Remember the great marketing strategy I wrote about some time back — the blog. Now there is even more fun, more bang for your buck, so to speak. I’m talking about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube — all the fun applications that can boost your site ranking, create a whole online community just for you — inspire people to follow you, to see what you have to say. Stay tuned — coming soon is a whole series on how these tools can work for you, should work for you! Brought to you by LisaDesigns . . .

And also, coming soon — All Things Fun in the Black Hills!

When you set up a new website, you are making a very large investment in a very important part of your new web experience. What am I talking about? Your domain name:  .com, .net, .org — name for your site.

I can’t stress to you how important it is that you set up your domain name properly from the get-go. It is crucial that it is set up in a way that you will ultimately have access to your domain name no matter what happens.

Here’s  the usual scenario:

Very important, very busy business owner is too busy to find out about how to purchase one of these domain name things so they delegate it to “Someone Else” within the company. “Someone Else” purchases the domain name for them. But what does “Someone Else” use for contact information? THEIR personal email — not the email that goes directly to the business owner.

By and by “Someone Else” leaves the company for one reason or another. Hopefully it was an amicable split — because guess who is the only one now who has access to YOUR domain name? Yep: “Someone Else.”

And “Someone Else” doesn’t work for you any more! Bummer.

Here is another scenario:

You took the time to purchase your domain name yourself and used your own email. Yay! You did this part right. But then, down the line, you switch ISP’s and your email changes. You forget that your domain name is registered under your OLD email which you no longer have access to. Bummer again! Remember, if you switch emails, update your domain name before you make the switch so you can verify the change through your old email — that’s where the verification email will go.

The really big downside to both of these situations is this:

You are not getting renewal information if your domain name can’t find you! ICANN doesn’t care who owns a domain name. So if yours expires and someone else purchases it you will be out of luck. Think of all that money you spent in developing your website and marketing your website and having brochures, and business cards printed with your domain name that now belongs to someone else! And if you tattooed your domain name across your forehead Oh boy! Now your tattoo.com points to someone else’s site. Most likely a site belonging to scab who now wants to sell Viagra using your old domain name. And short of offering that scab a bunch of cash for your old domain name (and believe me, it won’t be cheap) you have lost that domain name forever.

Be careful. Protect your investment.

It’s not officially launched yet, but I just built this site for a Bed and Breakfast that is right around the corner from me. Bonus is that I used to go to horse camp here when I was just a little Tyke! Okay, I was a teenager, but I have very fond memories of this camp and it was a treat to build this site for them.

Not all the content is there yet, but the site is live.  And if you are planning a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota (hi google!) anytime soon — there is no better place to hang your hat. And Judy makes a mean banana bread.

Visit and enjoy!

Ghost Canyon Bed and Breakfast

Jammin’ with Eugene Sings the Blues at Herbs and Blues on Blake in Denver. Now THIS was cool! And an honor to play with these guys!

Working on a big project, fixing a site for a new client that was originally done by her brother’s uncle’s friend’s cousin, or something like that. Which brings to mind this quote:

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”
Red Adair

Look what I have been working on with my good friend and mentor Kristie T.

See! Purrty!

http://www.ggweston.com

I have been doing designs for Kristie for 10 years. She is awesome — a marketing maniac. If you ever need someone to coach you in marketing your site — she is the one to call. And you’ll get my awesome designs to boot. Win win!

Okay so I know I missed Friday Fun again last Friday. But I have a good excuse! I was getting ready for my gig with the Lonely Rangers in Custer State Park for the Buffalo Roundup Festival. Now this was a good time! We had a special guest artist — Kenny Putnam — who is a legend on fiddle. We played a bunch of the traditional Bluegrass fiddle tunes. The best part of the day was when we called up Stringbean Swenson — another area fiddle master. Kenny and Stringbean together were magic! I pretty much just played along in awe. It was such a good time. Thanks to all of you that were there to lend to the thunderous applause!

Here are are a few video clips if you missed it:

Apparently MySpace is a “must” if you are:

A. In a band

B. Wanna be in a band

C. Have friends in a band

D. Want to communicate with friends in a band

Who knew? Oh okay, of course I knew. I just went there kicking and screaming. I have a hard time with using other people’s software on their servers with their own TOS and all that other junk that could potentially make my work, their work. You know — like where I actually AGREE to give up the copyright to my work? That’s a tough pill for a designer to swallow.

But, the guys in my band wanted a MySpace page. I wanted to communicate with my friend Jimmy from LA who is always setting up shop somewhere new and only communicates via MySpace. And, since I’ve been bringing the old bass guitar out of retirement more and more, I wanted to find out how to work this “MySpace” all my musician friends talked about all the time. I just did a jam session with this guy, (amazing bass player!) and this girl (Awesome singer!) and they are all fabulous musicians and they are all on MySpace!

Me! Me too! I want to be cool and on MySpace!

So I went on MySpace. And immediately — Oh! My eyes! My eyes!! Ow OW OWWW!!! Could the graphics BE any larger? Could they BE any more annoying??? The flashing ads — the table cells dropping off everywhere! Ewwww!!!

