The House of Husar » Websites

Check out Indy Beers

Ed — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:12:50 +0000

Scott who is a frequent commenter on this blog has started a Beer blog. The site is http://indybeers.com/. If you are into beer even a little let Indy Beers education you on what good beer is all about. If you are the experience beer snob there is lots of good information.

You can also find them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/IndyBeers and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/IndyBeers

Here is what Scott and his parter Chris have to say about the site.

We’re promoting independent beers and staying away from products by the larger brewing companies (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Heineken, Carlsberg, Coors, et al).

Too many times the larger beer companies have been able to use their market share to push out the competition, often with an inferior product.

We want to help you easily identify and avoid those beers in favor of beers made by independently owned and operated breweries.

We’re hoping to build a community of people who share our thoughts and, like us, love great craft beers.

Scott & Chris
Independent Beer Drinkers

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Blog Bug Fixes

Ed — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:35:56 +0000

Okay, found a few things tonight that I fixed. I will check it on IE6 and a different version of Firefox tomorrow. But here is a run down of what should be different.

The first was a fix for the PNG issue if you are viewing on IE. There is actually a WP plugin to fix the PNG IE issue. This made it really easy and quick. You download the plugin at http://www.homeitsolutions.ca/websites/wordpress-plugins/ie6-png-fix. That should take care of that.

The other issue was the header background image not displaying. On my theme that I have customized for the last two version it uses a style.php and a style.css file. I have not figured out why just yet but the files were not matched up so there is a good chance that the header image and the footer was jacked up. I think they are okay now. But just to be sure the following screenshots are what you should be seeing. If you are not please speak up.

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Site Not Displaying Correctly

Ed — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:27:56 +0000

I have looked at the new layout in IE 6 and in FF Firefox/3.0.14 and it is NOT diplaying right. Not correct at all! So I am not sure you guys are seeing my ultimate vision here.

I will let you know when I think it works across browsers. Tonight I will post a full screen shot of what it should look like so you can see.

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New Layout Coming

Ed — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:14:29 +0000

If you can’t tell I am doing some CSS and Photoshop tonight trying to get a new layout together. It has been bugging me for a while now. The blog layout that is. I need to change the layout as much as I need to find a new Pale Ale to sample. And with the jacked up week I just had I am “sampling” a few Pale Ales tonight.

By the looks of it we are going with a dark concrete and paint. I have not seen anything similar so I am rolling with it. More will be in the header area as soon as I get around to it. I think the look is pretty unique. Let me know what you think.

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New Vimeo Account

Ed — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:58:13 +0000

I setup a Vimeo Pro account tonight. At $59.95 it is not exactly cheap. But uploading to my webserver is not really ideal due to the amount of space HD content could possibly take up over time. I looked around at two other HD capable video sharing sites and Vimeo is the best. I have not liked YouTube for a long time now. The YouTube compression sucks in my opinion. Even on their HD content.

If you are into RSS my Vimeo RSS is http://vimeo.com/houseofhusar/videos/rss

If you want to bookmark my Vimeo home page use http://vimeo.com/houseofhusar

Also, any videos I add to the blog here will now show up in the side bar. The location of that might change but it will be Latest Videos so look for it.

I was able to find a awesome Vimeo plugin called Vimeo for WordPress. Once activated it put a new menu box in your Add New Post screen in WordPress. This menu lets you select your Vimeo videos with a drop down to embed embed them. You can also select your videos from your Vimeo friends. Another option is the use a URL from the Vimeo site. I don’t have to cut and paste the embed code from the Vimeo site now. I just upload to Vimeo then select the title from a drop down. Much easier

Here is a screen shot of what shows up in WordPress.

WordPress Vimeo Plugin

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WeSay.com

Ed — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:37:25 +0000

Has anyone checked out WeSay.com yet? They are a little different from other news sites. The real focus seems to be on news photography. I know most of my readers are all photographers in some way or another. From cell phone photographers to professional photographers you all might like to see what WeSay.com has to offer. Keep in mind that you do not need to be a professional photographer to contribute to their site. Armatures are more than welcome. It is the shot that counts and not your reputation.

The site really is about the average Joe photographer that can get a decent photo of current events. If your photo is good enough it will make it on their home page. With less and less emphasis on mainstream media over the past few years sites like WeSay.com are a great way to contribute to news worthy stories and develop your photography skills at the same time.

