Kremer Design

The year has begun quickly, already looking at the disappearing snowbanks of winter, and the poor sledding weather. Spending 2 weeks in Whistler, BC, Canada was the best event of the past few years. A renewal of energy, reuniting with friends of past, as well as meeting many new and intriguing people.

I’m making personal changes in my life, and while the details won’t be broadcast here (since this is technically my business website), the resulting positive energy will likely be evident in my work created. I’ve already noticed a uptick in my productivity, as well as a new attention to correct use of “your” and “you’re”. Maybe the productivity has to do with basically taking a 2 week vacation and needing to fast-track a few projects, but even though I’m fighting a head cold the past few days, I’m still getting things done (Tim- I’m getting to your project later today…).

Back to work—— Cheers,

(Ok – here’s pic too – Skijoring race this winter – First place Recreation class -5th overall (I think) – notice we’re passing a team of 2 Labs. Photo Credit – Celia Davis)

As most Minneapolis folks know, we have fully passed from summer into winter, with maybe 4-7 days of fall in between. I haven’t spent anytime shoveling yet, and hopefully the first snow emergency can wait for another month or so, as I’m not looking forward to a late night towing of Caitlin’s car from the old neighborhood. It will be soon enough to need to move it for fall street cleaning.

Work projects continue steadily, which is a good thing I suppose. The past few weeks have not necessarily been perfect, with the move into another apartment, it took a few days to get the power outlet grounded correctly. Add on moving boxes for a few days, and then the unpacking and figuring out how to put everything accumulated in an office into a space about 25 square feet smaller. Still working on figuring out how I’ll be running power into the closet to hook up the printer and the wireless router. Right now I’ve reconfigured the citywide modem to be both local-area-network and hooking up to the local node.

My favorite shows have been back in season, well considering I haven’t updated in a while. Since I only have your standard rabbit ears for local digital television, I don’t really watch much more than catching a Simpson’s or Family Guy episode here and there, or football now and again. The shows I end up downloading or finding online are Mad Men, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Entourage. Entourage is already done for the season, and Mad Men is over half complete. Philadelphia is just getting started though. It’s good for me that they are spread out at least somewhat, so I can concentrate on getting work done when it needs to be.

I’ll be taking the dog to a Skijoring class tomorrow. Hopefully he cooperates. Wish me luck.

So I talked about my troubles syncing my contacts and calendars of my BlackBerry and Apple/Mac previously. I spent way too much time trying to get the RIM software to work. No luck. I had come across Spanning Sync earlier, and kept looking for a free service, but nothing worked. So I downloaded the software, and just tonight plunked down some hard-earned cash to keep it around.

The upside is their $5 referral fee program, which I figure I might as well set up here, as I’m already giving them some advertising. Maybe possibly someone out there will look to hook-up a fellow Graphic Designer in Minnesota with some help, while helping themselves out at the same time.

Basically just click here when you are ready to order Spanning Sync, and you get Spanning Sync free… ok, well not free, but $5 off which is still 20%, and pretty good nonetheless. (I get $5 too, which gives me another 2.4 months closer to my dreams.) Conversely, you can type this easy to remember combination in the discount code box: JMHAK3

I just happened to be on a Windows testing a client site in Internet Explorer, and wondered – with all the issues I have to dance around creating sites – what my personal site looked like in IE. Well, so you know, apparently I need to make some upgrades to my own site’s code, as there are definitely some issues with margins and spacing. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to take a look for a week or more. I can’t remember whether I tested on Win IE when first creating the site, but I’m pretty sure I would have. I’m going with the idea that there has been some updates to IE that have caused the problems. In the mean-time, I’d suggest downloading firefox anyway, and checking it out there.

In other news, I’m heading out on 4 weeks of Training camps from coast-to-coast. I’ll be up in Grand Rapids for the rest of the week helping Bill Meyer run a shooting camp, then after a couple days back in the cits, I’ll be heading out to the Methow Valley, in Washington State, to run a shooting camp there. I fly back on a Sunday late from Seattle, and then get in the veggie burner and head East to NYC and VT. The east coast trip is a Caitlin Compton training camp, of which I’m coaching and participating in apparently.

I’ve set up my BlackBerry to work as a modem, and I’m in the process of finding a quality inverter for powering the computer while on the road, to be the best road-warrior I can be. I still need to figure out a good place to get grease while out east, but I have some leads to work with. I’m also planning to add google latitude to the website, so anyone can follow our progress.

Just thought this was an interesting tidbit of information to pass along. I had a client site that was having an issue with the “Paste from Word” button working, but unable to paste anything into the popup window.

I tried everything from re-installation of all the Wordpress files, checking the database for incorrect settings, changing the template… etc. Using Firefox Web Developer plugin, I found the issue was a cross-domain problem with TinyMCE. In the Settings for the client site, I had put some CAPITAL letters in the Wordpress/Blog Address (URL) fields, which apparently made the Javascripting within TinyMCE think there was two distinct domains at work (SisuSkiFest.com vs. sisuskifest.com). By simply changing the Wordpress address (URL) to all lower-case – everything worked fine. I did a bit of testing after the fact and apparently the Blog Address (URL) can include some CAPITAL lettering.

