Archive for tag 'personal'

Aug 1 2011

Catching up…

I am back after a couple of weeks of low activity on the site and in the mailbox. For a person like me, who is used to spending most of my days in front of the computer while writing code or learning new and exciting things, it is quite difficult to go offline for any longer time. But the time off (and offline) has given me a boost of inspiration, and during the last week I have been working on several new projects which will be published here soon. New templates, a new WordPress theme and a number of blog posts – including a tutorial which I think will be quite useful.

During the time offline, I spent a lot of time with my family (mostly my fiancée Johanna and my father Kjell), as well as in the garden taking care of the strawberries, raspberries, red- and blackcurrants. While I love working online, it is incredibly relaxing to just sit outdoors by the rose bushes (R. gallica for those of you who are curious) and do nothing. I have also taken a lot of photos, many of which have gone straight into my folder for images that I can use for future design projects. Don't be surprised if you find a rose-themed website template here in the future, or header images showing newly picked strawberries…

The summer in northern Sweden is short, but intensive. There have been numerous thunderstorms, but also some days with amazing weather. We are already seeing the first sings of the fall coming closer, so I have tried to make the most of the summer while it has lasted. But now, heading into August, it is time to get back to working with this site and with new material on it. This fall will bring a lot of news, and I look forward to what is ahead. You will see the first couple of releases during this week, and I will also make sure to reply to all unanswered e-mails I have got during the last couple of weeks.

Raspberries

By Andreas Viklund • General • 1 Tags: , ,

Jan 2 2011

The annual cleaning project

Since I got my first own computer back in the spring of 1997, I have made it a tradition to do some cleaning work of the computer during the last couple of days every year. Most often, that has meant to make two backup copies of all the files, then format all disks and re-install the operating system and all software. This has been done for several reasons, where the most important has been that all the software I have tested out during the year has made the computer slower, and that files that I have collected has taken up valuable disk space.

However, the reasons for cleaning changed last year when I upgraded from my then four-year old laptop to a new desktop computer. Despite installing a lot of software I didn't notice any effect on performance or loading times, and with a Terabyte-sized harddrive space was no longer any issue. But I kept the habit of the annual cleaning project anyway, simply because it is easier to work when everything is well organized and when the tools I need to get things done are put in focus. Here is what my desktop looks like now – the background image may possibly be familiar:

My computer desktop after a day of cleaning, sorting and re-organizing

The biggest mess of all – the photos folder

The one thing that takes up the most time to do is to get all photos and images sorted. My photos folder has grown to be quite big over the years, and keeping over 25.000 images sorted requires some planning and good photo organizer software. In 2010 I took more than 9.000 photos, of which many were pretty much useless. There were a lot of blurry photos and sets of where I had taken several pictures of the same motive (hoping that atleast one of the photos would be good), as well as random pictures which I didn't want to keep. Throughout the years I had tried over 20 different photo organizer tools without finding any software that I really liked, but this time I gave Adobe Bridge a go – and it worked well even though I still miss some features. After going through all the folders, I was left with 3.900 photos that I wanted to keep. I still have a lot of work to do before I have the photos folder working as I want it to work (images geotagged and IPTC/EXIF data added and adjusted etc.), but it is way better now than it was before the cleaning process.

One of the ideas I have had for andreasviklund.com is to make some of the images available here, as stock photos that can be used for different purposes. For example for header images, website backgrounds, illustrations and desktop wallpapers. There are plenty of websites and services that offer royalty-free and Creative Commons-licensed stock photos so this is in no way any unique idea, but I think it could still be useful for site builders and designers – and it would also be fun for me to see my photos being used by others. I am still not sure how to add a photo collection in a good way, as the images would need to be tagged and sorted in some good way. But it is one of the plans for 2011, so I'll find a good way to get it done. Suggestions and ideas on how the photos could be added in a good way would be very welcome!

Graphics design

Along with unedited photos, I also have a large collection of graphics design projects that I am planning to share in a similar way, targeted for designers who need source material for header images and backgrounds. I have seen that the header image pack I created for the andreas01 template has a lot of downloads, and the images have appeared on a number of sites which is not using the andreas01 template at all. For this kind of images, the idea is to make multiple-size versions that are pre-adjusted for my templates, as well as providing a high resolution version (and possibly a .PSD source file for Adobe Photoshop users) from which you can create files of any size for your own project. Just like the website templates, these images would be free to download and free to use – probably through a Creative Commons license. Graphics design articles and tutorials are also a part of the plan, and guest bloggers and artists will be welcome to contribute if there is interest for it.

