All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Monday in the HTMLab

I don’t “get” Twitter

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The popularity of Twitter boggles my mind. Why do people like it and use it for everything from personal updates to site management and website branding?

My Personal Experiences with Twitter

I tried it as a personal social media account for six months, about 3 or 4 years ago, and didn’t really care for it. At the end of six months, I had around a hundred direct copy-pastes of status messages from Facebook and maybe 2 followers. I had nobody I was following, because nobody I knew in real life used Twitter back then. I rarely went on it and rarely updated it close to the end of my time on there, because all the things I could do on Twitter were things I could easily do on Facebook better. I just DIDN’T GET what was so hot about it.

I still have a Twitter account for my City of Heroes fansite, but again, I rarely update it and rarely go on it, even though it’s connected to the Facebook page for my site. It’s just so…BORING in comparison to Facebook. (‘Course, I have no idea how to manage a social-media presence for something that’s not alive anyway, but that notwithstanding…)

Several major issues with the Twitter interface bug me, both as a potential personal user and as a social-media/website-branding user. Mind, it wasn’t as popular when I had a personal account (I was an early adopter), certainly not as popular as it is now. But I just don’t know if I want to be a super-late adopter and fail at it again.

My main gripes about Twitter:

  • Why does the 140-character limit exist? Why was this arbitrary limit picked? It severely hampers my ability to write coherently (and by “coherently” I mean “without tons of abbreviations everywhere”). I feel like I’ve barely begun saying anything before the number of characters left turns red.
  • Who needs a “micro-blog?” I need a macro-blog. I’m quite verbose (as you might have already gathered, :P)
  • What’s the point of “following” people? Just because you’ve followed them doesn’t mean they’re going to follow you. You can read all their smallest updates, but until they follow you back, they don’t see yours unless they navigate to your page. I would rather befriend people on Facebook or make a Page to “like”, and have that “followed/following” connect automatically.
  • How can you effectively communicate with people using only @mentions and direct messaging? Facebook’s Wall posting and commenting is a lot easier–not as many links to click to follow the thread of conversation. (Please update me if this has been changed on Twitter’s interface–keep in mind, it has been a while since I used it personally)
  • What’s there to see and do besides read 140-character updates? I can do that just as easily on Facebook, AND I can post pictures without having to go to a different (yet still affiliated) site, AND I know all those people in real life so I actually care about what’s going on with them.

But to each their internet own

I realize I’m probably one of the only people in the world who doesn’t understand why Twitter exists or its social draw.

For some, perhaps the 140-character limit per tweet is more than they will ever use (that concept is unfathomable to me, haha). For some, perhaps, following minute updates of sports figures and celebrities is part of their daily news intake–I grant that. And, for others, Facebook’s privacy-wallowing interface and deluge of apps/photos/likable pages is just too much, and they prefer the minimalist, mobile-friendly Twitter approach. The last counter-gripe about Facebook, I can definitely understand.

For those who use Twitter and love it, I apologize for this rather bemused article; you may not understand the use or need for Facebook just as much as I don’t understand the use/need for Twitter.

Twitter’s just not my bag, baby (with apologies to the Austin Powers franchise)

Personally, I find Twitter to be just a poor copy of Facebook status updates. Not that I didn’t give it the old college try way back when–it’s just I tried it, and nothing really sparked for me. It was too much like posting to Facebook, except I had to sign in to SOMETHING ELSE and manage ANOTHER social profile, and you could only do a small fraction of the activities you could do on Facebook. Same thing with my City of Heroes site’s Twitter, @skiesoveratlas–I often forget about it because it’s rather alien to me.

As for my personal Twitter, I finally became frustrated with having to sign in to 5 or 6 different services to report on my life, and finally just downsized, getting rid of my accounts on Twitter, Flickr, Stumbleupon, and a couple other services I don’t even remember (that’s how little of an impact they had on my life). I have since reinstated Stumbleupon since it’s a great way to skip across the Internet to find sites, and Facebook doesn’t offer that kind of service. But I have no need for a photo service or a status-update service, since FB does all that AND I can share it with people I know in real life.

How does Twitter usage relate to web design?

