Web Dev

Adding Ahoy gem for first-party Analytics

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Asking ChatGPT-4 about ahoy gem testing

The Ahoy gem provides a solid foundation to track visits and events in Ruby, JavaScript, and native apps. Here’s how to add it to a Rails 7 application: This will generate an initializer file at config/initializers/ahoy.rb and a migration file in db/migrate/ which creates two tables, ahoy_visits and ahoy_events. Then you can use the ahoy.track … Read more

Add Confirmable to Devise

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Add confirmable to Devise directions screenshot

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the :confirmable module in Devise for Ruby on Rails applications, emphasizing its role in enhancing security by verifying the ownership of the email address registered by a user. The Devise :confirmable module prevents the creation of spam accounts, bolsters the security of user data, and ensures that an … Read more

http Basic authentication for Ruby on Rails

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Screenshot asking ChatGPT to show me how to password protect one page in a ruby on rails 7 app

This is an example of http basic authentication on a Rails 7 app and an example of using ChatGPT-4 in a normal workflow. In the past I would have used Google to search this up. Now I go straight for ChatGPT. This was the prompt for Open AI aka ChatGPT-4Can you show me how to … Read more

Simple User Authentication for Ruby on Rails 7

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ChatGPT-4 Screenshot question about Rails 7 user authentication

A quick question I asked ChatGPT-4:Can you show me an example of user authentication for a Ruby on Rails 7 application? Here was the response I got: Sure, in this example I’ll show how to implement a basic user authentication in a Ruby on Rails 7 application using a simplified version of the “has_secure_password” mechanism, … Read more

Remove WP Branding WordPress Plugin

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Remove WP Branding WordPress plugin

This is a WordPress plugin I created a while back to white label, replace and/or remove the WordPress branding from the CMS to give you the user a more professional look if they are doing custom builds with WordPress. The plugin allows you to change the howdy text within the dashboard, hide multiple WordPress logos … Read more

Interactive Mapping with Leaflet.js

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Interactive mapping with leaflet.js javascript library

This app has user authentication with Devise, and mapping with leaflet.js and drawing shapes with Leaflet Draw. I figured out a clever way to allow clicks on the map image to create coordinates in an array that leaflet understands and then saving it into a field. It’s something that you have to try out for … Read more

Status Plan by work.shopMG

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Status Plan Ruby on Rails project

Status Plan is a Ruby on Rails application that I built for work.shopMG, a Chicago based Property Development Management company. It’s basically a CRM for Property Development that helps the developers communicate with the tenants and the contractors to work out their deals and complete their projects. I built this from the ground up. Initial … Read more

Project has_many Users through

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Ruby on Rails code has_many users through

Ruby on Rails tutorial Here is a Ruby on Rails example of adding a join table so that you can create a has_many Users through situation with Projects. This assumes that you already have a Project and a User model. 1. Generate your scaffold: Generating a scaffold here called UserProjects. It has two reference fields … Read more

Add Index to join table with unique checks

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migration to add index for join table

Ruby on Rails add index to join table, generate migration 1. make uniqueness index on areas_deals:*This stops the association from being able to be duplicated, but throws an error causing bad UI, we will address that below** 2. Check the schema and make sure you got what you want. We wanted this added: t.index [“area_id”, … Read more

Regex tricks – Change strings to formatted numbers

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Regex regular expressions javascript code

(regex == regular expressions) There are a few Regex tricks that I use constantly in my javascript stuff to control numbers or variable names. Here are a few examples of Regex in action. Remove non-numeric characters except periods: This will take a string or number and change it to an integer or a float that … Read more

AMP Advanced Mobile Pages

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AMP Website Design

New Website Design There is a new way to build websites called AMP or Advanced Mobile Pages. It’s a Google lead deal. Basically a new style of building websites following a set of rules that have mobile usability and page speed as the most important factor. The idea is pretty straight forward. The longer your … Read more

Beacon Light Community Church

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Beacon Light CC screenshot

Mobile First Design from scratch New custom WordPress build for Beacon Light Community Church. I’ve been trying to stick with a mobile first minimalist design to keep things simple. Beacon Light has a good Facebook presence so it was easy to go in and grab what I needed for the build. This is currently still … Read more

McCleary Septic AMP site

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McCleary Septic AMP website

Mobile First Design I had the pleasure of rebuilding a site for a longtime existing client. With the McCleary Septic site I went through and took a static php build and transferred it over into a WordPress website with a mobile first design and an AMP compatible build. Pagespeed is everything with Google Page speed … Read more

National Transmission Rebuild for Speed!