WordPress themes, Joomla templates, Drupal designs…

I am still looking for designers who work with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other open source content management systems and who would want to share their work on andreasviklund.com. I am mainly searching for people who would want to convert my free templates for these systems, but co-operations for unique designs would also be interesting. Get in touch if you want to become a part of andreasviklund.com, I am all open for ideas and suggestions.

Coming up next…

With my work space in order, I am now working on the first releases for 2011. Within the next couple of days I will release two new website templates and a couple of alternate versions, some created on requests from template users, some created out of pure inspiration. Tutorials and how-to articles are also a priority, especially on how to work with templates. And, as mentioned last year, people who would want to contribute with guest posts are welcome, as well as requests and suggestions on what you would want to see more of here. Andreasviklund.com is all about helping people build better websites, using high-quality resources and (soon) useful tools and services. I am looking forward to continue working with that in 2011, and I hope that you will find andreasviklund.com to be a good place to start when building your own sites this year as well.

By Andreas Viklund • General • 5 Tags: , , ,

Dec 31 2010

Moving into 2011

With only a few minutes left of the year 2010, I can look back at a dramatic year for both the site and for me personally. As usual, I will not write any long summary of the year that has passed. But at this time of the year I always sit down and think about what has happened and how I feel about it, as well as what I could (and in some cases, should) have done differently. And this may be a good time to write a bit more about the plans for next year.

On the personal level, 2010 started with chaos and worries. But thanks to good friends, a healthy amount of optimism and a significant amount of acceptance for the fact that I needed to go through a rough time before things could get better, the year slowly moved out of the chaos and into something that would become a fresh restart and an exciting adventure. And today I feel better than I have in many years after coming out on the other side of the rough period, feeling both refreshed and inspired. Frequent visitors may have noticed this through the re-design of the site, more frequent blog posts and tutorials, new site features, new distribution methods and a number of new templates. In fact, I have released more free templates during the second half of this year than I did in total from 2005 to 2009. There are currently 29 free templates in the template gallery, along with 24 alternate versions.

A year of upgrades

A year ago, I was living with my fiancée Johanna in a small two-room apartment where my workspace was a 1,5 x 1,5 meter corner in the apartment kitchen. My main computer was an old and unstable laptop, and updates to this site were quite rare and sporadic. I did spend a lot of time answering general questions and support requests over e-mail and trying to inspire others, but I didn't really have any inspiration, motivation or structure for building and publishing new material. Today, I am writing this post using a high-performance desktop computer in my own home office, a separate room dedicated for work in the house we moved to in October.

The biggest upgrade, the new home

This site is now my full-time job, and I love it. Beside being truly happy that I am able to work with something that I am really interested in, it feels great to be able to help people all over the world building their own websites. There are millions of websites that use template designs (or themes based on them) from andreasviklund.com, and the number is growing every day. Needless to say, that is a major source of both inspiration and happiness.

I have also upgraded from an old and basic Nokia phone to an iPhone 4, which allows me to work in a completely different way when I am away from home. I can upgrade the website, post entries, edit images and even update the HTML and CSS in the free website templates directly in the phone. And of course tweet, post messages on the official Facebook page for this site and read and reply to e-mails – all things that I were not able to do away from home before. I am also able to customize mobile versions of the free templates for Mobile Safari in iOS 4, something that has been requested a number of times.

In terms of software, I am now equipped with Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver CS5, so from now on I will be able to publish .PSD resources along with the templates, as well as testing the templates with Dreamweaver.

The site is going mobile

andreasviklund.com as it appears in Mobile Safari on an iPhone 4

A few days ago, I added a mobile version of this site which customizes the design for small screens and touch navigation for visitors who use smartphones and other mobile devices. I considered building an own solution, but after trying the WPtouch Pro plugin for WordPress, I found it to be a better all-in-one solution for this site than what I would be able to create by myself. The "Pro" part means that andreasviklund.com use the commercial version of the plugin, which has a number of additional options. A free version is also available, and it is well worth checking out if you run a self-hosted WordPress blog that you want to make more useful for mobile readers. Thanks to WPtouch Pro, andreasviklund.com can now be used as a webapp on iOS devices. I still have some settings and design elements to tweak during the next couple of days, but so far it seems to work well. If you use a mobile device but prefer to see the normal site, that is of course also possible thanks to a theme switch link in the footer of the mobile site. Feedback for the mobile site would be very welcome, please let me know what you think if you have tested it.

