Chocolate, disk space woes and CSS

Above: Jeff and Ray and an Unknown Dog.

Thanks to Julie for pointing me to this BBC story about a guy who ended up in the hospital after spending two hours trapped in a vat of chocolate.

At least it was dark chocolate.

And thanks to Tom Smith for pointing me to CSS Zen Garden. Holy cow, some of these designs are gorgeous! Check out some of these amazing examples: in each, the HTML for was exactly the same; the graphic artists just changed the CSS. I SO WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS! Easier site maintenance plus I can't resist the creative flexibility factor.

Thanks to David Barker for the W3Schools CSS tutorial link...looks like a useful resource. I've also signed up again for a monthly subscription at Lynda.com. I used Lynda.com a while back to learn more about Corel Painter; the online video tutorials are excellent, and the site keeps updating with new tutorials. I notice they have some CSS and Javascript tutorials as well as other things I'd like to learn, so I've decided to renew my membership. Right now, I'm going through "CSS For Designers" and learning a great deal, not just about CSS but about the history of Web design.

Does anyone know of other sites like Lynda.com? Ones that offer other subject tutorials? I think these are a brilliant idea. You can watch the tutorial videos at your own convenience as often as you'd like, and I've been impressed by the quality of instruction on Lynda.com.

I'm also trying out Google Analytics. It's a free stats service (thanks to Jeff for the heads-up), and I'm curious about how well it works. More on this in an upcoming Blathering. So far, I've found stats analysis especially useful in helping me find resources related to my work as well as showing me where my sites need improvement.

Apologies for wonkiness on Inkygirl recently. I've been running out of hard disk space, and page rebuilds have suffered. I've been paranoid about one of these "not enough hard disk space" glitches causing major devastation, so I've removed the UBB message boards and am going through my other sites and files to see what else I can get rid of. :-( Hopefully this Blathering post will get added safely. I've been moving some sites to another server in hopes that this will help. Thank heavens for Flickr, else I wouldn't be able to post as many images on Blatherings these days.

Meanwhile, I've continued to work on DebbieOhi.com, this time adding some more samples and adding a personal page that includes a new list of my recording projects (speaking of recording, Ken Lalonde is coming over tomorrow night to record my flute for a track on Judith Hayman's upcoming CD).

So far, I've learned enough about CSS to strip out the stylesheet from my Wordpress version of My Life In A Nutshell. Yay, now I can play around with creating my own stylesheet from scratch.

We'll see what happens...

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CSS, Wordpress and Irish tunes

To kiss or not to kiss?

Thanks to everyone who has sent me feedback thus far to my spankin' new DebbieOhi.com by post and e-mail. I have shrunk some of the graphic elements and will be shrinking more to avoid overwhelming monitors and dial-up connections out there. Also need to remember to always add ALT tags to image links.

Thanks also for the feedback to the Wordpress-ified My Life In A Nutshell. I've come to the conclusion that it's about time I learned a bit about CSS. I dabbled a bit in CSS years ago when it first came out, but at that time not enough browsers supported it to keep me hooked. Now, all the major browsers seem to support CSS. I like the idea of being able to change the style of my sites with only a few lines rather than having to modify every page.

Though I admit that the term "Cascading Style Sheets" has always brought the following image to mind:



Fortunately I have some technonerdboy friends who have offered to help me if I run into trouble (thanks Parki!). :-)


Scott Schumacher offered some useful resource links like CSSEdit and Dissection of a Wordpress Theme. He also pointed me to a huge archive of Wordpress themes called ThemeViewer where a user can enter search terms. Holy toledo. I feel like a chocolate addict in a Scharffen Berger store.

I wasn't happy with the way most theme pages list archives, though: most don't seem to have a single archive link from the main page which would allow users to access archives on a separate page. But then I found this page in the Wordpress documentation and this list of Wordpress Archive-related plug-ins. I especially like the plug-in used to generate this archive page.

Anyway, my goal is to learn enough CSS to be able to customise Wordpress themes for my own projects, and perhaps come up with my own from scratch. I've also decided I need to learn some Javascript.

Now if only I could find one of those magic watches that Hermione used to give her more time...


I've started reviewing Irish tunes on my whistle so I don't forget them, keeping my Burke whistle near my computer so I can play a tune every now and then. I'm trying a new method this time: using flash cards with a batch of old business cards. On one side, I write the name of the tune. On the other side, I've taped a scrap of music manuscript paper with the first few bars of the tune. I was inspired when I started reading The New Policeman by Kate Thompson...I'm about halfway through this book for young people, and thoroughly enjoying it. The story revolves around Irish music, Faerie mythology, time and magic. I can clearly "hear" the author's Irish brogue throughout, which greatly adds to the atmosphere of the book.

Sheet music for different traditional Irish tunes is included between chapters; I feel compelled to play the tunes on my whistle as I come to them, of course! :-) Anyway, so far I'm finding The New Policeman a delightful book.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

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DebbieOhi.com!

Okay, after a few days of intensive HTML wrangling, I have a preliminary work site up at debbieohi.com. Yes, I know this is supposed to be the URL of "My Life In A Nutshell," but it seemed like the logical choice for a business site. I've moved MLIAN to http://www.debbieohi.com/nutshell/.

