Just wanted to let you all know that I will try and work on a new blog design during the holidays. I just think it's time for something new and I have a lot of ideas I need to bring to life. I'm giving people a unique chance. Let me know what I need to change, add and/or remove to create a killer blog for 2012! I might integrate your ideas in my next design.

Today I realized that I have to publish 366 photos in 2012, rather than the usual 365. This is because 2012 is a leap year, meaning February has one extra day. Hence the number 366. If you don't mind, I will keep the number for my 365 category the same.

But this brings the question to mind. Do my readers, watchers and followers care enough about my project, for me to continue? If so, please do vote in the poll on the left, in the sidebar. I believe this is the first time I used the poll function here haha.

About polls. I think I may start using the poll function more often. I'd like to see how many silly polls I can come up with. It would be more fun if you, the reader, would actually vote on them. Can we make a deal about this? Yes? Thanks!

Some time ago, I announced on MacDesperate I would quit. I recently bought an iMac and everyone else on MacDesperate already achieved their goals some time ago, so it's time to move on. Read my closing note here!

Some of you might have noticed that MySimsNetwork is redirecting to SimsNetwork these days. This is no error. I am closing the MySimsNetwork website and merging the content with SimsNetwork. It just saves time. Also, MySimsNetwork didn't have enough visitors to keep it open as a separate website.

SporeNetwork is next. I already closed the forums. They have already been merged in August of this year with SimsNetwork, like the members. In 2012 I will also close SporeNetwork. I will merge the news and goodies with SimsNetwork. The domain will then just redirect to the Spore content on SimsNetwork.

All of these sites closing. Am I even keeping something open? Why sure. I still have this blog including my 365 project, photography gallery and my traditional work. And on Miss Design I will update on a regular basis with my digital work, projects, wallpapers, icons et cetera.

In case people are wondering about Retro Hugs: I am still working on that. I have a lot of stuff to buy before I can start. I think it will open in 2012. It's not a forgotten project for sure.

My blog might change in 2012. And SNW will see a lot of positive changes. I missed working on SNW so I'm just glad I can easily update it now and slowly I will work on completing the website. I also promised Junior to spend more time on his Juniorwood blog. So keep an eye on that one as well.

Last year I made the move from 2 separate Wordpress websites to 1 fabulous Drupal website. I haven't had any regrets so far. Drupal is just so awesome... Every day I work with Drupal I realize how great and powerful it really is.

Anyway... Last year I had been using my retro autumn color scheme for about 4,5 years. You can see those changes in my Miss Design portfolio changes post. Back then, Miss Design and Rosana's Blog were the same website.

In preparation of my plans to go back to college, I wanted a fresh and creative website. So I created the happy colored "Inspiration" Drupal theme:

Well, my portfolio and blog have separated and that's why I had to adjust the theme a little. But it ended up changing a lot. And that's the new theme! It's Inspiration 2011!

I hope you like it! I sure do. I like the changes in colors. These colors are warmer. Much better.

Oh and if it's all messed up for you, try refreshing (F5) the page, that should do the trick!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

I recently changed SporeNetwork's look! It's prepared for the new game Darkspore. Go and have a look! In this post on SporeNetwork you can see a list of changes.

Today's SNW's 7th birthday. Yay! We're not celebrating it. I don't think anyone remembered it anyway. We will celebrate it next year, when the new website is online. It should have been online already, but due to paid projects I just haven't had a whole lot of spare time.

I am a member of many creative networks, like DeviantArt, Coroflot and Behance. I recently also joined Carbonmade. And I have to say I like it. But I don't have a lot of experience with Carbonmade yet. And there are a couple of downsides.

Carbonmade is free to join. However, as a free member you can create up to 5 projects and within those 5 projects, you can upload 30 images. Not 30 each, 30 in total. For $12 per month you can become a Whoo member, which will allow you to upload 500 images. The thing is, I have my own website, so it's not worth it for me to become a paid member. I think if Carbonmade is the only portfolio you have, it might be worth the money. However, with the amount of creative networks today, I don't think it is, because you can easily go elsewhere.

