Yewtah! » Blabber

Custom WordPress Theme

Yewtah — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:40:00 +0000

Coming soon is the Custom WordPress Theme: Yewtah! Photo Pro. Manage your photography business from your WordPress website. Customize your site, manage your image galleries, manage your clients proofing page, manage and send invoices and manage your prospects. Any other ideas that will help your photography business run smoother? Leave a comment. Also looking for some beta testers, interested?

Introduction to your new WordPress Blog

SlideShowPro

Yewtah — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:55:09 +0000

SlideShowPro is exactly that “The” Slide Show Pro
It is intended as a dynamic flash application for displaying photos and videos, on any website.

I have used the heck out of this application. It can be very simple yet completely robust. I have used this product since May of 2007 and have not found another to take its place. I use it on all my sites- somehow or another, in fact this last year I have built a shopping cart to go with it for my flash photography website clients. I use it for flash headers, image portfolio’s, video viewing and for a client proofing area.
It is completely customizable, very flexible and extremely elegant. It comes in three versions:
1) A component used with Adobe Flash.
2) A web engine for Adobe Lightroom.
3) A self-contained standalone form.
Compare each here.
View examples here.
Their support forum and video tutorials are great for the DIY group

On top of that if comes with additional products:
1)SlideShowPro Director; for server side application for uploading and managing your content.
2)SlideShowPro ThumbGrid; for customizable thumbnail navigation.

I am not familiar with the standalone or the Adobe Lightroom versions, but I am quite familiar with the Adobe Flash component. I am also not yet familiar with the ThumbGrid addition. I do use the Director and highly suggest it to any who are looking into SlideShowPro.

This is why I love SlideShowPro: You create the flash file upload it once and never have to open the flash file again. It reads and displays the images and other text dynamically via XML. And if you use SlideShowPro Director like I do you upload any new images, add any variety of titles, tags, captions, hyperlinks, arrange images in albums and then add albums to galleries, add music for your albums, all sorts of cool stuff and abracadabra it all displays dynamically on your website.

Plus if you have Adobe Lightroom and you use SlideShowPro Director, there is a Lightroom plugin that allows for direct export of your images from Lightroom to your Director account which helps with speeding up your workflow.

Ok now for my own plug: If you love what you see from the SlideShowPro website and want to add this elegant robust application to your website but think that you can’t quite do it yourself? I would be glad to help you out. Just request a quote and mention this post or slideshowpro and I would be happy to give you a smoking deal.

My links:
Simple Image gallery click here
Flash header click here
Entire website including the shopping cart I built (for shopping cart login under clients) click here

Anything I missed? Or other applications you would suggest?

Introduction to your new WordPress Blog

The Wave Hike

Yewtah — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:19:54 +0000

How is it that I live within 100 miles of the world renown Paria Canyon – Coyote Buttes management area (better known as The Wave Hike) and have never in my life heard of it until a few months ago? I mean now that I have been there I can recall seeing pictures of “The Wave” in calendars, screen savers, post cards and websites. I just find it hard to believe that with all the outdoor activity I do and have done from birth, thanks to active parents, something this beautiful has never been introduced to me before now. This was truly an amazing piece of artwork.

Ok for those of you who HAVE heard of it I know what you are asking, “How in the world did you get a permit?”

To explain: Yes this is a managed hike. Only 20 permits are issued per day, and they are issued through a lottery system (I am not an authority on this you may be able to get a walk-in permit as well- not sure). I have since heard that this is one of the hardest hikes to get a permit for.

So how did I get a permit for it you ask? I did not! :) My friend actually arranged the permit through his work and sold it on raffle at an IHC foundation banquet. I was asked to donate my time as a Photographer and gladly accepted.

So without further ado, and for your consideration I present The Wave!

My suggestions: There are other phenomenal arches, and sights (as seen in the pictures) that are beyond the actual wave.
I am also including the GPS coordinates of the route to the wave. Also, I would try to plan on doing it in the spring or fall as opposed to the middle of summer like we did. Note the image below. Needless to say it was HOT

And finally, our group of six was the only Americans on the hike that day. We met a great couple from Germany and made great friends very quick. So work on your foreign language, and people skills.

And here are the coordinates.

Parking lot at Wire Pass
37°01.1749N
112°01.4967W

The Wave
36°59.7386N
112°00.3583W

Top Rock Arch
36°59.6724N
112°00.2889W

Alcove
36°59.5730N
112°00.3326W

Melody Arch & Grotto
36°59.4680N
112°00.314W

Dinosaur Tracks
36°59.860 N
112°00.650 W

IE6 officially wore out its welcome

Yewtah — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:18:43 +0000

I am no authority on the matter but my experience with Internet Explorer has been dull from the get go. Even before I started web design, and back before horses were invented, when the only two browsers I knew about were IE and Netscape, I thought Netscape was way cooler! Needless to say when I started working with websites and eventually designing them, Internet Explorer grew less and less cool. And now it has officially wore out it’s welcome. So as of this day I am the proverbial mean ornery uncle and IE6 is the redheaded step child who gets the boot to the tune of “don’t let the door hit you on the butt on your way out”
Translation- after much thought and deliberation I have concluded that I will no longer offer support for IE6 and will try like the devil to persuade you against Internet Explorer. Yes I understand that 42%+/- of mine and my clients viewers are Internet Explorer users and 40%+/- overall Internet users choose the uncool as well. So I have my work cut out for me for sure and I realize that. But nowhere near the headache that Microsoft causes for themselves by still supporting their old browsers (and now adding a third OS to the mix. What are they thinking? )
According to w3schools.com browser statistics 15% of all Internet users are still using an eight year old version of IE while only 7% are using the current IE browser. That is pathetic if you ask me. You would think that they would include an update feature that would let their un-savvy users know that it’s time to upgrade. They have to know that their 15% are not loyalists only ignoramuses that just don’t know any better.
My hats off to Apple who seems to understand that people as a whole need help with understanding technology and that people are much more prone to purchasing a product that holds 1,000 songs compared to one that has 4gb of storage.
I haven’t used IE for years and have no plans to. My plan is to not reject those who are un-knowingly ignorant to the subject but to educate them to greener pastures where browsers magically update themselves and browser providers plan on improving their current work instead of throwing their hands in the air and starting over. So from now on my sites that are not solely flash will include a separate css file (thanks to css-tricks) that will educate IE users about the obscurities and weaknesses of IE and suggest safer more accurate browsers such as Firefox or Chrome. In this way I will feel that I have contributed to the solution while relieving myself from much un-needed and useless work of designing for an obsolete and troublesome browser.

From the wordpress app on iphone

Yewtah — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:38:38 +0000

Quick test

Poster Design

Image in post

Yewtah — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:50:37 +0000

Thumbnail image displays with the use of “Thumbnail For Excerpts” plugin.

SlideShowPro

Utah

Yewtah — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:07:26 +0000

It was the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80 percent of Utah’s 2,736,424 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering around Salt Lake City. In contrast, vast expanses of the state are nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name “Utah” is derived from the Ute Indian language, meaning “people of the mountains.”

Really?

Yewtah — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:38:05 +0000

The state is a center of transportation, information technology and research, government services and mining as well as a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation. According to U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates, Utah is currently the fastest growing state in the United States as of 2008.