Honestly, a year ago, I wasn’t a fan of either CodeIgniter or jQuery – because I really didn’t look at them deep enough.

CodeIgniter – PHP MVC Framework

My first shot at CodeIgniter was with DateDesigner.com (by persistent recommendation from @strebel).  Wow…once you grab the concept of the MVC framework, CodeIgniter makes your life tremendously easier when throwing together a site.  I literally thumbed through documentation and built DateDesigner.com in 30 days (scratch to launch).  I have learned how to set it up better and have learned a lot after putting together a few more sites with it (Twitrratr.com, FindMyDogADate.com, BajaSurVacationRentals.com), so now when I go back through some of the DateDesigner.com code, I curse myself a little as I refactor.

Have you built any sites with CodeIgniter?  Do you have an cool plug-in’s for CodeIgniter that you can suggest?

jQuery – Javascript Framework

Now – I have sucked at javascript for going on…ummm…ever?  It was actually @chuckreynolds that intro’d me to jQuery, but at the time, I still didn’t get it – because I was just too lazy to take a good look at it.  Well, again, my first shot at jQuery was on a simple interface tweak in DateDesigner.com, but it has spurred off on to nearly every site I work on now (including all of the 944 web sites internal/external).  There are a plethora plug-in’s available for jQuery – I’ve recently worked with jCarousel and a few others.

Do you have any jQuery plug-in recommendations?  Anyone know of any where I could essentially paginate images in 2 columns like a book/magazine w/o using flash?

I recently launched a new site for a friend of mine – BajaSurVacationRentals.com.

The original site was created in ColdFusion and has been active for quite some time, however, the good people at BajaSurVacationRentals.com were experiencing not only downtime, but they have been overspending with Google Adwords to essentially “buy traffic” (not conversions), and have been hitting a cap when trying to expand.

My friend Erica, who is the Director of Sales & Marketing there, approached me about how they could expand because she was consistently hitting a wall with their current developer.  I took a look at the site and suggested that the site be written in PHP using the CodeIgniter framework to ensure that even if I get hit by a bus, there are more PHP developers out there than there are ColdFusion developers, and PHP is not so much of a dying technology.

Erica wanted to keep the look & feel of the site, so I basically spruced it up a little, and completely re-wrote the whole site (custom CMS included) in PHP & CodeIgniter.

We’re currently working on an SEO strategy to build traffic mainly organically instead of paying thousands of dollars buying traffic from Google.  After a little over 1 week after launch, the site is ranking quite highly on popular keywords for cabo rentals per my reports from the best keyword ranking tool out there.

I’ve heard there are some good deals to be had on both airfare and villa rentals in cabo these days…maybe you should go check the site out and plan a trip down to cabo?

Oh yeah…they also are on twitter as @caborentals – follow them for special announcements and so forth.

It goes without saying really that we are in a recession, and many people and businesses are looking to save some money.  I’ve got a great idea to help out…STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER!

As a web developer, I have many things that I factor in when developing a new site, or adding on to an existing site, and you know, people could really save some cash if I didn’t have to spend extra time making Internet Explorer play nice like the other browsers do with no “extra” help.

Let’s say that some normal markup would take about 10 hours…well I’ll quote it out as 13+ just because of that extra bit I’m going to have to spend on making Internet Explorer display the same way that the other browsers do just because they conform to standards.

So do yourself a favor…if you want to save some development costs, spread the word, Internet Explorer is the devil as far as XHTML/CSS is concerned – it just HAS to be different and it is costing YOU more money.

I think Microsoft did it that way, because you know you didn’t pay for that Office software you are using…so they are just stickin’ it to ya in another way! hahahaha

Download Firefox or Download Safari – and save your soul!!!

The NBA All-Star weekend is upon us in Phoenix, AZ this week.  There are a lot of events going on, but the “cool kids” will definitely be at all the 944 events happening Thursday-Sunday at the W Hotel in Scottsdale, AZ.

Thursday night is the kickoff party and is hosted by Amare Stoudemire of the Phoenix Suns featuring DJ Vice, DJ Reach, DJ Ross One, & DJ OB One – purchase tickets here.

Friday night includes a live performance by Fabolous and features JD Webb, DJ Fashen, & DJ Jazzy Jeff – purchase tickets here.

Saturday night includes a live performance from two time Grammy award winner Common.  The night also includes Courtside Chaos hosted by Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat, and various fashion shows – definitely the night to be at the W Hotel in Scottsdale – purchase tickets here.

Sunday night features DJ Solomon & DJ Irie with a special live performance by Nina Sky and Talib Kweli – purchase tickets here.

Its going to be a fun weekend for sure…and just in time for the NBA All-Star Weekend, 944 just released the latest issue of Game which is your best resource for Super Bowl, FBR 2009, and NBA All-Star coverage!

DateDesigner.com has been out in the wild now for a few months, and recently, I released a batch of updates to the site to not only make it easier to search for and build awesome date ideas, but I also cleaned it up a little bit as well.

Noticeably, the “ratings” system for all dates have been removed.  The ratings for each venue remained, but until Brent and I can figure out how to make the ratings system fit in better with the site, I just decided to remove them all together (no sense in confusing everyone with ratings that look like crap and don’t make any sense).  I also cleaned up the date detail pages and venue detail pages – they were in desperate need of a revised look from its early beta days!

The builder section was also switched up, completely, primarily due to making it easier to use, but also for the DateDesigner.com revenue model.  I’m actively selling the top 5 listings in each category in each market (segmented by zip codes) for $10 each per month – awesome revenue model eh? LOL  So if you are a venue that’s listed, and you want to be top 5 in that category for a particular market, email me from the DateDesigner.com contact page.  Also added to the builder was an open text box for location search, as well as having results for nearly anywhere you can think of in the United States that could possibly be on the web, and thus being able to be picked up by the DateDesigner.com builder tool…

The next biggest piece that I was working on was for SEO purposes.  Get the titles/descriptions/url’s all working together to create awesome content for web crawlers to index…and so far, its working out great – just ask Chase, he’s the SEO nerd and he’s telling me that the changes are starting to pay off…

So that’s pretty much it…oh…and we’re having a contest – “Build the Best Valentines Day Date” – head on over to the home page of DateDesigner.com for more details.

Love…Peace…and Hair Grease…