Over the New Moon this October, BA21 launched it’s first Shopify site. The site is a great example of a simple, elegant, intentional web shop with all the features of a modern website.

Here are some notes on Magickal Fantasy :

• custom SlideshowPro photo/art gallery (right from Shopify’s server)
• custom product attributes (from the cart, I used):

<h3 class="small">2. Select a Graphic to go with your item</h3> <p><select name="attributes[graphic]" id="graphic" style="float:left"> <option>Select a graphic...</option> <optgroup label="Arabian Nights"> <option value="arabian_genie" {% if cart.attributes.graphic == "arabian_genie" %} SELECTED {% endif %}> Genie</option> ...

• custom lightbox js class (using the updated lib rather than Shopify’s built in)
• custom faux-three-column design with CSS / XHTML code
• The site was fun to work on and Vision templating is an absolute JOY to code

BA21 is available for custom web shop design and development and is interested primarily in Shopify. We are however, preparing to launch 2 more eCommerce sites with non-Shopify solutions. As always we choose the right system for the right project. Interested in learning more? Contact us today.

Techno Tribes

Area Technology Community is a hive for learning, meeting, and working

Real Estate Weekly (note, their website needs help)

(click for a PDF of the article)

From the article:

[...] Cameron Beers was looking to break into the technology field when he returned to Charlottesville a few years ago. He said that the Guild was continually mentioned as a way to start and he netted jobs along the way.

“It’s a very open source mentality here—share and share alike. People pass along code, people pass along connections and information very freely. The educational aspect is impressive. People offer tutorials and give very good information,” he says.

Beers recently started his own web and media publishing business called BA21 and he found the Guild to be a tremendous help in getting started. “The resources for starting my business were great,” he says. Anything from accounting to legal advice, where to find a location or employees to do what I can’t do. Without fail, somebody always shows up to provide solutions.” [...]

The article is written by Cass Cannon and is freely available in the greater Charlottesville area. Lots of other Guilders are mentioned as well.

From the author, Dave Kilman -

No matter how deep you go, there’s always more. This movie took quite a few days to calculate.

In 1993, when i first made a poster of the image i call “blue oyster spiral,” which is a zoom at about the 100 Billion X magnification level inside the Mandelbrot Fractal, it took 34 computers 3 days to render it. today, the same poster can be rendered on one typical PC in just a few hours.

Of course, since the Mandelbrot Fractal is infinite in nature, i can still easily find spots i want to explore that take a present day computer months to calculate.

I’m ambivalent about the fact that no computer will ever be powerful enough to let me see the infinite detail to be seen in there. On the one hand, there will always be more to see, every time i have access to more computing power. on the other, it will never be enough. oh well :)

Music: “Breakaway” by Big Pig.

Fractal: animated in much higher resolution than this with fractal extreme.

Fractal Posters available at the link above.

Sept 26 – Oct 2—I’m blown up on the cover of this weeks C’ville Weekly. This was a lot of fun and one of my first times being a model. Modeling and beer go well together.

Photograph by Ross McDermott, taken at South Street Brewery. (also posted to flickr)

What do you think of the cover? Please leave a comment!

Just a quick note to thank one of BA21’s associates for the opportunity to help with Textpattern consultation as well as PHP / MySQL coding for the:

• Conway Chamber of Commerce

Great design, Tracy! Let us know if there’s anything else we can do for you.

Now with improved usability, the live search functionality for the weblog is provided by cbs_live_search—another great Textpattern plugin.

(via Flickr)

Any now back to our regularly scheduled textpattern plugin update. Tonight’s feature is: tru_tags v1.8.

Check out the Flickr photo page for more notes.

(via Flickr)

I think I already posted this to the blog, but here it is again—one of my more professional photographs.

(via Flickr)

With Battlestar Gallactica playing from file.

(via Flickr)

Coming in #2, this new gem of a shot—rather gem of an old Apple PowerPC.

This guy was sitting outside at a going out of business sale for 5$.

(via Flickr)

Moving into the new home office. Emphasis on “office”. We’ve been planning this upgrade for some time, and today setting up my latest workstation configuration, I find happiness.

Edit: 219 views after just 2 days of posting this photo!

Edit2: Up to 367 views and now 5 fav’s! Thanks for the visit everyone!

Edit3: Up to 500 views!

Edit4: Wow, 758 views! 10 Favs!

Edit5: 1,023 views! Cool!

(via Flickr)

Posting a bunch of my Flickr most popular photos+images. Hope you enjoy!

(via Flickr)

Helped a friend with his client’s web Gallery2.1 implementation. See the Gatski Metal gallery here. Custom theme for the Gallery 2 open source software.

Google TechTalks April 27, 2006 Barry Schwartz

Notice how Cable/DSL connections dominate the BA21.us connection
speed analytics. It’s interesting also to note the increase over the
past week. Almost right on a 5 9 6 10 12 10 13 scale. It’s not
including my internet connection, of course. :)