Here’s another great online resource I use for running.
The Cool Running Pace Calculator allows me to calculate goal paces and race potential.
It include 3 variables:
You just need to enter 2 of the variables, and it will calculate the third.
For instance, a question I often ask myself is: “If I could maintain that pace for a marathon, what would my time be?”
So I enter the pace in question (pace), and the marathon (distance), then calculate the goal time.
Because I firmly believe there is no such thing as bad weather… just bad clothing, I found a great online resource to help me figure out what to wear when running in various weather conditions:
Runner’s World – What to Wear for Runners
http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/whattowear/0,7152,s6-240-325-330-0,00.html
I use this tool all the time. Particularly this time of year when the weather conditions are changing so frequently that I can’t remember what’s comfortable.
WordPress users:
If you enjoy some of the features of WordPress.com, but want to self-host, check out the new JetPack plugin for WordPress:
A great collection of features, designed to take the wordpress.com experience to your own site.
Have you tried it yet? How is it working for you?
Maybe the rawness of this issue comes from that fact that I was never really an active participant in my school’s honor roll. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve had a lifelong inability to be perfect at everything I do. But I wonder, sometimes, if as a consumer, I need to give a little grace to the brands I interact with.
While not quoted directly from my Tweet Stream, I have, on occasion seen tweets like…
I have two conditioners and no body lotions: #hotelFAIL!
Or…
Flight delayed 10 minutes so while they get more coffee. #FAIL
Now, I understand how:
Hotel lost my reservation
or:
Airline just lost it’s left wing at 30,000 feet… At least we have in flight wifi
might be grounds for and #epicfail hash tag. But I wonder if, on occasion, we could consider giving a brand a C+ on occasion.
Question:
I know Comcast (@comcastcares) had somewhat of a pioneering role in how they interact with their SM buzz, but I also know that my friends are far more likely to publicly complain about Comcast, because it has a history of getting results.
Could a brand’s increased interaction with social media buzz, potentially hurt the buzz they are receiving?
On occasion, I want to customize my WordPress login screen with some of my project branding. This is especially important when I’m working on a site that manages subscribers. It’s also a nice little touch to add to client sites, to give the client a sense of ownership.
I was surprised at the number of web-tutorials that encourage editing “wp-admin/css/login.css”, or overwriting the WordPress logo image in wp-admin.
In practice, try to avoid ever editing an item inside the wp-admin and wp-includes folder in WordPress. Any changes made to those files, are likely to be overwritten the next time you upgrade WordPress.
The WordPress login screen changes can be made in your theme folder.
Here’s how I did it: Continue reading “Branding Your WordPress Login Screen”
I got my last site design from a cake.
I can’t come up with a color palette for the life of me. It’s just not in my DNA. So, when I started working on a recent pet-project, I found myself floundering through the branding.
So, I’ve started turning to fashion and interior decorating to make my sites work.
On that pet-project, I plugged Google with a few key words that tied into the “emotion” I was looking for on the site, and ended up finding a picture of a beautiful brown and blue wedding cake. The cake, and the setting it was placed in, was exactly the feel I wanted for my site.
I pulled the photo into Photoshop, and used the Color Table tool to extract the key colors (see here for a great tutorial on how to make that happen)
So… friends who have some more design experience… what else do I need to consider when putting a palette together? I’d love to learn.
I led a session at the recent Word Camp MSP event. This session was designed to help those who are just getting their feet wet with WordPress, understand what a plugin is, and how they can help their installation of WordPress.
It is important to note that not every plugin is appropriate for every installation. Each site’s goals and content need to be taken into consideration before extending WordPress. However, after bouncing the question around to a number of peers, these are some of the plugins that have bubbled to the surface.
Here are the plugins we featured:
What about you? What are your “Must-install” plugins on WordPress?
Others that came up (these were peer recommended, but I haven’t used all of them,)
Here’s a great article from the New York Times, looking at a recent study by usability expert Jakob Neilsen.
It’s a good reminder that use of generic photos/stock images may make the developer and the client feel good about the site, but may have little positive impact on the end user.
Key quote:
“big feel-good images that are purely decorative” are mostly ignored online, while stock photos or generic people are also intentionally disregarded. In contrast, when users know that a picture of a person is real they will engage with the image for extended periods of time.
I am a Dad. I want to protect my kids. I want them to retain their innocence.
When we go to church, we place them in a safe environment, with adults who deeply love them.
Many of my friends, for many good reasons, have serious reservations about putting their kids in public schools.
For the sake of my children, I live in a safe neighborhood.
I want to keep my kids safe.
But I wonder, sometimes, if we need to be prepared to sacrifice the “safety” of our family, for the sake of the Gospel.
In children’s ministry, am I willing to open my door to those rowdy kids from the neighborhood who put holes in the classroom wall?
In youth ministry, am I willing to tackle some difficult conversations with my students?
As a dad am I willing to let my kids see the depravity that they were born into?
As a family are we willing to engage, with my kids, in a neighborhood where the people don’t look like our family?
As a church, are we willing to be frank?
As a media publisher, are we willing to give up the promise of being “family friendly” to allow the community to create conversation that can move the Gospel forward?
I want to protect my kids, but the time is too short, and the message is to urgent for me to make that my top priority.
And my kids… need to know that.
It has been 16 days since my first Marathon. This may sound a tad crazy, but I really miss the weekend long-runs. I still try to get out and do 7-10 miles on a Saturday, but I really enjoyed the time we would spend doing 4-6 hours of “exploring”.
Of course, I should probably give that time to my kids (and my house), but I’m already starting to think ahead to the next thing I can train for.