Once I calmed down I started thinking about how I could generate a MySpace page for the Rangers that:

A. Would appease my design sense.

B. Use existing graphics so my original stuff can’t be stolen used by someone else.

So first I did a search for custom Myspace layouts. Holy Moly! Could there be more websites like: pimp my space and profile pimp and getcha pimped up space. So I visited. Yeah. If you like skulls or skullz or Britney Spears you would have it made with these layouts!

However, I think the guys in the band would kill me if I did a layout with skulls and Britney — I have a feeling that won’t quite jive with our image.

I finally found a nice layout I could use the css graphics structure on to compose graphics that approximates the Lonely Rangers look of Old West meets today. It complies with Myspace TOS (meaning you can’t take the myspace generated ads out or they shut you off) It is similar to Kubrick on Wordpress, and once I tweaked the graphics, I think it works pretty well.

So, here ya go: http://www.myspace.com/lonelyrangers

I’ve been surfing the web for a long, long time. Back in the day, you know, it was AOL and it was so pretty and user-friendly that who needed a real actual browser? Not me! Ha! It was like a sippy-cup for the web. AOL held your hand through everything. Of course I grew up and started taking my web experience like an adult! I graduated to Internet Explorer and started saving all the nice websites I frequented under my “favorites”. Then I grew up even more and started using Netscape — then Netscape went away and now it is all about Firefox. Firefox is the browser du jour. Anything to stay away from that pesky Internet Explorer that creates more problems than it is worth — at least in my opinion.

Okay, so enough of the opining! What to do with all those favorites or bookmarks as Firefox calls them, when you move to a new computer?

Easy, peasy — just bring them with you. Firefox makes it super simple to do.

First Export your bookmarks on the old computer — to open export, select File–> Export from Firefox’s Bookmark Manager. A dialog window will open asking you where you want to save the file to. In my case, I put them on the Cylon-like external hard drive in a little folder called “bookmarks” lest I forget what the heck I did with them.

Then, unplug the harddrive from the old computer and put it to work on the new computer. Open Firefox, go to the Bookmarks Manager and choose File–> Import. It will ask you where you want to import the bookmarks from. Choose “from file.” Find your file on the handy-dandy Cylon harddrive in the folder you so wisely called “bookmarks” and click on it.

Viola! There they are!

A few little Firefox bookmark tidbits:

You can view your Firefox bookmarks on any browser. All you do is open or drag & drop the bookmark file to the browser window. That way if you want to take your bookmarks with you on vacation or whatever, you can put them on a memory stick and access them from any computer. Pretty cool!

Worried about losing your bookmarks? Firefox has you covered there too. It automatically creates backups of your bookmarks. They are saved in a file called bookmarkbackups in your Firefox profile directory.

If you don’t have Firefox, do yourself a favor and get it! You can download it for free from here. You’ll be glad you did.

Why couldn’t the 10 year old kids go to the Pirate movie? Because it was rated RRRRRRRRRRGH!

How much does it cost for a Pirate to get his ears pierced? Eh Matey! Why a Buck an Ear – buccaneer — get it?

Shiver me timbers, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! No I am not kidding! Don’t argue with me or you’ll be walkin’ the plank - Matey!

To celebrate, raise your tankards and visit these sites here:

For Crafters:

Are you a knitter? Or know someone who does? I like to knit and felting is really, really fun — so swab the deck and head over here for a cool felted pirate hat pattern — the best kind — the pattern is FREE!

Are you a beadworker? Here is a cool pirate beaded pattern. Shiver me timbers it’s FREE too!

For Parents & Kids:

Do you have kids and want to dress them in cute clothes? If so, Boden is offering 8 free orders to selected customers just for talking like a Pirate! Arghhh!

A Free downloadable Story Map for you and your kids to create a fun pirate story.

Make your own pirate ship out of boxes!

For Bloggers:

And if your dyin’ to talk like a Pirate all day — on yer blog anyway, this plugin from Wordpress will turn your entire blog into Piratespeak.

For Everyone!:

And yes, Free online greeting cards to send to everyone to invite them to talk like a Pirate too!

A Free Pirate Mask! Print it out, color, cut out and wear it around the office. I’m wearing mine right now. Even though I work alone, at home and there is no one to see me.

Avast! Ahoy! Raise the Jolly Roger! Here are some common Piratespeak Terms for ya’ll:

Aye- yes
Ahoy- a call to attention
Avast- a command to stop
Blimey- used to convey frustration
Booty- property seized through the act of piracy
Buccaneer- a caribbean pirate
Bucko- friend
Cap’n- the captain
Colors- the flag flown on the vessel
Davey Jones’s Locker- dead and buried and sea
Fairwinds- goodbye or good luck
Grub - food
Hornswaggle- to cheat
Jolly Roger- skull and crossbones flag which indicates a pirate’s ship
Lad (male), lass(female)- someone younger than you
Landlubber or lubber- a non-sailor
Me Hearties- term used for pirate leader to address his crew
Old Salt- an experienced sailor
Pieces of eight- silver spanish coins
Scallywag- a scoundel
Scurvy Dog- Vile and contemptible
Shark bait- a foe
Ship shape- well organized ship
Shiver me timbers- an expression to convey surprise
Splice the membrane- to have a drink
Swag -loot
Sea legs- the ability to walk on a rocking boat
Sea rover- a pirates ship
Sweat trade- the career of piracy