Felicia Day

So I want to make this site a little more artistic.  I love the layout of the WordPress Theme as CMS for the site,  but I want it to be prettier and quirkier, so if anyone has any suggestions, wallpaper, donts, design for the front page content, post it here, all thoughts are appreciated!

Also, there are a lot of new ppl reading this I’m sure, so if there’s a subject you’d like me to blog about, post it here.  I will be compiling ideas and blogging a few times a week.  What are you interested in hearing about (that isn’t redundant on Twitter )

Thanks to Edgar Garcia, the website is now dusted off and almost ready to go into the Beta phase. I could not have done all the heavy lifting without you, thanks dear!

It’s been hard to let go of all the widgets in the sidebar, but the more I think about adding stuff, the more reluctant I am to do it. Do I need to have a widget for every single service I belong to? Probably not. So I switched to a FriendFeed widget. Friendfeed is a great service that aggregates all your social networking activities into one place. I admit, when I first joined (I got the handle “Felicia” I was so early on, hehe) I was not convinced. It’s not that pretty a service and I didn’t really see the functionality of it. But as a way to concentrate everything I’m doing, what I’m reading and music I’m listening to and Twitters I’m…tweeting, it’s a great place to keep a hold on it all. Also, when people comment on things there, it’s easier to be able to respond to them. I feel bad when someone Twitters an@feliciaday at me, but I don’t want to respond back with an @ reply to every one of them because most people don’t know what the heck I’m responding to. Friendfeed creates the possibility of having discussions about Twitters, and anything else really. I’m starting to use it more and more.
Can’t wait for tonight’s episode to air! Er, stream…whatever.

If you haven’t noticed, my latest obsession is redoing the blog, and pretty much all things WordPress related. I’ve compiled a list of sites that I’ve found really valuable in my hunt for a new skin, and other resources to help me (attempt to) tweak them. Hope they come in handy to some of you bloggers!

WordPress Theme Links

• Smashing Magazine has comprehensive lists of anything design related. Three great lists of Free Skins can be found here, here and here. A wonderful starting point.
• Fresheezy is another site with a Gallery of free WordPress skins. Definitely worth a look.
• WPZoom has very good articles and compilations of WordPress resources, free skins and otherwise.
• Uberblogger Skelliwag complied a list of six minimalist free skins. Handy if you’re into white space.
• Desperate Curiosity lists 100 favorite skins. A little older resource but still some nice designs.
• A list of skins at a Japanese(?) site called Designwalker rounds out my theme resources.

WordPress Plugin Resources

• Mashable has a list of 30+ Plugins to get more blog readers, and 50 Great Widgets. Both great lists to add content to your sidebars and enhance your site.
• Quick Online Tips has a list of the 50 Best Powerblogging Widgets.

General Design Lists

• 99 Sites Designers Must Know About. Great list of resources for design elements/inspiration.
• 100+ Web 2.0 Generators. Exhaustive list of everything from favicon generators to rounded corner graphics.
• ForWebDesigners lists fonts, css, free photo resources, all on an attractive page, smartly sorted.

Useful Sites for Designing Your Site

• Dafont is my first stop for fonts.
• Colour Lovers is a great resource for background patterns and user-submitted color palettes.
• Or create your own color palette at Color Blender.

After you find a theme and install your WordPress, use this helpful list “The Complete WordPress Post-Install Checklist” to walk you through your first steps. Then start blogging! Or check out adii’s list of his Top 53 Blog Design of 2007 and be envious.

Got back from a lovely weekend away, hope all of you had an equally relaxing and enjoyable few days! I had two massages and both times the people were like, “Wow, you have a lot of knots in your back!” Nice to know I was certifiably stressed. It was great to be away from the computer, I made it a “no screen” weekend, didn’t bring a computer or cell phone or camera. As long as it seemed like I was away, I didn’t miss much of all. Just goes to show how efficient my time online REALLY is

I got a bug up my butt to redo this site, I’ve been focused on it like a laser the past few weeks actually, but in my time away I realize that in order to do what I need to ACTUALLY do (ie getting a second season of The Guild plotted out, and getting another spec script written) I need to cut out extra things in my life, for the short term at least. Realistically, I realize I have no time to really learn how to WordPress properly to do what I would like to do in my head, and no money to pay a fancy designer to do a custom site right now.

SO, I decided to use this one as an interim site until I find a nice Premium site to buy for cheap that I can tweak on my meager WordPress knowledge. I’m pretty happy with the bones of this skin, there are a lot of bugs I’m working out and I appreciate your patience if things look wonky for a bit. The only real drawback of it is the narrow blog column, but I think I can live with it for now. Let me know what you think!

This week I have a HUGE stack of books to review, I’m looking forward to getting the Flog back on track!