Things and Stuff

Ohhh I've not written anything on my blog in ages. I know, I know - I'm completely rubbish and can never expect to have a burgeoning career as a blogger being this lame. Apologies. I've been very busy doing things for my actual career - and some nice freelance web stuff too. I'm happily starting to find a bit of a niche using my skills to advise people on usability for their websites - and lots of other handy tips and hints about analytics and things. I'm still definitely not a web designer - no mistakes there please - but I've got some skills I can hawk out for sure!

I've done alot of work on this site: www.guychristian.com - a fantastic hairdresser and good friend. I've been slowly tarting up his site, adding a new gallery using lightbox and fixing things from the inside out (his original site was built entirely in tables - ugh) in order to make the site work better, be more efficient and user friendly - and also to improve his google rankings. We've been looking at building an online store and maybe some other exciting developments too.

I recently finished a course with Ffotogallery in Cardiff to try and brush up my design skills - I'm pretty handy with html, css and dreamweaver but I'm like an infant when it comes to photoshop. The ideas are all there in my head but my ability to translate them into slick design is a bit lacking.

Next on the list is some work for a friend on his business site - he's a tiler so it's not going to be anything overly complicated. However, he did commit the cardinal sin of purchasing his domain name along with some horrible 'build it yourself with our freakishly awful templates that let you do nothing' package. Grr. So now i need to transfer that sharpish.

So busy busy busy for me recently - I'm also coming to the end of my wedding marathon. By the end of May I will have been to 8 weddings in just over 8 months. Add to this a few hen parties and my sister's 30th and yes, you can call me social butterfly number one. Luckily I've booked a holiday for early June - bit of sun, sea and reading I think. If i can take my eyes off the monitor for what will feel like the first time in ages I'm hoping to get back to some old fashioned book loving. If you've got any recommendations for books to pack let me know!

Folding Pages

Oh Monday Monday. Always comes around a little too soon. The clocks went back yesterday day though, so technically I did have an extra long Sunday. Whoop.

I had the joys of no electricity for most of Saturday - there is a big building site at the end of my road and they managed to cut through a power cable leaving me powerless from 9am til about 4pm. I really didn't realise how much we rely on power.. I couldn't drink tea, do my washing, clean my house, put the heating on, have a shower or watch continuous episodes of ER on dvd. So with my Saturday plans gone, I decided I'd do something old fashioned that didn't require electricity.. I'd go buy a jigsaw! I've been getting very addicted to jigsaws again recently after helping a friend with a stupidly hard one of a Koala. Then I found this website... Jigzone oh deary me... addicted, me?



So this weekend, could I find a real life jigsaw to do? No I could not. Is it too old fashioned? Are the lo-fi versions of everything slowly being made obsolete? For example, I'm still really unconvinced by eReaders. I like the feeling of a book in my hand, turning the pages, bending the spine for the first time and getting that really satisfying crease down the middle. I'm a page folder when it comes to books, I mark my place by folding down the corner of the page. I don't believe in keeping books pristine - I like my books to be well-read, thumbed and scruffy. I can't imagine reading a book from a little computer screen.. ugh!

Oh well, I'm not going to give up my quest to find a shop that still sells Jigsaws... I'm probably just looking in the wrong place. Anyway... I did notice that there is an online shop on the Jigzone website that sells them. Is that cheating?