the blog: tagging isnt just for hoodlums anymore

shopify delivers again

Alex Hillman — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:53:28 +0000

After talking up Shopify over and over at SXSW, I’m pleased that I can leave one item off my “things I wish it did” list…because now it’s in the “things I’m so glad it does” list!

Tobi has announced (and I’m admittedly a couple of days behind…I blame the weather + St Paddy’s day) long awaited coupon support. Not only that, but there is a whole new screen in the Shopify admin that lends the shop owner a hand in doing all kinds of online marketing.

So once again, JadedPixel not only delivers as promised, but goes above and beyond.

Tags: jadedpixel, shopify, coupon, marketing, announcements

SXSWers

Alex Hillman — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:52:58 +0000

I’m spending the week at Barcamp Austin and SXSW in Austin, TX. For those of you SXSWers who are visiting We Know HTML because I gave you my card….welcome. Browse the site, check out my wares…and don’t forget to check out my personal blog, www.dangerouslyawesome.com

And if you’re feeling adventerous, search flickr for SXSW or BarCampAustin…see what we’re up to.

Tags: sxsw07, sxsw, austintx

and another upgrade

Alex Hillman — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:01:17 +0000

we keep on top of things here at weknowhtml. thanks to the warning, we’ve upgraded this (and our client blogs) to 2.1.2.

Tags: wordpress 2.1.2, security, upgrade

upgrades, upgrades, upgrades

Alex Hillman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:49:27 +0000

After a quick snag resulting in some brief downtime, the weknowhtml blog is back up and running shiny new(ish) wordpress 2.1, as well as a freshly burned feed.

Now, on to tweaking things to perfection.

Tags: wordpress 2.1, feedburner

for everything else, there’s google checkout

Alex Hillman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:26:08 +0000

In an effort to help streamline things for our clients (and who are we kidding, it makes things easier on us, too), we’re now taking advantage of Google’s free credit card processing through 2007. Now, when we invoice our clients, they are given the option to pay via Google Checkout…so we can now accept all major credit cards, can mark your invoices as paid faster, and get working on your project faster!

Tags: google checkout, credit processing

web 2.0 is just a commonly misused title

Alex Hillman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:36:09 +0000

for the internet as a social mechanism.

This video addresses a lot of questions about how we should be thinking about the “new” internet, in a very thoughtful and clever manner. Enjoy.

(hooray, code embedding fixed!)

It’s very “meta”, whatever THAT means….
(via PresentationZen)

Tags: video, web20, social web, meta

microformatting: all the cool kids are doing it

Alex Hillman — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:33:10 +0000

“Microformats are a codification of convention.” - Aaron Gustafson

On our latest launch, there were two types of typed information besides “about this” and “about that” pages. Contact-related information, and date-related information, both lent themselves to something special…not so much from the UI perspective, but from a coding perspective. For the first time in one of my mainstream projects, I have included microformats.

XLNTads.com is the new site for a project that takes consumer-generated video out of the you-tube format and places it next to some classier competition. When the stakes aren’t necessarily for number of views, but instead, for the viewers to be some world-class brands, it turns up the dial on the quality of the videos being submitted. This site was created by collaborating the design talent of Brian Brossman, IA by Dave Roth of Seventh House inc, and of course crazy-code-skillz by me.

That said, this site is really an expanded “coming soon”…the project is about to launch and the group running it, lead by Rick Parkhill wanted to spread the message of their ideas and intentions. Ultimately, those two most important bits were: how to get in touch to become a partnered brand, or, what the current timeline for the larger launch process would be.

For contact info hCard takes relevant information and formats it using meta-data in the XHTML iteself, so that a microformat processor can go through and strip out the useful information and turn into something portable…like a vcard (which can be picked up by nearly any contact-management application). On every page of XLNTads.com, the contact information is microformatted as such.

For the development timeline, hCalendar was used. This wraps the descriptive information in more detailed meta information, and just like hCard, it can be exported to ical event files, etc. This will allow interested parties to export the timeline to their calendar application to keep track of the progress of the events.

This all may seem very trivial but it’s intended to be somewhat forward thinking. With ideas running around like a totally portable url-identity driven social network, and more portable resume formatting (see if you can find me on linked in, by the way), this is more important for the long haul. If developers like myself spend the little bit of time to implement microformats now, the more active sites down the road will already have the groundwork laid for some really SICK opportunities in the future…

More to come about this initiative, the site, and other things in a new case study…but probably not for another week or so because I’ll be snowboarding.

Until then, you should hcard your identifying information on your personal site.

Tags: microformats, hcal, hcard, xlntads, new launch

are you indie?

Alex Hillman — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:26:12 +0000

are you indie? do you thrive on working your own hours, but have the discipline to crack down and get business done? are you looking to collaborate with other indies and experience the power of small pieces loosely joined? Oh, and are you proud of being a Philadelphian??

Then I encourage you to go check out the landing page for Independents Hall, a We Know HTML production that aims to bring the local independent community together once and for all. We’re building our contact base and will shortly be branching out in other community formats…we promise, this is going to be the coolest thing since the LAST time a Declaration was signed here.

Ultimately the goal is to turn this group into a regular meetup group, going out for drinks and food and talking industry. After that, Jelly and coworking will be the next opportunities to look forward to!

Just go to the page and sign up on the right hand side. We promise that you won’t be spammed, and your contact info will not be resold. We value your privacy as much as we value your willingness to contribute.

So buckle down, and get ready to start the revolution. History shall repeat itself, and once again the indies will rock the house.

Tags: independents hall, independents, philly, philadelphia, indie, developers, designers, jelly, coworking

we deserve a kick in the pants

Alex Hillman — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:56:08 +0000

a month and a half without updates? that’s totally unacceptable! Yeah, the holidays could be one excuse…I’ve been out of town a bunch of times…but I’m not in the business of making excuses, I’m in the business of making sick websites! And that’s what we’ve been up to…and a lot of cool stuff is going on.

Unfortunately this isn’t much more than a, “coming soon, we’re still alive” post…for now. Not there isn’t anything news-worthy…I just don’t want to spoil the surprises :-).

I know…such a tease.

Tags: updates, still alive, websites, coming soon

shopify for the win

Alex Hillman — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:44:32 +0000

The cool cats at shopify got my name up in lights. Thanks guys!

Now get that API out the door, and beef up your tax tables. Our team cant wait to use you again!

Tags: shopify, shamless self promotion, api