Keep joining my Competition!

I’ve changed the site around a bit. As well as just giving it a ‘bit’ of a new look, I did it to clean it up and make it much faster at loading. So now while your reading the posts all the extra ‘crap’ at the bottom loads without you having to wait to be able to read the posts. Thats the plan anyway.

I’m still not 100% happy with the site but its nothing to do with the layout - I made a bit of a mess of things by having some content as pages and some as posts and mixing it all together in the content section. I’m definitely in need of a new layout! Which I shall be working on after my exam on Wednesday. *meep* I’m actually more nervous about the job interview on tuesday and driving back to Canterbury than I am the exam! I hate driving you see, I’ll avoid it at all costs.

I’ve been busy not revising as of late, mainly whoring out apricot13.org, do vote for it here by clicking the wiggly circle things!

Yes, there was an earthquake in Canterbury the other day but no, I wasn’t there! Brandy was a little shocked! What amused me most after reading this”

Kent Fire and Rescue Service said it had taken more than a 100 emergency calls and was dealing with “several incidents”. A spokesman said: “We have had calls from people saying their chimneys have fallen down, large cracks in people’s houses.” The emergency services were inundated with calls from concerned householders and fire crews attended a number of incidents.

Since when did a fallen chimney demand a police presence?!!

(Noinked from the times!)

Inspired by this I’ve decided to finally get around to organising my RSS feeds! If your not using RSS then you really should, and if its not on your site, then your missing out on a massive market - hardly anyone has time to visit your site most of the time RSS lets them read your posts and click through to comment (if their so inclined) all from one page and without having to remember urls!. Heres the really simple guide to syndication. (RSS savvy - see what I did there!?)

I started off by exporting my RSS feed as am XML file by going to my account > import/export and clicking export as OPML file. The xml file was saved to my desktop.

I’m not going to stop using Google reader because its very useful being able to access your feeds anywhere in the world (and house), the only reason I’m exporting is that Googles organisation is a bit lacking, so I’m going to import it into a local RSS reader then import it back into Google reader nice and neat and organised! My local RSS reader of choice is Vienna. I’m very very anal about organising things, I organise like mad! (I’m also a clean freak. mmm disinfectant.) At least if I worked at Naples Plastic Surgery you’d come out looking perfect, and be very clean!

Once I’m organised I export the xml file from vienna and then import it back into Google Reader! Tada, nice neat and organised!

How many of you can use illustrator!? I’m sure I’m missing something here but the pen tool seems a bit…inept?! In Photoshop you make a line then you can transform that whole line, but on illustrator you can’t do that! I can only add anchors and make waves - I get my curve but then I cant get rid of the other half of the line! Ignore my gibberings, This is genius, Just click once then click and hold and move the mouse around to get your curve! As a result of my lack of pen tool ability (and my futile search for tutorials relating to it) it took me quite sometime to actually come up with something pretty in illustrator! (about an hour to be precise)

I’m aware it looks shockingly like an orange but I don’t care! Its my second accomplishment in illustrator and I plan to start using it more. I might try out a demo of fireworks too (shh Rhys!!) just to see what it can do.

I followed this tutorial but the screen mode didn’t work so its just a white circle instead of a gradient with the opacity reduced, and don’t even get me started on those bastard leaves!! Wheres the mask tool when you need it!?

And how the hell do you make your own gradient?! grr. Least I can use the blend tool! *result*

[tag]rss[/tag] [tag]feeds[/tag]

I was tagged by Melissa. Why do I blog?
When I first started my blog it was mainly so I could remember things and as my friends knew about my site I didn’t have to keep repeating myself I could just forward them to my site! Nowadays, I don’t blog anything nearly as personal because thats not who I am anymore. Now I’d say I was a creative femgeek blogger! I blog to keep my perfectionist tendencies happy and also to meet new people!

The job interview/assesment/I really don’t know what it was! I arrived 15 minutes early and sat down in the business center and people watched for a while. Then the aforementioned lovely lady came and introduced herself and said she was waiting for someone to finish and a few more people to arrive for this session. It was only when she returned and said “is everyone here for the assessment?” did I twig that the 4 other guys (yes they were ALL guys) sitting around me were also here for the assessment!

We all went into the room and I had horrible visions of Role Playing troublesome customers and selling imaginary hard drives but it was a room that the others later likened to the board room in the apprentice! There was a big table in the middle of the room with laptops. We each sat down and had to do a test similar to business studies, calculating percentages which I’d forgotten how to do until the last two or three questions! I felt more than a little geeky when the lady said “oh I’ll get you a calculator” and I said “oh don’t worry” and pulled out my calculator!
I didn’t even finish the ‘test’ I highly doubt I got any right except for the really simple ones, I was so nervous I couldn’t read! While we were waiting one particularly smarmy guy announced that there were only three jobs available and pointed at himself and the two others his age. Which personally I took offense to. I was so happy when the lady came out and asked me, and the two (in my opinion) nicest guys there back in to do another personality test! After that she said that she’d call for an interview in two or three days! eeee!

Even if I don’t get the job then I’ll still have had some interview experience and I’m not trying to be a bitch, well lets be honest I don’t need to try, but just knowing that that smarmy git didn’t get the job makes me happy!

Remember ages ago I said I’d write you all some photography tutorials - Well I did! I wrote a simple on on Reverse Lens Macro. Do tell me what you think of it and if you can think of any other ideas for tutorials! If you like that tutorial please Digg it!!!

You may notice I have a new layout up at apricot13.org it still needs something but I’m pretty happy with it. I’m currently in the process of whoring it out so if anyone has any photoblog hints and tips do tell ;)!

[tag]tagged[/tag] [tag]assessment[/tag] [tag]photography[/tag] [tag]tutorial[/tag]