Tag Archives: design

A New Look

Posted on by
6

This site was long overdue for a facelift.

Last night, on impulse, I switched this site’s theme from a highly modified version of iNove to WordPress’s brand-new Twenty Eleven. Unless I’ve had an impulse to change it again since writing this, you’re probably looking at it right now.

The site was long overdue for the change. A while back, in an effort to show off more of my photos, I’d added a plugin to pull thumbnail images from my photo gallery and arrange them as clickable links in the header. I realized belatedly that this seriously slowed down the loading of the site. Some people even commented about it. Something had to be done.

There are several reasons it took so long to make the change:

  • I couldn’t find a theme I liked. Really. I have a terrible time imagining how I could modify a theme to meet my own needs.
  • Most themes I liked either looked too “bloggy” or too “magaziney.” I couldn’t find one in between that I could imagine changing.
  • I couldn’t find a theme that had built-in support for mobile devices.
  • I didn’t have the time to sit down and do the work necessary to make major modifications to a theme.
  • I actually liked the way my site looked with its current setup.

But after upgrading the site to WordPress 3.2, I noticed a brand new theme: Twenty Eleven. Like its predecessor, Twenty Ten, it had clean lines and a lot of built-in features. It also had the benefit of being created by the makers of WordPress, so I knew it would be compatible and show off WordPress features. Working with it would give me a good opportunity to dive into theme customization again. Even though I didn’t have time to play with it right away, there would be plenty of opportunities to tweak it over the coming weeks and months.

And if there’s something I really enjoy doing, it’s tweaking a WordPress theme to suit my needs.

So yesterday, I made the switch. And this morning, I dumped a few of my own images into the random header folder to personalize it enough for prime time.

I’ll be modifying it as time goes on. Would love to know what you think and am open to suggestions for changes. Use the comments link — well, “Reply” link right now; it’s on my list to change — to share your thoughts.

Why Shop Online?

Posted on by
1

Save money, save time, get what you want.

The best way to explain is with yet another of my long stories. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Our Phoenix condo is a sort of bachelor pad where Mike and our roommate Matt live during the week. I’m also down there on and off at various times of the week. It has five rooms: living room, dining room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. We furnished it simply with a mixture of old and new (mostly Ikea) furniture. We “decorated” it by putting a few enlarged photos on the walls.

It’s passable, but nothing special.

The Blinds

One of the things that always bothered me was the blinds. The apartment has four sliding glass doors that lead out to its two patios. The ones in the living room and master bedroom are triple doors with the middle door that slides. On both doors are off-the-shelf vinyl vertical blinds that don’t fit quite right and look, frankly, like crap.

I’ve been wanting to replace the blinds on these two doors since Mike bought the apartment. This week, I decided to support the local economy by having a local blinds company put them in for us. I used Google Maps to find a company nearby, called, and got an appointment for an in-home consultation today.

The saleswoman arrived on time with her computer and some samples. I was disappointed to learn that the fabric blinds I wanted would be very costly, so I took her advice and went with vinyl blinds. Of course, the colors I wanted weren’t available anymore either, so I had to pick different colors. She measured and did the math. The total was over $1,200, with “free” installation.

For two sets of blinds.

To my credit, I didn’t choke or pass out from sticker shock. Instead, I told her I’d “present” her estimate to my husband.

(Women always have this option if they don’t want to say no immediately. They can pretend their husband has to make the decision and later say that their husband said no.)

BlindsA while later, I got online. I went to SelectBlinds.com, an online seller of all kinds of blinds. I looked at their wide variety of styles and colors. I called their toll-free number and asked a few questions. And then I ordered the fabric blinds I wanted in the colors I wanted. With the 30% off coupon right on their home page, the blinds cost $359 delivered. The only reason it cost that much was because the 108-inch length of the blinds required a $70 shipping surcharge.

I’d saved over $800 by ordering online.

Yes, I know my husband will have to install them. I think he’s up to the task. But even if I did have to hire a handyman, I’m sure it wouldn’t cost $800 to get the blinds installed.

The Photos

Another thing I’ve been wanting to fix up in the condo are the photos. When Mike first bought the place, I bought a bunch of plain black frames with off-white mats at Ikea. I then began filling the frames with enlargements of some of my favorite photos.

Trouble is, the off-white mat looked pretty crappy. It kind of took the steam out of my photo project and, after filling only two frames with 20 x 30 prints, I stopped.

I’d done some research at Aaron Brothers, a local framing shop, and discovered that new mats would cost a small fortune — about three times the price of the prints! I got the same general pricing information at Michaels, another local place that does framing. Suddenly, it seemed that my inexpensive photo framing project would be very costly.

