Spring Update Coming Soon!

So once again, winter has been reasonably productive; no brutal illnesses this year, but the general malaise was pretty constant. I truly despise the winters here. It's March 21 and it feels like February 12. Meanwhile, back home Mom is out in the yard getting her gardens ready for planting...sucks, dude.

But the new site update is going well. Again, just a little slowly. The actually paying jobs have to take priority, right? But here is a teaser shot:

Recently I've run into a couple of major snags. I've been playing around on Xtranormal.com for a while, but now, since things are starting to come together and I plan to really reach out globally soon as opposed to just sort of locally, I have to really be cognizant of the legal issues regarding what content I can use.

Turns out Xtranormal.com charges $50/month for commercial usage...that's too rich for my blood right now, but even if it weren't, when you read the TOS the whole thing starts to sound not worth it so much. I guess to a corporation what's $50 a month but to someone like me...so I've had to retire Joe Robot (for now) and come up with a new marketing strategy. I have one, but now I just have to spend time and energy on it that I have to find somehow. There isn't much of either to go around right now.

Animoto.com was another gem that I would have liked to incorporate but at $25/month that too is still too much for me right now.

So ya, it looks like I'm going to have to redo ALL of my videos. Poo.

SO...is there anyone out there who wants to be in a commercial for C2Kstudios.com? I want to do an ad campaign that asks the question, "What is C2Kstudios.com? With random people on camera saying things like: "it is the dream you were having that night when you woke up the next morning and knew that, if only you could remember what it was, it would change your life forever"... really silly and grandiose things like that. Or if you don't want to be on video just send your ideas to webmaster@c2kstudios.com and I'll put them on cards and just walk around and ask random people to read them out. Should be hilarious.

Oops!

Wednesday, January 23

I've been plugging away at the HTML5 templates as of late...working on marking up some template chassis that I can use to make my templates with quickly. I was doing all my testing on the server and until now that hasn't been a problem, but my one master page is getting pretty big, with lots of 'modules' like photo galleries and videos, and when I'm doing testing I have up to 8 browsers open on my two main machines so I can see it like 90% of people out there are going to see it.

I guess the server didn't like that...I got suspended for the day for high CPU usage...the first time I thought it was all the browsers so the next day I stuck just to Chrome but it happened again...d'oh!

So I pulled the template vault off of the server and now I'll be doing all my back-end development off-line. I'll just upload each template for final testing....they'll be much smaller than the big master files.

Along with the new roll-out will come the next version of C2Kstudios.com...so there's something else to look forward to! I wanted to be done by the end of January, but these days, with the kids, this is just proving to be a horrible time of year. I wish I could take some solace in the knowledge that everything that we'll be exposed to over the next couple of decades will leave us with iron-clad immune systems for our later years...but sadly, I think those days are long gone....

Saturday, January 26

So late Tuesday night a friend of mine asked me a question on FB about his power supply...and the next day, mine started making a very unnerving noise. Right when I stopped writing this post on Wednesday, in fact.  Such is my life. Anyone who's read the Celestine Prophecy will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I pulled it out, (gave the whole chassis a good cleaning while I was in there of course), and sure enough, the fan was now settling against the base of the shaft...i could hear it moving in there when I'd turn it over...So that night after dinner it was a bus-ride down to good old Canada Computers for a new one...thankfully, it wasn't too cold outside that night. Thursday I spent re-wiring everything; I made a couple of minor improvements to some connections and the position of my subwoofer but otherwise everything is pretty much the back to the way it was. I had thought about putting my second machine up off the floor, but that would mean putting it out of reach. On Friday the Bean had a PD day from school so I took the girls out for breakfast and hot chocolate at the pub where I work weekends. And now, it's on to the templates!

I'm pretty happy now with the "template chassis" I've been working on the last couple of weeks...the ones that were giving me trouble with the server... I've built them like frameworks with modules that I can take and create a template out of pretty quickly. They're colour-coded too, so it's easy to see across all browsers how margins are behaving and things like that. The main one is especially large; these are shots from Chrome at max zoom-out:

The rest are for different formats, menus, borders, things like that. So guess what I'm off to work on right now?

Ho Ho HoTML5 Templates!

So for the last few weeks I've been slowly working my way back through my current selection of HTML5 templates...updating them and getting them ready for the new roll-out. Doing some end of year maintenance and gearing up for the holidays...so I won't really be doing anything major again now until after the new year.

Here are a couple of template preview pics...I'll be redoing the demo videos and posting them to YouTube.

  

I had to go through my graphics inventory and make sure (as sure as is reasonable, anyway) that all the fonts and images and other media I'm using is all legit for commercial use and resale....I think I'm pretty much set now.

Also started a new ad campaign for the social mediaverse...this is just the first tiny sampler:

Have a Merry Christmas and we'll meet again after the holidays!

C2Kstudios

Going to Get There Soon!

