Anyway, in honor of my version of the new year – I have made a calendar planner, and I want to share it with you. I’m starting new things in this space, and part of it might be starting to actually send emails every once in a while. I started this process of setting up an email service provider (ESP) two years ago!

I had the opportunity to spend some time training someone this week, I had forgotten how much I enjoy teaching someone who wants to learn something! I am looking forward to new things, I expect to be doing some journaling here in this space.

If you would like to get the calendar, please sign up for my very inactive email list. However, as a thank you for signing up, you will receive an email with the calendar.

The post It’s a new year! appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

Here is a tiny peak into my brain. Lucky you! As a visual learner, I tend to visualize what I am mentally processing. I am currently a full-time student to get the BA documentation of the knowledge and skills I use on a daily basis. One of this week’s discussion challenges hit on a “soapbox topic” for me. Consumption and production of media. I am not going to get on the soapbox – I’m just going to try to explain how I visualize this tiny bit of information.

This assignment came in a week of getting to play with a lot of flowers while working on a wedding invitation. I absolutely love flowers – almost as much as I love learning. My homework assignment was to create a graphic of my understanding of the relationship between consumption and production.

I tend to visualize media as lots of pieces of paper:

• some are loose,
• some are grouped in a spiral notebook, and
• some are contained in binders for easy adding.

However, rather than creating a graphic to represent pieces of paper or icons of media, I used flowers. The variety of flowers in an array of colors are representative of the wide variety of media in the web – articles, documents, photographs, podcasts, and videos in any number of topics a person can think of. The “C” stands for those who consume media and the “P” is for those who produce media.

The cycle is C-P-C-P:

1. this is to indicate we are Consumers first,
2. then when we directly share or combine information and share, we become Producers;
3. then we consume and produce more.

This is a never-ending cycle. One would have to live on a remote island in order to get away from digital overwhelm; even then, if you have a smart phone and cell signal, there will be the capability of finding information on the world wide web. Since the majority of people don’t go to this extreme, I believe it is safe to say everyone has been inundated with media consumption at some point.

I also believe we don’t have original thought,

making it so we always start as a consumer. But, even as a consumer, there is only so much information you can hold before you have to hand some to another, or share it – which is producing.

Each time our role changes the information will look a bit different based on our own personal experiences and life beliefs.

Even though the topic may not change, because everyone understands things a bit differently, the way we share something as a producer the information will make sense to one person and not as much to another. This keeps us constantly going back and forth from the role of consumer to producer. I think of consuming & producing media being like throwing a bunch of flowers into the air and a group of people gathering them up – even though the flower varieties and colors are the same, no two bouquets could or would be the same. Each bouquet (consumed, created, or produced) is arranged a bit differently because each person gathering is different, and the information (flowers) being gathered up are a bit different, and the timing of “grabbing” the information (flowers) is different.

• A consumed bouquet might be just gathering the flowers up;
• a created bouquet is the arrangement of the flowers; and
• a produced bouquet has had a few flowers (bits of information) shared, or
• maybe a bouquet is handed to another person, then it will likely shift a little – which will make it produced by the giver and consumed by the receiver. And, the process continues to be never-ending.

When we consume media by reading, watching, or listening we are in the role of media consumer; however, as soon as we share the information, we become a producer. We might only initially reflect on information, but as we think about it, we will put our own twist on the information – again, making us a producer.

The post Something Fun appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

I hope what I share here helps you learn what you want to do. I hope it helps you in your deciding. My personal recommendation would be:

• I decided to use InMotion Hosting for my hosting service. I’m so thankful!
• I decided to use WordPress.org to use the CMS on my self-hosted site. This doesn’t mean I know a lot of the technical behind the scenes stuff. Honest!
• I decided to only use StudioPress themes on the Genesis Framework. They keep everything up to best web practices, and I repeatedly have the least amount of problems with them.

There are some who are their own hosting company – I totally don’t know enough, nor do I want to take on the responsibility, to run a hosting company. After a bit of trial and error, I now use In Motion Hosting (affiliate link) for hosting all of my websites. InMotion Hosting is the only company I recommend for hosting. <- I honestly find them this good, for real. I have used them for several years now and I’ve never considered switching to another host.

