Ripple FX   s   TikiWiki!

Our very own Knowledge Wiki just got the Tiki 7.1 Upgrade and we must say, this new release is even better than 7.0.  We are impressed.  Coming up from 6.2 recently, the version 7 platform is an amazing new high-tech “canvas” for web development.  We design custom professional templates compatible with all versions of Tiki so that upgrades are as simple as possible. Your website will look great and it will be Very Usable for the web users and the administrators.  This is one of the most efficient template systems we’ve built for, not to mention the CMS functionality, and we are thrilled to work with this community!

We are Tiki Masters and we will help put you in-control of your website content.
We create Social Web 2.0 Technology for You!

If you are ready to start a website that you can edit anytime, we can help you today.

We congratulate and thank the Tiki team for the recent releases of Tiki 7.1 (of course 7.0 which was groundbreaking) and the LTS 6.4 platform.  Our humble respect to all the Tiki team; we look forward to contributing some cool new code which we think everyone will love

Check out how clean the wiki looks.  HTML5 in T7 is the-bomb!

Our clients like it too; we are all pretty excited for all the new features.  Get some!

semantic: an adjective pertaining to syntax, meaning: linguistic, well-formed – the different meanings of words

^In terms of HTML, this equates to using the language and its vast library of descriptive tags to encapsulate the page’s informational. Web browsers can interpret and export these details. Basically, we are making the data in a page much more useful.

What this all means is that we must implement HTML to the intended specification. Using CSS to position and style elements like text, while also naming the IDs and Classes semantically. Writing semantic HTML is actually easy, and once you get used to it, your code will be much more efficient to maintain (for anyone responsible.)

Watch how easy this is:

Styling a email link has class=”email”, your social profile link with class=”url” or class=”org” around your company name; more. Wrap text with <em>instead of <i></em>, <strong>instead of <b></strong>, <p>paragraphs instead of <br />’s</p>, <address> (take it further and add spans with hCard classes), <abbr title=”abbreviation”>abbbr</abbr>, <acronym title=”Plain Old Semantic HTML”>POSH</acronym>, <cite> or even <q>quote</q>.  («ex: Not valid HTML)

So why would we do this, instead of just using a WYSIWYG editor that spits out everything wrapped in spans with arbitrarily class names? Because the former is abusing the HTML!   >> The old way of laying out anything (other than data – think excel) with tables, using transparent 1×1 gifs to position something or <br>eaking up text instead of using <p>paragraphs</p> is gone; please never return—thank you. (We survived the dot-com era~haha)

HTML was engineered to make sense.
When we use the tags properly, it opens the door to the impaired (through screen readers tools and the like) and to programs that recognize the named patterns within the page text. Giving the proper class names, thus creating an hCard in your code means that your “e-Business Card” or Geo-Location (as ex.) can be automatically recognized and/or saved. Contact lists can be generated using looped code patterns that make every person exportable. Not just copy-and-paste anymore; this is actually technology becoming Useful .

Technology is supposed to make life easier, more efficient. Look out the window at the technological  wonder that surrounds you. Many things are designed without a shred of Usability considered; only cost. Things which are poorly designed only make life more frustrating. It is time we make the web more Usable, and we can do this simply by adding technologies like microformats. The more sites use it, the more data we can easily extract. The more popular it becomes, the more useful it becomes: via its creative use. A lot can be shared; a lot more than is today, and all web professionals need to work on this grand semantic goal.

Being long-term semantic advocates, we joined the Microformats.org community to help the world in this project. After producing our own “classy” icon for vCard/hCard use, and being an OpenSource house, we added this graphic to GitHub and shared it on the microformats wiki.

We hope that this 10×12 in-line image will make its way around the web as a familiar icon to save vCards and indicate the presence of hCard(s).
We encourage you to thoroughly study their wiki; there is so much great information you are bound to find something new and interesting!

If you use the icon, leave a comment below or on Microformats.org
Best of luck, and as always we welcome your questions if you need help.

Ripple FX uses-standard what is known as the “Class B ranking” because we respect the human usability of interfacing even in the simpliest way when entering the URI. Making the first-step easiest is a good foundation to start one’s path. We know every detail counts! Enough with our philosophical rant, we offer this thought experiment as example:

Case 1: Usability
What is easier to remember, “www.pepsi.com” -or- “pepsi.com”?
    People are very busy: consciously and subconsciously they appreciate things which are easiest
“pepsi.com” is shorter therefore easier to recall.
    Simple = Best

Case 2: SEO
Proper Search Engine Optimization requires a single domain indexed by the spyders; dual search indexed pages under http://www.pepsi.com/Ex2  And http://pepsi.com/Ex2 dilute one’s ranking. Falling back to Case 1, we defer to simplicity and must choose “pepsi.com”.

