Castle Crest Productions

Websites of the Year

2009-12-06T14:39:00.004-06:00

Two of my websites have been nominated for Website of the Year on CSS Creme. I'd love to have your votes! Here's the two websites that are nominated - take your pick, and vote for one if you have the time!

Arora Designs (view site) - Vote Here

Beautiful 2.0 (view site) - Vote Here

Logo Design Special - Extension!

2009-09-23T16:55:00.004-05:00

Due to the popularity of this special, I'm extending it further.

My logo design service will remain at the low cost of $300 including unlimited revisions (changes) for the foreseeable future.

Why? Because this special allows smaller budget companies and start-ups to get the logo they want the first time around. For a one-time fee, they can get exactly the logo they want due to the perk of unlimited revisions.

If you know someone that is thinking about starting their own business or is in need of a logo redesign, send them my way. The logo design special allows me to get the design right with one price, and no extra charge for changes.

Looking forward to your business! Email me at cbnnexus@gmail.com or call at 979-739-6919

Beautiful 2.0 - Success!

2009-07-28T02:00:00.004-05:00

Beautiful 2.0 has become a much bigger hit than I had anticipated. In just two weeks, it has been awarded & featured by 23 prestigious websites. When it was launched, the Alexa rank was over 10 million - that's 10 millionth most popular website. Today, it stands at just over 800,000. At this rate, the site will reach its initial goal of 500k in a few days. The goal beyond that is to be below the 100k mark, and sustain it.

Some of the interest with Beautiful 2.0 is the fact that it is not only a css gallery, it is also a flash gallery, web 2.0 gallery and overall artistic resource. The site does not feature every excellently rendered css or flash website; it caters only to those websites that show exceptional artistic quality. It has become extremely selective, only admitting about one tenth of the submissions it receives on a daily basis.

This gives artists and designers a chance to forget about having to have a huge amount of content, being popular, mainstream or even likable to most css galleries. It gives them a chance to be noticed for the pure artistry they have achieved in their design - even if their website just so happens to be only one page.

Beautiful 2.0 doesn't look at W3C compliance, clean code or cookie cutter css. It looks at the visual communication and artistic quality of the website itself. It's a breath of fresh air to most web artists out there. On the contrary, it isn't going to be very popular with most web designers out there that follow trends or think as long as everything is correct, functional, and clean, they will be admitted to any high quality gallery. Not this gallery, sorry.

If you're interested in seeing the daily submissions, check out beautiful 2.0 or subscribe to the feed. You can also follow Beautiful 2.0 on twitter.

Thanks for all the support!

Site Launch: Beautiful 2.0

2009-07-12T19:23:00.008-05:00

I am pleased to anounce that a project I've been working on for nearly six months (off and on) is finally complete. The name of the site is Beautiful 2.0 - it is a web design and CSS gallery that is dedicated to beautiful web 2.0 websites. It is much more "pure gallery" than many other CSS gallery websites out there. It is much more geared towards artistic sites that are extremely well designed. Most websites that are considered and placed within the gallery could be works of art you might (might) hang up on your wall.

The site features 10 website submissions per page, with access to an archive that opens up on a per-month basis. One of the things I am most proud of (sadly, nothing to be proud of for you uber developers out there) is the fact that you can search for website submissions according to color preference. So, not only do you see the latest submissions, but you can also search by date and color.

There is no rating system, as I did not want to have to explain myself or those I trust to submit websites to me. The goal of "pure gallery" was something very important to keep in mind whilst building this website. I did concede, however, to allowing comments on each submission. This should allow people to compliment, rip apart, or otherwise start a dialogue based on each submission.

Please take a look at the site - add it to your favorites, follow it on twitter (you'll see the twitter link in several places) or tell someone about it that you think might be interested or might even wish to submit a website of their own.

Here's the link: Beautiful 2.0 CSS and Web Design Gallery

Wedding Photography

2009-06-25T12:50:00.029-05:00

Recently I was lucky enough to be presented with the opportunity to edit some wedding pictures. While the wedding photographer did a great job, I have some skills of my own that I can bring to the table. As far as computer-aided design, photo manipulation is one of my first loves, and so I was excited to take on this project for them.

