Theme?!

No really! The other layout that I talked about in September… it actually EXISTS! While Cassidy was gone for a week I worked on it a lot. Coding it from the ground up turned out to be a little more time consuming than I had imagined (and there was that month or two that I didn’t work on it AT ALL) but now that it’s starting to finally all come together I’m really liking it. Ben even likes it. That’s saying a lot because he generally he thinks they are ‘okay’. This one he’s managed to come up with more than one adjective for. And none of them were ‘suck’ or ‘really?’ or ‘nice’.

I’ve added quite a bit of new content. Some of this is because I’ve found cool new apps while playing with the 8525. My only complaint about the phone so far is that it’s POP mail sucks. A lot. Gmail has a nice little java app that you can run locally but it doesn’t allow you to attach files. I liked being able to email pictures to my flickr account with the Sidekick2 but the POP on the 8252 has MAJOR lag. Like a four hours of lag. I know the image files are quite a bit larger but yeesh. Four hours? I’m an instant gratification kinda girl. I want it to happen NOW!

So I came across a cool little program called ShoZu that uploads pictures via a pretty simple “one click feature”. Not only to flickr but to pretty much any moblog service out there. You can also upload video’s directly to YouTube which is kinda neat and I plan to start abusing that soon. One of the best features though is that you can upload photos in a blog post to wordpress like you see in the post below.

Another nifty little thing I discovered is Twitter. Twitter is kind of like a moblog minus the vanity shots. heh You send text messages to it via IM, SMS or on the web of what you are currently doing. Anybody who’s added you to their list also gets the IM or SMS and vice versa. So, how is this cool? Well, I’ve added a little script in the sidebar of the new layout titled “currently” that shows you what I’ve said and how long ago I said it. So basically, I can let all you readers know exactly what I’m doing at all times. So… you can totally stalk me. And… I can totally rub Maui in your face.

What?! Rub Maui in your face?! Yeah! Because I really want to have the site live by tomorrow night. It hurts my finger bones to type that but I honestly plan on having it live before I leave so I can take advantage of some of the cool new features like Twitter and ShoZu while we are away. And adding it to this theme seems just a little too lazy and EASY and NOT GOING TO CAUSE A PSYCHOTIC MELTDOWN for me. I’m all about the psycho.

I know what this is going to cause. It means that my Friday night will be spent running around the house like a psychotic obsessive retard cleaning and packing everything we own into way too many suitcases. Then Ben will spend two hours taking all the dinner plates and bottles of Windex OUT of those suitcases while trying to convince me they ALREADY HAVE those things in Maui.

But really this is a distraction I need. I can’t sleep at night and I’m getting more done at work then a superhuman because I’m in hyperdrive mode and cant’s stop moving. So if it wasn’t working on the site I’d be spending my time doing something REALLY useless to pass the time. Like counting the tiles in the kitchen. Or obsessively brushing the cats. Or cleaning baseboards with a toothbrush and bleaching the refrigerator. I guess that last one isn’t such a BAD thing but I have a reputation to uphold and “clean” is not one of them.

Holy Stollen Bandwidth

I was skimming over my site stats for the first time in a few months because… well, because I was at 127% productivity for the week and I think that means I’m allowed to stop working. It also means I’m insta-bored and watching the clock slowly inch closer and closer to 2:30.

ANYWAY! My bandwidth which normally hoveres around 500-600MB a month suddenly jumped to 1.09GB last month and is pushing 970MB this month. ALL of this has been from hotlinkers. (Well, almost all of it. There are a few people out there who check out the site A LOT while thinking I don’t know but I do know and… *waves middle finger at them*)

I mean, there are about 40,000,000 free image hosters out there according to a simple google search. They host images FOR FREE. F.R.E.E. I do not. I pay for it. And it’s not like I pay any huge amount for it because I’m with the best hosting company in the world run by the best webmistress/web designer in the world and even though I’ve more than DOUBLED the amount of bandwidth I’m supposed to use in a month and she hasn’t said a word, it still bugs me.

To me it’s like tapping into your neighbors water supply. They don’t really feel the effect at first. You conserve. You take 5 minute showers and turn the water off when you brush your teeth and only flush if it’s solid… but after a few months of getting away with it you get greedy. The guilt starts to fade, assuming there was any in the first place, and suddenly you’re letting the kids play in the sprinklers for a few hours while filling up the swimming pool.

