The Industry Steering Committee of Wellbore Survey Accuracy becomes a Major Resource for the Industry

We are proud to announce that The Industry Steering Committee of Wellbore Survey Accuracy (ISCWSA) is now the place of resource for industry professionals!

The new website design features a marvelous Resource Library where everyone interested in science, engineering, oil & gas, etc., is welcome to seamlessly search and explore the repository of documents.

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Image Graphic for ISCWSA
The primary aim of The Industry Steering Committee on Wellbore Survey Accuracy group is to produce and maintain standards for the industry relating to wellbore survey accuracy. ISCWSA sets standards for terminology and accuracy specifications, and establishes a standard framework for modelling and validation of tool performance by raising awareness and understanding of wellbore survey accuracy issues across the industry.


InVision Offshore Uses Real-Time Intelligence Gathering to Improve Offshore Operations

InVision Offshore worked with the Tendenci team’s branding expertise to deliver a clean, professional website that displays a contemporary and mobile-responsive design to complement the release of their new and revolutionary technology.  

Click here to read more about how InVision Offshore is using real-time intelligence to improve offshore operations.

InVision Offshore, Inc. (“IO”) is a Houston-based joint venture between Trendsetter Engineering, Inc. and Intelligent Wellhead Systems, Inc. that introduces new technology and services aimed at improving the safety and efficiency of offshore drilling, completion, intervention and abandonment operations. 

Our mission is to Connect and Organize the World’s People. Do Good.

The NYSSPE Westchester / Putnam Chapter Unveils Brand New Tendenci Site to Connect Local Engineering Community

Houston, TX — 

The New York State Society of Professional Engineers, Inc. Westchester/Putnam Chapter supports their State (NYSSPE) and National (NSPE) Associations in protecting and promoting professional engineers in all disciplines and areas of practice, with a focus on the local needs of Westchester and Putnam County Professional Engineers.

The Westchester / Putnam Chapter chose Tendenci – The Open Source AMS to help connect local engineers through their events, as well as to provide current and prospective engineers with a wealth of knowledge and resources needed to further their training and education. The engineering association’s new Tendenci website was updated with a fresh contemporary layout to complement their messaging and to provide an engaging mobile-responsive interface to their users in the local engineering community.

NYSSPE-WPC’s new website utilizes many of Tendenci’s CMS features, including an array of Event Types from networking to professional development, to reach their constituents. Their new Customized Forms allow members to apply for sponsorship opportunitiesnominate exemplary engineers for awards, and even apply for scholarships!

In addition, the chapter is able to showcase their corporate sponsors in the Directories Module, as well as incorporating them into the homepage layout, as a way to give thanks for supporting the engineering community.

Tendenci – The Open Source AMS is proud to partner with NYSSPE-WPC on their mission to promote and defend the lawful and ethical practice of engineering, enhance the professional development of local engineers and future engineers, and to preserve and sustain the future of local engineering practices.

We look forward to seeing their positive effects on the local Westchester Putnam County engineering community!

Visit the Westchester Putnam Chapter of the New York State Society of Professional Engineers’ Site 

OUR MISSION IS TO CONNECT AND ORGANIZE THE WORLD’S PEOPLE. DO GOOD.

Dr. Galati’s “Your Health First” Website Gets a Fresh New Look to Promote His Podcast and Book!

Dr. Galati recently launched his Your Health First site upgrade with a fresh, mobile-responsive layout to make his podcasts readily accessible and to cross-promote his practice and his book.  His website’s beautiful new theme was chosen to align the branding sites for his podcast, blog, new book Eating Yourself Sick, and his practice – The Liver Specialists of Texas. This ensures consistent branding, which is key to recognition!

Read more about it here.

Dr. Joe Galati currently has a practice devoted to the care of patients with acute and chronic liver disease, as well as individuals with disorders of the digestive tract.

