Content Management System (CMS) - This is a computer software/system used to manage a bunch of files (content). It allows  you to easily create, manage, edit, and publish your “content” in a consistent manner.

This is very helpful for websites because for the most part, most pages within a site will have the same layout, and so a CMS system can make it very easy to maintain such a site.

Popular CMSs include Joomla, Mambo & PHPNuke.

The drawback with CMSs is that they are not very flexible (or rather, not as flexible as writing/designing a site from the ground up). However with that said, one can achieve a great deal of creativity and flexiblity, within a CMS environment and the open source community for CMS is quite large, so there is always support for instances when you want to push certain CMSs to their limit.

We designed Thisizgame.com using WordPress as the CMS so that it was easy for our client to keep fans updated in a blog centered site, with other pages. We specialize in using Wordpress & Joomla, however we are able to branch into other CMSs and customize them to our clients needs.

With an album release on 8/26, Digitalvaliance’s service were once again sought to help customize a Content Management System for the well known rapper, Game’s official site. 

Please check it out and let us know what you think.

This project was done in conjuction with O2Elements. Special shout out to Oyd Craddock.

PS - Since we like to promote the business of our clients, please buy your copy of The Game’s LAX today!

We at Digitalvaliance had mixed feelings about the release of Chrome. We said to ourselves “NOT ANOTHER WEB BROWSER!”

To understand our worries, you have to look at things from our point of view. Not all web browsers render every page the exact same way (even though they are supposed to), but misinterpretations of web standards amongst other things, doesn’t’ always allow for this to be so. This means that often, a web application/site has to be designed to cater to each different browser in mind.

However, after having used the browser for less than 24 hours, we were quite impressed. It is very hard to be extremely innovative within the browser space, but Chrome does a good job of being innovative; Even in our limited usage of Chrome, our web surfing experience is noticeably better, seeing as we are power users and some of Chromes features cater to us (See Below)

Chrome was written with Web Applications in mind (See Previous Post). Websites have become very different from the past, and so Google felt the need to develop a browser from the ground up that kept this shift, in mind during browser development.

We feel that because of Google’s relationship with the Mozilla Foundation in addition to its whole “Don’t Be Evil” motto, their underlying rendering engine of Chrome will be pretty much be compliant with all standards and so most of our initial fears were allayed.

Here were our 2 favorite features of Chrome:

1 - Multiple Processes + Task Manager - Chrome treats each tab as a separate instance. This means if another tab is slow or ties up your browser, it will not affect any of the other tabs within your browser. As someone that surfs the web with up to 15 tabs open at once, this feature/optimization is welcomed. It also allows you to pull a tab out of the browser, hence making that tab its own web browser instance. This allows for Chrome to have its own Task Manager to end trouble some instances.

2 - Speed. Chrome is quite fast. It uses V8 as its JavaScript engine. There has been speculation that Firefox 3.1’s TraceMonkey engine is actually faster.

Download Your Copy of Chrome Here: http://www.google.com/chrome and tell us what you think!

As many of  you know, Google has entered the browser space with the release of Chrome.  Watch the following video to see why Google said it created Chrome, despite its relationship with Mozilla Firefox project.

(YouTube seems to be experiencing bandwith issues at times. You may have to refresh this page for the video to show)

So you’ve got a killer idea but you don’t know how to bring it to life.
You’ve spent a considerable amount of time drawing out the details on paper, but everytime you want to start working on it, you think of 2 extra features that will make your idea even better. You continue doing this until you realise, that you are yet to even start implementing your idea.

The problem with this is that, you might find yourself in a position to never really start the project because instead of your idea being the great idea you thought it was, it is now a daunting series of tasks that you have to handle. Even worse, you start spending time “planning your plan”.You fall victim to an eternal cycle of planning your idea, and never actually begin your conceptualization process and would rather spend time planning.

Whether you are brainstorming a project or business idea, it is very important to get the BARE essentials of your idea out and then get to work immediately. The first concept is very important to ship out the door. This means if you think you have the next killer facebook application, you need to sit down and decide what the CORE features of the application will be, before you even start coding. Once you have this list of CORE features ironed out, you need to get going ASAP.

Your favorite application (whether it is Adobe Photoshop, facebook or MS word) wasn’t always as complete, as pretty  or as feature-full as  you find it today. It has gone through many iterations of design, bug fixes and optimization to bring it to the point where the developers felt as though it was ready for the world.

Chances are, if the  application were as feature-filled as it is today, when it first came out, it wouldn’t have been as widely adopted. However, if you had loyal customers using your product when it was in its bare form, and you release a new feature, they will appreciate that feature and learn to use it easier within the context of what they were using your application for in the first place.

Remember, too much planning CAN be a BAD thing.