BensonHsu.com

I just finished a small project doing some renovations for Work Wheels USA.  Their previous web development company created a content management system (CMS) for them, but Work needed some additional functionality and customization so they contacted me.

The challenge with this type of project is having to go through somebody else’s code to modify it.  At the same time, I have to be able to mimic the current site so that everything flows nicely in terms of code AND in terms of the user interface.  In other words, to a normal website visitor, it can’t look like somebody came in later to do a patch job, and to a programmer looking at the code, things need to be consistent so you don’t need to learn how to read coding styles from two different people.

Lucky for me, the people who previously developed the site for them did a great job with the programming, as their code was very legible and organized.  I even picked up a couple of organizing techniques from them that I’m already using right now at work.

The most noticeable thing I created for Work Wheels USA is a rotating front page slideshow.  These rotating slideshows are super hot these days.  Even though I don’t think they are very good for search engine optimization (SEO), they grab a human’s attention and allows for presenting multiple content in a single area.

The other things I created were just to allow them to swap out certain images and content here and there, things you will probably never notice because for the most part they look the same right now.

This site is programmed in PHP, which isn’t what I work in mostly, but I dabble a little in it, and it’s nice to know how easy it was for me to get acquainted with it and even finish a PHP project in such a timely manner.

My goal in the next few months is to really get my hands dirty with PHP and .NET.  I’ve been holding myself back for far too long programming in classic ASP (10 years!!).  It’s time to start get relevant with today’s popular technologies.

Anyway, this one is done.  Time to start working on a few others I have sitting around waiting for me!  I’m looking forward to the Joomla project I have coming!

I did an automatic update on my themes and I just realized that it screwed with some of the settings… the links and blogroll were gone.  And I think the footer is for some reason sitting at the bottom of the right column.  LAME.

I’ve fixed the blogroll but I’ll have to look at the footer later.

So Nadine showed me this awesome site called pixlr.com that allows you to edit images via a flash application.  Translation: Do image editing work without using Photoshop!  They have a few photo editing apps on there, but I use Pixlr Editor.

I haven’t used it that much yet, but I have used it on my junky slow laptop that I wouldn’t dare install Photoshop on.  The interface is a lot like Photoshop.  Translation: It’s pretty much a blatant imitation of Photoshop.

For the light weight user who just does stuff for blogging, this is a really good option.  You can resize, crop, optimize for web, use the healing tool, magic wand, change levels, blur, vignette… awesome!

Something I do a lot is take screen captures, so I downloaded this plugin called Pixlr Grabber for my firefox browser that allows me to right click a website and open it directly in the image editor.

Nerdy side note: Something like this is super important to the web centric OS movement.  I really think that one day we’re all going to have web based operating systems like Google Chrome OS, and development of applications like these are essential to making that happen.

www.koyoradracing.com

This project had a really tight deadline and I finished everything in 2 months!  Thanks to Koyo and Daniel for keeping on top of deadlines and deliverables!  I am really proud of this one!

Client wanted to be able to showcase their unique position as the only aftermarket OE manufacturer  who also manufacturers aftermarket racing radiators, as well as their involvement with top-tier drivers in the Japanese drift series D1 Grand Prix.  Koyo now has 2 sites on the internet… their OE site (koyorad.com) which is targeted at distributors and other corporate entities and their racing site (koyoradracing.com) which is targeted at the younger sport compact crowd.

They wanted to be able to update their own content, including a blog, informational pages, product lineup and media albums with photos and videos.  I created a content management system so they could update content on their own, an integrated media center for web photos, albums and videos, product information and etc!

Please check out the website and let me know what you think!  All comments/suggestions are appreciated!

My most recent project has gone live!  When you have the chance please go visit KoyoRad.com!

This is the corporate site which showcases their company as an OE manufacturer.  This site features a parts search and a content management system that allows them to update the site by themselves.

Next up is the racing site!  Coming in the next few weeks!

I’m fed up with my current hosting company, so this site is moving. It may be down for a couple days as I try to figure out how to reconfigure it, but I’ve got everything all backed up so this old site will look the same.

I actually bought bensonhsu.com and I’m thinking about meshing these two sites together and continuing this blog there.

Also, my RSS feed address might change and that may screw up your feed readers if you’re using it. Please check in next week if you don’t see any updates on here!