Update : It's Windy here in Colorado Springs.
And there are changes in it. The wind, that is. The first of which is changing my site's feed over to feedburner.com. There's a button at the top left of the page below my bio that you can use to subscribe. Much like my dad and DVD players, I've thought the idea of feeds was nifty but a bit too newfangled for me. On the old blogger I had set up a feed button, but it was just something I put there. I had no solid idea what it did, how it worked or why I'd want to take advantage of feeds myself. I'm older than I thought. Where's my Metamucil, galdarnit? No. Seriously. I think I might need to start taking it before it's too fucking late. That and other old people preservatives.
Yesterday a book I'd ordered arrived from Amazon:
If you click the cover it'll take you to the home site of the book where you can get more of an idea what you'll find inside. Alternatively, here's a direct link to the Amazon page. When I bought it last week the price was $8.95, down from $14.95. Now I see the price has risen to $10.17. Odd, that. I wonder if it's slowly rising to full price? It just came out on June 12th, so the discount might be a temporary thing.
I really cannot recommend getting this book enough. I'm only 45 pages in and I've already learned quite a lot. Like about feeds. How they work, why they're important, how to set them up, a good aggregator to use (if you're on a Mac, the author recommends Shrook, for Windows users: FeedDemon), etc. I'm positive I now know more about feeds than my dad knows about DVD players. Of course, feeds aren't all this book is about. You can check out the table of contents if you go to the Amazon link and click "Search inside this book" (top left, under the picture).
Something else covered in the book in the section about blogs was to write about what you enjoy. Direct quote: "The cardinal rule of blogging is to write about things that fascinate you." Lately I haven't been doing that. Heck, I've barely been posting at all since 2005. This is partly due to the fact that I have no idea what the people who come by my site are looking for. So, rather than try to figure it out anymore – or even worry about it – I'm just going to post something every day. Something I enjoy. If you enjoy it as well, fantastic! If not, come back tomorrow. Unless it's Friday or Saturday; I won't likely be posting then.
Another change is going to work in conjunction with feeds and writing about what I enjoy. I'm going to develop one-to-two-word categories that each post is going to fall within, and it's going to lead the title for the post. So, if you've subscribed to the feed for my site and you see the post title for that day is "Games : What I'm obsessed with today." and you have no interest in games, you can skip it. If it's "Video Tutorial : Vector vs. Raster in Photoshop, why Vectors kick ASS!" and that's more up your alley, you'll be able to read/view the entire thing in your feed reader without ever having to stop by the site. But by all means, if you have a comment that you would like to leave after reading any of the posts in your reader, stop by.
Yet another, more distant goal, is to set up an actual, honest to Cthulhu web site where I can doooooo things. What things? Shiny things. I need to find out if the domain I registered through Yahoo (www.fizzleandpop.com) is tied to Yahoo, or if I can use it at another web hosting service. I'm considering getting an account at laughingsquid.net. I'd possibly be willing to host through Yahoo, however every hosting package I see that they offer requires building the site through their templates and I want my site to be all custom, baby. You see, for my job we're having to learn web design pretty much on our own. It's slow going; at least it has been for me. So if I have my own site upon which I could inflict my developing "mad dope skillz", it might help speed the learning process and maintain my motivation. Having my own site would also mean I could make things available that I currently can't, like Photoshop Actions, Brushes and Shapes, or working PSDs that I use in video tutorials so that you all can play along. Stuff like that. It's what I really want to do and I think it'll be fun. I hope you guys will enjoy it too.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow.
Yesterday a book I'd ordered arrived from Amazon:
If you click the cover it'll take you to the home site of the book where you can get more of an idea what you'll find inside. Alternatively, here's a direct link to the Amazon page. When I bought it last week the price was $8.95, down from $14.95. Now I see the price has risen to $10.17. Odd, that. I wonder if it's slowly rising to full price? It just came out on June 12th, so the discount might be a temporary thing.