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National Transmission screenshot Muskegon, MI

I got to rebuild National Transmission’s website recently. I built their old site around 2014/2015 and at that time was doing static non-responsive builds. The site needed an update. It look dated and was not mobile friendly in anyway. I wanted to get the client into a WordPress site. I’ve been building them lately with … Read more

Jeremiah the Dreamer Website Rebuild

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Jeremiah the Dreamer website screenshot

I’ve been going back through and rebuilding some of my legacy sites to get them up to date with the current trends for portfolio pieces. I’ve spent the last five years building sites for a property development management company and haven’t had a whole lot of room for portfolio pieces. I went back and rebuilt … Read more

231WebDev 2020 Website Rebuild

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231 Web Dev website screenshot

Decided to go after the 231 Web Development website rebuild right away in 2020. For the last couple of years I have run a network of WordPress sites using Divi which is an Elegant theme. Truth is the Divi builder was great for a while but it has become a bloated mess. They changed the … Read more

IE Print Text Running Off of Page

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IE Page running off on print

With the Internet Explorer browser I was having issues with the text running off the page when printing to a pdf. It had to do with not having a img {max-width:100%;} within the @media print. There are a couple of different ways that you can accomplish this. I have an odd situation here as this … Read more

Carrierwave Image Upload Validation Error Message Issue

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ruby code carrierwave validation

So I have two models: (area.rb and areaimage.rb) Issue resolved here => area.rb – The Area model has_many :areaimages. The areaimage uploader must exist on area#edit areaimage.rb – AreaImage model – belongs_to :area – I need to be able to upload this on area#edit, and if it fails validation, I need it to display the … Read more

Transfer WordPress site from one server to another

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video screenshot moving a wordpress site

Breakdown/Times for the video Transferring the website Grab backup of files you will need to move Export all content from WordPress (1:50) Grab SQL back-up of original database from phpMyAdmin (2:54) Set-up new database on new server – Create Database user and password and then add the user to the database with all privileges (4:20) … Read more

How To Set-Up WordPress

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WordPress logo blue

The following will be an in-depth article on how to set-up a WordPress Site. There are a few things that you really will need. Really you need a hosting service and a domain to set it up under, beyond that you are golden. I am going to give you a step by step, here goes…

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Responsive Web Design Blog

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231 Web Development old site build

231 Graphics New Blog features Responsive HTML5, CSS3, PHP and Javascript

A couple of months back I went through the 231 Graphics site and did a full on re-design to accommodate all of the different devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Web developers nowadays have to think clearly about the way their sites will look no matter what the screen resolution or aspect ratio.

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Hennessy’s Irish Pub

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hennessy's website responsive build

New Responsive Website for Hennessy’s Pub in Muskegon, MI

I recently got to build a great new responsive website for Hennessy’s Irish Pub and Restaurant located at 885 Jefferson Street in downtown Muskegon, MI. For those that do not know a Responsive Website refers to a website that changes design wise according to the size of your browser. The reason that is important has to do with the average user breakdowns which are in this day and age spread pretty evenly between normal desktop computers, laptops with smaller screens, tablets with even smaller screens and mobile devices which very dramatically in screen size. A true responsive site will look good on each of these, with different aspect ratios as this site does.

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Search Engine Optimization

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Google rankings SEO

231 Graphics – Best SEO in West Michigan?

Just got done running a new ranking report and we are owning a ton of search strings having to do with our industry!

231 SEO rankings for googleSearch Engine Optimization aka SEO is a somewhat tricky thing. There are in fact big differences in white hat and black hat tactics, and the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates by Google within the last two years have changed the industry dramatically. Certain strategies that used to be common practice are now considered to be black hat (Black Hat = Naughty or unacceptable | white hat = all good, no worries).

Today I re-ran a ranking report to see where 231 Graphics and Web Design was sitting, and you will not believe what I found…

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Muskegon Charter Boat Association

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Muskegon Charter Boat Association

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A really cool website for the MCBA a long standing organization in Muskegon, MI.

The Muskegon Charter Boat Association is an organization that promotes the Muskegon area charter boat and sport fishing industry. I recently got to build their new website and I am very happy with the outcome. I did a ground up static build with HTML5 and PHP as well as some Javascript and a pretty cool WordPress integration for the blog area.

Within the main and top navigation I used some really cool mouse over effects with CSS that I have been using a lot lately. They are awesome but they do not work with Internet Explorer (The most hated browser by web developers). I really like the wood grain look of the site, I feel it catches the vibe that needs to be displayed.

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Waves of Hope Michigan

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Waves of Hope Michigan

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A Great New Non-Profit Based In Muskegon, MI

Waves of Hope Michigan is a new non profit organization that is located in Muskegon. The purpose of Waves of Hope is to cover the cost of the Lake Express tickets for patients and their families traveling to distant medical facilities for treatment of diseases. Their goal is to take part of the financial stress off of the patient in hopes that they can instead focus their energy on improving their health and quality of life.

