Smash-Art

Weapons of a Web Ninja

2011-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

As some of you may know, I was fortunate enough to have an interview with New Media Manitoba last week and sit down with Kevin Hnatiuk, Louie Ghiz and Kathy Driscoll. Even if I don't get the job it was worth it to pick their collective brains about what is happening in Manitoba with the Digital Interactive industry. Exciting things!!!

Facebook is earning more and more respect from me as I see it connecting more people in our community, locally and globally. Did you know 16 550 620 Canadian's are on Facebook? That's almost 63% of our population. Just a personal example below, without a social tool such as Facebook how would my accountant, brother, cousin who lives in BC, and close friend who is so busy with her own career be able to offer support and advice to this silly girl? BTW Thanks guys!

In the interview I feel I talked a lot about my web-foo(web kung-foo, translation for my mother) as a practice but not that much about the weapons I use. Just like BabyDoll in SuckerPunch with her samurai sword and hand gun I have a few weapons of choice when it comes to projects.

Evernote is a FANTASTIC app shown to me by the talented Ms. Lori Dyck of Wildfire Online. It revolutionized the way I take notes! Evernote is an online app or Saas that helps you make, store and organize 'notes'. Pre-evernote I was using the .rtf. The plain text file I would keep on a project or client with 'notes' and upload it online to my website server so it was available to me anywhere. This app has streamlined this process. It allows you to make:

A text note.
A picture note.
A VOICE note! (Recording things for later is the equivalent of taking down a giant robot samurai)
A web page Clipping.
A twitter clipping with notes.

It also has a tagging system that allows you to tag every note so you can organize your notes and search through them quickly later. Storing them online I am able to take notes with my mobile and it syncs directly with my online account, giving me access to them from any computer.

I never hide my Google love! They are creating such fundamental developments right now that I must tip my hat to them in general. Google Docs is a fantastic online alternative to Microsoft Word and Excel. It allows to to create:
A written Document
A Spreadsheet
A Presentation (Power Point)
A Form (to fill out, great for clients)
A Drawing
A Collection (a way to organize the files)

These documents are stored online and you are able to share them via email with other people. Very helpful when communicating and collaborating on a project with multiple users. It allows you to import and export documents easily and in multiple formats, you get free file hosting(within reason) and you can store Gmail attachments sent to your documents automatically. Other apps I use are Google Calendar, Google Reader (very helpful with research and development), and of course the all mighty Gmail. All the hype with Google+ I have an account but have not yet explored it's capabilities. I don't see how it could be bad as they had all of Facebook's social networking mistakes to learn from. I have a feeling it will soon be an essential tool.

Mail Chimp is my favorite email campaign program. Again it is online and FREE up to 2000 subscribers which is normally for our purposes enough. I find this helpful not just for the subscriber database and the ability to send updates to my readers automatically but it alerts me to their birthday, which is a great way for you to contact someone, wish them a genuine happy birthday and touch base.

So there is my round up of organizational weapons I use every day to help me beat the enormous monster of a project I am currently battling.

What do you use?

Jack at the Park

2011-07-14T09:00:00.001-07:00

Staring my amazing puppy dog Jack. Created with a Winnipeg developed mobile video editing app called Video Edit. A really handy application for on-the-go video editing and posting.

Smash-Art is attending Ad:Tech London!

2011-07-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Great news! I applied a few months ago to the Manitoba government's Skill Development for Young Entrepreneurs grant program to attend a world class online advertising seminar taking place in London, England.

Well tonight I found out that I'm approved for funding! Hazzah! UK here I come!

I will be attending Ad:Tech London THE event for online marketing. I will be taking in two full days of seminars and speakers from the top online brands in the world including Google, Forbes Media, Amazon and Ebay just to name a few. There is a combo of five main topic rooms including Reach & target, Research & insight, Creativity & innovation, Measure & analyze, Engage & convert.

I will be bringing all this great information back home with me! Stay tuned for updates!

Dexter learns to Eskimo kiss!

2011-07-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Our Father's Day

2011-06-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

What did you do?

Digital Road Trip!

2011-05-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

It's time I hit the open road. Sometimes I feel that there is nothing better for the soul then to jump in the car and head for the horizon. So I'm headed with my cousins to the big ol U S of A! Maybe not that exciting for those readers that already live there but for a girl that lives in -30 degree weather and hibernates most of the year getting out of the house is a thrill.

It's great to know how big the world really is and thus how small you really are.

I am going to be a Digital Tourist! We are going to so many interesting and exciting places along the way and I hope to share some of the knowledge and experiences with world.

In today's world because of the type of lives we live I feel there is too much physical separation. Digital media is a fantastic way to promote community among friends and family. People are doing it more and more around the world.

So I am going to meet as many interesting people as I can. See as many amazing things that I can. Capture as many endearing moments as I can and share it all with you!

Excited? I am.

Well, I clammed up!

2011-05-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

This happens often in the blog-o-sphere, as shared by Trish Rempel in her latest blog post on Attempting Balance (I love your artwork there), it is almost too easy to fall out of the habit of posting and literally 'falling off' the digital world for a while.

It's silly, I have been capturing great moments and experiences with my IPhone completely meaning to share them with the world and then I don't.

Now that I actually joined the Wpg Girl Geek blog challenge and had readers... I didn't know what to say.

The 'what ifs' set in. What if no one reads this? What if someone thinks I'm stupid? I make a spelling mistake? Get's offended by my opinions? Doesn't like my sentence structure? Thinks I'm just a silly girl?

Well. I am a silly girl.

A silly geeky girl living in Canada that wants to make the world a better place. Honestly, that's what I strive to do every day. I want to make the world a better place with family, work and friends, promoting truth, happiness and acceptance. A good friend once told me to Lead by Example. So I am going to share with you the random happenings of my life and hopes it helps you in your life somehow.

Girl Geek Dinner's Blog Challenge

2011-02-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

It has been talked about for a few months, idea's floating around between emails and Twitter and now it's finally here! The Winnipeg Girl Geek Blog Challenge!

For those who don't know a blog challenge is just a community of like minded people that encourage, comment and give feedback to fellow bloggers. Since this is focused on local girl geeks I am very excited to get to know all of the other techy ladies that are out there.

This week's challenge: Reasons for Blogging.

I have several reasons for blogging. I find it a great way to record my thoughts and feelings on any given day and revisit them. Whether it is a personal post, business related of a review of an event or equipment it is a great way to keep track of and REMEMBER what was happening in my life at that time.

Another reason I blog is with my small business Smash-Art-Graphic Design, Web and Print it is one of my missions to remain 'transparent' to my clients. Meaning that I am open and honest about my business and my life, there is nothing hidden up these sleeves!

The most important reason I am blogging right now is to create a community with other like minded people to share experiences, resources and support. I know from working on my own in a home office it can become a very lonely profession. Also I do not know any other female PHP wizards, do you?

So cheers to the Winnipeg Girl Geek Blog Challenge! Let's get this party started!

NMM SEO Training Review

2010-11-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend New Media Manitoba's 'Master Search Engine Optimization' seminar today with speaker Drew Bischof.

To start off I just wanted to say how AWESOME New Media Manitoba is (in general and...) for bringing such a capable and captivating speaker to us lowly Winnipeg tech gurus, Drew Bischof. New Media Manitoba constantly out does itself in supplying our Provence with a solid place to learn, network and grow as a community on the cutting edge of new media and technology. Drew and his Mentor Perry Marcial are the ones doing the cutting in the SEO world these days.

Drew is from Texas and braved the streets of our fine (and freezing city) to teach a room full of developers more about SEO. Now everyone I'm sure has an idea of what SEO really is and there are different theories and best practices scattered all over the net

The group that was there of had a wide age range, knowledge base and reasons for using SEO. Drew managed to prepare for this variety of knowledge hungry gurus and run a successful full day teaching session where I am sure everyone took something useful away. I know I have a new bag full of tricks from him. His way of enageing the audience and casual speaking really connected to the room, he didn't just read off his slides (thank goodness) or give any real 'text book' answers to what SEO /should/ be. Drew handed us tested facts.