The bride and groom were somewhat disappointed with some of their pictures. Before the edit, this sunset picture did not have any clouds in the sky and the bride and groom were a bit too underexposed. So, I corrected the lighting and color, and painted in a beautiful sunset behind them. This is an example of some of the more "subtle" effects I can add to photographs.

This picture is an example that took a bit more complex editing skills. It consists of 3 photographs. One of the bride and groom, one of the outside seating area where the couple got married, and another of the bride's extended train. I composited the photos together, took out unneeded chairs, color corrected and added lighting and clouds to the sky. Also, the further away from the happy couple, the less color there is in this photograph. This image is a bit more symbolic, surreal and styelized, and is more indicative of my speciality.

The third and last example is a surreal and fantasy art representation of the bride and her flower girl. I attempted to make this look as much like a surrealist painting as possible. While not every client wants something this close to fantasy art, many are interested in seeing something extra special and custom that came from their wedding, made to order just for them. It was incredibly fun (as well as time consuming) to produce something like this, but it was well worth it. The client absolutely loves the images, and may even print a large version of this image on canvas.

I'm looking forward to more projects like this, as it is definitely more along the lines of what I am interested in doing with photography. I'm hoping for more commissions and requests for this type of work, and may eventually set up a separate art gallery site to support it.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave one!

I Heart Commissioned Artwork

2009-06-06T20:52:00.010-05:00

The above image is the latest commissioned artwork I have produced. I was contacted by a very nice client that desired a very singular look to his custom artwork. He wanted specific clothing, faces and body types, as well as special details regarding the surrounding environment. It is very rare to find a client that not only knows what I can do, but also knows exactly what they want. This Star Wars themed artwork was not only a joy to work on in that respect, but also because I simply love to do commissioned artwork for clients.

When I first launched the new Castle Crest Productions, I had the intent to sell web design and search engine optimization almost exclusively. I have since found that most of my potential clients use large corporations for web design and optimization. While this realization was disheartening, I realized that my bread and butter did not have to be web design and SEO.

I begun to use crowdsourcing websites such as 99designs to sell most of my custom logo design, which is a path that has led to great success. Meanwhile, I have been contacted to produce and edit videos for several clients, including The Hubless Wheel project and the Hexigames Intro found on my videography page. Most recently I have been contacted to produce music videos for a successful local musician.

In short, I have found that some of my most niche design abilities have become desireable enough to warrant more attention. I hope that my experience here will give hope to designers out there that are either struggling or just starting out. Diversify your abilities, advertise your successes and be open to projects you didn't expect or don't specialize in. Ride the wave.

I don't specialize in anything anymore. If I'm working on a project, that's what I specialize in. I'm not just a web developer, video editor, digital painter or optimizer. I'm a creative director. No - better than that; I'm a designer, and proud of it.

Logo Design Special!

2009-05-20T14:35:00.004-05:00

For a limited time only, Castle Crest Productions is offering custom logo design with unlimited revisions for only $300.

To take advantage of this offer, use the contact form on the home page, or email cbnnexus@gmail.com

Design Crowdsourcing

2009-05-11T06:32:00.008-05:00

As many of you know, I have been participating in crowdsourcing websites such as 99designs that allows a designer to compete in design contests for money. These are not typical contests mind you, they are set up on the website by actual companies in need of design services. These companies or individuals may need a logo, a website template, a t-shirt, or some other type of brand collateral. Many of these individual contests feature literally hundreds of designers clamoring for the winning spot.

For many freelance or beginning designers, this may seem like a dream come true. In many ways, they've found a place where they don't have to wait for clients - they are readily available and spelling out exactly what they want done. Even to an experienced designer, a crowdsourcing website may be just what the doctor ordered for an in-between project design fix with a possibility of cash.

There are many good things about these crowdsourcing websites - a designer can design for whatever client they want, when they want, based on the type of project they are interested in at that moment in time. The designer also gets lots of practice designing for a variety of different projects that, winning or not, can still be added to personal or company portfolios. This type of design experience can be invaluable to many designers that are trying to grow their versatility or hone their specific style.

Unfortunately, these crowdsourcing websites may also be the worst thing to ever happen to the design profession and community. AIGA (the American Institute for Graphic Arts) is currently fighting the very concept of design crowdsourcing, saying that the very concept is against everything the institute has been fighting for and has believed in for decades. AIGA has been fighting for designer rights, pay rate and respect ever since its creation in 1914. Currently, AIGA has more than 22,000 members nationwide.

