So the first thing I did was to add the appropriate plug-ins to my site, in order to make it see whether the visitor was accessing the site on a computer or a phone, in order to provide them with a more  appropriate rendering of the site. For all the tech-challenged people out there, while a website might look good on your computer, you’d struggle to read that same site on a mobile device without an alternate template catering to the smaller screen. So that’s been all taken care of now. However, one thing is still bugging me.

See, mobile browsers as they currently stand, don’t have the capability to render Flash video, which is what all the videos I post are. That means that when, and if, you come to my sight on a mobile device, and hope to see the videos I post, you’re just going to see big empty spaces.

Now I did some searching, and then I did some more. I consider myself a rather adept ‘googler’, but I just couldn’t find anything to suit my needs. As it stands now, the only options, as far as I can tell, would be to say ‘screw it’ and wait for the Skyfire browser to be released to all mobile platforms (it’ll have flash capabilities). Or I could post links to the mobile versions of the videos in question. However, neither of those really satisfy me.

So to any tech savvy people out there, I pose the following question:

Is there a better way that I’m just not finding?

I’m running WordPress and couldn’t, for the life of me, find any plugins that address this issue other than actually placing a link that states “mobile users click here for video” option. Sure, that’s easy, but I’m lazy and would rather have an even more simplistic way of resolving the issue. Not to mention that I’d rather not go back and edit a shit load of posts. So if anyone happens to know of a plug-in or an easier work around, please drop me a line or leave me a comment. I’d greatly appreciate it.

Just wanted to check in with a hardy hello. Things have been busy around these parts. Between all the birthdays, events, and my hobnobbing with celebrities (like Tracy Morgan on the right), I just haven’t gotten around to checking in.

On an up note, this page is now brought to you in full CSS. Meaning, I can now update the look in one area and change it site wide. So expect a new look coming in the next month or so.

BKB has been going well as of late. Here’s the latest web design, every design she does is better than the last. It’s an amazing process to watch.

However, I’m keeping this short but sweet. Talk to you soon…

Apparently I’ve been a subject of an internet phenomenon. Much to my surprise, it seems there’s a grassroots movement springing up across the country to try and get me into the White House this November. See the video for yourself. I’ve opted for Stephen Colbert as my running mate, in hopes of carrying the all-important swing state of South Carolina. I’m pretty honored and hopefully, we’ll win one for the Gipper in 2008.

Now, on to other business. The site will be undergoing a face-lift shortly. Over at the BKB Design Group laboratories, we’ve found something new that will revolutionize the way we do business. It’s a new content management system that will allow us to have the same design flexibility (coding from scratch) while allowing the sites we create to as expandable as the clients would like them to be, without quite a bit of the extra work that goes into coding a vast site. I happen to like it so much that I’ll be putting it to use for this very site. That will assure it the all-important “Boroski Seal of Approval” that products across the globe compete for on a daily basis.

We’ve been working on a few content management systems, trying to find one that was easy to design for, easy to implement, and simple for the clients to dive right in and take control of their sites after our work is finished. Some were strong in some areas, while weak in others, and for a time we’d settled on one that got 70% of the job done. Granted that meant it left us to trying to “correct” the other 30% that didn’t quite work as desired. Well, at the moment, that all seems to be behind us now. As long as everything continues along as smoothly as the first 3 sites we’ve implemented this new system on, it could be a tremendous boost for us in terms of speeding up build time for sites, and increasing the amount of work we can handle at any given time.

Other than that, married life is going just peachy. In case you’ve been under a rock, aren’t a thorough reader, or just haven’t visited this site in a few weeks, you can head over to the gallery to check out the beginnings of the wedding photo album. Just about 100 photos are in there, with some more to come. It’s also come to my attention that I need to reorder the album a bit to provide a bit of continuity to the photos, and I’ll do that shortly.

I’d love to stay and chat, but unfortunately it’s the weekend and my never ending yard project is calling. So until next time.

And remember…. Boroski / Colbert in ’08: We never exhaled.

*Shameless Plug* If you haven’t taken a peek at the business site lately, I’d urge you to do so. We just got an amazing response to an article of Katherine’s that she reposted on the designer’s blog over there leading to over 2000 visitors in just 3 days. Not bad exposure for little local design company like us. We’ve completed a few more clients whose sites you can see in in the portfolio. Business is much better than we’d expected only 6 months into it. Good things are on the horizon, too. Once we get done with the wedding and get a chance to breathe, we’ll be looking at the possibility of taking on our biggest project to date. More on that as it evolves, but it’s definitely a great prospect, and a great opportunity for some major exposure. Of course, free plugs on a site with web influence as large as boroski.com has is huge in and of itself. Almost akin to being on the top page of Digg. However, this project would definitely be a great boost and a chance at some equally great contacts. *End of Shameless Plug*

Now that we have that out of the way, I’d also like to give a very happy birthday out to my niece. She’s a happy 1 year-old today. If you remember correctly, boroski.com was one of the first official newsbreakers of her birth. When she’s famous, she’ll be able to trace her success back to the staff here (me). Building on that hugely successful appearance (and to steal a bit from Stephen Colbert), thanks to the phenomena I’d like to coin as the “Boroski Boost”, she’s currently what I consider a front runner in a cute baby contest. Feel free to check it out, and just like any election worth a damn, make sure to vote early and vote often. You don’t have to sign up, just click to vote and you’ll see an option on the right hand side to ‘vote as a guest’, or something to that effect.

