jane bradbury

Why I dislike Blogger

Jane — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:07:23 -0500

Where shall I start?

I had a Blogger blog for a while myself, and I didn’t dislike it at the time. I considered Wordpress, but at the time I was terrified of PHP and couldn’t grasp the workings of it. I knew I wanted to change; I was writing tutorials for Paint Shop Pro and there would need to be a search function and a way to organise my articles.

During my research into blog platforms and general ‘How To Be A Great Blogger’ advice I stumbled across Injader written by Ben Barden. Initially I didn’t have a clue how a CMS (content management system) worked, and there were at least three embarrassing moments when I overwrote my whole database and had to start afresh.

What’s so great about Injader?

It works! I’m not great at the technical merits of Injader, other than I understand that it has many functions included in its core programming, reducing the need for plugins.
It feels simple and uncluttered. I’m sure that’s not the case really, but it feels that way to me. Everything feels ordered and in its right place, which made it easy to learn how to customise it.
It has (almost) everything. I add the almost not because I think it’s lacking, but there may be functions it is missing for someone else. It has a simple Forum layout, which works really well. Adding areas is simple, and you can have a completely different design for each area if you want. Injader also provides the means to have a membership area; people can register with your site and you can have areas that are Members Only. It must be easy to do because I actually managed to do it myself!

Injader’s greatest attribute by far is its versatility when it comes to customisation. I kept thinking of this when I was wrestling Dawn’s Lovey Doves Theme onto her Blogger blog. Part of it is probably my fault in that I do tend to get carried away with customising templates; I don’t just change the background and header, which would make life simpler. No, I throw in a blog width change and maybe even an extra div or two, when leaving well alone would be better.

However, for some unknown reason the Lovey Doves Template ended up being 4 pixels out of line. Then I had to be careful I didn’t lose all Dawn’s widgets (who invented bloody widgets?!) and oh, how I longed for the two click ‘Apply’ then ‘Proceed’ method of template change Injader has. Yes, it’s possible to customise Injader enough that it does require more than a two click system for changing the template, but you can do an awful lot of tweaking befor that happens.

I’m glad Dawn won the Lovey Doves Theme, because it showed me that I really don’t want to mess with Blogger any longer. I’m going to promote, suggest, persuade, cajole or even pummel people who want a new site to try out Injader. I’m also going to set up an Injader site where I can showcase how the different areas can use unique templates, and how easy it is to have a professional and easy to use website or blog.

I’m for Injader!

And The Lovey Doves go to...

Jane — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:12:00 -0500

Thank you to my 3 giveaway entrants; it is certainly an easy job for the Random Number Generator today! Yes, I have done the proper random drawing, and the winner is...

Dawn Miller

Congratulations Dawn! Please get in touch and send me your email address and I'll send The Lovey Doves over to their new home.

remember, remember the fifth of november

Jane — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500

It should really have been a Bonfire Night and fireworks theme.

But it's not. It's my Lovey Doves blog theme, based on these original two Lovey Doves that perch on our fence every year. Yes, perhaps the resemblance is a little difficult to spot; I've not seen a dove in a tuxedo recently. There's obviously no fancy events to attend at the moment, but Christmas is around the corner and I'm sure they'll dress up for that!

Anyway, today is Bonfire Night here in England, the yearly celebration of Guy Fawkes's plan to blow up Parliament back in 1605, and I am giving away a copy of my Lovey Doves Blog Theme. Yes, I want to spread a little love and happiness instead of fire and gunpowder plots.

The giveaway is only open for one day, 5th November. Leave a happy comment here (I need cheering up) and I'll pick a winner by random number on Friday at 8am GMT. If you're not a lucky winner, pop over to my design studio, Posh Pixels where you can find Lovey Doves, and other blog templates and services.

This theme is for a Blogger blog template only. It is a Limited Edition theme, and will also be used for my other blog platform Injader. In total there will be only 12 themes available to the public, which includes the one I am giving away here.

