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In a nutshell, Solr is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. Its major features include powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, and rich document (e.g., Word, PDF) handling.

Solr uses the Lucene Java search library at its core for full-text indexing and search, and has REST-like HTTP/XML and JSON APIs that make it easy to use from virtually any programming language.

From what I've heard so far, Solr can also be well integrated with Drupal 7. I will definitely post an update as soon as I know more. Sounds very exciting

Ever needed an older version of Firefox? Or just wanted to use a really really old version just for the fun of it? Well, now you can download any Firefox release ever that tickles your fancy. Just click here to see the entire list of releases.

Today i got a call from someone looking for a graphic designer in La Mesa. Apparently, they had googled "graphic design la mesa" and found me and called me. I was unaware that I could be found that way, but I like it :-)

Remember back in the day, like summer 2 years ago, when I was an intern at Balboa Park Online Collaborative? Well, I wrote a quick review about Open Atrium as a possible solution for an intranet for teams and museum staff to collaborate within the park. It was to be an alternative to using BaseCamp, Unfuddle or FogBugs. At the time, the current version was the 1.0-beta2 release. And I didn't like it very much. I concluded that it wasn't able to do what we needed at the time.

Today, I took a second look. And to my surprise, the full 1.0 version is now the current version, released on July 18th, 2011. I've installed this new version and have been trying it all day. I like it. And throughout this week, I will be building it out to see how well I can use it this time around.

I am very pleasantly surprised as to how far Open Atrium has come in the last 2 years and highly recommend it as a valuable team collaboration tool.

I've just recently completed a web project in Switzerland. It was a redesign of an old website from around 2003 (!)

Musikhaus Gurtner, my Dad's business in Switzerland. Check it out at musikhaus-gurtner.ch

I built the site using WordPress because of it's ease of use, so my Dad can update and add content on his own. The theme is based on the ElegantThemes theme "Modest". My Dad has already received several compliments from clients and suppliers :-)

Found this on LinkedIn...

You can find the original article at: mashable.com

According to searchengineland.com, this is Google Panda:

"Panda is a filter that Google has designed to spot what it believes are low-quality pages. Have too many low-quality pages, and Panda effectively flags your entire site. Being Pandified, Pandification — whatever clever name you want to call it — doesn't mean that your entire site is out of Google. But it does mean that pages within your site carry a penalty designed to help ensure only the better ones make it into Google's top results."

But don't worry, that's not the end of it... If you've been hit by Panda, and if you've improved your site, and you can patiently wait 4-6 weeks, you might be back in the game... according to Google... err according to the article :-/

Here's the full story at searchengineland.com

I often get asked about when I first start designing and developing a new website, if I design the whole website completely from scratch or use a pre-existing theme/template.

Honestly, it’s usually somewhere in-between the two. Sometimes, a client likes the idea of using a pre-existing theme, because it cuts down on design and development time, thus also lowering the cost of the project.

On the other hand, having something completely unique and different developed helps a business stand out more from the crowd.

The hybrid-version of the two would then simply be taking a pre-existing theme or template and then to change it to fit the clients' needs. This is the technique I use for most projects.

I don’t try to re-invent the wheel, but I have occasionally been asked to build custom applications and templates for clients, even when they were not necessary, or could have been built using a pre-existing, free, open-source solution. But as a consultant, I merely give my clients my expert opinion and the necessary information, but they do the decision-making in the end.

Sometimes, looking at and improving an old wheel is just the most efficient way...

The content management system (CMS) really depends on what you are using your website for. Joomla is good for community sites, while Drupal is better for professional business sites where multiple employees are editing and adding content.

A third party live chat can be integrated into any website, with or without a CMS. And ticket system would work in both Joomla and Drupal, as well as online forms and slide shows.

It really depends if you are thinking about expanding your site into a community site or leaning more toward a corporate website. For corporate websites, I would normally use Drupal for a more basic look and functionality.

The speed can be optimized for any CMS, even hand-coded sites. Both Drupal and Joomla offer tools for this, as well as tools for search engine optimization (SEO).

A funny video about the Vendor/Client relationship in real world situations. Included are excerpts of real emails I've received from clients.

"Thanks for the quote. After reviewing it though I think you over-quoted by many hours" ... "I re-calculated what I think it should be" ... "Please see your proposal attached, along with my comments in red underneath some of the tasks."

"As a non-funded start-up, compensation is back-end/deferred as part of shared success based on achieving investment and/or revenue targets. In the near-term, we do have some powerful brand names, and the project will definitely add to your expertise, portfolio and network relationships."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY