We just gave JeffreyKrames.com a quick refresh.  It’s all in Wordpress with a number of custom page templates at work.  Good luck on the new business, Jeffrey!

The New York Times ran an article today covering the 9-11 Memorial Foundation’s next steps, and we played a pretty big roll behind the scenes!

The development of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is far enough along that officials are now asking the victims’ next of kin to confirm the accuracy of the names that are to be inscribed around the memorial pools. They are also asking family members to share stories and mementos from the victims’ lives to incorporate into a permanent display.

One way family members will be able to share those stories and mementos from victims’ lives is through the site we built.  It allows friends and family members to create an account, upload images, audio files, video clips, and personal stories through the browser.  It’s one of our favorite projects to date.

If you have a chance, click on over and check it out…

We just flipped the switch on a new site for Decker*Farrell.  In the STM publishing world, these two guys are pretty legendary.  To put the site together we used Wordpress as the backbone and then just tweaked away on a template from Brian Gardner.  Fast, clean, and affordable development.  Plus, it’s hosted on the ClearDev servers.

We’ve been meaning to make badges for some time, plus we get a number of requests for them.  FINALLY, they should be ready early next week.  I’ll post them individually with a code snip if you want to pull them from our server.  Let us know if you like them, hate them, or, worst of all, you find yourself indifferent.

If you want to make one of those tiny badges, check out Adam Kalsey’s Button Maker.

Here’s a sneak peak of what we have so far…

We have some new stickers on the way!  If you want a couple, just send a “self addressed stamped envelope” to:

ClearDev
P.O. Box 1751
New York, NY 10113

We’ll get them out to you as soon as we get our hands on them!

We’ve thought about having these flash specials on hosting here and there.  With the inauguration today, we got inspired!  So, today, get a free domain name with the purchase of any hosting package on http://cleardev.net

Just enter the promo code: OBAMA

As always, no contracts or small print in the deal.

This was first made available on our Twitter account, so make sure to “follow us” for future deals and general ramblings from the ClearDev tech center…

Last night I discovered “MAMP“.  It’s likely I’m late to the party on this, but thought I’d share it with the ClearDev crew just in case there are others still in the dark (in which case you’d need LAMP).  MAMP is for Mac OS X, but I’m sure you can do the same thing on Windows, etc with a different app.  Here’s a description:

The abbreviation MAMP stands for: Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. With just a few mouse-clicks, you can install Apache, PHP and MySQL for Mac OS X! 

MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it PowerBook or iMac. Like similar packages from the Windows- and Linux-world, MAMP comes free of charge.

And that’s MAMP in a nutshell.  Want to see it to believe it?  Check out this video over at Lullabot.  This is what originally sold me.

I first installed it on an old iBook G4 and it went right on.  Not a glitch.  Put it on the MacPro this morning and same easy install/configuration. 

So, what’s the big deal?  Especially if you have a hosting account and server space all ready to go?  Here are some things I thought of:

• Develop a site without an Internet connection (train, lobby, whatever).  Everything runs locally and you can then move the files up to the server when I get connected.
• Test all those scripts that I don’t want to screw with on the “live” server
• Install and test new versions of software (Wordpress, etc).  Why risk my live site if I think there will be a plug in that conflicts?
• Run a site/app privately.  Ever wished you could use a blog to capture ideas but you didn’t want to post to the world?  Or a killer script that you didn’t really want to risk the data online?  MAMP is it.
• Screw with CSS without screwing with your visitors.  Do all of your testing locally and when it’s good to go - move it to the production server.  How many times have you made tweaks on your live site and then made an OOPS?

It makes a clean line between the production site(s) I host with ClearDev, and anything I’m testing or experimenting.  The environment is the same though, which is a glorious thing.  

If you have some spare time, give it a go!

Andy Ihnatko “twittered” this deal the other day and I wanted to pass it along…  You can get “The 99 Most Essential Mozart Masterpieces” for $7.99 on Amazon.com. Hell of a deal if you’re a fan or just need something different for the background.  

Around here it helps to keep the servers calm and the developers from killing each other with nerf guns.  Actually, we don’t have nerf guns.  That movement was crushed in the ‘99 riots.  

Either way - 99 songs for $8?  No drm?  Done deal.

We’ve been working on a database project here and a key component is hooking FileMaker into MySQL.  That way the client will be able to do all those cool desktop type things like easily create labels, do custom layouts, mail merges, etc. and still have a sweet web-based application.

Using the MySQL ODBC 3.51 driver, I was getting an insanely annoying error.  Whenever a record/field would be update on the FileMaker side, it would get cut to one character.  So, if in the “firstname” field, I’d enter “Paul”.  When saved it would get cut to “P”.  Naturally that’s what would show up on the site as well.

I found this which helped to take away the lonlieness:

http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=32058

However, the “Actual Technologies” driver didn’t work for me (no idea why).  But I did find that MySQL updated their ODBC driver to 5.  Get it here:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/5.1.html

Once I made the switch, the data flow was great!  Hope it helps.

Happy 2009 to all of the ClearDev clients and those thinking of making the switch!  Can’t wait to see what you come up with this year!