Facts? On the internet? No way!

Way. Get to know the experts in what you are researching no matter what it is online, odds are very high that they have tried and tested the things you were vaguely thinking about doing. Saves you the time and trouble. But how to know who is the experts and what is misinformation?

His way of talking casually and sometimes going off in tangents was still interesting and entertaining enough to keep me fully engaged in what he was saying. Now this is an accomplishment in itself as my college instructors will attest to that keeping the attention of a generation y mind for any length of time is difficult if not impossible.

The main things he insisted needed to be done to better organic SEO are things that I have already heard from from this source or that. He just confirmed it to me that these techniques have been tested and are the way SEO and Google (the SEO god) are evolving. Your site has to be part of this wonderful web connections and need to evolve with it too to survive.

An example is anchor text. Anchor text was first brought to my attention in Web Development 1.0 at RRC. NEVER use the work 'click here' for a link. ALWAYS use a word or words that describe the link as the link. Make sense? No? I can explain it more to you if you contact me.

Example: Instead of writing 'To read about Smashley's awesome blog post click here.' It would be 'Please Read Smashley's Awesome Blog Post.'

It's something I do naturally now but not all people do and it drastically effects SEO.

However, on the flip side I have also come across other "best practices" that according to Drew (who understands the Google search algorithms) are totally baloney.

Thank you for making the what could be considered a very dry topic a great and educational presentation and for not lulling me to sleep and drool drips into my laptop keyboard, really saved me embarrassment in front of colleagues.

An added plus of the day was meeting face to face a twitter contact I had made a few months ago Lori Dyck of Wildfire. Another GIRL GEEK! I feel I instantly connect on several levels with geeky girls and had a great chat with Lori about new experiences and owning your own business and of course girly stuff (yes... like babies and puppies).

Another great contact David Wowchuk from Artisan Media.ca. A friendly hello that turned into a very educational (for me) discussion on truth, transparency and just 'being real' with clients and advertising. He has been in the design biz for over 14 years and the transparent and truthful talk has benefited him greatly. Great to know that this 'no smoke and mirrors' business practice really works. He recommended a book called All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin.

Also at these workshops I find I get the most inspired and energized from not just from the speakers but from the other participants. Today I had some great ideas to implement on some of my projects and decided to follow through on a few ideas that I was humming and hawing about. Like the decision to finally vlog and use video as a way to really connect with people online.

In the end I just want to connect relevant information to you, the user.

Food was great and healthy, the 'plastic' cups where made from corn actually and biodegradable made by a company called Eco Products, who has a FANTASTIC website. Something I had read about but never seen till now, way to go NMM. Also I always enjoy Kevin Hatnik whom I've dubbed the Dumbledore of the new media tech wizards and his ability to articulately satire everyday life for a few shared laughs.

WEC Tech Café

2010-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Women's Enterprise Center Tech Café notes and thoughts.

First of all before I started blogging this I had to find out/remember how to type a é on a Mac. And that got me thinking... This is a process I do perhaps a hundred times a day. I have a question, open Google.com, write key words or sometimes the literal question into the little box, hit enter and BAM! Answers.

I think as a generation Y person and having grown up on the internet or being 'plugged in' this is the most natural and easiest thing to do immediately.

Yet not all people think this way...

Why when we have this amazing, self sustaining and expanding wealth of knowledge and human experience people not take more take advantage of it? It doesn't come naturally to those people who grew up without it.

Women's Enterprise Center's first Tech Café at the Delta Inn, Winnipeg was this morning and it was a FANTASTIC event; mainly because of the key note speaker Nelly Yusupova.

Her talk was interactive, informative, energetic and inspiring. Using 'the accelerated learning technique' Nelly helped a room full of local business owners like myself, identify goals and issues in their own company by having them list and discuss it directly to another person. Having a list of goals/issues in pen and paper in front of you makes it so much more easier to become active in fining solutions to help reach those specific goals and solve those issues. Great way to really connect and make it personal talk by tying it into my own business needs. **NTS** I will have to remember this when I do workshops in the future.

