Jul 7, 2008 | Websites
Kat Cooper, my blogging inspiration, who lives in Florida and authors the My Single Mom Life site, has just started a new blog!
But shame, it’s nameless at the moment and Kat is on the hunt for a cool, catchy name so she’s running a “Name This Blog” contest. The prize is a $50 voucher from Amazon.com and all you need to do to stand a chance of winning is leave a comment on her new blog with your suggestion for a suitable name.
Easy-peasy hey?
But hurry, you only have 7 days … (now I sound like one of those horrid infomercial things LOL)
Here’s where to go: http://www.katjcooper.com/2008/07/name-this-blog-contest.html
Jun 2, 2008 | Books, Websites
SA Blook went live today! Please do what you do best – spread the word =)
Links to each author’s chapter can be found in the TOC below.
An extract taken from Darren Gorton’s “OutThink” blog:
“… a collaboration between South African bloggers with a strong belief in the future of our nation. Essentially, it is a book, originally published online and written by a diverse group of writers with strong views about our country and the reality South Africans find themselves living in.
There are countless books about South Africa’s history and how it developed, and there are bound to be many more. There is also an endless supply of daily news that reminds us about the real and difficult challenges that our country faces and has yet to overcome. While most South Africans understand and feel the pain of these challenges, we will never be able to move forward unless we lift our eyes to the horizon and step boldly forward, aiming to build a foundation for a better future for us all. This blook is about South Africa – a constructive look at our present, our future and the opportunities we have.
While this blook is admittedly an experiment in online writing, this fact should not detract from the importance of the topic at hand – something relevant to all South Africans. Every topic touched upon is intricately linked to South Africa’s present and future, and although we would not like to suggest that our present challenges are simply remedied by positive thinking, we hope to stimulate strong debate and new thinking around these topics. By doing so, the writers hope to contribute to a new perspective in this country, knowing that thinking is the precursor to action.”
Contents:
Introduction
1. The new South Africa – is it real?
2. Is SA rich or poor?
3. What the world thinks of South Africa and what our global opportunities are
4. The importance of each individual’s contribution collectively
5. SA Inc and the business of doing business in SA
6. The beauty and grandeur that surrounds us
7. The importance of technology in SA’s global emergence
8. Building brand South Africa
9. Making the most of SA’s creative talents and abilities
10. Innovate for a better South Africa
11. The role of the younger generation in SA, and what we need to do to support them
12. Connecting South Africa – Communities that transcend technology
13. We are African – the role of collaboration in South Africa’s growth
May 28, 2008 | Software, WordPress
As I’m writing this, I am “participating” in a meeting that’s being held right this minute at the Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town. It’s the WordPress Cape Town gathering and they apparently get together once a month to do things like discuss everything WP, swop plugins and themes, eat, drink and be merry!
I only found out about the meeting today, via adii’s blog, and it’s fully booked so I obviously can’t attend …
BUT … how’s this … I am being kept up to date on everything that’s happening via my newly-opened Twitter account! Every few minutes adii sends through a new tweet to keep all of us following him updated on what the various guest speakers are saying. And I can send in my 2 cents’ worth too!
Isn’t that awesome!! Don’t ever tell me Twitter is a useless, frivolous waste of time! I’m sold.
I think technology like this is fantastic but then, I am a such a geek =)
May 27, 2008 | WordPress, Work
OMG! I’ve just had a brainwave!!
My previous post had me rambling on about looking for a new WordPress theme, my plans to teach myself how to create my own themes in the future, how it could benefit my Clients businesses, blah blah blah …
I’m such an idiot! What about MY business??
There’s a large part of my business that would benefit enormously from having a blog attached to it! It could easily be used to keep our audience informed of new developments, it would provide additional exposure for our existing Clients, it would help encourage potential new Clients to climb on board with us, it would allow us to branch into other, related avenues of the business AND we could generate additional revenue through advertising.
Why on earth didn’t I think of this earlier? Somebody slap me please …
OK, in my own defence, I have been horribly out of the whole web loop for a while. Jeeesh …. things have progressed so much and so quickly. ACK! It’s all rather frightening. I won’t go into any gory personal details here and now, but let’s just say that I let things slide for a while and now I have a LOT of catching up to do to get back on top of things.
May 27, 2008 | WordPress
I’ve decided I’m not happy with the functionality and design of the “headspace” part of this site. It’s my personal blog but I don’t think it’s really “me”. I don’t think it’s particularly user friendly either, some of the fonts are awful and it’s all a bit grim for me. I’m actually rather bored with it. I hate the fact that I’m using someone else’s design too – it feels I’m cheating.
I’ve been in the web industry for 10 years now and have never had to rely on a template created by someone else to generate a site, so I’m rather uncomfortable with the whole thing in general and more specifically, I’m uneasy about not having the control that I’m used to. Alas, I don’t really have the time to teach myself how to create my own theme at the moment, although it’s something that I definitely want to do soon. (It doesn’t look all that difficult, but I’ll need a bit of free time to actually sit down and do it!) I think that being able to create unique WordPress themes and using them as a CMS will be a handy service to offer our Clients as well (along with about a gazillion other ideas I wish I had the time and energy for right now.) So, until I get around to tackling that challenge, I want to see if I can find another theme to use on this site.
It’s going to take while though – there are literally thousands of resources out there to wade through. A quick check on Google spits out these sites on the first couple of results pages:
http://www.wpthemesfree.com/
http://topwpthemes.com/
http://www.freewordpressthemes.com/
http://www.freewpthemes.net/wordpress-themes/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
http://www.skinpress.com/
http://www.blogperfume.com/category/wordpress-theme/
http://www.wpdesigner.com/category/free-wordpress-themes/
http://wordpressthemesthatdontsuck.com/
So, I’ll be having a good look at them all and playing around till I find something a bit better than this one, something that’s more “me”. I also need to clean some stuff up – now that I’ve added a few new categories, I should move a few posts to more appropriate homes. I apologise in advance if things go a bit whacko over the next few weeks while I’m testing things out.
If my “headspace” becomes “warped” (!) in the near future, just smile and wave boys, smile and wave =)
