Marvelinthesky --> Website Production and Sustainable Living

Web

Website Production, Internet Marketing, Project Management

Art

Pencil and Ink, Flash, Graphic Design, Writing

Earth

Sustainable Living, Gardening, Biking, Positivity

Google+ Project and Adding the +1 Button

July 7th 2011 Posted at SEO, Web
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The Google+ Project is underway and it is creating a bandwagon for websites owners to jump on while marketing gurus figure out the affects of this tool on website traffic and SEM campaigns.

Here is Google’s Blog Post on 1+ Reporting. It covers a number of items that are useful to website owners such as making sure your site is verified in Webmaster Tools and linked to your Google Anaytics account so you can monitor the results of the new 1+ on your traffic… it also gives a great link on how to add reporting for your social interaction campaigns.

How to Add a Google 1+ Button

If you’ll noticed, I’ve added the +1 button on my upper right sidebar.

It is simple to add:

Put the following code in your header or just below the close of you body tag: <script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>
Place this tag where you want the button to appear: <g:plusone></g:plusone>

Finally, I Too Will Get to Use the Current Adobe Products!

April 27th 2011 Posted at Web
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Adobe is about to release CS5.5… and there was much rejoicing! But the best part is, they are going to have subscription editions (month to month) available for almost all of its Creative Suite applications! Wahoo! This means I can actually use the brand spankin’ new version of CS without the $XXXX upfront cost. I am pretty darn excited about it… and so is my travel fund!

Awesome Free Project Management Tool

November 2nd 2010 Posted at Project Management
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I have used Basecamp, Central Desktop, Zoho CRM/Project, MS Project, iphone task and time tracking applications, and complex Excel workbooks with hand pieced Gantt charts to manage interactive projects (not to mention all the ones I demo’d in between!) and for the cost I have not been as impressed as the one I came across today. Clocking IT has answered my jobbyjob needs.

This impressive project management tool offers all the needs of a web project manager… and all they ask for is a donation (YES! FREE –> but as your conscious I must say you best donate to them or Ann Richards will take your ass out).

I was able to set up six client projects with three users and numerous task and associated milestones with ease. Clocking IT’s intuitive interface left me with no question on how to set up my projects and offered me plenty of customizable fields to make the experience better suited for my team and field. They also offered a widget for my iGoogle page (yes, use it daily) and an easy way to sync up with iCal so I can have all the info I need on my iphone calender.

I am pretty thrilled. This month was going to be killer if we didn’t stay organized and on top of our task/time… Clocking IT is going to let us do it, and on our budget for web-based project management tool… cough, nothing, cough, so thank goodness it was free! (YES–> I am going to donate too).

Fascinationist

August 29th 2010 Posted at Web
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I am a contributor to the Fascinationist blog. It is a website that documents all the worm/rabbit holes and pink elephant paths web users find themselves following as they waste hours of their life away. If you like snippets of random things “worth” checking out… take a look at fascinationist.com.

Major and Minor Ukulele Chords (feel free to say thanks)

August 24th 2010 Posted at Ukulele
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I’ve been creating chord charts and lesson resources for others that want to play the ukulele… seems like there is an interest. Since the ukulele site I am going to publish this stuff on isn’t up yet, I am going to post some of these resources here. So, without ado, here are the minor and major ukulele chords.

major minor chord chart Major and Minor Ukulele Chords (feel free to say thanks)

minor and major ukulele chords

Started a New Website –> How to Play Ukulele!

August 11th 2010 Posted at Ukulele
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I have been working on several web projects for the last month and neglecting my own website! Sorry about that. To make it up to you I have finished the chord chart that I promised… and went ahead and started a whole new website devoted to providing resources to the beginning ukulele student. More to come on that (when I get it spiffy) but until then, here is the completed ukulele chord chart for A, A flat, B and B flat. You’ll have to wait for the rest of the chords .

a b chord chart Started a New Website > How to Play Ukulele!

Chord chart for A, A flat, B, and B flat

Ukulele Chord Chart with Notes!

June 30th 2010 Posted at Ukulele
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I have been creating a ukulele chord chart which includes the actual notes that make up the chord next to the chord diagram! I drew several by hand and thought they were helpful enough that I should make a digital graphic of the chord chart to share with all ukulele beginners who want to understand the chords they are playing.

I expect I will have A, A flat, B, and B flat (including the majors, minors, 7ths, 9ths, minor 7ths, and major 7ths) done in a day or so… here is a sample of the ukulele chord chart.

chord chart sample Ukulele Chord Chart with Notes!

