I created BK2K Web Design in the late 90s, and it’s undergone many a transformation over the years. This time the look won’t change (at least not at this point) but circumstances have. I no longer code for a living as I am pretty much housebound at this point due to illness - but BK2K Web Design will remain open, and I will continue to release free WordPress themes and offer help to newbie webmasters.

Over the next week or so, content will be changed around, sections removed and sections added. As always I will be around - here or at RoseCityGardens.com - and will continue to add content of interest to readers. I intend to reopen the web development jobs section, with daily posts on the opportunities that I find on the Internet, and possibly add an aStore and custom Google search engine.

Thank you for coming to BK2K Web Design - I hope it will be the first of many visits!

I still have fluff pages to create but for all practical purposes, we are open for business! Tonight I’ll add the rest of the content, and tomorrow I’ll sign into live help at 7:00 a.m.

Rose City Gardens is almost done too - same deal, I have to add the fluff. I wish I were rich and could hire content writers, and just stay buried in the code all day (what BLISS that would be) but since most users actually read what’s on a site rather than what’s under it, I must force myself to put on my author’s cap and get busy.

Please feel free to comment on the new designs, both here and at Rose City Gardens.

I’ve finished the templating (although there are always bugs lurking about) and was going to start reinstalling plugins BUT….

I downloaded and installed Wordpress 2.5 RC1 on my dev server, and it’s AWESOME! So far it works like a charm, with a much prettier and well-organized backend. The only downside is the ability to drag and drop widgets into your sidebar(s) is gone, replaced with selection boxes on the interface. I’m sure they had their reasons, and I’m sure I’ll get used to it. But I digress!

At this point I’m not going to add any more plugins until I upgrade this site to 2.5 - most of the old posts in the category “WordPress Plugins” are going bye-bye, as are the way-expired posts in the Jobs category, and various other cleanup. From what I hear, 2.5 is ready for production; they’re just holding out for a little more feedback.

I’m aware that the links at the top lead to pages without content - this will be remedied soon!

In the meantime, If you desperately need a designer, please fill out the quote request form at http://bk2k.com/quote-request-form.html.

Hey! What happened?

I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, that’s what - which whacked the skin and many of the plugins I had installed.

It’s time for me to get out my virtual toothbrush and clean in all the corners, which means that a lot of old garbage is out - and a new, fresh template is in!

Stay tuned for a new BK2K!

I was just viewing the source of the home page, and realized I need to get out the virtual toothbrush and start cleaning house. There are a lot of linked scripts and plugin code, and the order of the content isn’t optimal for SEO. And it’s been so long since I’ve validated at W3 that I’m sure there are little HTML bugs lurking about….

In light of all this, BK2K Web Design is going to get an overhaul! I’m keeping the tulip but stripping out most of the plugins and moving them to my testing/development blog, and cleaning up errors.

Stay tuned….

There’s a spellcheck plugin for WordPress that integrates nicely into the admin panel (into the rich text editor).

You just click the button (standard abc with check) and the plugin underlines all the mispelled words.  When you mouse over the word, a drop down list of suggestions pops up.

What’s nice about this plugin is that you can add a list of words that you want spell check to ignore - words like WordPress, for example.

Content! The magic word…

I intend to reinstall the cpLinks directory, as well as numerous demos of installed and skinned open source applications like CubeCart, WordPress, Etomite and a few more that I’ve found useful over the years. I’ll install them, skin them, and talk about them under the Content Management category!

Almost everything you need to do with a website can be taken care of with open source (except bulletin boards; for feature-richness, nothing beats Invision.)

I’m on a couple of projects that are taking up all of my time, but look to see major additions in the next few days.

I’m only just getting started rebuilding and replacing, but we’ll have all that we had - templates, tutorials, articles - and more!

I never thought I’d see the day, but I switched from Etomite to WordPress - WordPress rocks! I’ll be adding WordPress templates to the BK2K repetoire soon.

You’re looking at the new skin for the new BK2K, the first of many. It’s far from finished, I just started this new version this morning.

The WordPress install is still very vanilla, but that will change as I install plugins to make the backend easier. I’ll be reading Google’s Conversion University articles and haunting the WordPress codex for plugins that work with 2.12.

Tomorrow - a spam-proof contact form! Until then…