For me, customer service is super important – I know just enough technical information to get into BIG trouble! 😊 InMotion Hosting has 24/7 customer service tech support – and they’re great!

Important Notice: Just like owning a car or a house, when you “own” a website, at some point something will go wrong.

There will be times your site goes down – this is real life. The internet is no different. 

When it comes to the background workings of your site, using InMotion Hosting (affiliate link) is the only way I’ve stuck to the whole self-hosting business.

The post Getting Started: Deciding appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

A bit of background: When I started my personal blog in 2007, the purpose was to stay in touch with out-of-state family. I started it on Blogger, it was free. However, in 2010 when I transfer’d to a self-hosted site using WordPress for the CMS, it didn’t go as planned and I still haven’t fixed the photos. The text moved over from Blogger, the photos did not.

… Someday, maybe. But it hasn’t happened yet. …

All my rambling is to reiterate to you the importance of a plan. Even with a plan – for as much as I Google searched before starting – I still changed my mind after the fact and wished I’d done things differently. 😊 Part of my mind changing was based on simple misunderstandings…so, I’m going to share what I learned here and hope it helps someone else.

I moved my personal blog from “borrowing” to “owning”. What I mean by this is – I started a free blog on Blogger; then a few years, many posts, and hundreds of photos later I decided I wanted more flexibility with my blog. I wanted to own my content (I’m not getting into the debate of who owns the content – I just knew I wanted to understand and change the backend workings more than what was possible for my current understanding level). However, because I don’t enjoy the tech stuff as much – it’s not overly pretty (and there are still MANY photos missing – they didn’t import when I moved from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress).

• Yes, I make do (no one reads those old posts anyway).
• Yes, I have continued posting and ignoring the way the older posts look (for 7+ years now, it just hasn’t been at the top of my priority list).
• Yes, I could do fix it. But why? This would use time/resources from our family and it’s too personal to build a business from, so I still write there as a (very public) online journal.

Something important to note: while this may be “YOUR” space, never think of it as private. Once something is online, it can NEVER be 100% deleted.

You, and you alone, are responsible for the words you say and/or publish. Just because you can’t see the people you’re “talking” to doesn’t make them any less of a person with feelings.

Please, please, please always remember – you can’t ever really delete something from the internet. Once you post/publish something, you can NOT control who sees it, saves it, shares it, or which database backed it up – this in turn, renders you incapable of EVER completely erasing something.

I don’t say these things to scare anyone – but to encourage you to be cautious and wise with what you publish. There is no harm in writing out your thoughts, BUT just because you write something doesn’t mean you have to hit publish!

The post Getting Started: Your Best Plan appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

Defining is a first step in getting started. If you don’t know what the words mean in the context they’re being used – it’s super confusing and completely overwhelming! I’m going to “define” some terms I found very confusing when I started. There are so many more – these are just a drop in the bucket. Feel free to ask, and if I know I’ll do my best to help; however, 

One problem I had when starting was the terms meant nothing to me. They were in English, I can read and understand English, but I had no context for “getting” what I was reading. So I’m going to get started by clarifying some terminology. These are words I wish I would have understood better in advance.