Then came the part where the group needed to learn about technology. I felt the whole room tense. I'm sure everyone's brain just started going 'okay... I need this... everyone's on this twitter thing... I somewhat understand it... but not really.... I don't know enough about the internet as a whole to make a technology plan.' OK STOP! Deep breath!

New media and technology helping excel business is not a new concept. It's the whole reason for the industrial revolution when you really think about it. We are now in, and have been in for a few years a technological revolution.

Now more then ever technology is cost effective, easy to use, and accessible. Because it is so simple for people(and lazy me) to hop online and ask google a question, I'm going to do it! Time and time again. Bottom line, if you have a business, service, association, community of any kind you need to be on the internet providing those answers.

So you need a technology plan.

Now because my business Smash-Art.com is a new media company I have a technology plan. It was easy for me to follow along and absorb all the information Nelly had on how to prepare and take the next steps. I don't think it was as easy for everyone there. Which is great! Because I want to help business owners with that.

The rest of the day had a great concept, you could sign up for one on one sit down time with some larger tech companies in the city. They also had a short period of time to present to the crowd between these meetings. I stepped out after only a few presentations with reading material but it felt to me that their talks were very high level about their tech company in general. Informative yet dry IMHO.

The food was good, the company was pleasant and for myself having the opportunity to speak directly with Nelly for a few minutes just made the day SMASHING. I got to pick her brain and talk about Winnipeg Girl Geeks. Please check out her website: DigitalWoman.com and bio because she's an amazing tech guru and someone I definitely want to aspire to be like in this industry.

Wordpress Walkthrough

2010-10-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

I recently taught a Wordpress walkthrough for Girl Geek Dinners Winnipeg at RRC. It was fantastic and my students where totally awesome! You know who you are!!

Since I am such a nice person I am sharing my tutorial with you. This tutorial is for basic setup configuration and design for the free Wordpress.com platform as well as the 'host it yourself' version of Wordpress.org.

Here are my intro notes about me:

And the Tutorial, as this was a demo the notes are very simple.

Smashley is Teaching Wordpress

2010-10-04T11:40:00.001-07:00

Hello my fellow Girl Geeks (or relation to GG)!

On October 12th I will be running a 3 hour workshop on Wordpress. Those in attendance will learn how to set up their Free Wordpress Blog, edit and customize the look! People of all internet learning levels welcome!

Check out the link on Girl Geek Dinners Winnipeg.

Hope to see you all there!

Tata for now my lovelies!

Smashley

Engaged!

2010-08-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Did you hear? I am getting Married! You might have heard because I have shouted it from basically every platform I know of except my roof.

My man is very romantic. When he finished building our new shed in the backyard he called me out there in the morning to 'check it out'. I thought it was a little odd, since I was working and he very rarely bothers me while I am working (good man) and I had seen the progress of the shed being built. I went anyway and he LOCKED ME IN THE SHED! It wasn't for very long but long enough to say 'enough joking around let me out' in my very stern 'not playing' voice. When he did open it up he was holding a small black box and told me (what I remember of the speech) how much he loves me, how much he wants to spend the rest of his life with me and how he wanted everything to be just perfect for the proposal. However since nothing can ever be completely perfect he decided today was the day. Finally! We have lived together for 2 years and have been inseparable for 3.

I can't wait to start the wedding planning. Destination wedding here I come. Please let me know if you know a good vacation wedding planner!

Defying Gravity

2010-08-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Again another musical rendition of my state of mind:

Rock version of course.
"Time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap..."

A lot of great projects popping up this week as well as keeping up with the old ones. Busy busy, I love it.

I went to my first Secret Handshake - The Winnipeg Creative Society Meetup this week and it was a lot of fun and very interesting. I am still getting over my own shyness when it comes to networking events but booze and practice helps. Let me know if you have any tips!

