Pemaquid Communications

CONTRACT WEB DEVELOPER

Pemaquid Communications seeks a Web developer to assist us with upcoming work on a project-by-project basis. Proficiency in Python and the Django framework is preferred, although expertise in Rails or PHP frameworks is also good. Experience architecting and building custom content management systems is desirable.

Please send a technical resume along with links to working Web sites we can review to:

work@pemaquid.com

Thanks for your help. Rock on….

Rob Landry
Founder/Principal/Chief Bottle Washer
Pemaquid Communications
W http://www.pemaquid.com
FB: http://www.facebook.com/pemaquid
T: http://twitter.com/pemaquid

We have a new Delicious account – delicious.com/pemaquid – that we created to compile helpful links for beginning Web designers, programmers and whoever else might be interested. There is all kinds of sites included and I did my very best to label them in an understandable way.

For the uninitiated, Delicious is a social bookmarking tool – it allows you to access links from anywhere and share them with anyone. You can also see which bookmarks are the most popular.

We’ll be adding to these links over time and because Delicious is a social bookmarking tool, feel free to add them to your Below are some of the links that caught my eye, either because they seemed really helpful, or because they seemed really cool.

If you know of any sites that you think would help out the friends of Pemaquid let us know and we will check them out and add them to our Delicious account.

http://www.w3schools.com/sitemap/sitemap_tutorials.asp – This one may be my favorite. It is tutorials for html, css, javascript, xml, ajax and a bunch of other things. It was the perfect place to start for someone who knew barely anything about the code.

http://www.useit.com/ – This is Jacob Neilson’s website, and anyone who knows anything about usability should know about him. He was the author of the textbook, Usability Engineering, we used in my GUI Design class at USM.

http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/ – This site lets you upload a picture and create a color palette from the colors in the picture. Do you really like how the colors in a painting, or the view as you look out your window look together? This site will give you the colors to use on a website.

http://www.1001freefonts.com/ – Looking for that perfect font for a logo or headings for a funky website? Here’s the place to look. 1001 fonts and they’re all free. Fun idea: write your next note to the office in one of the funnier ones.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css-techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/ – 53 CSS techniques you couldn’t live without! I think the title is self explanatory.

And there are many, many more (247 more to be exact). These are the ones that stuck out to me, being an html novice and easily amused by colors and fonts. I’m sure we have something that will help or amuse you too.

Last week we asked other Maine Web designers to Twitter some words of advice for our intern, Jordan Warren. What we got was good advice for any Web designer at any level. A sampling:

Wendy Clark – @wending (Senior Web Designer at MaineToday) – “Occasionally leave the computer for your education and inspiration. Visit the PMA or local galleries once a month.”

Tim Shackleford – @fiveleafdesign – “Always be learning, test early and often, and surround yourself with people smarter than you. You’ll learn alot.”

Dan St. Peter – @danstpeter – “Listen to and learn from the experts you meet. Study http://www.smashingmagazine.com and other great online resources.”

Maggi Blue – @magpiecreative – “Don’t over think it…it only gets you in trouble.” (Don’t overthink, Jordan, but please do think.)

Ellen Kanner – @ellenkanner (Kanner Kreative) – “Firebug plugin for FireFox. period.” (We got her squared away with that on day one, Ellen!)

Calvin Gilbert – @calvingilbert – “Create libraries of frequently used code snippets and site templates… and listen to Rob.” (Listen to Rob? Smart man, that Calvin.)

You can find all these “tweets of advice” on Twitter, tagged as #4Jordan. Thanks to the folks above for taking the time to share insights based on their experiences.

So what advice do you have for Jordan? If you’re a Web designer here in Maine, we’d love a quick comment. No matter how insignificant you think it might be, it’s a gold mine of knowledge for her. Help her get better, faster.

She’d love to hear from you.

Do you work in Portland, Maine? Do you create things digitally, using bits and bytes? Do you think being around other, similar folks – “Digital Creatives” – would help everyone get better?

Then you should take the Coworking Survey for Portland, Maine. It’s a quick, 13 question affair (don’t worry pilgrim, we’ll have you in and out of there in no time) intended to help us (who is “us”? we’ll get to that in a minute) find out what others might like to have in a collaborative space.

I’ve been exploring the idea of developing a coworking space in Portland for about a month now, after some poking around in the commercial real estate scene.

Along the way, I’ve bumped into Jeff Norris, Sheila Reiser and Alana Post (perhaps you know us?), and together we’ve been experimenting w/t/idea. Fortunately, right now there is a lot of downtown commercial real estate to use as our laboratory. For now, we’re working out of a space at 28 Maple St.

