On the Web

There are a ton of free wedding website out there, and probably just as many website that charge of fee. Except when I came to making our website, I went with something a little less traditional, but something I was more familiar and basically turned a blogger blog into a wedding website. I included our website on our Save The Dates and had it up by the time they were mailed out. Except if any one actually went to our website, this is what they saw.
Basically a picture of us (the same on from the STDs even), and the words coming soon. You could barely even read the title, because I just had blogger add it on top of the photo and at places it was too dark for the background but too light at others. At least that's what they saw until a week ago, when I finally updated our website.
I edited the header imagine so you could actually read the title. (Which is a little funny to write because it's so small here you can barely read it. But if you click on the image to see it closer to the actual size it is readable.) I also added links for things like our hotel room block, our registry, and directions. Although most of those don't actually go somewhere yet, they soon will. And there are some that are functional, like the history of our venue.
I actually pulled the text directly from our venue's website, but the photos I used are ones I've taken.

The website is still a work in progress, but it's progress quite a bit in the past few days. Plus I'm a lot happier with it now, than I used to be.

If you have a wedding website, what service did you use? And any suggestions for other information I should add to our website?

But it's Not Actually an E-Reader

When the boy asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told him a printer. No, it's not the most exciting present, but the only one we have is from back when I was in college. I don't think we've tried to use it in 2 or 3 years, and the last time we did, it would randomly skip lines. But I wanted a printer for our wedding invitations, and I knew I needed something reliable.

Once the boy knew I wanted a printer, he needed to know what kind, to which I responded, "a good kind." Still not precise enough, I said either an Epson or an HP. Except that still wasn't specific enough, so I told him he'd have to give me more time to research a specific model for him to buy. But he was already in the store, so he did the most logical thing, and bought the most expensive printer.
This is our new printer. It's a wireless scanner, copier, fax, and printer. And you see the control panel off to the side. That's actually a wireless remote control, which also happens to be an e-reader. Yes, my printer includes an e-reader. So without ever really wanting one, I am now the owner of an e-reader.

But minus all the special features, all I really wanted was something to print, except when I tried to do that, I couldn't. Yes, I was able to print all the tests (that's what you see in the printer above), but when it came time to print off address labels for the Save-the-Dates, it decided not to print.

First I realized my firewall kept blocking my printer, so I turner it off. Then my printer kept deciding to disconnect from the wireless network. After 3 hours I still hadn't been able to print my labels. Although I did manage print 1 test sheet to make sure the text would line up. And I did take a break for lunch, which really consisted of me hitting print and eating hoping things would magically print by the time I finished eating.

So again, 3 whole hours after I tried to get my labels to print I still had nothing. My printer didn't have an ip address, and I couldn't get it to sync with the remote (aka my new e-reader), when out of nowhere it just started printed labels, perfectly even. Right after I went to print my return address labels (this time without even a test to make sure they lined up) and on the first try the printed, perfectly aligned again!

I'd like to say that's the end of my printer troubles, but I have a feeling they'll be back. I'm sure when I print invitations in a few months I'll have the same issues. But unfortunately, I'll have to tackle it again even sooner than that since I'm still waiting on a few straggling addresses.

Do you have any printer issues to share? And are you pro or anti e-readers?

Digital Digital Get Down

First it pain me using an NSYNC song as a title her, since I'm a Backstreet girl all the way. But it fit with what I was thinking and now that I've thought of it I can't get it out of my head. But now that you realize where my allegiance lies...

With out STD's officially order it was time for me to start tracking down addresses. (What? You don't remember me posting our final STD? That's because it hasn't happened yet. :D) Anyways you could always do the easy way and call people up, or facebook them, or e-mail them. That would get you exactly what you needed. Except you would them have to retype them up again to get them all into a spreadsheet so they'd be easy to use.

Or you could use the other way, and force your guests to do the work. :D Enter google docs... Basically I referenced this post by Ms. Fondue and this post by Mrs. Pashmina. Although honestly it's so easy you could basically do it without instruction. All you're really doing is going to "Forms" to create something resembling this.
I realize that image is ridiculously small, but if you click on it, it will get large enough so you can actually read it. I then went and applied a theme so that way it looked pretty when I e-mailed it outAlthough I later realized that even though I made it look pretty people only see if they veiw it out of gmail. It comes to you as a standard looking form within your e-mail, but if you click on the link provided it opens it in a new window where you can see the background.

From there when people enter their information and hit submit, google collects it all in a spreadsheet. I was originally planning on screenshot of the empty spreadsheet as well, but only 2 hours after hitting send I've already had 7 different people respond. Hopefully this pace holds up!

The one catch with this process is that you at least need an e-mail address. I was able to get quite a bit from facebook stalking, but it looks like for the rest might require a phone call or two.

How did you go about collecting mailing address for your invitations? And which side of the Backstreet/NSYNC battle are you on?

Playing Four Square

No I'm not talking about the playground game (but I was a big fan in fifth grade), but the social media service. In case you hasn't seen foursquare its a social media devise where you can check in at places to tell your friends where you are and what your doing.

