Business Interchange Group

Install MT on the hosting service of your choice

2010-01-12T22:58:13Z

We have wide experience installing Movable Type on a variety of hosting services including:

icdSOFT
GoDaddy
PAIR
Mid-Phase

We have installed most all versions of MT from V2.6 through the current V4.32. Options include:

Standard MT
Professional Pack
Community Pack

Need More?

Community Blog? YES
Forum? YES
Motion? YES
Hybrid Theme? YES
Notifier? YES
Major Plugins? YES
Google Map Integration? YES
Google Calendar Integration? YES
SimplePie Integration? YES
Lightbox2? YES

If we haven't done it, we can do it. Our broad experience brings you best practices. Contact us for a quote for your install.

Software selection and integration

2010-01-02T12:59:47Z

Software selection and integration becomes a critical step in the development of Websites. Our approach depends on user requirements which may range from very simple to complex. We always attempt to satisfy requirements using free, open source solutions to keep development costs as low as possible.

We use and recommend an underlying Content Management System (CMS) as apposed to manual development of Web pages allowing for rapid development, reduced cost and allowing users to ultimately manage Website content. Our development approach is based on the Movable Type platform:

]]> CMS/Blog Platform: Movable Type Pro Version 4.32

Industrial strength, the platform of choice for large and small enterprises
Create unlimited Blogs and/or Websites
Select standard design templates or create custom designs
Powerful content management system (CMS)
Multiple users with permission managemnt
Extensive Web 2.0 capability
Built in search
Built in graphics and photo management
Super fast performance

Price: Commercial license, 5 users - $400.00

Here are just a few of the open source software/services we have implemented for our clients:

Lightbox2

Photo Gallery: Lightbox 2

This is free software and has become an overwhelming industry standard on websites featuring multiple photos. The photo gallery incorporated on this site uses this technology. Simply click on any thumbnail image under Example on this page to launch the viewer with full size images. In an image set, hover on either side of the image to reveal next/back controls.

Multiple galleries can be created with software controls to select which images are included.

Price: Free

Calendar: Google Calendar

The Google Calendar is a free service and simple to deploy on websites. A sample implementation can be viewed at Providence, our personal Website. The calendar features:

Simple setup
Administrative controls
Public and private entries
Multiple Calendar integration
Mobile and email alerts
Manage tasks
Send event invitations and track RSVP's
Multiple sync options with desktop calendars such as Outlook

Price: Free

Other calendar software is available. These vary in sophistication and cost (free to a nominal license fee) but would require greater effort (and cost) to integrate with the proposed Website.

Interactive Maps: Google Maps

Google Maps is a free service and we have implemented complex, custom versions when mapping is part of your requirements. Many businesses which have a physical address frequented by clients use a Google Map to provide a visual location as well as providing driving directions.

See an example of our personal implementation at Providence: Road Map.

Price: Free

Video Player: YouTube

If there is a requirement to display video on your Website, the simplest and most elegant implementation would be the free video publishing service from YouTube. By publishing on YouTube, there is the added benefit of getting free advertising on the YouTube channel.

Price: Free

To see an example of an embedded Video, see the get in MOTION video on this site.

There are other methods of embedding videos including Macromedia Flash by Adobe Software. The software to build the videos in Flash can be very expensive and requires special technical skills. If your video production service can create Flash videos, we can coordinate the requirements for insertion into the Website.

Video Player: JW FLV Player

As an alternative to YouTube, we have integrated a very flexible video player from Longtail Video: the JW FLV player. You can also see an example on this site under Featured Technology. The JW player supports many video formats and sources.

Price: Free for non-commercial use, a single Website commercial license starts at about $100.