• Backend: The behind-the-scenes “inner” workings of every website.
• Blog: Requires consistent interaction between you and your readers. You can determine the frequency, but consistency is invaluable.
• Blogger: A person who blogs; and the name of a hosted (free) CMS, designed for blogging. (I’m not sure if you can sell/monetize a blog hosted on blogger.)
• Cloud (in the tech sense): Similar to hosting, but not attached to a personal URL. It’s more of a virtual storage cabinet. (Google Docs is an example of “cloud” based storage)
• Content Management System (CMS): How you store all the information on your site and create how it will look to the user.
• Domain name or URL: This is your unique address in the world wide web. Similar to your personal street address – where you can be found.
• Hosted vs. Self-hosted: Do you want the CMS set up to do everything and the possibility of it being free? Then you want hosted. If you know you’re in this for the long-haul and you’re willing to dig deep and do a small amount of “extra” work? Then you want self-hosted.
• Hosted: There are free and paid versions; some you get to choose your domain and others provide a sub of their domain. There are different rules for each, you’d need to learn their CMS and terms and conditions on making money/selling/ads. They take care of all the tech stuff (updates, security, maintaining) for you. I really am not familiar with how these work, or all their options.
• Hosting: Where the workings of your website, and all of the information (text/images), are being stored. Similar to the house you live in, the storage unit you store your stuff in.
• Monetize: To make money from your blog by selling services, product, or ad space.
• Self-hosted: You pay for your hosting and your choice of domain name. You learn the CMS you choose and you do all maintenance on the site. Similar to picking what part of town you want to live in, but you still have to decide if you’ll be in a subdivision zoned for travel trailers, apartments, starter homes, or a mansion – it’s all about your purpose for your site.
• SquareSpace: A paid subscription based CMS (includes hosting); can be used for either a blog and/or business website. I’m not sure if you can sell/monetize a blog hosted on SquareSpace.
• Website: Space on the web. Doesn’t have to change real frequently, but you must keep it up to date for security reasons, and you do want to make sure it always has relevant information. (such as: current way to contact you, products, important information.) The more current a site looks, the more customers will engage with you.
• WordPress: A free Content Management System, CMS; can be used for either blog or business website. While the WordPress CMS is free to use, you have to have hosting to make it actually work. There are two options for using WordPress.
  • WordPress.com: The hosted version of the WordPress CMS. Your URL will be a subdomain of WordPress.com (yourdomain.wordpress.com). I’m not sure if you can sell/monetize a blog hosted on WordPress.
  • WordPress.org: The self-hosted version of the WordPress CMS. Your URL will be yours only, using the CMS (yourdomain.com). I know you can sell/monetize a blog using the self-hosted version of WordPress.

In my opinion, self-hosted and using the WordPress CMS via WordPress.org, is the best option and gives you the most control over your site. It is as close as you can get to “owning” a piece of the internet.

I believe using WordPress is the easiest way to make a site and keep it maintained, not to mention the least expensive. This is what I know, and is the perspective I will be basing all of my explanations from here on out. 

The post Getting Started: Defining appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

I feel like September 1st is more of a new year than January 1st (maybe I just take that long to “get my act together” each year 😊). Random side note: I took those photos in 2014 – the last time I saw fireworks in the dark and my fingers were warm (We’ve only seen them in warm temperatures three times in the last 20 years). In Alaska, we do fireworks for New Years Eve – the last time I tried my camera stopped working because it was too cold.

Seriously, though – my heart & mind are naturally geared for a September 1st new year. I LOVE school & office supplies – every year I get more notebooks, pens, color crayons, colored pencils! It might be because this is when our routine changes each year – and it’s a season change.

So – in honor of the “new year” I’m going to post some basic getting started information in a mini series. I’m hoping this little series will help you feel more confident in starting your new pursuit.

Are you trying to decide whether you want to start & maintain an online space on the world wide web? Or do you know you want a space, you just don’t know what kind?

I will have affiliate links in my posts, but I will only link to something I believe has the potential to truly be beneficial for you. And, just to clarify, affiliate links won’t cost you anything, but when you use my links the company will give me a commission on what you purchase. I won’t see your information though. In advance, thank you for any of my links you may use.

To start your space on the internet, there are some decisions you will need to make immediately. Yes, you can typically change most everything once you get going. However, some of these first questions are ones you really need to answer first – or you may get stuck starting over – or paying more to change later.

I’m going to list some questions for you to think about, then in another post I’ll let you know what/how I decided.

• Do you want a blog, a website, or both?
  • IF you want both, is there a reason you would not want them together? (such as: you want the blog to be personal, and the website is for a business)
• Regardless of which you want, what is the purpose?
  • Is this space to be used for an online journal;
  • To stay in touch with family;
  • Do you just want to be able to comment on other people’s blogs? 
  • Is it to sell product/s?
  • A place online, nothing more than an electronic business card (your contact information only);
  • Do you want to use your online space for portfolio purposes?
• Do you want to borrow space online or “own” your space on the internet?
  • Borrow = you can usually find ways to start for free. This would be like living at someone else’s house – you don’t pay, you’re on borrowed time, it could end at any moment.
  • “Own” = you pay to rent your domain name and pay hosting to rent space to house your domain. I say “own” because the internet is not tangible, it’s virtual. You can’t really own it. Also, it’s more like renting a house – it’s not really yours, just as long as you keep paying and nothing changes. BUT, when you “own” your online space, the content you publish remains yours.

