web publishing

Learning Every Day

Life is a learning experience. I am working on the WordGrrls blog, changing to a new theme. It was great to have a new premium theme from Matt at WordPress.

I have nothing bad to say about Thesis, the WP theme. I still like it and may yet return to using it. One thing, it is quite simple to use and uncomplicated once you get the hang of where to find everything.

Now I am using Headway and finding it has too many options for fiddling with little things, overkill. I am still trying to work out the footer and I need to make the body of content fluid but have not found an option for that. Two fairly essential things. There isn’t a lot of documentation (other than videos which I just don’t want to deal with). But I have found some help from Headway Beginner .

A Comment a Day

Everyone can leave one comment in one blog each day. Pretty simple. If you were away you can catch up by doing an extra comment the next day. No stress. Just one sincere and interesting comment per day. No problem. Pick any blog you like. A blog you have been reading awhile or one you pick randomly and may never have read before.

Sign up below, we can link here and start commenting.

Originally published at Word Grrls .


Applying to Lifehacker

I’m Laura. ASCII artist, stick figure cartoonist, urban and rural explorer of abandoned places – these are a few of the things I am doing when I’m not writing. I began as a web writer in 1998 but I started online in 1996, an IRC diva. I think I am a great fit for Lifehacker because I have experience, stamina (I was an editor at Dmoz over ten years), creativity, originality and inspiration. I’ve also been a copy editor and forum moderator so I can write and self edit my work quite well. I love finding new things online: new gadgets, new sites, new ways to use what we already have. I’m not the most organized person so I look for anything to help me with that.Some things work and some don’t but I try them. Once a year I reformat my hard drive to make sure I’m not left with any nasty critters from my experimentation. I’m teaching my Mother to use the computer. It takes patience, a lot of simple words, straight forward answers and I’m usually repeating the same things over a few times before she actually listens but we are making progress. I’m Sagittarius, I just feel the need to teach the world.

WordGrrls () is my site for web writers. Originally I used it to stash content I had written for BackWash, WZard.com, HerPlanet, LockerGnome, BellaOnline and Suite101. On WordGrrls I post (daily) creative writing prompts, writing inspiration, web publishing ideas and generally my point of view about anything to do with keeping a space for yourself on the web. There is a flood of information for SEO and marketing your blog but the writing itself is being put on the backburner. I bring the writing back into the lime light. I love writing and even making lists of topics to write about. A bit crazy. Currently I am working through a mild addiction to WordPress plugins. I have found several I like for odds and ends but I’ve yet to find just what I want for displaying a featured past post.

I’m located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Not the US but I was once married to an American and spent a few years living in Illinois, does that count?

Right now I am not employed, trying the work from home plan but still mostly just unemployed. I have a lot of availability. Usually I am online in the evening when it is quiet and dark and I can pretend I’m far more mysterious than I really am.

Serif Free Software

Free versions of Serif software , includes WebPlus and DrawPlus for creating sites and making your own graphics. I found this a few years ago and never did do much to try them out. Now they are updated and still have free versions, which was nice to find. Or, you can pay and get a few more features. Or, go to the main site and get the latest versions of the same software. Pretty reasonable, even for the newest versions, when compares to DreamWeaver which is up to $500 now versus the $100 it was when I first got ahold of what is now an older version, before Adobe added it’s name to the whole thing.

PodCasting WordPress

On my ever growing list of things to do. I want to learn more about podcasting. I seem to remember typing that here already, not so long ago. Anyway, still there.

I found a site that does a podcast about WordPress and blogging . Have not listened to it yet but the preview of links posted to the blog makes it sound good. Can’t listen right now cause the Momborg (to borrow Claire’s name for her Mother) is sleeping, trying to get rid of her cold.

I am even making a new tag for podcast on this blog. That gives me the hope I can find all the stuff I have bloggered about it when I actually do something about it. I do have a microphone, that’s a start on the hardware. (Always be optimistic!)