I’ve just released a web site I’ve been working on for the last few months. It’s the web site of Henry Steele Commager who was an important American historian. I’m proud to work on projects like this one because Henry’s work was so important. And his widow is a close friend of mine, so that makes it personal.
See the Henry Steele Commager site, and be sure to buy lots of his books on Amazon from the Books In Print page…
I’ve recently released two web sites that I’m quite proud of (links are below).
The first was for Florida Public Broadcasting Service, which is a non-profit company that represents public radio and public TV stations in Florida. It was their first web site, which meant there was lots to think about, we wanted to be sure the site’s structure could grow as the site matures.
The second of my recent releases was the Vista Imagery web site. Vista Imagery is a photography studio here in Cancun. This is a redesign of her original site and is designed to be more search engine friendly than her last site, which was a Flash site. There may still be some speed issues with this site, if you see slowness please report it to me. With that many photos it’s difficult to make sure the site is lightning fast.
Enjoy!
Last week I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with the wonderful and fabulous choreographer Alison Chase. Alison was the founding director and “mother” of Pilobolus Dance Theater. If you’ve never heard of Pilobolus then you’ve missed something important and amazing in the world of dance (that’s what Google is for, right?).
Twenty years ago, when I was studying modern dance, my classmates and I were completely enamored by Pilobolus and we emulated them every chance we got.
Alison Chase is now working independently of Pilobolus Dance Theater, and seems to be pushing the boundaries of modern dance harder than ever. She showed me several videos of recent works and I can only say this: “be very jealous of me!”
You can get a taste of Alison’s work by downloading a Quicktime Video Sample of her recent choreography which resides on Alison’s temporary web site.
I am beginning development of Alison’s full web site now. And I’ll certainly post here when the site is finished; but don’t wait up, Alison is more of a perfectionist than I am, so this site could take a while to get right.
I have not been my usual quick-typing oft-blogging self lately. This is due in part to several things. One being the fact that hubby and I are still rental-condo-hunting, it takes hours and days and lots of thinking power. But we may have finally cornered the right condo in the right building in the right neighborhood at the right price with the right rental income potential. And the owner may even be capable of reaching and abiding by a sale agreement. We shall see.
Another factor is that my social life and my marriage both have been a bit taxing. I may blog about this stuff a little later, when I get some perspective. Suffice to say my loyalties to certain of my close people are being greatly taxed. In relationships and friendships there are sometimes lines that get crossed; but at some point I stop forgiving, and I don’t start again, and I walk away and don’t look back. I’m simply afraid that one of those times may be upon me. Again, we shall see.
And the final and main factor is that I’ve been (what? can it be true?) getting my WORK DONE! A couple of projects are still suffering a lack of attention. But I’m proud to say several others are in good shape, nice code and nice clients and nice work, when all is said and done. So that is very satisfying.
This morning when I checked my email there was a message from a favored client. And it said, in part:
The page looks fantastic! Nothing to comment on, it’s perfect.
That kind of comment is what keeps me slaving away in front of my computer hour after hour. Someday I will show you all this “perfect” page, but for now it’s part of a big secret project…so there!
I’ve been working too hard again. But a web site I’ve been working on for several months is finally done and released. It’s a site to advertise two condo rentals that are owned by one of my clients.
One condo is a cute 2 bedroom in Playa del Carmen, it’s in the up-and-coming Little Italy section of town. I shot all the photos for this condo and have spent several hours there. It’s a nice place and I’m sure my client won’t have trouble renting it. It’s right around the corner from Quinta Avenida (the 5th Ave. strolling mall) and is close to Playa Mamitas, which is THE BEACH in Playa del Carmen.
The other condo is at Residencial Bay View Grand here in Cancun. And this condo is over the top. It was professionally decorated by Jerry Jacobs, whose work is exceptional. It’s got 3 bedrooms and can sleep 8 comfortably. It’s located on Playa Chac Mool which is one of the best beaches in Cancun. This property is a good deal more posh than the one in Playa del Carmen, but is just as comfortable.
Bay View Grand is a really nice property and this condo is on the 6th floor with views of both the Nichupte Lagoon and the Caribbean. I haven’t seen a sunrise from there but I’m sure it’s spectacular. I did spend an entire sunset there once and that was really special. I’m certain that renters will love this property, but I do think my client is a little crazy to rent something so nice! If it were mine I wouldn’t want to share.
Here are links to the vacation rental site and also to Jerry Jacobs’ site:
Since I moved here from the States I’ve lamented the lack of all kinds of things. Roads without potholes, peanut butter that doesn’t have lard in it, good coffee, Target, organic vegetables and yard sales.
And I mean real yard sales, rich people yard sales, yard sales with NICE things for sale, not the junky ones you get here once every blue moon where everything is overpriced crap.
Along the line of yard sales another thing that has been lacking here is some kind of decent classified advertising web site (you know I really MUST sell that Johnson Brothers tea set that I never use but keep dragging from house to house).
Well I was just reading the DroppedIn blog, way over there in Planet Merida, and it turns out that Malcolm and Jillian have just launched a sweet little free classified advertising site for the Yucatan peninsula, it’s called Yolisto.
There’s nothing much being advertised on Yolisto yet but it’s truly just a matter of time. It’s so pleasing to the eye and so user-friendly that I’m sure it will fill up with lots of tea sets I don’t need in no time at all.
It’s not the same as a real live American-style yard sale but it’s so close that I can almost smell the bargains…sniff, sniff.
It’s party season in Cancun folks. And this is the time of year when I, yet again, realize that 95% of the people I know here are folks that I met because of the internet. In case you you live under a rock, and haven’t noticed, the internet is an integral part of the social climate here.