I meant to say but forgot - all comments are moderated, so please don't panic if your comment doesn't appear. They are all stored safely and will most certainly be in with a chance of winning.

a weekend off

Jane — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:28:51 -0400

Last year I was lucky if I went out for anything, other than doctor visits, hospital visits or dentist visits. Every five weeks there is the Appointment That Must Be Kept No Matter What; the hair cut. That is it. Although illness is a factor for my solitude, it is also by personal choice; when I am in pain, I am better alone.

In January I surprised myself, and went to the Golborne scrapbook crop; I hadn't been for over six months. It's only a twenty minute drive from home, so if I really was ill I could easily call Ian to come and get me. If you're not a scrapbooker you may be wondering what a crop is. According to my husband,

'It's a room of 40 women. With knives.'

We also have totes and trolleys full of everything imaginable to create perfect scrapbook pages of our children, our holidays, or our everyday lives. As a digital girl it's fascinating to me, seeing all the tools, the papers, the brads etc. I could go on and on. I now have my own craft area to play with paper too, although it's not easy for me with my decreased hand mobility.

That crop transformed my life. I met up with the ladies, enjoyed the company and the scrapbooking, and didn't need to go home early at all. In fact, I had such a good time, I decided to sign up for the other north-west crop in Warrington, held every month and I've not missed one yet. Golborne also moved to meeting monthly too, so that's two weekends I have something to do.

Then I heard of a new crop, just a short trek up the M61 from here. I went along last month for the first time and as I expected I had a great time, and it's now a firm fixture in my calendar. So, from not going out at all I'm now out for a day on three weekends; it might not seem much to you, but it is a huge step for me.

It's not just about going to the crops; I now have friends I talk to regularly, and we even visit during the week! Last year I hardly let my own parents in to visit me, let alone any friends. And do you know what? I'm not always better on my own.

So, this weekend there is no crop. We thought we would use it to go car hunting, as our three-year lease expires in February and we have to pick our new car. However, neither of us is interested in changing to a different car; we have a Vauxhall Astra Estate, it carries us and two wheelchairs, along with the assorted junk we take away with us. And with the help of my block of wood, I can get in and out well enough. We'll just have the same again, please.

I think I'll spend some of the weekend doing some web designs, and a bit of promotion so people know what I do and I'm available. I'm not very good at that, promotion and stuff. I have some business cards now, and when I was talking to someone at the crop I realised that I should really have some of those business cards with me, instead of in their box on my desk.

On Tuesday my friend Leanie brought me a present; she made me a business card holder! And look, I've got business cards in it. Now all I have to do is remember to put it in my bag, and not leave it on my desk to admire.

Thwarted!

Jane — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:35:09 -0400

I'm annoyed.

I decide it's time to make more of an effort with blogging and Twitter; why, I don't know, but I'm going to try. I hopped over to Twitter to pick up the widget code for the blog and I customised the colours to match and popped it into the sidebar.

Are you looking for it now? Well, it's not there. When you first get Injader all the code validates, which is great for W3C standards, and I like to know my site has good code. But add the Twitter widget and immediately I have 13 errors. I tried changing the HTML version to 4.01 Transitional, because it's not so strict, but that produced as many errors.

Who wants to read my Tweets anyway? They are only shorter versions of what I write here - when I do actually Twitter or write my blog.

It annoys me that if I want to use widgets I have to sacrifice the well-written code Injader has, and I am not prepared to do that. I have the CMF Ads widget here, and that doesn't create code problems; but that's not surprising, as it is written by Ben Barden, author of Injader.

a change is as good as a rest

Jane — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:48:59 -0400

So I did both! It all started with my friend Jess, who has become hugely popular with her camera strap slip covers at Designs by Jessie. She started with an Etsy store, but in July asked me if I could install and customise Zen Cart on her own domain.

Well, I ummed and ahhed, and panicked a little. "Oooh Jess, I don't know. I've never done Zen Cart, it will be a big job having to learn it. It will take me weeks to get it right..." Jess doesn't take no for an answer, so we agreed a time of 6 weeks until opening the new store at Designs by Jessie.

