http://www.dawsondoes.com/index.htmlDawsondoes News!enbob@dawsondoesCopyright 2008 Bob Dawson2008-08-12T15:07:29-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:16:02 -0700bob@dawsondoesDawsonDoes2008-08-12T15:07:29-07:00http://www.dawsondoes.com/dawsondoesblog_files/9836c3616265fe72aa92fc8dc3c0440a-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.dawsondoes.com/dawsondoesblog_files/9836c3616265fe72aa92fc8dc3c0440a-1.html#unique-entry-id-1Whazzat? The future is now past? How can that be?

It is, because it is, and that’s all there is to it.

A few weeks ago I decided that I needed to put up a website that I could use to show samples of my work and, hopefully, bring in some new business. But that was something for the future, right? Well, yes, but that future has passed now, so it’s in the past.

You see, I worked so hard and so diligently, that I got my site built and published very quickly (as these things go), so that the website in my future is now in my past. But it wasn’t all I thought it should be: I knew I could do better because I’d rushed that one just to have it up and working for me on the web. I knew that in the future I would have to go back and correct a lot of mistakes.

Now here we are at the future, take 2, and that future has passed, too. You’re reading this on the new future that is past website, because this is the new site, that used to be in the future, but is now in the past.

It’s all very confusing, I know. As I said, the original site wasn’t all that I wanted and, truth be told, this one isn’t either. But it’s an improvement. It’s good enough that I can now take my time refining it (a never ending process, actually) at my leisure.

As I’m sure you know, success is getting up one more time than you fall down. I fell down a lot during the construction of this site, but I learned a lot, too. While it doesn’t look a whole lot different than the first version (future #1), I didn’t want it to be all that different. Familiarity breeds content, after all, and I wanted those of you who were just getting used to the first version to be, ah, content.

So here it is: the new, improved version of my site. It still needs work, but, hey, that’s for the future.

Thanks,

Lemmeknow]]>bob@dawsondoesDawsonDoes2008-08-06T10:00:19-07:00http://www.dawsondoes.com/dawsondoesblog_files/In%20the%20beginning%20there%20was.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.dawsondoes.com/dawsondoesblog_files/In%20the%20beginning%20there%20was.html#unique-entry-id-0In the beginning, there was maniacal mumbling. It didn’t take long to discover the source: it was me.

Setting up a new site for myself in a short period of time was enough to cause some standard, basic mumbling, but when I started in on this blogging thing, that’s when the maniacal part started. It wasn’t the actual blog set-up that caused it, it was the realization that: a) phase one of putting together this site was almost complete and, b) I don’t know a damn thing about blogging.

What do I have to talk about? What does one wear to a blogging? What is a blog, really, after all? I checked Wikipedia, but it didn’t answer all my questions, so I guess I’ll just have to wing it. At least now I’ll have the blog that so many of you haven’t asked for up and running.

This is my first blog post, so it’s as much a test of the system as it is anything else. With luck, it’ll work just fine out of the box: we’ll see. It should have the main blog section—what you’re reading now—and a comments/talk-back section, too. If it doesn’t have the main blog section, that means that you’re not reading this now and won’t be using the comments feed, after all. Logical, huh?

What’s it really all about? C’mon, Dawson, cut to the chase: give us the real meat and potatoes. Okay, here’s what it’s all about. It’s about this site; it’s about DawsonDoes; it’s about my services; it’s about whatever I feel like talking about; it’s about keeping you informed.

Let’s talk about the site, first. Putting this site together has been a real trial for me, not from a technical standpoint, but in finding all the components I wanted to use and then formatting them for the web. Oddly, putting things together for a client is far, far simpler than doing the same thing for myself (I’m not sure exactly why that is, but other artists have mentioned it, too). One of the advantages of working on a job for a client is that they often have at least some idea of what they want, and I just have to produce it to their satisfaction. Not so when you’re doing it for yourself. It took me awhile to figure out just what I wanted to have, then I had to produce it, page by page. I wrote everything on the site page by page as I went along—kind of a stream of consciousness type of thing. Now that the site is up, I can go back and refine everything.

That’s all for now. Remember that this is a test posting. Please feel free to try the comments feed or, if that doesn’t work, simply click on the Contact Me link, and let me know what you think. Criticisms? Suggestions? Kudos? I welcome them all. The more I know about what you think, the better I can make the site.

Thanks.

Lemmeknow.]]>