Many of my fellow web-designers use Twitter as their main vehicle for updating their sites, as well as for their own personal usage. I have seen these public site-related Twitter accounts, and wondered whether I should jump on this particular bandwagon like I did with Skies over Atlas, but again, the management of yet another profile and the user interface’s weirdness stand in my way.

Also, many bloggers make their presence known on Twitter and get more readers for their blogs in this way. I feel like I’m missing out on something huge that could really help Crooked Glasses get more readers, and yet…I feel like I’d just update it every blue moon or every solar eclipse or something, and nobody would follow it anyway. The push for web designers to use every single source of social media out there is overwhelming, and I’m way behind the curve.

Is it so wrong for me to dislike signing in to 15 different pages, just to keep people “updated” on me and my sites? Am I doing myself and my online work a disservice by not being as vigilant? I have no idea.

Summary

Am I just crazy? Am I an old fuddy-duddy, having trouble adapting to new technology and new manners of presenting updates and data? I don’t think so…I just don’t see why one would need two toothbrushes to scrub the same mouth every day, or why one would need two TVs in the same room to watch the same show. That’s what Twitter and Facebook feel like to me–too similar to need both.

Please post your opinion on this matter in the comments thread below–I would like to know if my perceptions are in error, or if I’m just too much of a Twitternewb to use it properly yet. (Be kind to this old dialup-using dinosaur, though–if you had to prioritize your Internet because it blocks a phone line and loads at 5kbps a second, you’d hate signing into tons of similar social-media sites, too! LOL)

Sunday in the Wild

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

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To appropriately ring in the new year, I am reflecting on things that the old year taught me. How can I go forward if I don’t know where I am, right?

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

1. It is possible for your wisdom teeth to be severely infected for months, without your actual teeth ever hurting.

2. My parents are awesome, supportive people, and I am darn lucky to have them both still living.

3. 5,000 words typed in a single afternoon? Yes, it happens. 😀

4. Winter precipitation is a particularly large pain in the posterior region. It’s fine to be in a warm house looking out at said precipitation; trying to walk in the cold among inches and inches of icy, slippery snow leads to many falls and much fist-shaking.

5. Summer precipitation is no better–hailstorms are nothing to mess with, and leave your car looking like it’s been driven through a rough part of town. (LOL, my little Sydney has “street cred” now)

6. General anesthesia is a blissful nothingness, usually…but I had a dream while under general anesthesia, in which I talked peacefully with one of my relatives, long gone now. I wonder what I glimpsed?

7. Trying to sleep through a headache doesn’t work. Period.

8. Zumba, on the other hand, works. I lost 5 inches off my waist in 5 months of a little less-than-regular weekly attendance. 😀

9. Never put your faith in a single hard drive. Sooner or later, all hard drives, whether they are flash drives, external drives, or internal drives, will fail. Multiple backups are awesome!

10. Living without a personal computer is very annoying at best and creativity-killing at worst, at least for someone who creates files on a daily basis like I do.

11. Holly bushes absolutely COVERED in beautiful, big red berries = free Christmas decorations for the outdoors. 😀

Saturday with the Spark

Christmas Glassics: Saturday with the Spark

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Creative thinking and activity, ahoy! Today’s Glassics post features all the artsy posts I’ve done on Crooked Glasses since July 2011, from writing to papercrafting, music to drawing. You can also view my first Saturday with the Spark Glassics post for the creative posts I did before July.

Sparking Creativity

I’ve written a good bit about tapping into one’s own creativity. Using dreams to inspire yourself is one way; I’ve also used Play-Doh as an analogy for creativity (sounds funny, but it worked out well!). I want to encourage people to stop thinking they’re not good enough to be artists, allowing themselves to use things in their everyday lives to jump-start creative thinking.

Philosophies of Art

The big philosophical question I pondered this season was: “Is art for entertainment or for meaning?” This is one of the deepest-thinking posts I’ve written in this entire category so far, and I think it gets to the salient point of why we create art at all, as humans.

Writing

Knowing a good bit about the craft of writing (and doing my best to practice it and get better), I have blogged about practicing your writing skills every way you can, as well as inspiring yourself by finding a topic you love to write about. I also covered how to deal when writing feels like punishment, when it feels like your brain has locked up on you and won’t produce a single syllable more.