And it’s normal for me to meet someone and once I start to yapping to have them suddenly interrupt and say “Are you RiverGirl?”. Click, click, all the connections get made and the online world crashes headlong into the reality of a friendly person standing in front of you. It’s a trip and every-time it happens I try desperately to remember what the heck I actually SAY in my blog…but I usually can’t remember anything and so opt for an uneasy sense that maybe I should be embarrassed, maybe or probably!
Well enough on that, here’s an update on some of our recent parties:
Last weekend we got invited to a party at Mexico Way’s apartment, and when I got there I was lucky enough to meet Mexico Way’s hot shit mother and also her cool friend LurkerGirl (when are we having LUNCH?). And I saw my best buddy the AlmightyAdSenseGod. And also good old (old as in trusty not as in OLD) CancunCanuck was there. And probably some other folks from my online circle of friends, but you know, it was a party and so we were, like, drunk at some point.
All I really remember was some moron who claimed to know everything about everything web related and was such a complete idiot that I was forced to turn my back on him and talk to CancunCanuck about sex instead (she knows a lot). What a tough life.
And then yesterday we had 3 parties to attend, the first was the International Women’s Club’s Holiday Tea. I dragged hubby to it with the promise that he would not be the only man there. And he wasn’t, there were a whole 2 other men there! Poor guy was surrounded by 35 women for 3 whole hours.
After that we had a fiesta over at the casa del AlmightyAdSenseGod (Happy Birthday Dani!), where we encountered another motley crew of online buds from the CancunCare forum including Drewbert and notSteveCoker (who swears he’s not a Republican, though no one believes him). We also encountered lots of beer, Jannet’s yummy curry, birthday cake and the most lovely kitten in the whole world. Truly that little guy puts our 9 cats to shame. Shame, shame, shame on each one of them for not being that cute or cuddly, damn spoiled cats!
Then we finally topped off the day with a party for employees of Grupo Ritco (hubby’s Residencial La Playa real estate gig is with Grupo Ritco) at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s. Remind me never to go to Carlos ‘n Charlie’s again!
I know I’m a complete wuss but the floor was sticky and I had on NEW SHOES! And the waiters kept dropping metal trays just so they would clatter noisily to the floor and the service was impossibly slow. And it was so stupidly loud that the only person I could hear was my husband and, well, I’ve already heard everything HE has to say seeing as he talks all the time, even when he’s asleep.
But their biggest crime was that my fake-yarda-sized (2 not 3 foot tall) mango margarita had about one tablespoon of cheap tequila in it. And on top of that those people put too much sugar in everything, the marg had more sugar than booze, the appetizer had sugar in it, the entree had sugar in the sauce. And the cheesecake was so sweet I couldn’t eat it (it didn’t help that it was FROZEN solid also). I am completely sure that the chef at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s must be a major diabetic who is trying to spread the fun! Still, the Grupo Ritco people were all nice, location aside. Hopefully they will have another get together somewhere a little more conducive to, you know, enjoyment!
And looking at my calendar I see at least 5 more parties are scheduled on the immediate event horizon. Some how I’ll just have to muddle through, what a tough life.
Well, actually, I just envy his gignormous talent so much that it HURTS! He recently gave a face-lift to his Simple Bits web site and it’s just full of all those little touches that make the web designer in me drool. I’m just a droolin’ and a droolin’ all over the floor, what a mess.
His use of color is great as is his use of type styles. And his use of {brackets} as his persistent page indicator is just so subtle and effective that I will have to steal it the next chance I get (clients, be ye warned). And his code is so nice and neat and clean that it just makes me want to break out in hives of jealousy.
I saw Dan speak at the WebVisions 2006 conference and he impressed me with how easy he made everything look. And then I read one of his books and it made everything look so easy. Well, screw you Dan for making it look so easy. (And thanks for the inspiration!)
See the Simple Bits site.
I was running the loop in the Parque Kabah, here in Cancun, this morning and I came around a corner and suddenly the entire path in front of me was underwater. The recent heavy rains we’ve had here have left their mark, and that mark is lots of mosquito-larvae-infested pools of standing mucky brown water in my park (that and all those potholes I keep raving about).
My first reaction was to get upset because running is all about rhythm. And this water in my way was breaking my rhythm. Suddenly I had to pick my way slowly around the edge of this huge pool. That meant a significant off-trail trek involving balancing on tippy rocks, jumping farther than I can and trying my best not to use any of the nearby Che Chen trees to help me balance (Che Chens cause an awful skin irritation when you touch them). Needless to say all this fussing about destroyed my “running mode” which was no fun.
As I began running again I started thinking about work, normal for the girl who dreams in standards-compliant xhtml with some CSS on the side and a little Javascript to spice things up. And I finally figured out why I hate it when web designers and bloggers put hyperlinks in the middle of paragraph text!
The reason is because hyperlinks in the middle of a paragraph break the rhythm of the reader. They are like that stupid huge puddle in the middle of my path when I’m running. They are a diversion from what you were already doing. And they are an invitation to get side-tracked.
When I see a hyperlink in something I’m reading I have to decide whether to stop reading mid-paragraph and go see what this link is about, or to keep reading and visit it later (knowing I may well forget to). If I stop reading and visit the link then there’s a good chance I won’t finish reading the original paragraph (like most people, I’m easily distracted). If I decide to wait to visit that hyperlink until later then I always find myself wondering if I missed something that would add to the value of what I’m reading.
As a general rule it’s a bad idea for a web designer to give users anything to wonder about. Users shouldn’t have to think or wonder about how to get what they need, or get what the author intended, from a web page. It should be obvious. And so from now on my new method will be to put hyperlinks that are relevant to my pages together in a list, so the user can decide to visit them independently of deciding whether to read the content on that page.
