by Tony Zeoli | Jun 14, 2010 | Updates
LoveOfLearning.org website
DSW loves learning and loves kids. When Love Of Learning Montessori school in Long Island needed to redevelop their site navigation and information structure, DSW drew up a new plan to ensure the parent’s could access important information like directions, contact information, and even the daily lunch menu. We created new imagery to refresh the look and feel, without having to rebuilt from scratch. We also added plug-ins for video, photo galleries, analytics, SEO and more. The site is now infinitely more easy to navigate. Parents love it, kids love it, and we love it too!
See LoveofLearning.org here…
by Tony Zeoli | Jun 1, 2010 | Updates
If things seem a little funky at the moment, we’re updating the blog and portfolio pages. Everything will be back to normal soon enough.
by Tony Zeoli | Apr 22, 2010 | Updates
Of the four campuses operated by the Connecticut State University System, Western Connecticut State University is recognized for its focus on music and the arts. The university recently announced plans for a $97 Million facility to house their School of Visual and Performing Arts. To celebrate the construction of the new facility, the university’s search committee set out to find a commencement speaker who exemplified a commitment to the arts and community service.
While Digital Strategy Works is generally focused on web and mobile application development, from time to time the company brokers agreements with recording artists and other notables on behalf of its clients. The university’s search committee contacted DSW founder, Tony Zeoli, who assisted in securing notable recording artist, Wyclef Jean, to give the 2010 commencement address on May 23.
In an unlikely turn of events, WestConn received confirmation of Wyclef’s participation in commencement exercises on the morning of January 12, just a few hours before a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, Jean’s homeland. Since that tragic day, Wyclef and his foundation, Yele´ Haiti, have worked tirelessly to assist in relief efforts for the stricken country, raising millions of dollars and providing logistics assistance and supplies.
“We’re excited that Wyclef Jean has agreed to speak at our undergraduate commencement ceremonies in May,” James W. Schmotter, the WestConn president, said in a press release. “His artistic achievements and his long and impressive record of humanitarian work have recently been underscored by his role in galvanizing the international response to the terrible tragedy in his homeland. I know that he will bring a message that will engage and inspire our graduates and all in attendance.”
by Tony Zeoli | Apr 20, 2010 | Updates
Ruby Creatives Home Page
Creative Career Coach, Anne Hubben had published her RubyCreatives.com web site with Google operated, Blogger.com. She faced a challenge when the company recently announced it would drop support for its long running FTP service, in favor of migrating its user base to custom domains.
Blogger’s FTP service provided blog owners with the ability to create custom themes and host their Blogger-enabled sites at any third party hosting. With less than 5% of all blogs powered by Blogger using the FTP service, the company decided to pull the plug, notifying all FTP service users their blogs would go dark after March 26th (they have since changed the date to May 1st).
While Blogger now offers a “migration tool,” that will help its clients move their blogs onto Blogger’s hosted platform, this meant that many blog owners custom themes would break, since they would not be imported into the new system. Anne, like many small business owners dependent on Blogger, immediately faced the same difficult situation anyone faces when a free-to-user service changes policy and deprecates support for a legacy product.
Realizing that she might not only lose her data, but also her custom theme and search engine ranking, Anne contacted Digital Strategy Works. After reviewing the instructions provided by Blogger, we set out to migrate Anne’s RubyCreatives.com custom theme and database to a self-hosted version of WordPress on MediaTemple.
First, we downloaded all RubyCreatives.com files from her current host, which included the HTML/CSS and associated image files. We then started the process of migrating Anne’s site content from the FTP version to Blogger’s platform, using the migration tools provided by Blogger. In the move, we realized the custom theme would be left behind. Since we’d backed up the files and could still access to the old FTP account, we had the resources to redevelop RubyCreatives.com custom theme for WordPress–and that was quite a relief to Anne!
Before we could move from Blogger’s FTP to Blogger’s custom domain service, Blogger requires changing the site’s CNAME record at the host. To do so, you must have access to the CPanel at your host provider. In many cases, domain owners register domains with a company like GoDaddy.com or Register.com, but host their sites with 1and1 Internet, MediaTemple, Blue Host, Dream Host, Pair or any one of hundreds of hosting providers. It’s critically important to be able to change the CNAME record at your host while having access to your registrar to change your DNS settings to a new host (in this case, MediaTemple).