I had my photograph taken by Stephen Gray and the At First Sight Crew in their 'photobooth' at the meetup. Great idea but the lights really heated up the place, I felt bad for the few who sported the suits. I have been following the work of At First Sight photography and videography work for over the past year and I am just blown away by their overall creative visions and quality of work. They also have amazing equipment that makes me a little jealous. I am a video gear junkie honestly. So check out their amazing work.

I also want to congratulate Nichole Glaw for Art Land Inc's new web design! Looks great and I can't wait to start teaching in a few weeks.

New Media Manitoba, a group I am involved with in the city just launched a new page with a directory. A fantastic way to keep in touch with colleges and the new media industry itself. As I already told Kevin Hnatiuk, the Executive Director, in a personal email:

"You are like the Dumbledore of all us new media magic makers! So keep up the amazing work! The community you are helping build in invaluable."

In honor of that thought I just made this cool yet slightly creepy creation.

Smash-Art is now listed as a business in the New Media Manitoba Directory. If you have a new media business please join up, it really is a fantastic community.

So as I wrap up this work week and look to what is on my plate for next week, a 8 page fashion catalog design and print, a new brand and logo concept, two joomla website designs, a zen cart design and a drupal website design. I can handle this no problem. BRING IT.

Art Land Inc.

2010-08-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to announce that I will be teaching with Art Land Inc. starting in September. Art Land is a new child creative arts studio opening in Winnipeg Manitoba. They offer a variety of different children's art classes through out the week. Each class is designed for each age group and skill level from 3 years to 17 years old.

Smash-Art will be teaching classes Tuesdays to Thursdays, sign up here to take a class with me.

I've started to become friends with the owner and creator of Art Land Inc. Nichole Glaw. I really have to give her credit on many levels, she has had the dream of Art Land since she was a pre teen and now it's finally coming to fruition. The amount of constant hard work and good hearted energy she is putting into the new studio is so highly commendable.

Nichole is also an emerging Girl Geek! She started by developing her own registration form with PHP and moved on to learn and develop Wordpress code for the new Art Land Inc website. Having little to no knowledge of web code before hand it is fantastic to see how fast she was able to lean and how professional the site looks. Great Job Nichole! I look forward to working with you more and more.

Women's Enterprise Centre

2010-08-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

I have been working closely with the Women's Enterprise Center since around April of this year. I did take their business plan courses in 2008 when I first started Smash-Art but didn't develop a solid business plan that could expand the way I needed it to.

The WEC set me up with my new business adviser Maurice McCarthy. Maurice was able to pull apart my flimsy business plan, educate me in what areas needed improvement and told me how to find the answers I was looking for. I couldn't have asked for a better friend and mentor. Thank you so much Maurice and the WEC!

The Women's Enterprise Centre also was awesome in helping out Winnipeg Girl Geek's Dinners. Angela Hilland a Business Advisor at the WEC came out to the August meeting and delivered an intimate presentation to a small group of young women providing information on the Centre and giving us a low down on entrepreneurial resources available to women. Thank you Angela for a fantastic evening.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

2010-08-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the past month! Before I get into the wordy update here's a musical rendition of how I feel right now!

The Womens Enterprise Centre has helped me finalize the plan for expanding Smash-Art and has approved my micro expansion loan. I have been busy busy on the new website and selecting my new hardware equipment.

Smash-Art.com is finally updated and redesigned with the help of Sherillyn Gould of Starbrite Studios. Please visit Smash-Art and critique the heck out of it for my sake! I would love to hear everyone's honest opinion.

I could not have come this far without the amazing help I get from all my family, friends and business associates. I have been making contacts everywhere and am surrounding myself with positive people with amazing energy. I'd like to thank and highlight a few individuals. In no particular order:

Anna and Antonio Almonte of River City Stone.

Antonio has real world business experience and tells it how it is, it was his excitement, guidance and expert business knowledge that helped me really mold my business idea to what it is now.
Anna is always available with an open ear a big hug and addictive laughter. Her encouragement has been invaluable.

River City Stone has been an amazing Smash-Art Client. I have designed, re-vamped, printed and painted several creative and challenging projects with their company. The overall attitude and high approval of my work really gave me confidence to push forward in the industry.

