PCPGH4 Session Appetizer: Double Bonus Web Design October 5, 2009
Posted by Anthony Closkey in Boxes.Tags: alphalab, blogging, pcpgh, pcpgh4, plugins, web design, wordpress
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This is part of a short series of posts introducing you to Podcamp Pittsburgh 4.
This is a super double feature bonus appetizer, web design style.
Podcamp Pittsburgh tries to address all experience levels, while never trying to duplicate the other great learning opportunities around town. So when it came to website design for bloggers and podcasters, we called on Podcamp veterans who would knew the Podcamp Pittsburgh’s place the best.
John R. Carman attended PodCamp Pittsburgh 1 as co-producer of The G Spod. By day, Carman works as a communication designer for his social media consultancy Avenue Design Studios, and acts important as CEO of AJAX Street, Inc. By night, Carman is usually still consulting and acting important, but occasionally blogs on his own site and tweets like a madman. (John wrote all that.)
Mike Woycheck is probably best know as PittGirl’s Butler, but as co-founder of Pittsburgh Bloggers and part of the team at AlphaLab, he is geek to Pittsburgh geeks. (I wrote this.)
John and Woycheck are experienced WordPress users and developers, friends, and colleagues. And yet in recent conversations discovered that they did not know all the great plugins and premium themes the other was using lately. Their session is geared toward indermediate to advanced WordPress developers (bloggers may like this too, just to tell their geek what plugins to hook up).
WordPress Knowledge Exchange
There is a new version of This Session available. View version 4.0 or upgrade automatically. Plugins and Widgets can extend WordPress to do almost anything, but what are those plugins that you use on almost every site? Do you swear by premium themes, or do you build each site from scratch? Mike Woycheck & John Carman invite all other WordPress webmasters to share your best practices and favorite add-ons in a roundtable discussion, and you can win a CD from a podsafe artist if you show us a new must-have plugin. Intermediate/Advanced-ish
Someone said we needed a web design session at Podcamp. I said “Why do we need web design at Podcamp? Sessions are only 40 minutes.” If you want to see great web design stuff, you can look into Refresh Pittsburgh and PittMFUG. Podcamp cannot compete with Web Design Day or Flash Pittsburgh (which will be days after PCPGH4, btw).
What someone can, hopefully, cover in 40 minutes is simple web design resources for the blogger. How can bloggers begin to learn for themselves the ways to tweak their website? Norm Huelsman designs and works miracles for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and Podcamp Pittsburgh. He also likes to share design process on his blog, so who better to discuss design with bloggers?
Learning to Look Under the Hood: Web design for the common man.
As a blogger or podcaster, you enjoy the freedom to say whatever you want. Norm Huelsman teaches you about the resources and methods to free your website from templates, to say it however you want.
These are three very good friends of mine and I’m pleased as can be they have accepted our invitation to once again put together discussions at Podcamp Pittsburgh.
Whoever and Ever Amen March 3, 2009
Posted by Anthony Closkey in Boxes.Tags: anon, blogging, childhood development, mass media, toys
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Anonymous Blogs
At times I envy the anonymous writer. The blog format is an almost magical laboratory for my thoughts. As I type, I carefully fold them into wings. I then toss them at the internet and a gust of hot air (the comment thread) will sometimes take them to the wildest places. It would be great to share all of my life this way, but there are limits.
So is it worthwhile to blog anonymously?
Perhaps a husband and wife could share a private diary to keep record of daily activities, spending, loving musings, or to more carefully communicate their grievances. I could appreciate letting strangers contribute advice and encouragement.
I would love to share some wonderful things happening to people around me, but it would betray their trust.
Many people blog anonymously to vent frustrations. If you only need to vent to a few ears, I suggest you just email them. And if you can tell countless people your frustrations, then at that point your should share them with the source.
Childhood Idols
Before mass media, did children play without idols? Athletes, soldiers, mystery-solvers; we’ve all devoted some part of our childhood to heroes. I’ve always assumed, for the most part, this is harmless. Perhaps today we consider it a necessary step in encouraging patterns of behavior and help people start to carve out their life ambitions.
