SO! There’s been quite a bit going on this side of the Hudson lately! I feel like I owe an explanation for the lack of activity. Maybe not, but here’s my life within the past few months anyways:

• Ahmadinjad came to Columbia University amidst great controversy. I had a few hearty political debates with around three cameras in my face at all times (as did every other student that day). Check out some interesting photos from the event.
• I got through my first semester of college! Woohoo! And no. Unless we’re Facebook friends, there are no “interesting photos” so see from that.
• I have reaffirmed my belief that New York City is the best city in the entire world and that every undergraduate who isn’t attending college here is seriously missing out.
• I interned for two months at College Humor as a web developer — owned by Connected Ventures. I subsequently learned that working for free is not cool.
• I became online editor at The Columbia Daily Spectator. Since the beginning of the semester I have launched an entirely new blog network — entitled SpecBlogs — completed many upgrades for the publishing company’s websites, and have many big plans in place! (Including some super awesome web applications never before seen by any other College Daily… no Harvard… not even your “Crimson” will be putting out stuff as cool as us.
• I hatched up a brand new business plan… which involves fashion and websites; these are very obviously two things I truly enjoy. More on this possibly soon…
• I bought a black fedora and I wear it everywhere.
• … because I have finally started to take on new projects at Blog What? Design and will hopefully be blogging quite a bit more after the semester settles in.

And life couldn’t be happier :) Anyways, that’s it for now!
<3 Lara

I found this nifty system today online – “Carbonite Online Backup.” It attracted my attention because it offers a complete online backup system that runs automatically.

I figure, since I’ll be toting my laptop away to college next year with some extremely important files on it, it will definitely be a good idea to back things up often. Right now, I’m using the 15 day trial and we’ll see how things work from there.

As any of you all may or may not know I currently run a web publishing company over at Blog What Design. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but like any employee, it is important to separate “fun time” and “work time.”

I love the internet, browsing blogs, and finding new things. I love reading, making online scrapbooks, and (of course like any highschool/college student’s vice) Facebook. However, my kind of work requires this kind of computer and the internet activity as well.

This means, (unlike many students my age), I have to set aside some computer time for a “no IMing, no celebrity blog reading, no message-boarding” session. Since our launch in November, I’ve learned to do this quite well. I come home from school at around 3:00 and work starts at 4:00. From four until dinner time, it’s work time! After dinner, I’ll relax, check my personal e-mail, and do things you’d find any other senior high school student doing. (For example… no homework.) After I’ve taken care of all my personal “stuff” I will continue to tie up any work-projects for the day, maybe throw in a little bit of blogging, and take the time to do some organizational company work.

Weekends are generally off-limits for work. However, in my attempt to be a normal business owner, I’ve found that I really can’t do things this way. I’m at school for nearly six hours every day, so that chops off QUITE a bit of time. (College, here I come!) So, I often times find some weekends overwhelmingly work-filled, and some not.

However, in the end, it always all seems to healthily balance out. Excuse me now… it’s Sunday after-noon veg-out time!

I would like to make a little personal welcome to Danielle at “A Little Lucky” into the blogosphere! I just finished up her design at Blog What, and everything has seemed to turn out just right.

Danielle blogs on everything and anything a girl could wish for. She features unique items, fitness tips, and a whole bunch of other cute lucky finds. Go drop her a line!

Work requests have been non stop at Blog What Design! It’s great to see so much support!
Thanks!

You have until midnight New Year’s eve to win a FREE blog from E.Webscapes! (The company I create designs for!)

Here’s the deal – the offer is open to the person with the best New Year’s Resolution. Based on review by a panel of our designers judges – the person with the best resolution will receive a FREE blog design, based on our Short But Sweet package. This has a normal value of $150.00.

Check out more info here!

I finished up this week Duane’s excellent blog, The Black Informant. Here’s what is posted at E.Webscapes:

This week Duane’s blog, The Black Informant received a totally new design. He requested a newspaper style main page, split up into seven different topics. The viewer can read the first paragraph or so of the story, and then decide if they want to read the rest of the article. Duane also has his blog hooked up to two RSS feeds, one to the AP headlines, and one to the BBC African news.

Duane’s excellent blog has many fresh and interesting stories about many aspects of black culture and current events. His categories of articles include: Our Health, Commentary, Science & Technology, Success, Headlines, Remember, Our Expression and World news.

It was lovely working with Duane, and I hope he comes back to E.Webscapes in the future for more! :)

It was really great working with Duane, and his blog is excellent reading. Go check it out :)

I just finished Tara’s project from Pineapple’s Post, and I must say it was a pleasure working with her! I could hope that all of my customers will be as kind and enthusiastic as she was! I actually learned a lot from just coding her design, and tried out some new WordPress plugins I have never used before. In my next design for this blog, I’ll be sure to use a lot of the excellent plugins I learned about.

Here is the post, plublished on the design blog at E.Webscapes:

Tara (a.k.a. Pineapple) over at Pineapple’s Post has her new design for her blog up and running with full force! She wanted something fresh and tropical, so we emailed her a picture spread and she immediatly fell in love with the vector illustration that is the centerpiece of her design now.

It was lovely working with Tara, and I insist you go check out her personal blog and its new tropical makeover now!

http://pineapplespost.com