When designing the website for Lushes in Love, I set out to use all the amazing features available to those browsers that implement CSS3, but aimed to provide a viewing experience that degraded gracefully when viewed in Internet Explorer and older versions of other browsers.
I wanted the blog to remind the viewer of neon lights and classy bars. Read on…
I made just one New Year Resolution, though I accompanied it with a long list of my 2011 priorities and the vow to get through them all:
Change all my passwords. Twice. And make them secure.
They say that you should change your passwords every six months. Changing my passwords always feels like such a drag. You took the time to learn the first one, and now you have to go and learn a new one all over again? And with the ridiculous number of accounts that you can have all over the internet–such a drag!! Read on…
I spent some time today editing photos from our trip last weekend to Greenville, California, and was excited to post about them.
I included in the post a little plug for this WordPress plug-in called Shashin that allows me to insert Picasa web albums in posts I write. I’ve used it in a blog post here or there to quickly add a bunch of photos.
The software that you run on your computer that goes with Picasa web albums (also called Picasa) allows you to easily look through and edit the photos on your computer. My favorite part is how it allows me to upload my photos to the web in one click. You can set an album of photos to be viewable by invitation, everyone or no one. Read on…
I haven’t upgraded my television. It works fine and my environmental nature winces whenever I consider trading up for a modern, wide-screen version.
Ever since the digital switch I’ve noticed that my shows are cropped badly. The Daily Show is obviously not framed correctly–I regularly miss meaningful gestures of John Stewart’s left hand. We straight up miss jokes on American Dad and the Family Guy because they occur in that region of the show that only wide-screened TVs include.
The other day, I noticed that we were even missing out on part of Jeopardy. In some shots, two out of three of the contestants were practically cut in half! Read on…
I started out with one twitter account: @jennifer_heller. I think I’ve had it for a little over two years and it’s only within the past year that I’ve started enjoying using it at all. I’ve heard others share a similar experience: it takes some time, but it’s addictive as hell once you get into it. I can attest to that, but as someone balancing many competing priorities, it’s hard to prioritize reading hundreds of tweets a day. Especially since I’ve steadily added other twitter accounts to my list.
When I launched Van Gogh My Pet in the second half of 2009, I added a second twitter account: @vangoghmypet. This one, I thought, would concentrate on my pet and art related thoughts and would attract a different variety of people than @jennifer_heller. It seems to work; @vangoghmypet is on 42 pet and art related lists and my followers have steadily grown.
This graph of Van Gogh My Pet tweets verses website visits suggest that the tweets have very little if not nothing to do with increasing visits.
When I decided to brand my design and communications work as Artsy Geek Designs, it was a natural progression to add another twitter: @artsygeekdesign. Here I would tweet about my geeky subjects–web design, coding, communications. And maybe some art. Hey, @artsygeekdesign and @vangoghmypet can overlap a little right?? A further reason for separating @artsygeekdesign from @jennifer_heller is that I fully intend to expand and work with others in this business. They should be able to tweet from the business too!
I made the decision a few weeks ago to consolidate all my blogging here at www.jenniferheller.com. Believe me, I do not miss maintaining a blog at Van Gogh My Pet, and I can say with 100% certainty that I am not sorry I didn’t add yet another blog on at Artsy Geek Designs.
This January, Will and I are launching Lushes in Love, our new blog devoted to our endless love and appreciation for cocktails. You can check out the design–I put it up over the weekend, but we have yet to move in. I’ve already signed us up for a twitter: @lushesinlove and tweeted something like five high quality tweets. Thankfully, Will will also have to help with the @lushesinlove tweeting, but this addition marks my fourth twitter!
Who wants to follow a long-ass stream of nothing but links? Do you??
Perhaps it would be best to take a cue from my decision to simplify my blogging and simplify my twitter? One twitter, four subjects… perhaps that would make me a more interesting person to follow in general?
Perhaps I should embrace the robotic future of twitter and create automated twitter robots for all four… That just isn’t my style though. I believe in sincere, honest communication. When I notice that someone I follow is being a twitter-bot, I immediately unfollow.
So what to do? Nothing? Consolidate? Automate?
Oh, the problems associated with living a life on the internet. I’d appreciate any sound advice please!!
