Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

I’m pleased to announce the launch of TrakAx.com.  TrakAx.com provides multimedia creation software for both the PC and mobile devices, and also sells professionally produced music loops called “trakPacks” to provide the musical backbone for your multimedia creations.

The site runs, as you might expect by now, on ExpressionEngine, and is hosted by EngineHosting.  While most of the site is a fairly straightforward EE implementation (save for a custom query or two), the site includes integration with some 3rd party tools for the eCommerce functionality, the Flash-based playback of the sample MP3 files, and the Lightbox JavaScript for image pop-ups.

The most unusual aspect of this project was working with a very technically savvy client.  Catriona of TrakAx handled all of the content-area graphics, Flash development, loading of the TrakPack content, created the site logo and some of the other site graphics.  Catriona (and the rest of the clan at the family-based business) were ideal clients - flexible and open to suggestions, but knowing what they were after as well.

I have to give props to some skilled people that helped me out with this project:

• Derik Lolli of ShiftDesign did the visual design for the site - doing a far better job than I could hope to.
• Andy Ford of Aloe Studios handled the conversion of the visual design to working HTML/CSS templates
• AJ Penninga of PrettySquares turned me on to E-Junkie which fuflilled the eCommerce requirements of the project.

I also need to give credit to the suppliers of a number of plug-ins, tools and scripts used on the site:

• reEEposition EE Plug-in
• Find and Replace EE Plug-in
• Category Expander EE Plug-in
• Monoslideshow Flash Slideshow
• Lightbox Image Script
• Wimpy Audio Player

And of course I couldn’t very well announce the site launch having never played with the TrakAx software (although it just became available in time for the site launch).  So here is my first shot-out-of-the-box attempt at using it to mix an audio track to provide the background music for some screen captures of the website.  And yes - that is indeed yours truly providing the odd-sounding guitar sounds (Rick Ellis—cover your ears)....

 

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Jim Pannell on September 24, 2007

   A top notch site there Michael - congratulations.

2. Robin on September 24, 2007

   Superb design! I will look forward to feature the site once the shop is up and running.

3. Boyink (Author) on September 24, 2007

   Thanks Guys!

   Robin - the TrakPacks are currently available for purchase.  The mobile device software will be soon.

4. Deron Sizemore on September 24, 2007

   Very, very nice Michael. With it just launching a few days ago…I’m curious as to how it’s already received a PageRank of 3? If you know that is.

5. Boyink (Author) on September 24, 2007

   Hi Deron - Technically it is a “re-launch” as there was a site at that URL there before.

6. Deron Sizemore on September 24, 2007

   I see. That makes sense.

   Got one more question. Do you know of any tutorials for duplicating the neon lines in the header image do ya?

7. AJP on September 24, 2007

   Site looks fantastic. Great job Mike!

8. Boyink (Author) on September 24, 2007

   @Deron: No - those were done by the client.

9. Geof Harries on September 24, 2007

   At what point in the checkout process do you need to send users over to e-junkie.com and was this a concern for you and TrakAx, e.g. re-directing customers to a third party?

   I ask because I’m currently developing a large e-commerce site in EE myself and am curious about your decision, as I haven’t determined the functionality there yet, although I do know PayPal is off the list.

10. Boyink (Author) on September 24, 2007

    The site uses PP for checkout, and users go their once they click “checkout”.  Once the transaction is complete they get a link to e-Junkie with the ability d/l what they purchased.

    If it was a huge concern we wouldn’t have gone that route…;)

    The assumption was that the target audience for the site would be comfortable with PP, and we also thought it was better to start on the simpler end and see what the traffic/purchases were going to be. 

    Better to do that than go spend a ton of hours and $$ building a more contained eCommerce setup and then only sell a few dollars a month.

11. Geof Harries on September 25, 2007

    I completely agree about starting simple and building only what is necessary. But I’m intrigued; If you’re using PayPal for checkout, why not go with the free EE Simple Commerce module instead of e-junkie?

12. Boyink (Author) on September 25, 2007

    A few reasons:

    - e-junkie handles the bandwidth of all the MP3 files

    - e-Junkie was, frankly, easier and quicker to setup than the EE SEM ( love EE, I really do, but I had a heckuva time setting up that module for another client).

    - The EE SEM requires user registration for it all to work properly.

    - e-Junkie creates and sends out the download links that only work for a given number of downloads.

13. Geof Harries on September 25, 2007

    Thanks for the inside scoop. This will help me make my final decision.

14. Catriona on September 26, 2007

    Hi (Catriona from trakax.com here). Geof - it maybe also important to note that e-Junkie allows a variety of payment types (Google Checkout/ 2Checkout / Clickbank / TrialPay). As we are based in Ireland, PayPal has the best international options, but we hope to expand the payment types in the coming months.
    Great to see all the positive comments - Michael did a great job for us.

15. Ty (tzmedia) on September 26, 2007

    Wow, super nice site, somebody needs to build a good “Cool-site-of-the-day” the old one just doesn’t cut it anymore.
    Anyways, this one is really something to sink my tEEth into.
    I thought I was going to be like pulling tEEth to find out how you handled the E-commerce requirments.
    Great work all, plus free software, hot dang, rock-and-roll!!
    ty

16. ty on September 26, 2007

    What I meant above was… this site belongs in a cool site of the day gallery.

17. Erwin Heiser on September 27, 2007

    Pretty slick, Mike, you and your team did a bang up job. Kudos!

18. Robin on September 28, 2007

    Mike, the site’s now featured in our clients page.

19. Boyink (Author) on September 29, 2007

    Thanks Robin - you’ve got some very high profile sites there, it’s nice to see TrakAx among them.

Back to Article