Hope this helped someone. Cheers

It’s been a very busy Spring here at Kremer Design LLC. New clients, returning clients; my business’s recession is nearing the end.

Flash programming has made a return, sub-contracting with Solaris Internet, I’ve had a few projects already, and more on their way. The first project was a bit of a headache getting back into using Flash on a routine basis, and the following projects were a bit easier. The most recent project was an expedited kiosk player with touch-screen interaction. I had the opportunity to set up the equipment myself and test it out before (regretfully) giving it back to the company for final deployment. Turned out pretty cool, a few tweaks after delivery, prior to final deployment, but pretty neat. The next projects sound like a lot of fun, and hopefully more interaction. I might have to get another Flash Programming book.

• A few more websites to the tally, most still in bidding, production, or planning phases;
  • MedTech For Solutions
  • RMA of NY and NJ
  • Sisu Ski Fest
  • Jean OConnell for St. Paul School Board
• Logo for Johnny Ingdal, The Norwegian Painter
• Previously some Mouse Pads for a new startup ErgoNet.
• City of Lakes Loppet as per usual – Busy season getting the summer events lined up

Also getting into Biathlon Season. Last weekend we held an Intro to Biathlon Sunday afternoon, and I’ve completed putting together the info for the summer. Finally. Let’s hope for a good size group so I can make the program feasible.

I received an email earlier this month to join a contest for the best designed WordPress site. I’ll be entering as Clean and Minimalist design. The WPWebHost team will eventually select a top 10 for each category and the public will vote for the winners. If/When I make it that far, I’ll let the hundreds of KD followers know, so that you may vote many, many times for my web design.

Kremerdesign.com is powered by WordPress, which is a content management system. I do the majority of web designs with a WordPress as the backbone. It’s a very simple to use for my clients, so they won’t need to spend needless hours figuring out the system. As a designer, the system is very flexible, which allows for a lot of customization, to make each and every website look and feel original, even if the user inputs their news updates or blog posts the same way.

If you are looking for a custom designed website, with the ability to make updates and changes yourself, but without needing to learn the ins-and-outs of design, contact me, and let’s talk about your website needs.

Hello everybody. The design has been updated here, sorry to those who are still on aol dialup… might take you a bit longer to download the backgrounds, which yes are completely random every-time you load a page. I’ve started the process of making a ‘lite’ version of the site, but haven’t decided on which way to implement it. I’ll probably go with an eventual small ‘lite’ link somewhere, as well as a javascript behavior to check out the browser referrers. But with the amount of work I’m in now, don’t hold your breath waiting for it. If you are on slow speed, the best would be saving the RSS feed near the bottom, and get your updates there. Or go to the library more. 

So, what else is new you ask… I’m moving. New (to me) apartment, @ 24th Street and Lyndale Avenue. Right near the Wedge and spitting distance from the Leaning tower of Pizza, as well as a coffee shop and an oxygen bar across the street. Found a really decent deal wrapped up with being the caretaker for the building. Now to just pick some colors for the walls. 

Other happenings;

• 69 Mercedes is almost finished being converted to veggie
• Dining room is complete
• Waiting for clients to pay some bills
• Jimmy Pardo coming to Acme Comedy this week
• State Fair trip maybe Thursday(?)

It has been a month or more since the last update so probably about time to get my thoughts back in order.

Maybe I should think about how personal to be in this set up…

Life has gotten complex here in the last month. My father has returned from Alaska, where things didn’t work out optimally. Homeless and Jobless he headed back to Minneapolis, where Caitlin and I have been living in his house (and paying towards the mortgage all the while).

…

Soooooo, time to find another place to live, and quickly deal with the projects I’ve been saving for summer, but are too big for an apartment or anything but a good-size garage. Know anywhere like that?

Here’s a pic to make things fun:

2006 North Shore Camp

August Home Projects:

• Complete greasecar conversion on the 1969 Mercedes 220D diesel, and put it up on Craigslist or ebay.
• Take another look at the BMW.
• Motorcycle?
• September Bancroft Neighborhood Garage Sale
• Continue to shrink the amount of stuff I have.
• Another batch of soap? Need to get more fragrance oil, lots more than last time.
• All grain brew.
• Find a place to live.
• 5-year Financial Planning
• Art galleries
• Movie and Music

August Work Related Projects

• Websites, Websites, Websites.
• WordPress / Drupal
• Personal website design update (halfway complete)
• Personal Business Cards (address?)
• Fix KD invoice design (Just the star)
• User Groups / Interest Groups / Minneapolis
• Plan Biathlon Training for Fall / Recruiting

New Clients:

• TAPartners inc.
• Matt Liebsch
• Caitlin Compton
  others in the works

Well, the van has been sold, and the 69 Mercedes has a floorboard that is solid. A quick greasecar conversion and it will be on the way out the door. Then to the BMW, and maybe someday the Honda motorcycle. 

A lot of working in Wordpress lately, many a website getting created, as well as beginning the re-design of this website to something a bit classier. 

Biathlon Training for the Twin Cities group going full-swing. It is so much easier to run a training session, when the workout is already planned (and the athletes are hitting targets…). 

New Clients

RMA of NY
Logo and Website

Edge Legal Marketing
Multiple Websites with Content Management Systems

Cubical Network
Big Drupal based site