I am not accepting any new web design or development projects; I apologize for any inconvenience.
For questions regarding Sakeena, I am sorry for not responding but I will soon publish some FAQs on the theme and hopefully that will answer a lot of your questions! Thanks for all your wonderful comments!!Sorry for the state of this site – I am doing a live redesign…
I am not accepting any new web design or development projects; I apologize for any inconvenience.
For questions regarding Sakeena, I am sorry for not responding but I will soon publish some FAQs on the theme and hopefully that will answer a lot of your questions! Thanks for all your wonderful comments!!
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From Problogger – “Win two 20″ LG USB monitors from DisplayLink in the Birthday Bash Giveaway!”“Problogger”:http://www.problogger.net/ is celebrating! And with the celebrations come $54, 000 worth of prizes!!
Each prize has a different method of entry, and they are usual fun and simple. I am entering for two 20” monitors, because ummm, who couldn’t use that?
If you would like to enter, you have until tomorrow morning, so get to it!!
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As a designer, I love the abundance of inspiration and creativity that I get from crafting websites, and every once in a while there is a really interesting project. Here are a couple.First is an Open Source Embroidery project called The Html Patchwork.
I just love this one! You can read about it at Craftzine
The second is an interesting piece of technology that I’ve never heard about before, called Arduino and I may be fascinated by it because of my electrical engineering background.
You can also read about this one at Craftzine and I think it would be fun to start a project using Arduino!
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My first ever WordPress theme! I designed it as part of the “Sandbox competition”:http://www.sndbx.org/!
Download Sakeena from the Sandbox Competition site.
Sakeena is a very simple and elegant theme. The thumbnails at the top can be feed from a Flickr stream, so that they can be the users personal images.
I decided to enter the competition because Sandbox is a really great theme to work with, and although I don’t know Scott, I think I like him! You see, back before the competition was announced, I thought of building my first free theme and I decided on Sandbox as the base, I then emailed Scott to ask what he preferred in terms of linkage, I was pleasantly surprised when I got a thoughtful and helpful answer almost right away. I am even more impressed by the way the competition was conducted, I really appreciate the time and effort that went into both the theme and the competition.
More details on using Sandbox in an up-coming post, but for now, you can check it out here: Sandbox Theme
Sakeena is technically available for download, but since I did put it together in a day, it is missing a few key styles, so I will be working on a slightly modified version for a public release after the competition is over.
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My first publicly released theme ever! Although I am set to release my first WordPress theme at the end of the month, I am really excited that my first theme is for Textpattern, because it is the first content management system that I used and completely loved.When I first started blogging, I started with a self-hosted version of WordPress and although it was extremely easy to use and quiet robust, I just felt very restricted by it’s limitations. This is not to say that I don’t like WordPress, in fact I love it, and I often develop for WordPress, and my first WordPress theme is due to launch in 2 weeks, but I just felt 100% more comfortable when I started using Textpattern. Textpattern is a really powerful and flexible content management system, much like ExpressionEngine, but clearly not as beautified.
I do however, love the simplicity of it’s control panel, and the built in Textile, which really is beautiful and ‘humane’! One of the biggest benefits is the easy of creating multiple weblogs and feeds, this feature essentially allows the user to run multiple blogs from the same install – very cool and convenient. If you haven’t experimented with Textpattern, and you’re a code-friendly kind of person, I strongly suggest giving it a whirl.
Life for Textpattern
A very simple, but easy to customize theme. The style sheet is separated so that the ‘skins’ or color scheme is controlled from one style sheet, while the layout is controlled by another.
You can see it in action or download the theme, and as always, feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
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I have learnt that directly asking a client what they want often leaves me without clear direction, and it’s because a client knows what they want to ‘gain’ from having a website and what they want they visitors to ‘experience’ while on their website, and they ‘expect’ that their web designer is going to know how to put it together.I like to think that the thing I do best as a designer is ‘read’ my clients, you know, give them exactly what they want. When I am working on a design, I will usually keep every bit of information that I’ve collected about the client in my mind… from my first interaction with them to every email, every conversation, and every remark about other designs.
My design process is not a complicated one and I believe that my clients appreciate the simplicity of it. My clients generally have an idea of what they want their website to look like… not in the same way that a design-oriented person would know… but in sort of an obscure, abstract way.
I have learnt that directly asking a client what they want often leaves me without clear direction, and it’s because a client knows what they want to ‘gain’ from having a website and what they want they visitors to ‘experience’ while on their website, and they ‘expect’ that their web designer is going to know how to put it together.
Every designer has her own method… mine consists of just one initial draft. A long time ago, I did about 3 initial drafts and made my client choose one on which to base the design, but I found that clients were often confused because they liked certain elements of each design, but were not sure how to articulate to me what those elements were. Now, I send just one initial design because usually people are able to easily tell you what they don’t want! I really believe that it’s simpler to describe what we do and don’t like when we have an example to work from, rather than trying to explain a concept without the aid of visuals.
