I am always looking for new ways to expand this blog. One of the ways I have discovered (though not recently but awhile ago) is to enter my site in as many search engines as possible as well as other directory submissions.

Any exposure that you can give your website is a good thing. SEO and the like are all helpful ways to attract traffic. Making sure you have adequate links (as in live links and non-broken) is a good start also.

I just came across a website today by the name of Design Charts. Apparently, this is where designers are ranked among their peers (or by those who submit their name and portfolio.

I was a bit disappointed at some of the top pics (only because some didn’t have readily available portfolios to view online).

However, I struck inspirational gold with Fluid Design out of Los Angeles.  One of their recent works was of Coupon Chief.  I am extremely familiar with this company because I like to peruse their coupons from time to time so as not to miss any online deals.

Anyway, I remembered Coupon Chief in its beginning days.  The site was drab, plain and the lack of excitement made it hard for me to want to stay on the page (i.e. I got bored fast).  However, this new design is … for lack of better words… cute.  It is cute, clean and appropriate.  I am very impressed.

Some of the companies listed on the designer’s rankings were submitted more than once and made it to the top of the list more than once as well.  I hear often how designers prefer javascript to flash but the flash sites are becoming quite impressive and quite interactive as well!

Another site that I found to be quite impressive and inventive is that of The Turn.  Think “Little Big Planet” meets a flash website!  It’s a pretty neat site and while it lacks in content (i.e. words), it makes up for it in creativity.  It is almost as if this site creator wanted to put this site up “just because he/she could”.  Very inventive.  Very inventive indeed.

I am delving deeper and deeper into the design aspect of websites.  I have found quite a few designers that I admire so don’t be surprised if I feature them on this site!  I love art and a good website!

Everything has been relatively copesetic this past weekend.  I have mentioned this probably a thousand times but I can’t believe how fast time flies by!  It seems like things happened “just yesterday” even though it has been weeks, months, years!

I was down in the basement this morning going through old boxes with the hopes of condensing the clutter.  I came across a box of antique plates that we got for a wedding present oh-so-long ago.  They are numbered and very heavy.  I think i’m going to sell them to an antique store.  Provided that that is how antique stores work?  I’m not sure if they sell the stuff for you and then take a commission or if they buy the stuff from you and then sell it themselves for profit.

Husb was helping and then he decided to go off with a friend and find Harley parts. Boys and their mechanical toys… I swear!

It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood and a gentle breeze is blowing through the living room. Husb and the kids are down for a nap now! I think i’m going to continue to work on my website project and continue watching the season premiere of 90210.

Oh yeah that reminds me…. How exciting is it that 90210 is back?! I mean… well… not with the original cast… but still! Now if only the powers that be could put Melrose Place back on the air, I would be a happy girl! Too bad Marcia Cross already has another acting gig! It would be awesome if Kimberley came back from the dead again!

Happy Sunday everyone!

I had what I thought was a near-miss with a hacker yesterday but instead turned out to be a biff-up on my host’s part. Still… all roads lead to a freak out and a lot of time trying to solve the problem with two ornery kids to boot.

If you don’t know what I am referring to… let me tell the story:

Yesterday afternoon I logged onto my site and instead of the cute pink and green hues with a smiling girl on her laptop for my header, I saw some lewd and crude adult-themed parked domain page complete with smiling half-naked women. They tagged my site for online schooling and naughty wives. Not sure what part of my page made them think of sex but I was just a bit put off by it. What… the splash page with cute smiling puppy dogs was unavailable?

So, thinking that I had been hacked into… (cuz what else could it have been… right?) I chatted up with my host. I was referred to their security department. The security department took FOREVER to get back to me. Of course at that point, 1 minute seemed like forever so maybe it was a couple of hours tops. Anyway, the security department told me that I had forgotten to renew my domain.

Uh… say what? You mean the same domain that I had renewed last month even though my payment wasn’t due until August 1? Yep. The very same. I was more than a little annoyed. I mean… come on now… I pay my bills on time… this shouldn’t have happened. Once again I chatted up a live tech rep and told them my story. They fixed the oopsy but with no apology for having freaked me out. Oh well… such is life. Human error…right?

The good thing is, I got my precious site back and that is the most important thing!

Still… what a day! When it was all over I wanted to roll under the covers with a pint of Chubby Hubby ice cream and lose myself in a sugar coma. I settled for going to the park with husb and the kiddos instead.