Do you have a passion for website production and experience managing web designers and/or developers? If so, please read on.

Blueberry Ln. Web & New Media is expanding rapidly (we hired several web developers in the Fall) and now we’re looking for some additional help organizing all the projects and relationships. I’m proud of our work in the last year, and the transition of the business from a one-man shop to a boutique web agency. If you or someone you know is ready to contribute to the success of a growing company, we’re all ears.

This is a freelance, work-from-home opportunity that is perfect for an organized person that has a knack for technology and the web.

For more details and information on how to apply, please view the job posting on LinkedIn or on Craigslist.

Please pass this on if someone comes to mind that would be a nice fit!

Sometimes it’s the simplest things that baffle those of us working with WordPress. My goal on a recent project was to grab snippets of the latest blog entries and display the text without images. That’s easy enough using the default WordPress
< ?php the_excerpt(); ?> feature, which strips out any tags including images.

Unfortunately, the_excerpt needs a little love if you want to add a nice “Read more…” link or change the number of characters displayed for each post. By default the number of characters is 55. You can search on this until you’re blue in the face because developers have hacked up various solutions to this over the years, but many of them no longer work in WordPress 3+.

No worries, though. All you need to do is add a few filters to your theme’s functions.php file, customize to your liking, and call it a day.

Change the Excerpt Length

function new_excerpt_length($length) {
	return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');

20 is the number of characters in the above example, so change to whatever you’d like.

Change or Remove the Default [...] Text

function new_excerpt_more($more) {
	return '[.....]';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

If you’d like to get rid of the [...] completely, just remove the brackets and everything in between the ” marks above. You can also customize this filter to insert a nice “Read more” link at the end of your excerpt.

Add a Read More Link to the Excerpt

function new_excerpt_more($more) {
       global $post;
	return '... <a href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">Read the Rest...</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

Customize away!

For the longest time I’ve preached the following to my clients:

“Never let your blog become stale! Updates are so important! The last thing you want to see when you visit a blog is that it’s years out-of-date.”

As of today, it’s been over a year since I posted here. So to those good people that I preached the above to, I owe you an apology. I still hold true to the belief that blogs exist to be used, and used frequently and well. Unfortunately, this one has fallen out of date under my watch. That’s something I’m aiming to fix this Fall as Blueberry Ln. undergoes some long-needed updates and changes.

First and foremost, I’m happy to report that I’m in the process of bringing on board additional developers to help with the workload. The last year has been an incredible time of growth for the company, in both the number of projects and clients, and also in the lessons I’ve learned as a business owner. I’ve become a huge Shark Tank fan as well, and actually had an opportunity to meet the Sharks last Friday, which was a thrilling experience. More on that to come soon.

If you’re visiting Blueberry Ln. for the first time, welcome. If you’re about to apply to work with us, go ahead and mention that you read this post in your application. I’ll be happy that you know a little bit about the last year of my life, and I’m eager to learn more about you as well.

Big thanks to all our clients (a.k.a. awesome people) that inspire me on a daily basis in addition to keeping the lights on. Can’t wait for the next chapter! Stay tuned, it’s going to be exciting.

Andrew

Staring at website code day in and day out can do some wacky things to a person. Like any line of work that is repetitive at times, an outlet is necessary. Many web developers turn to video games or music. A select few (myself included) follow a sports team or two. A very select few (myself not included) opt for exceptionally tight pants. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that taking a short break from coding has been extremely valuable to me. An approaching deadline and plenty of caffeine also have proven their worth.

It’s amazing what great things have come from determination and a little sleep deprivation. For me it’s always the smallest thing that will keep me up until it’s fixed. A page that is a single pixel off in Internet Explorer 6, a jQuery animation that isn’t as smooth as it should be, or any other garden variety of things most annoying to developers. Did I mention Internet Explorer 6? (Cough) Is this mic even on?

The more annoying or outlandish the glitch, the better it feels when the perfect bit of code is written. Or maybe not just written, but tested and verified to actually be working. That is my ah-hah moment, when the pixels align and Firefox and Internet Explorer agree on my code. It’s the best feeling in the world to get those issues solved, to have conquered the summit, so to speak. Everything after is like running down the side of the mountain. Still have to be cautious and watch the footing, but the momentum is there.

All in a day’s (or night’s) work.

For just about everything I can think of in this life, someone has gone through it before me. In a few instances, though, the opposite is true. As a web developer over the years I’ve been a sponge, soaking up as much knowledge and experience as I could. Despite taking awhile to get this blog started, I hold out some hope that someone will be thankful they’re reading an entry, and that perhaps my experience will help them out. Maybe a year from now, or maybe today. Who knows.

More than what I decide to write about, the chance of the above paragraph becoming a reality almost entirely depends on you, the reader. If I’m not answering a question you’re asking or discussing something you’re interested in, do yourself a favor and close this browser window and read your local paper’s website for the next few minutes instead. Wait, don’t, that’s just an illustration. Let’s just assume I’m relevant. Hey, you found me, so that’s your judgment call.

In my conversations with clients and potential clients, one of the very first things I do is try to gauge if I need to be the lead talker or the lead listener. 95% of the time I choose “listener” because the more I know about a client’s situation the smarter my answers become. Whether or not it’s the polite thing to do depends on the situation. Case in point…

A few years ago a potential client found me and we started the client/provider courtship thing — they debriefed on the project details, I put together an estimate and sent it over, and then we went back and forth back and forth back and forth back and forth. All told it was probably 10 calls and another 7-8 emails. Finally they let me know I was too expensive and I wished them the best of luck with their project. Cue the sad music.

However, this is a situation that was salvaged because of open communication and timely advice. When everybody is on a tight budget, including me, it’s one of the first and last things to come up. Ultimately this client budgeted for an inexpensive site, and I wanted to keep my pricing in line with similar projects I’d completed. During our back and forth time, though, I was able to answer a variety of questions about the reasoning for my costs. I broke down everything line by line and took some time to explain things in a friendly way. Also, the potential client answered plenty of questions about the reasoning for their budget, which was entirely out of their control. A potentially contentious series of conversations stayed professional (happy music now).

The end result today is that while I don’t have a new client (yet), I’m aware of very specific challenges this client is facing, and they know I’m ready and willing to help. For a developer, that’s just about as good as it gets. Also, we just connected on LinkedIn. Hmm…maybe they’re asking for a second date?