Instead of hiring a designer (short or long term) for design projects and paying them for comps, revisions, and final outputs, companies are now able to use these crowdsourcing websites to pay a fraction of the cost it would normally, in return for literally hundreds of designers to supply them with free design comps.

In AIGA's opinion, this hurts the entire design community by making the designers work for free. Worse, many new or "green" designers don't know any better and are throwing away hours of work and buckets of cash that they deserve and worked for because companies want free design services and are taking advantage of new technologies to undermine an entire profession.

Sure, it feels good to win a contest. Personally, if I win a contest out of hundreds of designers, it makes me feel good about myself, simple as that. But you won't find me spending more than a few minutes on a logo or website for a contest on a crowdsourcing website. No way, no how. I'm a designer by trade, and I get paid for what I do.

Web Design vs. Web Development

2009-04-02T22:35:00.002-05:00

Time to time I have to explain the difference between web design and web development to clients, peers, recruiters and even potential employers. While the answer is readily available to anyone with the question and a search engine, most folks don't even know to ask it. Now that I have fully launched Arora Designs and am face-to-face with many of my own clientele, I find that I am forced to answer this question yet again.

Web design refers to the process of designing a website or template that includes all of the graphic and visual elements you see on any given website. Web designers are also sometimes called "front end developers". The design can be created using a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or many other graphics-oriented programs available on the market today. The design provides the framework for the look and feel of a website and communicates information and branding visually. Layout, navigation, visual hierarchy, color scheme, depth, dimension and tone are all terms well known to a good, professional web designer.

It is important to remember that many web designers are actual designers, wheras not many designers are actually web designers. Why? Because some coding is required in order to call oneself a web designer. Firstly, you have to know how to implement or manipulate HTML. More acturally, XHTML. Secondly, you must know CSS. The "web 2.0" look that I mentioned in my last blog post completely relies on this advent. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the revolutionary industry standard at this point, and should be required when it comes to designing websites.

Beyond innovative and award-winning graphics, XHTML and CSS, we start to venture into developer land. This is where we start to see Javascript, AJAX, Flash (designer/developers combos in their own right) and even a minimal understanding of PHP and MySQL. This is the gray area between designing and developing. Personally, I am comfortable with Javascript and a little AJAX and Flash. I have a small understanding of what PHP and MySQL are capable of, but beyond that, I'm worthless in the database area. (Probably because the concept of manipulating databases bores me to tears).

Web development is typically used to described the programming required to construct the "back end" of a website. The back end is the area of the site that isn't seen by visitors, but which does the work required in order to present the right information in the correct format to the visitors. Web development is used to describe any database-driven web designs using dynamic scripting languages like PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, Coldfusion and sometimes Java and AJAX. Web development also covers database design and development using MySQL.

As you can see, these are two completely different areas of expertise. It is the difference between Architecture and Construction, Art and Physics. You might find someone out there that can do it all, but watch out: they might just be much better at one than they are at the other.

What is Web 2.0?

2009-03-28T05:40:00.006-05:00

Officially, web 2.0 is the perceived second generation of web development that aims to facilitate communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies like Digg and Delicious.

As a web designer, I find that I am constantly barraged with clients asking for a web 2.0 look. Sometimes after designing beautifully complex and graphically innovative website concepts, I get the response, "make it more web 2.0". This is upsetting to say the least. Web 2.0 was, is and always will be functionality; a turn in technology - not design. Web 3.0 won't be the next design trend or layout fad. It will be the next level of usability, functionality, and technology on the internet.

At first I tried to fight this misconception by clarifying the meaning of web 2.0 to clients and designers alike. After many frustrating conversations, I found that I was fighting a losing battle. Apparently when clients want "web 2.0", they want the current design fad seen on many designer's portfolios today. This design fad is centered, fixed, uses large text, minimal design, uses large amounts of negative space and usually has equal, centrally oriented columns. This design trend has become so commonplace that it has been mistakenly coined "web 2.0" to the design laymen. And it seems that talentless web designers are more than happy to accommodate this unreality.