I had a couple of false starts, but the site was ready in 2 weeks, and I felt smug! It was easy to do, once I grasped how the template system worked. Jess had designed her banner, so customising the rest of the site to match wasn't difficult. She also didn't require any complicated mods: I added Zen Lightbox, and Categories Dressing, so I could get pretty links in the categories box. All Jess's products come with free shipping, so I didn't have weights and postage to sort out either.

I have been designing themes for Injader too, and doing some ad work for people who need the 125 pixel image for advertising. So I created Posh Pixels, a place to get Injader themes and customisation services. I also offer Zen Cart installation; I got more practice with it when I designed Posh Pixels.

With the change in focus to website design services, I will not be regularly writing tutorials/articles solely about Paint Shop Pro. I'll include tips for web design, Zen Cart, Injader and any other information useful for owning a website or blog. No, I'm not an expert, but I can share the things I've learned that may help you.

I am not going to set a posting schedule; I'll write when I'm able to. Subscribing to the blog is a great way to keep informed of new content, so subscribe now!

using the history quick script in paint shop pro

Jane — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:00:14 -0400

When I drew this flower I mistakenly used the same colour for all the petals. I needed some differing shades of grey to distinguish between petals that were above and below each other. At this stage I have 40 separate petal layers, all as vectors so I can manipulate them without losing quality; I'll change them to raster layers when I am ready to add colour and shading, which is why I want them on separate layers.

So in my wisdom I set off changing the grey shade of the bottom layer of petals. Halfway around it occurs to me there must be an easier way to change the petal's colour. Another mistake I made is using both a Stroke and a Fill when drawing the Bezier Curves. I'm not sure why I did that, using Fill would have worked just as well, but I am not going to draw them all again! So, I have two colours to change, the Stroke and the Fill, and it's getting tedious.

record a script?

Then I had an idea! I will record a script and have only one button to click to change both colours. I was just about to click the Record SCript button when I remembered something else: you can create a temporary QuickScript from the History Palette.

I have highlighted the three commands that I want to repeat, and there are two icons at the top of the History Palette that are active: the one with the arrow is Run QuickScript, the other is the Save QuickScript. Well, I need to save it before I can run it, so I clicked the Save icon and the script is now saved into the Scripts-Restricted folder.

In the list of available scripts it is listed as QuickScriptTemp; creating a script from the History Palette is only temporary, and the next time you use the Save QuickScript command you will overwrite the script already saved.

However, it is possible to keep the script permanently by opening the Script Editor and choosing Save As, and giving the script a new name. This is a really useful way of retaining commands used for effects without having to actually start a script recording.

Now I can zip round my flower changing the colours in a flash. How great is that?

I'll see you next week.

here's another one I made earlier

Jane — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:00:00 -0400

Well, the warm summer seemed to pass me by and here I am in the middle of Wimbledon fortnight, wondering where the time went!

playing with paper

So, I haven't blogged on Fridays for the last couple of weeks but I have been busy. I went to the Warrington Crop at the beginning of the month, and made two paper scrap pages! This first page is just a bit of fun centred on the arrival of my Cropadile 2, the Big Bite. I really did like the pink packing, it looked great! Sandy at the crop had the great idea of sewing on the pieces, rather than just sticking them down, and she did it for me as I would have made a right old mess, left to my own devices. Thank you Sandy. Sorry I won't be there next Sunday, but hey, it's Wimbledon Mens' Final Day, never to be missed!

The class kit had some gorgeous papers in it that I couldn't resist, and the bonus that you didn't actually need the photo there and then to complete the page. There is journaling under the photo, held together by the paperclip. Now that was a good idea, and one I'll be using again; not just the idea of the hidden journaling but adding a decoration to the paperclip, using a brad for fixing. It's simple, but it works and I now need to get hold of some nice paperclips to try it again.