Ukulele chord chart for A, Ab, B, Bb and the minors

World eBook Fair Starts July 4th! Thanks Public Domain.

June 29th 2010 Posted at Web
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The World eBook Fair begins July 4th and last for a full month!

This collective celebration of public domain material occurs yearly thanks to the contribution of Project Gutenberg, The Internet Archive, and the World Public Library.

By the end of the fair they will have about 3.5 MILLION audio, video, fiction, nonfiction and references books, and many more digital treasures available online for FREE!

I have been reading older shorts stories and novels by the likes of Miguel de Cervantes, Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka and William Atkinson from my computer screen for a couples months now (thank you Project Gutenberg). That said, there are hints in the web breeze that perhaps an iPhone/Droid application will be launched during the fair to give the billions of smart phone users access to the wealth of free public domain content the World eBook Fair members have to offer at their mobile fingertips. Yay!

I am most definitely looking forward to July 4th… you might find me reading The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha via my phone while the fireworks float overhead.

SEO and Contributing –> Create WordPress Tools for DoFollow Luv

June 21st 2010 Posted at SEO, Web
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Contributing useful information and tools for the world to use is the best SEO action any web content creator can put to use.

One site that certainly rubs-off good SEO karma is WordPress. With a PageRank of 8 and a top 200 Alexa position, contributing a WordPress theme, plugin, and/or widget will reward you with not only an author homepage link, but a link to the tool’s homepage as well.

Also, if your site is simply awesome, think of submitting your site to their “Showcase” for great internet marketing benefit… SEO and traffic!

And if that wasn’t enough… once you have a WordPress profile, posting in their forums also sends a personalized link to your site. I am a big fan of the “New Ideas” WordPress forum.

Thank you WordPress contributors for all that you do!

Being Present and Focused Drawing Mandala Art

June 13th 2010 Posted at Art, Positive Impact
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For the last few years I have been using mandalas to focus and bring my mind back from any place it wondered off to. They are basically circles (within a square) with ornate geometric symbols, sigils, and/or stories within them.

Wikipedia.org has a great quote about them:

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.

There are many mandala coloring books available but they are also very easy and fulfilling to create by hand. One of the easiest ways to create a mandala is by drawing geometric shapes within themselves. For example, first draw a circle, then put a square within that circle letting the corners of the square touch the circle’s sides, then put a circle within the square, a triangle within the circle…etc., and decorate however you like!

mandala flower ink Being Present and Focused Drawing Mandala Art

Mandala flower doodle in vibrant inks

Next time you find your mind wandering or overwhelmed break out that pencil or pen and find an old paper bag to doodle a mandala on. Remember, it does not have to be pretty or perfect or have some great symbolism. Just see what flows out of you when you let your mind calm and focus in on creating each line.

mandala example Being Present and Focused Drawing Mandala Art

mandala doodle

New Website? Try Search Engine Submission.

June 12th 2010 Posted at SEO, Web
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If you just created a website, have your taxonomy/URL structure ready to go and are wondering what to do now, first things first, submit your URL to search engines to crawl.

Google
Every search engine wants you to have an account with them for you to be able to submit your site. Google requires a Google account, how novel. Once you have an account go to Webmaster Central and sign into webmaster tools. Go ahead and add your site then make sure to verify it. I find the easiest way is simply to add the meta tag into the html head tag. It should go in the head section, before the first body section. Webmaster tools has some other options to look into such as location targeting… go ahead and explore the tools Gman is offering.
Yahoo
Yahoo wants you to have a Yahoo account… so if you don’t yet, go ahead and get one, then sign in at Yahoo Site Explorer and submit your webpage. You’ll have a couple options on how to verify the site, as always, adding a meta tag to the header seems easiest, especially for WordPress sites.
Bing
For Bing you will need a Microsoft hotmail account then sign in here: http://www.bing.com/webmaster. You will have the option of uploading a file to your site or simply adding a meta tag to the header, sounds familiar huh.

If your site is established definitely submit it to DMOZ.org and make sure to follow their guidelines for submission… they’re stricter than most.

Want more? There are thousands of directories on the net, start submitting your site to the free ones and get noticed (watch that pagerank appear ).

Tangerine Dreamer

June 9th 2010 Posted at Art, Images
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Found this pencil drawing I worked on last year and played around with it digitally. She’s my tangerine dreamer.

tangerine dreamer