Case 3: Rebuttal
In acknowledgment of the yes-www.org argument for using “www.” to reference the [www] web services being used, and when in combination with a site where other services are utilized such as blog. and wiki. as examples, we do understand the desire to use www. to thereby match the ‘domain naming-style’, however we must once again fall back to Case 1 where Simplicity Rules and vote “pepsi.com”.

–In this thought experiment, it is our professional opinion (from an objective Usability standpoint) that all three cases strongly prefer “pepsi.com” and the no-www.org Class B ranking. We thereby recommend this method; please do your fellow human beings (and the web) this kind favor!

Consider this: When the average web user opens their browser, it is pretty safe to bet that they will be simply typing the URI of their most frequently visited site, or easier yet clicking the link they saved to their bookmark bar. The average user has no idea that the web has other hidden dimensions and layers, ports, etcetera – it is inconsequential. They want facesometh1ng.com or the latest fad. They want their website, it’s people like us or at work that want ftp:// or port 443.
The point to consider is that the “www.” is redundant, and if it is so, then (for simplicity’s sake) toss it. The truth is that “browsing the web” infers being on the “www.” web-served plane. The extra “www.” is like adding extra sylabols (10 to be exact) and who really needs to remember all that, just to land on the same web page. The average consumer/user/human does not know that “www.pepsi.com” is the same as “pepsi.com” and simply does not care: they want the page.
We find there no need to encourage an argument which [essentially] states that “people need to know and understand they are using the www. service of the vast Internet.”

Let us make people happy through efficiency and give them an easy to remember and quick to type web address; that is going to help with the likelihood they actually land there later (or have enough room to write it, print it, etc.)

This post is about Usability
Let us help the whole world one step / site at a time

PCL&E wanted electrical energy, and since we specialize in HD grapihc design and really enjoy the creative process, they were amazed even by what we offered in the Alpha stage. Here is a bit of detail into our design-mind:

Each charged bolt was designed individually and specifically to enhance the whole, and in HD quality—each individually blended and overlayed. We chose Blue for the Electricity because it signifies knowledge and power. We believe typography is key and thus what else would we choose but this timeless classic to signify strength. Its letters Gold, representing the fine craftsmanship, prestige and quality of PCL&E’s work. We also gave the type a slight lower glow to suggest the company is ascending. Finally the centered diamond gradient speaks to geometric perfection in addition to a burst of energy from the converging bolts.

Yes, we do put a lot of thought into every design!
We know from study and experience that the subtle details make all the difference in a good vs. great design. Features that make sense and intuitively work with or speak to the user. From color meaning to golden ratios, we tend to be a bit nerdy and use everything from slight psychological hints to superliminal suggestion in our creative evolutionary work process. We love optical illusions, making something beautiful yet strikingly simple and taking-in the magnificence of nature for our inspiration. We can help you take a simple or elegant idea, a sketch on a napkin or brilliant idea and turn it into a strong & effective brand  or site design.

Our thanks to PCL&E for allowing us the honor of redesigning their brand and maybe soon their online presence. We are also grateful to a friend our who does biz-card printing, paper, envelopes, that kind of thing in the Orange County, CA area. We can put you in contact if you need help with that kind of thing at a good price. We really like helping people succeed and look forward to all the upcoming opportunities from you and others. Ripple FX does 1st Class work at amazing prices. We are making a respectable name for ourselves, well so say our clients.

If you have a project which you need done quick & well, we would like to listen to your thoughts & goals!
Contact us.

We installed hCards into all our clients templates, so anyone visiting their site can extract the contact information to their address book. This will help each client gain more organic leads as users browses their websites.

We really want our clients to succeed in every way possible, and we are therefore more than happy to help them in this way. We think hCards are a fantastic standard and implement it whenever applicable & possible.

Our clients also got the free service of re-submission to the search spyders. Re-Index goodness! This is standard as part of our 6-month SEO reOptimization packages.

Finally we placed our clients into the no-www.org roster. Bonus for your search rank

We know they agree: It’s good to be a client of Ripple FX!
We care.

Enter Microformats, which may act as a perfect pair for HTML email. Think about it, the email already has the HTML structure and CSS styling. Just add a few standardized class-names here and there and you have the ability to share certain blocks like contact info, geo-tags or addresses with ease.