Website development approach

2010-01-01T15:33:48Z

Our Website development approach follow these basic philosophies:

Deploy an administrative platform that supports

1. a content management system (CMS) allowing end user content maintenance
2. a web browser "style sheet" system for flexible design
3. Web 2.0 capabilities for possible visitor interaction
4. capability to easily integrate third party software
5. adherence to Web Standards
6. cross browser compatibility (i.e. Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 and Firefox)

Choose a Web Hosting company that

1. supports industry standard software
2. is responsive for maximum user/visitor positive experience
3. has a record of 99.9% plus up time
4. is cost effective

Maximize search engine optimization (SEO) by

1. creating web pages which are search engine friendly
2. deploying key search terms in page titles and content
3. submitting "site maps" to search engines for easy indexing

Site development using a live 10 step "Cascading" method:

1. choose a color palette consistent with organization branding
2. design a navigation scheme
3. design/refine page layouts
4. create shell pages
5. select appropriate graphics to be used
6. integrate third party software (i.e. Calendar)
7. add/edit page content
8. engage user in every step
9. iterate over steps 2 through 9 to refine presentation
10. announce public launch

Use free, open source software and/or services whenever possible to reduce development/maintenance cost

Best in class email marketing

2010-01-01T14:32:34Z

Deliver your message to the right people with opt-in email marketing. We deliver best in class, proven techniques to get you noticed whether it is for personal use, organizations such as non-profits/associations or business. You will be surprised at how affordable it is.

We do everything for you:
- Already have a subscriber/customer list? We load it for you.
- Build a subscriber list from scratch
- Design the look and feel of the email
- Personalize it to specific subscribers
- Always include an unsubscribe link that takes effect immediately
- Test it for proper appearance in all the major email clients
- Schedule delivery
- Give you access to all the stats so you can see your message effectiveness
- Provide a Sign Up form for your Website

Do it yourself:
- email Newsletters
- Website sign up forms
- Follow up autoresponders
- Email analytics
- Top-notch email deliverability
- Unlimited campaigns at a VERY low monthly cost
- Vast supply of ready to use templates
- Superior customer support
- Check out one of our partners: AWeber Communications

Just need help with a custom design?
- We design your templates using email client compatible methods
- You add your own content
- Schedule you own deliveries
- You take advantage of AWeber affordable rates

Either way, you will be on the forefront of electronic marketing. Need help? Contact us for a complimentary consultation and pricing.

Important: email marketing SPAM is never tolerated and we will not support marketing with purchased email lists. Your list must be an existing membership list already opted-in to receive communication or a list derived from an opt-in process. We only support permission based email marketing. No exceptions. Period.

Enabling PHP on your server

2009-12-31T15:18:52Z

Hosting providers have different requirements to enable PHP on the servers you use. Our experience is:

GoDaddy: Requires all Web pages containg PHP code have the .php file type.

icdSoft: Enable PHP by creating an .htaccess file in the root directory and adding the following code:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php .html .htm

We can continue using .html as the file type and when PHP is embedded using

the server interprets it appropriately.

If in doubt, save yourself some time. Look for enabling PHP in the server support help pages or contact your hosting provider support staff.

Adding optional page layouts to MT 4+ themes

2009-12-29T22:15:23Z

There are instances when it is desired to have page layout options in the MT 4+ themes besides wtt, twt, tw, wt, mw and wm (w=wide, t=thin, m=medium). A case in point: on our personal Blog Providence (using the MT Professional Black Theme) we wanted a full Page width with no sidebars to display a Google Calendar and Google Map the entire width. Here's how we got it:

]]>

@import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>themes-base/blog.css);
@import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>addons/Commercial.pack/themes/professional-black/screen.css);

The themes-base/blog.css is the standard setup for all themes and contains the css definitions for the various layouts. We added the following:

/* Wide */
.layout-w #alpha {
    width: 940px;
}
.layout-w #beta }
    width: 0px;
}

The standard Page layout is wide-medium (wm) defined in the Page archive template with this code:

<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-wm"$>

The "page-layout" variable is later used to set the content style. We have two Pages created: "Road calendar" and "Road map" requiring the wide layout. Here is the code we added to the Page archive template (right after the standard value above):


<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-w"$>


<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-w"$>

Add the content to the pages and you will have a single wide page layout. Here are my examples:
Road Calendar
Road Map

** Test title resulting in a URL with a leading dash

2009-12-27T14:20:21Z

We have detected a condition causing server 500 errors (not a good thing) when the entry title contains non-alpha/numeric leading characters.

The Entry Title is used to create an entry URL with non-alpha/numeric and spaces replaced with dashes. Example:

This is an entry title generates a URL this-is-an-entry-title.html

When a title is entered as:

** This is an entry title ** MT generates -this-is-an-entry-title.html

The leading dash in the URL causes the error. It has been reported to MT support.

