Well, I spent a total of about 10 leisurely hours upgrading to WP 2.1 and messing with a new template. Other than 2 or 3 hours of trying to figure out how to get my blogroll to display properly (I can’t for the life of me get the 1. Bookmarks out of it - I have played with every parameter of the new tag except for the right one, obviously), 2.1 went off without a hitch. I am not keen on the new blogroll tags and the fact that you don’t have much control over the blogroll within admin like you used to (unless I am not seeing it!)l but it’s probably just having to teach an old dog a new trick that is making me resistant.

This theme is kinda business-y for a fun lovin’ gal like me, but I like it, the coding is very nicely done (thanks Brian!), it doesn’t look too cluttered (love keeping some of that cluttery stuff in the footer) and everything works as expected, which never happens for me. I even managed to tweak the b5media blogroll so it looks normal sized instead of giant. And it works. And, most importantly I didn’t have to ask for help. w00t!

I keep thinking I want to get a custom theme, but if I can’t even figure out the basics of what I want, how on earth will I ever be happy with one someone else does? I searched through about 15 Googlepages of designers last night and just didn’t see any one of them that did much for me. I don’t want it to be too boring, or too techy or too girly or too - I don’t know what the word it - swirly maybe. If I see another theme that looks like it has cutouts, I will scream. I love Chris Pearson’s Cutline, but I just keep seeing it over and over and over again - its a great template though - maybe next time I get in a switcheroo mood I will try some customizations and see what happens. I even tried to clear my mind of the bazillion templates I had been looking at and try to imagine what I wanted my blog to look like, and I couldn’t even do that. I think I would drive a designer insane at this point. I am driving myself crazy. I have looked at every 2 column, 3 column, widgetized template with pink, black and gray that exists. And all the non widgetized ones too.

Now to replace that CJ up there with something that is more me. I will surely think of something more suitable soon enough…

There is so much more to the story after my initial Dell bitch session, but the wind is still out of my sails. Suffice it to say that after blogging about my troubles here, and leaving a comment on the Dell blog (which is what I think did the trick), I finally made it to the escalation team who, on or about November 8th, ordered me a brand spanking new computer to replace our lemon laptop’s broken replacement that I had sitting here.

Well, it is December 16th, and yesterday, finally, our replacement computer arrived. It should have been here within 15 business days, but naturally, that didn’t happen. Icing on the cake: Three days before the computer arrived, I got a nasty note from Dell saying that I needed to return laptop number two immediately in the box that our new computer came in - that it has been too long since I had received the replacement, and they were getting ready to bill me for it. Normally, I would have been soooooooo pissed off and called them up and given them as much hell as I could muster, but I just don’t have any more fight in me for Dell. I couldn’t care less.

To make things just a little sweeter - we have to repurchase MS Office - as we have used our office disk too many times on that old piece of junk that didnt work. I don’t even want to tally up the costs that we have had in this deal, I am quite sure we could have had a new laptop with it all. Hubby said last night - “Well, I guess we weren’t going to get out of this without getting fucked in some way.” I guess he is right. At least the money is going to Microsoft instead of Dell. Dell has gotten their last dime from me, if I can help it.

On a shockingly surprising note, the new laptop appears to be working just fine, but since this saga started at the first of October, it has taken 2 1/2 months to get resolved, and we do have the service package that is supposed to get us through with almost no downtime - on site same day service - all of that. I think we spent nearly $400 on that. What would we have done if that was our only laptop? Well, I think we would have plunked the money down for another computer, and maybe we would have just forgotten about Dell - looking back, I wish we had done that - and we will be doing it the next time. I assure you we will not be going through this hellish process again.

To Dell: Trust me, I can’t WAIT to get this piece of junk broken Dell laptop out of my house. Now that I actually have the new laptop, the old one is sitting at my doorway packed up and ready for DHL to pick up on Monday. Go suck an egg. But thanks to the escalation team for finally putting an end to this hell.

From Christina Jones - beaten, bruised and bitter former Dell cheerleader

You want to check out some amazing Photoshop work? Do you love babies? (Do you love Gene Simmons?) Sure you do!

Click here.

After months and months (and months) of being with StumbleUpon, I was filling out my profile, and it asked my personality type, and offered this test - I took it, but not sure why. Looks like I am a middle of the road kind of chick - most of my scores were at or around 50% for each of the personality traits. I could have told them that. But some of their deductions, I thought, were odd considering my middle of the road status:

I guess some of this explains why I am a GTD kind of girl - although my general disorganization around me (HATE to clean house and have piles of papers that surround me in my office) makes me wonder how much I really could get done if I could manage that part of me.

I have NEVER thought of myself as competitive at all - in fact, I hate competitions! I guess I hate to lose, maybe that is why I hate them so much. LOL Aaron told me once that he thought I was very competitive, and that shocked me (still does, obviously). How could he know that about me when I don’t even know that about myself??

Shock effect? Yeah, I have that one down pat. I love it. Ask my mom. Ask my husband. Hell, my kids probably even know that about me. How boring would life be if you couldn’t shake things up a bit??

Prior to this month, I was a cheerleader for Dell. I really was. We have 6 Dell computers in our home (7, if you count the one that is scheduled for transport back to the hell from whence it came). I loved Dell because they ran well, and because they had incredible support. Sure, I struggled to understand the English of the support team (yes, “Brian,” “Bob,” “Susan,” every one of them), but that was ok, they ALWAYS resolved my problems. Until this time.

My husband works out of town during the weeks. I work with b5media. Both of us rely on our computers for our jobs. So, when Marshall began having problems with the screen on his Dell, I called Dell. One service call later - no resolution. Another long telephone exchange and another service call - no resolution. The technician knew what needed to be replaced, but Dell would not send it. My husband calls Dell - spends a couple of hours on the phone, raises hell, and then arrives a technician with a whole new top half of the computer. Well, the screen was repaired, but it just didn’t jive with the rest of the computer - we are permanently in Safe Mode after yes, another call to Dell. Mark us down for about 8 hours on the phone with Dell now.

Read the rest, after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Dell SUCKS. My trip into dell hell.’

We have a bevy of new bloggers in my channels at b5media - and I have to say, I love them all. Cyndi is a mixed media artist, and a girl after my own heart - Mom, check out her groovy hair - it will bring back memories. Hopefully good ones, but maybe not. Ha ha! Anyway, check out her blog at Layers Upon Layers, I am trying to help teach her about trackbacks, and send her one, so she can’t say she’s a virgin any longer!

…sad to say:

“I fixed your computer…”

I am testing some good spammers software, but I am only using it for good, so that my dear hubby can keep up with his blogzilla wifey. So, here is a test post to see if I can ping his site properly.

I am having an awful time with my feeds being stolen and used at shady Adsense sites, as is all of b5media I think, so am going to test out this feed plugin, Better Feed, here before I go begging the guys to do something.

On a cool note, Glam.com asked me to write a weekly beauty column for them, and of course I said yes. First column out on Friday and we are gonna be talking - take a wild guess - sunscreen. My favorite topic.

Also, something to hang on to for future reference is Suzanne Falter-Barns’ article on communicating with your fellow bloggers. That is something just about all of us at b5 can improve upon. Suzanne does just about what I do, when I do it, of course, but hers will be a useful article to have my hot little hands on. Good stuff, thanks a bunch, Suzanne!