Nate Covington

"I want to thank you for your excellent work on our new site. We are very happy with the site and excited to have it completed. I can't thank you enough for how flexible and patient you were with us as we had to adjust with all uncertainty, hurdles, and time delays. I know this was not in your plan to work on until July, but thank you for still working with us. Everything was done professionally, quickly, and well. Communication with you was always very easy, and it was a pleasure to work with you on this. You were very organized, gave your expertise and advice, and even helped with designing things after our designer fell through. I would highly recommend you to anyone looking to create/refresh their website. Thank you for everything Nate."

I put this video together to discuss some of the similarities and differences between Joomla, Wordpress, and Drupal.  In particular, I set up some sample content in a "plain vanilla" installation of each platform, and examine the underlying database structure.  Too frequently, I find myself reading peoples' opinions about which of these platforms is better than the other, and I can't help but think to myself, "You're just saying that because you learned (insert platform name here) first." 

If you already have a site built using one of these platforms and want to hire me, I'm happy to play the role of consultant.  If you don't have a site and want to engage me to design & build it, I can do that, too.  (I generally don't find the database structure by itself to be enough of a reason to switch from one platform to the other, but that's also an option if sufficient reasons exist.)  Get in touch today!

[Update 10/27/16: Apple has discontinued this model]

A client recently hired me to set up his new laptop for him.  To make a long story short, he needed a Macbook Pro with a non-retina screen.  He wanted something with plenty of storage space.  He also wanted a solid-state hard drive (SSD).  He also wanted a new computer with a warranty.

My solution?  Let's get started.

First, let's take care of the "oh, but this will void your warranty" argument.  No, it won't.  Here is another article.  In a nutshell, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 states that a company can’t require you to upgrade with OEM parts to retain the warranty.

F.lux
(Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)
www.justgetflux.com

Does the computer screen ever hurt your eyes?  Do you have trouble falling asleep after using the computer? That's because your screen settings are optimized for daylight hours.

f.lux fixes this: it lets you control the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day.  It's better for your eyes and sleep cycle.

uBlock
(Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
www.ublock.org

Too many ads on your favorite websites?  Tired of YouTube video ads?  With uBlock, ads are a thing of the past!

I recently received an email that is referenced in this forum thread.  I was going to post my response on this other site but it tried to get me to sign up for a premium plan in order to post a response.  Instead, I am posting it here:

"Thank you, too, for everything you've done with our site and helping us to get it launched so efficiently.  We are very pleased the look-and-feel, the flexibility we have with content, and how mobile friendly it is.  Thank you!”

- Barry

We built a custom Drupal CMS theme for this site using Photoshop (PSD) files provided by a graphic designer. The layout is responsive (mobile-friendly) so that it performs well on any mobile device and ranks well with search engines:

"Blatt Communications with Nate Covington developed and executed our new B2B website and the entire Axcentria Team is thrilled with the results! The implementation, under a constrained time frame, was executed flawlessly and most importantly, on time." - Paul

We built this site from scratch using the Drupal CMS.  It features a responsive (mobile-friendly) layout for maximum effectiveness and search engine visibility.

We recently received this announcement from Google, they are replacing the "old" reCaptcha system with a newer, smarter, easier to use system.

Many of our clients have asked about adding a reCaptcha anti-spam mechanism onto their site's contact page (get a quote form, etc) and our advice was typically as follows:

1. Avoid adding a reCaptcha field at all costs because it makes it more difficult for legitimate people to send messages through your site.
2. Typically, we start by adding a security mechanism called Project Honeypot onto the site, which blocks malicious visitors based on their IP address. 
3. If blocking malicious IP addresses still doesn't cut down enough on the amount of spam that is sent through the form, then we look into adding a reCaptcha system.

"As a small business owner I struggled to build and maintain a modern and functional website until I was referred to Covington Creations!  Nate has established an infrastructure in Joomla that now allows me to easily and effectively keep our website current and up to date.  During the development process Covington Creations was very responsive and helped explain things in a way I could understand.  I would recommend any business big or small to call Nate for help with their website." - Brad