Other coworking spaces in other parts of the country include:

• Indy Hall- Philadelphia
• Citizen Space – in San Fran, founded by Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, pioneers iof the concept
• Launchpad - in Austin, TX, home of SXSWi

If you’re a Web/Graphic artist, programmer, podcaster, digital video producer, information architect, copywriter – really anyone who uses bits and bytes to create stuff – we’d love it if you could take a minute to give us your thoughts on this idea, which I submit will be the work environment of the future. Or at least comment this post.

Keep an eye on this space for survey results.

Feel free to stop on by. There are 4 of us there right now; we’re looking for 2 more “Charter Members”.

This post is long overdue. But you know what they say – better late than never.

I thought it was high time I recognized some of the folks who have contributed to Pemaquid Web design projects over the last few years; these are the some of the folks who make up Portland, Maine’s Web design scene.

Jen Ecker – Web Designer, Pixel Surgeon. Jen (a.k.a. Dr. Jecker) has collaborated with me for more than three years now, and we’ve honed quite a system for developing markup. Jen’s specialty is cutting-edge CSS, and she’s got a certain flair when it comes to graphic design. She can also dabble in PHP. In other words, the Doctor is in, and she Rocks! (Word to the wise – she is not a robot!)

Sarah Hines - Creative Services Coordinator and all-around Problem Solver. The Web is not simply about a “Web site” anymore. It’s about solving technical problems elegantly. Sarah’s done that in spades. She can do a little Web design, a little SQL, and she’s even been a project manager at times – though I hate the term. She even took care of business cards a while back when we needed some.

Jeff Norris - Programmer. Actually, programmer is not really a fair assessment; Jeff is a big-picture thinker (dare I say “Problem Solver”?) in regards to technical trends. Jeff has fine-tuned the back-end database systems and has done some sysadmin work for a number of projects, and did the heavy lifting behind Oakhurst Dairy’s innovative job application module, which I architected this past September.

Jamie Peloquin - Web Designer. Jamie, a lone wolf who runs Peloquin Design, has been a frequent contributor to Pemaquid sites over the past few years. Typically, Jamie has collaborated with us to produce the Photoshop comps for a site design concept, though he’s a very capable XHTML/CSS designer who is passionate about Web Standards – which is one reason why I like working with him. Oh, yeah, he knows his way around PHP and a Subversion checkout as well.

Wendy Clark – Web Designer. Wendy is the lead designer at MaineToday.com. We were on the same wavelength when I worked there several years ago and we’ve kept in touch; Wendy has done some graphic design work and XHTML coding. I can’t wait to see her handiwork on the brand new MaineToday.com site which is slated for launch tomorrow – kudos Wendy!

Louise Ellis – Web Designer. Louise bumped into a post on this blog more than a year ago when I was looking for help managing the ever-increasing workload. She lives up the road a piece in Rockport, Maine, but that’s not stopped her from being a frequent contributor. Like most of the folks listed here, she’s passionate about Web Standards and “doing things right”.

Suzy Massey – Web Designer. I’ve known Suzy for some time through a local coffee klatch of Web designers; then last year, we discovered we were both attending SXSW. Suzy’s chipped in a time or two, though mostly she’s been a kindred spirit. She may become more involved soon enough though!

Thanks to all of you for all the amazing work we’ve done. I consider you my Superfriends of Maine Web design. I couldn’t have come as far as fast without you, and I look forward to collaborating with you in the future. Good times!

Last night I trekked down to Salem, Mass, with Wendy Clark to a special meeting of the Build Gulld, a fun-loving group of Boston area Web slingers.

The meeting was special for two reasons: it featured the revival of another group of Web designers, the Markup & Style Society, founded by Dan Cederholm and Ethan Marcotte (members of the M&SS were on hand), and CSS wiz Eric Meyer, who had blown into town to meet with some East Coast Clients, was on hand.

How did I find out about this? Twitter, baby (if you’re not following people in your sphere on Twitter, you are missing out).

I got to reconnect w/Josh Porter of Bokardo, whom I’d met at SXSW and who works out of the North Shore area.

My real reason for going was not so that I could write up a nifty blog post and drop names (really). It was because I think Portland needs a group like this. Sure, there are Tweetups and Maine UX is a great group for all things relating to usability, but I think there’s still room for a group devoted to discussing the latest trends in Web design – and imbibing good ale.