But today, I got online. I went to PictureFrames.com, which can cut mats to any size you like. I had some trouble deciding what color to use — I have absolutely no creative design skills. I knew I wanted all the mats to be the same color, no matter what the print was. I wanted consistency.

I discovered that if I pretended I wanted to order a framed print, I could upload an image, choose a mat, and choose a frame. I could then see how they looked together. Doing this, I decided that a dark gray frame would give me the neutral color I wanted while complementing the photo. (My artist friend, Janet, later confirmed this after I sent he screen shots of the previews.) I was able to preview four photographs with the gray mat/black frame combination.

Preview Frame

Framed PrintOnce I’d decided on a mat color, it was just a matter of entering the measurements for each of the mats I’d need. I ordered a total of eight mats in four different sizes, ranging from outside measurements of only 8 x 11 to 30 x 40.

Before checking out, I poked around the Internet and found a free shipping coupon code for PictureFrames.com. When I applied it, it saved me over $20 in shipping charges. The total cost of the eight mats came to about $100.

Of course, I didn’t have all the prints I wanted, so I also went online to my Zenfolio photo gallery, Flying M Photos, and chose four new prints: two 16×24 and two 8×12. You can see one of them here in the mocked up frame. The total cost of that, with shipping, was under $50.

Zenfolio now offers framing with mats (the mats are new and still very limited); in the future, I’ll likely buy the prints framed and matted to save the bother of doing it myself.

Shopping Done

I expect the prints and mats to arrive within the next week or so. I’ll assemble them and put them up on the walls. With luck, the new blinds will arrive around the same time and Mike will put them up. Together, they’ll give the apartment a more finished look.

I do wish I could have bought these things locally to support the local economy. But should I have spent two or three times what I did — literally hundreds of dollars more? I don’t think so.

What do you think?

Copy Editing – Part I: What Is Copy Editing?

Posted on by
Comment

Copy editing — an important part of the publishing process.

Prepare yourself for the usual author rant — but with a difference. This one is coming from an author who just completed her 69th book. An author who has worked with about eight different publishers and dozens of copy editors over the course of 15 years.

So no, this isn’t a newbie writer griping about a heavy-handed editor on her first or second book. It’s coming from someone who has been doing this for a long time and feels as if she’s “seen it all.”

I’ve taken this topic and split it into three parts. In this part, I’ll start off with an introduction to the topic of copy editing and tell you what I believe it should be.

Stet!What is Copy Editing?

The purpose of copy editing should be to ensure that the original text is:

  • Free of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Note the use of the word “error” here; that’ll be important later in this discussion.
  • Consistent with a publisher style guide. A style guide, in the world of publishing, is a document that sets forth usage in those gray areas. I’m talking about capitalization issues such as web vs. Web, hyphenation issues such as email vs. e-mail, and design issues such as boldfacing figure references.
  • Clear and easy to understand. This usually involves breaking up long or complex sentences or possibly rearranging sentence components.
  • Unlikely to be misinterpreted. For example, when you say the “Color in pop-up menu,” do you mean a pop-up menu named “Color in” or are you talking about color in a pop-up menu?
  • Consistent with the writing style of the established book or series. This only comes into play when you’re writing for a series that has a predefined format and style. For example, Visual QuickStart Guides (VQSes) tend to be short and to the point, so I don’t have room for personal stories, as I do in other books. VQSes also have level 2 headings that begin with the word “To” and are followed by numbered steps, each of which presents a single task. (I could list about a dozen style issues specific to a VQS, but you get the idea.)

Flowers for AlgernonOf course, what you’re writing should determine how much of the above is required. If you’re writing a novel much of this may not apply at all. Consider the book, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The book’s first person narrator is a retarded man. The book is in journal format and the first few chapters are so full of spelling and punctuation errors (or omissions) that the book is difficult to read. But that’s because of the author’s choices and the method he uses to communicate. Would you expect a retarded man to have perfect spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Of course not. The author is using the character’s shortcomings as a writer to make his character more real — as well a to drive home the changes in the character as the story progresses. This technique was used again more recently in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which featured an autistic first-person narrator. If a copy editor had done a thorough job on the grammar or punctuation in either of these two books, he would have altered the characters. The same can be said for dialog in most novels, since few people speak using perfect grammar.

So copy editing of fiction is a different subject — one I’m not addressing here. I’m discussing copy editing of non-fiction, primarily technical or how-to books, since that’s where my experience is.

More to Come…

This is the first part of my discussion of copy editing. There are at least two more parts to go. In the next part, I’ll rant a bit about my experiences with one particular book over the ten-year course of its life (so far). You’d think that after 10 years, the process would be trouble-free…

Why not take a moment to tell us what you think copy editing should be. How do you expect it to change or improve your writing? Use the comments link or form to share your thoughts.