Web Savvy Mama Blog: What do you want to learn today?

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Back it up, Thunderbird and Firefox

Recently I’ve been having all kinds of issues with my PC. Its incredibly unstable. So I started making plans earlier this year to transfer everything to a new computer. The part that was really keeping me from going ahead with it was that I’m dependent on my old emails. If you are like me you have thousands of emails that you use as references for projects and clients. Its your backup to the paper files and doc files. I’ve had clients come to me saying their computer crashed and they lost all their emails, panic sets in.

I realize I need to learn to backup my email files and learn to transfer them to another computer if necessary. I found many tutorials but they were kind of confusing. If you’ve followed my previous advice, you’re using Thunderbird email and Firefox browser. If you’re not, go get them now! They are free and easy to use, much better than Outlook and Internet Explorer.

I found this tutorial and used it to start the process, I’ll translate it to easy to understand directions. While I was at it I figure I may as well backup my Firefox as well so I didn’t have to re-bookmark everything.

Step one: Clean out your emails! Trust me, you’ll be kicking yourself later if you skip this step and are waiting on the large file download. Empty your trash and remove any emails you don’t need. For me this was something like 4,000 emails!

Step two: Locate your Applications Data folder. It is a hidden folder so the easiest way to do this is to got to Start>run> and type %APPDATA% (Click ok)

Step three: Locate the “Mozilla” (FireFox) and “Thunderbird” folders depending on which one you want to backup. Copy these folders in their entirety and paste to a portable device you want to backup on. This could be a CD, USB drive or an External Drive.

Thats it, you have a backup of your emails and browser links! To install these if you loose your information just find the Applications Data folder again and use your backup to overwrite the files. (Copy and Paste and click “yes to all” when prompted) You can use this as a backup on your current computer or a new computer, as in my case. Either way, its a good idea to make backups every once in awhile to ensure you don’t lose your important information!

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Inspiration in all Places

Are you looking for some inspiration for a product, graphic or even in your everyday life? colour lovers palette images ColourLovers.com is a great web site to check out. I’ve been browsing this site for quite awhile now. A great web design idea is often spurred by an amazing color palette! Whether its at ColourLovers or just seeing a great palette on a favorite shirt, my kids’ artwork or something completely random! When I used to be in the baby carrier business I often talked to other vendors about inspiration for patterns used. We’d joke about walking through the store and oohing over a print we saw on a shirt because it would have made a perfect sling! Or seeing the color combination in a pile of socks that really stuck out! Now I have trained myself to see those colors everywhere and picture how they can be used in web and graphic designs.

The palettes in our lives can often be the perfect stepping stones for bigger ideas.

Web Savvy Mama even has a Color Lover Profile as well! http://www.colourlovers.com/lover/WebSavvyMama
Come see some of my favorite color combinations!

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Office Assistant

Its winter break for kids all over, including my 3 children who range from 4 years to 8 years old. My 4 year old and 8 year old are both girls, they’ve decided to immerse themselves in “My Little Pony” world and bop out to a High School Musical 2 CD. My 6 year old is not having any of that. As many know, my son has Autism. He loves to play with legos and building toys, but he wants someone to model his play for him so he knows what to do and how to play. Unfortunately for him, mommy still has to work over winter break and with the girls in their own world he’s pretty bummed. So today he is helping me in the office as my new office assistant. While he’s too young to help me code, I have him out doing “target market analysis”. Yeah, he’s playing Noggin.

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New Year Resolutions!

What is your New Year Resolution for your business? Haven’t come up with one yet? Take a look at my blog on Refreshing Your Web Site for the New Year for some ideas!

What are mine? Hmm, tough question! Along with making sure my website stays up to date my main goal is to blog more. I want to add more tutorials, redo my WordPress template tutorials and just keep posting more helpful information in general. I know I’ve been slacking in this area lately!

Do you have a topic you want to see covered? Email me with your idea! If I pick yours I’ll give a shout out and post a link to your website as well!

Although, I am going to admit… I have the iPhone on my wish list for the new year as well. I finally got to see one in person and it puts my Blackberry to shame! lol

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Web Savvy Move Complete!

My emails started bouncing a TON of emails from clients and many of MY emails were not making it out either. My previous host started putting filters on their email servers that prevented embedded links from being received via email to their hosting subscribers. It was very hit and miss, but causing lots of issues for myself and web design clients.

Over the weekend and then through the beginning of the week I worked feverishly to move Web Savvy Mama to a new host. A HUGE thank you goes out to Michelle at Watersweb Hosting and her Tech Team who stayed up late and helped me get everything sorted out. An extra thank you to Michelle who then moved all my database content over manually when the traditional migration methods wouldn’t work. She’s a lifesaver and I couldn’t ask for better customer support from a hosting company!

So, Web Savvy Mama has a new home and my email should be working again! At least the Web Savvy Mama email. If you have been contacting me previously through my Baby Space email, please forget that one, its still attached to and not working well at all at the moment. You can find additional contact information on my contact page.

I appreciate all the patience during this move and hopefully 2008 will be a much smoother year on our new host!

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Web Savvy Mama is moving!

Because of ongoing issues with hosting and email Web Savvy Mama will be moving hosts this weekend. I apologize in advance for any downtime that may occur. I am happy to announce that email services will be much more reliable after the move!

My domain related email will not work during the move. If you need to reach me feel free to contact me at websavvymama@gmail.com

Thank you for your understanding!

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