For those of you that don't know I painted a 'Wall Talk' mural for their amazing new showroom in the fall of 2009.

Smash-art has also done their business card designs and prints and is currently working on their River City Stone Experience booklet.

A Great Lesson about Technology

2010-07-14T21:12:00.001-07:00

Technology lesson from Strong Bad.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail143.html

New Business Cards

2010-06-29T17:53:00.001-07:00

New business card design, what do you think?

The Waiting...

2010-06-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well the edits are done, the excel spreadsheets are made, now the waiting begins.

My business adviser says I have nothing to worry about but I will know officially in a about a week.

A week?! That's /forever/ in internet time!

Well back to business, nose to the grindstone ass in the air. Websites need to be built! Designs need to be saved!

Ba ba da da!!

Super Smashley to the rescue!

Tick Tock

2010-06-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

The final hours are counting down and all the finishing touches and grammar correction must be completed.

Don't Rain on My Parade

2010-06-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

So much information. Need to process, restate and evaluate my way though it!

Thank you to mentors Antonio Almonte from River City Stone, Liz Hoover of Diary of a Webgal and of course my Mother.

2010-06-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

What a whirl wind of a couple of days and I love it.

Met with a close colleague of mine Shaun from SR Solutions. Shaun is one of the most intelligent and versatile individuals I know. Not only is he smart with computer hardware, software and coding he can also educate you on how to properly pollinate your plants. I will be offering and helping promote his services. His services are;

-Consulting on any computer issue
-Virus detection and removal
-Computer Sales and Repair
-Web hosting
-Remote information backup system
-Digital Video Security Cameras
-Entertainment system installs
-Networking

One little Gem I learned about with Shaun today was the Spinright hard disk recovery program. Do you know what that is? I didn't!

A hard disk recovery program is something that will recover data from pretty much any hard drive. But more then that, if you use it before your hard drive fails it will routinely crawl through your data storage, 'exercises' each region with data patterns and will WARN YOU if you have any hardware weakness issues.

These developers have been around since back in the day of 10gig hard drives and are hardcore! I tip my hat to you.

And oh look, they have blogs!

I enjoy the comment of "Dragged Kicking & Screaming into the 21st Century." I'm afraid a lot of people will be not dragged but let's say 'gently guided' into the 21st Century.

Every business needs to have a website domain, continually updated website content, twitter accounts, blogs, e-newsletters, online shopping and be part of social media sites that are appropriate to their own niche market. All of these things will engage their clients on a personal level and it's free marketing!

Well I realize my own business website needs to have all of these things, and a spiff up the design a bit. I have a bit of a problem 'selling myself' and it's something I need to get over. I am smart, professional and there is a need for my services in the business community.

A company I follow closely and admire is At First Sight cinematography. They are all seriously talented and create stunning work. They have a blog that is updated regularly.

While I was browsing there I clicked on some engagement photos and noticed Jessica Penner, a fellow designer. Her blog is great and each day of the week she has a new topic. Great idea!

Starting Out

2010-06-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

I am currently 7 days away from submitting a business plan for an expansion loan from the Women's Enterprise Center. Not only is it a loan but I am going through the process of properly refining my services, work practices, clients, media, marketing. Really trying to get my shit together.

The more I learn the more I realize how much there is to learn.

I want to use this blog as a diary of everything I come across in a day and hopefully educate others about new media and the web and how it can benefit them as it benefits me.

I have had a lot of small-medium business owners come to me in the past month(or so) having some problems:
-Not educated about technology, new media and the internet.
-Looking for a professional to help them understand and use it to their benefit.
-Not looking for a company, most have been 'burned' in the past by a designer, developer or a larger media company because of cost.
-Are in a website contract with another individual but are unhappy with the results, lack of updates and services.

I have been to a lot of events recently about social media and technology and I am flooded with information. I need to collect the information, process and use it.

Advice from other talented Web Gals so far- I'll mention them individually later.

Keep It Short Stupid.
Be Transparent.
Be Human.
Be Honest.

So here it goes.