Once it was clear that the site was seriously screwed, I did what you always should do in that case—I moved on to something else and tried to not think about it. Trying to fix something in the heat of temper isn’t wise, and dumb as I am I’m smart enough to not cause even more damage. So this evening my hubbie sat down with me, we carefully went over it, and finally decided to try the backup I had made right before the upgrade attempt (see, I have learned a couple things over time). (why not try the backup first? Because, don’t add more screwups on top, you gotta know you’re making the right move and not just piling on more problems.) The backup worked, the site is not only fully restored, I now have a second duplicate site which I will keep and from now on run tests on that one first.

On the off chance anyone else actually uses Joomla, I’d highly recommend the Akeeba backup extension. Though I think I might be alone in using Joomla, it’s complex enough to not be suitable for causal users, much more so than WordPress. I kinda like it, though, it’s easier for me to put up new files than if I used Dreamweaver for it all, and I’ve created this custom template that I’m rather fond of (I wrote every scrap of code in that template myself, too, even the php).

So, end result: I’m stupid, but not irrevocably so.

She asked me to crop her face out, so I gave her a Hello Kitty face (ha ha!). Anyway, this year apparently the lacy knit and crochet tank cover-ups are all the rage. I’m sure the clothing companies have been watching us because they know how awesome we are. They should pay close attention to this shirt, I just got one and I think it’s the Next Big Thing.

1. Have an idea of what you want.
This is extremely important, and sometimes surprisingly difficult. Try asking yourself what your business’s voice is, what image do you want to portray to your customers? Think about what ads or pieces attract your interest. Research your competition and other similar businesses—NOT to steal their style, but to get ideas about what what will and won’t work for your business. Do you like certain colors, a vintage feel, or a clean, open look? Write down the general things you like; and then look back over your list to make sure you aren’t contradicting yourself (clean but info-packed, vintage but modern). You could also note if there’s anything you strongly dislike. The more guidance you can give your designer about the style you want, the faster and more efficiently they can achieve it, and the less frustration you will have as they try to guess what will make you happy.

2. Listen to the designer’s ideas.
You know your business, and an experienced designer will know general design principles, so be open to their ideas. A common issue is trying to fit too much text into the space—a designer knows that if people are confronted with large amounts of text they simply won’t read any of it. Try not to to take it personally if they suggest changes, they’re trying to help, and perhaps trying to get a better feel for what you want.

3. Use a contract.
This is to protect you as much as the designer. A contract should clearly spell out each side’s expectations and help avoid the “Hey, you didn’t tell me THAT!” unpleasantness. Such as, will you or the designer own the proprietary artwork after it’s done? It’s okay to to negotiate points in the contract, just make sure you both agree before you sign.

4. Meet deadlines promptly.
When your designer gives you some proofs, go over them and get back to your designer with feedback. The longer you take to do this, the less time your designer has to give good attention to your project. I’ll end up thinking about work projects while I’m doing things like walking my dogs; but, if I have to turn something around in a couple of days, I won’t get the time to do that. So here’s your chance to potentially get unbilled time spent on your project. Rushes happen, and good work can be done quickly. But if you can allow extra time, go for it, it works to your advantage.

5. When you don’t like something, say so!
A good, experienced designer knows that not everyone likes the same things. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t like something, you won’t hurt your designer’s feelings. Of course, you won’t say, “Ugh, that’s HIDEOUS, what were you thinking?!” Something more diplomatic, like, “That’s not really the direction I wanted,” or “That image/font just doesn’t work for me,” will get the point across. You can take this too far by asking for more and more changes, which is going to raise the cost; so if your designer is seriously off-base with what you expected, revisit tip #1 above and make sure you’re clearly communicating your needs.

6. Leave a good review.
Designers are only human and they like being praised as much as anyone. If you were happy with the work, leave a good review for your designer wherever it is you found them (Yelp, Citysearch, etc.), or send them an e-mail telling them how pleased you are. If you leave them with a good impression, they’ll be that much more motivated to work hard for you the next time you need them.

If you were not happy with the final result, you should communicate that. Give your designer a chance to make it right, or explain what it is they need from you to do a better job. Perhaps this designer/client relationship just wasn’t meant to be, but if there were resolvable problems like miscommunication or lack of time, there’s still hope for resolution. But you’ll never know if you don’t speak up.

Your designer very much wants you to enjoy the fruits of this collaboration. Good communication and clear expectations are the key to ensuring a quality experience and product.

Posted via email from Jennifer’s posterous

The team (by their Twitter handles):

AaronStrout

andreaschulle

IleenieWeenie

incslinger

wesley83

You should go follow them, for they are all the personification of awesomeness.

Team 140 just after the start.

The weather was near perfect.

Groups of people, including several teams of cheerleaders, cheered on the racers.

The crowd of racers stretched into the distance in front of us and behind us.

Team 140 tweeted, chatted, and wheeled a small child simultaneously.

Rats, I forgot to go get my free ice cream after the race.

At the Mile 1 marker!

And the Mile 2 marker!

Unfortunately, Aaron had to cut out between miles 1 and 2, as his daughter, Audrey, was tired. Aw, he’s a good dad.

Woof! This doggie group cheered us on, too. (Hmm, would have been more interesting if I'd gotten some dogs in the shot.)

More cheerleaders!

