I’ve been a bit quiet here lately, I’ve not had a lot of time to keep up with reading my ever growing list of RSS feeds or even write much (non-work) code.  But I wanted to take a minute to mention a freelance job I finished recently.

It was a site re-do project for a charity organisation called ‘Lifestart‘, which is a parent co-op helping families with Down Syndrome, Autism or other developmental issues.  This is a great work, because I know, from the experiences of a few friends, just how difficult it can be as a parent of a child with Autism.

From their about us page:

In April 1996, eight families came together with a vision. They believed a better way could be found to support children with intellectual disabilities and developmental delays and their families. They wanted a program that would help parents regain a sense of power. This vision became Lifestart Co-operative Ltd., developed by families working in collaboration with professionals to develop a program focused on the needs and priorities of families.

They wanted a site that could be easily and rapidly updated with the latest news & events, but with also contained a lot of fairly static content about their services and how to get involved.  What has been developed is a modified version of WordPress that has blog content on the homepage, and the more infrequently updated content on the menu.  WordPress is great for sites like this.  The editing interface is very simple to use, with image uploading and re-sizing built in, and an extensible hook API that makes it simple to add in editable content areas within pages, like the blurbs at the top of each of their pages.

I’m really pleased with how this site turned out.  It’s got a very comfortable feel to it, and I love the images in the top masthead.  There are a few different ones throughout the site, all with different drawings done by some of the kids being helped by Lifestart.  If you can help out this worthwhile cause, you can make a donation or your business could sponsor a Lifestart event.

[tags]Lifestart, Charity, WordPress, Autism, Freelance[/tags]

Yesterday the covers came off the newest site I’ve been working on: Andrew’s P.A. Hire. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to do a site from scratch, so I’ve genuinely enjoyed this project. Andrew’s been doing sound & lighting for bands, entertainers and conferences around Sydney & all over Australia for ages, but only recently decided to get an online presence.

The site itself is driven by a slightly hacked version of Wordpress to display the pages and VaamYob’s great Custom Contact plugin. Wordpress makes for a very easy to customise CMS by using the static pages rather than the blog posts to create the content. Then the template system allows for complete control over the site’s design & layout.

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Liquorice has just put live the re-design of David Campese’s e-commerce website Goosestep. Named after his trademark acceleration technique that fooled opponents into thinking he was slowing down when in fact he was speeding up, Goosestep supplies great coffee, Campo’s own line of clothing and rugby memorabilia. If you’re ever in the Rocks, Sydney, drop in for a Campo-chino. Otherwise you can visit Goosestep.com.au and browse and buy to your heart’s content. The Goosestep site runs the custom-built LiquoriceCMS.

This has been a public service announcement for Liquorice Asia Pacific. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.