Lynda.com - My new romance
I’d heard the site name many times before and knew it had something to do with some form of techie learning. When I started searching a month ago for quality CSS tutorials, I happened upon the site. What I found was an absolute smorgasboard of very in-depth video tuts on just about every flavor of software and programming languages under the sun. I had previously stumbled upon a free guest pass and though “hey it’s free, guess I’ll see what all the fuss is about.” That was a few weeks ago now and I don’t think I’ve come up for air since! I honestly didn’t expect to invest the cash to become a full member. But now? I can’t imagine NOT having Lynda.com’s enormous library right at my fingertips. And certainly not for just CSS. Whatever down time I’ve had lately has been spent entirely immersed in soaking up every chapter of every program I’ve ever wanted to learn. I’ve had my Adobe suite of programs forever but truly only ever used Photoshop and sometimes Dreamweaver. Flash always scared me to death and now I feel like I can conquer that beast with fun and interesting ease. Illustrator, that beautiful but ever so complicated vector program I swore I’d learn years ago, is now just a few video courses away from knowing my way around it. And don’t get me started on Fireworks. I had no idea it was becoming the norm to design far more in that than Photoshop. Where have I been???
Where are the Photoshop Styles?
I’ve noticed a lot of my search traffic coming from those of you looking for free Photoshop styles. If you traveled your way here in search of my styles collection, fear not. I’ve once again revamped the site and have yet to put them back online. With now well over 800 or so, it’s a daunting task! I’d like to still offer them each as a single download, rather than multiples, so bear with me as I wade through them all. Bookmark this site and I’ll do my best to start sorting and re-uploading them.
When Is Less More?
Well that’s a broad, vague question now isn’t it?
When it comes to necessities like money, food, etc, then less is certainly not more. But when we are speaking of “simplicity”, then a whole new philosophy takes shape. I started this site in 1999, December to be exact, and while it’s sat here collecting dust for several years, I can still think back to my design infancy (and “wince” accordingly)! If I remember correctly, my very first layout for this site consisted of a flower made of diamond images, each “petal” being a menu link. I’m fairly glad now that it’s lost forever to ancient net civilization, but I do still run into a few of my old designs from time to time. What was desirable in 2000, was hideous in 2002 and 2003, and what was popular even a few years ago would be ugly and internet old school by today’s Web 2.0 standards. And while I still adore taking graphical elements and molding them into an artistic colorful masterpiece, there is something to be said about less being more when it comes to design. A few years ago, I had my old blog decorated with a black and white checkered header, with an arty female model showing off equally checkered thigh high socks and funky shoes. I loved it at the time. But times change quickly and what was in fashion then is design faux-pas now.
So Many Browsers, So Little Time
Opera
I started out on the web many moons ago, using AOL and it’s built-in IE based browser, then full on Internet Explorer shortly following. It was not until 2002 that I fell about as in love with Opera as somebody is capable of forming human emotions over a piece of untangible software.
Everyone except Microsoft grits teeth, welcomes Google Chrome web browser
This is satire but a good read!
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Lolcat, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Google has released its own Web browser, Chrome. “We absolutely promise that we only want to completely screw over Microsoft with this, and certainly not Mozilla Firefox,” said Google’s Sundar Pichai. “That we put a pile of our sponsored Mozilla developers on the project is completely irrelevant. We’re not evil, remember.”
Dot Doh! (Domain Tips)
I’ve been domaining several years now and while I claim to be no expert at all, there are some valuable tips to consider when choosing a solid successful domain name.
Domain buying scam alert
A dear friend of mine recently replied to a thread on a well known webmaster board, to a guy looking to buy domains. She PM’d him and he immediately insisted on taking the conversation to MSN Messenger. They negotiated the deal and she sold him two names for $500. The money showed up in PayPal and she transferred the names, as has been done so many other successful times with no problem for her. 20 minutes later she received a PayPal alert that the transaction had been flagged for fraud. Bottom line is she ended up scammed out of both her domains, though PP and GoDaddy are working on it at this time.
FREE Gradients Stolen From My Site For Sale
I was checking my stats a bit ago and noticed a link to an Ebay auction, where my gradients were not only being offered for SALE in a massive Photoshop package obviously including many other ripped items from other sites, but the thief in question did not even think to link to their own server! Here is the auction:
Nice props
I noticed in my stats today a nice visit from the creator of my WP theme, Kong Technologies. By no surprise, his theme is being used all over the place and he was nice enough to list my site and compliment my use of it.
I’m very inspired lately to begin theming on my own. I really have just fallen in love with Wordpress and love it’s functionality. Time to maybe dig in and see what I can come up with.
If you haven’t been to the Kong Technology blog, he’s got some great SEO articles.
Meanwhile I’m knee deep in continuing to sort through my piles of domain names. I sold one of my favorites yesterday, PinkBling.com. No idea what I would have done with it but I hope the new owner comes up with somethin nice.
Wordpress Woes Already?
If you visited earlier today you would have noticed I closed the doors for a while as I tried to sort out a few Wordpress glitches. I recently left my beloved S9Y for my new beau, Wordpress. Needless to say, we all know new relationships can be rocky and boy did we go a few rounds today! I ended up entirely re-installing due to some permalink problems and “undefined” mailto errors. Luckily it was easy to export/import and re-add my database tables from my plugins. While I’m happy to announce the lover’s quarrel is over, I’m not happy to announce that my entire domain portfolio list has to be redone. I’ll be posting more about this later but apparently this is what my Friday night is going to consist of. *Yawn*. I still have to find a decent way to display my design portfolio but one step at a time. Back to the WP back end drawing board!
