Meet the Artist - that's me!

Saturday, July 25, 2009 - noon-5pm

Northwest Cellars Wine Tasting Room
11909 124th Avenue NE
Kirkland, WA 98034

Directions

Please join me at the Northwest Cellars Wine Tasting Room, home of award-winning Northwest wines, custom wine labels, and the house labels I designed. Sample the currently available wines and buy a bottle or two to take home. If you’d like, I’ll sign the label for you!

I will also have full-size (11"x14") prints of select illustrations available for purchase.

The Humanization of Computers and The Code They Speak With

I'm an artist. A graphic artist. I only build websites because that's where my industry is focused. I'm thus forced into the world of programming. (So I'm a programmer? Eeeww!) This is the main source of my career frustration - being an artist at heart but creating through the writing of code. Just a little counter-intuitive.

Here's an amusing anecdote from something that happened to me yesterday:

The challenge was to create a "BUY" link button by having a red rectangle with white type inside. Rather than delve into detail, let's just say that I found the place in the style sheet where I could write in "rectangle=red, type=white". (It was black with white type originally, so all I had to do was write in "red" where the word "black" was. EASY switch!)

Then I went back to my word "BUY" and framed it with the code that would tell it how to act. Essentially, [red button] BUY [/red button].

No go. No red button no matter what I did. It stayed the original black. VERY frustrating! Just another WTF Moment in the life of an artist-turned-programmer. I tried every kind of troubleshooting I could think of, and then went to Google to search for the problem. That takes a while when you don't know exactly where the problem is. But I'll get to the point.

THE FIX:
I had to insert the snippet "!important" into the line of the style sheet - and BINGO, it worked.

!important ??? What are some of the alternatives? !whenever-you-have-time ?? Or !if-its-not-too-much-trouble ?? Or !you-better-or-I'll-kick-your-ass ??

This PROVES that Computers have Evolved! You can't just make a simple change and have it accept it without question. You have to let it know that the change is !important for it to take effect.

Those of you who think that computer programming is some cut and dry, boring, unimaginative, pocket-protecting head space, let me tell you - you are mistaken. It requires a certain level of tact and understanding. Like any relationship.

Perhaps next time I should try " !please " ...

Building an Online Community - white paper

Have you been thinking about starting an online community for your business? Wondering what the benefits are?

Online Communities, a white paper by Lithium Technologies, outlines best practices and deployment tips for increasing brand loyalty, sales and customer satisfaction while decreasing customer care costs. Lithium shares its answers to four important questions:

1. What is an online community?
   
2. What does it take to create a successful community?
   
3. What are companies doing with online communities today?
   
4. What is the business case for online communities?
   

Does your website have a FAQ page? A community forum? Do you answer questions in a blog? There are many ways to field real and potential customer questions before they arise. Being proactive costs less than fixing a problem after the fact, and builds customer loyalty and satisfaction. Studies also show that online community users buy more, and buy more often than non-community users.

Reach out to your customers. They'll love you for it!