And, since I’m practicing my noveling craft (is that a word? Wellp, it is now), I’ve written a few articles as helpful advice for myself and other novelists. Wading through a tough/boring part of my book by experiencing what I’m trying to write has really helped me get back on the writing horse; my post about expanding the world inside my book made me remember to go back and add more details to my own works.

Crafts

Along with my thoughts on beautiful beaded jewelry designs, I began a series of papercrafting posts this season, as well: making greeting cards and gift tags, and learning the skills of ornare, quilling, and origami. I plan to expand this sub-category a good bit in the new year!

Visual Art

I’m not much of a visual artist, but I have written a few posts this time around about art. I did one that shows how to shade your artwork for a more 3-D look, and I also depicted my own versions of digital cut-and-paste art. (Might not be the best in the world, but it’s fun to do!)

Music

Since I’m a longtime pianist, composer, and singer, this category understandably exploded with posts on music this fall and winter. I wrote about how singing in choir saved my life, trying to write a “catchy fast song”, and musical exploration with just a keyboard. My great love for the key of C-sharp also peeped in this fall, as well as my affinity for making my own movie soundtracks (it’s not as laden with mad leet skills as it sounds, but it’s still quite fun). Lastly, I discussed my peculiar ability to find the musical note that matches someone’s personality, and even write songs about them.

Get Comfy, Read, and Be Inspired!

I hope these posts get you thinking about the types of creative work you’d like to do; I hope they also expose you to different creative thoughts and activities that you might like to explore more. They’ve certainly helped me explore the various reaches of my own creative thought, and even gotten me to try my hand at art techniques I never would have explored otherwise. 🙂 Enjoy!

Friday around the Web

Christmas Glassics: Friday Around the Web

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Showcasing all my Internet surfing of the last few months, today’s Glassics post features four types of links: thought-provoking/helpful sites, media- or game-driven pages, funnies, and useful Internet tools. All the links I find every week are arranged into groups of four in each Friday around the Web blog entry.

This collection links each blog entry instead of each link, because I’m too lazy to copy ‘n paste every single link I’ve found since July 2011 into this one Glassics post. (Actually, I just tried, and it was way too long to read. Thus, the shorter way appears below.)

(For your additional perusal: My first Friday around the Web Glassics post has the list of my first few months of Friday Internet surfing, also arranged by blog entry.)

December 2011

Problematic Words and Phrases, Top 10 Films, Scary Snowman, and MindPicnic
TheOnion’s Take on Creation, Super Mario Crossover, Skipping Class Flowchart, and Blekko
Best Teacher Ever, Someone’s “I Want” List, What Comic Sans Means, and Schoolr
Creative Truths, Snowflake Toy, Universal Wrapping Paper, and DuckDuckGo

November 2011

Oldest Known Melody, Goodbye Shirt, The Amazing Binder Clip, and Listal
Why I Hate Reading Maps, Fantasy Realism, Copycat Candy Recipes, and Creative Bookshelves
Educational Quotes, WeaveSilk, The Break-Up Letter, and TextbookRevolution
Font Mixing, Paper Sculptures, A Round Tuit, and Amazing Facts

October 2011

What You’ll Wish You’d Known, Street Art of 2010, Sweet Book Nook, and How Many People Think Firefox Rules
Theories of Learning, ShinyBinary, They Will Never Have a Girlfriend, and Vark
Suppressed Inventions, Drawings of Da Vinci, In the Beginning…, and Privnote.com
Religion Vs. True Belief, Beautiful Bedrooms, Why Does Paper Beat Rock?, and Warning Sign Generator

September 2011

Being Crazy is Noisy, Kitty Balancing Act, Trashion Shelves, and Tips for Success
Unsolved Philosophical Problems, Huge Techscape, On Having a Toddler, and WobZip
Common First-Aid Mistakes, Guidelines for Cats, GamingAngels, and WikiSpaces
Religions and Sexual Ethics, Education REALLY Matters, Music Catch, and RepairPal
The Creative Personality, Banned Toys, ’90s Gaming, and Writing Generators

