ProStruck.com – This is a business with a new presence in the area. The site was designed to deliver the most critical information in the most straighforward manner to a less-than-technical audience. The design of the site was such that you can find out how to contact the right person to get the information that you need in the easiest way possible.

LCHE.org – The Logan County Home Educators website has been a thought floating in my mind for many months. It has incorporated some of the most powerful Joomla! components availiable and, hopefully, will enable this organization to reach new levels of communication and effectiveness. The site was designed with two primary goals: to educate prospective members and curious visitors as to what homeschooling is in the LCHE, and secondly to reproduce all of the tools (plus a few new ones) availiable to the group through their existing Yahoo! Groups site. For the users, it is a way to communicate not only their neccesary documents, but hopefully will now be a place where they can improve all of their individual homeschooling pursuits.

Russellville Dental Lab – Link is the DEMO. The site is up in it’s BETA form on the .com domain. We have acquired the .com and russellvilledentallab.com domains in addition to the original russellvilledental.net domain in order to secure as much of the traffic as we can. The site, wether it is on the .com or existing .net domain in the end will now give us the power to increase email functionality, to communicate products and services more effectively to our doctors, and will reinforce the brand and quality or work to existing and new customers. The addition of a newsletter to our offerings (along with giveaways) will keep our clientele coming back for more. We will be implementing Google Analytics with a targeted AdWords campaign to increase traffic. The site will also be a way of passing along technical information and communicating the robust professional pursuits of our technicians to an otherwise uninformed community. We will be running less of a “we offer these products” showcase site, and more of a professional community designed to increase brand awareness. Exciting stuff.

Logan County Republicans – the site was updated to include more content and Google Analytics was added to track traffic in addition to BSQSiteStats component in Joomla. This site is in final form and requires only general upkeep.

LeeCoursey.net – The “What I’ve Learned About Joomla!” page was added and the “About Lee Coursey” section was updated at the same time to tell more about me. I was in a writing mood.

RusselvilleDental.net (.com) is currently undergoing review (at the .com address) for final install.

Russellville Dental Lab, LLC (demo)

Pro Struck, a company with a new branch in this geographic region, is getting a new site from me. That will be prostruck.com . They will be using Joomla for content, Google Apps for email, and Google Analytics for stats (first combination with Joomla, but all early reports are that it works very well).

LoganCountyRepublicans.com underwent a MAJOR renovation recently. Be sure to check that out. More content is coming soon.

The Russellville Arts Council has talked to me about setting something up for them, so I’m hoping to get that knocked out this week.

I have proposed that the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival needs an autonomous web presence seperate from the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, but that is taking a back seat until at least the ’08 Festival.

RussellvilleMethodist needs a facelift now that I am more comfortable with Joomla and designing for it, but it is functioning. Training members of the “web team” for this and LCRP is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

I am developing courseyblog.com and fullerblog.com in my spare time. Hopefully I’ll be able to have MORE spare time after I get done with some of these projects.

MyLoganCounty.com and ShopLoganCounty.com have also been relegated to “spare time” projects. I know what MyLoganCounty will be, and I know how to do it, but I don’t want to do it a little at a time – I want to go full board and get it done in one spurt. ShopLoganCounty.com will be a premium extension of MyLoganCounty.

Wish me luck.

So, here’s what I’m going to do: (this is probably more for me than it is for you)

• hybridcars template (modified)
• JCE (replaces cluttered WYSIWYG editor)
• jCal Pro (better than the other cals)
• BSQ Site Stats (more complex site stats)
• jPack (backup software)
• mosList Messenger (mailing list manager)
• CommunityBuilder (haven’t done this before )

Demo on the Joomla Test Site

Also, once again, Google Apps will handle the email/dashboard. If you haven’t check it out, do so.

Normally my wife will leave around 3AM for her continuing education at Morehead State and I will get up and get going.  This morning the baby woke up, the baby wouldn’t go back to sleep, I fell asleep putting the baby to sleep, my new rig would not function, and two trips to the *gulp* computer repair shop did nothing either.

Big shout-out to  Matrix Computerz for at least taking a look at it to reaffrim my suspicions – it was hopeless.  New motherboard was D.O.A.  I’ve boxed it up and it will go out Monday.

Now, back to business.  Let’s identify the keys for success in the remaining time we have today…

RussellvilleMethodist.com(.org)

• create new demo site on their server
• install newest versions of colophone, JoomlaCal, etc.
• update current “Coming Soon” page to include location, address, etc…
• organize link/content structure to new ideal

LoganCountyRepublicans.com

• install AdvancedPoll and WebCalendar
• create new link structure

Currently I am testing this on v5webmarketing.com.  With my host, I can not use this service to modify the main page and on down using Google Page Creator, but I could start a mypages.domain.com or something to make it work for users.

I am very excited about applying this in conjunction with some other tools to at least 3 new domains…

• courseyblog
• fullerblog
• logan county republican page

This is an exciting tool that allows for more decentralization of efforts while increasing functionality and efficiency.

More later…

http://www.leecoursey.net/gop

Probable changes:

• mouseover and active state for nav
• nav to UL/LI setup
• ad or event space below nav
• changes in placement or color to “feature”
• IE horiz centering

Possible changes:

• Calendar of Events and/or linking to Google’s new suite of domain srvcs
• photo gallery

typed with baby in one arm

I did a sketch of a basic site that I thought would suit our needs, but my old friend CSS Float had turned it’s back on me. I was FURIOUS. Now, however, I have somehow managed to make it work something like what I had intended. I made a few minor changes simply for the sake of, well, simplicity.

http://www.leecoursey.net/testing/locorep.html

It took me many hours this week to get that basic layout working, but I think I now have the tools and basic architecture that I need to make it function well.

Overview on the intent of the site so far:

• info on Men’s Breakfast
• info on Women’s Club
• info on local, state, and national races
• upcoming events
• endorsements
• philanthropy
• fund raising

With these thoughts in mind I intend to create a mostly static site without using a CMS this time. With the structure I’m giving it, my intent is to not have to manually update anything more than once a month (1-3 hrs. max). I will be presenting to the Executive Committee sometime soon.

Revisions posted at:

http://www.leecoursey.net/gop