I had a meeting with a computer person yesterday — excuse me, a technical design specialist. It was very fruitful, not least in the educational benefits for both of us. Each of us had “ah ha!” moments when the other gave us information we had needed but not had access to before.
She runs her business from a little building which she shares with a woman who does bookbinding. Sheets of paper at $18 apiece line the walls, and sample handbound books sit on the conference tables. The bookbinder had her baby with her. Next door is a little gallery with beautiful pottery, jewelry, and hand knitting. In the next block is a quirky little bookstore and the French bakery I’ve mentioned before. In between there are auto mechanics and a manufacturer and little houses.
This is how I like towns to be.
Anyway, I have some next steps for what I’m working on and so does she. The fabulous Arkenboy told me that SEO was “a dark art,” but not where to find the real estate on the web.
The design person and a graphic artist of my acquaintance are both doing estimates for what they would charge to do the formatting for the books. We will have to compare the costs of learning to do it ourselves, hiring it done, or leaving it undone.
She will also, I think, be able to do tech workshops for us this summer, a thing our customers have really been wanting. She has not previously been able to attract teachers to her classes, but I have the secret to that. I was really pleased when she said, “That’s what they meant by projects! I feel so stupid!” Not because I wanted her to feel stupid, but because I had been the one going, “You can write html in Word?! I had no idea!” up to that point, and it was nice to be able to reciprocate.
Yes, well, I realize that this has been neither meaningful nor interesting for most visitors. What can I say? That’s what I did yesterday.
Actually, I also made brownies for my optometrist. The Princess and I have often mused, when we were at work during the afternoon lull, on how nice it would be if someone brought warm brownies to the store for us, yet no one ever does. So I thought it would be nice if I took warm brownies to the excellent Dr. T, along with a catalog and order forms, on my way to the tech meeting. I worked on, but still did not finish, the last section of the first grade book, got a couple more links, and in the evening I prepared a mailing for my business.
I did make dinner for my family. But apart from a little cooking and baking, all I did yesterday was work. Today will be much the same, though I intend to be frivolous this evening and possibly finish up that skirt or get a few more inches knitted on Ivy.
I am not getting to the gym enough. I was there one day this week, and had a walk on another day, and am feeling fairly determined to get there this morning before I leave for the store, but whatever happened to 30 minutes every day no excuses?
I had more time when we were getting up at 4:00 a.m. I was exhausted, it is true, but I did have more time.
I like towns to be like that, too.
The only way to get the 30-minutes-exercise-every-day-no-excuses done is, in my experience, to put it on your schedule exactly the same way you put appointments with computer experts or Pampered Chef shows on your schedule. On the other hand, I have recently seen a study claiming that the results are exactly the same if you do three 10-minute sessions at different times during the day as if you do the single 30-minute session — claiming that the traditional “only after 20 minutes does it start being useful” principle is false. That wouldn’t help for going to the gym, but — if it’s true — it might help a lot with sessions of walking.
Let me throw out a suggestion, if you plan to get things printed.
I work for a small printing company that might be of help to you. You can contact them at http://www.delonglitho.com/
They are set up to do short runs (less than 1,000), they are really nice people, and they’d probably help you with easing into do-it-yourself, if you want to. Their rates are good, too. They’re located in Virginia, but they deal on a regular basis with companies that are not nearby.
The person to talk to is Marcia. It’s a family-owned company.
I have something to gain by this, because if they have surplus work, I may get some of it. But I’m reccommending them because I think there’s a real chance that they may give you the best deal. I never would have reccommended the last place I worked before them.
Anyway, it won’t hurt to get an estimate. Mention to Marcia that Johann Mitchell told you about them.
Also, I found a really good book on website construction at Borders. It’s called “Creating a Web Page” by Elizabeth Castro. I would have mentioned it before, but you seemed to have everything in hand. One of the first things she says is to use a text editor to write HTML. I think it would work best for you to skim through it to get an idea of what’s in it so you can go back and find the step-by-step instructions for things when you need them.
I hope this helps!
Yeah, I’m a graphic artist. If there’s anything you need printed, I can do the art for it!
Please do remember my friends. At least get a quote from them on art and printing.
I say this partly for their sake, but mostly for you. They are the kind of company you would expect to find in the town setting you described. A friendly, family-owned company with good prices.
If you want to buy software to do your own art, I use Quark XPress for page layout and PhotoShop for photo editing.
There’s a cheaper version of PhotoShop, but it’s been simplified so it won’t do as much. PhotoShop is a great program because it will open almost any graphic format. XPress has been the most-used page layout program, but InDesign is gaining in popularity because they advertise it as a multi-media program. In other words, you’re supposed to be able to generate a print page that the program can convert to a web page. I don’t know how well that works in actual practice, though.
One of DeLong’s customers publishes Acrobat pages to the web. This is not good because type doesn’t display well, and it’s hard to read. It’s a bit better if you print it out, but still not good.
Feel free to ask for advice on printing matters.
Wow, I didn’t know you could write html in word either, that’s awesome.
I’m glad you were both able to have ah ha moments and I hope you are able to have a little more time today. 