Erik Olson's blog

Migrating to Drupal: Zen Cart to Ubercart

Erik Olson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:32:08 +0000

Well, we finally put the foot down with some of our clients who are clinging to their aging Zen Cart sites this past month, and convinced several to pack their bags for the bigger and brighter lights of Ubercart. There were a couple of reasons for us to open up this can of worms, but as I would come to find out, it definetely pays off in the end.

How to Make a (un) Useful Travel Website

Erik Olson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:36:04 +0000

Planning a vacation is tough. Between the pain of finding a hotel or final destination, booking an airline, and locating information on things to do, one could spend days online surfing from website to website searching for items that may or may not be correct and/or relevant.

Isn't a vacation supposed to relaxing? Shouldn't planning and booking a vacation be as relaxing?

I think so.

Make Me a Static Website!

Erik Olson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:45:26 +0000

"I just want a simple, static website."

OK. Why?

"I don't want to spend the extra money on a CMS. I don't have time to manage a site. I don't know HTML. I just want something quick."

OK.

I've had this conversation more than I'd like to admit over the last couple years. Luckily for me and them, very few people leave Freelock with an actual static website.

And heres why:

Making a Tourism Site in Drupal (and the Lessons to Learn)

Erik Olson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:15:35 +0000

When the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission came to Freelock Computing to convert their static HTML site into a newly designed, Drupal-driven CMS, I'm not going to lie, a few drops of drool fell from my mouth. We tend to label ourselves a little outdoorsy and most of us love to travel, so the opportunity to design and build a website in our neck of the woods that we could not only explore new methods such as Geo-mapping but also actually use as normal visitors was exciting.

Is Your Business Ready for a (non-Twitter) Community?

Erik Olson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:13:36 +0000

After receiving multiple requests for a follow-up to my anti-Twitter rant a few months back, I've decided to try and do just that. While my overall position on Twitter has not changed one bit, I have been closely watching the Tw-efforts of many businesses as they attempt to turn Tweets into cash.

So what did my investigation yield?

A Crossroad in the Future of Drupal

Erik Olson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:48:25 +0000

As the dust begins to settle across the tech industry from the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems by rival Oracle, a number of projects in the Open Source community, including Drupal, will have major strategic decisions to make that could deeply impact their future success.

Is Anyone Else Tw-ired of Twitter

Erik Olson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:40:43 +0000

I consider myself a pretty tech savvy kid, you may even call me a mid-term adopter of all things tech. But there is one project that has offended me more over the past few months that has finally pushed me to post a blog against it.

The name of this evil project you ask: Twitter.

[OO]pening MS Office

Erik Olson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:33:48 +0000

So one of my biggest issues with using Open Source technologies here at Freelock comes with perhaps the easiest task most business people do on a day to day basis, and that is using a piece of office productivity software and sharing it with someone else. Long description made short, I can't simply whip up a document and send it to a client.

Small Business, Big (missed?) Opportunity

Erik Olson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:39:54 +0000

On my drive to work, I see businesses up for sale, big stores closing left and right, and people looking for work on the corners. Every night, the news hours tell stories of companies laying off thousands of employees, and we listen to the difficult stories told by friends and family members who have lost their jobs, are about to lose their jobs, or can't seem to get hired.