So I have this idea about a new marketing strategy that entails me pumping out these HTML5 templates. I'm wondering how it will play if I advertise them as hand-made (they're all hand-coded now, no Wordpress or other builder software used), uniquely tailored sites that are almost like works of art...my plan is to make really basic ones available through sites like Fiverr and then offer more elaborate ones on C2Kstudios.com. I'm also going to look into sites like Odesk; I can also offer extra services like hosting, PHP security and basic SEO setup - making sure that the meta tags are up to par. Building quality backlinks is a lot of legwork - that's how SEO companies make their money, is through their networks and affiliates - you're basically paying for access to already well-established lists of sites. Building backlinks is not what I want to be spending my time doing. I think I might know someone with access to that kind of thing...it could prove to be a great partnership if that's the case. I need to ask a few more pointed questions, though.

Right now I'm working on a rebuild of my family history website, and once that's done I'll be able to throw all my effort into getting some templates up and putting the word out. I've got years of inspiration to fall back on, as I intend to go back and rebuild some of the old ASAW sites into templates, too.

I intend on updating the main site alongside as well to emphasize the hand-coded aspect. You're not going to get something that looks like another Wordpress blog. Keeping in mind that I am completely self-taught - as I get more and more fluent with the code the designs are flowing easier.

The Fall 2012 Update is now Online at C2Kstudios!

So for the past few months I've been coding like mad...first building the family site, then it was on to recoding the three main sites into templates for use in my upcoming marketing strategy...now I'm in the updating phase...main site, kids' site, family site....all the while cultivating my battle plan for advertising...I haven't really done much of that this year...but I definitely want to focus my attention on the templates and basic coding jobs that i might be able to garner from sites like Fiverr and ODesk...but I want to have all this other stuff out of the way first before I start on that...I'm going to want to put all my efforts into it. Right now, between having the kid during the day and the job at the pub, time management is the only thing making any of this possible, and the only way for me to so that right now is one thing at a time.

So, obviously, I'm updating all the social media stuff right now, too. So here are some updated images for you!

C2Kstudios.com

Summer's Over?? WTF!?!...

Where has the time gone? Summer's done and the oldest is back to school...well technically summer has three weeks left to go but the time has come for me to start getting serious about designing again. Having spent the last few months working in a pub kitchen has taught me that I don't want to be there next summer....not unless I can get daytime hours! When that patio is full....it's like being at the gym for 6 hours. But I work hard and I get along with everyone, so the odds are in my favour.

I've had a couple of major art projects on the go the last few months too...gifts for family. Now that they're done I've moved on to designing my family history website...it will be secured just like my other family site but eventually I will also make that template available on C2Kstudios.com.

I've also been seeing more and more discount and crowdsourcing options, sites like Fiverr and Odesk...and it's starting to make me rethink my business model. I just now drastically slashed the pricing on C2Kstudios.com, and I've got to start busting out some simple HTML5 templates to sell for $5 a pop...also little logos to go along with them too, maybe. I'll let the idea percolate in my head while I get my new subdomain ready to launch.

And I suppose I should try and update this blog more often too...although to be honest I'm not much of a blogger...but of course I need to be able to say that I know what I'm doing, right? That's why I opted for teaching myself how to write HTML5 and CSS3 and how to manipulate Java and PSP scripts (perhaps one day I'll learn to code those from scratch too), instead of going the WordPress route. Again, eventually, I'll want to check it out just to be able to say that I know how to do it, enough people use it or at least know what it is that I can't really avoid it forever...like Facebook. And knowing all that stuff will just make WP that much simpler to master. Besides; I like designing my own sites. I know that I'll never be a coding guru but as I get more comfortable with it, the designs will begin to flourish.

Gearing up for Summer!

This past month has been pretty crazy...getting back into working again, finishing up my first major corporate contract, starting on some a couple personal projects, and getting the place ready for summer. The kids have been a handful lately, too...everyone's energy seems to pick up this time of year, but mine not as much as theirs!

I also just dropped my co.cc domains...well actually, I have them forwarding now to the subdomains I set up for them from the main site at C2Kstudios.com. Apparently my host doesn't like it when you get no hits in a month... the family site hasn't been updated in a while.

So ya, I took a job in the kitchen at the local pub...some nice mindless work that gets me out of the house and around some other adults for a few hours a week...the extra money doesn't hurt, either! Mindless as in auto pilot...being back in the back of the house is like slipping on an old pair of really comfortable shoes. 0 learning curve is what I'm all about right now...so I can save my brain power for getting back into coding again once I get these other projects out of thew way...they're secret (gifts) so I can't say too much about them before they're done but I'm going to try and stick with the whole "one-thing-at-a-time" idea that is the reason I've come as far as I have with things so far this year...not bogging myself down with too many projects at once is a very good thing. Although in the summer...who wants to be inside all the time? So there's that. Time will be at a premium, at least for the next little while. But as soon as I find the right groove, it'll be all good.