There aren’t any wrong answers here. You get to totally and completely personalize this experience! You don’t have to do it a certain way (as long as you’re still following legalities and laws of the land – obviously) – it is up to you and what you want to maintain.

The post Getting started… appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

Some paid. Some free.
Some your own.
Some physical. Some virtual.
ALL requiring storage of some sort.

My experience: physical files and school resources can overrun your house if you don’t watch out. Since I have two children and we live in an approx 700sq ft apartment, I wanted an easy way to store things waiting for the next child. We didn’t always use everything at the same time, but I always needed to have it semi-close by.

What I didn’t expect was how the virtual files weren’t any different, they were actually MORE overwhelming because I couldn’t tangibly sort them. There were numerous file types, and I tried to keep the files/classes/resources each child – grade – subject, but I found it took longer to find virtual documents on the computer when it was misplaced [or named differently than what made sense to me] than it did to find a real piece of paper in a pile. Just like physical files/resources/stuff; your virtual files can totally fill up and clog your computer. Also, just because something is in the computer doesn’t mean you can find it – [ask me how I know 😳!].

We homeschool. I have been a homeschool mom for 15 years now; we have always been enrolled in one of several homeschool program options available in our state. Which means we receive money from the State in the form of an allotment. This means there are of course rules, and State accountability we must turn in (as it should be, we’re using State funds). We can’t use this money for certain things, two examples are faith based curriculum and equipment. Typically, you pay out of pocket and turn in a reimbursement. …. This means more paper, more virtual files, to track. The following screenshots are how I have files set up.

Folder Name = school year (grades)

You can see I named the “top” level folder simply “SCHOOL”. Inside this folder, I have a folder for each school year and the grades my two were in at the time. (these are just the high school years)

Inside each year I have the files applying to both students.

File Name = • [what it is]

Using alt/option and the ‘8’ key gives the bullet, keeping these files in alphabetical order at the top of my folder. I didn’t put the schedule into their separate files simply because I went to it too often, and it eliminated a step when wanting to look at the schedule by having it just inside the year. To me, it was kind like taping the most important info into the front of the folder.

Once you open up one student folder, you see three options: Reimbursements, Semester 1 and Semester 2. Super simple.

You could add a folder for “Curriculum”, then one for each subject you have virtual files for. I did this before I figured out my daughter does not learn on a screen. I was saving stuff from my son, who loved as much info in the computer/iPad as possible, but then I ditched it all. Most of it was a bunch of free resources, the one I paid for was already in printed form & spiral bound, so the digital file went away.

File Name = studentinitial[grade] Quarter/Semester SubjectName

The way our homeschool program works, we turn in Work Samples at the end of each Semester to “prove” the grade we recommend. So, while there is one file for Christine, 10th grade, Semester1 in Geometry – that PDF file is actually a scan of the whole semester’s worth (or three points of semester, depending on what our contact teacher wants) of math lessons.

You can see inside my son’s Senior year folder, there is another important paper. College admission information, this wasn’t looked at as frequently so I left it in just his folder – with a • in front so it stayed at the top of my alphabetical list.

This is just showing the difference between two students and two grades for one year. I have the two Semester 1 files open so you can see the difference in naming. The great thing about this is if I can’t remember what year one of them took a specific subject, I can just search the subject name. The computer will bring up both and I can see by the file name.

The post Homeschool Files appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

Envision, you’re working on a document in MSWord – on your computer at home. Now, you need to leave real quick to run into town. While you’re in town, you run into someone who’s knows more information about what you were writing on – you want to send them the file so they can double-check some information for you.

• Do you have to wait to get home and email it to them? (Running the risk of forgetting once you get home); OR
• Can you send the file to them while you’re standing there talking? (or maybe wait until they walk away)

The answer is yes, but it will depend on where you saved the file.

OR how about when you’re working on a project, and the power/internet at your house just went out. You need to gather up your laptop and head to a coffee shop to work a few more hours.

