I have over 500 emails to read. No kidding, last time I checked there were 523 unread messages sitting in my inbox. And that’s just my main account. So if you wrote me, I might take a few days to answer back, it’s nothing pesonal!!! 
April 2005
Monthly Archive
Thu 28 Apr 2005
Mon 18 Apr 2005
Two out of three. Or three out of four?
Posted by Patricia Müller under Opinion , Work | 1:36 am1 Comment
Here’s an interesting perspecive on timeframe/budget/scope applied to web projects. From the 37 Signals’ Signal vs. Noise blog article, entitled “Geting Real“:
“Pick two: good, fast, or cheap.â€
(…) for example, if your client has $50,000 to spend, and needs the project done in 8 weeks, then the scope is flexible. If the scope isn’t flexible, and they need it done in 8 weeks, then the budget needs to be flexible. If the budget and scope aren’t flexible, the the timeframe needs to be flexible. Something has to give if you want to deliver a great project. Trying to make a fixed scope, fixed timeframe, and a fixed budget fit a project is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
While I agree with this perspective, I know for a fact that some agencies deliver all 3, no flexibility, period. However a fourth factor needs to give: the team. This is possible in one – and in one only – situation: when people are willing to work in extraordinarily demanding conditions because working for agency “xyz” and being a part of project “abc” is might be “good” for their carreers. I’ve seen it happen. Been there, did that for the exact ammount of time it took me to realize how incredibly unfair that was and that we (the team) were paying the price for what made the agency look good. So good that more and more people were willing to work there, under the exact same conditions. We were feeding the system ourselves. And so, I left…
I’m not sure how this works in other countries. I consider myself to be a very hard worker and extremely commited. While running my own agency, I work a lot and seldomly can afford to take personal time in regular intervals. Pretty much the same way it was back in those days when I worked for this specific agency. But I am doing this for myself, for my own benefit. It’s a personal decision, no one will ‘fire me’ if I take personal time, as if this was some kind of sinful action. I guess in the end, I’m still the one delivering flexibility. And so, I agree: something has to give!
Sun 17 Apr 2005
The Connections theme is now officially distributed through this website (as opposed to both here and wpthemes.info, to avoid version conflicts). This release carries some minor adjustments (removes a bullet that appeared next to a sidebar box and has better support for nested categories and links) and also comes with 2 added files: a static page template and the comments template. If you are already using this theme, upgrading is not necessary, but if you want to have a separate template for your pages, then maybe you should consider downloading this package and installing it over your current one. Don’t forget to back up your files before replacing them with the new ones, especially if you have made any custom changes on your own that you’d like to keep, or added stuff to the sidebar, etc. I am sending Alex this new package to replace the current one over at the competition site as well. You can download this official release from here.
Sun 17 Apr 2005
Here’s where I’ve been, although I’ve olny been to 2 states in the US – and the way it shows makes it look like I’ve been all around – but still fun:
Places I still want to visit:
Canada, Australia, Japan, Argentina, India, all remaining countries in Europe that I haven’t been to, specially Scotland, Portugal and Spain. And I will go back to England as many times as I get the chance to! 
In Europe, I’ve been to: Austria, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Vatican City, Italy and Wales.
Sun 17 Apr 2005
I can’t log off my GMail… Strange!! I click to logout and it goes into some sort of loop and never completes the logout process. If I close the window and try again, I’m still logged in. I use more than one account on GMail, so I have to swich between them from time to time. I guess the only way for me to log out right now is by clearing my cookies which, well, I didn’t want to but might have to!!
Thu 14 Apr 2005
Wed 13 Apr 2005
Connections theme on Blogsome
Posted by Patricia Müller under Themes , WordPress | 12:40 pmComments Off
Matt has written a tutorial on how to apply the Connections theme to your blog if it’s hosted on Blogsome. His own weblog is hosted there.
Tue 12 Apr 2005
Thu 7 Apr 2005
I have been pretty busy in the past week or so. I haven’t even had time to add the usual things to the sidebar since I started using this theme on the blog. Yesterday I added the tag-board, but haven’t even finished the static pages yet. Meanwhile, Sadish and I have been working on two client’s projects, there is a significant amount of inquiries that we received via wpthemes.info, we are working on a couple of projects of our own and also on some new themes. My email inbox is piling up like crazy, so those of you who have emailed me, if I haven’t yet responded to you, don’t take it personally, I will pretty soon!!! My husband keeps asking me if I don’t get to sleep anymore. That’s how bad it is!!! And I’m feeling extremely energetic while all this is going on. Who needs to sleep, right?
Thu 7 Apr 2005
Some options to “Connections”
Posted by Patricia Müller under Themes , WordPress | 8:30 am[18] Comments
I have been receiving many emails from people who, in the past days, have either customized or ported the Connections theme to another platform. I would like to share some of these with you, as they might be useful either as a reference to customizing your own or, in case you use another blogging platform, you might benefit from the ported versions:
- Teo, from http://mindtrick.net/ has ported the theme to Movable Type
- John Cox from http://wyome.com ported over to Xaraya
- Eddie from http://dhtmlnirvana.com/spiritual/ has worked on a complete customization of the theme and was kind enough to let me know about it. He named it “Nirvana“. The theme can be downloaded from here.
- Matt from http://schinckel.blogsome.com is using it at Blogsome, so for those of you who need help setting it up there, he might be able to help.
- Kahpeng from http://kahpeng.com/weblog/ has customized the sidebar with expandable sidebar items. Looks really good!
Please comment on this post if you have made your own customization to the Connections theme. Even if you have just changed the top image, this could serve as inspiration to others. Thanks much!