“N” is for Nice
I’ve always been fascinated by handwriting and typography, even from the time I was a little DIYer practicing my nicest D’nealian script in black crayon on my mother’s linoleum floor. (Which, by the way, is how I also learned early on the very sneaky DIY trick of using tulle scraps to remove crayon from linoleum without scratching the surface of the floor.)
And why I don’t completely freak out when my daughter practices her bold strokes of the pen in large purple block letters on a freshly painted wall. (BTW applying White-out over the pen-marks and spot painting the area really is the way to go.)
Perhaps also the reason that when I was loosing my sanity trying to get the Image-Headlines plugin to work for both the side bar and the post titles of one of my sites I didn’t quit. Even though my husband (sweet and supportive creature that he is) tried to assure me that the site looked “nice” I did not quit.
Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I actually managed to get the plugin installed and working, and woke my darling husband (who had by that time abandoned me for the soft comforts of sleep– bless his deserting little heart) to see all the glory that is my sidebar.
“That’s it?” He yawned “Nice.” He nodded and muttered and then went back to bed.
Wait.
Isn’t “nice” what he said about the sidebar before I changed it?
Indeed it was the very same word. Nice. Obviously “nice” is one of those words that changes meaning depending on the gestures and context. It must mean ordinary common “nice” when said wide awake, but when preceded with a yawn I think it means “Wow Wendy that’s totally the most awesome sidebar ever, other sidebars would have to climb a 12 foot ladder just to kiss your sidebar’s fanny!”
I’m pretty sure about this.
Filed under DIY, blogging, goofing off, plugins, site design, website | Comment (1)eat your heart out
Leapfish.com offers free domain name appraisals. So of course I had to feed a few of my domain names into it.
Omnilead.com (yes this site) is estimated to be worth: $15,846.00
I just had to take a screenshot.
Filed under SEO, domain names, website | Comment (0)Sweet clickity thing for the day
What is the clickity thing? It’s a Multi PageRank Checker. Google ranks websites according to incoming and outgoing links, relevance and content, this site lets you check upto 25 urls at the same time to see how Google thinks your site measures up.
DIY blogs and websites using blogs
Drool on our site Quantumspindles.com, we (by “we”– which I imply Matt and I, but I really mean “I”) rebuilt it using wordpress (the same platform that this blog uses) an open source platform with lots of support and many cool thingies (called plugins) that make blogs perform great tricks (like making a super-sweet shopping cart, changing the appearance of the site, generating cool font graphics for titles, anti-comment-spam measures, creating picture galleries and automatically managing ads.)
The more I use wordpress, the more I like it. The support forums are excellent and there are lots of free tutorials, plugins, themes, and advice about using wordpress. Use the free hosting for non-commercial sites or install on any TLD that has mysql and apache (if you have hosting that provides cpanel with fantastico odds are that you can install WP.)
I have to admit that I was using the blogger.com/blogspot.com combination quite happily for quite a while. And while I like the interface and the ease of use (free is an awesome price), I too had problems with losing posts for various reasons, visitors experiencing slow loads, and sundry other small issues.
Filed under DIY, blogging, site design, website | Comment (0)Warning, philosophical waxing ahead
As much as I try to keep my personal politics and philosophy away from my DIY ethics, I find that the two are intrinsically bound together. It warms the cockles of my heart every time I walk past the strawberry starts that we put in the ground two days ago. I feel the brisk purr of excitement when I can salvage an old motor. I am giddy with anticipation when I find a box of old keys or a forgotten package of polymer clay or a stash of vintage fabrics in the back of a closet.
There’s something thoroughly okay with the world when I can stick it to the man with a pair of hand knit socks and a dozen homemade doughnuts.
Back to the point: I’d rather not waste time protesting consumerism and commercialism and slave wages. My time and resources are better spent supporting graciousness and independence, and I don’t think I want to curb that impulse. So I’m going to go with it.
Filed under DIY, philosophy, website | Comment (0)Ah-ha! And fried ice cream.
If you’ve ever had fried ice cream, real fried ice cream, you know that it really doesn’t make sense as a party dessert; it’s time consuming to make, it’s ugly, it’s so lack-luster unimpressive and unassuming. You scoop, freeze, roll, freeze, dip, freeze, roll, freeze, dip, freeze, roll, freeze ad infinitum– and all for a glorious 15 seconds in hot oil and sprint to the table for an ephemeral treat.
Websites are like fried ice-cream, at least at the moment that’s my best analogy. You can tinker with the guts, you can dress up the exterior, you can arrange it all nicely on the plate with a drizzle of caramel, but all too soon it’ll look dated, it becomes burdensome, the edges will sprawl out just a little too much and your guests will question your sanity in serving it up.
I think trying to cover up the melting with whipped cream and cherries is a bit excessive. On second thought– maybe it’s not excessive, just not my style. Instead, I’ll make fried ice-cream again and work on serving it faster the next time, and I take the same approach to websites, the changes are drastic, but I think if it improves the flavor and experience that it’s worth the extra work.
Filed under food, site design, website | Comment (0)