Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Giving Props Where Props Are Due

A little explanation about the recent changes on ZoKai:

Hi Karin,

I’m dropping a line to say thank you for the inspiration. Your blog looks great and I love what you’ve been writing.

Thanks to you, I’ve spruced up the place at ZoKai a bit and am trying to post stories more often. I’ve figured out a few template hacks and even learned a teeny teeny bit maybe about making a header, but it has not been painless. Crazy fool that I am.

“Oh yeah, I think I can carve out four hours on Saturday afternoon. I’ll just teach myself web design.”

Nutty, nutty girl.

So with my vanilla nut coffee and my free trial version of Adobe Creative Suite, I sit down in front of my computer and watch every free online tutorial about AdobeGoLive they offer on their web site. Did I mention I am crazy? Three cups of coffee and 8 hours later, I had designed one puny little low resolution sort-of banner, which my husband Scott promptly appeared to lose into the vast computer abyss when he improperly (Yes, that’s right. I am blaming him.) inserted “The Wiggles Magical Adventure” into the DVD drive for the girls, and the computer became unresponsive and displayed three different colors of snow on the screen. I think if it could have coughed up blood, it would have.

The computer was miraculously restored to normalcy about 15 minutes later, undoubtedly because I wisely decided we (most notably Scott) should leave the computer alone (aka the Little Bo Peep method of restoring lost computer files – leave them alone and they will come home).

Anyway, since then I have designed two more banners, picked up a couple of template hacks from the Blogger Google group, and have actually started seeing a little sense in the html code (way different than the BASIC I studied in high school, but in some ways similar too). The third banner is currently implemented in my header, and I will be working on more.

Thanks so much for the inspiration! My brain needed a good workout and this has been lots of fun.

Shannon

Take a minute to check out Karin's great blog at DoubleDutyDiary.blogspot.com.

3 comments:

KarinGal said...

Hi Shannon ~

LOVE what you've done with the place. And those hours honing your Photoshop skills are really paying off with all your great new banners.

Oh, and the polling feature is fantastic -- I've already casy my vote.

And the photo of the day element in your sidebar is a nice touch, too.

Well done! Isn't this virtual living stuff a nice reprieve from the rigors of baby raising? :)

Amy said...

what is this blogger google group of which you speak? Elaborate, please! :)

Shannon said...

The Blogger Help page features a box labeled "Group Help" in the sidebar to the right. It supplies a link to the "Blogger Help Group" which I have found very helpful.