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Clear, measurable goals may be the number 1 most important step to success, but is it often overlooked? Or is it just me? Because I really didn’t have any clear goals for my blogs or my business!Note: In this article, when I refer to ‘my blog’, I am referring mostly to my motherhood blog, Adventures in Motherhood by Shaz
Back in university, I remember doing some business management courses where we discussed goals at great length, but somehow when I actually started my own blogs and business, it never occurred to me that I should actually define a quantifiable set of goals for myself.
One of the first things that Shoemoney discussed with me was my goals, or lack thereof – it was essential, he said. After that, I set about writing out some goals for my key blogs and my web development business, but still, I think I didn’t do enough. Then, yesterday, I started Wendy’s ecourse and the first assignment were to define goals!
It kind of clicked when I read her instructions –
What is the ultimate outcome you want your blog to achieve? 3 years from now, or even 10 years from now, where do you want your blog to be in terms of traffic, career opportunities created, impact on customers and readers, and/or revenue generated? Are there other results that are important for you to achieve?
I think I was struck most by this statement because it really made me look into the future and think about what I wanted to be, or what I wanted my blog to be, mostly I starting thinking about what kind of impact I wanted to have on my readers.
My motherhood blog started off because, ironically, I was looking for a way to make money at home and I bought into the whole ‘blogging=easy money’ myth. But, as it happened, about a week into it, I realized that I completely adored blogging, and about a month into it, I realized that there was no way that I was going to be making any money! I spent the next 10 months becoming friends with the most unexpected people, and being part of the most amazing communities, and although I didn’t make a $1, I still loved every moment of it!
In the past couple months, I have started getting a tiny income from my motherhood blog, thanks to Text Link Ads and now I am in a position to become a little more business-oriented with the blog – as a first step, I am going to define some of my goals, and really put a lot of thought into what I want my blog to evolve into, or what purpose I would like my blog to serve. What I know for sure is that I want it to be helpful to parents, especially moms, it’s not a place that I rant, but I try to convey my stresses and strategies as a mother, and I know that if even one mother derives some benefit from my words, then all my effort has been worth it.
What makes your blogging efforts worth it?
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Contests people! Hard to resist, even if you know that there are more awesome and creative souls than you! Well, than me! Join in the fun!
First is the Sandbox Designs Competition because I was going to use this theme as a base for a new free WordPress theme anyways…
And
The TAKE CREATIVE LICENSE ADOBE STOCK PHOTOS DESIGN CONTEST or the “mashup” contest, which I may or may not enter, depending on how inspired I feel, although, I know I am not that good!
Wish me luck! And good luck to those entering as well!
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The saga of breaking ties with my first love, textpattern and moving to my new love expression engine. Seriously, it is that dramatic! You know, for me at least.I only recently declared that I would not consider moving from textpattern and at the time, I had given some thought to leaving textpattern, but decided against it. I love the control panel, I know that it’s not for everyone, but I completely appreciate the simplicity of it.
I also love how easily I could create new blogs, customize my RSS feeds, and use textile, but I can also do all of these things with expression engine as well, and truth be told, I can do it better! Still, it’s sad.
The main reason that I decided to make the move was the new version of expression engine, with an awesome “multi-site” feature, which allows users to run multiple sites on the same install. I have to say, I am so completely in love with ExpressionEngine 1.6, it is a work of art!
So far, I have imported my motherhood blog articles, thanks to ee community support and Lisa Wess! I have to import my food blog posts still, and then work on the design, and figure out how to setup the domain. I will be also moving this blog, so that all my 3 core web properties would be managed from the same control panel. I think this will save me a lot of time.
I’ll give more details of the move once it is completed.
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I collected my prize from Wendy last night, it was an hour long conversation with her and Shoemoney aimed at helping me grow my online business. It was eye-opening to say the least.I collected my prize from Wendy last night, it was an hour long conversation with her and Shoemoney aimed at helping me grow my online business. It was eye-opening to say the least.
At some level I felt undeserving of the prize because I am hardly an internet marketer and I think I may have sounded like a complete dork because I really didn’t know what questions to ask! But they were great to speak with, and certainly gave me a lot to think about.
It was a very interesting experience having experts critique my online business strategies, or lack thereof! Some of the projects that I thought could possibly be a good source on online income turned out to be not-so-great ones, and surprisingly the projects that I am doing just out of love were the ones that they both thought had the potential to succeed. I got some really good ideas to make the things that I am already doing more successful, and also a lot of general tips.
The most important things for success, according to Shoemoney are:
- Measurable Goals
which are essential for any project, a set of quantifiable goals so that you know if you are succeeding - Plan
have a strategy, know how to achieve your goals - Make progress everyday
this one is key for someone like me, because it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, which can be really counter-productive, so focusing on a little progress everyday makes things seem a bit more manageable
And for online businesses:
- User Acquisition
- Scalable Projects/Technology
- Focus on New & Future Technology
Wendy had awesome ideas for my personal online pursuits, which I will be blogging about in the coming weeks, as I start implementing them. It was a great opportunity, thanks to Wendy!
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