(Ed. Note. Couldn’t think of a title for this post.)

I’ve been extremely busy working this week (both on school work and on ABM sites) and haven’t had a change to write anything on my site recently.  But right now Katie is taking her Praxis exam (which she is going to dominate!) and I’m back at her apartment listening to her roommate jam on the guitar and doing some web design work and some school work.  On the web design front, I’m finishing up two sites, one for District Dating Coach which is basically completed and live, just waiting on some final changes from DDC’s owner Joan, and finishing up Be Beautiful, which is a beauty and wellness company based out of Boston, Mass.

Be Beautiful was a tough site in the fact that I completed a site for them, then afterwards we agreed that it wasn’t my best work, so I’ve come up with a new alternative design.  I did a lot of research on Web Designer Depot about their Do’s and Don’ts of Dark Web Design.  I combined some of their findings with my first foray into custom fields in Wordpress and came up with what I feel is a great design.  I’ll post it on here when it’s 100% complete and launched.

I’m also working on the website for the Winchester Education Foundation, which should be live and up before too long.  I came up with one design for that but am tinkering with it, based off of some CSS Typography tips and examples from 3point7Designs.com.  Typography is such a detail oriented and deep field that so many of us just brush over.  High quality typography really makes the website.  Might look into a typography book on Amazon… anyone got any suggestions?

I’ve also got a new idea for a business that you may see roll out here soon. I’ll keep you posted.

But for now, it’s off to pick up Katie, grab some lunch and head to Winchester!  Might be going to Charles Town Races tonight to bet on the ponys.  Last time we won $172.50 on a $1 bet; hope the luck is with us tonight as it was NOT with the Caps last night.

So taking a break from the posts about websites or web design, Katie and I went to Panera this morning for breakfast and saw Panera’s drive for donations to Autism Speaks, the leading autism awareness and research group in the nation.  The new figures for autism are striking.  One in 110 children born today have autism, and one in 70 are boys.  Autism Speaks is raising money and awareness about this stat to develop cures and treatments for autism.

If you don’t know, the color for autism is blue. So Panera’s way of donating to Autism Speaks is by donating all of the proceeds of their blueberry bagels and blueberry smoothies to the organization!  Additionally, they’re selling Autism Awareness bracelets (similar to the Livestrong bracelet) for $1.00, which acts as a donation to Autism Speaks.

This morning Katie and I bought a total of 7 bracelets (for Katie, myself and her five Adapted PE colleagues).  If you all get a chance to stop by Panera and pick up a bracelet or feast on delicious blueberry bagels or blueberry smoothie!  For more information about Autism Speaks, check out their website, www.autismspeaks.org.

Also, there is a new movement this month called Light It Up Blue.  Change one light bulb in your house or your business to a blue light bulb to bring awareness to autism.  Check them out here!

Time for bed.  Track meet tomorrow at JMU.  Here we go Tribe!

So if you guys have read my website previously, you’ll know I’m a big fan of iPage.  It is by far my favorite hosting company (mainly for the 24/7 online support).  In all seriousness, you can log on, click chat, and get your problem solved in under 30 minutes.

Which brings me to my blog post for today.  The pesky permalink structure in Wordpress.  Sure, everyone loves for your site to say www.aballmedia.com/about instead of www.aballmedia.com/?id=3 or whatever the case may be.  But I was running into the problem with a clients site that I couldn’t for the life of me get the permalink structure to be ‘pretty’!

If you’re familiar with Wordpress, you’ll know that it auto writes to the .htaccess file (if the file is writeable) and will automatically set up your permalink structure to look good.  So here’s a step by step tutorial on a ‘pretty’ permalink structure with Wordpress and iPage.

1. Do This First. Trying to change your permalink structure after you’ve already started your blog/site can be a big pain.  Avoid the trouble and 404 errors and do it before you start any new blog or site.
2. Tell iPage to give you access to .htaccess.  Simply hoping on their chat support and asking the Tech Support guy to place the .htaccess file in your root directory will let Wordpress do it’s thing.  iPage does have its own intuative .htaccess editor, but the codes that Wordpress gives you to fill it don’t fit in the ‘user-friendly’ editor.
3. Change the permalink structure. Go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Permalinks’ in your wp-admin section and change the structure to custom.  In the text box area next to the word custom, enter ‘/%category%/%postname%/’ without the ‘ ‘.  Here… just do like this:
   
4. Start making your posts and pages. As long as you do this after you make your permalink changes, your links should come out looking pretty and sophisticated!

Have any questions?  Leave me a comment below!  Follow me on Twitter as well!

I had the opportunity to take some time off with Katie this weekend!  We went to Virginia Beach on Thursday and Friday and got to relax and hit the beach. (aside, for those are you that don’t know, L&O: SVU is the best show ever… and it’s on USA right now)  One of the best seafood restaurants that I’ve ever eaten at is Hot Tuna.  Try the Absolut Chesapeake.

