Five WordPress Plugins that should be Mango Plugins

As many people already know, Mango Blog is an easily customizable ColdFusion blog engine that provides a way to administer and publish content to websites. It also provides the necessary architecture to extend its basic functionality by adding plugins. While there have already been many great and flexible plugins developed for Mango, the list has a long way to go before it reaches the WordPress plugin directory.

The nerds at Brice Cheddarn are hard at work on several projects, which limits time for plugin development. But, that didn't stop us from compiling a list of plugins we wouldn't mind seeing developed (either in-house or by one of the many CF developers in the world). As such, here are Five WordPress Plugins that should be developed Mango Blog Plugins:

read more...

The Launching of Nile Kinnick

Nile Kinnick played football at the University of Iowa in the late 1930s.  He went on to break many Iowa Hawkeye football records on his way to winning the 1939 Heisman Trophy. But there was more to Nile Kinnick than just football.  And Tom Lidd did an excellent job of telling the full story in his book NILE.

Having discovered this novel one weekend while doing research, I was quick to purchase it. I also wrote a blog post about it on the Iowa Hawkeyes Blog. In that post, I made an open offer to help the author promote and sell the book. As luck should have it, Tom was a reader of the blog and sent me an email stating an interest in my offer.

Over the next several months, Tom and I exchanged several emails and ideas back and forth on how to promote his book. Th overall goal is to have the book turned into a screenplay, so having a web presence could only help acheive that goal. And believe me, this novel will make a fantastic movie.

read more...

The Launching of Hawkapalooza

Our involvement with Hawkapalooza began by feeding an addiction for Hawkeye information. Like most mornings, I was reading Iowa Hawkeye news while waiting for the caffeine to kick in, as I have found this to be the best way to start off the day.

One morning, the student newspaper for the University of Iowa (The Daily Iowan) posted an article about a newly formed Student Committee on Athletics whose purpose was to encourage Hawkeye Pride. The committee had a brilliant idea called “Hawkapalooza,” a pep rally and concert with the goal of the event to drum up excitement before the football team’s home-opener with Northern Iowa on September 5.

Being the web nerd I am, and having a fair amount of domain instinct, I checked the availability of the hawkapalooza.com domain after reading the article. Sure enough, it was still available. I quickly purchased the COM, NET and ORG versions of the domain and then sent an email over to the committee letting them know they were secured.

My purpose in acquiring the domains was not to profit from them or use them as leverage. Rather, it was to assist the student committee and contribute to a good cause. I used my nerdness for good to help support my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes.

read more...

The Launching of Mooney, Wright & Moore, PLLC

The nerds have been working hard for our clients lately, and finally some results are starting to show. Over the weekend, we launched the new website for the law office of Mooney, Wright & Moore, PLLC.

Mooney, Wright & Moore, PLLC is a law firm in Phoenix, Arizona focused on state and local tax controversies. It is a small firm with some very big clients and a very impressive list of representative cases. The attorneys were previously partners in a large corporate law firm, but decided to start their own a few years ago.

Since branching out on their own, they have had just a very basic website in place compliments of GoDaddy's Website Tonight. Realizing that this was not doing the best job of representing their firm, they contacted us about constructing them a quality website. And we gladly accepted the task.

read more...

Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference Wrap-up

The AZ Entrepreneurship Conference was designed to help build the entrepreneurial community in Arizona. It is a way for entrepreneurs and investors to meet each other, connect with resources, and gather information. Some of us nerds attened the event and were very impressed with the people and energy, and that's a hard thing to admit for an anti-social computer nerd.

The format was no different than any other conference, but the energy and optimism floating through the air were. The conference was a refreshing change of pace for this nerd, and for the city of Phoenix as a whole. Despite all the economic doom and gloom headlines floating around these days, it was clear that everyone understood that there was no way to jump start the economy without the people that gathered at this conference and we all accepted that responsibility with open arms.

#AZEC featured several awesome speakers who crushed it in every single way. The first stand-out presentation was by Bill Reichert from Garage Technology Ventures. Bill talked about the 10 rules for entrepreneurs and investors, and I felt compelled to write them down. 1) The point is to Create Value, 2) establish a brilliant team to work with, 3) create a Mantra instead of a mission statement, 4) Get Going; get going as soon as possible, 5) Bootstrap it, 6) have a Global Strategy from day one, 7) be a Fast Adapter, not a first mover, 8) Everyone Sells, 9) Change Takes Time, progress is slower than you think, 10) People Trump Technology. Bill was an amazing source of information, and helped to get everyone pumped early on.

read more...