Everyone else has a blog, why not us too?
Now Accepting Comments in our blog
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010
Something I've been meaning to do for years! The Sites by Joe blog now accepts comments! I had been afraid because I didn't feel like dealing… Read Post
Bookflip Backdrop Design
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010
My In-laws are pretty crafty. Not sneaky, but talented with making crafty items. Like birdhouses, lighthouse bird feeders, turned pens and other cute items like… Read Post
Force Internet Explorer 8 to render like Internet Explorer 7
Posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010
IE. The scariest two letters in the alphabet to web designers. IE has long been the bane of my humble existence. Why? Once (1999 or… Read Post
I guess I am a CodeIgniter Addict
Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
I'm not the type who usually fill in surveys or online quizes. However, I saw a CodeIgniter quiz and couldn't resist. How did I do? Yup,… Read Post
The Free Meal Center of Cape May County
Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
I set up a mini site for The Free Meal Center in Cape May County, NJ. The center is basically a soup kitchen for anyone who… Read Post
The Design Collaborative Launch
Posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Last night we launched the brand new Design Collaborative website. This was another fun opportunity to pick apart something that came out of this studio… Read Post
Now serving Southern Massachusetts!
Posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009
We're pleased to announce that in addition to serving South Jersey, we have opened our doors to the website needs of South East Massachusetts. That… Read Post
Clean those .SVN folders from your website directory
Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009
I develop websites using Coda as my editor. Recently, Coda added subversion as part of the software which allows me to to use all the… Read Post
Adding an email address to a client's Constant Contact account
Posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009
I work with alot of Realtors. For some this might seem scary. I take it in stride. I was a Realtor once. I guess I… Read Post
Some cool CSS Charts
Posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009
I just took a look at a neat CSS chart which shows how little most browsers have done to be ready for all the cool… Read Post
Getting dropped from Google and what to do about it
Posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009
I want to share a "just-resolved" experience with you. A local real estate office that was coming up #1 in Google for the phrase "stone… Read Post
Referrals, Middle Men and the Almighty Dollar
Posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
I received an email from a local IT Company who was hoping to engage in a "referral program" to trade services. It's times like these… Read Post
Site Launch - Marti Read
Posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Quietly I launch thee: MartiRead.com Another site built on CodeIgniter and it also uses my newest CodeIgniter-based IDX property search too! Read Post
Graphic Designs from Way Back!
Posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009
I was digging through old CD's of client files and other assorted junk from long ago - before this studio was opened even. I found… Read Post
The Hay Team website retires
Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009
Longtime friends and clients of mine, Bob and Kaye Hay have decided to retire their seashore website, hayteam.com. I had originally built the site for… Read Post
New Mailing Address for Sites by Joe
Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
I grew tired of being on old Route 47 and realized a more modern and fashionable mailing address is the way of the future. Here's… Read Post
Code Igniter truly rocks
Posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009
Its been a couple years since I moved away from Classic ASP development and it's code snippets like this that truly showcase the beauty of… Read Post
Regexp in MySQL
Posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Sometimes I have to make mini search engines. Several engines later, I still never realized I could use regex in MySQL. Ok, this is more… Read Post
About this Blog
Posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Disclaimer: This blog is unprofessional. There are appearances by occasional swear words and other politically incorrect terminology. That out of the way... My name is… Read Post
Firefox 3's Annoying Address Bar
Posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009
I blindly heralded Firefox as the best thing since sliced bread way back in 2003-2004. At least for developing on. It wasn't too shabby with… Read Post
Buying up expired domain names
Posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009
I just had to take a moment to complain... What a sleazy business. Its kinda like buying foreclosed homes. There has to be some bad… Read Post
Donny B goes Live!
Posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009
The Donny B's Drain and Sewer Service website launched today. Here are the original mockups I presented to the client: You can view the live… Read Post
Summit Strategies goes Live
Posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
I had recently launched a new website for Summit Strategies. Here are the mockups: You can view the live website here: http://www.summitconsultant.com Read Post
Goldcoast Sothebys International Realty Launched
Posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008
This week marked the grand opening of Goldcoast Sotheby's International Realty, Inc. If you're a local to Ocean City, NJ you've probably heard of Goldcoast… Read Post
PNGs and cross-browser color matching
Posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Here are some very interesting documents that cover testing different hacks with 8-bit PNGs to try and achieve a good amount of color consistency when… Read Post
Where is your Username registered?
Posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Here's a cool little site that runs through popular sites and networks checking your username's availability for you: http://usernamecheck.com/ Read Post
Page Optimizing
Posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
A great read from the Yahoo Developer Network: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html Read Post
JS 909 Drum Machine
Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
It's too cool. A drum machine made in javascript. http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/JS-909/ Nice work, Cameron. Read Post
TopButton.com Design Mockup
Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
Earlier this year, Topbutton.com invited me to submit a design to try and get awarded this large website design job. I've never done a fashion… Read Post
Comcast and email woes in general
Posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Email. Its the lifeblood of much of what we do on the web. Its natural for us to get upset when it resists our will.… Read Post
High Tides Striper Tournament website goes live
Posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008
The Local 1743 Carpenters Union of Wildwood, NJ contacted me and asked if I'd consider building a website for their annual Striped Bass Fishing Tournament… Read Post
Finally! Sites by Joe gets a facelift
Posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008
Finally! I've been wanting to spruce up my own site for a long time. I've felt that it was like the "painter's house" in its… Read Post
Stubhub.com - selling phone numbers?
Posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008
This morning I posted tickets to a Slipknot show I cannot attend on stubhub.com (http://stubhub.com) Within 2.5 hours of giving them my contact information I… Read Post
Shadow Sites
Posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
I'm no businessman. I'm a web designer. I also fear attorneys like they're mad, drill-wielding dentists. Add those three items together and you end up… Read Post
Website Launch | Powerplay Realty of Avalon, NJ
Posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008
I just launched the new site for Powerplay Realty! http://www.powerplayrealty.com Read Post
Tango Desktop Project
Posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Hurray! There are never enough nice icon sets out there: http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library Read Post
SEOmoz - an awesome SEO resource
Posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
A Great SEO Resource If you ever have to sit down with clients and explain the way you go about optimizing a page this is… Read Post
PHP Variables and Unobtrusive Javascript
Posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008
Waaaay back in 2002 I had made an incredible discovery - code abstraction. I learned that by intelligently organizing and calling outside files I could… Read Post
If/Else Shorthand in PHP
Posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Ternary Operators in PHP After I had to re-search for the syntax for the 3rd time, I finally decided to stick a link here for… Read Post
How to make engaging podcasts
Posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008
Here are two great examples, experiencing both will save you a whole lot of trial and error: How to Podcast: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/popular.html How NOT to Podcast:… Read Post
Accepting Design Defeat
Posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Accepting Design Defeat As a web designer, I occasionally imagine myself as the guy with the black beret and turtle neck. The snobby designer with… Read Post
WCAG Samurai release
Posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
As of 26 February 2008, the WCAG Samurai errata for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are available. If you've ever read the original version of… Read Post
Web Developer's Christmas Eve
Posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007
Web Developer's Christmas Eve Most normal people are spending time with their families, basking in the Holiday glory. I've tip-toed off to my desk, and… Read Post
Bashing my way through shell scripting
Posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
As I work my way through migrating a huge web application from Microsoft Technologies to open source equivalents, there are of course some processes that… Read Post
Email Standards Project
Posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
Here is an excellent site that has explanations and grading for each email client's rendering of their acid test page. http://www.email-standards.org Read Post
Flash and the Mystery Pixel
Posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
In days gone by, a flash slideshow was a staple on any one of my homepages. It allowed me to paint a deeper picture using… Read Post
A site for colour lovers
Posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007
http://www.colourlovers.com/ A neat site I came across today. It features colors and color palettes and even shows the palettes pulled from famous paintings and more.… Read Post
Sea Isle Realty - Homepage Makeover
Posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007
I've been doing some work for Sea Isle Realty, most of it surrounding the redesign of their website. We had started to add little things… Read Post
PHP - Referring URL
Posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
I've had to look this up twice now, so I figured I'd post it here for future reference. When you need to interact with the… Read Post
Easy Favicons
Posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007
What are favicons? Why they're the cute little icons you'll see in the address bar in your browser while visiting some websites. Thanks to this… Read Post
CodeHighlighter
Posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
Dan Webb released CodeHighlighter, a great set of scripts for augmenting your code examples on screen. I'm starting a PHP extension right now! Thanks for… Read Post
Easy RFC822 formatted dates with PHP
Posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
I love PHP. It's THE server-side language for the web as far as I'm concerned. Especially when it comes to working with strings and dates.… Read Post
A great website for music fans of all kinds
Posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007
I struggle with my musical relationships. They're never easy to maintain. Whether its yelling at iTunes for hogging up my laptop's memory, bashing the computer… Read Post
PHP - Searching a string for a matching set of characters
Posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Using Code Igniter, there are many helper functions built-in that cause me to sometimes forget about the raw PHP alternatives. One such function is STRPOS.… Read Post
Getting static HTML pages to process like PHP
Posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007
Moving away from ASP development and into PHP requires re-learning many things. Today's lesson involves getting static pages to run through the PHP processor. In… Read Post
8 Free Places you didn't think to put your listings.
Posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007
As a realtor, you're under constant pressure to spend money marketing your listings, especially in a tighter market where dollars are spent more carefully and… Read Post
MySQL and the GUI dilemma
Posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007
MySQL started as a curse word in my web education. Coming from a background of Frontpage, then Notepad, then ASP and Access, my knowledge of… Read Post
Date This!
Posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006
Coming from an Classic ASP background, dates were always simple to work with and used cute names like 'longdate' etc... Moving over to PHP, I… Read Post
301 Redirects
Posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
As I slowly use PHP more than ASP for my site coding, I can't help but want to redo my own site in PHP. That… Read Post
Hiding styles from Internet Explorer for the Mac
Posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
Of all the browser bugs, security holes and rendering issues ever discovered on the net, without a doubt the worst is Internet Explorer for Mac.… Read Post
30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows
Posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
Here's an article listing on www.thesimpledollar.com that has a fairly comprehensive list of the all the good (and free!) software for windows. I myself use… Read Post
Cape May County Association of REALTORS® website wins the 2006 Member Communications Award - Electronic Category
Posted on Saturday, October 28th, 2006
Earlier this year I had launched the new website for the Cape May County Association of REALTORS®. The main goal of the site was to… Read Post
Click to Activate my Control?
Posted on Saturday, September 9th, 2006
If it is an active control (like a Flash menu, for instance) you must click the control to "approve" it before the Flash navigation buttons… Read Post
KidRocket - The kid safe web browser
Posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
The KidRocket KidSafe Web Browser http://www.kidrocket.org/index.php, is a simple and effective way for kids to safely surf the internet. It will only go to the… Read Post
Open Office 2.0 Quick Review
Posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005
I've been using Microsoft Office for as long as I have owned a computer, and for a long time I never wondered whether there were any… Read Post
Defeat the Image Toolbar
Posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2005
When I am contracted to build a new website for a client, the first step once I am in front of the computer is to… Read Post
Web Creme selects a Site by Joe
Posted on Wednesday, November 30th, -0001
Oooh! I love it when a design of mine in a high profile global web design gallery. Travis Marshall (http://travismarshall.com) gets listed in Web Creme.… Read Post