• If the file is in your desktop, you’re out of luck – unless you’ve been working on the file in “the cloud” or had time to properly eject the external hard drive.
• If the file is on your external hard drive, and you happened to be working on your laptop at the time, you can just disconnect the external hard drive and take it & your laptop to the coffee shop (because the laptop has a battery, you’ll have time to properly eject the hard drive). <- This happened to me this week. While it was annoying to have to stop everything and run to town. I was really thankful I’d been working on the laptop to start with.

Accessibility:

There are a few variables here:

1. In the first scenario above, if you saved the file only on your computer’s hard drive/on an external hard drive before leaving, you will have to wait until you get home to send it on.
2. If you saved the file to One Drive/Google Docs/iCloud/Drop Box (“the Cloud”), the file can be accessed as long as you have your account login information.
   • If you want to access your Cloud files from your phone, you will have to have the appropriate app installed for the platform you are using. From the app you log into your account and then can send the file from your phone standing in the middle of wherever – as long as you have wi-fi or cell service.

Which MSOffice do you have?

Do you have MSWord on your computer (installed from a disc a few years ago), or do you use a cloud based version of MSOffice or Office 365?

1. IF you have MSWord on your computer, from years ago and it was a disc installation, One Drive is not an option. Unless you have created a Microsoft account and set it up independently and you manually save files there (like one would with DropBox).
2. IF you have MSWord downloaded (not disc installation), THEN you may have saved your files into either the hard drive of your computer or in One Drive. When I purchased my last version of MSOffice for Mac, it was a code for a download. So, I have the option of storing things in One Drive, but I choose not to.
   • The settings default in this case is One Drive.
3. IF you have the monthly subscription version of MSOffice, which is called Office 365, I believe the default there is also One Drive.

So, it really comes down to how instantly you need to have access at all times. As I already told you, I spent a lot of time getting all my files into the cloud just to get hung up without strong/fast enough internet to consistently access what I needed. If you live in a rural area and there isn’t always instant, super fast internet/cell service, you might not want to go this route either. I believe since I tried, many platforms allow for “working offline” – so the internet isn’t as much of an issue because it’s okay if the connection comes and goes while your working on the document.

Data Usage:

Another aspect to take into consideration: are you limited on data download – either at home or on your other devices? My constantly trying to access files in the cloud, downloading them to work on them, and the saving process then re-uploading, wreaked havoc on our download limits. In Alaska, we still have the issue of the amount of internet data (downloads/uploads) used is monitored. (current example: we pay $94/month to have 250GB we can download/upload/stream. My son just moved into his own apartment and set up his internet – he’s paying $29.99 for 1TB of download/upload/streaming!)

Updates:

Another issue I ran into – every.single.time I tried to open a MSOffice program, it wanted to update. For example, say I used MSWord, went thru the whole stupid update process (for all of MSOffice, whether you use each program or not)…then tried to open Excel – I had to go thru the update process again – for all three programs! Now, to be totally fair – maybe it’s because cloud storage is much newer than my computers and the problems were at my computer’s end.

I do know our Alaska internet download limits, and lack of consistent & fast internet were not issues related to my older computers. So, regardless of whether you can work offline or not, make sure your internet package can handle cloud storage.

The post Accessibility to Virtual Files appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

Remember how I said it’s similar to getting directions:

• Where are you starting from?
• Where do you need the file to be for access later?

The “starting from” is where you have clicked on the left column. The “where you need the file to be” is in the saving process, and whether you save or save as.

But, when you’re looking at this (or the Windows version) it can look like a whole lot of nothing. Imagine the left column is a hallway with lots of doors.

How do you track which files you’ll find behind which door? Simple: consistency in naming and location.

The blue box is over the door into the iCloud Drive. If you’re using a different Cloud based drive, such as Google Drive (Google) or One Drive (MsOffice), you would access those files differently, even though they’re “in the Cloud”; they’re only accessible by logging into the platform (obviously iCloud is Apple, so this is directly accessible from a Mac). Wherever you’re paying for a subscription service for Cloud storage, they will have their own access.

iCloud is Apple’s storage, I have a Mac, so it is an automatic option in my computer. Another way to access iCloud is by going to iCloud.com and signing in there. Anyone can have an iCloud account – have an AppleID? It’s the same log-in info for iCloud.