There was something really cool about the people who came out just to cheer everyone else on. It really made the whole atmosphere festive and fun.

Couldn't resist getting a shot of this lovely scene as we passed by it.

Simon with one of the group offering free hugs and high-fives to the racers (aw!).

I took a picture of Ileene taking a picture of Andrea tweeting.

This group serenading us made me happy.

This was the peak highest moment of the race for me – something about the music made me so perfectly happy, the whole experience was too wonderful for words.

The Mile 3 marker, almost to the finish!

Hmm, I managed to not get a shot of any of Team 140 at the mile 3 marker—anyway, those kids were kind enough to take a photo of all of us with the marker using Wesley’s iphone.

Victory, we cross the finish line!

And furious tweeting ensues.

Andrea and Ileene stretch out after the race.

We all had to walk a whole lot more than the 3.1 miles of the race, due to how far away the parking was (I think I win the prize for Parked Farthest Away From The Event).  I’m completely exhausted, but I’m hopeful that all this exertion is a good thing and the fact that I could do it means I’m really okay again physically. That’s actually so incredible it’s making me cry a little. I’m so happy that I found this awesome group of people and was able to participate in this with them. Someday I’m going to look back on this year as the best year of my life, it’s when hardship forced everything to ultimately change for the better.

In the course of doing research for the article, I came across the Online Regular Expression Testing Tool, which is a really cool resource for testing GREP codes. It also has a glossary in the sidebar where you can click on any of the expressions there and it’ll tell you clearly what it means. It’s definitely a valuable resource for anyone who uses GREP.

the general set-up for the seminar

A brief overview of topics by application

• Illustrator: smart guides, appearance palette, isolation mode, gradient editing, the blob brush, warp tool, multiple artboards, clipping masks
• InDesign: links palette, preflight, placing multiple files at once, GREP styles and nested styles, conditional text, interactivity (including movies) for pdfs and swfs from InDesign
• Photoshop: switching tools and brush editing, adjustment layers, new black and white and curves palette editing, layer mask editing and options, Kuler, layer comps, dodge and burn, cloning tool, Configurator, content aware scaling, photo merge, movie editing, 3D rendering, smart objects, smart filters, layer stacks

RC catches me taking a photo as he answers questions during a break, Dave is in the background.

For the tools mentioned above that have been around for a long time, such as the Photoshop cloning tool, they covered new features or techniques, not just a basic “how to”. The segment on Flash was the most basic, largely aimed at getting general CS users over their fear of it. They also threw in a lot of across-the-board tidbits like application frames, the “share my screen” feature, and AIR applications.

For $39, I’d say it was money well spent.

I knew I didn’t like incomprehensible thumbnails that are so tiny or such a small part of the image that you can’t tell what you’re looking at. Some sites using them did look really cool overall, but no one will want to have to spend a lot of time clicking through the images. I only hit one or two sites that had music, but I don’t remember anything else about them, I left those sites immediately. Seriously, people, no one likes sites that play music! Stop it with the music already!

The sites I did like generally had a layout that allowed you to see the projects without having to click or scroll too much. So that’s what I went with in the end – there’s just a few general categories, each category has blog-style layout with a brief description and image, and each image can be clicked so you can see a larger image. It’s similar to how you’d mount pieces on a plain, black background in a physical portfolio, a purposeful reduction of surrounding distraction. 

It would have been easy to go with a template with a lot of flair that would have required a lot of clicking, and it would have looked great. I made a conscious choice to not do that. I don’t like having to navigate that way myself, and I didn’t want the distraction from my actual work samples. But, I do wonder if I made the right decision there. What if a hiring manager sees so many portfolios with lots of bells and whistles that mine seems boring by comparison? What if they assume that I’m incapable of that level of work?

It occurs to me that maybe those other designers have 15 pieces of flair for a reason. Maybe that’s what it takes to get the necessary attention.

Once you have an account, take the time to go over topics you think you already know, you might be surprised at the tidbits hidden in there. And if not, you get the thrilling feeling of superiority, which can be really fun, too.

“Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.”

- William James

Of course, James was talking about a much grander scale of things than I am here, but I’m going to twist it to my situation anyway. Losing my job did feel like ultimate disaster, I loved that job. But I have managed to gain much in the past month and a half – I gots a lot more skillz goin’ on than I did before I was laid off. I’ve done many hours worth of extra training, I’ve learned new applications, and much more about the ones I already used. I’ve done research about marketing, communications, and social media, and I’ve got long lists of more that I intend to do. Someone would be lucky to hire me now, I’m about as highly motivated to keep learning and growing my skills and experience as I can possibly be; and I’m determined to do better, be better, and live better than ever before.

When you’re unemployed and job hunting, you have no choice but to self-examine, which is why the job search becomes demoralizing, you are forced to see your weaknesses. But there’s no reason to wait for disaster. So – how are your job skills? Are they really as good as they could be? When was the last time you did any extra training in your field? Have you done any networking, are you on LinkedIn? How do you compare to others in your field, could you compete if you had to?

I don’t mean to depress anyone, what I’d like to do is inspire someone to feel positively about their ability to keep growing and expanding. You can do it, and you don’t even need to lose your job to make it happen.

Anyway, for $39 ($10 off since I’m a NAPP member), I think I should manage to get my money’s worth. I’ll post a review of it after the fact.