Updated Blog - New Look!

Ok, so I'm a bit of a computer geek. I admit that I know how to use photoshop, illustrator and enough HTML to get me into trouble. My job by day is eMarketing where I advertise and promote our web services, create web copy, define email templates and launch email campaigns. You could categorize it broadly as eMarketing which is what I usually do when people ask me about my job.

Anyway, I'm off from work on leave <yuck> and to keep my mind fresh, I decided to see what blogging is all about. I mean, what better way to test my eMarketing skills than by jumping in and trying it out for real, with a real hobby, that I really like. So now you know my dirty secret about blogging.

So today I downloaded a new cool program for my computer called GIMP. It's a free photoshop like tool. Yes, FREE. I downloaded it from this site. This program is not for the faint at heart. It's a hardcore design program that does take a little playing with to get use to where all the features are located. So I took some pictures of my house and then cropped them in GIMP and put them into one image.

I got frustrated with GIMP and the text tool and took the easy way out. I uploaded my picture to Picasa. If you haven't tried Picasa, it's awesome and a free way to host pictures online.

I then opened the image in a tool called Picnik. I'm cheap and don't have the full version yet. But using that, I added the name of my blog, tweaked the color and created a new image for my header!

The image ended up being 800 pixels by 150 pixels. I think its a little short but it was my first shot at this. It took me a little over an hour to make, but most of that was learning the GIMP tool. Then I went into the blog editor and changed the colors to match my new header.

Simple and now customized. I feel like a real blogger now! Next, I want to create a signature for my posts. So when I end them it'll look like I digitally signed the post. I heart being creative.