In the past few months I have had a crash course in Ajax and then had to branch out to PHP because my dad(whose website I built and maintain) wanted a blog,too.
Ajax and JQuery made it possible to put some really neat image effects on the site with LightBox and I even attempted ThickBox but apparently I’m too thick for ThickBox(haha).And since I wasn’t sure of what all it could do I researched on maybe getting it to work as a blog.But it was only good for calling HTML pages into a div or frame.And HTML pages are static.And we all want a blog to be interactive,archived and RSS-able.This meant I just had to knuckle down and get with PHP.I could’ve gone with asp but on my dad’s host asp is a mystery.They say they support it yet they seem not to as all the asp test scripts I’ve tried out just show plain text or a blank page.
The one thing that was preventing me from trying a PHP powered blog was the hand in hand way it functions with MYsql. Again the preventative was the site’s host: they want more money a month for it and we already pay enough, I think. It’s all to do with what you think your business needs in a website anyway. And if you make a lot of money it would be totally worth it to pay more for your site. But my dad’s business is really small.
His books(that’s his business) sell, and are searched for in Google but it isn’t like they sell every day.So we need to keep the overhead low. I’ve begun trying to research how to get his site to make money… in other ways but right now we don’t want any ads on his pages.
Because his business is books Google no doubt would read “books” and have ads for Amazon or even (gasp) Barnes and Noble…and given the history between my dad and those 2 businesses this would be a major conflict and a major contradicition.
I forged ahead in looking for a simple no mysql php blog and found one: simplePHPblog, just like my search’s key words. Pretty cool.
It all began very promisingly, the install went like a dream.But again the host caused problems.I had to mess with the code a lot to get it to work on the site.I mean mess.
It works to date although I get nervous and test it often.The most twitchy bit is the contact me page.I think the way they have configured it to need cookies to run makes it twitchy because sometimes people disable them or your own computer’s virus protection does something strange with them.But 7 out of 10 times the contact page works…and that’s pretty alright for now.
Of course the ideal is 10 out of 10 times 100 percent functionality and we all know how something broken on a site makes people go away…but on the other hand being interactive is really important.So it’s ok for now that the contact page is wonky.Because the comments bit for a blog and the RSS-abilty are way more important. And I have a contactme in PHP that works 100 percent that I can always put back on the site. Right now contacting my dad is super easy .His phone number and email and a few forms are all there to choose from.
I just wish he’d blog a lot more! I keep telling him to write a little every day and that the blog can be light hearted and even sometimes a little trivial.
He’s a fantastic cook for instance and I’d love it if he would post some of his recipes.
I’d love it if he didn’t treat every entry like like it had to be an example of Strunk and White.But there you go: you can build it but they may not blog it.
Month: January 2007
Soho Sephora I hate you.
These 6 products including a 10 dollar in house mascara represents 170 giftcard dollars. I would never spend 170.00 dollars on make up but
I had a giftcard to Sephora for a lot of money.Well, to me it was a lot of money.
And it sat in my wallet for over a month. I figured I’d better spend it rather than lose it,right?
And so I went to the Sephora on Broadway and Prince and maybe that was my first mistake…because on Sunday afternoon in Soho, the crowds are tremendous.But I had planned to go next to Crate and Barrel to get wine glasses and then walk up to Trader Joes and get some stuff for dinner.So it made logistical sense to start at this particular Sephora store.But it didn’t make sense to deliberately subject myself to shopping in one of their smaller stores where stuff was sure to be sold out.Message to Sephora: you should never be sold out of anything! Seriously, that isn’t cool.Thanks to you I do not now own Clinique Crushed Grape lip sticky thing.
Will I die? No, but I won’t be as cute as I could be!
The best Sephora is on 34th and 8th.It is really huge and it’s 2 levels.And the top floor is usually totally empty.
I have a problem with the way Sephora lights it’s stores,too.
I sometimes have to hold an item away from the really bright lights in order to see what color it really is.This always makes me look a little strange since it looks like I am waving a lipstick in the air.But I just can’t see if it’s light or dark with a hot bright light in my eyes.
I also have a problem with the mirrors– they make me look like a junkie. I don’t look like a junkie, in other mirrors. I’m not a junkie by the way.Ok, mom and dad?
The mirror with the hot lights and suspect ulterior motives made me look like I was 1,000 years old. I really hate looking that old.I really really hate how no matter how nice I think I look before leaving the house I will always look awful in a Sephora mirror.
I usually let things like some redness around my nose slide but in S.’s mirror to not have something there is a big no no.So I scurry to Benefit because a lot of their stuff is for redness fighting. I bought Boi-ing the industrial strength concealor ..18 dollars.
I’d really intended just to get some perfume and maybe some fun makeup like eyeshadow or lipstick but seeing that I looked like an ancient pin eyed ghoul, I was forced to purchase a corrective product.
