordPress 2.0 or higher (highly recommended) and you want to preserve the numeric permalinks of your posts. If you want to keep your old permalinks alive for search engine purposes, and you've been using MT's numeric filenames, then it's crucial that you preserve the numbering assigned to your old ...

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Mudita Journal Reloaded

March 29, 2006 · Category: Personal, Web Development

I have just redesigned and relaunched Mudita Journal. In addition to its new design, MJ now sports new back-end software: I migrated from MoveableType to WordPress, an incredible improvement. Among the changes: I've put the site on its own domain name, www.muditajournal.com. This is a permanent change, so please update your blogrolls and bookmarks. Leaving comments will be much easier now, so fire away. Comments continue to be moderated and blog spam hasn't got a chance. I've sorted all my blog entries into the categories you see listed at right. This will make it easier for readers interested in, say, meditation, to ...

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New Site: Novelist Erika Holzer

December 23, 2005 · Category: Web Development

I've been up to my eyeballs in web development projects for the past few weeks, with no end in sight. Meantime, I've launched (and almost finished) a new web site for novelist Erika Holzer, just in time to help publicize her new book Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher. Check it out. Hopefully I'll have time soon to actually read the book. What I've skimmed so far looks very intriguing.

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Site Launch: The Atlasphere v. 2.0

October 2, 2004 · Category: Atlasphere, Web Development

We just launched a major revision to the Atlasphere's design, architecture, and browsing functionality: Ayn Rand Admirers - The Atlasphere This comes after nearly two months of full-time design and programming, and a few weeks of working 16-hour days on the implementation. It's a soft launch, so no announcement has been sent out yet to members. There are still some rough edges (directory search is disabled, haven't created pretty headers for the directory and dating indexes, etc) but most of the site should be working very smoothly. Unfortunately, I have a splitting headache and all I want to do is take a hot ...

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Consulting Design Work

July 9, 2004 · Category: Web Development

One project keeping me busy lately is designing advertisements for a digital version of a major magazine. Due to their comparatively low cost, digital editions have become the holy grail of the magazine publishing industry in recent years. This particular campaign, being conducted by one digital delivery specialist, is part of an experimental run for these fellas and will be spread across a broad range of Google and Overture PPC ads. TOC regular Don Hauptman is the lead creative on the project and wrote all the copy, and Claudia Levine rounds out our team of consultants for the project, as writer and pay-per-click ...

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Custom Wood Windows

April 21, 2004 · Category: Web Development

The site is still very much under development, but I've just launched a new web site for the custom wood windows made by Tampa craftsman Jessie Cano.

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Combatting Blog Spam

April 16, 2004 · Category: Web Development

Lately I've had to delete spam from my blog comments on a regular basis. If you're a MoveableType user encountering similiar problems, you'll be glad to know that the new MT version 3.0 (coming soon) will contain a feature that will effectively kill comment spam: With a suite of comment management features and versatile comment registration--utilizing a centralized authentication service we're calling TypeKey--Movable Type 3.0 will give you more control than ever before over the public face of your website. We've spent a lot of time planning a comment registration system that will fit the needs of different types of ...

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Site Launch: Athlete Therapies

April 3, 2004 · Category: Web Development

I've just launched the new athlete therapies web site at for Albuquerque sports therapist Denis Romero. From the "About" page: Denis Romero is a therapist specializing in soft tissue injuries and has been practicing in Albuquerque, NM since 1990. His advanced training includes neuro-muscular therapy, myofascial trigger point therapy, active isolated stretching, and sports massage. He works with athletes suffering from severe and chronic pain associated with soft tissue injuries. Denis has integrated many of these therapies and techniques, and today is able to provide solutions that help many athletes overcome soft-tissue-related problems. "My goal is to provide the most ...

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