“Serial Thrillers” Site (re)Launch

Serial Thrillers Web Site Screenshot

Serial Thrillers Web Site ScreenshotI’m excited the new WordPress conversion is finally ready and the site has been published!

Serial Thrillers Home

Not only that but Serial Thrillers has a hit single breaking through nation wide!

Listen to the song “So Beautiful” here (and it really is a beautiful track): http://www.iheartradio.com/new2/featured/f/2937?psid=6117

Many site upgrades still on the way for Serial Thrillers, such as a better Photo and Video section, better player for the Music page, etc…

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3d Stereo Video: How Does it Work?

3D Video Rig
3D Video Rig (Canon Optura 300s with 2 inches optical separation)

Here is an old article I posted that is becoming more relevant as all the new 3d TV’s and video games and 3D BluRay’s hit the market. Yes!!!

The Short Version

I have a pair of cameras mounted side-by-side and connected so they can be triggered simultaneously. This results in two nearly identical photos, taken from a few inches apart. I merge the two photos using a special color formula, so that when viewed through the glasses, the left eye can only see the photo from the left camera while the right eye can only see the photo from the right camera. This provides your eyes with the illusion of actually “being there”. Your brain does the rest!

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“Serial Thrillers” Web Site Upgrade to WordPress

Here is an exciting project I am working on for Paul Ortolano of Serial Thrillers (current single “So Beautiful” on the air nationwide). I built the web site using a Dreamweaver template and inserted my own php code to wedge a CMS into the pages. The CMS works by reading a standard wordpress.com blog feed. This makes it easy to edit and there is no database to manage and the site is totally portable.

Serial Thrillers Web Site

But there are limitations to this design so now I’m converting the site into a WordPress.org site with its own database and a customized version of the Atahualpa theme so Serial Thrillers can take full advantage of the SEO optimizations and capabilities available to the WordPress CMS. The challenge will be to port all the functionality from the old site into the WordPress site without actually editing the WordPress theme code. If I can do that Paul will still be able to get theme security and functionality updates without losing my custom functions.

Fortunately, Atahualpa lets you put your own code inserts in the settings section (HTML/CSS inserts) <- also supports PHP code.  The possibilities seem endless with that kind of flexibility. I did run into a problem inserting images between the menu items since the built in navigation menu is a “List” of links. But if I really wanted I could hide their menu and put my own in its place using some jQuery code in the “Body End” insert section. So far I’ve found a work-around for every limitation I’ve run into.

Next task will be porting some of the multimedia functions, e.g. video playback, audio samples, lyric pop-ups, etc. over to WordPress code. Maybe I’ll try turning some into WordPress plugins.

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