theskywaspink

If you’re someone who isn’t the greatest at your grammar or just type to fast to go back and edit the tying mistakes. It may be worth looking into installing the Mozilla Firefox Browser. It comes with a built in dictionary/spellchecker, much like you see in Microsoft Word. When you enter a word that might be spelt differenly or incorrect it is underlined with read like MS Word does.

A great tool for those who want to save time when they are blogging and may other add-ons available for Firefox to make blogging easier.

FireFox 2.0 – Take back the web 

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I used to find winding down from a long day at work hard, I’d had to be so on the ball and so attentative at my jobs that I’d get home and still feel wired. Sometimes I’d still be wide awake at 4am unable to get any sleep to be ready for the next days work. So I started looking at what I did when I got home and what I should change.

I’d spend between 8 to 10 hours a day in front of a computer screen working from deadline to deadline, needless to say I quit that job a long time ago. But after working so many hours, I’d come home and spent more time in front of the screen either talking to friends or playing some games as it felt my way to relax. It wasn’t a good way to relax though, I just got out all my frustrations by killing people in games. So I started breaking up my routines a bit with what I did when I got home and I get a reasonable nights sleep these days.

1. Avoid the screen. Even if you are intending to do some work after hours on the computer, leave a few hours between when you get home and when you do that little bit extra. I come home and make myself a coffee, sit on the balcony and take in some sunshine (if there is any) and stare at the traffic going by and people walking in the park over the road. Sometimes if my housemates are around I’ll talk to them about things out there too.

2. Get that pesky computer job out the way first. Sometimes I’ll email myself from work to home a list of things I need to get done in order for something later in the week. So while I have told you to avoid the screen, if you’ve got a few emails to send like I do. I get in the door, sit down and shoot them off and get them out the way. The rest of the evening is free for me to do what ever.

3. My Ultimae relaxation. No, that wasn’t a typing error. Just a bad ploy at a pun Sometimes I feel the need to take my mind off things and I found a great way to do that. A stumbled across a nice little website called Ultimae where there is several composers and DJ’s who take your general type of dance music and slow it down to an ambient calming pace. I’ve found sitting in my chair with my eyes closed and some of these going is quite relaxing. Floating Retention by Cell is one of my favourites, he produces atmospheric drum and bass and I tend to feel good after listening to that track and I can then focus my mind onto other things.

4. Television. I don’t watch a great deal of tv, most of my tv shows I do enjoy don’t make it to Australia until 6 months after the season finishes in the U.S. So I acquire them other ways  not that theres much I watch anyway. However I have found that sitting and watching The Simpsons on TV just after dinner makes me feel more relaxed. I probably watch maybe 3 episodes a week that come on television even if they are repeats. My Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights are always reserved for CSI, NCIS and similar crime shows that I’ve become hooked on and now watch religiously.

5. Go out. While I don’t do it ofte, I’ll head to the closest shopping centre and go looking around shops and maybe have some dinner while I’m out. Even if it is from a quick Asian place that I can get something it gives me something to break up the week, even more so when there’s late nigh shopping available. You don’t necessarily have to spent money in the shops either, window shopping is fine. Even looking at dvds, books and cds might give you some ideas for a birthday thats coming up soon.

Some of these may be good for you, I hope they do

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At the moment I’ve got about 3 blog articles I’m working on that are sitting in the administration panel for when I get hit with a creativity wave again. I’ve been looking around blog sites while I’m at and wondering about how I can make my blog posts, better, and more interesting. I’d like less ramble and more content that’s actually useful to the readers that they will enjoy and comment on… when I get more than a handful of viewers.

I stumbled onto ProBlogger.net and there’s been a few tips I’ve scanned over, and there was the suggestion to write something else thats just in general. Like I’m doing now, and I’ll continue to read bits on there as well. It seems as though the creator is an Aussie too! Someone I might have to contact at some stage.

My current blogs have required a abit of research, especially one that has me stuck on what to do with it. So It may be a while before I get around to releasing that one. But look forward to it, because it’s going to be useful for pretty much anyone who’s into blogging and news feeds these days. There are some similar articles around about it but I hope mine covers a bit more of it from a users aspect.

Give me some time and I’ll get around to it. Soon, I’d like to see some wireless going at my house so I can get the laptop outside and enjoy what little sunshine we get during Winter in Australia. It’s quiet nice outside, I’d rather be out there blogging and drinking a coffee in the city than stuck in an office looking for laptop drivers that don’t exsist yet.

But fingers crossed I’ll have some stuff worth reading soon.

I also emailed the blogger at zenhabits.net today and asked if he had some advice on making a good blog post. When I get some kind of a response I’ll send up another blog about it.

I also have some new-ish computer parts on the way so I’ll be back to maybe playing some games and feeling a little more productive on the computer than I do these days. It will be nice to have a computer that works.

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When I was looking at starting up my own business for the second time, I took some time to myself to research what I wanted to do and have some preparation this time. I worked my backside off researching how I would approach a start up.

I thought about what I should aim for. So I started looking at a lot of the website directories available. I found a few websites that came in handy with a listing of restaurants, bars, clubs, pubs etc, with their website addresses, phone, fax, and the postal address listed. I noted down all the South Australian ones, then went to work checking out their websites.

There were a few things I looked for in the website.

1. It’s design, was it attractive? did it look like it was made in front page?

2. Did their website address even work?

3. Did the website look the same in Firefox as it did in Internet Explorer?

4. Was it hosted on a Windows or Linux* based server?

5. Did they even have a website?

6. Were they using a hotmail or ISP address which doesn’t look professional?

* The way to tell if a website is hosted on Windows or Linux is quite easy. Using this as an example, open a web browser and type in “http://tafe.sa.edu.au”. Last time I did this the website didn’t work. It showed as no site at that address. Now type in “http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au” and it will work.

With my research and my contacts I looked at approaching the Wineries in my state. South Australia is a large producer of Australia’s wines. One of my clients is Xport Logistics, when Xport Logistics approaches a winery about exporting their product overseas, they will market that they need a website should they not have one. Or that theres something with the site that needs to be updated and outsource to me as the web designer. I think it should work well, I’ve been doing my research into wineries and types of wine so I have some kind of idea as to what I’ll be dealing with. But I won’t just be doing web design, I’ll also try and do the graphic design, and maybe outsource any photography or video production that needs to be done for promotional DVDs. Give them a whole array of things I can either do myself or out source to other people.

It’s really up to you how you conduct the research, but do lots of it. Eventually I based my work around making websites “logical” and thats how I came about with LogicStudios.

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A quick one to make people aware. If you spend to much time working your brain stays very active, and this happened to me for the first time this week in a long time. I’d spent the day doing so many things and working till late at night. That I didn’t wind down and had trouble getting to sleep. Which left me still wide awake and wired at 3 in the morning! So remember, if you have a very attentative job and requires 100% concentration, spend the evenings to wind yourself down so you get a good nights sleep and can spend the next day feeling good and not grumpy and tired!

Avoid loud tv’s and shows, bright lights and what not. Get yourself some relaxing music and a magazine or book to read.

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