website design

Torn Page Tutorial Part 2: Put a cool graphic on your 404 page (WordPress).

August 29, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Tutorials/Tips

The code In part 1 we created a cool graphic to put on your 404 page. (Part 1: Photoshop tutorial to make a “torn out” image) Now, you need to integrate it into your 404 page, which is the page that comes up when a page is not found on the website. Again, I’ll be using the 404 page for Foodwhirl.com in this tutorial. This tutorial will be written from a WordPress point of view, but I would assume if you have a bit of knowledge, you could use similar steps on any… Read on...

Tutorial: Make a “torn” 404 page for your website. (part 1: photoshop)

August 25, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Tutorials/Tips

The other day I announced that i had a new 404 Page Not Found page for Dabbled. And it’s quite cute if i do say so myself. Just type some gibberish after dabbled.org/ in your address bar and you’ll see it. Or just click this: http://dabbled.org/sjdlfk. So several people have asked how to do something like this themselves. Obviously you’ll probably want to do something different than I have, using an image or a theme that fits with your site. So, to show you a slightly different take with this tutorial, I’m going to… Read on...

Re-design update: a new 404 page

August 10, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Robots

As part of the changes I’m working on to dabbled.org, I decided to create a fun 404 page (you know, the Page Not Found thing you get with a bad link). The new background is watercolor paper, so I created an effect of the paper being torn to see what was underneath–and of course some cute robots peeking through. And the effect even covers part of the header. I thought it was a pretty cute trick. You can see it by going to any link on the site that doesn’t exist, like http://dabbled.org/slkdfjs. I’ve seen several… Read on...

Excuse the Progress! Making changes around here…

August 8, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Announcement

Since I’m a web designer, it’s pretty sad that I haven’t kept up my own blog up as nice as some of the ones I work on! I’ve been meaning to clean up the look of Dabbled for a while now, and I’m finally getting around to making some changes to the look and feel. I haven’t quite figured out the final direction, but for right now, I’ve mostly been just cleaning up the site look, going for a more streamlined feel with more white space. I also stuck up a modified logo.
so stay tuned,… Read on...

New Facebook Landing page for Foodwhirl

May 16, 2011 |

OK, OK, I promise more arts & crafts and less web design in the near future, but I had to show this off. Facebook pages are generally pretty boring, and I have a client who wanted a fancier facebook landing page. So I decided to create one for Foodwhirl to see how difficult it was, before I costed it for her. And, though a little complex (once I figured out that facebook was no longer supporting FBML and I needed to use iFrames, i found this great tutorial) , it wasn’t… Read on...

WordPress: Adding Featured Image support to your theme

May 13, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Tutorials/Tips

As a followup to yesterday’s post on making the correct images show up on Facebook, here’s some more information about adding the recent WordPress Featured Image functionality to your wordpress theme. If your WordPress theme came out prior to 2.9 or 3.0, it won’t have support for the Featured Image functionality. To enable the functionality, you need to add this line to your functions.php file.

if ( function_exists( 'add_theme_support' ) ) {
  add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
}

Once you do this, you’ll see “Use as Featured Image” next to the Insert Into Post button. (You’ll also see a Featured… Read on...

Blogger Question: How to get the right images when Liking on Facebook

May 12, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: Tutorials/Tips

Sometimes here on Dabbled I put on my web developer hat and answer technical questions that bloggers who read Dabbled might want to know. My dear twitter bud Carissa (@carissarogers) asks: “hey, any idea why sometimes images DON’t show up correctly when ‘liking’ a post for FB direct from site?? Like the sidebar comes up etc..” Why yes, yes I do! Basically, when you “Like” (click a facebook icon) within a webpage, or when you link to a webpage from Facebook, Facebook reads the information on your webpage to figure out what to display. But it is not… Read on...

New Projects Page on Dabbled, and Pie.

March 15, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: food

I’ve been playing around with a new look for Dabbled, and I’m not quite happy with it yet… the main page seems too cluttered for my taste. But one thing I love is the new Projects page. It’s a quick look at many of the old projects featured on Dabbled… my own, guest posts, and so forth. Go check it out, and let me know what you think :) Oh, and I missed posting for Pi Day yesterday, but my brother did a how-to on making a blueberry-raspberry pie, over at Foodwhirl. Go check it out, too!

A new look for Dabbled.org

March 6, 2011 |

If you’ve stopped by Dabbled this weekend, you might have noticed a little construction. I’m still in process, but Dabbled has a little bit of a new look. So excuse anything that doesn’t look quite right, and do let me know if you see any errors. I should have it finished up today! Oh, and if you’re missing the OLD look of dabbled, just click the Classic button on the menu to get the old bloggy look.

Goodbye Tumblr as a Portfolio Platform

March 1, 2011 | Also posted in Topic: art, my art

…and hello WordPress! Several years ago I created a portfolio site for my art on Tumblr. I wrote up the how-to here, and it’s been a very popular post–and still quite valid for using Tumblr for this purpose. However, I’ve decided to move on now. I design most everything in WordPress these days, and it’s so much more flexible and powerful. And although Tumblr is free, hosting is dirt cheap these days, and you can host multiple sites on the same account, so having another WordPress site on my account doesn’t cost anything.… Read on...