Last month I wrote that I had been pretty busy these days with a new member of our family. (Reference previous post.) Well, I want you to meet her today. Her name is Molly May and she is an AKC registered Cairn Terrier who is now a little over 5 months old. We have had her now for almost three months and oh dear, what an experience!

Most people do not know much about the Cairn Terrier even though they are a very popular breed. You see photos of them a great deal on product packaging, on calendars, etc. An adult Cairn sort of reminds you of an Ewok from the Star Wars movie and I would not be surprised that the Ewok character was not somehow derived from a Cairn's appearance. Their was a famous Cairn Terrier movie star, in fact. Do you know who I am talking about? Toto from the "Wizard of Oz" was a Cairn.

I have been a "dog person" all my life. We had two cross-breed dogs and one lived to be 16 and the other nearly 20 years old; Teddy Bear passed away last year. After waiting almost a year to get another dog, we decided on the Cairn Terrier as it has been a breed I have always dreamed of owning.

I knew that housebreaking a puppy was not easy for smaller breeds, but I didn't remember just how time consuming it could be. Hey, it had been 20 years ago since we did the housetraining thing and I was much younger. I also didn't realize that I was old and horribly out of shape until Molly came into our lives. Chasing after an 9-week old puppy, taking her out every hour on the hour to do her business, getting up in the middle of the night for potty breaks, constantly stepping over baby gates and fencing, keeping track of her eating-pooping-peeing-napping schedules were well ... overwhelming to say the least ... at first.

Everyone is now adjusting including our three adult cats. Molly is sleeping 8 hours through the night in her crate (She is crate trained!) without accidents, ringing a bell when she wants to go outside, having very few accidents in the house and we are working on clicker training her. When she is not distracted by the cats and in hyper terrier-ist mode, she can: sit, stay, shake, lay down, roll over, go to bed (her crate) on command, close the refrigerator door and close cabinet doors. How did I teach her how to do this at such a young age? It's all about clicker training. It was NOT nearly as difficult as you might think.

Anyway, I hope you enjoying seeing my new little girl. Everyone here loves her so much, I designed a web template in Molly's honor back in May which sparked a discussion in the office that I should design web templates with photos of my other pets. Which I did and which have become quite popular. You will see more dog, cat and pet oriented web templates designed by me very soon.

Here is my FREE web template offer to you. I'm not sure how long I can leave this offer open, so act fast. If you have a specific breed of dog you are interested in and you have a "quality" high resolution photo that you own, want a web template designed for your dog, don't mind others using your photo too, consider donating the photo to our personal stock photo collection. We will replace Molly's photo on Template #834 with your dog's photo in the web template absolutely FREE of charge. Does that sound like a good deal to you? Like I said, given the popularity of our web templates, the amount of traffic we receive, and the number of readers who regularly visit our blog, this offer may only be open for a limited time and to a limited number of people. I do have to continue to take care of Molly so I'm not able to spend the normal 16+ hours I usually do designing web templates. ;)

// posted by BasicSuzanna on 6/30/2004 08:25:03 AM / Permanent Link  

Bob Bemer was the greatest IT man of all time who received little recognition and monetary compensation for what we know today as ASCII code. You know the code: 01010101 ... The infamous code that enables our computers to read our emails, surf the web, instant message our friends, write Word documents, formulate Excel spreadsheets, etc? If it were not for Bob Bemer's invention and development of the ASCII code, we would certainly not be where we are today with computer technology despite the huge contribution of Bill Gates's Windows operating system. I should also mention that Bob Bemer predicted the Y2K date problem as far back as the early 1970s.

Mr. Bemer passed away from cancer on June 25. A sad day indeed for the world. From what I understand he lived, breathed and dreamed coding. If you are curious about the man who grand fathered our computer technology, visit his website at http://www.bobbemer.com/

Be sure to check out his license plate. The fellow had a great sense of humor too. What a hoot!

// posted by BasicRic on 6/29/2004 07:49:52 AM / Permanent Link  

I love quotes especially those of the inspirational kind or those that make you step back and think for a minute. We often design our web templates so that the end user can copy/paste their own favorite quote, mission statement, company slogan, etc. into a designated area.

Where do you get quotes? You can in fact author them yourself. Those that hold the most meaning to you at that time are the best, but there are a number of websites where you can get them delivered right to your inbox every day.

