It’s my goal to change this site over to a photo blog, the only thing stopping me is my need to rant and rave about things going on with Work and what not. I know I have a few other sites but I really started this one up to literally have a place to vent about what I like to call “Krissyville” which is another way of saying “my little world”. So it’s no shocker that I’ve been poking around the Internet, mainly sites that are focused as a design blog in hopes to come up with some ideas to get me to where I need to go, design wise.

A site that has really caught my attention is stylishwebdesign.us. It’s based on a Web 2.0 theme, and that always makes me happy. I love gradients and bold graphics so of course this site is right up my alley. This blogs focus is web design, money and life in general. While looking through the articles I was drawn to quite a few articles, but these were the ones that stood out the most.

If you’re looking for information on how to control the behavior of user accounts in Windows Vista than this indepth article gives you the step-by-step break down from start to finish so you can configure your user accounts to do exactly what you wish for them to do. Vista gives you a little more control than XP did, and as a tech nerd I found it to be a really cool read.

Another article of interest is focused around a spyware community. The article explains the importance of being involved with spyware protection for your computer. It basically says that just installing the software will not be enough. It’s focused around the Windows Defender tool and it’s based on the SpyNet community. It explains the pros and cons of joining with a basic membership or an advanced membership. Keeping on top of spyware and making sure to notify Microsoft of all spyware instances will help to protect you and other members around the Internet from spyware by keeping everything as up to date as possible.

So yes, it’s a design blog but I’m a tech nerd so I focused my attention to the Internet and Technology categories. However, I can honestly say that no matter which category you choose, you’re bound to be introduced to new and interesting topics to keep you entertained. The author of this blog writes very clear articles that are easy to understand and they truly do stick in your mind for when you’re doing computer updates. It seems like a quick read but that’s because you’re sucked in to just about every article you read.

I was hoping to get a good nights sleep last night but that just didn’t happen.  While I didn’t fall asleep until about 5am, I managed to wake up around 10am this morning.  I had my coffee, sat outside for a little while enjoying a cigarette and the nice warm morning and then returned inside to boot the laptop and hope for the best.  It stalled again last night, something I didn’t appreciate, but that issue seems to be resolved at the moment so I’m not going to dwell on it.

As far as work is concerned, I was able to correct the IE issue and just went ahead and changed everything over so that no matter what browser you load, it’ll work out just fine.  I still haven’t checked it in Safari but based on my experience it tends to run the same way IE7 does so I assume I managed to correct everything.  I’ll know for sure when I go into the office to get some work done in Photoshop but for now I’m content with where things are.

Another issue arose though, It’s always one little margin-top: 1px; pixel that I just can not get rid of, even though there was no tag like that even located in my code.  After changing some div positioning around I was able to remove that error as well.

Thankfully I should be done with this template this afternoon.  This way I can start on a few of the other ones that I need to accomplish this week.  It’s going to be a busy week but money is pretty nice right now, so I can’t be too concerned with the lack of sleep or personal time.

I was hoping to go to bed at 1am, it’s now about 4am and I’m still awake.  It’s not that I’m not tired, it’s that I’m having trouble getting IE6, IE7 and Firefox to show margins correctly!  I have a graphic based search box and submit button, in Firefox, as always, it looks great.  When it comes to both versions of IE, however, there is the need for a 1px top margin in order to put everything into its proper alignment.  So using my typical IE fixes I figured it could clear up the problem but all it does is create one in Firefox.  While it’s only supposed to add a 1px margin to the top of the submit button in IE, it’s aligning everything properly in IE and throwing 2px margin to Firefox.

I really wish everyone would just make the switch to Firefox, how could IE still be used by so many people? Especially with all of it’s nasty CSS flaws.

Being as my entire computer stalled up (no keyboard or mouse, but still a blinking cursor) I’ve decided it’s time for bed.  Maybe I’ll have better luck in the morning.

I’m still working on three different templates at once.  My laptop is really lagging because Photoshop hasn’t been closed since Friday afternoon.  Hopefully I’ll be able to put a few final touches on things tonight and get the chance to shut down for the evening.  My laptop IS on the verge of death though.  I’m not sure if I’m going to have to reinstall window or upgrade the RAM at some point, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens.

I have been looking into new laptops.  I really can’t afford to buy one at this very moment but that hasn’t stopped me from looking.  Naturally I’d love to pick up a fully loaded 17″ MacBook Pro but who really has $4200 to kick around on a laptop these days?

I’m staying more in the $800 max range.  I know that may not seem like much but I can get everything I’m looking for and still have the ability to run Mac OS X so naturally that works out well for me.  All I need is an Intel based laptop with at least 2GB of RAM and the rest is history.  I’ll install my Leopard disk after wiping out the very annoying Vista installation and then take it from there.  I’ve found an ACER laptop that’s reasonably priced for what I’m looking for but unfortunately I’ve read reviews that note ACER is the worst Intel laptop to run Mac on - a lot of issues there.

So I guess I’ll see what I can do with an HP. Costco has some really well-priced ones and I can order it online when I’m ready - instead of trucking it all the way up to Dover to pick it up.  I would never be dumb enough to purchase a laptop from Best Buy, with that huge lawsuit against them and my true dislike for the store there would really be no point in it, you know?

As for “Site News”, I’m hoping to convert this domain over to a true photo blog but I have to come up with a better template that will show off the images a lot better, instead of just having them pasted in the entry.  I’ve found a Flickr based plug-in that makes it very simple to do that, this way I don’t have to load up my disk space here but I’ll see over time.  I have other priorities at the moment, getting the bills paid being the main one right now.

I guess I should get back to work.  It’s knocking on 12PM, I want to be done with everything by 1am so I can crash for the night - get up bright and early to start my Monday and take on the rest of the week with a clear head and loads of creativity - something the Photography is really helping me with.  It used to be the beach, but now it’s just getting the camera in my hands and looking for all kinds of great photo opportunities!

I’m still waiting to hear back from an Interview I had a few weeks ago.  I’ve called back a few times in hopes to look persistent enough to get the position but I also know they’ve still got the Ad up on both their website as well as many job related ones as well.  I’m sure I’ll hear something soon, it’s the wait that’s taking it’s toll on me though.

I have landed a contract-based job with another company.  So far things seem to be running pretty smoothly.  I haven’t gotten any paid work yet but as far as getting me into the system is concerned, that all went pretty nicely.  I’m working on a sweat-equity kind of template to get me started with them.  I’m trying not to go too crazy with it because I don’t want to have my first template with them to be with such high standards that I’ll never be able to recreate it, on top of that I don’t want to have any kind of ‘overkill’ either.  I’m sure I’ll figure out something over time, maybe I’ll have a spark of inspiration sometime within the next couple of hours where I’ll be able to get my thoughts in order to turn out a fantastic template that’s not only user friendly be easily changable for anyone who needs to change it up a bit after they’ve purchased it.

I have my fingers crossed either way.  It’s my hope that SOMETHING brings in some decent change for me.