Simon North

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Hey, so you're wondering who I am huh? Well, my name is Simon North (that bit you knew of course).
I am, by day a freelance web designer and developer based in England, where I specialise in Wordpress
Development and using jQuery to produce flashy websites. I work with clients from all over the world
and spend a lot of time honing my skills to become an even better designer.

LATEST THOUGHTS

30.07.09
Rocky Folio Wordpress Theme Released

Hi, yesterday saw the release of my latest wordpress template exclusively for ThemeForest. It’s a portfolio/blog template that is packed full of features and customisation options. I have put a massive effort in to get the options page the best it possibly can be with the option to change the look of the template by choosing colours and background images so you don’t need to even touch the code.

The template is split into two sections, the blog and the portfolio with 2 totally different layouts to give clear separation.

To take a look at the template you can visit the demo here and if you want more details or would like to purchase it (only $25!) then you can do so here.
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29.07.09
Microsoft and Yahoo getting together

It has been reported today that Microsoft and Yahoo are coming together to create a search engine to combat Google. My first reaction was to laugh and then it turned to anger. Apart from the fact that I hate Microsoft with a passion, (they are a disgrace to the world of business and should have been shut down many years ago), I’m sick to death of them thinking that they can just enter a new marketplace and become the leaders in it. You’re time is over Microsoft, you’ve pissed off too many people. The second the community asks you to do something you don’t listen, just look at the recent fixoutlook campaign and then look at their outrageous response, it was like watching a politician trying to get out of answering a question.

Anyway back to the topic. They are getting together to create a new super search engine, hmm what was MSN search, then Live Search oh and then Bing. Come on Microsoft you’ve failed three times, you’re not going to succeed by teaming with another sucky search engine. When I produce an SEO optimised site I don’t care about any other search engine apart from Google and I’m guessing its the same for the rest of the web development community. The only reason we support Internet Explorer is because they force it upon their users so we don’t have a choice because they have an unfair advantage on the browser market.
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23.07.09
The importance of being a part of the design community

For a while now I’ve known that to succeed you need to be around people that enable you and help you in that quest. The design community benefits from this to no end, and because the community is very active on social networking platforms there is no reason not to be part of it.

There are thousands of great designers out there using sites like Twitter and Facebook. Following and contributing to discussions can only help you get out there, get noticed and feel part of the community. I cant tell you the amount of times I’ve come across people that see no point in Twitter until you start mentioning how you’ve received work, gotten help on an issue and so much more. Just take a look at my twitter feed and you’ll see just how many times I ask questions rather than sitting for hours staring at a PHP problem, getting frustrated and having to take time out, I simply put the question on twitter and within a few minutes I have a number of people who know the answer.
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28.06.09
Advertising the Pringle’s Way

Advertising is big business, you don’t need me to tell you that. If you are good at advertising it’s generally the case that you’ll live the luxurious penthouse bachelor lifestyle like you see in the movies, I always wanted that apartment in “What Women Want” with the views over the city.

Anyway, back on topic, the guys that create those little banner ads you see on websites, they tend not to be in the same position but after seeing a rather impressive ad the other day, maybe some should. I never normally click on adverts on websites because I know exactly what happens but I strongly recommend that you click on this advert: http://awardshome.com/cannes2009/pringles/can-hands.html

It’s advertising Pringle’s (my favourite crisps [chips to my American readers]), but in a rather ingenious manner. See they know that most people aren’t going to see an advert in a sidebar of a website and think “I know what I’ll click that” so they play on that idea and “talk” to you, with phrases like: “BTW, thanks for trusting our banner not to send you to a porn site”.
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24.06.09
Some of my Latest Template Releases

Since I last posted, I’ve released a number of templates on ThemeForest, so I’ll showcase them all in one post, they have been received well and 2 of the 3 seem to be bestsellers so I’m very happy.
Long Brown Folio

Long Brown Folio is a one-page portfolio website template that scrolls smoothly between each section. It [...]
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24.06.09
Working from home again

After having an office for the past 8 months I decided to move my office back into my apartment when I moved to a new place. The reason I moved into an office in the first place was because of motivation issues and the fact that I couldn’t concentrate because there were too many distractions.
So [...]
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