Found on the Internet

~Random ramblings from the last week or so~

You Suck at Photoshop
What's so addictive about this tutorial series is the drama happening in the background. Even if you don't own Photoshop or don't even edit photos at all, follow this series from the first episode for the humor alone.



New Episode of The Guild
I love this series. I think I've said that before, but no matter. I love this series. Check it out from episode one. Here's episode eight:



Blogger in Draft
The coolest feature I've found so far? The ability to schedule my posts. If I sit down and write several at one time, I can space out their appearance on my site. (Yeah, I know, nothing new to some of you non-Blogger-hosted bloggers, but it's new to Blogger!)

Book Mooch
Saw this on Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff and registered. Looks like a good way to clear some books out of my personal library.

Things I discovered last week

~random ramblings from last week~

I'm late
Yep. I didn't get this written or posted last week. I meant to do it on Friday. Oh well. Since there wasn't anything very profound, I'll keep it short. :)

The Lawn
Yes. The snow has melted and I saw the lawn for the first time since January. It's brown and dormant. (See, lacking in profoundness.)

Center clicking my mouse
On the EntreCard forums, someone posted that center clicking the mouse (the scroll wheel) in Firefox will cause a link to open in a new tab. Also, center clicking a tab in Firefox will cause it to close. I love handy-dandy time-saving tips like that.

BlogLog
I joined BlogLog this week and was surprised to see that it's affiliated with Yahoo! The concept of BlogLog is very similar to BlogCatalog. I've barely explored the advantages of either site yet for promoting this blog and discovering other new ones, but I'm registered and that's a start.

Three-column layout
I was on Hunting the Muse one night and noticed that Brady Frost had switched to a three-column layout and uses Blogger/Blogspot as a host. I've been wanting to try that for a while, but couldn't find any easy-to-use templates. When I found the link on his page, I followed it to discover my exact Blogger/Blogspot layout (minima) available in three columns! Yeah! That, of course, led to a lot of playing and tweaking and redesigning of this site. I'm not sure I love what I've done so far, but it's a start. I'm really frustrated that I can't figure out how to hack a white background behind the main column of content. I'm open to ideas and suggestions.

Things I've discovered this first week of March

~random ramblings and reflections from the past seven days~

I still have the stamina to pull an all-nighter
I'm not sure that's a good thing. I mean, I wish I was motivated enough to finish the task during normal hours. But if I need to stay up all night to finish something and still function at work the next day, I'm capable. Let's just not make a habit of it, OK?

I'm an old-school emoticon kind of girl
Yeah, I like my emoticons built out of old-fashioned text characters. None of this flashy animation for me. :P

This photo is generating hits
I don't get it. This photo is horrible. It's available light using my camera phone. It's not even flattering. But my SiteMeter says at least three or four people have visited my site in the past week because of this photo. Huh?

My journalism professor was right
Way back in the late '80s, before the Internet age, my favorite journalism professor, Bob Woodward (not *the* Bob Woodward of Watergate fame), liked to tell me that my byline should be "haleyhughes, one word, lowercase." This week, as I was typing my name for the umpteenth time on some web form, I realized that the Internet has proven Professor Woodward right and, indeed, my byline is now "haleyhughes, one word, lowercase." And I like it that way.

I write at a sixth-grade level
A post I read on Bloody Computer! reminded me that Microsoft Word has a feature that allows you to judge the readability of your writing. It's through the spelling/grammar check tool. Anyway, after reading the post, I copied the text from my blog's main page into Word and ran the check. It came back as a sixth-grade readability level, which I think is great, because that means it's easily readable, like they taught me in J-school. I'm not trying to write a dissertation here. An enjoyable reading experience is the goal.

Avon Romance Blog
I've been reading romance novels since I was 13 years old. Some of the first that I read and many of my favorites have been published by Avon Books. So imagine my surprise when the Avon Romance Blog dropped an EntreCard on my site and then requested to place an ad here. OMG, Avon! I have since become a regular reader of the blog. If you like to read romance novels or if you're writing a romance novel and want to learn more about the acquiring editors, go visit this blog.

CoComment
A cool way to keep track of comments you've made on other blogs, and track followup discussions. Unfortunately, a few comments do manage to escape its tracking system, but I'm not sure how. Maybe if there's no RSS feed?

AdSense
I haven't felt the need to place advertising on this blog before, simply because I know the return would be minimal. Plus I'm not blogging for the money, although money is nice. Sometimes, though, my curiosity gets the better of me and I sign up for something just to see it from the inside. So, I signed up for AdSense (see the Google ads in the right column) and I've been discovering the inner workings. I think I've earned all of 1 cent so far. :)

Not everyone has an EntreCard widget yet
Every blog I visit now, I find myself searching for the EntreCard widget so I can drop my card. When I don't find one, I wonder: Why hasn't this person signed up yet? Are they afraid of the extra traffic and exposure? Seriously, follow the EntreCard link, take the tour, create an attractive 125-by-125 pixel calling card for your blog, sign up and see what happens. (I'm talking to you, Don M.F.H. And Wook. And Stanimal.)

Things I've discovered this week

It was a screw
Evidently, the slow leak in my tire was from a screw. The offending screw has been removed, the hole plugged and the tire re-inflated. I am now road safe again.

