Get a “Clocky” … it’s a great alarm clock that doesn’t quit. I gave it to my daughter in college so she never misses an 8am class (well, almost never). I don’t think her roommates are in love with it tho. It doesn’t respect boundaries. This is a short video on how it constructively misbehaves.
Posted in goodies
It amazes me how easy WordPress makes it to give a quick facelift to a site. Other blogging platforms are easy too (Tumblr, etc.) but I’m most familiar with WordPress, and there are a big variety of themes available. Continue reading
Posted in design, goodies, mobile/tablet, online design
I discovered Etsy through pictures posted by Etsy sellers of their crafts on Flickr. I’ve only made one purchase there, a gift which I’m anxiously waiting for from the maker in Thailand. (Imagine… the maker emailed me to insure that the date they would ship it would be ok, and to ask me preferences on how they would make the bag). The purchase was extremely easy to make with a nicely integrated Pay Pal experience, proactively warning me about some processing they had been encountering with certain types of transactions.
Even if I’m not actually shopping, Etsy’s Get the Look newsletters are filled with fun pictures and creative ideas. Unlike the usual merchant newsletter, these are items selected and edited by different people. So you see a range of tastes and ideas. There is the handmade and vintage aesthethic running throughout of course: not a (current) brand in sight. What a breath of fresh air!
Posted in goodies, inspiration
My neighborhood is a small pocket in Atherton and an unincorporated section of Menlo Park. It’s charming in many ways… smaller streets, big oak trees, somewhat isolated from other surrounding neighborhoods. Most intersections have a small “traffic circle” in the … Continue reading
Sent my last-minute Valentine’s cards today using Paperless Post. It’s an email template and delivery tool that has lots of cute designs for cards, invites, etc. Delivered in a virtual envelope, so a little more fanfare to it all than a standard email. And nice built in functions for tracking opens, responses. In case my Valentines are too busy with real candy than virtual. Used my 25 free virtual “stamps” I got when I created a free account.
Posted in goodies
Got a beta account on flavors.me. It’s been fun to play around with aggregating various places I live online, and offers easy ways to adapt the interface. Not as many options as something like Tumblr, but fun nonetheless. Check out my flavors.
For Christmas gifts to family and friends, I had used Cafe Press to be able to design and print custom items. In order to be able to get the full variety I wanted in items, I had to actually subscribe to the service, in effect creating an online store front.
After a few people wore or carried the gifts, friends have said they’d like to be able to get them as well. Looks like a great opportunity to experiment with an online store and marketing it!
So I set it up today. T-shirts, Sigg water bottles, sweat shirts and gym bags in all sizes. Check it out.
Still a bit of a mess, Cafe Press interface is not the easiest to customize without really diving into fully revising the html.
However, mess or not, decided it was now or never to start marketing it, since once I’m back at work next week time will be short.
Created a few posts on a blog or two, emailed friends, and will try some other experiments in online marketing with other blog posts, tweets and such.
I signed up for a free account on typekit. It looks like a really promising way to substantially improve typography and design online, without resorting to image-based text, sFIR or Flash, etc. I tested the free functionality on a single page. Unfortunately the free account only allows you to change two style identifiers, so depending on how your css is structured (my first test was with a site set up using a WordPress blog and theme), it’s pretty limited. I’ll probably bite the bullet and sign up for the first paid level to see what can be done. It’s less than $30 per year so not so painful. Need to ask the css experts I know how practical this would be for any large site.
Since last summer, I’ve been using Paperback Swap Club. As a ux designer, it’s a little embarrassing to be promoting the site, since in terms of design the site leaves alot to be desired. It’s a pretty complex service that could use some streamlining of the UI and some of the flows. However, that said, it’s a great resource for good reads tailored to your taste with some nice touches like a “librarian” who answers questions. Continue reading
Just tried an online service, Just answer, to get answers on appliance and service questions. I was able to ask why my oven wasn’t working, get a reply based on what type of oven it was and exactly what a technican would need to do to fix it. Most interesting: I got to choose whether or not to pay the technician who answered for this advice, and how much to pay (I paid $15). It saved me roaming through service manuals trying to figure out if I could fix it myself, which I wouldn’t have been able to do since the igniter is out. I’ll definitely use this again. Continue reading