The site has a really nice layout with the focus on the photography not necessarily text. Being a visual person their site works for me. WeSay.com also has Photo Contests and photography tips that you can access.

Whether your focus is news, environment, celebs, or sports photography I think you can find something on WeSay.com to contribute to.

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Pindrop Updates – 1.1 Testers Needed

Ed — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:02:49 +0000

I have implement a clustering feature into PinDrop. It is only working right now on a test page not the real PinDrop page. But I have to say I have not dropped any pins lately. I need to get dropping a few pins around Des Moines. But the Cluster feature is pretty cool. Basically if any markers on the map are touching each other then they are clustered into a different color marker on the map. You click that new cluster markers and the map zooms in a few level. It keeps clustering the icons until non of them are touching each other. I decided to add this clustering feature after quite a few pins get dropped around the house.

I need people to test the clustering feature out. I have it on a new page for testing so you won’t find it implemented on the full PinDrop site just yet. If you are interesting in testing the new cluster feature with your OS and browser combination then post a comment and I will send you the preview link.

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Social Spark is on Fire

Ed — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:33:16 +0000

As many people know I have been doing a few sponsored blog posts for the past few months. It has worked out pretty well but none of the sites and their methods of service has impressed me. Until now.

Enter SocialSpark.

Social Spark has been difference for me because it is a social network for both advertisers and bloggers. It allow me, as a blogger, to reach out to advertisers that I find have a good product or message. It really is a new way of doing the blogging advertising thing and I like it. In addition they have Sparks that are a great way to just generate buzz about different topics. Also blog sponsorships are available as well. There is a little something for everyone with Social Spark it seems.

Every link in your post is a no-follow so you are protected as much as you can be from the big search engines dropping your blog from their ranking system. That was my biggest complaint about PayPerPost. In fact I don’t use PPP any more. Social Spark is just too good.

The social side of the site is fantastic. After your blog is approved and you setup your profile demographic information is generated about your blog. This is great when advertisers are looking for bloggers but it is also a great way to meet other bloggers on Social Spark. It is pretty interesting to find other bloggers that are into beer and photography and just happen to be Technology Mangers in the elearning field. Like me those people are pretty rare (and special ) but I came across one in just a few minutes after getting my profile filled out.

If you want to make a few dollars on the side or even generate a second income, or possibly you are a advertiser looking to promote your product or business then you really should check out Social Spark. I am pretty sure you will find it well worth your effort.

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GPS Geek

Ed — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:16:53 +0000

I am somewhat of a GPS geek. I guess mapping as well. I like to plan out Colorado hikes years before I will probably ever do them. I like to map them out with Google Maps or Google Earth just to see the distance and elevation. This summer I plan to take Noah with me for the first time and get in some good hiking in the Colorado Mountain. But right now I need to send in my Vista Cx GPS unit. The darn thing is still broke. So I am just looking around at all the new GPS units out there. I ran across Rocky Mountain Tracking today. They have all kinds of GPS stuff. Not your normal GPS hand held units. They have a lot of vehicle geared stuff for vehicle tracking. Want to put a GPS unit in your car to track it on the web? They have it. That might come in handle for parents of teenage drivers who wanted to spy on their every move. They kids wouldn’t even know they are being tracked. They even have tacking units for animals. I wish I had one for our dog Duchess when she was young. She used to get out of the house and just run like a bat out of hell. Other ideas would be to get out of a speeding ticket. The cop says you are going 70 in a 55 but you know you were going 55? Well a GPS unit that was tracking you could tell exactly how fast you were going. They even have a GPS key fob thing that would be cool to pay around with. Check them out for lots of GPS geek stuff.

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Any Value to BlogRush?

Ed — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:22:58 +0000

I have had the BlogRush widget on my site for a while now. I check the stats for it every few days. My posts get between 100 to 500 impressions but little or no clicks from the impressions. I don’t have a high traffic blog so I am happy with what I get. Now I know CJ and maybe one or two other visitors have it on their blogs. I am pretty sure I am going to take the widget off since I really don’t get any traffic from it. but I am wondering if anyone else gets any value from it?

If you have ever looked at the widget it shows the blog title that you post in hope to get people to click them. BlogRush places your post based on categories to like blogs and the words in the post title. So I wonder how much traffic and how many impressions this post will get since I am questioning the value of BlogRush? I will post an update after a few days when there are some stats on the result.

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