The Society of Petroleum Engineers – Gulf Coast Section Upgrades to the Latest Version of Tendenci to Support Their Growing Network

 The most active section of SPE International, SPE-GCS has recently upgraded to the latest version of Tendenci software, relying on the feature-rich Tendenci Association Management System (AMS) to deliver a dynamic, responsive online community that serves their members with timely information on events and webinars hosted by the organization.  

Read more about it here. Cheers!

The Society of Petroleum Engineers – Gulf-Coast Section (SPE-GCS) is an internationally recognized leader within the petroleum industry, providing extensive professional development, networking, and educational opportunities to the Houston and surrounding areas since 1935. 

The Brooks Law Group Celebrates Rebranding with a Revamped Tendenci Website

Houston, TX — January 21, 2019

The Brooks Law Group, based in Houston, has offered its expertise in legal and attorney-client privileged consulting services to healthcare providers throughout the country for over 20 years.

As The Brooks Law Group went through the rebranding process last year, they relied on the feature-rich Tendenci Content Management System (CMS) to build a fresh modern look and an engaging interface that makes information readily accessible.

In addition to the fresh, mobile-responsive design, they are currently implementing Tendenci’s groups and newsletter mailing features to streamline the accessability to their legal and consulting services, as well as to disseminate information to individual subsets of clients.

We are proud to partner with The Brooks Law Group as they achieve their vision to provide aggressive representation and creative solutions for home healthcare and hospice providers throughout the country.

View The Brooks Law Group Site Live

Mobile is 65% of Digital Time – comScore

Mobile is now 65% of time spent online leaving the Desktop with a paltry 35%.

ComScore has released their report 2016 US Cross-Platform Future in Focus which is summarized on marketingland.

comscore-mobile-vs-desktop-2016
Comscore Mobile App Report Summary

As marketingland states in their article, it’s not that the desktop doesn’t matter given most commerce still happens there. It is just that the buyers or donors started the journey with a search on a mobile device.

For the designers out there it is official that serving the clients means showing them the site on their mobile devices FIRST.

Mobile first design simplifies the information architecture process and focuses the team on outcomes. Focusing on your end users, the people googling your site on their iphone the vast majority of the time, is a success for everyone.

Mobile first changes the question from the ego-driven and outdated mindset of:

“How does my website look on the giant 4k monitor in the conference room?”

to a results oriented view of:

“Does this site reach our audience on their mobile devices effectively?”

Mobile first has been baseline for years. This data just confirms it once again.

Tendenci Responsive Design
Tendenci Mobile First AMS

Note: Tendenci, The Open Source AMS, is fully responsive across all viewports. If you are on an older version of Tendenci (v5 or earlier) we strongly recommend you talk to your developer to upgrade your site.

What is Software and what is a Theme?

New tendenci modules menu

I’ve gotten a few more questions on upgrading from Tendenci 5 to Tendenci 7. It seems we have been overzealous in explaining the changes at https://tendenci.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and here and here and very extensively here. Perhaps too much info and too technical.

Listening to a client I realized that maybe “geek speak” on my part was part of the challenge. Definitions:

  1. Themes – The “theme” is the visual part of your site that makes you unique. When a major change happens, like the rapid growth in mobile traffic, it is not uncommon to have to purchase or pay to upgrade your theme with WordPress, Drupal or Tendenci.
  2. Software – The “software” stack is all of the functionality below the theme. Open source projects are driven by a community and most modules or add-ons strive to be backwards compatible.
  3. Game changers – sometimes a company like Apple will invent a “game changer” like the iphone. Awesome! Oh, but wait. You can’t write software that works on a device that either didn’t exist or was a tiny fraction of visitors to your site when you first deployed your theme.
  4. LTS Timelines – Who sets the timeline for LTS (Long Term Support) major releases? In Open Source it is driven by the community around a project. Frequently it is a combination of software and “dependencies”.

Examples?

To use a large open source project as an example, WordPress users (like me – my blog is on wordpress) sometimes need to pay to upgrade a premium theme when WordPress does a major release.

