Laura Blalock » Site http://lablalock.com Usable Design Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:58:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Newness http://lablalock.com/518/newness/ http://lablalock.com/518/newness/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:58:44 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.com/?p=518 3wp-150x93

I've finally finished moving all my sites to Wordpress 3.0 using the new multiblog feature. This will let me manage all my sites from a single interface and skip installing software updates multiple times. It was a lot of work made possible at all by liangzai's post giving step-by-step instructions on how to use the same Wordpress install with multiple domains. Moving the content wasn't that difficult with my other blogs but because I'd used so many different forms in so many places on this one I had to figure out how to integrate it all. The media library is doing fine so far to manage my images. I've taken my CSS templates and uploaded them to the library as zip files for download attached to new posts (sorry for the spam). My portfolio is taking advantage of another new feature, custom post types. This allows for linking to a particular piece as well as using larger images. You may not see much difference up front but this change-over should make things much easier for me on the back-end.]]> 3wp-150x93

I've finally finished moving all my sites to Wordpress 3.0 using the new multiblog feature. This will let me manage all my sites from a single interface and skip installing software updates multiple times. It was a lot of work made possible at all by liangzai's post giving step-by-step instructions on how to use the same Wordpress install with multiple domains. Moving the content wasn't that difficult with my other blogs but because I'd used so many different forms in so many places on this one I had to figure out how to integrate it all. The media library is doing fine so far to manage my images. I've taken my CSS templates and uploaded them to the library as zip files for download attached to new posts (sorry for the spam). My portfolio is taking advantage of another new feature, custom post types. This allows for linking to a particular piece as well as using larger images. You may not see much difference up front but this change-over should make things much easier for me on the back-end.]]> http://lablalock.com/518/newness/feed/ 0 Hello world! http://lablalock.com/1/hello-world/ http://lablalock.com/1/hello-world/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:11:13 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.imaginaryworld.net/?p=1 I’ve moved over to WordPress 3.0 so there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. Please forgive the hiccups.

]]> http://lablalock.com/1/hello-world/feed/ 1 Oh no, an AD! http://lablalock.com/291/ad/ http://lablalock.com/291/ad/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:17:16 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.com/291/ad/ I once said I’d never do it but if you look over in the sidebar you’ll find an ad for Bluehost.com. Worse, an animated ad.

The fact is that as a freelancer I need to make money however I can and the payoff affiliate funds I get are nothing to sneeze about.

The important part though is that I’m very pleased with the service. It’s less than ½ of what I was paying previously with all of the services I need and the ability to do what I want. Security settings were a problem with my previous host and it’s refreshing to know I’ll be able to use all of the services from social media on my own site. It’s also a relief to not wonder when I’m going to get hacked the next time. To be fair, that could be a function of moving to smaller host but it’s still one less worry.

To sum up, yes I sold out.

But I did it out of true love as well as necessity and isn’t that the best you can realistically hope for? You can be sure any ads that might creep in here will be for services I’ve actually used and enjoyed.

At least until they offer me more money ;-)

]]> http://lablalock.com/291/ad/feed/ 0 Socializing http://lablalock.com/231/socializing/ http://lablalock.com/231/socializing/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:35:50 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.com/?p=231 Check out the links in the sidebar for my social networks.

]]> http://lablalock.com/231/socializing/feed/ 0 A new decade http://lablalock.com/196/a-new-decade/ http://lablalock.com/196/a-new-decade/#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:20:55 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.com/?p=196 2000-150x120

It's not only a new year but a new decade and everyone seems optimistic that it will be better that the year before. I usually avoid New Year's resolutions (can't break what didn't exist) but here's one for you. I promise to post to this site more often. If you've been here before, you've probably noticed that it's had three different designs since it launched. It's always hardest to design for yourself and as this site is the ultimate reflection of me and my work it's been doubly hard to find what it needed to be. I've finally got a logo that is “me” and I'm confident that the rest of the design does what I want. I haven't been resting on my laurels though, I'm really excited by the possibilities of HTML5 so I created an new design for my Creative Librarian website based on the H5 Theme Template by Jeff Starr. It's really amazing how the combination of HTML5's added semantic tags and CSS3's advanced selectors make for cleaner code. I was so pleased with the result that now I want to redo the templates for this site in HTML5 ;-). That's going to have to wait though. I'm almost finished with another project, another Wordpress theme based on the H5 Theme Template that will be freely distributed. It has 4 separate widget areas, support for the newly released post thumbnails and several color schemes. I'm so happy with it I intend to use it on one of my other sites. With luck, 2010 is going to be a busy year for me but I'm making it a goal not to neglect this space.]]> 2000-150x120

It's not only a new year but a new decade and everyone seems optimistic that it will be better that the year before. I usually avoid New Year's resolutions (can't break what didn't exist) but here's one for you. I promise to post to this site more often. If you've been here before, you've probably noticed that it's had three different designs since it launched. It's always hardest to design for yourself and as this site is the ultimate reflection of me and my work it's been doubly hard to find what it needed to be. I've finally got a logo that is “me” and I'm confident that the rest of the design does what I want. I haven't been resting on my laurels though, I'm really excited by the possibilities of HTML5 so I created an new design for my Creative Librarian website based on the H5 Theme Template by Jeff Starr. It's really amazing how the combination of HTML5's added semantic tags and CSS3's advanced selectors make for cleaner code. I was so pleased with the result that now I want to redo the templates for this site in HTML5 ;-). That's going to have to wait though. I'm almost finished with another project, another Wordpress theme based on the H5 Theme Template that will be freely distributed. It has 4 separate widget areas, support for the newly released post thumbnails and several color schemes. I'm so happy with it I intend to use it on one of my other sites. With luck, 2010 is going to be a busy year for me but I'm making it a goal not to neglect this space.]]> http://lablalock.com/196/a-new-decade/feed/ 0 Layouts http://lablalock.com/68/layouts/ http://lablalock.com/68/layouts/#comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:55:03 +0000 Laura http://lablalock.com/?p=68

A long, long time ago (in Internet time) and far away (on another domain) I posted some pages I had made with html and css as templates for others to use as I was learning them myself. I've added to these occasionally since and today I pared them down to the ones I consider the best and moved them to this site along with a new one. You can find them all on the Layouts page or go directly to the new one, Photo Page, a layout specifically for a photo site.]]>

A long, long time ago (in Internet time) and far away (on another domain) I posted some pages I had made with html and css as templates for others to use as I was learning them myself. I've added to these occasionally since and today I pared them down to the ones I consider the best and moved them to this site along with a new one. You can find them all on the Layouts page or go directly to the new one, Photo Page, a layout specifically for a photo site.]]> http://lablalock.com/68/layouts/feed/ 0