(This post could also be titled “How many Facebook pages are too many Facebook pages?”)
I spent yesterday updating Van Gogh My Pet for the holiday season.
Van Gogh My Pet was the first website I used the awesome Thesis theme for WordPress as the basis for the design.
Back then, the reason I chose Thesis was because it allowed the customizations that I make to the theme to be stored in only two files in just one directory. This makes my design invincible to updates to the theme and WordPress. Read on…
I have had some tough clients. People who want to move the logo over one pixel, just to discover that browsers render elements differently so even though it’s perfect in Safari, it is not just so in Firefox.
I am well versed in the frustrations of cross-browser design, and spend many hours a week cursing Internet Explorer’s very existence. But that frustration does not compare to how frustrating it is for me to design for me. I am my own toughest client. Read on…
I wrote when I was a younger person about my two Three Hundred Dollar Mistakes.
Since then, I have made a number of other Three Hundred Dollar Mistakes, due mainly to my dutifully trusting instincts. Every time I make one, at least I get to laugh about adding it to the Three Hundred Dollar Mistakes list (sort of the opposite of a Bucket List, eh?). Read on…
Will has been playing a lot of Mario lately. Another development around is that he got a blog, agreed to a domain name and let me customize it! I’ll put a link at the bottom of the post** so that I don’t lose you quite yet.
In other news, the Guster is considering secondary education:
And has been for quite some time. I told him that school already started and he needs to get there if he’s actually going to go (he’s been threatening it for years), but he keeps claiming mono or other such sleep-related illnesses.
But that’s neither here nor there, and this post is about Super Mario World, and its annual presence in my life. Read on…
I’m in the habit of noticing what’s happening at the car wash down the street. I walk past it at least a few times each week and once in awhile a car will catch my eye. It’s a popular self car wash; I’ve seen the local Organic Falafel Truck there (though unfortunately not open for business), taco trucks, old cars, major beaters, limos…
Today’s Mog Car really took the cake. People were crossing the street to talk to the two car washers. You couldn’t walk by and not talk to them. I asked them what it was made of; I could not believe that they were washing a carpeted car at the car wash, and, indeed, it is made of a carpet-like substance. The fellow I spoke to didn’t remember what the material was called. He suggested that I might want to touch it, but I have spent enough time touching wet carpet as a Super Sponge Saleswoman to want to volunteer my fingers for such a task.
One thing was clear: people were noticing the mog.com vehicle. Despite the fact that the car didn’t seem to resemble any actual thing, or have a domain name that means much to the American psyche. 
But we’re used to being inundated with random letters strung together to represent internet concepts, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It turns out it’s a subscription music app. Any fans out there leave a comment and maybe someday I’ll give it a try. But only if they support Android phones. If nothing else, mog.com gets a gold star for a great marketing ploy.
I hate Comcast
so - I wanted to chime in and tell you the story about why I am returning Comcast to itself this weekend, giving up the wonderful world of Two and a Half Men Marathons, and Real housewives of EVERYwhere. So I did a little search to see if others feel as strongly as I do about Comcast's SUCKass user interface. Being a designer, it BURNS my retinas to look at this navigation screen for any amount of time. In my little google search, I stumbled upon this (organic search result for "comcast user interface", btw)... http://www.jldcreative.com/blog/Why-is-Comcasts-onscreen-guide-user-interface-so-awful-bd.html I couldn't have said it any bett...
Who's the Awful Roommate? Smitty Flies Off the Handle
Wow! I would never take that approach, so my initial thought is "too much!" but if it worked... hmm... maybe it was just enough? When I lived in England and shared a kitchen with 8 other people, one of my flat mates used my (only) pot while I was out of town. They completely ruined it and left it filled with rotting food. I came back to my flat with pneumonia and just wanting some soup, but couldn't even make soup. I left a whimpy note (very similar to Friend's Ross Gellar "Keep your mits off my grub") that never got my pot replaced. Wah, w...
12/13/93
Emily is totally mad. But w...
Confession: I am an awful roommate too
TELL ME!!! :D
Miss y...
Confession: I am an awful roommate too
Well....I once had this roommate who had this big ol' orange cat..and I did the worst thing to her that she never found out about. It was so bad I still get pangs of guilt when I think about it. I...I can't say it. It's too awful...