It was Father's Day here in the UK last Sunday, and this is a simple design I made for my Dad. I know it's nothing special as such, but as it's another paper project, I was pleased with it and it's raised a giggle with everyone.

my digital doings

One of the UKScrappers Weekly Challenges had us using at least three different techniques on our page; I did mine as a digital version, as I've done my quota of paper for the month! My three choices were digital stitching using my own stitch brush, curling paper up at the corners using shadows, and a digital paper tear. I was pleased with the tear's realism, as I used a different method, which I'll write up soon so you can try it out yourself.

There's not much work in Paint Shop Pro, but I've also been building a Zen Cart website for my friend, Jessie. I can always rely on her to set me a challenge, but this is her biggest one yet, as I've never customised Zen Cart. I can't show you my progress as the site isn't live, but after only a week, I've got the basic design done. In the meantime, have a look at Jessie's Etsy store; I've got one of these camera straps, and I love it, but everytime she adds new ones I want those too!

Finally, here's a simple layered template based on the card I made for Dad; it's two cards on a single page of A4, so it will be easy to print. This is a layered psp file, with quick details on how to use Paste As New Selection to easily clip papers to the layers. For more information you can also check out this article, a clipping mask in paint shop pro. I've also included a layered psd file, in case there's someone over here who uses the 'other' software!

I'll see you next week.

here's one I made earlier

Jane — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:23:29 -0400

May has positively skipped by and I'm anticipating the prospect of a warm summer, starting today, as I have glorious sunshine here this morning. I'm looking forward to roaming around outside, taking some photographs and enjoying the odd barbecue!

creating a header

I started off this month showing you how I can take a photograph of something mundane, like grey plastic, and use it to create a header for a blog. I keep all my not-so-good photos in a folder, and then when I have a few minutes I pull one up, and try out some effects on it. It's a good way of practising with Paint Shop Pro, and learning what all the tools and effects can do.

a clipping mask

One option that Photoshop has can cause envy in even a diehard PSP'er and that's the clipping mask. Do we have something similar in Paint Shop Pro? Yes, we do; layer transparency combined with pasting as a new selection produces the same result as the famed Photoshop clipping mask. It's easy to do, and always gives great results, and no jagged edges.

customisation

For the last two weeks I've been discussing how to customise your Paint Shop Pro workspace. Moving your most used effects and commands onto toolbars, where you can access them with one click, can improve the way you scrap and design. Playing with toolbars in this way can be daunting, so I showed you how to do it without making a mess. Remember, you can always revert to the default workspace, if anything goes horrendously wrong! One of the most useful elements of customisation is binding a script to an icon, and then placing it on a toolbar. It's great to have your commonly-used scripts available with one click, instead of searching the script menu.

The tutorial for June will be published on Monday, and shows you how to create a shabby page overlay using a Mask Layer. I've been using masks more myself recently, and they really are a useful tool to get to grips with.

That's May, all done and dusted! I'll see you next week.

my tutorials

Jane — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:13:48 -0500

My tutorials are written using Paint Shop Pro X2, with step-by-step instructions. Even if you're a total novice with Paint Shop Pro, you could manage to follow one. You will also be able to follow the tutorials with other versions of Paint Shop Pro, but some of the menu commands may be different. I use screenshots liberally, so you can see what I see as I am working. However, I don’t always repeat screenshots of the menu commands after the first instance. Instead I use text like this Selections>Modify>Contract to indicate the commands, and from the image you can see how that corresponds to the number.

I’ll be writing about anything that can be done in Paint Shop Pro: that’s a huge subject and should see us through 2009! The focus currently is digital scrapbooking, and creating digital papers and elements, using all the tools Paint Shop Pro has to offer. There will also be photo-editing ideas, making the most of your images.

New tutorials appear on the first Monday of each month, with additional tutorials added occasionally, time permitting. Check out my blog posts, published each Friday, as you will find mini-tutorials there too.

If you have any topics you would like to see in my tutorials, please do drop me a line and let me know and I’ll do my best to write them up!

Each link below will take you to a short description of the tutorial and the link to download the pdf file. All tutorials are in pdf format: this means you can save them easily to your own computer and even print them out, if you find it easier to follow them that way. You will need Acrobat Reader to open the pdf files and you can download it here for free.