Michael P. Gilbert

I’m really excited to announce the launch of my latest collaboration with Reeves Design House for the IIDA Texas Oklahoma Chapter. The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) has chapters all over the world so working on this project was a great opportunity. The site is a bit bigger than most that we have developed recently and it was a wonderful opportunity to dig into the WordPress documentation and create a highly customized and finely hand-crafted theme. This project has gotten me even more excited about the latest technology advancements with WordPress that make it an increasingly powerful content management system (CMS). At this point it’s definitely my favorite. Every time I work with it I’m more impressed with how many complex things it can do. Plus, clients seem to absolutely love working with it to maintain their own content using the built-in visual editor—it’s just like using a word processor. So, check out the newly redesigned site for IIDA Texas Oklahoma Chapter.

They say many hands make light work. This is especially true in website development when you’ve got a great group of teammates you can count on. My latest project was another collaboration with Mark Reeves, who created a wonderfully flexible and visually appealing site design. Due to the inconvenient timing of my recent home move, we decided to enlist the skills of the ever-talented Kevin Lamping. Usually I work independently on the front-end coding of a site, but Kevin really came through in a pinch. Take a look at the Great Endings Catering and Event Company site. Don’t forget to order a tasty pumpkin cake roll while you’re there!

Sometimes the simpler sites are more fun to build. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy building complex sites in a CMS with loads of plugins and other flashy bits and pieces. But it’s a good break to be able to build a straightforward PHP site without all the bells and whistles. The Salem & Associates site is a great example of the latter. The stunning photographs and clean classic design speak for themselves. Take a look at the Salem & Associates site and see if you agree.

For the past several months I’ve been experimenting with an exciting set of web technologies. You may have heard the latest buzzword for what I’ve been doing. You know the one: HTML5. If something is new and cool, it must have been done with HTML5, right? Well, not necessarily. It’s true that HTML5 has some fun and exciting possibilities on the horizon (and some of it is indeed ready for prime time today). But there are some other fun web technologies gaining in popularity at the same time. It’s the combination of these technologies that I’ve been having fun with. If you’d like to use the general purpose term HTML5 that’s fine with me. I won’t even correct you—at least not while you’re within hearing range. (more…)

I’m always eager to dive into a project that presents a new, or otherwise unique, challenge. In this case, Mark Reeves at Reeves Design House created a visual design based on a grid of ten rectangular boxes — consistent across the whole site. This might seem fairly simple, but from a coding standpoint it can be tricky. It’s a balancing act between absolutely positioning multiple content boxes and ensuring that the content can grow vertically without disrupting the grid system. One more tricky requirement from the client: Can it be built in such a way that “non-techies” can maintain the content? Sure, why not! So, this site is another fine example of using WordPress as a CMS. I’m continually amazed how far we can stretch a simple blogging system to the limit in order to provide a client-friendly solution to a common problem in an extremely short amount of time. Take a look at the Linde Lee, Inc. site and have a look around. The site includes some great photos of their showroom at the historic Dallas Market Center just north of downtown Dallas.

I’m excited to announce the launch of a site for Dr. Karsan, a facial plastic surgeon in the Dallas area. It’s a pretty straightforward site built with PHP, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s clean, functional, usable, and accessible. Yet another beautiful design by Mark Reeves at Reeves Design House. Take a look at the Dr. Karsan site and see what you think.

Over the past several months I’ve been working with Glide Design — an Austin-based web site design firm — on a number of interesting projects. We’ve been building the sites with WordPress which is a great solution for a lightweight CMS. I’ve had a lot of fun working on these projects and learning as much as I can about how to extend WordPress into more than just a simple blogging system. They’re not only easy to build but clients also appreciate the simplicity of the admin interface which allows them to maintain their own site content. The following three sites are a sample of the projects I’ve been working on recently. Each one had its own fun challenges and rewarding learning opportunities. Check out Triton Custom Homes, Urban Moto Shop, and Water to Thrive.

This is the third post (of three) discussing the topic of Ajax. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to go back and read Part 1 (general introduction, definitions, and history) and Part 2 (development sandbox with examples). Now that I’ve covered the basics of Ajax and implemented some demos, I’d like to address the issue of Ajax accessibility. Does the use of Ajax necessarily exclude people with disabilities? Does Ajax cause a roadblock for search engines (search engine optimization) and mobile devices? Are there ways to improve the accessibility of Ajax and JavaScript-enhanced websites?As I’m writing this, I’m wondering what kinds of accessibility concerns there are in the sandbox demos I included in Part 2 of this series. Did you notice some issues as you were trying out the demos? Perhaps I’ll have to put them to the test in a more formal manner… but that’s a task for another day (and another blog post). In this post I’d like to discuss some general accessibility issues and possible solutions that are available to web developers today. It’s by no means an exhaustive list or a definitive hands-on guide, but hopefully it’s a good starting point for further research. (more…)

This is the second post (of three) discussing the topic of Ajax. In case you haven’t already done so, you might want to read Part 1. It’s not essential, but it will provide some general context and a roadmap of the three blog posts.Now that I’ve covered the basics about what Ajax is and is not, I’d like to spend some time playing around with some actual Ajax code. I’ll go ahead and say up front that there’s not much original here. I’m not professing to be an expert Ajax programmer (or hard-core JavaScript programmer, for that matter). Using a home improvement analogy, I’m not trying to build my own hammer, screwdriver, or copper tubing from scratch; I’m holding the tools in my own hands and trying them out to see what each can do. In other words, I’m exploring the use of readily available Ajax and other JavaScript components in my own server environment. (more…)

Lately I’ve noticed a huge variance in the usage of the term Ajax. So I’ve decided to take some time to explore the topic and share my findings in a few blog posts. In this first post, I’d like to share some info from the original blog post that defined and popularized the new interaction design approach. I’ll include some historical details, various definitions, and even a few technical bits and pieces thrown in for good measure.In the next post, I’m going to create a development sandbox to jump in and have fun implementing some popular examples in a controlled environment. I’m hoping to create a repository for my own future use as well as document competency in this area of web development. I’m not planning to reinvent the wheel here… there are a ton of great resources already available. I’m going to poke around and see what’s out there and then put together my own simple demos. Admittedly, some of the demos will be true Ajax (according to the original definition) and some will follow the more general purpose definition which I’ll call “animation effects” created with a combination of JavaScript, CSS, and other technologies. There are some great JavaScript frameworks, such as jQuery, Prototype, YUI, and Dojo, that dramatically simplify Ajax (and pseudo-Ajax) development. I’ll include a variety of examples using some of those frameworks as well.In the last post, I’d like to explore the topic of Ajax accessibility. Is it true that Ajax creates websites that can’t be accessed by people with disabilities? Does Ajax hurt your website’s search engine ranking? Can Ajax be implemented in an accessible way? I’m not completely sure, but I’m hoping to find out! The Web Accessibility Initiative has created a development suite called Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) to help with accessible Ajax solutions. I’m really excited about ARIA’s possibilities, so I’ll spend some time exploring it as well.
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