Here are a few I had bookmarked:

The Quotations Page: http://www.quotationspage.com
Quoteland: http://www.quoteland.com/
BrainyQuote: http://www.brainyquote.com/

Here are my favorite quotes that mean something to me now or have inspired me in some way in the past:

"It does not matter what I do to make a living, but who I become in the process."

"Have a nice day, unless you have made other plans."

"Fear is only an illusion."

// posted by BasicBeca on 6/28/2004 07:48:52 PM / Permanent Link  

I really meant to post this blog entry sooner - honestly. I had this entry composed in my text editor but with all the hubb-bubb around here at BasicTemplates.com, our days have been like a busy nest of happy bumble bees. We have some wonderful new features and products coming out that everyone is excited about here, and I think you will be too.

Anyway, for years I have had a free Yahoo account and two weeks ago I decided to upgrade to a paid account with them. I forward and filter all of my email there: personal email, business email, tech email, usergroup mail and newsletter in which I subscribe. I paid $30.00 for this paid Yahoo service, so that I could have 50 MBs of storage and all their other bells and whistles. I contemplated whether to purchase their $60/yr. package for 100 MBs, but I figured that would just give me too much room to let stale mail collect without cleaning it out of my account.

As many of you might already know, Yahoo Mail announced a HUGE news breaking service recently. This new service was a FREE upgrade of all their paid accounts to 2 GBs (YES, that is GBs not MBs!) of mail storage. Apparently they wanted to jump ahead of Google's GMail that promised 1 GB of mail storage that at the time was in a beta testing phase. Wow! What a highly competitive move on Yahoo's part and an awesome pat on their customers' back.

I thought about opening another Yahoo account so I could filter all of my mail further, but I'm waiting to see what Hotmail has up their sleeve. I'm almost certain Bill Gates is not sitting still and staying out of this email tug-of-war.

The point of this story is not simply to tell you about Yahoo's new service but to also let you know that here at BasicTemplates.com we aim to provide our customers with some amazing new products, services and features that will most certainly create a buzz of excitement in the web development field. {wink} So keep an eye on our newsletter(s) for more information as it is released. If you are not a subscriber of our free newsletter(s), you will certainly want to be now!

// posted by BasicBeca on 6/24/2004 07:50:50 AM / Permanent Link  

While doing some research at Amazon.com, I can across a book review that was written by Johnny Depp of France. Now I know anyone can write a review and use any name they wish. Wouldn't you like to know if it is "THE Johnny Depp" though? I've been a Johnny Depp fan for many years. :) I'm guessing it may very well be the real man the world has grown to love or at least Amazon thinks so. Read on to find out why ...

Since the direct URL to the review is very long, go to www.amazon.com and search on ISBN 1401902995. Johnny's review of the book, "The God Code", is listed first (at the time of this blog) and dated February 21, 2004. Notice that other folks have written reviews since that time, yet Johnny's is listed first and is in fact out of date order. Interesting.

Before I forget, let me introduce myself. I'm BasicSuzanna and yet another proud-to-be web template designer at BasicTemplates.com. You will be hearing more from me soon. My life has become a bit more complicated since we had a new member of our family arrive this past April. More on that topic soon.

// posted by BasicSuzanna on 6/16/2004 12:47:58 PM / Permanent Link  

Someone should create a website that totally makes fun of some of the silly spam we receive. Where are all those standup commedians who want a global audience and international fame? Here's a money making idea for your natural cut-ups.

Spam is out of control as everyone is well aware of. If you cannot control it, then why not laugh about it? I chuckle each and every time I hit "select all" and "delete". If the subject line looks even 1/100ths close to spam, it is history in my inbox.

Recently I heard it suggested on the news that the US government is considering compiling a "do not email list". LOL.... get real! You know what I mean. A list like the "do not call list" that all the telemarketers are using here in the US. I have four friends who asked to be placed on the "do not call list" and they get more telemarketing calls then ever before. So think about it, folks. Do we really want our emails addresses available to spammers on such a list?

As of the beginning of this year, the US has put laws into place if you spam. You could be fined. I have not heard of anyone being arrested or fined yet. Have you? If so, let me know. I'd like to watch their court hearing on Court TV.

Did your spam drop to an all time low since these laws went into effect? No, mine neither. My spam actually increased. I think the folks who come up with these laws do not use the internet or email and are not aware that the majority of the spam comes from countries that have little to no laws that are actually enforced. In order for such a law to be effective, it would have to be ... ahhhh ... an international, GLOBAL law. Yes, the last time I looked the internet was still global. [devilish *G*]

Anyway, let's look at some spammer funnies I receive just today, shall we?

