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.

Lisa Designs is proud to announce a new feature. You’ve been asking me about this for years, and I am pleased to have something to offer you that really works! And works great. It’s an online, browser-based editing tool that will let you update and change your website yourself, from anywhere you have an internet connection!

There is no extra software needed to buy, and the editor is so simple to use that I even had my kids editing websites after a brief tutorial. That’s the way I test things — I have my kids or my mom (hi MOM!) try it out. I figure if they can do it, it’s a pretty good bet most people will be able to figure it out as well.

The editor fits into any site I design for you — so you aren’t limited to boring canned templates. You can have the coolest looking site in the world — still wow your clients and friends — and you can go on to edit it yourself. Pretty nifty– huh?

The interface is similar most common word editing programs, so the icons and functions will look very familiar to you. You will be able to upload photos, change text, add pages — you name it, you can do it!

If you are interested in this new feature, contact me at ls at lisadesigns dot com.

I’m sure I’ll be talking about this more on the blog as the days go by, but for now I wanted you to know it was ready for use! Your website, your way!

Introducing the newest LisaDesigns, LLC creation: Travel Trailer Village located in Dumfries, Virginia. Oh boy do I want to go there! They aren’t kidding when they call this place “An Oasis of Natural Beauty”. Stop by, visit the site, and get ready to go camping!

Big Apple Bus Tours

LisaDesigns, LLC is proud to launch a new site design for Big Apple Bus Tours in New York City. Please take a moment and stop by!

www.bigapplebustour.com