August 2011

Politics Explained, Einstein Pic, Choice of the Dragon, and Plagiarism Checker
Descriptive Mess, Lady GaGa Fugue, Twice Shy, and Listography
Cool Inventions, Personalized Jewelry, Mutual Weirdness, and World Statistics
Real “Better Mood” Food, Strange Talk Show Topics, Spammer Gets Owned, and DownloadTube

July 2011

Think Like a Designer, Moving Plastic Creatures, Business Cat, and Swap-A-Skill
House Becomes Chalkboard, Pikakitty, The Story of Firefox, and Password Strength Test
The Golden Rule(s), Hendrix in Picks, Mild-Mannered Phrases, and A CSS Sandbox

Thursday in the Zone

Christmas Glassics: Thursday in the Zone

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Today’s Christmas Glassics focuses on the gaming posts I’ve done since July 2011, when I compiled my first Glassics post from this category. Browse this list and see what catches your eye–I literally write about ANYTHING gaming-related, even the littlest Flash game.

General Gaming and Strategy Articles

In this category, I covered basic helpful gaming topics like organizing your collection of gaming stuff, why casual gaming is still valuable. I also spoke about various strategies and playstyles, like spider strategy, high-defense playstyles, and one-track-mind gaming.

Internet Games

Some of my favorite Internet games appeared in my Thursday in the Zone category this time around: Kaboom! (quick reflexes required), Swan Lake Dressup (all ballet costumes), Loops of Zen (like curvy Tetris), and Bride Hair Dresser (easily one of the best “hairdressing” games I’ve ever played).

Console & PC Games

City of Heroes
I covered Empowerment Buffs and how to cope with playing a low-level character this fall and winter, delving into deeper issues that CoH players deal with on a regular basis. This sort of article is directed toward both new players and veteran players alike–they are accessible and yet informative.

Console Games
Pikmin and We Love Katamari, as favorite console games of mine, made it onto my blog for a fresh topic change, after all the more theoretical gaming-related posts I did. I couldn’t leave my favorite offline games out of this blog for long!

Collectible/Tabletop Games

Magic: the Gathering
Articles on building the right mana base, poison counters, and “porting” in a strategy type from another card game appeared this fall and winter. In my example, I switched an old Yu-Gi-Oh! strategy into Magic, in a three-part blog series: figuring out what parts of your strategy can be imported, searching for matching cards, and proxying cards to test strategies. (I still need to actually BUILD this deck, but that will come in time. IRL stuff gets in the way too much.)

HeroClix
My new take on the old Green Lantern Tank strategy was the only HeroClix article I wrote this time around. Methinks I should fix that in the new year. 🙂

Resident Evil: Deck Building Game
I wrote a bit more about the Resident Evil deck building game this fall and winter, since my boyfriend and I spend a good amount of time playing it these days. Item Management was a target for thought-provoking argument, and I also reviewed the Outbreak expansion.

Philosophies/Opinions on Gaming

Turning my insight on my own gaming and my own habits, I wrote more thoughtful pieces on why humans game, what gaming teaches us, and when gaming becomes less fun than it used to be.

Power On

I hope reading these articles will help you get inspired to get back to your own gaming this holiday season, if you have the time to devote to it. It’s fun to feel like a kid again, even if it’s only for 5 minutes…or 90… 😉

Wednesday in the Word

Christmas Glassics: Wednesday in the Word

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Today’s Glassics post focuses on the Biblical interpretations I do every Wednesday. Since the production of my first Wednesday in the Word Glassics post, I have selected verses discussing living as a Christian, the nature of God, and even the difficulties that all Christians face.

Christian Living

As Christians, we do have to learn to lead with God first, being the type of Godly leader that others can truly trust in and depend on. We have to learn how to depend on God’s security, trust God in risky situations, be gracious rather than vindictive, and be proactive rather than passive Christians.

Our constant prayer should remind us of how we still sin and still have difficulty following what God has said.

The Nature of God

Though no human can truly comprehend the full being of God, we know a lot about His nature by what His Word says. God brings justice to our lives, as well as salvation, unconditional love, and renewal; Jesus’ sacrifice makes us clean in God’s sight.

God does have to remind us sometimes Who’s in charge, even speaking straight to us sometimes. No matter what, though, He is there, and He has done all He can to reconnect with us.