Before printing presses and specialized manufacturing, when stories were shared through songs, were rag doll princes and queens cherished like Barbie? Were wax figurines of gods collected like G.I. Joe?
In uncivilized worlds, without even heralds reporting military victories, what do children pretend to be? Without models or photographs of foreign architecture, what worlds do children imagine conquering?
Do children without culture know nothing but to trust and admire their parents’ hard work and affection?
“Isn’t the voice the point?” November 18, 2008
Posted by Jennie Roth in Bricks.Tags: 37roses, blogging, victory
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Disclaimer: Anthony Closkey is not responsible for the death of 37 Roses or my blogging voice as a whole.
I received an email notice a few days ago that my blog domain was about to expire and that it was time to renew. I clicked on the renewal link but I hesitated to click the necessary boxes to seal the deal. I then questioned my hesitation. What stopped me dead in my tracks? Had I lost my will to blog? No, that’s not possible. A very major part of my life has been built around the Pittsburgh blogging community who has, in the past year, become my trusted circle of friends.
I began 37 Roses in February of 2007 and chronicled my reflections on current events, annual traditions, Canadian adventures, and several other miscellaneous endeavors. There were always things I wanted to post about but didn’t because I was sensitive to my readership; be it my young and impressionable cousin, my mother, my best friend, or my co-worker. There were things I posted late at night and removed when I woke up in the morning. There were things I wanted to do with the blog but didn’t because I didn’t understand enough code and didn’t have the patience to leaf through hundreds of themes.
I honestly feel like changing up my blogging routine is a sort of rite of passage ritual, similar to that of a graduation, to a new stage of life.
The vision of 37 Roses is not completely lost. I have gained so much from the experience of blogging that I couldn’t just go silent. Anthony graciously offered me the option to post on the very new Bricks and Boxes as a collaborator. I am very excited to be given the opportunity to work on a collaborative blog instead of being alone in the vast field of tanks and tulips.
Thoughts from today:
1. “You could have one solid relationship for the rest of your life-stable, reliable and calm, but not passionate. Or you could have a bunch of relationships for the rest of your life, and most of them would end in heartbreak, but you’d have had incredible and passion-filled adventures…which would you choose?”
2. “Where does soul meet body?”
3. “Don’t worry about the people in your past. There’s a reason they didn’t make it to your future.”
4. “Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”
What is he building in there? November 9, 2008
Posted by Anthony Closkey in Boxes.Tags: art, Big Big Design, blogging, Cindy, Facebook, jumping in, Plurk, Twitter
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I work for Big Big Design. We, my sister Cindy and I, are a two people firm providing web stuff. Recently I’ve made the jump to get more involved so as to be a better resource to clients.
So far this includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Plurk. Each has it’s use, and I’m not convinced I’ll use any applications to automatically cross-post to them. Facebook is for friends and family, and sharing things I don’t necessarily want to share professionally. LinkedIn is a more professioanal profile and network. Twitter is a conversation to keep an ear to lastest happenings and tools in both arenas. And finally Plurk is a lounge with for a very small circle of friends. (Growing that circle will be too much chatter for me to follow.) So far so good.
But I want a more public home base for “Anthony Closkey, the dude from Big Big Design.” The me you meet at happy hour where I tell you about new ways to more substantially connect with customers and peers, and about the really cool things I heard in a podcast on the walk over. Here I’m publicly branding myself as a product offered by Big Big Design.
And so here we are, a web presence complete with a blog where I’ll post some ideas born of friends and findings and some other stuff I like.
This brings us to Bricks & Boxes, the domain I bought a little while back. (I reserve the right to suddenly change to Brick Sandboxes.) At the time I was looking to build digital gizmos to post. Collage and html gadgets, all really silly and trivial but hopefully cool. Little web sketches, if you will, in the spirit of Joseph Cornell. I still hope to do these, but we won’t post them exclusively.
Soap Bubble Set - from WebMuseum
