We've Moved!

Everybody needs a little more chaos at Christmastime, right? So we figured why not move the whole site. The kids are sick, the laundry is piled up -- what else am I going to do?

To find us in the future, check out http://beyondthefried.com. 

Oh, the old East Nash listserv is back.

Just realizing I never updated about the East Nashville listserv. Google restored it, and all is well.

Listserve Update

A new listserv has been created over at Yahoo Groups.
From Laura Creekmore:

EAST NASHVILLE LIST UPDATE
Join the list now by sending a blank email to eastnashville-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or by visiting the group
home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eastnashville.

More details over at Fixin' Supper.

Farewell to the East Nashville Listserv

Google deleted the 3000 member East Nashville listserv this morning.

Several years of banter, service references, acts of kindness, and community announcements are gone.

Laura Creekmore, the listserv founder and moderator, is working to she if she can restore the list or at least create a new one. More info is available at her blog: http://www.urlzen.com/kw0

Cheater

Instead of writing my own blog post today, I'm going to cheat and link to a few other posts that I really like:

• I appreciate the spiritual honesty Lindsay Ferrier has been sharing over at Suburban Turmoil. It must be hard to be that vulnerable, but I think we the readers benefit. I know the post made me think about times in the past when I have been very critical toward Christians who don't live out my perfect plan for their lives (not GOD's perfect plan -- MY perfect plan. Ha!).
• SistaSmiff at Collie's Corner shares some beautiful insights about the state of the economy and how the crisis may be good for our collective psyche. I definitely qualify as someone who has had a lot of lovely things handed to me on a plate, and the current state of affairs is helping me to be even more grateful for what I have.
• The Musician has a great primer on cloth diapering for beginners, complete with very helpful pictures. I'm hoping to take the cloth diaper plunge, so this is good info for me.
  

Off the Record

So, apparently I haven't felt like blogging lately. Mostly, I've been really busy with this. Kinda busy with this. And then there are these guys, who are great but constantly causing trouble.

If you need some great reading material, though, check out this article by Ivy at Love Shak, Baby. Ivy met me for lunch one day, and we chatted about ghia and fair trade. You can see the results here. Thanks, Ivy! Be sure to check out the other Shak sites, like AnimalShak and Work Shak, for awesome How-Tos and blog giveaways.

That WordPress site....

Thanks to everyone who advised me concerning WordPress as an engine for a non-profit site. I created the site, and it fits the non-profit's needs. The staff is learning how to add content, and it looks much better than the HTML site I originally created.

I added as RSS feed of the non-profit's Google Calendar to the sidebar. That seems to be the best way to feature a dynamic list of upcoming events.

So, if you're curious, check it out:

East Nashville Cooperative Ministry: www.encm.net

Thanks for your help!

Pressing Questions

I've been working on a simple website for a local non-profit. They didn't have a web presence, so I threw together some HTML and made a small site, 5 or 6 pages. It works for now and is a decent way to communicate the basics: history, services, hours, location, etc. The problem is that someone needs to know HTML and be able to upload files via FTP before they can update the site.

Now that I've given it some more thought, I'm wondering if I should set up a site for the organization on Wordpress. The director of the organization wants to post info about upcoming events. I thought perhaps I could make the events page a blog, and use Wordpress static pages for the rest of the site. That would make the site fairly easy to maintain for anyone.

I thought about setting up a PHP site to allow easy updates, but I really don't have the time or expertise for that. Wordpress seems like a good option that is fast and free. However, I would love to hear from some of you who use Wordpress before I commit to it. Is Wordpress a good solution for a small site that is easy to update?

What say you, bloggy world?

I will NOT be an accessory to your crime ...

Unlike Lindsay, I have found that readers generally find my blog through fairly mundane searches: "ice cream" "cat rescue" "sommet group"

But recently, my stats showed that someone in the UK found my blog by searching for "I fried my husband."

I don't even want to know . . .

Interestingly, the IP address showed that visitor as being from Bath.

Mark Cuban and Jordin Tootoo

So, I'm looking at ways to increase visitor traffic to my blog. Not for any particular reason, other than perhaps an ego boost.

My hubby has seen a lot of traffic on his blog when he posts about certain topics, namely, Mark Cuban and Jordin Tootoo. I think that sounds like a good idea, so I'll give it a try, to see if it attracts any new visitors. Ready?

MARK CUBAN!!!!!!!!

JORDIN TOOTOO!!!!!!!!

And, just for good measure, IMOGEN HEAP!!!!!!!

Okay, silliness aside, I actually have reasons to post about all three of those people.

Jordin Tootoo
I got to see Tootoo tonight at Darcy Hordichuk's radio show (FYI, for the uninitiated -- Tootoo and Hordichuk are Nashville Predators players). That was a lot of fun, but the place (Blackstone Brewery) was so loud that I couldn't really hear much. Go Preds! Smash the Red Wings on Friday!

Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban, long a thorn in the side of NBA Commissioner David Stern, has finally seen the light and become a "David Stern disciple." You can read about Cuban's amazing transformation here.

Imogen Heap
I am going to an Imogen Heap concert in 12 days! Whee! I'm trying to decide if I want to give her one of my t-shirts. That might be a nice way to say thank you to her for her music (and to promote my designs!), but it might come across as really weird. If I give her a shirt, I might give her my "duckie" shirt . . .

Got Caffeine?

How many Diet Cokes would it take to kill you? Find out at EnergyFiend.com.

The site has a calculator that allows you to pick your caffeinated poison and see how much of it would be fatal.

Normally I'm a little snotty toward caffeine fans, since I only do caffeine-free drinks. But I have to admit, I do have a weakness on the list. Fortunately, I don't think I'll be drinking 2,252 glasses of chocolate milk any time soon.

Net Peeves

So, having been a web editor for four years, I like to think I know a thing or two about good web design. As the web continues to develop and progress, I've been amazed as usability seems to be REgressing. Especially in the Entertainment field, my primary area of experience, enigmatic sites that make navigation difficult seem to be highly prized (I'm talking to you, movie studios!). So here for your study and betterment is a list of 5 web design DON'T's.

1. DON'T use Flash to build your navigation. Yes, graphic designers, I know you love Flash and it allows you to turn movie and band Web sites into vanity projects, but have some pity on the rest of us. We don't always want to wait for the entire site to load if we are only searching for showtimes or tour dates. And good luck to the poor soul who tries to navigate these sites with a mobile web browser or a text-only browser.

2. DON'T link to a file without telling us it's a file. ESPECIALLY if it's a PDF file. I always feel slightly violated when I click a link out of curiosity, expecting another page, and a window pops up, asking where I want to save a file. Of course, no such window pops up for PDFs....they just go ahead and try to open (and, if you have Acrobat Reader 6.0, you can count on a good ten minutes of computer frozen-ness while waiting for the program to load).

3. DON'T play music without asking us first. There's nothing like encountering an unexpected blast of music when visiting a site and having your coworkers start giggling at you -- or worse, start throwing things at you.

4. DON'T play a video without asking us first. This counts double if said video is an ad -- then we'll probably close your site out of annoyance.

5. DON'T make your site a single page that says, "For tour dates, news updates, and discography, check out our MySpace page!" Yes, yes, we know you love MySpace, but consider that some of your fans might just be over the age of 25. Assuming you actually want people to go see your movie/concert and buy your DVD/CD, make it easy for them to find the info they need instead of sending them somewhere else.