Non-Christian Living

If we call ourselves Christians, that’s one thing. If we are truly trying to live as Christians, it’s quite another matter. We deal with wondering if God is even there, as well as people who pretend to be pious; we worry a whole lot about getting our due of worldly ideas, objects, and praise, and whether our good works will save us. These worries and fears are discussed and dealt with in the Bible, which is one reason I chose them to write about–they are still prevalent today, and our concerns now aren’t very different from those whom the Bible describes.

Our worries and fears hold us back, as do our sufferings that lead to humility. We stress about the times when we try to witness to others and fail, or fail to keep a commitment to the church like we think we should. (Sometimes, we even have questions for God about what is going to happen.)

We cannot forget that these frailties are normal, and thousands of people before us have suffered them. What is important is that we keep trusting God while we struggle with our frailty, and not give up because we didn’t worship perfectly.

Read, Think, and Comment

I invite you to read these weekly interpretations and think about them, understand them according to your own worldview. I am no preacher and I do not seek to convert; rather, I challenge myself weekly to understand more and more of the Bible, so that I can be more informed and more able to lead if ever called upon. By reading these, I hope you gain a little bit of insight into what makes up Christianity, and what the belief system stands for.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Christmas Glassics: Tuesday on the Soapbox

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Today, I’ll review the social commentary and philosophy posts I’ve made on Crooked Glasses since July 2011. I’ve written about a wide variety of topics this fall and winter, so there is much to read–but it won’t be a textbook, I promise!

If you’re interested in seeing more posts from this category, my first Tuesday on the Soapbox Glassics post can be found here.

The Lighthearted Writing

Laughable life anecdotes, favorite fashion/hairstyle and beauty product preferences, and not being afraid to say “Woot!” have graced this category over the last few months.

I’ve also written about taking just 5 minutes to relax, enjoying perfect little moments and favorite times of day. Other humorous articles include learning how to drive like a ninja, the strange “cage shoe” fad, and hilarious typo/autocorrect fails.

Srs Bsns (Serious Business): Eye-Opening Articles

I’ve literally covered a lot of mental ground this fall and winter…everything from the pathetic lack of empathy in today’s society to the difficulty of forgiveness.

Personal anecdotes (perhaps a little tirade-ish) dot this category a little more heavily; I wrote a good bit about my beefs with forgotten spelling, modern TV shows’ quality, and politicians talking over each other without listening. I also spoke about my frustrations with handicapped parking being taken by non-handicapped people, still living on dialup internet, getting healthy without emotional support, and the physical pain I endure daily.

Combining anecdote with universal insight, I have also written articles on living without a laptop, epic math hatred, feeling alien to this society, missing the company of furry friends, and dealing with mental clutter.

Dive In Anywhere–The Reading’s Fine

Though I do not claim to be an accomplished commentator, I know that I can at least put forth an opinion decently. My hope is that you gain something positive from these articles, even if they are more solemn than LOL-inducing.

Monday in the HTMLab

Christmas Glassics: Monday in the HTMLab

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As we all rush to complete after-Christmas sales and recover from the holidays, here’s a review of the web design posts I’ve done since early July 2011–taken together, this is the Winter 2011 edition of “Glassics”, or “Crooked Glasses Classics.” At a glance, you can see many of the older posts I’ve done; if you missed one, it’s linked here!

The reason I’m doing this is because I want to let people know about some of the older posts, as well as aggregate a lot of the content together for people to peruse more easily. (I’m also recovering from the holidays, but that’s another story. 😛 )

And don’t forget, if you’re interested in web design posts before July 2011, my first Glassics post covers those. 🙂

Graphically Speaking: Visual Web Design Posts

Since July, I’ve done articles on the importance of choosing the right color schemes, wondering where web animations got to, the web trend of using more visuals than text, and styling your links. I also compiled a list of my top 10 web design pet peeves, as much to remind myself not to offend my own style as anything. 😛

Other of my posts, covering the use of position: fixed and CSS shadows, have appeared here, as well, alongside a historical tutorial on 1×1 pixel transparent images, called “shims”. And as part of my “teaching by analogy” style of writing posts, I also did posts on dressing your page like you’re putting together an outfit and using music to inspire layout designs.