DAX Safety & Staffing, LLC ~ Kansas City, MO

2009-12-21T05:59:43Z

A site quickly developed for a heavy construction safety and staffing consultant in Kansas City, MO. Features include a slide show with fading transistions using jQuery and Javascript DHTML active menus by Milonic.

The site was up and running in less than 4 days including all the graphic design, MT template modifications and CSS customization. A real treat to get a striking site in production so quickly. Better yet, a happy client!

Visit DAX at www.daxsafety.com

What's style got to do with it?

2009-12-12T14:10:00Z

Prior to all the Social Networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, Blogs were the most explosive phenomena on the planet! Blogs were the original innovation for people to express themselves and invite participation by others. Politics, personals, diaries, merchants, products, real estate services (yes!) and much more. Blogs are probably more relevant today than ever before. Blogs are free expression. Blogs have personality. Blogs make statements. Blogs entertain. Blogs and social media are symbiotic. Blogs have style!

In search of the ultimate blog style...

Check out these samples:

A List Apart: clean, organized and refreshing, teaches the art of style
Web Designer Ramblings: The epitome of brilliance in minimization
To Real: Minimal at its best!
The San Diego Home Blog: Chris and Steve Berg at their best!
Rain City Guide: Informative, interactive, sometimes controversial. Good use of screen real estate
Real Central VA: Clean and very organized, promotes conversation
RealEstateJournal-WSJ: Lots of content, headlines pop out, you can find what you want
The Daily Pundit: Great San Fransisco style. Where have you been?
Matrix: Nice style. Content can be controversial.
Zillow Blog: I hate cartoonish logos and icons. How juvenile.
Curbed: Makes me dizzy but very popular.

Style can be subjectively measured in many ways; from the first visual impression to the depth of content. I didn't care for IMUS at first but after staying tuned for more than a minute, he grew on me. Those mentioned above are our Favorites for reasons of style; albeit visual and/or cerebral.

I prefer the more subtle, organized, clean style and clear organized thought. I am also visual. Give me pictures and diagrams.

Our style is evolving. Ultimately it may never be static. I think that is a good thing. We would gladly entertain your comments, suggestions and/or criticisms.

Is Google changing their search pages?

2009-12-01T14:54:11Z

I found a link to this article this morning on the TypePad site:

Google's new look? The search giant is testing a revamped results page
...
The good news, should the new look utterly disgust you, is that so far Google hasn't even mentioned the new look (and had not responded to our inquires when this story was published) let alone taken any steps toward making it official. Given Google's track record of beta testing, we suspect the redesign will be thoroughly and publicly tested before it goes live, if in fact it ever does.

Find the article and picture of new format on webmonkey monkey_bites.

A List Apart

2009-11-28T20:53:12Z

A List Apart is the authoritative resource for web design and content. I use it extensively and learn more every time I visit. Subjects include:

Code

Markup, style, scripting, and server-side techniques in the service of user-centric interfaces and tools.

Content

Better writing and more effective communication on the web.

Culture

This web life: emerging ideas, thoughtful topics, insights and provocations.

Design

Visual communication, art direction. Designing systems or interfaces to help users achieve goals.

Process

The business of business. Workflow, project management, keeping projects on target, brainstorming, scope creep, building and working with teams

User Science

What does a user want? Designing for needs. Putting the user first. Making web content accessible to more people and more kinds of internet devices. Designing and testing usable interfaces.

A List Apart explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Visit A LIST apart

Movable Type: Industrial Strength Blog Platform

2009-11-28T20:43:31Z

Movable Type - The name refers to a process with origins in China in the 11th century:

Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document.

MT for short, was the very first software platform designed for Blogging. It is now much more and can become a very efficient and flexible Content Management System (CMS). It is also known as the "big brother" of TypePad, another premier Six Apart product.

Visit Movable Type

BACKUS Design | Build ~ Leesburg, VA

2009-11-28T19:55:54Z

This is the best example of using MT as a Content Management System (CMS). There is not a sign of a Blog anywhere on this site. The client has complete control over the content on every page.