Don't get me wrong - this is an actual style that can be used to great effect in many cases. In most cases, however, it is copied, templated and used over and over in the web design world to recycle the same old look, again and again, client after client. With good branding, a "web 2.0" styled website can be very effective. Twitter is a good example of this - it has both actual web 2.0 functionality as well as the supposed web 2.0 style. Simplicity at its best. Unfortunately, when a data and information driven website wants to be "web 2.0" it doesn't work well. They end up with template-like sites that have very little in the way of design, and just end up looking like information soup, with a bold looking logo slapped on the top. Not very effective.

I'm not a "web 2.0" designer. Not at heart, at least. I find it difficult to reign myself in enough to showcase a minimalist design. The websites I have designed for The SEO Authority and Beautiful 2.0 are about as close to this style as I have dared to go. While many of my other websites have "web 2.0" style qualities, I tend to showcase "the pixel" more often than not. But, like anything in the design world, it is subjective and relative. Even this website could be called web 2.0 given the right (or wrong) perspective.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And unfortunately, the beholder is more often than not in love with overused template websites that were designed with little to no creativity. The old story about the bridge comes to mind - and everyone seems to be jumping.

99 Designs On The Wall...

2009-03-19T21:25:00.007-05:00

Recently I've been doing some work through a website called 99designs, a website that connects clients needing design work such as logo design, business cards or websites to a thriving community of more than 30,000 designers. Personally, I've been working with several different businesses that need their branding either redesigned or designed for the very first time.

I find it extremely beneficial to not only participate and - with any luck - win the job, but also to see how other designers think. Seeing how other designers interpret looks, feels and ideas can be extremely beneficial. Not only can it be amazingly inspiring, it's also great to see work that isn't really up to par with your own standards... which is always good for a designer's ego.

The image above is an example of some branding and packaging design comps that I have recently completed for an organic wine company called, "Logical Wine". They felt that it was only logical to use fruits other then grapes to create great-tasting wine. In their words, "Just because a bunch of monks thousands of years ago couldn't find anything else to make their wine with does not mean we can't branch out, when say... pomegranates or mangos are available." Well, I whole-heartedly agree.

As it turns out, they really enjoy the design and are currently working with me to edit it to fit their production abilities and budget. Moral of the story? As designers, we must use all the tools available to us in order to grow and be successful as professional, working artists. 99designs is one of those tools.

>> Visit me on 99designs! <<

Tutorial: Typography in Design

2009-03-11T17:16:00.013-05:00

In the early days of most folk's web design and graphic design careers, the choice and application of typography was the same as asking oneself, "What font should I use?"

As many entry-level graphic and web designers will find out, typography is not simply about font. It is about measure, leading, tracking, color and layout. The typography must be readable as well as visually pleasing - and it must fit thematically with the other content on the page. I will attempt to describe in layman's terms the importance of the basic elements of typography.

Font: When designing for print, use serifed fonts. When designing for the screen, use sans serif fonts. There are exceptions to this rule, but mostly in the way of titles and headers. For body text seen on computer monitors, a sans serif font is the way to go for the most readability in most cases. I have seen many beautiful serifed fonts used recently on the web- but they are usually font size 14 and above. This makes the readability of serifed fonts a non-issue - mostly.

Based on my own research and experience, the following fonts are the most available, accessible and readable for the web. Unfortunately, many designers may feel silly using such "archaic" fonts, even if just for body text.

Sans Serif, size 12+: Arial
Sans Serif, size 11-: Verdana
Serif: Georgia

Measure: The width of the body of type. Basically, how wide is your paragraph or body of text? The best practice is usually to limit your width to 50 - 80 characters in length. Any narrower or wider and you risk having readability issues. As a rule, the wider your measure, the more leading you need to retain readability.

Leading: This is what many designers still call "line height". This is the amount of spacing between each line of text. As I mentioned above, the wider your measure (or width of the body text), the more leading you need. When using light text on a dark background, you would need to add even more leading and tracking to the body of text.

Tracking: This is the space between letters and words. Right now we're just interested in word tracking. A good rule to remember is the narrower your measure, the tighter the tracking. The wider your measure, the wider your tracking between words. Letter tracking can be fun, but make sure you are conservative when it comes to body text.