I talked to several of the founders of these groups on their experiences and fortunately starting an interest group is not rocket science, it just takes “interest”. Free beer doesn’t hurt, either (libations were on the house last night).

Patrick Haney (Refresh Boston) – “The people were out there. They just needed a place to come together. We created that. We joined about 30 other Refresh groups located in cities across the country.”

Dan Cederholm (Markup & Style Society) – “You just get together with people who share a common interest, do it regularly, and eventually others find out about it and it grows.”

Folks said the interest groups usually start out their meetings with a 15-30 minute presentation, often by one of the members, about a hot topic. Then, social networking in meat-space takes place. Only rarely does a saloon-style brawl break out.

The organizers I spoke with said one of their biggest problems nowadays is finding a place to meet that will hold all the people who attend. I naively expected last night’s meetup to be a fairly intimate gathering of 30-40; yeah, no, it was more like 120 people.

Boy, wouldn’t that be nice here? I’d settle for a group of 5 or 6.

What do you think, Portland? Can we do it? Do I hear “Ayuh”?

Editor’s note: this was originally published on the Portland Press Herald’s NXT blog as a guest post.

To begin a story about Web design in Portland, Maine, I’ll start in the Atlanta airport.

That was where, while I was waiting to board the connecting flight that was to take me to the 2007 SXSW Interactive conference, that I found myself standing next to Andy Clarke. He isn’t exactly a household name, but in the world of Web, Clarke – an expert on CSS and a member of the Web Standards Project – is a rock star (he even actually looks like a rock star, a cross between someone from the British Invasion and Austin Powers. He’s got style).

Clarke was on his way to be a speaker at SXSW. We struck up a conversation, and he inevitably asked where I hailed from.

Portland, Maine, I told him, was where I ran my little Web design outfit, Pemaquid Communications.

Clarke was polite, but shot me a look of surprise that seemed to say ‘Portland, Maine? They build Web sites in Portland, Maine? I thought you guys were all lobstermen and lumberjacks.’

But really, why wouldn’t you want to build Web sites from Portland? You’ve got great geography (the sea, the mountains, the lakes, the woods) and great meterology (it’s a four-season town, you don’t bake in the summer and I don’t mind the snow in the winter, though your mileage may vary on that score!). It’s a great indoor-outdoor town. Oh, and there are plenty of great coffee shops with free wi-fi.

In short, the scene here is very conducive to creative thinking!

In the wonderful world of Web, it’s pretty easy to set up shop anywhere, and collaborate with Clients and team members hither and yon. There’s Basecamp for project management, Adium and Skype for real-time collaboration, Facebook, LinkedIn and a little thing called Twitter for networking (I found out Justin was looking for guest bloggers via his tweet on the subject).

A decent foundation has been laid in Portland for a vibrant Web community. Joe Michaud built MaineToday.com from scratch into a cutting-edge hotspot for online journalism, winning awards against much larger media companies. MaineToday alumni have gone on to make an impact. Justin Davis’ group at Portland Web Works manages VisitMaine.com, the site of the Maine Office of Tourism and one of the best tourism sites in the country. Frank McMahon is now a successful photographer and podcaster whose products include the popular Rumor Girls. (Full disclosure: I’m also one of those alumni).

There are also pockets of creativity at the University of Southern Maine, if you know where to look, and the Maine College of Art is cranking out great graphic designers who now have a keen sense of digital media and who are making an impact. That’s just the tip of the iceberg – apologies for all the things I’m leaving out.

So what do we need to make Portland a hub for Web creatives? We need community. To build community, I think we need to do two things:

Strengthen the skills of the people who are already here. Local Web heads should do what they can to support improvements in the digital media programs at USM, MECA and Southern Maine Community College. We should also develop “continuing education” programs – think regular meetups, BarCamps and labs.

Attract the techies who aren’t here. Right now that’s a big challenge for P-town. Sure, we’ve got loads of fresh air and our fair share of culture. Heck, they say we’ve got more restaurants per capita than anyplace outside of San Fran – that ought to count for something! Even so, though top flight Webslingers can work from anywhere, but there’s still a desire to get together with like-minded individuals in meatspace, and right now Portland is rightly seen as a little isolated in that regard. So we need to “connect the dots” in terms of the folks who are already here (see previous paragraph) so we’ll be able to more noticeably display visible signs of Web life to those viewing Portland from afar.

Can we connect the dots and build a world-class Web community? I think we can. I see subtle signs that the cells are coming together. What do you think?