Vanilla Mist

If these rumors are true, then more people will finally migrate to Yahoo Messenger. I think it’s great!!! I can’t wait!! Why people insist in using MSN Messenger is a mystery to me. I hate the damn thing. For many different reasons, some of which I mentioned in an interview I gave last week to one of the big newspapers in Brasil. Yes, that’s how much I prefer Yahoo Messenger, I am so well known for liking it that I even got interviewd about it.

But honestly, why do people use MSN Messenger? It’s too big and takes a lot of space on screen, it doesn’t allow different status(es?) to different contacts, doesn’t send offline messages or even when you’re under invisible mode, the contact list is cluttered, not even the smilies are half expressive as Yahoo’s – and I could go on and on with reasons for people not to use MSN Messenger, but still it seems like everyone and their brothers use it. And I can’t convince many people to try using Yahoo, so if the above is true and Skype and Yahoo merge into one, I will be a very happy gal.

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I need serious help finding a name for my web development agency. This is the weirdest thing: I have clients and don’t have a name!!!!!!! I’ve been on it for over 6 months and I can’t come up with a name that:

• is creative and strong without losing identity with the industry
• is suitable in 2 different languages at least: Portuguese and English
• has actual meaning in itself but doesn’t sound like a standard over-used name such as “e-solutions”, “liquid-design”, etc…

It’s really hard and being such a perfectioniost I won’t settle for just any name. I don’t know if someday my agency will be very big, but I have to keep this possibility in mind – and this affects how I name it too.

So I gave this some thought and decided to post this to see if any of you guys can give me some ideas, insights, etc…

Here are some guidelines I’m trying to follow:

I can’t have a name that implies I’m just simply a design firm. I do more than that. It’s a multidisciplinary business that involves strategy, information architecture, usability, branding, etc. I also can’t have a name that is easilly pronounceable in english but not in portuguese (and the other way around). Words like “throughout”, “thoughtful”, “world”, “brought” and such won’t do. Names that are “overly creative” like “paint the monkey” or “banana pixels” might be memorable but, well, would you hire someone from “banana pixels”, to make your corporate website? So, you get the idea. I don’t mind having a name that is not self-explanatory as I can always use other words attached to it, such as “interactive” (i.e.: beehive intreractive, where “beehive” implies hard work and “interactive” identifies the type of business), as long as the first word is strong enough, holds some kind of suitable concept and sounds believable and trustworthy as in “I can trust these people with my website”.

So, PLEASE, help me out here if you have any insights or ideas?

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Someone emailed me today about having the sidebar on the left side on Connections. So I inverted the position of the sidebar and the content to see how it looks. I like it this way too. Pretty simple to do, just 2 simple changes in the css. I will change it back soon, but meanwhile, tell me which one you guys prefer. I still like the original beter.

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Here’s a nice WordPress plugin if you want a tag-board (shoutbox, whatever you want to call it), without depending on remotely hosted scripts. Seems cool!

Update: Here’s another one – this one actually allows your visitors to carry a live chat on your site.

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The new Yahoo Messenger Beta is now available, with better support for voice chat, making it a serious competitor to Skype. It also integrates well with Yahoo 360. Other cool features:

• it now acts as an answering machine / voice mail: if you make a call and the person is not there, you can leave a voice message.
• drag and drop pictures into your IM window to share them.

Go here for a full list of features and grab your copy.

[update]: I have just tried the voice chat and I don’t think it’s that good. Skype is still much much better. But Yahoo beta is, well, still in beta, so maybe we can expect some improvements? Let’s see…

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Ioannis has ported Connections to Gallery. It’s a good idea if you already use Connections as your blog theme and also want a picture gallery. Good job, Ioannis – and thanks for sharing it with us.

See the demo here.
Download it from here.

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I still haven’t been able to pile down all my emails and have not felt very well in the past couple of days, so I still have a lot of email reading to do. I am also working on 2 client’s projects and in desperate need for more coders to work with…

In the middle of all this, I did however manage to finish almost finish the first version of my personal website:

http://www.patriciamuller.com

Please stop by and let me know what you think. It’s pretty simple, but I had been postponing it for a long time and for the time being I’m happy with the results. I will add more sections in the near future, though.

I feel a bit frustrated that I’m not being able to take more commercial projects, even though I have been receiving several requests. If you are reading this and can code WordPress themes, PLEASE get in touch with me.

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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!!!

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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.”

(…) 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!

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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.

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