Shiny, happy logo

We recently wrapped up the design of a logo design for PhytoSuisse. When they approached us they had an idea for a glossy looking flower. After a few drafts of different flowers and petal types we came up with this shiny little bloom. Click it to get a closer look and a look at one of our favorite drafts.

In addition to this logo we have created a featured clients page, which can be found in our pressroom. Have a look at a couple of our past projects. This is also where we will post future projects such as this on.

Server updates [Updated]

Some of you have mentioned slow page loads to me via e-mail. I looked into it with DreamHost and it seems they are having some NFS problems on some of their servers. Just so happens that we're on one of the affected servers. They estimated on their status blog that it should be resolved by the weekend.

[UPDATE] Seems DreamHost has got everything back up to speed. And I must say, after the fix, I believe everything is functioning much faster than when I originally switched to DreamHost. I must say, I am quite pleased with the responsiveness and helpfulness of DreamHost.

Desktop bling

Liz has created a new desktop wallpaper to help dress up your Mac. While not elixir or RapidWeaver related, it is quite cool.

Drop by the desktops page to download it and check the others out, too.

That was fast!

Did you see that? No?! Too quick for you, huh?

Well, let me tell you what just happened. Within the span of about an hour and a half we successfully migrated one of our sister sites, CSStux, over to DreamHost as well. So painless. So quick. It is just extraordinary!

Just a few more projects to transfer over now....

Just dreamy

What had become a week-long nightmare ended up as a dream today.

I have been battling problems with my web host and domain registrar for about a week now. What started as a few slow loading pages blossomed into entire areas of the site simply not loading. When I contacted my provider, GoDaddy, to gain a bit of assistance they told me: 'The problem has been resolved and if you have further problems, let us know.'

Great, I thought. I like it when people help me solve my problems. But unfortunately it was not true. I went back and forth a few times and even involved John over at Loghound at one point to help me figure things out. But alas it all pointed back to GoDaddy. Funny thing is they kept repeating their mantra: 'Everything is fine. Nothing is wrong.'

Well, I couldn't take their lack of help any longer. So I packed my bags and headed for a better host. Upon John's recommendation I checked out DreamHost. And let me tell you what, these guys are very helpful and quick. They didn't let my e-mails go unanswered or take 8 hours to return them, as GoDaddy did.

Within the day they had everything up and running and everything is back to normal. Funny thing is, I didn't change my coding at all. Everything, code-wise, is and was working fine. Come to find out, it was a GoDaddy problem. Go figure.

If you're looking for a host or just a domain registrar, I would highly recommend DreamHost. But, no matter who you go with, just say NoDaddy.

We will be moving CSStux and a few of our other projects over to DreamHost, from GoDaddy, early next week when our schedule becomes a little more freed up.

In search of...

Have an ever expanding, Rapidweaver-built, website? You want to allow your visitors to search through all of those pages quickly and easily do you? What's that? You want them to not have to leave your site to do so?!

Well, you're in luck. Josh Lockhart has just released

RapidSearch

.



Here's a snippet from his site about the plug-in:

Rapidweaver users have been asking for an easy website search solution that will display search results within their own website....

RapidSearch

[is] a painfully simple solution that will search your website without redirecting to a third party search engine. Now your website visitors can search your site and view the results, all without leaving your website!

The plug-in does require a few things that some Rapidweaver users may not have available to them if you're hosting your site on .Mac. Be sure you have the following, and that your site is indexed by Yahoo!:
• Requires PHP (4 or 5) with CURL support
• Limited to 5000 queries per IP per 24 hours
• Requires Rapidweaver v3.5.1 (Build 264) or higher

So far I am liking this plug-in. My only complaint is that to this point is that at times Yahoo! takes a good deal of time to dish out results, leaving it as if the site is hung. Perhaps some sort of waiting/processing indicator would help? GoDaddy's servers had poor PHP support, which was causing delays is my searches. This has been fixed thanks to my transfer to DreamHost. Overall though,it is added to our must have list of plug-ins.

Wired, schmired!

I did it! No, I haven't yet found the cure for the common cold. But fret not, I am working on it. No, in fact, in the grand scheme of things, this is much smaller, but, nevertheless, it is still quite exciting for me.

I made a stop at my local Apple store today and bought the new AirPort Extreme.



And I must say, it rocks. Very easy to setup, and as with all of Apple products, it is beautifully designed. My favorite thing about it so far is its ability to connect to a USB 2.0 external hard drive and transfer content to and from it wirelessly. I've even placed my iTunes video content on the drive and have been streaming it from the drive to my laptop. It has performed this task like a champ. Hiccup free even at 802.11g.

Now all I have to do is convince myself to order the 802.11n card for my Core Duo MacBook Pro, and I will be cruising g-street at high-speed.

Mining for quartz

So, I've recently begun teaching myself to use Apple's Quartz Composer. This little app is included on the Developer Tools CD, and it is absolutely amazing.

In finding some resources to further my knowledge of Quartz I stumbled upon this site.

Each of these animations was done in an hour, give or take, using Quartz Composer, and as far as I am concerned are brilliantly done. While my work with Quartz is just beginning, I cannot promise it will lead to anything, but I'm certainly hoping it will.

Wireless woes

I was one of the early Intel adopters with my purchase of a Core Duo MacBook Pro. My 12" PowerBook unfortunately died a quick death, just months before the Core 2 Duos were released, forcing me to get a new machine earlier than I'd hoped. Nonetheless, I love my MacBook Pro. The only thing that has gotten me down about it was when I heard that the Core 2 Duos, which I had hoped to purchase, came with the new 802.11n wireless cards, while the earlier Core Duos were left out in the cold. *sigh*

But, fortunately a company by the name of

QuickerTek

has stepped up in allowing us early adopters to upgrade our wireless cards. Aty about $150 USD it is a bit more than I would like to pay to install it myself, but I am very thankful for the option. The new card comes with instructions on installing it in both the consumer MacBook and the MacBook Pro.

I guess I just need to place my order and to work up the courage to dismantle my MacBook Pro now. I thought I would share

the link

in case anyone else wanted to brave the task as well.

I personally want to try out the new Airport Extreme's ability to connect to an external USB 2.0 drive over the wireless connection.

Learn something new

If you're a Rapidweaver user, take a few minutes today to stop by Nik Fletcher's blog and learn about the Base URL.

Nik walks you through why it is important and how to easily set yours up inside of Rapidweaver. And he does it all through his new video screencast in his Rapidweaver Tips. This is Tip #4 of his growing list of helpful hints.

He's also got a new tip up on using PHP in your Rapidweaver site. This one is a bit more on the advanced side, while the Base URL is on the easier, everyone-should-learn-this side of things.

Taking notice

So I opened up Mint today to find that our daily page views tally had gone through the roof. And this was at noon. Since then we have had a huge influx of visits from CSSRemix, WebCreme, CSS Container and CSS Import. It seems we were picked up by some of the major CSS showcase sites.

I feel very, very honored.

I would encourage all of you to stop by these sites, as well as some of the others listed on our resources page.