Color & Layout: Color and layout are important elements of typography that must be tested and used by web and graphic designers on a regular basis. There is really nothing I can say here that can prepare a designer for all types of designs, styles or color combinations. Any rule of thumb that I could give would eventually be disproven with a typography style that works for an individual design that exists as an exception to the rule.

While I am in no way an expert in typography, I do have some experience putting it all together in a cohesive way. My strengths lie in design using color and layout. Even so, the final word of advice I will give is this: when in doubt, make it readable.

Site Launch: The SEO Authority

2009-03-07T19:26:00.006-06:00

After about a week of designing, developing and copy writing, I have launched The SEO Authority website. You can find it here: www.the-seo-authority.com

The design is a bit more conservative and minimalist than my usual, which was actually pretty difficult for me. In fact, the original template had to be completely redesigned because I still went a little overboard. Even so, I think for that what it is and the demographic that it is meant for, the final design of the website succeeds.

The site's blog should be a pretty good resource for those of you who are interested in strictly SEO related articles and posts. I'm not completely sure yet, but I'm leaning towards making the blog centered around the ethical nature of true, relevant, organic search engine optimization.

If you see any problems with the site or have any questions/comments, let me know!

An Interview with AI Dallas

2009-03-04T13:26:00.008-06:00

I was recently interviewed by a designer from the Art Institute of Dallas named Rachel Ochoa. I'm not sure if the interview will be published in any way, but I thought it might be at least slightly pertinent to my blog and/or the industry.

___________________________________________________

RO: How long have you been designing websites? How did you get started?

CN: I have been designing websites since 2002. Originally I was a studio artist, mostly painting and drawing. When I was part of an internship for an ad agency that needed websites designed, I thought I would tackle the projects. I loved designing on the computer and with Photoshop. I suppose I have not stopped since.

RO: What was your major in college? Was it computer or web related?

CN: My major in college was Visual Communications. It encompassed web design, graphic design and multimedia.

RO: How long have you had a career in the web design field? How did you get your first job?

CN: My first job designing websites was actually in an internship. Mostly I would produce graphic design work, but I also directed and edited some television commercials there as well.

RO: What are some common mistakes that new, incoming web designers make?

CN: New web designers tend to rely on one thing too often. If they are designers, they usually try to make beautiful websites but do not know how to make them function properly. The opposite involves developers relying on function, not knowing the importance of design, layout, navigation and visual hierarchy. As web designers we are an amalgam of both an artistic field and a technical field. We must embrace both sides, design and coding. The best web designers will be ones that strive for balance in this area.

RO: Can you think of some mistakes you made when you first started making web pages?

CN: Certainly. I would say that my skills in both coding and design grew together, and in that aspect I am quite fortunate. Unfortunately, I stuck to one particular style or look, and it took me a long time to get out of that and grow my abilities as a layout designer using negative space, color and visual hierarchy appropriately and uniquely.

RO: What are some daily tasks that you do each day at work?

CN: I can only say that I check my email, open Photoshop, open Dreamweaver and a couple of different browsers (for compatibility checks) and start my day.

RO: Do you ever find your job to be routine?

CN: Never. I like to break up my time between projects throughout the day so as to gain fresh perspective when I start to work on them again.

RO: What resources do you use to help learn new web tricks or tools?

CN: I use several different online resources. I always check Design Shack if I need some information or quick inspiration for design. To learn new things, I have found that the best collection of tutorials can be found at Tutorial 9.

RO: What is a typical work day for you like?

CN: Luckily, I work from home, so I am able to start my day a bit easier than most folks. A typical work day starts with coffee, gets multiple breaks from designing and coding throughout the day, and ends in a nice hot-tub, movie or a good book. Most of my correspondence with clients is electronic, so I usually do not have to set aside any time to work with them. Basically, I work on multiple projects all day, for about 12 hours all together on average.

RO: What do you enjoy the most about your job? Least?

CN: Most? Designing. Least? Lack of human interaction!

RO: What advice would you give to an up and coming web designer?

CN: Design until you cannot design any more. Then get up, and design some more. You simply cannot stop designing in order to grow and develop. On a more technical side, it is always helpful to work on projects that force you to solve problems or work on a challenge. 90% of my web design and development knowledge comes from having to solve problems and create solutions all by myself, outside of school. School can point you in the right direction and open the door- but in the end, a designer has to walk through it.