Granted many pioneers have been using hCard with email and we salute them for pushing the bar. What we are talking about in this web log is Major Integration within the larger email suites.

We will give Thunderbird (as a standalone program) and Gmail (as an online app) as examples:
Both of these programs could easily detect any Microformats in the displayed message, and alert the user in the message header or title. A simple button to save this contact to the Address Book would be quite useful. When authoring a message, the right-side pane could display contacts (as the new Gmail layout) and allow dynamic adding (+) and removing (-) of contacts for sharing into the email message thereby inserting inline HTML with the appropriate hCard class-names associated. We an also imagine an hCard generator tool for attaching or creating a styled inline signature. These two are only examples; we would love to see Microformat-pickup in all email and web apps.

When your family, friend or colleague receives your message with hCard contacts, they could then import or export this information. Making the Internet a better place is one dream here @ Ripple FX. We hope that this idea makes its way onto the desks and dry erase boards of the leading Email App teams. One more simple tool to connect using existing and logical technology; what isn’t there to love.

We are using hCard in all our Ripple FX company branding signature lines. Visually we were able to create and style a very clean and modern new signature design that we are excited to use for its new hCard and CSS3 features.
We encourage everyone else to edit their HTML signature files or have one professionally designed to include the an hCard Microformat. Let us all make this world wide web a better place and push the technology to better everyone!

We encourage you to share your ideas below!
Here is a simple example of code for you to start with:

<div style=""> Sincerely,
 <div class="vcard" style="margin:1em;">
  <strong class="fn">Ripple FX</strong><br />
  <small><a class="email" style="color:#00f !important;" href="mailto:Info@RippleFxInc.com">Info@RippleFxInc</a></small>
  <div class="tel" style="margin-top:0.1em;">714.805.8513</div>
  <a class="url" href="http://RippleFxInc.com" target="_blank"><img class="org logo" style="" src="http://ripplefxinc.com/logos.gif" alt="RippleFxInc.com" title="RippleFxInc.com" /></a>
 </div>
</div>

Fellow web professionals, developers and codegurus, please share your thoughts on “hCard in Email“; we would love to hear your feedback and ideas below. Thanks!

GIVE LOVE *-* Tristan Garner [red pill version]

Ripple FX has no connection or affiliation with Tristan Garner or REVOLUTION RADIO (The Red Pill Project), but we think their message is right-on and give our respect where it is due.

We are happy to announce the release of google Enhanced BLACK version 3.2.8

This update includes the latest fixes to Google’s recently updated web software services. While working to comprehensively find and fix as much as possible, we stumbled upon the new Google+ and Google Music sites. We did a little prep work on these projects and will keep an eye on them for updates.

Changes in v3.2.8:

• Google Headers & Search bar across all services, sites and locales
• Google+ Integration Testing and Google Music intro pages
• Calendar updates thanx to MikeG
• Layout and general updates to Images, Maps, News, Profiles, Groups, Support, Code and Docs
• Minor updates such as Videos home logo & Finance footer
• Gmail visual issues with links fixed by leaving all styles to built in themes

Many thanks to all our users for all your support. We welcome all your feedback and would love to hear from you in comments on this blog. Please also add Ripple FX to your social network sites.

We are happy to have the opportunity to help PCL&E with re-branding their company. Ripple FX will be working quickly to design a new logo, which is first to be used on their new high-resolution and full color business cards. We have some friends that get great deals on that kind of stuff, so we are graphic designing the new PCL&E logo; our friends are handling the printing services. (By the way, we could pass the word along if anyone needs help with printing; let us know and we will put you in contact.)

We are hopeful that we can help PCL&E in other ways, in fact our minds are beaming with brilliance, and we look forward to completing this graphic design project so that we can move forward…

Brandi of Change Your Thoughts has become Nationally recognized for her alternative wellness therapies. She has made a name for herself in Hypnotherapy and will soon be featured on a Nationally Aired television show. Brandi is also active in the National Federation of the Blind, West Hawaii Chapter. We personally cannot wait to help Change Your Thoughts connect with the social web!

As friends, we are so happy to be a part of her success. We are very excited for our new client and will work quickly to redesign and re-launch their website. As we offer complete solutions, this Design Project includes our Standard lvl.1 Social Marketing Pkg (greatly improving SEO stats.) We will feature a custom designed theme over a rock-solid CMS to give the client effortless page editing. Translation, Sharing, spam-free Contact form are just a few of the easy things we do. Ripple FX has the honor of helping and looks forward to championing this new project!