Both of these sites are now on a new server. I've converted My Life In A Nutshell from Movabletype to Wordpress because (1) the new server provides a one-click Wordpress installation, (2) I've been considering switching Blatherings from Movabletype to Wordpress but want to try it with a smaller project first and (3) I'd really like to enable comments for my comic, and Wordpress supposedly has a good spam control system. So please do feel free to post comments on my Wordpress version of My Life In A Nutshell so I can see how everything works. I'll be replacing the old comic site with a URL pointer.

I used one of the built-in templates for now, but am going to customize this page eventually once I've had a chance to check out the Wordpress documentation. I also need to add a "want to be notified" link.

Anyway, please do visit debbieohi.com. I'm going to be tweaking the graphics (I'm going to get rid of some of the clouds in the image at the top of the page, for instance) and will add more info. I've also been very bad at keeping track of my publications, so I know my list is missing a bunch of writing credits. This is one of the reasons I've been procrastinating about posting a portfolio type of site ... but also a good reason to finally get one online. I'm going to gradually go through paperwork and boxes to fill out the list, and will also be adding more illustration samples. I need to add ALT tags.

Feel free to post or e-mail any comments about what you like and don't like about the site; I'm especially interested in any browser incompatibilities. Please don't be offended if I choose to put your suggestions on the backburner; I may leave major changes for the next site update...right now, I'm focusing on getting something online. I may also choose to completely ignore your suggestion for illogical reasons.

For those who are curious, I created the entire site in three days using TextMate with raw HTML. Yes, I'm a Neanderthal.

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WWFC, herb corpses, and oatmeal cookies

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Column topic: "Resources for Horror Writers." Plus a chance to win one of my fantabulous new mini Will Write For Chocolate buttons!

I forgot to mention that my herb garden did not survive two weeks of neglect very well despite the automatic plant waterers that I bought from Lee Valley Tools (they overwatered the plants; I need to experiment more to figure out how to regulate the flow). I lost my three basil plants, lavender, parsley and sage. I'm most unhappy about the basil because I use it quite a bit in my cooking, and because it's going to be impossible to find any basil plants in garden stores at this time of year.

A question to your houseplant types: How do you cope when you're away for extended periods of time?



With the (slightly) cooler weather, I'm enjoying running again. I find the best times are first thing in the morning (I tend to get up at around 6:30 or 7 am and work for a couple hours first) or at the end of the day. I'm running without music much more than with these days...I find I get some of my best writing ideas during this time, either new ideas or mentally working out problem spots.



And finally...am I the only one who finds this wording on the cookie bag above a bit odd? "You will enjoy their wholesome, homemade taste so much they will remind you of Mom!"

Perhaps there wasn't room for "Mom's cookies" but I couldn't help but be assaulted by images of cannibalistic offspring...

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Dragonfly summer

Above: The world's smallest pancake, made by Jeff for one of our nieces.

I can't believe it's already halfway through August. Holy cow. Seems like the summer just whizzed by. Remember when we were kids and the summer seemed to last forever? At least until late August, when the looming shadow of school accelerated those last couple of weeks, of course.

I've enjoyed our trips and cottage visits, but I'm very happy to be getting back to a regular schedule for a while. These days I'm working on the Writer's Digest article, a middle reader novel, an online professional site for my writing and illustration (finally), a new illustration project. Spent most of today on the portfolio site.

Here are some of the navigation icons I came up with:







The personal icon is temporary (I'm not sure what it is, either...perhaps a pig-bear?) until I think of something more interesting, possibly chocolate-related. I'm also open to suggestions. What object do YOU think I should use as my personal icon?

Seanan McGuire's "Dorothy" track arrived on CD by snailmail yesterday; I'm hoping to add flute to it and send it back to her for possible use on her recording project. What a wonderful song; I've been listening to it over and over today. As an experiment, I moved to the file to a new track in Garageband and TA-DAAAH! It worked...all I need to do now is record my flute in a separate track.

As I mentioned in an earlier Blathering, however, I can't use my microphone until Audio-M updates its USB drivers to be compatible with Intel machines. :-( Supposedly this will happen within the next six months. Because I need a microphone to start recording GAfilk prep stuff for Urban Tapestry (we're guests of honour in January!) and the built-in microphone in my MacBook sucks, I've decided to start researching USB microphones...at least that way I'll have some way of recording music until Audio-M updates its drivers. Plus it'll be handy to be able to just stick the mike and my laptop in my bag for Urban Tapestry practices without extra cords, pre-amps, etc.

I have no idea if the USB microphone will be good enough to record flute for a CD, but I figure it's at least worth a shot. Meanwhile, I'll cross my fingers and toes and hair that Audio-M will come through.



And finally, some more cottage pics...

Jeff takes our nieces sailing:



A dragonfly emerges from its larval form:



I'm a huge fan of dragonflies. Not only because they eat mosquitoes, but also because they always seem so other-worldly to me. During our cottage visit, a dragonfly landed on me as I floated in the lake and I tried very hard to stay still so it wouldn't fly away. It's good luck to have a dragonfly land on you, y'know.

Ok, I just made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?

Now if only the world had more dragonflies and less squirrels...

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