Iris Kao Design

After many months of watching and waiting, I had secured a .com domain name for my client at last. But it wasn’t easy to keep the scammers away from my client’s credit card.

My client had purchased all the other related extensions (.biz, .net, etc.) because the .com for this domain name wasn’t available. A few days before the .com went back to the public pool, my client got an email that they are SELLING the .com name. Mind you, at that time, NO ONE had the authority to the domain name.

They wanted $100 for 1 year of ownership. We got it for $10 and there was no question who really owned it since I registered it myself. The funniest thing is even after we got the domain name, the same type of emails were still coming to my client.

So to all the enthusiastic new business owners out there, never trust emails or snail mails that found you, always research before you act.

To check to see if the domain name of your desire is available to buy, use the WhoIs service from InterNIC (a public site):

http://www.internic.net/whois.html

If it’s ready for you to register, you’ll see “Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.”

Being aware of this scam will not only protect yourself, you can take away the incentive for the scammers to keep scamming.

Holistic Financial Counseling is my most complete project up to date. My client, Marielle Higler, and I started with business card, letterhead, and envelope.

For the business cards, we came up with a set of 9 cards, each with different color and different quote in the back. Whenever she hands out her cards, the response from people choosing their favorite and exchanging their quotes is a expected joyful scene we both expected.

Then we took a small detour to get her book ready. Finally, we finished the project by setting up a wordpress web site, a twitter account, and a facebook page.

Marielle, the Money Whisperer, believes in empowering people to live a holistic life by tackling their money issues. Money is not really just money, how you spend money represent how you are as a person. It effects your spirit, your relationship with others, even your health.

She is easy to work with because she listens and she states her points clearly. I am sure the same skills will translate ever better between her and her clients even more effectively.

I am proud to introduce this book to you. Not only because this was my first book cover design, it is a book that intent to inspire actions in people.

Marielle Higler, the author, my client, set out to find herself after her children left home. Like many women in her generations, she was single and ready for retirement. Then she encountered blocks in all areas of life, finance, aging, self-worth and many more. This book was her journey in searching for answers. She shared her own issues and ways to get to the next level.

I have always cherish the experiences of the people who came before me. I truly believe many retired people don’t give themselves enough credit. Maybe they don’t work for a company or taking care of the kids anymore, their skills and knowledge translate to other area just the same. Only many don’t seem to realize the treasures hidden inside themselves.

If you are someone you know is wandering aimlessly through the golden years, please read this book or take a step toward being all that you can be. I ask you to Show Up for your life, the world is waiting for you!

I finally got lazy and got the “Twitter Tools” wordpress plugin.

Everything went well until I activated the Bit.ly tool. Links (long or short) will show up on in the post tweets. As it turned out, I just needed to remove a trailing space after the Bit.ly API key.

Actually, I should say how to create a customized page using a template page php file.

I had created a WP site with both pages and posts. But instead of installing WP at the root and at the blog subdirectory, I just installed it at the root and listed the latest blog posts titles in the sidebars.

But I still needed a way for people to get the a place where they can enter the “blog,” so I created a customized archives.php and list post by category links and monthly links.

From the WordPress Forum, I knew I needed to create a new page with a sensible title and blank content, then select a template. But for the life of me, the archives.php just wouldn’t show up in the template pulldown.

Then I figured out, all I had to do is add these lines to the beginning of the archives.php. (don’t forget to put the php tags on the outside!)

/*
Template Name: Archives
*/


Now go back to your page list, use the Quick Edit for your new page, and you will find Archives in the template pull down. Amazingly simple yet extremely illusive at first.

* At this time, I am working with the WP version 2.8.4. *

In my previous post about the equal height 3-column layout, I found no problem using it in that project.

This time, I noticed that in the WordPress comment lists, the time stamp is made into an “a” tag bookmark and it broke the layout by showing the space that was suppose to be hidden.

At first I only saw the content following the bookmark. After viewing the source, I figured out that it was only showing the bottom of the page which is usually hidden. This area is the trick to the equal column method: large negative margin bottom and large positive padding bottom.

Luckily, the site I am working on right now will work with a fake 3-column background.

In my last entry, I mentioned that Simply RSS was not working out for me becasue:

• It doesn’t update automatically
• It places the feed into a Box, not to the wall, nor in a Tab

Then I found Social RSS which allows you to import to your profile or your page. Since you can easily import feed straight into your Facebook profile, I will stay with importing for the Facebook page only.

1. Go to Social RSS
2. On the left side, click on Add to my page
3. Choose the page you wand to add the feed to
4. Go back to your page, you should find the imported entries under the Box tab
5. (optional) I rollovered the pencil icon and move it to a wall tab
6. If you don’t see the new tab “RSS/Blog” then click on the “+” tab to add it
7. Click on the tab then on the “edit setting” link to set it up

It now updates my RSS/Blog tab and It adds the latest entry to my page wall.

Hopefully it will be a while before I have to reimport my RSS Feed!

When I post the “Import RSS Feed to a Facebook Page,” I was new to the Simply RSS app. After I added a new entry, I noticed the imported feed didn’t automatically update. So, now I update it manually. Here is how:

1. Go to your facebook page
2. Click on “Pages” link above the chart
3. Find Simply RSS under Application
4. Rollover the Pencil icon, select edit
5. Click on the Edit icon

It’s kind of painful, so I am going to switch over to Social RSS and see how it works. Stay tuned!