>>> Anita Ashby, RE: your confidential info # 0H A538

Hmm. I'm quite sure I never sent out a message that states "your confidential info #OH A538". So why is Anita sending me a reply with an re:? [Deleted]

>>> Vito Perez, you are an exception callisto skyward

Huh? [Deleted]

>>> June K. Suarez, Powerful weightloss now available where you are.

Wow. Weightloss is available just about everywhere. Does't everyone know this? June must not have known. [Deleted]


>>> Wendi Ray, priority no wait effluent cybernetic offensive

Wendi, could you possible rephrase this in English? [Deleted]

>>> Frankie Floyd, applique colon cossack curate ciceronian armful alimony bedroom compliant analge...

Can I be frank with you, Frank? If you want to continue to spam, you really should re-think your pickup line. [Deleted]

>>> Rico Guevara, Amaaaaaaazing Lubriiiiicaaaation

Hehehe ... Okay, we all know where this one leads. I prefer el-natural, so no thank you. I wonder if Rico's keyboard is sticking; perhaps he needs lubricant of some kind or worse ... perhaps he's using too much on his keyboard! Oh my, now that is an ugly visual, yes? More than likely he/she/it is simply trying to get around spam filters? Ya think? ;) Rico, it's time to find a new career. You have been at the computer too long, man. [Deleted]

// posted by BasicRic on 6/16/2004 10:56:50 AM / Permanent Link  

For those of you who toss and turn all night because of back, leg, shoulder or other pain, I can personally recommend the Tempur-Pedic Swedish Sleep System. We purchased this weightless sleep system and have had peaceful sleep ever since. My hubby can now sleep on his stomach which he has not been able to do for many years. I too sleep like a newborn baby. It feels like you are sleeping on clouds. I am not exaggerating nor do I sell these beds. ;) They are a little pricey, but we have a 90-day free trial period to sleep on it in OUR home.

Think about it this way, if the price scares you. We spend 1/3rd of our life in bed. Why spend it restless which makes you cranky, unhappy, moody and difficult to live with or in pain. I've had many mattresses over the years but NOTHING compares to the Tempur-Pedic system. Our only regret is that we did not get it sooner. Isn't that the way it goes?

// posted by BasicDeidre on 6/14/2004 02:32:18 PM / Permanent Link  

It has been quite awhile since I've been to Mark Monciardini's website, DesignsbyMark.com. For those of you who do not know this fabulous graphic artist, he is known worldwide as the Master Lama of Adobe Photoshop. Mark's graphic artistic abilities are awesome. He's been designing graphics since he was 12 years old.

When I visited Mark's site today, I got a very pleasant surprise. It is being redesigned with a visitor-friendly format with lots of white space. Although Mark is an excellent graphic artist and it shows without saying in his designs and tutorials, effective web design should not be confused with graphic design. To make your website effective for a diverse audience, it certainly needs to be attractive but more importantly it must be navigational and accessible to everyone.

Compare Mark's new design: www.designsbymark.com with Mark's old design: www.designsbymark.com/index.php

Quite a difference, yes? I admit the old site will W-O-W you, and that's what Mark wants to do. However, if only half of his visitors have a high-speed internet connection, he'd only be able to WOW half of his visitors (maybe a little more if they have the patience) with the old design. Studies have shown that only 20% of internet users in the USA have access to high-speed internet connections.

Congrats on the new design Mark! Welcome to "white space". We like it ... simply basic. It enables your products to stand out. Such a simple little thing as white space can have HUGE rewards.

// posted by BasicRic on 6/11/2004 04:33:13 PM / Permanent Link  

Hello everyone. This is Ric from the web template designer crew at BasicTemplates.com. BasicBeca *g* summed up our reasoning for blogging quite well. So I will not bore you with a repetition.

What I am going to write about is how much time you will save in the long run if you organize yourself. I write this solely from my own personal experience and I can assure you it worked well for me.

One of the secrets to the success of any business is organization. Wouldn't you agree? Nothing can be further from this truth than when you are trying to juggle the development and maintenance of many websites (your own and all of your clients). I have been designing websites (and web templates) since 1996 so therefore my clientele database is huge. One day it bit me. I had to get organized or face major problems.

I am going to share with all of you the tools that I use that have been a tremendous help organizing my designer life.

