Archive for the 'Web' Category

Is the easy micro-ness of constant 140 char-max Tweets, with capabilities for linking and sharing pics, going to kill the “art” of blogging, or “macro” blogging?

I think it’s doing it for me. It used to be I dropped a topic when I couldn’t think of more than a sentence to write, now I can Tweet it from an appropriate account that matches its comparable blog’s topic. Or perhaps I’d even ponder the subject for a while to flesh out something meaningful to write. Suddenly tweets such as, “bag-gasm!” + link suffice.

It’s become really, really hard for me to macro blog anymore. And it’s pretty evident by the fact that I’m not really doing it. Barely here, or on Kiss Me Stace, not at all at Bag Dream, etc.

One example is for this blog, I want to write about this really gorgeous laptop case. And all I can think of writing is “elegant”. God, sometimes I can’t even fill out the 140 chars, and it’s horrible.

Someone needs to do some research on whether (and if so, how much) regular blog posts have lessened since Twitter rose to such fame. But it can’t be I, because I’m not only now a Twit, but Twitterpated by a boy. Double whammy on me, and it’s really not productive!

Just watch out for when monetizing Twitter.com becomes easier and more direct. Yowch.

This will be quick, because I can’t know for sure about a full review until (if) I’m married to someone from a dating site. Or well, at my 50th anniversary, or I become a widow…. damn, where’s my mind going in this happy time? …

Anyway, I joined Chemistry.com a while back when I was fed up with Match.com. Now after an initial technical snafu, which need not be mentioned right now, I met a few people.

Basically my review is positive, because I met someone who seems to be great …. and I wouldn’t have met him otherwise. No, not on Match.com. He’s a bit far away from me, on the opposite side of Florida’s Everglades, and neither of us specifically look very far from our homes. But Chemistry still showed him my profile, and the rest is … the future? Tehe.

Now this is very different from when Match.com “matches” you (or lets winks occur, etc.) with people you’re not looking for. Like say you’re a woman and you upload gorgeous photos of yourself … and then you get people over 20 years older than you are contacting you. Yeah, not the same kind of expanding your range.

So far, Chemistry = Win.

I’ll keep you posted, since it is related to this blog. (Yay.)

So, continuing my nerdy adventures, a guy from Chemistry.com contacted me. No, not through Chemistry, but YouTube. (My YouTube account link, in case you want to check it out.) Scary? No, not to me - impressive! A guy so computer geeky he needs not to pay for dating sites. This really inspired me.

We’ve gone out a couple of times, but our nerdiness and awkwardness really slowed things down. Right now it’s like a snail in hibernation, but that’s alright.

I went on to practice my own Googling skills because I feel i should really fulfill my Internet Superpower potential, don’t you think?

So every time someone says something I want to learn more about, I now Google it. I don’t take things for granted anymore. No faulty argument can fool me!

This Googling-everything thing can get one into trouble, if one isn’t careful, like with the micro-trend of being a DIY Doctor via Google. One night I was crying and my lip swelled and I ended up thinking I was allergic to my own tears (they got on my lip). I thought this was such a romantic fantasy for being an uber nerd - so many allergies including to something from my own body. I’m such a loser - lol. But my friend and I determined it was just my allergy to dust (dust on my pillow, face in pillow). Oh that’s all. It’s ‘k, that’s nerdy, too, right?

I also searched for people via Google, and I realized the secret to actually finding people is to continue clicking on links on the results pages. Like a user has links to other pages, and also gives hints, like a username can be then put into Google, etc. So my big success is that I found a High School friend I’d been searching for for, literally, years! I found her blog, then her e-mail address, and confirmed her photo on Facebook. Even though I have her e-mail address, I’m nervous about writing, so I just friended her. I still haven’t heard back … but on the plus side I also transferred my college friend from just MySpace into being the newest Facebook user! (And I was her first friend.) Go me.

Then pondering how it seems no one does pay for online dating sites, when another computery guy winked at me on Match.com, I decided to try out this approach. I followed him on Twitter, etc. I now understand this can be a “mistake” with some people, but if they’re scared off, it’s due to their own issues, and I don’t need that! See even though this guy’s Twitter bio simply reads, “hacker”, he doesn’t seem to appreciate women who posess those skills. I did read on his Match profile his turn-off is aggression/assertiveness, but I thought I’d pass because I’m very shy in person - I forgot that my lack of shy online might matter, too! Oh well, moving on. You know he has about 500 (probably no exaggeration) FEMALE friends on Facebook, anyway - shady.

