September 2007 – Page 2

Happy Roshoshanna!

I hope I spelled it right, because that’s a phonetic stab in the dark. I am using a new FireFox profile and I lost my Google Toolbar with SpellCheck-so I have to guess.

Anyway, I have been really, really busy. No less than 5 projects and 2 total site redesigns going on at once. But I shouldn’t seem like I am complaining -my freelance business allowed me to pay for my ticket to Israel next month. I will be gone for 11 days. No matter what, a ticket to Israel will cost an arm and a leg – thanks to my clients!

We have a new houseguest and while I mean to be a gracious host I really just need as much time as I can for work. They might think I am a total nut because I worked the past 72 hours with very little sleep. They are asleep in my office (the livingroom) as I type this!

I am feeling pressure to finish some projects before the weekend, hence the no sleeping.

It is has caught up with me and now I am a zombie. I really have to call it a night. It’s almost 4 am- to go to bed now for me is considered early. I know, it’s sick. ..

Your client isn’t a child, but…

In every single one of the jobs I have done I have acted in accordance to my client’s wishes when it came to designing their site. In only one or 2 jobs have I been given carte blanche to do as I pleased. I can work either way. Clients of mine are free to tell me they want something done this or that way or to have an aspect changed,whatever. It’s their site,you know.

Sometimes I’ve been asked to do something that went against my personal checklist of suckage such as a splash page or background music. Again,their site. The best you can do is tell them why it’s bad. I always say: you want people to want to be there,right? And then I go on to suggest why this or that is a bad idea. Usually they get it. That’s all you have to do. Tell them why it’s a bad idea to have a splash page or background music and hope they will at least consider your points.
Chris Heilmann, who I think is a great guy and probably a genius, told me a funny thing about splash pages. He said

” it’s like you receive a flier on which is printed welcome to my pizza menu, please read my pizza menu.
Then you get to read the pizza menu. “

I thought that was a hilarious visual image. And so true!
Ok, but so what if you think you know better than your client? Want to alienate them? Want to make them feel stupid? Not a good idea. Take it from me. Do it right and they will think you have the best approach. Do it wrong and they will think you are a bossy jerk.
Everyone has different sensibility when it comes to design. Sometimes, you the designer (Mom), says “but vitamins are good for you honey” and the client says “I like shiny things”.
In other words if they want a splash page and you can’t talk them out of it then they get a splash page.

WordPress Theme Viewer Madness!

I was on the phone with my pal, Sheru Arora who was telling me about a theme he liked so we clicked dashboard>>presentation>>get more themes and then navigated to the Theme Viewer and found the theme he liked. Ahhha. We decided I would to try to incorporate & blend some of it’s style (fonts, white content div , white background) and the style for the left& right side bar links in Askmen.com (black background,silvery font color) but keep the title background images red…

I may even move the navbar above the header… At least I am getting paid for this!

After I got off the phone with Sheru,I went about preparing myself for yet another theme overhaul (ate a cookie ) thus mentally prepared, I went back to the Theme Viewer to download it so I could test it out. Well, WP has done something fancy to the site and I can’t find nothing no more.

Doing a Google search for the name of the theme I found tons of people using the theme but had to look hard to find the guy who made the theme. Clicking the link to the theme in the actual theme viewer returned a file not found error.Clicking a link that Google turned up did the same.

Anyone else had problems like this in the last few hours? Because 2 hours ago the Theme Viewer looked plain but worked. Now it looks fancy and doesn’t work.

Note to Self

Stop deleting your emails,dummy. You’ve got Gmail which lets you archive emails instead of deleting them. Had you known this instead of thinking it was some kind of ignorable Voo Doo you would’ve been able to recover some important information by performing a simple mail search….instead of having to ask the person to resend it.And thereby saving you hours of time spent waiting for this rather slow moving person to email you back.
You could’ve been done with the changes requested by now. Instead you are locked out of the ftp account because you deleted that email.

You are stupid.