WordPress has a theme compatibility checker.
https://codex.wordpress.org/Themes/Theme_Compatibility/

As WordPress makes changes and improvements, sometimes these impact WordPress Themes and their underlying code and use of Template Tags. When a new version is announced, WordPress users are recommended to check the various WordPress Theme Compatibility lists to ensure their WordPress Theme is updated and ready for the new version.

Drupal, another major open source project, lists information on how to upgrade themes to work with each version here:
https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/theming-drupal-8/theming-differences-between-drupal-6-7-8

Tendenci, a much smaller but growing open source project, is doing the same thing for the same reasons. You want a unique brand (your theme) and new functionality (the software) and you’d like it to be as low cost as possible. Hence software updates are “usually” free, it’s just when a “game changer” happens that you need to update your theme.

If you are really curious what is in a theme, there is a great infographic on WordPress themes here.

For more on EOL support on Tendenci 5 you can read this really long blog post. And of course your site will still work if you don’t upgrade, it’s just the Django community has moved on so it’s best to move with them!

Release Process
Django Framework Release Process

Please see this comprehensive blog post for more detail on the Tendenci 5x to 7x upgrade process.

 

web site quality utilities and ideas

Checking your web site for quality is an ongoing task given the number of authors on a given web site. In this post I’m going to link a few of the tools we use to check up on ourselves. And on clients as they author on their sites as well, right? So here goes:

Pingdom Site Speed Checker
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/

Broken Link Checker because the web changes daily
https://validator.w3.org/checklink

Ninja Online Spell Checker – free for up to 5 scans per day
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/online-spell-checker.php

Web Accessibility Measurement Tool
http://wave.webaim.org/

View your site like google sees it using “Fetch as Google”
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6066468?hl=en&rd=2

SEO tests are numerous so you can view this post on hubspot and pick your poison
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33164/6-SEO-Tools-to-Analyze-Your-Site-Like-Google-Does.aspx

Analyze your site offline by making a static copy and searching the folder. We explained this process here:
https://blog.tendenci.com/tag/make-a-static-copy-of-your-website/

Once you have your site in one folder you can use explorer, or finder, or I use sublime text editor to search for content in the files of the entire folder.

find in files with sublime

I do realize there are too many tools out there to list so please google for more. And feel free to comment in the forums if you know of some site evaluation tools that you like. You can register at https://www.tendenci.com/accounts/register/ and post in the forums at https://www.tendenci.com/forums/

Tendenci Templating – we can Improve

Tendenci 4 used basic Dreamweaver DWT files so designers could see everything they were doing. Then we used very strongly typed and very exact html comments along with Python to chop up the template to integrate it with the code.

The benefits were huge in that designers could design, programmers could program. Life was good. Well, almost, there was the whole 2002 use of tables because Netscape and IE were fighting and munged up generated HTMl inside of the script blocks rendered out. Very non MVC but it worked. And it allowed for amazing designer freedom.

Django – Tendenci has been a team effort since 2001 and the big jump came in 2009 when we started the rewrite in fully open source code (old news, I won’t bore you with it, but you can google it.). Django, a web framework written in Python, replaces the custom written framework we built in Tendenci 4 from scratch (hint – avoid writing frameworks from scratch. It makes no sense anymore. Time changes things.)

The problem? Django templates are out of date, they use too much magic (how many times does a designer add a code block and forget the templatetag? Or more common, remove a code block and leave the templatetag out of forgetfulness or fear.

And the worst part – you CAN’T SEE IT unless it is rendered. No more Dreamweaver or any other wysiwyg tools. We take visual people and thrown them into a text based world. For comparison, this would be like coding in Python in Photoshop. It doesn’t make sense.

I wish this post had a happy ending. It is a happy goal. A worthy goal. But the state of affairs with Django and Templates remains stagnant at best as explained here:

https://speakerdeck.com/mitsuhiko/lets-talk-about-templates

We can improve and the future will be brighter when we can just drop in a bootstrap-theme.css file and change our sites as easily as css zengarden.