More on Social Media

This time, talking about websites, and I want to take a moment to say I am very annoyed at my inability to find a webs designer willing to take on the job of rebuilding my website for free.

Sigh. I'll just have to pay someone, then.

Anyway, and interesting article from SEOwizardy on the importance of making your website ready for social media. Very much sales oriented, so if you aren't selling things from your website, you probably won't be interested. On the other hand, if you're an author...

Anyway, enjoy. I'm going back to editing for the last 15 minutes before I go to bed.

Small Steps Forward

My website (www.erikbuchanan.ca) has been a constant annoyance to me because I simply haven't had the time to upgrade it, nor the money to hire someone else to do it (I have high hopes for the lottery this weekend, but let's be serious).

Now, however, I have taken the first step. I have changed my website from a shell site (hosted as www.web.ca/~erikbuchanan but with my domain name) to a true website, with actual page names and everything.

The next step is recreating it so that it is more content management friendly. I want to have an easily updateable event calendar, my blog, and other nice web 2.0 features there without having to do all that HTML that I'm just not that good at.

So, one small step forward for tonight. And if there are any cheap, good website designers out there who can show me how to build this thing using Drupal, I'd appreciate the help.

Anyone? Anyone?

Beuller?

Getting Closer...

Got another couple of pages on my website done. The HOme page, writing page, Appearance page, bookstore main page contacts page and dragon moon press page all work, as do all the links from those pages. Yay!

The Obsessions and Links pages are still a mess, so don't go there.

But I'm getting close...

Another step forward...

The bookstore sections of my website are pretty much complete. I need to test all the links and stuff, but so far, looks good.

So, in addition to buying my book, now you can buy a bunch of others off my website and help me pay for the thing!

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

All right, is there any free website design software out there that doesn't suck?

Page breeze doesn't recognize CSS so I can't see what the pages actually look like. NVu has decided that my pages are no longer editable, and since I'm dealing with the links from Amazon.ca I kind of need a working WYSIWIG to make things go properly.

Annoying as all get out, this is.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions before I fork out $600 for a copy of Dreamweaver that I really don't want, that would be appreciated.

It's slightly more alive!

I've got the "Writing" page of my new website up. Very happy making. Not all the links from it work yet, but it's getting closer.

It's Alive.... Well, almost, anyway...

Working on the website at long last. Got the homepage up and running, and am working on the many other pages.

With luck, it will be fully functional in the near future. Just having some image and link issues on almost all the other pages.

Not sure which would be cheaper. Buying a copy of dreamweaver or just hiring someone to do it for me...

Meanwhile, I think the "Under Construction" page is very nice...

Happy New Year!

Hope your New Year's eve went off as well as ours did. We had a couple of friends over and served what can only be described as a wonderful dinner. My wife and I took turns cooking, and everything went off perfectly. Our friends brought excelllent wine to compliment the meal. Couldn't have asked for better.

Here's the menu (just to make you jealous):

• Tomato Bocconcini Skewers with Basil & Olive Oil
• Roasted Tomato Soup with Lemon & Basil
• Seared Scallops with Jalapeño Crème
• Warm Spinach Salad with Pancetta Dressing & Asiago Cheese
• Strip Loin Steaks with French Mustard Sauce
• Mandarin Praline Trifle

Now that was a dinner.

Good friends, good food, good conversation, good evening. What could be better?

Hope you had the same, and look forward to spending a fair bit more time here this year.

In other news...

...Started putting up the new website. Running into major problems, of course, so don't go visiting just yet. It will look good, though.

...Cold Magics is ticking along, which is good.

...And I'm back to work tomorrow. And it is a sign of why I took this job that I'm looking forward to it.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Done!

The floor is in, the quarter round is in. The room looks fan-expletive-tastic. Yay!

Actually not completely done. The doorjamb needs to go in but that is a one hour project I can do any time this weekend. So I'm done!

I am so proud of myself, I might just explode.

I also wired myself with caffeine today so I could get the job done this evening. I'm wide awake and ready to haul boxes as soon as the floor dries! Wheeee!

No, really. Wheeee.

Happy, happy, happy happy.

Tonight, I haul boxes. Tomorrow night, bookcases, filing cabinet and put together the desk and computer. Then I have office! After that, other housework.

And the website, and the book promotions, because Small Magics is out and available!

Got to get the promotions going and have myself a book launch!

Also, this weekend, we clean. By end of weekend, we have almost functioning house!

Again with the yay!