Entries from February 2010

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Typekit experiment: conclusion

It’s time to turn my Typekit code off. Typekit offers an online library of fonts you can use in your blog or web site without relying on it being installed on your visitor’s computer. Though it’s been exciting to see Freelance Unbound with a headline font that isn’t either Georgia or Verdana (the web’s two […]

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Writing style: advice to journalism students

We’re coming up to about halfway on several student journalism units I’m teaching – and already the prospect of student assessments is looming threateningly over the class. So – a few words of advice to J-students faced with writing assessment deadlines. Relax One strange phenomenon I’ve noticed about student writing is that it’s much better […]

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

WordPress/Facebook integration fail

I’ve been wittering on about social networks to students at Solent University recently, so I thought I ought to put my money where my mouth is and link Freelance Unbound to Facebook. Apart from being a useful technical exercise, it should be interesting to see if it encourages some of my Facebook network – a […]

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Missing the point about e-books

Woman in Black author Susan Hill spectacularly misses the point about e-books in this piece from the Spectator. On the way, she does make some insightful observations about the way that bookshops are facing up to the threat posed by internet sales and digital distribution. In fact, small, independent bookshops may be better placed to […]

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

My experiment with Typekit

Which, if you’re reading this on Freelance Unbound and not an RSS feed, you’ll see working in the headline above. That whole new typographic look is thanks to Typekit – a service that allows web users to access a font library online and so expand the typography available to web designers. Normally, the drawback with […]

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Create your own WordPress theme

Despite the wealth of tutorial information on the WordPress Codex, the idea of creating your own WordPress theme can be a bit daunting. So here’s a great tutorial on Web Designer magazine that strips the process down to its essentials and gives them to you in a logical order. Given that I’m planning to create a […]

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Major PowerBook surgery: how did it go?

A: Not well, gentle reader. Not well. After my PowerBook’s power connecter finally caved in, I decided I had to attempt a resucitation, using the handy guides from Fixit.com and Jason’s Screaming Light site. Not least this was because of goading comments from readers to “Get soldering”. It’s true I had been putting it off […]

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

How I hate my Samsung N140 netbook

As any visitor will have noticed, things are still quiet on Freelance Unbound this week. Partly this is to do with the fact that I am so busy I can barely read blogs, let alone write one. But also it’s because  haven’t yet had the time, or the nerve, to perform major invasive surgery on […]