I have relied on Max Factor’s concealor for years and lately I’ve used it instead of all over foundation.But it isn’t really meant for all over your face.So I was looking for a stick foundation,too.But at this Sephora their testers are all used up or covered in lint.This is unfortunate.I’m not putting lint on my face,thanks.
I’d previously gone to the very well maintained store near the World Trade Center and loved the Make Up Forever stuff.But in Soho it was all covered in lint and used up and so I ended not buying any.
I did buy some cheek stain by Tarte in Flush. I really love it. I needed an alternative to just making my lipsticks do double duty as blush.
I bought some Stila stuff because I love Stila and don’t have any.I don’t know why but I am obsessed with having thicker eyebrows so I bought this thing that is supposed to do that called Brow Polish.The lipstick from Stila is Electra and it is just great.
The perfume…let’s just say that I kind of lost my ability to function by the time I got done testing out all 9 of Fresh’s scents. I ended up with Pomegranate Anise.It starts out smelling good but ends smelling a bit like those 8 dollar body sprays you can buy in Duane Reade.This means that on me it “turns”.And although it doesn’t smell bad–it just doesn’t warrant 75 bucks…I should’ve just gotten Fresh Sugar .I have Lemon Sugar already and it stays smelling the way it is supposed to on me.
I’d really meant to buy a perfume by Guerlain but Fresh won.That’s ok.
Shopping!
I have a $200 giftcard to Sephora.I haven’t spent a dime off of it yet. I got it for my birthday on Dec.4th and the guilt of getting stuff for myself even with a birthday giftcard instead of picking up x-mas gifts for my friends and family overwhelmed me.
But in the past I ‘ve been really bad about buying stuff for myself when I’m supposed to be getting stuff for other people but I don’t think I’m so unusual.I’m blessed with a normal amount of aquisitiveness.So when out to shop for others I’m bound to see a lot more stuff that I’d like to have,too.Anyway, everyone knows it’s easier to shop for yourself than someone else.There’s just so much stuff you can buy for your self that you can’t buy for someone else.Like shoes.Or pants.I hate to put someone throught the torture of trying to return a gift that they don’t like or need or want or that doesn’t fit.It seems like these days it gets harder to return stuff and one has to sign a contract before they get a credit or a refund with lines of customers sighing and fidgeting behind you as you get your issue sorted.
But now that things are back to normal and I am allowed to shop again for some reason I’m shy to go.
I’ve gone to Sephora plenty of times when I couldn’t spend more than 50 bucks.
Now I have a lot more than that and I guess I know what’s bound to happen.I’m going to get all nervous and cheap and try to keep a balance on the card instead of just buying like mad until every last cent is gone.
I love the makeup they have at Sephora and I love having new makeup but so many trips to the store to buy new makeup have returned disappointing results.
I no longer plaster every centimeter of my face with foundation and I no longer have to have powder on top of it in order to feel facially armed enough to go outside. I guess this is in part due to feeling more comfortable with the way I look to others.It took a few decades but thank God! Because it used to take me so fucking long to get myself made-up.And I probably could’ve used a few obsessive/compulsive treatments.Somehow though I grew out of it with only a few relapses now and then when I cannot make myself look “OK” according to my OCD.
It’s in part due to the fact that I never had perfect skin but I always wanted perfect skin and the only way in my mind to acheive it was to paint it on.Certainly any other method didn’t work.It wasn’t until I discovered a simple soap called Basis All Clear Bar that things got more under control.
And due to a past course of retinol my skin changed from quite impervious to really sensitive.I used retinol for about 3 years in my late teens and early 20’s. And it is my theory that it made me allergic to most facial moisturizers. I have tons of proof of this.I used to use a clinique moisturizer-the yellow one- but after retinol my face would react like it’d been burned.
I found the only thing I could use to keep my face from resembling a dried out river bed was plain old Vaseline.And we all know what Vaseline can do to exaserbate an already troubled skin.This is where Basis came in,it turned out that it was stress that mostly made my face break out…but processing stressful situations is a talent that comes with time,I guess.I really didn’t need the big guns of retinol after all. Turns out a simple glycerine soap with tea tree oil was sufficient to combat minor zits from occurring.
And to go back to the make up issue-I’ve noticed that since I stopped using so much everyday my skin looks a lot better naturally.It really does go hand in hand in my case;less make up equals less breakouts and therefore less need for make up in the first place!
But don’t worry I’ll empty that giftcard–you can be sure of that.
I’m also a perfume junkie 🙂 And there’s this bottle of Guerlain that smells like oranges just calling to me.I wish Sephora was in Brooklyn.But that’s another story.
Don’t say it can’t be done
My last big client had no idea how stuff worked.Fine It isn’t his job to know.But he knew what he wanted.I went and looked at some page examples he sent me and that made me expand my abilities almost 200%.
I listened to what he described and I made it happen without at all pushing my own tastes or outright saying it couldn’t be done.
He is a jewelry designer and a really good one,too, so it makes sense he had a strong design sensibility.
This job was my biggest design challenge and one that forced me to “make it happen”
simranjewelry.com
lineska.com the cms is by doop