The “Backend”: Web Development

This time around, in terms of web development topics, I took time to discuss debugging your site, using RSS feeds, making sitemaps, and when to use WordPress Pages versus WordPress Posts. I also looked at how to organize one’s digital content on a larger website, and how to make web pages load faster.

Webmastering Tricks from the Trial-and-Error Brigade

Based on my own hard-won knowledge and interaction with the web design trade over the last several years, I came up with articles about why it’s the length, not number, of hits that really matter, link-hopping to find affiliates, and why it’s important to back up all your site files.

Other tricks I discussed: affiliating with other like sites to help get traffic to your site, and using web trends to help inform and inspire your own designs.

Creating Content to Make Your Site Worthwhile

For this Glassics review, I wrote about researching your articles and blog posts to make them worth reading, why a multi-topic blog can work, and how to write an informative and professional “About Me” page.

Read and Enjoy!

I hope you’ll take time to look through these older articles and enjoy them–maybe even gain a bit of knowledge about web design on the way, too. I’d be glad to hear from you about how these articles have helped, or if you have a suggestion to make these posts even better.

Saturday with the Spark

Well, Have a Nap–Then Fire Your Cylinders!

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[/shameless paraphrase of “End of the World” flash video]

Dreams as a Sleeping/More Creative Life

Dreams are powerful experiences, at least in my life. I often kid that I don’t read horror novels or watch scary movies because my nightmares are free (and forced on me). I’m sure Stephen King could have a field day with my subconscious’ meanderings; from horrible rites of death to gruesome imagery, my dreams often leave me terrified to go back to sleep, even at close to 30 years old. I could probably make money off these dreams if I wrote ’em down and made ’em into a book…but I’d probably go mad trying to write it all. LOL!

But as scary as my dreams can be sometimes, they also can be veritable reservoirs of creativity. During the night, your mind isn’t as constrained by what is “right” and “proper,” what is “beautiful” and “pleasing,” and sometimes you end up with powerful imagery and plotlines that are just crazy enough to work.

Creativity & Dreams through History

Many artists of every type have harvested their dreams for inspiration in their works. One of the more famous stories of a dream inspiring creativity is that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poet of the Romantic era (1800s), who woke from an opium-induced dream and wrote one of his poetic masterworks, “Kubla Khan.”

We, too, can use dreams as a jumping-off point for our creativity (even without pharmaceutical help 😉 ); if we can allow ourselves to dream, we can allow ourselves to reach ideas we haven’t even TRIED to play with before.

Harvesting Creativity from Dreams

  1. First, you’ve got to have a really intense dream. Positive or negative, lovely or scary, whatever it is, usually the most intense dreams translate the best into waking creativity.
  2. When you wake, write down everything you remember from the crazy dream you experienced last night–don’t leave out any detail, as silly as it might seem!

    Don’t try to make sense of any of the images, or try to make it into a “sensible” story yet. If it happened in your dream, write it.

  3. Don’t let anything interrupt you, at all, till you’re finished. Coleridge, according to the popular story, answered the door in the middle of his poem, and when he returned to his desk, the dream had fully evaporated. “Kubla Khan” looks like a finished masterpiece, but in reality it was probably only a quarter complete.

    Whether this anecdote is true or not, dreams do tend to fade very quickly after waking. Don’t let this happen to you…capture as much of it as possible!

  4. Later in the day, go back and see what the meat of your dream is. Pick out imagery that really stood out to you; pick out characters that intrigued you, delighted you, even frightened you. Anything about the dream that really hit you, really made you FEEL and EXPERIENCE the dream, is worth thinking more about.
  5. Transform this raw material into any form of creativity you wish–a song, an instrument solo, a short story, a painting, a play, even a dance. Use those characters, that imagery, that feeling, whatever it was, to carry your idea forth in a way you may have never expected to do so.

Most Importantly, Have Fun!

Don’t worry about making this dream-creation “good” or “interesting to others”–primarily, enjoy your creative inspiration as your own, even if you weren’t aware that you were creating it! To embrace your creativity, your ability to MAKE cool stuff up, you first have to accept that you CAN do it…and your dreams give you the perfect license to do it.