Nur Ahmad Furlong

Blog

Latest Work here at nomad-one.com
The last few months have been really hectic for me as I posted here before with a few setbacks but I’m glad to say I’ve bounced back and things have returned to normal. I’ve completed a few nice little WordPress design projects all with their own interesting twists to them. I’m always amazed at just how many really great WordPress plugins exist to fill in the extra functionality needed.
www.strictlyhalaal.com
The first of them, a site which hasn’t launched yet but is pretty much completed is www.strictlyhalaal.com, which serves as a listing/directory site for “halaal” certified businesses.
Strictlyhalaal.com uses a few great free plugins:
- GD Star Rating allows for users to give each listing a rating.
- Collapsing Categories Plugin created that cool expandable category list on the homepage
- Ad Minister allows you to created widgetized ad spaces to add dynamic ads or content
Next up is Learningcurve.co.za
Learning Curve is a dedicated education technology supplier, representing premium brands such as Adobe, Apple, Dell, Autodesk and Toonboom. This was the first time I have setup an e-commerce website using WordPress and proved to be quite a challenge to begin with but also turned out to be a really valuable learning experience, no pun intended.
To power the e-commerce side fo things I used the wp-ecommerce plugin, which is a really powerful yet free plugin system allowing you to turn your WordPress site into an online store in a few clicks. Customizing the online store’s appearance was a bit of a mission for starters but it’s worth learning the ins & outs of this plugin, developed by the boys at www.instinct.co.nz.
I can’t unfortunately divulge the sales figures for the first 2 months, but lets just say I was more than pleasantly surprised. It’s great to see your work directly benefiting your client’s bottom line, especially immediately after it’s implementation.
Last but not least is Duomarketing.co.za
This is the first time I make use of a Woo Theme to develop a client site. I’m very impressed with what the guys at WooThemes are up to, and even more so when I took a little lookie under the hood of one of their themes. The theme options part is really well done, some of the code still boggles my mind a bit, but it allows the user to easily switch stylesheets for a change of colour and style.
The widgetized areas on the homepage works out quite well also allowing you to add pages into certain block of the homepage layout. The cost of the premium theme definitely adds value to the mix as it allows the client to aquire some really great features for a fraction of the cost of cutom development.
March 31, 2009
A sniff at a nomad-one redesign
Being snowed under for way too long as meant that some of the initial elements I wanted to add to the previous re-design of this site were left out. To be honest the design hadn’t lived up to my expectations form the very begining and has some serious usability problems as well. Having lived with version 4 of nomad-one.com for some time now I think a re-design is definitely way overdue. After pondering over where to start for a while I made a few notes ad a few sketches and dove straight into some look & feel mocks in Photoshop. This time I’m planning to develop something which interprets the nomad concept alot more literally, hopefully with a bit of a digital feel in part.
I’m still at wireframe stage but would appreciate some feedback from anyone out there with regards to the little mockup above and also how you think I should improve on my site based on the current design & layout.
So I need to know about:
Colour, Graphic Elements, Layout, Usability, Readability, Functionality and last but not least, Content, the area I think probably needs to most focus.
March 27, 2009
Vote with your light switch – Earth Hour 28-03-09
The fact that we are in the middle of a climate crisis might have slipped the mind of a few of us due to the economic crisis currently hitting us, so Earth Hour comes along as a nice little reminder while we’re all distracted by all the other challenges we’re grappling with.

2,848 cities, towns and municipalities in 84 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming. – www.earthhour.org
The concept is simple, at 08:30pm on Saturday 28 March, if you’d like to cast your vote for the planet, switch off all your lights and go without electricity for an hour to do your little part for the environment.
March 26, 2009
This morning on Lion’s Head – Breath Taking
I had repost this as the wordpress gallery wasn’t showing the pics for some reason, check these out!
This morning(Feb 18th) myself and a few friends decided to take a job up Lion’s head. We’ve been hiking weekly in various locations but this must rank as the most beautiful morning we’ve seen on Lion’s Head so far.
February 27, 2009
WordPress 2.7 Admin Guide
On a recent project which involved some training on administering wordpress sites, I was required to develop some documentation for using wordpress. The target group had never even heard of wordpress before, so the documentation had to be written in a very simplistic manner. Just thought I’d share it here in case it benefits anyone else, it’s a little rough, though I’m sure some of you might find it useful.
WordPress 2.7 Admin User Guide

February 22, 2009
Feeling a major bout of Hellkom rage right now
I’m sure everyone is fully aware by now of just how bad Telkom’s service really is. I’ve avoided having to rely on them for a long time, but recently moved to an area where my MTN 3G just gets no signal, so had to go through the schlep of applying for a landline etc etc etc.
3 months later, and I have a landline which can’t get adsl, unless someone cancells their contract in my area or Telkom decides we deserve another port a year or 2 in the future. This even after I specifically asked only to process an application if I could be assured that the line would receive adsl access.
You’ve heard of road rage, right now I feel like slapping that sales guy who processed my order and assured me that I would have adsl.
The worst part, even though we have efforts like broadband.co.za and hellkom.co.za there seems to be very little anyone can do to force Telkom to up their game.
February 17, 2009