February 2009 – Page 3 – all said and done

Published February 19, 2009 by Rebecca Matheson

Timetable Sem 1, Year 3

The second last time I’ll have to bother with these things, but for the customary university update, here we go. Swinburne has spat out a fairly reasonable timetable for me this time around, only one class I would have preferred to move.

Monday: 8:30-4:30pm (one 3hr break, one 1hr break)

Tues: 8:30-10:30am

Thurs: 8:30-3:30pm (one 1hr break)

Pretty dandy! So I would’ve shortened Thurday and dumped that class into the big break on Monday, but I guess breaks like that can be highly useful for homework purposes – especially now that I know the internet reaches my favourite cafe. I start back early March, it’s been a long, lovely holiday but I will be happy to get back in to it – just about ready I think.

Subjects will be:

Design & Business Strategy
Communication Design Strategy
Design for Production
Publication Design

Uni

Published February 19, 2009 by Rebecca Matheson

WordPress building

There is quite a reasonable and comprehensively linked post over on Design Tech about builiding and customising WordPress Themes.

The bain of my existence at the moment is degbugging WP Themes for the various ugly versons of Internet Explorer. I have been working on a site for work as well as my own personal theme and have consquently learnt a lot in the past little while. The work related one is much more CMS (Content Management System ie. normal website) based and so it’s learning how to get plugins to work effectively for you, using php and wordpress codex to modify what the loop outputs and creating all kinds of member protected areas etc. A marvellous exercise really because all the things it has forced me to investigate. I will share the link once I get it running smoothly in IE. However,

An honorary mention must be given to:

WordPress Download Monitor Plugin – Very useful for cutting out a step and keeping things somewhat organised for those uploading pdf’s (and other) that members can access. It has some limits – in that I can’t get the formatting to work when it populates a list via category – but it’s not half bad. WordPress still lacks a really good free document management plugin.

*Wordpress Download Manager – Seems to a be a far better option than Download Monitor. Organise, upload and output categorical (or otherwise) lists of pdfs and other such uploads. Formatting works a charm. I cannot at this stage get the search to work for me, but one thing at a time.

How to use WordPress as a Member Directory – This article got me both started and then back on the right track. I tried a couple of things but this was the closest and that which worked best. Again there are a few things – that if I knew php better I would alter and it’s a bit of a pain that it leans on two plugins and there isn’t just something that will do it all for you, but hey there’s some scope for some handy programmer out there.

Blogging Design Web Design

Published February 18, 2009 by Rebecca Matheson

Ampersand

I am in two minds about the ampersand, they are incredibly beautiful, curvy, interesting, and can feature alone, but on the other hand, they are a quite a lazy character. They rip the letters A N D off and they are often used at inappropriate moments. It’s the & of the headline and not the and of the story.

If you don’t take the metaphor too far, you could say that this blog has progressed (or degressed) from:

All Said and Done

All Said & Done

The blog might have grown up or at very least aged, but it has certainly gotten more lazy, it is less about the story. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but more reflective of how All Said & Done fits into my life as opposed to a few years ago.

Aside:

I do quite like the ampersand. And the one sitting on my desk makes me quite happy as it really does serve no purpose whatsoever.

This guy is even mesmerised by them.

Blogging Design Life

& All Said & Done ampersand Blogging Design

Published February 16, 2009 by Rebecca Matheson

Bridesmaid

becsam Late last week I had a strong suspicion that I should call up my friend Samantha and enquire as to, “What was going on?”. I managed – without much difficulty, to deduce that she was engaged to her boy Steve and they’d had the unfortunate experience of not being able to get on to her Dad – as he was (at the time) in Uganda and so had to keep it a secret for several days until they could reach him. Much to my surprise Sam has asked me to be a bridesmaid!

It is an interesting thing coming at a wedding from a different angle. This is the first time I’ve been in any way involved to this level (apart from getting married myself). Suddenly the decisions aren’t mine and things really aren’t my responsibility. I hope to make myself useful. But am pleased to be slightly more removed from the stress.

Sam and Steve are getting married in September.

I’ve also found out this week that my friend Katie is engaged.

Yes, indeed, it is all happening!

Life Wedding

Published February 12, 2009 by Rebecca Matheson