Archive for October, 2008

Getting Organized!

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Well, todays topic is of special interest to me.  I am extremely disorganized person, and it leaks into almost every aspect of my professional and personal life. So now I’m focusing on learning these skills, logic being that if I’m organized, I’ll have more time for my projects! I found this website, and it told me these three principles of organization:

  1. Get it together.
  2. Break it down.
  3. Track it.

I just downloaded a new app on my phone, I’ll have to see if it works for keeping track of this stuff.

On the New Links

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Couple new links in no particular order, first up is Bluehost, my web host.  Here is where the site and my little projects are stored for the most part. They’ve provided me decent service since I first signed up a couple years ago. The site has been through several incarnations since then.

The next is one of several new wordpress links is their Theme Website. I am using this to browse for new ideas and I’ll be referencing other themes from the site as I design my own style for the blog.

Also from wordpress is the codex, a wealth of information on how wordpress works.  I should have been reading through this sooner, I might have made fewer mistakes in creation and implementation of this site.

Similar in nature is the wordpress support forums, another store of information.

Lastly, is not a visual resource in the usual sense of having a refference source, but Alchemy is a downloadable program for drawing that creates a very free form sort of image.  I find this to be excellent for decluttering my head of ideas.

Those are the links, back to some studying!

Technical Resources

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

In regards to the class assignment portion of the blog, I’ve posted 4 Technical Resources and 1 Visual Resource. Today I would like to discuss a recent item on the wordpress blog as well as another matter of interest.

First up, this article from October 1st. I looked over the design document detailing how things are supposed to work in the new version.  I have to say, it looks pretty slick, but I’m not sure how much it will affect this blog. Also, I now know that I need to backup any of the style sheets I edited for this site. Don’t want to rewrite all my code, but I think I’m learning more about how style sheets from all that.

Furthermore, while I’m learning a lot, I don’t think I’ve put enough effort or work into my projects for school. While I will be devoting more time to those projects as well as documenting them on here, I feel I also need to take time for myself.

EDIT: Laughing a bit to myself, as it seems I added my Links into the sidebar the hard way.  I’ve just discovered a links tool in the WordPress dashboard. Lesson learned, work smarter instead of harder.

One for the Creative Team

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Punch. Jab. Thrust.

In drama, we use verbs to help work out a scene, determine how to deliver a line, and determine what we want from our scene partner. I wonder if the same is true of design? It’s been a great morning, trying out new things, updating the blog to the latest WordPress document, I think I’m going to have to figure out how to seperate my current work into a new WordPress Design.  Don’t think I’d distribute, but it would be a good way to practice my skills.

I finished playing around with the Twitter’s down at the bottom for now, I like them, but I think I’ll have to play with some of the settings to get it looking how I want. Should settle it soon enough though.

I want to share with you one of my inspirations, both in life and design:

http://threepanelsoul.com

Long ago there was a webcomic called “Machall”. It was a great comic, filled with college humor, wit, and hilarious parodies of real life. I followed it since it first started way back when, and so I’ve been able to watch the artist grow and develope, experiment with new styles.  It’s kept me going as an artist, kept me interested in always reaching for the next plateau.

Although I do find most other web comics just seem to waste my time (Too much time spent reading them or checking for updates), that one holds a special place in my heart.

“Aha!” Moments of Glee

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Well, I found one of the twitters, figured out how to put in the code, I suppose twitter counts as a technical resource in this one?

http://www.twitter.com/

They give you the code to put into your journal.  Next on the list of projects? Editing the style on this to something that I think suits me a bit better, as well as see if I can integrate it into the style of my up and coming artist selp improvement website.

Furthermore, I found the Time Travelling twitter! My alter Ego will once again have a place below the Regular Twitter. Cherio.

Crazy Happy Morning Fun Time!

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Also known as “Sarcasm and Fun with FTP” (Frustrating Transfer Protocol)

Well looks like the site is updated now.  I was a little bit worried with how many times I had to recopy the entire directory. But eventually it all copied over without corrupting or dropping files, updated the database, and I don’t think there are any bugs… yet.  And it seems I updated just in time, as version 2.7 of wordpress should be out soon.

Technical resource link? WACHOW

This guide got me through this morning, and the instructions are fairly clear (I like coding, but I can be a real meathead at it).

The design part of web design is fascinating.  For me, I’ve always been frustrated with it because I kept thinking I was doing it wrong.  I’ve since learned that there are many styles and methods for design.  Much as there are certain tools we use to make it easier for users or improve interface, these are building blocks that we as designers use to build our sites.

Knowing this has allowed me to approach design with a new confidence and focus.  I’m playing with some ideas for a project I’m working on (A self help website for artists!), but I’m trying to avoid my desire to stick in cool things and really focus on having a clear and concise design to portray the information. While I’m at it, I want to come up with a new style for this blog, so I’m slowly picking my way into php and css.

EDIT: I originally wrote this as a “Page” on the site, much to my terror when I thought it had randomly deleted all my posts. It seems silly now that I’ve cleared it up on my end.

EDIT 2: And I have just noticed my twitter feeds are gone.  Off to find the solution!

EDIT 3: And I can’t for the life of me remember the name of that other twitter, or what email I used for it.