Category: web design

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Obviously

oh my god what is wrong with me?? It hasn’t even been a full month since I built that new website on Adobe Portfolio and I’ve already scrapped it! There was nothing wrong with it, I just had all my stuff spread over too many separate sites. So I just spent the last 3 days reconfiguring my WordPress Elfini blog site to do it all – portfolio, blog and online store. I even relocated the whole installation from a sub-domain to the root directory. Holy hell why do I do these things to myself?! And then this morning when I thought all was well except a few more design tweaks, I found that I couldn’t upload images to WordPress! Oh that is not okay! So, I hit the google. And I tried all the things. Nothing worked. And I tried some more things. And then I totally broke the site. ::very external screaming:: So, knowing my poor blood pressure was going to hit unhealthier levels than normal (I’ll tell you about my blood pressure woes later), I reminded myself that I have backups. Lots and lots of backups (this ain’t my first website rodeo). So, I hopped back into the…

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Look at what I cooked up!

So, this here blog? elfini? It’s all Julie Tilsner’s fault.  4 years ago she said “Hey Dawn, you should start a blog!” And when Julie says “Jump”, I say “Fine… if you insist. But I’m not going to enjoy it.” And I think we all know how well this turned out. Anyway, a couple weeks ago, Julie finally said “Hey Dawn, you should redesign my blog!” And I jumped up and down, said yes, and insisted she bail on the evil Typepad and migrate to Wordpress. And a word of advice here – do not get me started on Typepad and the Six Apart world. The seething raging hate!! Luckily Julie bent to my will and is now happily hosting Bad Home Cooking on a spiffy new Wordpress installation. And it looks something like this: www.julietilsner.com Now click the pretty picture and bask in the glory of the new and improved Bad Home Cooking! Same old funny wrapped in a shiny new package.

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Cold Coding Part Two

This time with less cold. I’m like the house painter who’s own house never gets painted. My website is a mess. I’ve started more blogs and everything is all over the place. It was finally time to do something about it. So coming off the success (haha) of the photo blog, I’ve been attempting a custom Thesis design for the DB Designs Services site. I’ve been creating multiple feature boxes and mastering Wordpress hooks – or at least attempting to. It’s funny how I work. When downstairs and on the laptop, I have been been working on the thesis design. When I’m upstairs on my computer, I edit photos and work in Photoshop/Dreamweaver. And I just move back and forth between the two machines and the 2 projects. So, while upstairs yesterday I started designing a new home page for my website. A landing page to connect all my various sites. And BEHOLD! the new and improved dawnblanchfield.com~ Pretty spiffy eh? Next on the chopping block – a complete rebuild of my photography portfolio.  This time around there will be no flash. No flash! Hey that reminds me, I need to make a cape for a certain someone’s <cough>Paul!</cough> upcoming…

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Cold Coding

or coding with a cold. Either way – don’t do it. Early last week Erin got sick and spent a night throwing up. It was … unpleasant. She had a slight fever the next day and then was fine. Of course, the following day Chris went down. He tried to drag me down with him, but I managed to stay out of the range of “deathly-ill, can’t get out of bed, must sleep more” and just hung out in the “Land of Feeling Like Crap and Fighting a Migraine” all weekend. I don’t recommend that place, the service sucks and the towels are really scratchy. Anyways, the weekend was a slug-fest with Chris and I just lying around while the whirling dervish that we call Erin made a huge mess all around us. I basically spent 3 days just hanging out in my chair with the laptop keeping me warm. And since I had a bit of a break from Sweet Blog design work, I decided to finish up the work on my own design portfolio site and the photo-blog I created last Dec. And apparently I was a bit sicker than I thought, because things were much more difficult…

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only mostly dead

Well. Apparently my lack of blog motivation knows no bounds. I have been taking classes. Making new art. Erin turned 3. We went to Disneyland. Brother-in-law was in a motorcycle accident… ::crickets:: Nothing. I felt that elfini has run it course and I was ready to put this little blog o’ mine out to pasture as it were. I blame the all feedback I get from updating Facebook and Twitter. I know that people are reading those because I get comments and replies! amazing. I also starting a tumblr blog and found myself posting there. I love the clean, simple look of it. But I wasn’t “writing” for that blog – just posting photos, random videos and quotes. No pressure. But I have decided to not give up on this site. (Mostly because the ubers said how much they missed my posts and well… how can I refuse them?) So in an effort to re-ignite some passion in me for this little corner of my mind – I am going to give the site a face-lift. Of course I’m screaming busy with Sweet Blog work (YAY!!), woefully behind on photo editing,  my house is a wreck, and let’s not even…

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Pretty vacant

No need to be so smug about it As you know, I’ve been working on the HS Tourney website for the last couple months. Well, last week I had finally gotten it to a state of ‘almost done’. The Add and Search functions were working. The forums were almost there. It was getting close. And Chris was getting antsy. By Thursday he was really pushing me to get the site up. Telling me not to worry about it being perfect. Ha! easy for him to say! So, when I should have been packing on Friday, I was moving the site from my local server to the hosting server. And the site is now (a)live and kicking! Check it out – www.hstourney.com  There are still a few things to tweak and pictures to add, but Bob is happy and coaches across the land have begun to add tournaments. And Chris was of course right – getting it pushed up before the long weekend allowed me to relax and enjoy the weekend. Damn it. Only dead fish go with the flow That was painted on a sidewalk on the University of Michigan campus when I attended x number of years ago. Well…

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