I really cannot recommend getting this book enough. I'm only 45 pages in and I've already learned quite a lot. Like about feeds. How they work, why they're important, how to set them up, a good aggregator to use (if you're on a Mac, the author recommends Shrook, for Windows users: FeedDemon), etc. I'm positive I now know more about feeds than my dad knows about DVD players. Of course, feeds aren't all this book is about. You can check out the table of contents if you go to the Amazon link and click "Search inside this book" (top left, under the picture).
Something else covered in the book in the section about blogs was to write about what you enjoy. Direct quote: "The cardinal rule of blogging is to write about things that fascinate you." Lately I haven't been doing that. Heck, I've barely been posting at all since 2005. This is partly due to the fact that I have no idea what the people who come by my site are looking for. So, rather than try to figure it out anymore – or even worry about it – I'm just going to post something every day. Something I enjoy. If you enjoy it as well, fantastic! If not, come back tomorrow. Unless it's Friday or Saturday; I won't likely be posting then.
Another change is going to work in conjunction with feeds and writing about what I enjoy. I'm going to develop one-to-two-word categories that each post is going to fall within, and it's going to lead the title for the post. So, if you've subscribed to the feed for my site and you see the post title for that day is "Games : What I'm obsessed with today." and you have no interest in games, you can skip it. If it's "Video Tutorial : Vector vs. Raster in Photoshop, why Vectors kick ASS!" and that's more up your alley, you'll be able to read/view the entire thing in your feed reader without ever having to stop by the site. But by all means, if you have a comment that you would like to leave after reading any of the posts in your reader, stop by.
Yet another, more distant goal, is to set up an actual, honest to Cthulhu web site where I can doooooo things. What things? Shiny things. I need to find out if the domain I registered through Yahoo (www.fizzleandpop.com) is tied to Yahoo, or if I can use it at another web hosting service. I'm considering getting an account at laughingsquid.net. I'd possibly be willing to host through Yahoo, however every hosting package I see that they offer requires building the site through their templates and I want my site to be all custom, baby. You see, for my job we're having to learn web design pretty much on our own. It's slow going; at least it has been for me. So if I have my own site upon which I could inflict my developing "mad dope skillz", it might help speed the learning process and maintain my motivation. Having my own site would also mean I could make things available that I currently can't, like Photoshop Actions, Brushes and Shapes, or working PSDs that I use in video tutorials so that you all can play along. Stuff like that. It's what I really want to do and I think it'll be fun. I hope you guys will enjoy it too.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow.
Comments
You're getting too advanced for me, it's scary!
Seriously tho, that's a banging idea. PLEASE let me know when you decide to do it and I shall be there with bells on.
I need SO much help right now. You must kinda be the same with the new web thing- you get a load of new stuff and then realize you know absolutely bugger all!! Ok, maybe it's just me!!
I'll be sure to sign up anyway and hopefully all this new stuff will help you find your mojo again too so everyone wins!!
Thanks by the way for the email. It had a lot of helpful stuff in it. I felt very clever when I asked what the purpose of a recent logo task was because I would need to render the image in RGB or CYMK. Gosh, I rocked!! Those acronyms have always been a touch greek to me and I just use the mode that looks the nicest!!
Anyway, I promise i'll reply but I have a few additonal questions and I thought it best to take a proper look at InDesign before bugging you with things I may be able to answer for myself.
OOh, quick poser for you... so if I have a spanky sharp JPG and I want to import it in to a PSD in progress, why does it come out all crooked?? I had to do this for work and the JPG ended up with really rough edges.
Well, back to it. Sorry, this is a bit of an email isn't it. :D
I'll be in touch soon, I can;t wait for the new vids too, the curves thing especially will be really useful and Vectors vs Raster- yes please. I only just learned what a vector is. I always though a raster was a man with dreadlocks that smoked a lot of weed.
Thanks, Collin- aka Yoda. You rock!!
Take care,
~Nate.