While WordPress includes a Blogger to WordPress migration tool, we quickly realized it didn’t work for Blogger FTP sites. We first had to move RubyCreatives.com off Blogger FTP and onto Blogger custom domain. Even after we moved off of the FTP service, we still couldn’t use the import tool provided by WordPress.
We exported the database from Blogger, then used the Blogger2Wordpress migration tool, to convert the Blogger formatted database to WXR, which is the standard WordPress format. We were then able to install the latest and greatest version of WordPress onto MediaTemple, and subsequently import the reformatted WXR database into WordPress.
Unfortunately, in the process, all post and page links to images, video and audio, and documents were lost. Because the path WordPress and Bloggers media library are different, there was nothing we could do. Remember that backup we did earlier? Yup, we still had all the uploaded photos. We just uploaded them all to WordPress and edited each post and page to reconnect them. Obviously, this would be problematic for a major blog with lots of images. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go down that road.
We then recreated Anne’s original Blogger Theme as a WordPress theme, dropped it into the Themes folder, and voila! RubyCreatives.com was back, better than ever.
For SEO, we added Google XML Sitemaps and registered Anne with Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We also added the All In One SEO Pack. Today, when you search for Creative Career Coach, Anne’s RubyCreatives.com pops up on Page 1. Fantastic!
We loved working on RubyCreatives.com. We solved Anne’s problems and now she’s on her way to Career Coach super stardom!
by Tony Zeoli | Mar 22, 2010 | Updates
Dr. Tristin Wallace Home Page
Client: Dr. Tristen Wallace
Site: https://www.doctor-wallace.com
Synopsis: Dr. Tristin Wallace is a Vancover, BC based Naturopath and Applied Kinesiologist. After 8-months of fits and starts with a local web designer, Doctor Wallace contacted Digital Strategy Works for a solution that would get her online as quickly as possible, yet make sure her web site would be easy to navigate and look beautiful. Because time was of the essence and there were cost concerns, DSW recommended using the Health & Beauty theme from OrganicThemes.com. The theme comes configured with a marquee for either images or video; a panel for introductory text; the ability to swap out a logo; the ability to add thumbnail images as creative for to delineate the site’s main sections; and drop-down navigation. It was the perfect solution for Dr. Wallace, so that she could learn the ins and outs of WordPress, while dreaming up a custom theme in the future.
In less than 72-hours:
- we installed and configured WordPress on Dr. Wallace’s hosting account at Godaddy.
- the appropriate php.ini file to ensure WordPress would function well on the server.
- acquired Health & Beauty theme from OrganicThemes.com.
- configured the theme in the admin control panel.
- assisted Dr. Wallace in plotting out the navigation and adding content.
- assisted Dr. Wallace in setting up the “testimonials” category to publish her patient’s testimonials to the home page slider.
- performed a bit of light graphic design to create a custom logo and custom images for placement throughout the web site.
- created SEO opportunities throughout the site by setting the permalinks and installing All-In-One-SEO.
- searched for and installed various plug-ins for form building, Google maps, ShareThis, spam control, newsletter, Twitter & Facebook, hiding posts, and even online scheduling of appointments.
- trained Dr. Wallace in how to publish with WordPress, create keywords and be an SEO-jedi master!
- we registered her site with GetClicky to track stats and installed a Google XML site map generator, to get her up to speed with Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
We loved helping Dr. Wallace get her web site live in 72-hours! We can do the same for you. Please give us a call at 917.705.4700 or shoot us an email through our contact form.
by Tony Zeoli | Feb 11, 2010 | Events, Updates
20dot20 Mixer January 28th 2010 from Habitat Music on Vimeo.
On January, 28, Digital Strategy Works co-hosted 20dot20, a networking mixer for music creatives and web technology types at the Gibson Baldwin Entertainment Relations Showroom. Check out this video from 20dot20 and see why it’s quickly becoming an essential networking event. The next event is scheduled for February 25. Click here for more info or register now.
