But of course, I do have a place where I blog. At first I hesitated to join my personal blog with my professional site, but in the end I decided that as writing is something I hope to capitalise on more on in the future, then it only makes sense to link the two.
And in fact, I've just received my first "payment" for some writing I've done. It's very rewarding to be paid for your efforts. In the same way that it's very frustrating to do commissioned work and then not get paid for it.
I guess it all comes down to motivation. It's important to have motivation for your work. And sometimes you need to give other people some motivation in order to pay you. I must present a persuasive argument. But in the end, it often comes down to honesty.
This is a vague and confusing little post, I know. But the upshot of this is that I want to leave you with this: Be honest in your dealings with others. Have integrity in your professional conduct. Avoid people who have neither. And if you can't - and if you don't find out until afterwards, don't let them get away with it.
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Veg-Table is a small enterprise that sells large raised beds for growing vegetables - ala, a vegetable table. They needed a site that would help generate interest and allow for sale via the internet, and would also reflect a professional and yet friendly and "homegrown" kind of company.
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Twitter is my biggest bone of contention. It's like facebook status without the rest of facebook. And what is the point of that? And what seems even more pointless about twitter is that it doesn't make any money at all - despite several rounds of funding - it seems to have no future value. And yet it has millions of users. It seems to me that if it people had to pay to use it, then almost no-one would.
If something has value, then people are willing to pay for it. So in social networking, what exactly is valuable? And is social networking as we know it now aptly named? The main systems that are available place all their emphasis on the individual. That's not really social, now is it. I think that eventually all of these systems will collapse on themselves in a whorl of mindless babble. Something new will emerge from the rubble - something that actually IS social. More on that later.
]]>I've always like moveabletype for its clean and simple administration area, so for a moment I was totally lost and wondering where all the menus had gone! But after a quick browse around I am really enjoying the new layout and the added extras.
I've used moveabletype on quite a few of my clients sites because it gives them a very manageable system that doesn't drown them in features that they don't need. And I like the fact that there is NO html code in the templates unless I put it there myself. So unlike joomla and its nested table debarcle (just try and use relational sizes for a td and see what happens in some browsers) i have total control over how the content is displayed.
The learning curve for mt is quite steep IF you're not already familiar with html and basic markup. But once you are au fait with it, building dynamic sites is a breeze.
I have recently been using drupal for a client, and I have come to the conclusion that either I need to spend another year learning it, OR it should be flushed down the toilet forth with. But I think that my harsh opinion of it is that it's a system for programmers to play with, not designers. I did find some of the management part of drupal to be very un-intuitive, and a bit "bolt on" in aspect. That could be true - it's not often that a system get built from the ground up with the end in mind, now is it.
Joomla, on the other hand - is currently in my bad books for upgrading and making me learn a whole new way of building templates. However I think that there is a glimmer of light in the distance. The changes do seem logical and a step forward. I am only annoyed because I have had to learn it very quickly when I needed to upgrade 3 sites in quick succession.
Even though this is an antiblog, I do have a real blog hidden away somewhere. It gets a new entry once a month or less, and an average of half a comment per entry. But looking at the new moveabletype I am almost seduced into the idea that I could blog. Hopefully I will put that idea away quickly. But if I don't - this system will make a much sexier version of my blog than yuku ever could.
]]>I am sure I could find a way around this eventually, but it's going to stay this way for now. Internet Explorer is the bane of my life when it comes to getting stylesheets working, and now it's decided it wont play with my scripts either.
I spent a good several hours trying to solve some peekaboo bugs, creeping text bugs and shifting/jumping text bugs with a combination of hasLayout tricks. With the styleswitcher I don't have the choice of using conditional comments unless they can apply to ALL styles. Why didn't they create a version of conditional comment that can be used in a stylesheet?
Oh, and the search page is missing the top navigation. I'll fix that :) Tomorrow.
]]>That's something we've seen so little of this summer - and last - that I am beginning to wonder why on earth I am still living in this country. Winter is wet and sleety (without decent snow) and summer actually forgets to arrive. Where are the upsides?
Two weeks of normal work/school and then we're again off for a week. This will be our real vacation. We'll be in Tuscany for a week with my parents. I have put an advanced request in for sun for this week. As we'll be in Italy rather than England I am far more hopeful!
I have been working a lot more over the holidays than I expected, including working on some potential government work for a pitch with another agency.
I've got a lot to get through in the next two weeks, then after our week off I'll be taking another week off following surgery. So if you've got anything coming up do let me know, but I won't be free to take on new work until the first week of October.
That's almost the truth. Add two days childminding a week to let me take care of business, and it's not a bad season. So I am not taking on any new work, and that which I am doing will be mostly dealt with on Tuesdays, Thursdays, weekends, and most nights. I feel justified to add a few little curative glasses of shiraz into the mix though. I hope you don't mind.
I want to find time during this so called holiday to write, as I am letting that slide despite my best intentions. My protagonist has found herself trapped in a storyline cave and the exit is in focus, but the steps that lead to it are unclear. A few days with 6 expresso's inside me might help. I considered going to my local deli/cafe with the laptop, but that presented two problems. One, the battery lasts for less time than toothbrush timer, and two, the lady proprietor is too chatty.
So that's me and August. See you in September.
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Foodanddrinkphotos.com is a stock photography site that specialises in food and occasion photography. The successful site needed an updated look that would steamline its functions and reflect the high quality photographs with a highly polished site.
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