In theory I like the idea behind it. I think it's great for somewhere like NYC, where so many places are so close together. I like the idea that you could be somewhere and find out your friend is right next door so you're able to meet up. We've all had those chance encounters where we've run into a friend randomly, and by using foursquare you have the ability to meet up with your friends for a minute or two when your already close by. I mean let's imagine your on a you're trying to meet up with friends on a bar crawl. Instead of having to meet them at the very start you could know exactly where they are midway through the night and meet them even if they change their mind on where they want to go.

While I do see the pros of it, I think I in some ways the cons outweigh it. I just think overall it feels sketchy. And it almost send an open invitation for people to stalk you. I do get that you can make your actions private. But if they're completely private you can't really "network" using it. I also think I'm already on-line so many others places already (the blog, facebook, twitter, flickr, and I still have my myspace although its rarely used. Come to think of it I had a friendster account back in the day to), but do I really need somewhere else where people can find me?

So tell me, do you foursquare? Is so why do your do it? Or on the other hand why are you not on foursquare? And should I stop worrying about the sketchiness of it all and just join foursquare?

~Shoshanah

Down on the Farm

Yes, I play Farmville. I know a lot of people have moved on and are over it, and I know how annoying it is when Farmville posts take up your whole newsfeed. But I can't stop.

Now that we've established that I'm a bit obsessed, this past week was Farmville's first anniversary. One of the ways they celebrated was by having a limited time crop of cupcakes. (Here's my farm all ready to harvest the desserts!)
Now I know you can't grow cupcakes in real life. But imagine if you could! I would definitely have a crop of cupcakes growing in my backyard! I wonder if you'd be able to specialize and grow different types of cupcakes. Oh the possibilities!

What food do you wish you could grow in your backyard? (Real or imaginary) And please tell me I'm not the only one still playing Farmville?

~Shoshanah

Who Turned Out the Lights

I had my post for tonight all thought out, and knew exactly what I wanted to tell you all. Except the drive home from work today was in the pouring scary rain. And instead of being 10 minutes as normal, it took my over 30 minutes get home. The main reason being that the stoplight closest to my apartment was out, which backed up traffic completely.

But not only was the stoplight out, the entire block had no power. It seems the combination of extreme rain and wind and thunder and lightning had downed a power line or two, and my apartment was without power. (Yes, there were other places without power, but clearly the fact MY apartment had no power is the most important!) Luckily, since it was Hanukkah, I still had matches on the table as well as Hanukkah candles. So I lit candles for the night (along with any other candle I could find in my apartment).

So I now had light, but no power. Without power I wasn't sure what to do. No power meant no TV, no internet, and no computer. I called people on my cell phone, until I realize the smart thing to do would be to save my cell's power, just in case. But since I had managed to light up part of my apartment I was able read until the boy got home.

Once he arrived home we figured the smart thing to do was to try to find somewhere with power that could feed us dinner. After a very leisurely dinner at What-A-Burger who headed home fingers crossed. And.... the power was back!

Its funny how helpless you can feel without something like electricy. And a little crazy to think that a hundred or so years ago, there was never any power. I mean how did they survive back then without the internet?

~Shoshanah

reFormat

I apologize for the lack of my Frozen Thursday post last night. At around 6:50 last night my computer decided to die. After talking to the nice guy from India (where it was 4am and he is working a 2am to noon shift. And he also liked Slumdog Millionaire. I asked.) My computer is officially reformatted. Which of course is sad. Luckily, my computer isn't that old (October 2007, its still under warranty), so there wasn't a whole lot of information I lost. Most of the important stuff is online such as my pictures, my blogs, even my bookmarks were saved on my Google toolbar. The only thing I am kind of sad about is I started keeping an excel file to keep track of my finances. Mainly so I could see my student loans every month. I've only been doing it the past 3 months so its not that awful.

The only other thing of course are my Sims families. But since the Sims 3 does come out in June, I'm not planning on putting them back on. I figure I'll have more suspense for Sims 3 this week.

Thankfully, as far as computer problems go this one has been pretty nice.
So once again I apologize. Frozen Thursday will be back next week. I'll have an actual post later this weekend.

~Shoshanah

The NEW New Facebook

How does everyone feel about the new facebook? I'm still somewhat undecided. I am ridiculously noisy so I kind of like knowing what everybody is up to RIGHT now. But there are specific items I want to read, and I can't figure out how to do that. Or if you currently can. My perfect newsfeed you would be able to set up your own personal filter. Say show me photo stories, video stories, and status updates. But nothing else. You can currently filter JUST photos, or JUST videos. But not multiple applications. Or any other way to do it would be to filter out certain applications. Also certain things don't have an actual filter. (Like Statuses... Satusi? I'm not really sure what the multiple of status is.)

I do like facebook for the warning that the home page would be changing. They did this also when the implemented the "New" facebook. (Does this make it now the NEW New facebook.) I guess they are learning from when they implemented the newsfeed without warning.

I am sure facebook will make the new homepage better and work out the kinks. And within time, we'll all ever forget it was any different.

~Shoshanah

P.S. I will be posting later tonight, my weekly Frozen Thursday post! I just came up with that name, and I like it!