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

Why indeed? Let me tell you why — because blogs are like internet gold, that’s why. What? What am I talking about “internet gold”? What could I possibly mean? Well, hang tight. I’m going to tell you.

Blogs are the secret to getting to the top of the search engine rankings. And that, as we have discussed before, is the way to a successful website.

But how do they work, these blogs? And why is a blog so important to ranking?

Think of it this way. A blog is a frequently updated, naturally search-engine friendly addition to your website. Blogs are text-rich, link-rich and have very little extraneous HTML. It’s like candy for search engines. They love it.

Check this out. If I write a blog post about Rapid City — anything about Rapid City, South Dakota and start blogging away about this or that thing that is happening in Rapid City and how happy we are in Rapid City and how Rapid City is the best city to live in ever — how many times have I written about Rapid City? How many times have I spelled out R-a-p-i-d C-i-t-y? And how many chances have I given a search engine to find me using the search terms Rapid City? What if I did a blog post a month or a week or twice a week and talk a little about Rapid City? All of those posts get indexed in my blog forever. How many times have I mentioned Rapid City then? It’s like compounding interest for my blog. Pretty soon I have my place cemented at the top of Google’s searches for Rapid City. Lucky me. Smart me.

Wait a minute, you say. If I have a blog what am I going to talk about? What could I possibly have to say that would be interesting? Really, it doesn’t matter. What have I written about so far in this blog? You know about marketing your site, how to resize images, SEO optimization, Friday Fun links to Matt Harding and how to configure your kid’s laptop. Sure all those posts have useful information for you (except maybe Matt Harding) But that isn’t really the point of the blog. Does the content have to be useful, entertaining, engaging? Well, it helps. I am sure people are coming to this site to find out a few things about the specific information I offer. But all that is a bonus for my readers.

The truth is, content wise, it really doesn’t matter– as long as I keep blogging I can talk about underwater basket weaving for all Google cares. I’ll end up being ranked #1 for underwater basket weaving in Rapid City — I mean, come on, how cool is that?

Seriously, what is going to happen is that when they search for a web developer in Rapid City, I am going to be right up there at the top. And that, my friends, is really internet gold.

Updated to add: You’re gonna love this — go to www.google.com and type in underwater basket weaving Rapid City.

I run into a very common problem. Lots of times people email images to me that are HUGE. Sometimes several of these HUGE images come in an email attachment at once. This makes for one gigantic email. There are several problems with this.

#1 — it is going to tie up your email server and your ISP is not going to be happy. In fact, you may have the email kicked back to you as “undeliverable”

#2 — it is going to tie up my email. That makes it a little difficult for me to get things accomplished in a timely manner. But don’t despair! Fortunately, there are some very good solutions for this problem. So, let’s explore a few.

If the attachment you want to send me is something that absolutely needs to stay the large size that it is, I recommend the service yousendit.com. I’ve used this with great success in the past. They do, however, charge for this service although there is a free trial.

The best option if you are trying to send images is to compress the images. This can be done very simply with a free program available from Google. You know Google — right? Here at lisadesigns.com we LOVE Google - did you hear that Google? We LOVE you! Keep indexing us as #1!!! XXXOOO

Now where was I? Oh yes, compressing images:

Normally your digital camera will take pictures with a huge megapixel number. This is so your pictures will look nice and pretty and clear when you go to print them. The web doesn’t need to have such a huge megapixel number. In fact, huge megapixels = huge file size = loooonnnngggg download time = unhappy website visitor.

So here we go. Let’s compress those images:

First download Picasa from Google. Here is a handy link that will take you right to it. Picasa

It’s free! Did I already mention that? Install it by clicking on the .exe file you just downloaded. It will install the program and ask you if you want an icon on your desktop. Sure, why not. The icon is very pretty:

Now, put your images that you want to email to me in a folder in My Documents. Name it something fun like: pictures for Lisa.

Go ahead and click on the icon to open Picasa. Picasa will ask if you want to index all your pictures on your computer. Go ahead if you like, although it will take some time. This is a handy tool for organizing your images. It will be nice to have them all organized later. But if you want a shortcut tell it to just scan ‘My Documents Only’

Then at the top you will see a little search box with a magnifying glass. Type in the folder name of your images for me. They should pop up in the large window.

Next, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools > Options > Email.
2. Under Output Options, set the slide bar under ‘When sending more than one photo, resize to:’ I like to have them resized to no larger than 600 pixels. The default is 480 pixels. That works. You can leave it there if you don’t want to mess with it.
3. Set the ‘When sending single pictures, resize to:’ option to 600 pixels, as above (or again, leave it at the default).
4. Click OK.

Next, select your photos by clicking on them in the big window while holding your control key down. You will see them pop up in the lower left hand corner in the “Picture Tray”. Once you have selected the photos you would like to send, look at the bottom for the email button. Click on it. Select your email account from the pop-up window and send me the images.

That’s all there is to it! Now your ISP is happy, my ISP is happy, and Google still loves us!!

Occasionally I may need a larger image from you. It may be that I need to crop or isolate out a tiny part of the bigger picture. But if I do, I’ll let you know. In the meantime smaller is better. Compress away!