Personal Web site + Blog powered by CMS = FAIL

I have decided in the lengthy time period it has been since my last post that having a nearly 2-year-old personal portfolio Web site and having a decent blog powered by a fully customizable CMS is, in reality, exactly what we journalists strive to avoid being: Redundant.  My information is in two places on the interwebs, on my portfolio site and my blog,  when it really needs to be in one. With WordPress that should be an easy transition.  I’ll be playing with new themes and redesigning my layout and, soon enough, my two pages will be meshed into one glorious package of Mallory goodness located at MalloryColliflower.com.  This will give me something to stay focused on while the job search continues.  Staying busy helps the “I’m living at home” blues!  And I need to really stay sharp on my Web design basics, which tend to get easily rewired after a few weeks in Europe and a summer of post-grad relaxation.  Time to sharpen up!

Bon Voyage

I’ve been very absent and neglectful in posting recently.  No excuse for that.

Since my last update I graduated from college (what a weird and anti-climactic feeling that was) and sent a few more resumes out, just to see if I can snag any bites.  We’ll see.

If you were looking forward to more frequent posts from me, I’m sorry to disappoint.  The only blogging I will be able to do will be from internet cafes that I stumble into in Europe, as I am leaving on Monday for a four-week backpacking excursion extravaganza! London, Dublin, Paris, Florence, Rome, Zürich, Salzburg, Prague, Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam and Brussels! Phew.  Hope we can make it.  I was very torn over whether or not to take my laptop along for the ride.  What better opportunity is there to stay socially connected and share my experiences than through this miraculous machine.  However, after much debate I have decided to leave it behind, not only for security and safety reasons but I wouldn’t want blogging and communicating and technology to distract me from taking in every ounce of European wonder that I can.  So I’ll be writing lots in my journal in hopes to transcribe it to the Web upon my return.  And there will be pictures galore! So farewell friends, be back in a month!

LOLCatz

I thought these little Photoshopped gems were stupid at first. But they’ve grown on me. Yes, I speak of the famed lolcatz. This one is a contender for my favorite:

see more crazy cat pics

The practice of posing your felines in awkward positions just to get a priceless caption isn’t a horrible idea. I don’t know where the weird language came from, but it’s an irresistible combination that is a recipe for a laugh. This coming from a gal who really has a thing against cats. I’m much more of a dog person.

A blessing in disguise: What I learned from a redesign

What began last week as a nightmare has ended in some lessons well learned. A while back I accepted the task of building a Flash site for a local company that specializes in customized school footwear fund raisers for high schools across the country. What the client wanted was very simple and fairly easy to build, but I will shamefully admit that my heart and soul was not fully into the design, and it wasn’t my best. I even opted to leave it out of my portfolio.

When the time came recently for the client to want some changes and updates made, my computer decided to really ruin my day. No files to be found. And yes, I know, what the hell was I thinking without a backup? Of course, I thought I had made one but yet again, no files (I’ve had quite a few problems like this with my PC laptop – I think I see apples in my future). Long story short, a rebuild was unavoidable. I took those lemons that life tossed at me and squeezed them into a cleaner, more precise and MUCH more professional looking glass of lemona…I mean Web site.

BeforeAfter

ItsaShoeThing.com – What do you think??

The rounded star in the left corner has been an adopted logo of sorts for the company, so I was excited to find this new header font that carried the theme. I spent most of today working through some PHP tutorials for building an automated e-mail form for the “contact” section, but I’m still ironing some kinks. On the upside, the client is happy and I’ve got a nice addition to my portfolio.

Morals of the story:
* It never hurts to make a backup of a backup of a backup.
* Upload backup files to your clients hosting server. (I realize this might be a “duh” for some people, but hey, I’m learning!)
* Before turning your laptop into a Frisbee and tossing it out the window during times of technological turmoil, step back, take a deep breath and make the best of the situation.

Short and Sweet Media Job Fair

I have to give a lot of credit to our department of journalism. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive some nugget of information in my e-mail inbox. If it’s from Charles Harris (all UF j-students know this mysterious man, the phantom e-mailer/Director of the Knight Division), I know that I’ll read about the happenings of our college. To my detriment, I’ve become the kind of e-mail-skimming zombie who mindlessly deletes things just so my mailbox doesn’t become overwhelmingly overflowed, and admittedly, some of those journalism e-mails just do not get read (we get a LOT!). But I digress. Miraculously, instincts told me not to be so hasty the other day and check out a few, and I found this little gem of information.

Now I’ve only been to one job/internship fair. It was last year in our student union, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more intimidated in my life. The Grand Ballroom looked more like one of those big spread-out office rooms you see in movies with the endless desks and cubicles. Minus the cubicles. Then throw a stone-faced editor behind each desk, all facing the entrance as you walk in and you can imagine the size of the knot that took root in my gut. I was lucky enough to snag an awesome summer internship that day with the High Springs Herald, but not after releasing a few beads of sweat.

Which brings me to why I am so amped up about South Florida’s out-of-the-box idea for a job fair. Who in their right mind wouldn’t rather dress up and go to a jazz club to mingle with some industry bigwigs on a more relaxed level than the stiffness and anxiety-ridden experience of a traditional job fair? It’s being hosted by the South Florida chapter of SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists for all you non-JOUs who stumble on this), The New Times of Broward and Palm Beach and by South Florida Media Jobs. Plus it’s on a Saturday, about a 10-minute drive from my folks’ house. You’ll definitely see me at this one, but I plan on leaving that annoying stomach knot at the door.