The plans for 2011

The priorities for next year will be to continue releasing free resources, and to add tools and services that will make it even easier to build high-quality websites using website templates as the starting point. There are several exciting projects in progress that will be presented in the beginning of next year, including adding different kinds of material by other designers. I am still searching for template designers and CMS theme designers who want to share their work through this site and provide CMS-specific ports of the templates for different content management systems and blog engines. Theme/template designers who would want to convert the free templates for Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, MODx, Frog, EE, Blogger, Tumblr and other systems and services are very welcome to contact me for more info. Starting tomorrow, it will also be possible to advertise on the site (banner space, no text link ads) through BuySellAds.com, something that has been requested for a long time. More about that in a future post.

The site will expand with a few new sections in 2011, as additional resources related to web design and site-building will be added. Stock images for headers and backgrounds (based on my own design work and own photos), graphics design tutorials, more HTML/CSS tutorials, WordPress themes and some really exciting tools and services (both free and commercial) are among the things that you will see during the year. Thanks to the new phone, I am now able to use Twitter and Facebook in more ways during work away from home. I have tried a number of useful and interesting external services which I may connect to the site and use in the future, as well as some more ordinary services like YouTube if I would get into video tutorials and screencasts in the future.

Beside work, I have also made a new-year resolution to start recording music again, and release the music for free on the web. Starting a personal blog (or rather a typical and uninteresting diary) in Swedish is another plan, since I love to write. But those two things are not high priorities, and neither one will have anything to do with this website. As for writing related to my work, I may possibly start writing articles in Swedish about web design and building/running websites for a larger Swedish site. Nothing is decided about that, but it would be a nice challenge.

Final words for 2010

To end this post, I would like to send out a big and warm "Thank you!" to all of you who have supported me throughout the years. I wish you all the very best for the upcoming new year, and I hope that you will continue to follow this site and my work in the future as well. Greetings from the snowy north of Sweden, where I am not off to take care of our dogs (including two cute Papillon puppies, 12 weeks old!), to keep their attention away from the loud and scary fireworks that will soon launch all around our house in a few minutes.

Happy new year, everyone!

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By Andreas Viklund • Featured, General • 4 Tags: ,

Jun 11 2010

Repair, reboot and release!

After a long, long time without visible updates but with a lot of things happening behind the scenes, it is now time to bring andreasviklund.com back to life. There are lots of stories to tell, lots of templates to release and lots of plans ahead. As you may possibly have heard during the spring, andreasviklund.com has been sold and is now running under new ownership. Instead of handling everything myself, I am now a part of a team of people who share my interest for functional and standards-compliant web design and whom I will work together with to make the site and the templates even more useful to you. I will continue to run the site and release my work here, free for everyone to download as always, but from now on I will do it as an employee for the new owner. In other words, running this website is now my full-time job and I will be able to put a whole lot more time and energy into the site than I have for the last few years.

I will write more about this in a future post, as well as sharing some of the ideas and plans that the team has for the future. Feedback will be very welcome, and so will any ideas and suggestions you may have. The whole idea with the free templates is that they should be as useful as possible for as many people as possible, so all kinds of input from template users is good. The main plan is to make it easier to learn about XHTML/CSS and how to edit and build websites from the templates. Among other things, I will start writing guides and tutorials and share a lot of tips and tricks. I will also write about more advanced topics, such as how to use website templates as starting points for making themes for different content management systems and blog engines, and how to get your information out to the world. I have done a lot of work with WordPress, so WP-themes will probably be a common topic as well. It will also become easier to get help from me if you run into problems with the templates, and to find answers for common questions about my templates. Again, I will write more about plans and ideas in the next couple of posts!

For now, I just wanted to let you know that I am alive and well, and that you can expect new material soon. For real, this time. You will of course also get the full story about the site affair, the new owner and the team which I am now a part of.

Finally, I'd like to send a bunch of big "thank you!"-greetings to those of you who have sticked around despite the long silence, and of course also to all of you who have sent encouraging messages. Now it is time for me to make it worth the wait, and I honestly think that many of you will want to stick around in the future as well!

By Andreas Viklund • Learn • 43 Tags: ,

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