Anyway, as it’s obvious I’m able to blog (slash *work*) again, I’ve needed to slow way down on my Second Life usage. I barely sign in anymore except to pay my weekly land tier, which seems a bit ridiculous, but c’est la vie deux. Before I paused I managed to get as far as to mostly finish my first t-shirt! I’m a fast learner, no?

And now that I’ve pretty much told my downtime story, I need to get on to working, and stop this chatting. Except for on Twitter. (My Twitter link.) Can’t help that.

I was forced to take a break from blogging soon after my last post on here because suddenly my eyesight drastically worsened overnight. I went from avoiding my chic glasses (that I barely needed) because my long eyelashes fog them up—to them not even working at all for me while I squinted at any words smaller than H1 with eyes an inch away from my laptop screen, then increasing the font size in Firefox at least twice.

I was nearly blind, but only when it came to reading, for a few days before I was able to borrow a pair of those generic magnifying eyeglasses from a friend. I’ve decided these work really great for me, and plan to go shopping for fashionable pairs, but haven’t yet.

So what to do while I obviously couldn’t write (no proofreading) and couldn’t craft either (I look while I knit and sewing - forget it) - well……..

I decided to start up that web comic I’d been thinking about, but I wanted to use avatars (originally thought from meez.com) as characters to save me time. I don’t have time for more hobbies, especially ones with no wish for real money-making, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time vectoring each scene myself….

So even though I’m virtually (no pun intended this time, I swear) banned from Second Life because I’d probably most definitely become addicted to it, I found myself trying it out again (first time I surprisingly didn’t like it - but to be fair I gave up on it quickly because after all, it was contraban, tehe).

And well. I ended up forgetting all about (for the time being) the web comic.

Because I’ve realized SL is actually an amazing outlet for me to produce fashion designs for. So I spent some time (I said some, ok? just some) learning how to get around, tweaking my avatar (because that’s absolutely necessary no matter what, doi) and um preparing for starting to learn, and eventually diving into, building in Second Life.

Um, yes, I have bought a home, and pay weekly “tier” but it’s all to help me learn to build and get by in the world. And it hasn’t been all that time consuming.

It’s not like I started having surreal dreams. Or seeing live humans and thinking they look like computer avatars, not vice versa. No no. No. No. No, ok? Well that’s the official story.

It’s all to help me in my career, you see. I’m not playing. Perish the thought!

Now I’m getting antsy with all this work and proofreading, so far, so I’m going to pause my tales for now. But I’ll be “working”, “not” “wasting time on the Internet”.

I’ve been doing some research, and Yahoo! is generally the biggest search engine referrer for most Lipped Media blogs (but not Style Spotlight, which does very well with Google, Google Blog Search and other sources).*

Not all stats are available on all blogs, but for Kiss Me, Stace, Yahoo! brings in nearly 20% of all traffic, about equal to any one force (the fashion blog community is one and it is pretty strong). It also brings in 4 times the traffic of MSN and over 10 times that of Google (yes, MSN does just a little better than Google, but that’s not the matter at the moment). Of course, Lipped Media’s SEO might be disliked by Google, but I know the whole family puts in a lot of effort to do things “right” (there is only grey in evil SEO) and more importantly, well. Kiss Me, Stace has a top 10 ranking in preferred keywords (and many others) on Yahoo! Could that be bad? So what does Yahoo! like differently from Google? I then ask, is Yahoo! better? (For the user, nicer, who knows, anything..)

So, I decided to test out Yahoo! a bit. (Yahoo-oo-Me!) Why stay sucked into the Google (virtual) monopoly? I thus installed the Yahoo! Toolbar … Read more »

Oh, the stories to tell about my new laptop …. *tangent*

I’m a big designer. Ella and I became friends designing online. Oh, I mean graphic/web designing, not L’s beloved fashion illustrating.

Anyway, I helped design this layout. I design various things online and Ella was stuck at how to create this vision. I loved that vision and realized it would actually be quite easy. (From that, she lured me into this blog, actually into being very, very excited about this blog.)

But I was stepping into something bigger than I realized. Read more »