Inertia & The SEO Authority

2009-03-03T04:23:00.010-06:00

Plenty of good news this episode. Firstly, CCP 4.0 launched extremely smoothly, already re-crawled by Google, and with some amazing results. For many of my offered services, I am on page 1 for all of Texas. Now that's some good SEO if you ask me. Many, many factors played into that, but I am proud to say that it is 100% guaranteed organic SEO. In other words, I didn't pay a dime. It's all relevant, helpful information. If any of you need or want pointers, just ask. If there's enough interest, I might write an SEO tutorial on the basics.

Meanwhile, I'm on to my next project: The SEO Authority. It will be a state-wide SEO, web design and web hosting service. Basically, I plan on doing the same thing for it that I've done with Castle Crest Productions, only intentionally state-wide. I will be offering full-service search engine optimization to individuals, small businesses, and large corporations. I've had to scrap a few of the original site templates, but I think I've finally found a design I like. Things just don't go as smoothly when I'm designing conservatively, with a minimalist layout in mind. Needless to say, I like to go a bit overboard with my designs, and it is sometimes difficult to reign myself in.

In other news, I took a break from all the designing to... well... design. That's right folks, I have another piece of digital artwork for you. This one's called "Inertia". Let me know what you think, and if it should be added to the gallery. Again, if any of you need or want Photoshop pointers, just ask. If there's enough interest, tutorials may be in my blog's future...

W3C Validation

2009-02-26T14:21:00.005-06:00

For the last few hours, I have been attempting to validate my website via the W3C. Why? Not because I like pain. Not to appease the web development gods. And certainly not to be part of some elite club of "weberatti".

I do it for peace of mind. The W3C validation tool is a good way to test for errors that otherwise may be invisible to me (and most other people) given our modern web browsers. At least sometimes.

The problem here is that it doesn't really work that well for people that put a lot of visual functionality on their websites. I for one have multiple javascript and spry animations, events and applications on my website. Many of these do not validate for archaic versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer. My CSS 2.1 validates just fine. I'm known for some beautiful CSS if I do say so myself. But XHTML? Forget about it. I'd have to strip my site of much of its functionality in order to validate completely, with zero "errors".

The most ironic thing is that even the W3C website itself did not validate today. Now that's entertainment.

CCP 4.0 is Live!

2009-02-24T17:42:00.009-06:00

I have just launched the fourth version of the Castle Crest Productions website. The new layout, content additions and functionality has greatly increased the site's usability and attractiveness. It was a lot of fun to design and develop and I'm thankful for the time and opportunity to do it.

That said, I am still integrating the blog with the design of the website. You might see some strange things going on with the layout of the blog while I get everything straightened out. I will be posting again once I believe everything has been squared away.

In the meantime, please let me know if there are any issues you are having with the website and if so, what web browser you are using. Thanks!

Under Construction

2009-02-21T20:22:00.008-06:00

Just in case things should get a little messy, I wanted to let you folks know that I am currently redesigning the site as planned. This will be the fourth version of this site, and I am confident that this will be the most beautiful, functional and helpful version yet.

The transition should be seamless overall, but just in case I need to do a bit of testing (particularly with the blog integration) please be patient and know that until I post here again, CCP 4.0 is under construction!

Bittersweet Symphony

2009-02-19T00:33:00.007-06:00

At this point I am extremely confident that I know how to completely composite and implement a blog into an existing website design with little to no WYSIWYG editing capabilities. Just this morning I was dreading the upcoming project...

The huge upside to this is of course the ability to offer blogging capabilities to all of my clients. Knowledge is power.

In other news, I am being forced to redesign my portfolio website. While I jump at opportunities to design new and improved GUI (especially for myself), I will miss the look and feel that I have loved for so long (ok, so it's just been a little over a year now). *sigh*

What can I say... it's bittersweet.

Honest to Blog?

2009-02-18T19:54:00.012-06:00

Hello there.

My name is Christopher Nelson, and this is my first entry on this blog. Right now I am attempting to composite this blog into my existing website. It is proving quite difficult, but I am sure that given enough time and effort, I can whip this blog into shape enough to get the job done.

Wish me luck...