Category: Talk Nerdy To Me

What’s a “basic” website, and how much does one cost?

I get that question all the time.  And apparently, so does my colleague and client Sue Edworthy.  Sue is an arts marketing specialist / publicist / strategist / consultant / planner, and she has a pretty great blog about marketing trends.  Last week, she asked if she could interview me for a blog post based around the question “Does anyone know how much it costs to set up a basic website?”

Of course, I was happy to oblige, since I have lots of thoughts on the subject.  You can read our interview over on Sue’s blog by clicking here.  Enjoy!

[“Complicated Bicycle” illustration by Marc Johns. It has nothing to do with basic websites.  I just like it.]

Ladies Learning Code – WordPress Workshop

Have you heard about Ladies Learning Code?  They’re a Toronto-based women-run not-for-profit that organizes workshops for ladies (and gentlemen too) to learn new technical skills.  Their workshops offer great quality instruction, in a fun and hip atmosphere.  And it’s really affordable – the workshops are only $40, and that includes a full day of instruction, breakfast AND lunch!

Ladies Learning Code is hosting a WordPress for Beginners workshop on January 14. If you’d like to attend, registration begins at 7pm TONIGHT. Follow this link to register. When they ran this workshop in November, it sold out fast.

If you do sign up, then I’ll see you at the workshop. I’m volunteering as a mentor to help out. I’m really looking forward to it- should be lots of fun.

[photo of the November WordPress for Beginners workshop from the Ladies Learning Code blog]

Typeface to Drool Over: Populaire

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged about a font.  Must be all that baby stuff crowding my brain… but when I saw this typeface (called Populaire) in the MyFonts newsletter, I had to share.  Isn’t it fun?  I’d love to use this font in a website project (since it comes in a web font version too).  I’m glad to see the handwritten font trend is still going strong.

Playing with the New Facebook Timeline

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably noticed some of the recent changes, and you may have heard that there are even more coming.  One of the more nifty changes is the “timeline” that you can enable on your Facebook profile.  It will be available to most users in the next couple of weeks, so you can wait to see what it’s all about, or you can get a sneak peak now.  There’s a screen shot of mine, above.

To enable the new Facebook timeline feature, follow these steps as outlined over at Mashable.  It’s really not that hard or technical.  The most difficult part is signing up for Facebook mobile, which you can promptly disable after you’re done playing with Timeline.

More Gadgets to Covet: Jambox

Here’s (yet) another gadget that I certainly don’t need, but boy do I want it… the Jambox speaker by Jawbone.  The tiny little speaker (think portability) runs on batteries, and connects to your iPod, iPhone, or iPad wirelessly by Bluetooth.  Don’t have Bluetooth on your device?  That’s okay, there’s an old-school audio-in jack for an auxiliary cable.

What’s different about this than the dinky iPod speakers they sell everywhere is that the Jambox apparently has killer sound.  I would love to have one for playing music on the back patio in the summer, or for using as an external speaker when I’m watching movies and TV shows on my new iPad.

At a cool $200, it’s not really in the budget right now… but my birthday’s coming up…

I gots an iPad

And no, it’s not an iPad2.

I usually think it’s a good idea to not buy first generation Apple products, as the second generations tend to have better features (and are usually cheaper). So I held off on getting an iPad for a year, just patiently waiting for the iPad2.

I was pretty disappointed with last week’s iPad2 launch, but I was pleased to see the prices of the original iPad drop dramatically. So I picked up a 32 gig first generation iPad for about $200 less than it was selling for previously.

I’m just starting to set it up now, and load it with apps. There are so many that are different or better than my iPhone apps… I’m having fun looking and discovering new stuff.

If you have an iPad, what are some of your favourite apps?

Mom, This is How Twitter Works

Maybe you remember back in May when I wrote about my love for Jessica Hische (the amazing letterer and illustrator).  I briefly mentioned her “Mom, This is How Twitter Works” guide – which started as an image file.

Her simple guide to explaining Twitter went viral, and now she has made it into a webpage with more detail (explaining retweeting, hashtags, and a comparison between Twitter and Facebook).  Check out www.momthisishowtwitterworks.com and learn a thing or two!