Now it’s back to work.  Trying to get a big chunk of Be Beautiful, Winchester Educational Foundation, and District Dating Coach done this evening… might be a long night.

Be sure to check back soon for updates.  In other news, I’ll be making my debut in the javelin throw next weekend at JMU.  Should be.. interesting!

Also, congrats to Phil!  Three Masters!  And always love the KPMG advertisement on your head!

For those of you that don’t personally know me, or know that I go to William & Mary, you may not have heard that we just selected a new mascot for the College.

Introducing… the Griffin!

Scared?  Intimidated?  So will that damn Dog!  Go Tribe!

This has been a hectic week.  Very little time for web design, but I have been able to finish up a mock up design for the Winchester Educational Foundation.  I’ve uploaded that to my test server and should be getting some feedback from that soon as well as continuing to push that site forward.

Side note: the guest star on Law & Order: SVU looks just like Shia LaBeouf.  Okay, done with that side remark.

I’ve also been working on the site for District Dating Coach, the site for Joan Barnard, a dating coach based out of Washington, D.C.  That should be finishing up soon as well.

On non-website business, I’m starting to throw the javelin now in track.  That makes four events for me… albeit not great in any of the four.  But it’s time to get back to work, because Katie and I are heading to the beach tomorrow for a little mini-vacation!  Much needed!

Where do I begin?  First off, we launched www.ashleyfeedsalot.com today to big success!  Ashley’s already had a lot of people view her site and comment on her first blog post.  Wanna get in on the action?  Check out her site!  I think its one of the best sites I’ve made to date, and will hopefully help Ashley push her platform and advance in her pageants.

So with that site complete, the list becomes:

• Be Beautiful Style
• District Dating Coach
• Winchester Educational Foundation
• Fun for Funds

We’ll get to most of those in the next few days… WEF site needs a mock up by this weekend so that going to take a short priority tomorrow.  That and DDC and BBS.

Also, Duke just won the NCAA Championship.  Just fyi, I hate Duke.  As a big Carolina fan, I’d rather see almost anyone else win.

Would you like to know what one of my worst nightmares is?  This.

Allergies are terrible right now.  That, and I forgot to transfer my Google Analytics code from my old theme to my new theme and after feeling that my site got a lot of traffic today, kept being disappointed when Google kept saying no visitors!

Follow me on twitter @alexelmoball and keep up to date on this site!

Easter weekend has come and gone and I am so tired!  I had a great weekend with Katie, got to throw in three events at the Colonial Relays (did poorly in two of the three, but oh well).  Now it’s back to the grind stone with school and web design.

I uploaded three more of my sites to the portfolio page of my website.  Tomorrow we will probably launch AshleyFeedsALot.com, after I make a few changes on it tomorrow.

Time for bed and Income Property.  Gotta be one of the best shows on HGTV if not one of the best shows on TV.  I’d love to have an income property in a house of mine… fixed up in all it’s glory like this guy does it.

Hey all, thanks for visiting the new design of A.Ball Media.  I think this is by far the best design to progressively add to my portfolio and continue to push my business forward.  It does take a little longer to add the sites to my portfolio, so I’m slowly adding them as I have time (spring time is busy with track!).

I’m finishing up a website for a good friend of mine, Ashley Faucher.  She is a pageant contestant in the Miss America Organization, working with Feeding America as her philanthropy.  Her site can be found at www.ashleyfeedsalot.com and will be added to my portfolio as soon as she launches the site… the content is being finalized at the moment!

I’m also finishing up work on a site for a new beauty salon in Boston, Massachusetts called Be Beautiful and they should be up and running soon!  Also, I’m finalizing work on two other sites, District Dating Coach which is, as you probably guessed, a dating coach from Washington, D.C., and the Winchester Educational Foundation, which focuses on fundraising for the Winchester Public Schools in Winchester, VA, of which I am a product of!

I’m very proud of all of these sites, and adding to my current portfolio of 7 sites will push me to have a great range of sites in my portfolio.

Check back for new updates and be sure to check out my portfolio sites.  For now, it’s time for bed.  Easter tomorrow at my girlfriend’s parents house, then back to work on sites and school work!

- Alex

I am proud to announce that today marks the day that A.Ball Media became a national web design firm!  ABM completed work on Just Add Rosie Productions and the site has officially launched!  The company is owned and operated by Rosie Nguyen, and is based out of Los Angeles, California.  The site is developed in Wordpress and uses various WP template pages for the main layout, including the front page.  The artwork, layout and design was developed by Rosie herself and we worked closely together to make her vision a reality.

Wanna check out the site?  You can find her on the web at www.justaddrosie.com!  And of course, you can contact me for more information about her site or a site you may have in the works!

I’ve still got a few more projects coming down the pipeline so stay tuned for new designs, new sites and a lot of updates!