Friday, September 21, 2012

Would a Smartphone be a Smart Investment?

I currently have a flipphone, unlimited text, limited talk, and no data. It suits my needs. However, as a tech aficionado, my wants are quite a different story. I, like many of you out there, salivate over each new iPhone, Lumia, or Droid release. Yet I don't actually own any of them.

The reason is simple. Namely, I'm a poor college student with limited funds. And of those funds, most are going to paying for graduation exams, and what little is left is spent on going out to eat with my wonderful girlfriend (yes, my POF attempt this summer worked out). So I don't really have hundreds of dollars in disposable cash laying around to buy a smart phone. Even if I did, I don't have the money that a data plan would cost. A data plan that gets me all of 2GB per month.

That said, I can still salivate. And nothing has me more excited than the Lumia 920. Granted it's not perfect. But it's still a large step up from the 900, and unlike the latter, runs WP8. It's a sleek and sexy piece of hardware if I've ever seen one, and I've seen a few. The iPhone 5 might rival it in design, (some would argue the SIII would as well, but I find the SIII to be too wide and round for my tastes), but it most certainly doesn't surpass it.

So the question is, when I graduate in December, what do I do with the money I've been saving for a new laptop. My need is getting pressing, given I'm running a machine that is approaching 5 years of age. Yet a smart phone would be wonderful. Such a first world problem ...
 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Catstache's First Website!

Catstache Design, LLC finished it's first website yesterday. While it would have taken all of a week or two had I been working full time, it ended up taking nearly a month. Productivity really takes a hit when 3/4s of one's time is suddenly involved in going to classes and working on homework.

Anyway it's a simple WordPress site, with custom home, contact, and portfolio page templates. I did have to fork a plugin that added a page widget, but overall it wasn't too complex. You can check it out at:

www.dggraphicsigns.com

The most complex part was figuring out how to install WordPress on a Network Solutions hosting package. There were several tutorials, all of which were out of date. Didn't help that their control panel is pretty terribly designed. But in the end it got figured out.

We're starting on our next project already. The initial design work was completed over the summer but it got delayed. And someday I need to find time to actually build out own site. Someday ...