The site was developed for an Architectural Designer in Leesburg, VA. The design is intended to highlight creativity, structure and process discipline. The principal of the design | build company is Steve Backus.

Visit BACKUS Design | Build

Movable Type: Run Periodic Tasks on GoDaddy Hosting

2009-11-26T12:32:17Z

We experienced an issue running periodic tasks on GoDaddy's servers. "Periodic Tasks" is a tool in the MT library that allows many functions to be run in the background such as publishing entries in the future (Write Entry => Publishing => Status => Scheduled). ]]>
The GoDaddy cron setup wizard requires a full path address to run-periodic-tasks but the resulting cron command is:

cd  /home/content/d/a/a/userid/html/cgi-bin/; ./tools/run-periodic-tasks

Executing the "out of the box" run-periodic-tasks tool from the cron job produced a module addressing error. The code in run-periodic-tasks causing the error was:

use lib 'lib', '../lib'; (go up one level to find the lib directory)

A quick change to the full path of the MT lib directory:

use lib '/home/content/d/a/a/userid/html/cgi/mt/lib/';

got it to work fine.

The "out of the box" run-periodic-tasks code works fine in the icdSOFT hosting environment. The cron job setup is

/home/userid/www/www/cgi-bin/mt/tools/run-periodic-tasks

also using the full path to the task and referencing ../lib works fine.

The Morning News

2009-11-25T20:38:39Z

The Morning News is one of the sites we use for design inspiration. It is also built on the MT platform. Clean, open and very readable! Great News format that has significant new content daily.

Visit The Morning News

Providence :: it was meant to be

2009-11-25T19:49:47Z

Here's our personal RV Travel site built on MT 4.32 (latest MT production release). Its capability is rich and very efficient. The slide show on the home page uses the jquery script library. We also integrated an interactive Google Calendar and travel MAP.

Visit Providence

icdSOFT Provides Outstanding Hosting Performance for only $6/month

2009-11-25T12:44:40Z

At $6/month icdSOFT offers exceptional value for web hosting. Order now (or learn more) by clicking =>

We have used this company for over 5 years and have experienced excellent service and performance. Here are the highlights:]]>
1. Supports industry standard software

We always do our best to provide our customers with the latest and most stable versions of available programming languages. We offer support for Perl, PHP 5.2, PHP 4.4, Python, Ruby and TCL.

2. Is responsive for maximum user/visitor positive experience

Savvis is the data center/network provider: The only operator to combine a carrier-class Tier1 international IP network, independently tested as offering best-in-class reliability and performance, and a content distribution network - bypassing internet congestion to deliver sought-after content at high speeds.

3. Has a record of 99.9% plus up time

Our servers are specially designed for our hosting environment. Built with the most reliable server components, they are with 2x Quad-core Xeon processors, 8 GB RAM and RAID 6 disk arrays. The hot-swap HDDs, power supply units and cooling fans allow repairs/replacement of these components while the machine stays online. This design brings the hardware reliability to a highest level.

4. Is cost effective

Universal Plan: $72/year ($6/mo), 1000 MB of disk storage and 20 GB of network traffic per month.

Want us to help? Call 703-431-2145! All of the details can be found at the icdSOFT Website.

Overlook at Greenbrier POA ~ White Sulphur Springs, WV

2009-11-20T19:42:27Z

Overlook at Greenbrier is one of my favorites for aesthetics. Built and maintained for the Property Owners Association (POA) of this Greenbrier, WV mountain community. It features both public and private (for POA members) content areas.

Visit Overlook at Greenbrier

e-WebRealty.com ~ St. Louis, MO

2009-11-14T19:26:46Z

e-WebRealty.com was built for a new brokerage in St. Louis, MO and features significant custom coding to provide for public use as well as back end brokerage/agent administrative use. It also features the integration of Flash Video content.

Visit e-webrealty.com

Hybrid News Lite

2009-11-10T16:52:49Z

You are currently viewing the Hybrid News Theme with custom styling to take the "heaviness" out of the original Hybrid News port to Movable Type. You can also see my comment thread at majordojo for more info. I call this Hybrid News Lite. If you want the custom CSS and the Follow Widget, get it here:

Hybrid News Lite 0.1.zip

original public license applies
use at your own risk