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D bar D Ranch Michigan

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D Bar D Ranch Michigan

dbard-screen-shot-101D Bar D Ranch Michigan is a horseback riding campground located in Chase, MI and one of my newest clients. When I first spoke with Don from D bar D the Ranch was going through a transition and he was ready for a change. They were utilizing a Joomla site that they where not very happy with as it had a lack of user ease and I figured that I had a good way to get him in a better position.

We decided to go with a WordPress CMS, which to many of you is no surprise as I feel these are the easiest to use for most clients. The overall useability and the SEO friendliness of these sites is untouchable. As well as the availability of a bunch of great plug ins makes these website builds a dream.

With D bar D Ranch being a campground what we where needing more than anything was two things. A great event calendar and a way for his clients to be able to book their campsites online. The event calendar was a breeze. There are many options out there. We went with a plug in called Event Calendar which had both a great sidebar widget and an easy to use full page calendar. Piece of cake.

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National Transmission

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National Transmission

national-transmission1

A Transmission Repair Shop in Muskegon MI

I recently got to do a ground up PHP and HTML build for National Transmission, a transmission repair shop located out Apple Ave in Muskegon, MI. When I initially got to speak with Pat the owner, he told me about wanting a new and more personal website based around his automotive repair shop.

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Luxury Michigan Home

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The Lodge 2665 Short Rd. Lupton, MI 48635

luxury-screenshot

A site built around a luxury property being sold by Cabela’s Trophy Properties and Trophy Class Real Estate

I recently got to build a website for Cabela’s Trophy Properties and Trophy Class Real Estate for a luxury property being sold in Mid Northern, MI. “The Lodge” is located at 2665 Short Rd. Lupton, MI 48635 and is 893 acres of pure beauty. Amazing landscapes, multiple buildings and observation shelters.

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Muskegon Tri-Port Challenge

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Muskegon Tri-Port Challenge

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A Muskegon, Whitehall and Grand Haven fishing tournament

I am in the process of building a website for the Tri-Port Challenge. The Tri-Port Challenge is a fishing tournament that takes place in Muskegon, but is unique in the sense that you can start out of ports located in Muskegon, Whitehall and Grand Haven. This tournament has taken place before, but until I was involved did not have a website or an existing logo, so I got to have some fun with this one.

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Armed Forces Salmon Assault

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Armed Forces Salmon Assault in Muskegon, MI

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Annual Fishing Tournament – Web and Logo Design

Just got done with a cool Logo design and ground up static build for The Armed Forces Salmon Assault fishing tournament put on by the Muskegon Charter Boat Association. The 2nd annual event will take place on May 19, 2012, on Lake Michigan. The MCBA and the Salmon Assault board recently allowed me the honor of being a part of something special for our city.

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Muskegon Recreation Club

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Muskegon Recreation Club is the Oldest Social Club in Muskegon

rec-club-screenshotI started www.muskegonrecclub.com in late 2010 and had the honor of building their website from the ground up. The site is built with a combination of PHP and HTML, it has a very sleek website design with clean lines and a great use of contrasting colors. Every month the board of the club puts out a newsletter called the Tattler, which is of course represented on the website. There are links on every page of the website to the club’s Facebook page.

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McCleary Septic Services

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McCleary Septic Service of Muskegon, MI

mccleary-septic-screenshotI recently did a ground up build of McCleary Septic Service, Inc‘s website. This business has been very successful for over 20 years and has not had a website for the last few years. We started off with a clean looking 5 page layout that gives all of the pertinent information for the business along with an easy way to contact them, linked this main website to their Google business page which we needed to claim and add information too, and also built a Facebook fan page.

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Novak Snurfboard

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Novak Snurfboard Muskegon based Snow Surfing Accessories

novak-screenshotI recently did a redesign of Novak Snurfboard LLC’s website. Novak Snurfboards are made right hear in Muskegon. They are made of a unbreakable space glass which will withstand the coldest of temperatures while still maintaining their flexible characteristics. I met Bob Novak recently through a mutual friend and was very happy to take on a re-design of his site. The site was up and running, was structured pretty well. It really just needed more pictures showing of the product and Some graphics added in the header area.

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Website Design Muskegon

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Website Design Muskegon – 231 Graphics website design blog

Website Design Muskegon MI

Website Design Muskegon is a website design blog that I started in the first week of 2012. I started this site for a few different reasons. First off I thought it was really important to show my web design skills using content management systems. This is a wordpress site, utilizing a free skin (Boldy) which is very simple, yet has all of the features needed to create a great web design blog. As you can see by the look of the site, it’s very clean looking with some great social integration.

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