I won't self-combust in a church
It's been a long time, so I wasn't sure. But I survived my niece's baptism without incident. We'll see how I do next weekend, when my nephew is baptized. They're different churches, afterall -- one Catholic, the other Lutheran.

I've developed a photographic style
When I sent a link to Dave's cousin in Scotland to view the photos from the baptism (see above), this was part of her response: "Even if you hadn't sent them, I would have known you took them. Apart from the types of poses and the study of the architecture(!) - you aren't in them!!!" I confess, I do like windows.

We really need to buy a snow blower
This is our sixth winter in this house, and we haven't bought a snow blower yet. But there have been so many snow events this year, we're both sick of shoveling. The neighbor-kids all seem sick of shoveling, too. Nobody has been ringing our doorbell this year. That's probably for the best, though. At $20 a shot, we would have dished out a lot of money in snow removal this year -- enough to buy a snow blower.

Oolong means Black Dragon
Went to a tea tasting last night with Marriott and JC in the city. It was 90 minutes of standing around and tasting all sorts of teas: white, green, oolong and black. I usually like to sweeten my tea, but for the tasting we drank it straight up. My favorite was the sumatra oolong barisan, but I'm pretty certain that by the time we got to the darjeeling and assam teas, my pallet was shot. When I go again in two weeks, I'm bringing my own crackers and cold water. Oh, and making sure my camera battery is charged.

Stuff White People Like
I discovered this blog, Stuff White People Like, by way of a post on Beeker's Words. Too funny, and kind of embarrassing to see how many things fit. Like #13 Tea.

Favicons
See the little icon next to this web address in the address bar of your browser? Apparently, that's a favicon. Anyway, I stumbled on an interesting post on Hello Mother, Hello Father about how to add a Favicon, and of course had to run out and do it myself. The hardest part was making something only 16 by 16 pixels that I liked. What do you think?

Things I've discovered this week

All 5th- and 6th-grade girls have long hair
It's not a scientific sampling, mind you. But, when I went to my nephew's school production the other night, I noticed this trend. Of at least 150 students in 5th and 6th grades, half being girls, I only noticed *one* girl with short hair. One.

Footloose represents the entire decade of '80s music
Yellow Submarine represents the '60s, the Hustle and Y-M-C-A represent the '70s, and Achy Breaky Heart sums up the entire '90s. At least they did at my nephew's school production of "On the Radio", about music through the 20th century. Granted, it's an elementary school production, and these songs have a distinct visual element that's fun for families, but it still disturbs me. Did I mention how much I enjoyed my nephew's performance?

Playing is more fun than working
Duh. Everyone knows that. But I mean it more in the sense that sometimes I'd rather spend hours manipulating my photos than connecting three sentences together in an effort to write. How's my novel coming? Don't ask. But look what I made.

I can't sleep late any more
I was thrilled to have Monday off for President's Day. I didn't have to get up for work, and I didn't have to get up to go to my workout class. A true day off. Except, I woke up at the same time and couldn't get back to sleep. Bah.

BlogCatalog
I signed up with BlogCatalog. It's kind of social networking for bloggers, and a good place to browse blogs. Haven't played around with all that much yet.

BlogRush
I also signed up with BlogRush, which is a syndication service for bloggers. There's a widget in my right column that shows headlines from five other blogs. Somewhere out in the blogosphere, a headline of mine appears on someone's widget. Hopefully, someone or two will click through and find this post.

Mosquito Ringtone
I'm not buying this ringtone. It's just that I've been reading about the mosquito on news articles online, and was intrigued to actually get to hear it. The mosquito is a high-frequency noise that most adults can't hear because we lose that frequency as we age. It was developed as a tool to deter teens from loitering outside businesses. So, on the ringtone site above, they have samples of the mosquito played at different frequencies. I can still hear the mosquito at the 40 and younger frequency, which is good, because I'm still under 40.

Things I've discovered this week

The concept of a "meme"
It's an idea or exercise that is spread from blog to blog. Kind of like the survey-get-to-know-you chain-letters that people like to email, but instead it's something you post on your own blog, then tag other bloggers to do the same. See my The Page 123 Meme for an example.

Lisa 365
A blogger who has taken the challenge to try something new every day for a year. This idea really resonates with me. A few years ago, I experimented with doing something that scares me every month. It only lasted for a few months, because, well, everything was scary. Lisa's challenge of trying something new every day doesn't require that the something new be big, just new, like building a tower out of wine glasses or cutting up a credit card.

Entrecard
The bloggers in the World of Warcraft community all seem to be using Entrecards, so I explored the idea and signed up. I'm less than a week into using Entrecard, and the hits on this site have gone up. The idea is that you drop a digital business card on sites that you visit, earning credits every time you do. Then, you can use those credits to display your digital business card on other Entrecard sites.

Blog 2 Print
Someone has invented a way to take the content from a blog and have it printed into an on-demand book. Looks intriguing, but I can't really see why anyone besides me would want a book version of this blog.

Ugly blogs
While playing with Entrecard, I've visited a lot of blogs that I wouldn't have normally visited. Some are gorgeous, but some are so cluttered with money-making schemes that it's hard to find the content. I'll stop there.

Facebook
I can import this blog into my Facebook account's Notes section. Not only that, the Notes will automatically update whenever I post to this blog.