These are the doors into different “rooms” of the hard drive on my Mac. Again, AirDrop isn’t for storing files, it’s just a portal for transferring files between Apple products (iMac, MBP, iPad, and iPhones) – it’s still considered a door.

If you need a refresher on what those areas are for, you might want to check out my other post.

This is the external hard drive. Here I have “opened the door” into the LaCie Documents room. And the right side column is the index of everything in this “room”. If you have two, three, or however many USB ports to have other external drives plugged in, they are just listed here. At the time of this screenshot, I only had one external drive plugged into my computer.

When working on an external hard drive, it’s really important to eject the drive before unplugging it from the computer.

Ejecting the drive is similar to looking at the doorway and making sure nothing is in the way. To not eject & just unplug is to slam the door on whatever might be in the path. This can be no big deal (socks, etc.) – or it could be a really big deal (someones fingers could get slammed in the door). Similarly, to not eject is to risk “slamming a file in the door” – which could corrupt it. In order to eject an external hard drive, you have to close whatever documents you were working on, (and sometimes the programs you were using with those documents). Then eject, otherwise you’ll get an error stating the file is “in use” – this is the same idea as being in the door closing path.

The shared devices are connected by wi-fi. The visibility of these devices are set by each specific device. You don’t eject these, they just lose their wi-fi connection.

When both of my children were in the living room working on school, and their computers were connected to wi-fi, I could see them in the list of “Shared”. <- This is why it is important to pay attention to your security & privacy settings if you do much work on public wi-fi.

The post Finding Your Virtual Files (part 2) appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.

I want to share a wonderful Shutterfly* (affiliate links throughout this post) deal with you.

Get a start on your Christmas list:

• IF you are a new customer, you can get a FREE calendar until September 30, 2017! (code: FREECALAFF)
• All Customers get a free 16×20 print until September 30th. (code: FREEPRINT)
• New customers get 35% off your $50 order until September 30th. (code: 35OFF50)
• All Customers get 25% off your order until September 30th.  (code: 25OFF2017)

For several years I scrapbooked 5×7 calendars and then had them color photocopied as gifts – they were displayed on an easel, or hung with a clip. I’m so excited, Shutterfly now has 5×7 Easel Calendars! The last five years I’ve ordered myself a calendar from Shutterfly. I use the free code, pay shipping – and I get 12 months of memories in print. They’ve always been beautiful. The one time there was a white, unprinted line down the side of each photo. I called them, and they sent me a correctly printed calendar right away – free of charge, even though it had been free in the first place.

I haven’t printed many photos for scrapbooking since moving to a digital camera, but the ones I have printed – from 4×4 to 16×20 – have been beautiful.

I’ve printed a several digital scrapbooks, and Shutterfly‘s books are lovely. You will essentially have personalized full color, bound books. And their editor makes it all very customizable. Side note: I was actually contemplating not printing any more photos (haven’t printed any in 10 years) – just catching up with digital scrapbooks…but I’m thrilled my children prefer the “old” way of scrapbooking. (I’m actually excited to have the excuse to get to play with all my paper & supplies again :-D!) So, while I’m going to stick to the not-so-virtual route of scrap books for my children, I am going to start working on a highlight book of each year. Not super in depth, but an overview.

In case you don’t know, Shutterfly has several options under the categories of

• Photo Books (8×8 up to 12×12, themed, seasonal, with several options);
• Cards & Stationary (seasonal, blank, graduation, rubber stamps, personalized postage stamps, address labels, stickers, and many more ideas);
• Prints & Posters (4×4 up to 20×30, collages – including various paper options);
• Calendars (Desk style, 5×7 Easel, Poster, Magnet, Mouse Pad, 8.5×11 and 12×12 Wall Calendars)
• Personalized Gifts (memory game, playing cards, paperweights, ornaments, mugs, etched glass, pillows, blankets, iPhone cases, and many more options),
• Home Decor (canvas, metal, wood, acrylic, stockings, photo cubes, shower curtains, and many more ideas.).

*I am an affiliate for Shutterfly, meaning if someone places an order using my link they will pay me a commission for sharing their sale with you. Here are more companies I like and trust and am willing to share with you.

The post Random – Not so Virtual appeared first on Dot&Ink Designs.