Tag Archives: flickr

Starting a new blog

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Over the years I have started a number of new blogs for myself. Sometimes I just wanted a change, and sometimes it’s just to try out a new blogging platform. This year I had the idea to start a community blogging project and that was a whole new adventure.

This week I had the opportunity to help my mother set up her first blog and there was a lot that went into it. My mother has always wanted to write, and with five kids she sure has a lot to write about. But that wasn’t the main reason that my mother wanted to join the mommy blogging craze. My youngest brother Philip is 10 years old and he is a special needs child. Seeing the power of the internet through me, she decided that blogging about Philip’s condition might help her find other mothers who’s children have similar symptoms.

I did some research to see how many blogs there were on this subject already. I found a lot of mom’s with children that had Autism, but Philip’s condition is different. Next we had to decide what blogging platform my mom would use. I decided that she should use wordpress.com because that would teach her how to use one of the most powerful blogging platforms out there.

Setting up the site was very easy to get up and running. The hard part came when we needed to choose a theme for the blog and tweak it to look the way we wanted. This included getting the sidebar widgets in order and setting up some extra accounts like a flickr and vimeo account so that my mom could post photos and videos of Philip.

Twitter integration is a must for any blogger. My mother already had a twitter, but writing this blog will definitely give her her own community to interact with. She can find other moms in similar situations and create her own community.

Right now the blog is still a work in progress and I have found some differences working on her blog using wordpress.com than my blog which uses hosted wordpress, but I think we will be able to work it out.

I have never really blogged about my family because it wasn’t my niche. Yes this is a personal blog, but I focus on talking about technology and social media because that is what I love. I hope that my mom will be able to find or create a community online that will support her as my brother grows up and I will be here to help her every step of the way.

You can check out her blog A Life Delayed and meet Philip.

Let me know if you know any great mommy bloggers that I should be reading of following on twitter.

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Wired Store

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Wired magazine has set up a store in New York City for the holidays on 15 W 18th Street in Chelsea. The store will be open from Nov. 21 through Dec. 28 so make sure to stop by if you’re in town before it closes. Also check out their list of events, there are some pretty interesting ones.

Last night I was at the store for an event with Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix. But I was much more interested in playing with all the gadgets. But there were more than gadgets in this store.

One of the most interesting things were two packages made by A & R. “Help I’ve cut myself” and “Help I have a headache”.

Help Remedies aim to solve simple health issues simply by stripping away the extraneous elements. The packaging is molded from recycled paper pulp and is compostable, and all Help’s products are packaged together at its upstate New York factory which employs adults with learning disabilities. The 500mg acetaminophen pills are as pure as possible, and without the dyes and coatings most brands are fond of using to pretty up meds. Acetaminophen doesn’t cause stomach problems the way aspirin and ibuprofen can. These next-generation bandages are made of hydrocolloid, the same material hospitals use to help wounds heal faster and reduce scarring. These strips are nearly invisible, and should stay on for several days. They are best for minor cuts and blisters. If all that wasn’t helpful enough, 5% of profits are returned to charities that help people without healthcare get healthcare.

But what I was most excited to play with was the Blackberry storm. I was very curious about the “Screen that clicks” But it is exactly what it sounds like. The touch screen can tell where your finger is but that will not select anything. Not until you actually press the screen down until it clicks will it be selected. The feel is much different than say and iPhone but I can see how some people will like it. I found the UI complicated but then again I am not a blackberry user so maybe it is more intuitive than I thought.

I didn’t get as much time to play with it as I would have liked. I hope to get my hands on one again soon so that I can do a full review. (hopefully with video)

I also got to play with Pleo, a chumby, Peak (the email only gadget) and many more. Check out all my photos from last night below.

www.flickr.com

Eye-Fi Card

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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I first heard about Eye-Fi a while ago. I thought it was interesting but I didn’t jump on it for a few reasons. The main reason was that it was a SD card and my DSLR used CF cards. The other reason was that until recently I was never really a big flickr user. But the more I blog the more I find having my photos on twitter is a really easy way to add pictures of a blog post or add a URL to a twitter.

I love the idea of mobile blogging but when it comes time to add a picture from my iPhone to my blog post I just am not happy with the quality of the iPhone camera. The eye-fi would be perfect for this. As soon as you get to your home network the Eye-Fi goes right to work uploading all your photos, so before you know it, you have a flickr url and photos to add to your post. This is officially on my “I want” list. (along with a camera that uses SD cards of course)

Building a theme

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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I have always wanted to design my own theme, while I love the random sarah theme now, I find from time to time I just get the itch for a redesign! Looking through the thousands of wordpress themes out there can be daunting, and if you have been reading random sarah for long enough you know what I went through when choosing a theme last time.

You will like a part of one, and a part of another one, and so on. You get to the point where you want to build it yourself (or in my case at least design what it will look like)

I cannot code for my life! This is a fact. But I consider myself to be a pretty good designer. So I wanted to know if it was possible for me to design what it looked like and how all the buttons would work, and someone else just code it for me. I have a few friends who are willing to help me out with this once the design is finished, so I started to build! You can watch the full evolution of the theme on flickr (I posted a link to the set below) I have been posting screen shots as I go along and getting feedback from my twitter peeps on how it looks.

The whole idea for the theme started with a set of free icons I found on Spoon Graphics of hand drawn icons for bloggers. I have seen a lot of hand drawn web design and it’s an aesthetic I like. So I decided to look around the web for some great blogs and find inspiration. Another important step was using iStockPhoto to get great art I could tear apart and use for the design. I got the background image and most of the other artwork from there. TIP: YOUR DESIGN WILL LOOK BETTER IF YOU SPEND A LITTLE MONEY!

So here is where I am so far, I would be happy to answer any questions about how I did this, it really wasn’t that hard. (and it’s not done yet!)