At this point you’re probably saying to yourself “ok, ok, what’s with that photo of you and the other guy”. Well that other guy is the one, the only, the legend: Jim Norton. We caught his show at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco and it was amazing as usual. Really, nothing I can say could do it justice, other than it was Jimmy at his best. So shameless plug for his site here. When you couple that with seeing Louis CK at Punchline a couple weeks back, seeing Rich Vos there the weekend after my birthday, Bill Burr at Punchline the end of this month, and Robert Kelly there next month, it’s safe to say we’ll be laughing all the way to the wedding. Which is definitely a good way to kick it all off.

Ok, enough of the palaver…this ought to keep you occupied for a bit. In case it doesn’t, here:

Great video that puts the world in prospective
25 very important questions
You want Obama in the White House? Think again.
Ok, this made my head hurt. This installment is now over.

Luckily that calls for a celebration. Which is the perfect timing for “Engagement Party (v.Friend.0)”. The family one was held a few weeks back and was a rousing good time. This one will include a keg!

Of course, if you haven’t already noticed, the server broke the photo gallery. I ran the damn automated update and it corrupted the application. Not my fault I swear. Something switched on our server and that switch eliminated the option to run some extra scripts behind the scenes. Our customer support found and fixed the problem but for some reason that’s causing all the scripts that were installed to be redone…blah, blah. Boring I know, but until I get the time to sit down and reverse the damage, it’ll be down. Hopefully back up in the next two weeks.

And with that, I’ll keep this brief because I’ve just thought of another good idea for one of the client sites under construction, and I need to go implement it. If you’re really bored, check the wedding website that’s under way.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiKBoLXg5Cw

Of course, I’m picturing taking it one step further and getting the real character voices. Going ‘big time’, so to speak. Grover playing the snitch, Mr. Hooper in the role of the Jewish mob don. Gordon controlling the a vast network of inner city drug trafficking across the U.S., while Oscar is obviously controlling multiple sanitation rackets. It could be blockbuster the likes of which we’ve never seen.

I think they’d really be on to one of the biggest commercial successes in cinema history.

On another note, finishing up the work on our first paying customer over at the design group. So don’t expect a torrid pace of updating of this site. Maybe an occasional short and sweet, whenever something strikes my fancy, but with any luck at all, we might begin a having windfall of work coming our way. Well, hopefully this will be the case. Talk to you soon.

To quote the Beatles: you’ve got to admit it’s getting better….

So, on that note I hope you enjoy the look.

As for the “Baby Mason Naming Contest”, it’s still going on. Between katgal.com and I here have been quite a few good responses, the Rian is logging them all down and scaling down the list to ones that meet her need. Unfortunately for the person that left the name Chuck, I don’t think that’s going to work for a girl’s name, but thanks for trying.

I’d also like to announce the grand opening of BKB Design Group. It’s a joint venture between Katherine and I. Part of our attempt to do this whole website thing full time. The site still has just a tiny bit of dust from all the construction, but it’s practically done, and unless you really dug around, you probably wouldn’t notice any of the places that are getting their finishing touches. You can view the portfolio of our combined works there, and yes, you’ll notice that her sites far exceed mine in both number and skill. That’s why I can’t think of a better person to be guiding me down the design path.

On that note, I’ll leave you to bask in the glow of my new eye-catching…or eye-burning….look. You can expect a back to normal status on the updating, possibly even on a faster pace than the “once every couple of weeks” pattern that I had fallen into.

Hope you like.

So stay tuned. I’m pretty excited about this new look I’m working on. I just need to make a few more tweaks and get it up to snuff. With any luck at all this new design will pass the test on HTML & CSS validation. Validation is something I’ve been preoccupied with since getting the BKB Design Group site to validate. I’ve become obsessed with seeing the little green check mark on my HTML validation add-on for Firefox. So what can I say, now I feel compelled to validate everything. Although using the blogger.com code to keep up my blog and my home page might throw a wrench into making the site 100% validated, but I won’t know for sure until I get it all setup.

We shall see…..

In other news, I’ve got the lovely proposition of revamping a site for a friend of mine. Lucky me, time to wax creative again. Yet another site to add to the portfolio. I’ve got some good ideas for it already, now it’s just a matter of putting finger to keyboard and mouse to see how it develops.

Speaking of revamps, Katherine revamped her site. She set it so that no matter where you are in the world, her site’s theme will reflect your time of day. Pretty damn impressive. Check it out for yourself. But wait, there’s more. So after putting in the time and effort to find an appropriate code to use that didn’t call to the server’s time (which was a tough search, not much in the way of google info for her to use) she adds the finished version, along with code to her thumb’s up on StumbleUpon. Within hours, as is the case with her site, she gets 2000 hits. Popular gal, that one. So eventually one of the visitors decides to ‘Dig it’ on digg.com, and the next thing you know her hits go through the roof. People are adding it to their digs like crazy, and in true internet celebrity fashion, she makes the daily top 10 across all categories. Damn fine work, if you ask me. Of course, she can tell the story better than I can, but bottom line, she had over 30,000 hits in about 30 hours. I/we were amazed.

One day, I’ll have that superstar notoriety, but until then, I’ll just be forced to continue on my long struggle towards achieving internet dominance. Until that time comes though….