A big giant “happy birthday” goes out to my pal Patricia today.  I’m not normally one for marking the tick of the clock in this blog, but it’s as good an excuse as any to direct you to her blog.  For someone who just started in the blogging game, she’s already made an impact.  She’s an incredibly talented designer and all-around nice person – now she’s the publisher of a wonderful blog where she’s working to create an “artful life.”  From the beginning, the blog was her own, reflecting her life, her loves and her personality to the max.  It’s embarrassing to think she once asked me for help – now I’m the one planning to come to her and ask how she does it all.

Happy birthday my dear!  I hope this year brings great joy to you and your wonderful family!

Recently, I gave a talk at a Wiley Lunch and Learn session where I demonstrated the technical aspects of setting up a blog.  The example I used was a local mom and friend who is an incredible artist. 

Well, the blogosphere will be happy to know that the amazing woman behind PVE Design has her blog up and running.  After reading the first few entries, I wondered what took Patricia so long.  Her spot on observations and careful thoughts are a natural for this format – it’s like she’s been a blogger all her life.  

Subtitled “a penchant for creating an artful life”, the blog treats readers to selections of her art with the backstory on how it came to be.  She also talks about some artists who inspire her.  Even someone who dresses mono-chromatically for fear of clashing colors and who has a daughter who thinks the pink camouflage shirt matches the green camo pants because they’re both camo can be inspired by her writings and art.  Read the PVE Design blog and aspire to greatness! 

 edited to include the hotlink!  see what happens when you write these late at night to post the next day!

A good friend of mine recently started a web site promoting her design services.  In case you check out her site, yes, these works of art are even more wonderful in person.  She’s a fellow soccer mom, which gives you the wrong impressions, because she shows up at the practices and games looking amazing, plus she’s super nice. Anyhow, she’s been blogged about, and has been convinced about the value of blogging, and now wants to start her own.  She’s going in the right direction, as she already has an idea of what she wants her blog mission to be:

“(I want it to) be a source of inspiration for other artists and designers.  I have several interviews already to do profiles on other artists and I also have some other design items to speak to, ie, my favorite pen…”

I need a favor from her, so I thought setting up her blog would be an excellent in-kind act. She wants to know how to blog, and I can show her that. Anyone who knows me knows that I have no sense of color or design, so her skills would be of immense benefit to me.  I have no problem with how to go about setting up a blog for her, but I’m not sure what the right platform is.  I’m a huge fan of WordPress, but I don’t know that it is that intuitive for the beginning user.  Blogger is supposed to be, and I already set up a friend on that site, but I don’t see it as very scalable -that is, it’s easy to get up and running on it, but once you want to do more advanced stuff, it’s not easy to figure out how to do it.  I tried starting a blog on TypePad, but I wasn’t that impressed. I also see that Joe Wikert has a tag on his blog labeled “TypePad sucks”, validating my initial impressions. Need I look any further than WordPress or Blogger? Are there other platforms I should consider?  Comment away, and defend your platform of choice.