I’m a people pleaser. I love to make people happy. I’m a first born. I’ve always wanted my parents to be proud of me (still do). But, the problem is that I allow the things that I do to determine my self worth. Makes sense, though. That’s what we’ve been taught. In school, it was all about what grade you made. Your grades determined whether or not you could progress. Your GPA determined what schools you could get into. Your SAT scores determined how much scholarship money you would be awarded. My portfolio determined what jobs I could get. The quality of work I do now determines whether or not I get the raise or promotion. Face it. We’re a works based society.
It’s even harder as a creative. I put a piece of myself into all the work that I do. Every time I turn something in, I face the risk of rejection.
A few months ago, I was reading Jesus Calling.
I am pleased with you my child. Allow yourself to become full aware of My pleasure shining upon you. You don’t have to perform well in order to receive My Love. In fact, a performance focus will pull you away from Me, toward some sort of Pharisaism. This can be a subtle form of idolatry: worshiping your own good works. It can also be a source of deep discouragement when your works don’t measure up to your expectations.
About that same time, I found this in 66 Love Letters.
I don’t want you to be afraid of failure, or you will live for success. And I don’t want you to be afraid that things in your life will go wrong—they will—or that you will feel empty—you will. If you fear problems or emptiness, you will live for comfort and fulfillment. And that will just complicate the mess you’re already in.
The challenge for me is to let go. Strive for excellence, yes, but let go of other’s opinions. Allow myself to be confident in who God created me to be. After all, I live, serve, and work for an Audience One.
I come on my knees
To lay down before you
Bringing all that I am
Longing only to know you
Seeking your face
And not only your hand
I find you embracing me
Just as I am…
To my audience of one
…
And we lift these songs
To you and you alone
As we sing to you
In our praises make your home
http://trentwalton.com/2011/01/26/you-are-what-you-eat/
This is a good read by Trent Walton. It’s a challenge to reconsider some of the projects you’re working on. The work you take on can define you.
http://www.thestateofwikipedia.com/
A beautifully designed site on (as the name suggests) the state of wikipedia.
http://shawnlandisblog.com/2011/01/dream-year-weekend-twitter-directory/comment-page-1/#comment-39
I’ve been accepted in the Dream Year 2011 program. We had a retreat last weekend where we crammed a good chunk of the entire year program into 1 weekend! I think the one of the best things that came out of the entire weekend was the networking that took place. There were so many people there, each with their own ideas of greatness. Shawn Landis has been so great as to compile a list of all the Twitter handles of the people that were there.
http://photofocus.com/2011/01/27/seven-steps-toward-becoming-a-more-creative-photographer/
I found this via Jeremy Cowart on Twitter. It’s an excellent post. Not the usual, but definitely practical.
http://tiffanymonhollon.com/blog/2009/09/10/daily-dozen-pr-tasks/
This post looks at 12 items to do everyday to make the “pockets of unplanned time” more productive. I struggle to stay on top of everything. A lot of the things on this list are usually the first things to get bumped off my list when things are hectic.
What are your 12?
It’s been a copule of months since I mentioned starting a project in Code Igniter.. Let’s revisit!
If you’re just now joining us, it’s OK, you haven’t missed much. We’re going to be building out a blog on CodeIgniter (CI).
In Part A, Getting Started with CI We talked about which each directory contains. If you’re still confused on what each folder does, just know, we’ll spending a majority of our time in only 3 folders.
In Part 1, we planned out everything, including the design and functionality.
Download my Files
Feel free to download all my files and use them to follow along…just don’t distribute or sell them. If you end up publishing them, an attribution would be nice (aka necessary).
I’m assuming you already uploaded the CI files on your server. Now, copy the css, js, and images folders from my production files and paste them in the code igniter folder. Your structure should look like this:
Right now, think in terms of php includes. We want all the global elements to be in their own file. For example, the footer will appear on all the pages. So, the footer’s code goes in its own file (footer_view.php). All the pages on the site will reference that one footer file. Now, if we have to make any changes, we only have to update the code in one place.
On almost all my sites I have a page header, a page top, and a footer.
I know, the names “page header” and “page top” sound similar. What’s the difference?
Well, the page header contains the HTML header, with the exception of the closing header tag.
The page top contains the top of the page that the user actually sees, including the closing header and the opening body tag.
What’s the point? Why not include that all in one file?
Well, by breaking up the code, if I need to add a custom CSS or JavaScript file to a specific page, it gives me an injection point.
If you’re a visual person, like I am:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"></p>
<
p><html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>AWESOME</title></p>
<
pre><code><!-- CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/print.css" type="text/css" media="print">
<!--[if IE]><link rel="stylesheet" href="css/ie.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection"><![endif]-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/AWESOME.css" type="text/css" media="screen" charset="utf-8">
<!--
JAVASCRIPT -->
<!-- TYPEKIT CODE HERE -->
<
script src="js/jquery-1.4.4.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="js/AWESOME.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
</code></pre>
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p></head>
</head>
<body id="home"></p>
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div class="container">
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div class="span-18 append-3 prepend-3 last">
<div class="span-9">
<h1 id="awesome">AWESOME</h1>
</div>
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div id="navigation" class="span-9 last textright">
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<li><a href="index.html">BLOG</a></li>
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<
div class="date">06.21.2010</div>
<h2 id="write_at_least_5_comments_on_a_5_different_blogs_a_day"><a href="#">Write at least 5 comments on a 5 different blogs a day</a></h2>
<p><a href="#">5 Comments</a> || Posted in <a href="#">leadership</a> by <a href="#">Darrel</a></p>
<p>I went and looked at my stats on Friday afternoon. Where am I getting the most hits? From blogs that I had posted comments on. I don’t know why this surprised me. Everything I read about blogging says “to increase your traffic, post meaningful comments on other people’s blogs”. I think I’ll surprise myself, though. If I’m all about “the conversation,” I don’t think it will be as much about sending people to my site, as it will be continuing a conversation on someone else’s site. And that’s OK.</p>
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div class="post">
<div class="date">06.20.2010</div>
<h2 id="fix_the_holes"><a href="#">Fix the holes</a></h2>
<p><a href="#">2 Comments</a> || Posted in <a href="#">making money</a> by <a href="#">Rick</a></p>
<
an>p>When I launched my redesign, I knew that there were still holes. I went with the 37 signals method: get something up as soon as possible. Now, I need to go back and tweak, finding the places where the user interface isn’t quite clear, fixing the bugs, and all around, just make things better. Shout out to all who have given me insight. Thanks!</p>
</div>
<
div class="post">
<div class="date">06.20.2010</div>
<h2 id="fix_the_holes"><a href="#">Fix the holes</a></h2>
<p><a href="#">2 Comments</a> || Posted in <a href="#">making money</a> by <a href="#">Rick</a></p>
<p>When I launched my redesign, I knew that there were still holes. I went with the 37 signals method: get something up as soon as possible. Now, I need to go back and tweak, finding the places where the user interface isn’t quite clear, fixing the bugs, and all around, just make things better. Shout out to all who have given me insight. Thanks!</p>
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p></body>
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Sweet! All our pieces are set up for our index page!