I don’t so much mind if somebody takes a silly blinking Santa image and uses it on one blog post to wish all her readers Merry Christmas. To me that’s reasonable. But when you take that image and post it in the comment form of ever single “friend” you have on MySpace, well… YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT! Or on every forum you post on. Or on every other community blog site you post on. Because every one of those 1,600 “friends” has another 1,600 “friends” and pretty soon 14,367 (actual number of hits recieved so far this month for that one file) people are looking at my picture that’s being hosted on my site that I’m paying for. That’s 10% of my total traffic for the entire month. 115MB! From a .GIF!! And that’s only ONE of the images!

Seriously. I don’t want to have to disable hotlinking because I’d have to spend a stupid amount of time organizing the images I have spread out all over the web into one folder that’s allowable. But PLEASE PEOPLE! Fill your own damn pool with your own damn water. IT’s FREE! Because otherwise I’m about to start hopping from place to place and pissing in them.

kthxbye,
Antigone

Temp!

This theme is back up temporarily till I can get the redesign finished. I actually didn’t work on if for almost a week straight. I’m back at it now though and hopefully I’ll have it up before Friday when I leave for B-Town. This sucks. Because now I can’t give Julie flack for being a slacker.

Reconnecting.

I need some time to decompress from the last few months.

Tomorrow is the Halloween party. Sandra is bringing mummy mojito mix! FTW!! Sunday Cassidy and I will do the farmers market and hopefully some brunch with the female parental unit. I never thought I’d be saying this out loud but I miss my mommy… Then next weekend I’ll be in BakersHell but that’s okay because I’ve already suckered Julie into dinner on Friday night. Now I just have to convince Kristen and Lisa. *bats eyelashes* Then the rest of that weekend will be spent sucking in as much Carrielee and Amber time as possible. I miss my Carrielee. A lot. Lots and lots and lots and lots.

Oh yeah, tomorrow Ben is going to buy a Range Rover and a car trailor so he can start towing his M3 to the track. Long overdue. I’m stoked for him. Then in two weekends we’ll be at Thunderhill with the track car for the first time since the motor rebuild. Ben will be BACK AT THE TRACK. And all will be well with the world.

The theme is coming along very well. I hadn’t planned on having to use SO much PHP. But it’s been fun. And challenging. And it’s starting to finally take shape and I’m REALLY liking it. It won’t be November 1st but hopefully not long after. I’ll throw somethng temp up here in the mean time because the pink is so… PINK! But it’s for a good cause and I’m going to see it through.

IE < Firefox

Yes, I realize that the sidebar doesn’t work in SOME versions of IE. When I have to use IE (I only use it when checking to see if code looks pretty) I’m using Version 7.0.5X Beta 2. If you don’t have it, get it, because then not only can you view the site correctly, but the 21.2% of you aflux readers who still use IE won’t have an ancient piece of software wasting space on your hard drive.

Otherwise, join the 48.1% of us who have finally freed ourselves from that enormous pile ‘o shit and have switched to a happier, more loving browser.

P.S. – Or deal with it for a month. Because in November I’ll be debuting a completely new aflux with a look, feel and direction I’ve never gone before. TEASE! HA!

Aflux is Pink For October.

I mentioned in a previous blog that aflux would be going pink for October. Normally at this time of year I’m making cute little Halloween layouts (2005, 2004), but this year I felt I need to join this group.

Cancer, all different kinds, has touched my life in so many ways. Two grandparents, one of my best friends, two weeks ago my step-sisters father… all of them were taken by cancer. Recently I became friends at work with a breast cancer survivor. She’s never really gone into great detail about the fight and I’ve never really asked. I know from people that I’ve been close to that it’s something that you can’t really put into words and make somebody else understand. And after taking care of Ada while she fought every minute, of every hour or every day to stop time, to make it to the next meal, the next dose of medication, the next DAY… I don’t have to be told. I’ve never had cancer, but I know. I know the struggle because even though I didn’t HAVE it, I LIVED it for 12 hours a day, six days a week for three years. I was there the day it started, and I was there at the very last moments, when the pain stopped, and the life slipped away. I was there for all of it.

If ONE woman comes across one of the site’s that have gone pink and goes out to get a mammogram then it’s worth it. If ONE mom, daughter, sister, aunt is saved then it’s worth it. Early detection is a ticket to longer life.

For more information on National Breast Cancer Month, visit the Susan G. Komen Foundation.