First of all, you need at least one filing cabinet (more if you have a very busy business, employees, etc.). Even in this so-called paperless society you will have paper (contracts, partners agreements, orders, etc.). Filing should always be done every day. Don't use cardboard boxes. The boxes will soon overrun your office. ;)

I use two software programs that keep my digital information organized:

TreePad: Someone turned me onto this little program many years ago. It helps me organize my ideas, snippets of code I use often, articles I've read that I might want to reference in the future, important emails, etc. all in one place. I can even copy/paste directly from any document into TreePad.

ThumbsPlus: This awesome program helps me organize my graphics, photos, etc. Both on my hard drive and on CDs I've purchased regardless if they are in the CD drive or filed away in my CD cabinets. It allows me to assign keywords to the files/CDs it scans and the keywords are searchable.

Find a good bookkeeping program. I use Quickbooks Pro. Do not make the mistake of trying to do it yourself manually on paper. This is one aspect of your business that really needs to be organized in the appropriate software.

I also use a planner from Franklin-Covey. Yes, they are pricey but I have been using FC's planners from many years and I'm comfortable with them. Find one that you are comfortable with and write "everything" in it (ie, appointments, to-do's, etc). You might ask why I do not use an electronic appointment book. There are several reasons. I do not always have my computer with me or turned on at all times. Hard drives die and backups are not always reliable. It is much easier for my situation to flip open a date book and see my day at a glance before I even turn the computer on.

These are just a few of the most important organizational tools I use. I hope you find them helpful too.

// posted by BasicRic on 6/08/2004 03:27:53 PM / Permanent Link  

Hi folks! Beca here. Many of you know me as a Tech Support person for BasicTemplates.com. A big hello to all of you good people who I've had the pleasure to exchange email with and those who I will be communicating with me in the future. I am one of the template designers here and the first designer to post in our new Basic Blog. Yea!

We have discussed a Basic Blog for some time and several of us have had personal blogs in the past. But as many of you know (who maintains a blog), it can be time consuming and above all addictive especially if you like to talk, write or chatter. :) We want to make the Basic Blog informative and personal, but yet we do not want it to detract from our #1 priority and that is serving our loyal customers. We decided to take the plunge with the Basic Blog when Google did so. If you did not know that Google started a blog, you may want to visit it. Google bought Blogger well over a year ago and it is not too surprising that Google is now publishing a blog. What is surprising though is why it took so long.

As many of you know we have long been an advocate to effective web design and have stated in several of our articles that providing a website that is accessible to everyone is far more important than providing a website that has all the latest bells and whistles. We stated that if the "big boys" are not doing it, then the global diverse industry is not really ready for it. This is not to say you should not keep up with the latest and greatest technologies. By all means, you should. You will then be ready when the timing is right.

As Internet users in a fast-paced high tech world, we sometimes forget that behind every website are real people with real personalities, families, goals, dreams, budgets, mortgage payments, etc. :) Blogging helps to personalize a website so that we can get to know these people who routinely create the website entity that everyone visits. We hope that Basic Blog will be the appropriate tool.

// posted by BasicBeca on 6/07/2004 03:23:19 PM / Permanent Link  

Now that the month's end necessities are done, we are about to roll out our BasicBlog. What is a BasicBlog? It is the first ever blog of its kind (that we know of) by the designers of one of the web most popular web template resource membership sites online today, BasicTemplates.com!

At BasicBlog you will discover the meaning of life (uhhh ... well, probably not), the personal and professional trials and tribulations of our web template designers, cool websites we have unearthed, snippets of the entertaining (and sometimes serious) chatter in the office, tips of trade, and other 'basic stuff' that we'll willingly share with our readers.

Are you one of 1000s of our loyal customers who purchases template designs from us on a regular basis? Are you a frequent visitor who enjoys uhm... borrowing, sniffing, or lurking ... perhaps ... our ideas, concepts and design layouts? *G* Maybe you are one of 1000s who visit us to jump-start your right brain out of designer's block? Perhaps you are an avid reader of our many web-graphic design articles, tips, and tricks at BasicTips.com? If you answered "YES" to any of these questions, you will want to check our BasicBlog often or syndicate it on your website, if you wish, for up-to-minute chatter as we post it.

Posts will be authored by our template designers and office staff all of which are located and whom were born in the USA. We hope to consistently post some form of chatter every day.

So beginning /* now */ I'll turn this blog over to our crew ...

// posted by BasicTemplates on 6/05/2004 04:07:20 PM / Permanent Link