I also joined Behance a while ago, but there isn't much on yet. I have yet to learn everything about Behance. I think it's a great network, but I'm not sure I fit in. I don't consider my work to be that good. It's okay, some of it. But the works I've seen on Behance are so good... I feel like a complete newbie and n00b. I love the fact that Behance is so customizable though! And I will definitely add more to my Behance account soon.

I still wish for a Dribbble account. It's hard to get one. It's invite only. So I believe only people already there can invite a few people? And I'm not even sure about that.

I've been a long time member on Coroflot, but still not an active user. Perhaps because I don't have any friends there? It's not really big like DeviantArt. I really need to update my page lol. I haven't really updated since 2008, when Seth was still a baby, and I was still 24.

As for DeviantArt, I love and hate DeviantArt at the same time. It's hard to get noticed, but once people start to notice you, and you keep updating, it can be worth the time. I hate having thousands of messages in my inbox every day. But I don't want to remove the messages either because I might see something really beautiful. Sometimes I feel the people I want to actively follow there, are not interested in me. And a lot of the people who follow me, are not really interesting for me to follow. I only get a lot of views on my work if I add my work to dozens of groups. And even then I'm not sure if people will start to notice, because the groups can reject work pretty easily. I've had it happen plenty of times and it's not a nice feeling to be rejected like that. The lack of views, comments, faves and so on, is definitely a reason for me to abandon DeviantArt every so often. And then I'll return again for a few days, and disappear again. I also experienced the difference between a regular account and a premium account. Premium is a lot nicer, but it's not something I can afford right now. And with the lack of communication it's not really worth it at the moment.

There is another creative network I joined in the past, called GFXartist, but I also get the feeling there that you have to be extremely awesome to get some nice feedback and not have your work removed. I have registered an account to claim my name, but haven't used the account yet.

I plan to start using my RedBubble account more in 2011. The same goes for Cafepress, Etsy and possibly ArtFire. Especially when I'm going to sell some of my work!

I'm going to focus on getting my name out there. Again? Yes, again. And I will be using the sites mentioned in this post to do so! I might also start using Tumblr again, right now it's an inspirational blog with images from other artists. But my faithful readers here don't have to follow me on all these other websites, since I always post my items to my portfolio here.

I changed the look of the December Blogger Twitter page (and avatar too!)

I didn't feel like creating a whole holiday themed layout for my blog this year. Instead I just changed my background a little to get in the holiday mood. Nice, isn't it? After the holidays are over I will change it back to the blueish one I had before.

Oh yeah, I also added some Christmas photo headers.

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

You have no idea how happy I am that the new website is finally online! Well, first things first. In this post I'll explain some important things to my visitors.

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

Just a quick note to let you all know that from now on, the 365 posts will no longer appear in the feeds. I did this because I want people to see the 365 posts on the front page first, with the teaser and all. If people would see the post directly in the feeds, they would no longer look at the teaser, which is NOT visible in the posts itself. So this was the most logical choice. The people who are interested in seeing the 365 photos can come to my blog.

I will make sure I post a link to the English blog every day, on several social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and Identi.ca.

Awesome news! With the launch of my new website in August 2010, it is possible to only show the teaser in the RSS feeds, leading people to my website to see the full and other picture along with a story. From now on people can subscribe to the feed again and follow all my posts, including the 365 blog!

This is a teaser image. Click to see the full image together with a nice story!

Soon I'll be starting my 365 project again, this time on my main blog instead of a separate blog. I'm known for showing teasers on the 365 blog, and that won't change on this blog. Today I'm not posting a 365 pic, but I do have a teaser for you. You may guess what it is, but you won't get an answer from me about this particular teaser. You'll just have to be patient! I've got more than a handful of projects for 2010 and this teaser could be for all of those projects!

In case you missed it yesterday, we finally launched MacDesperate! For a detailed story about us, I suggest you read the About Us page on About Us. Short story, 4 people, 2 of which are desperate for a Mac (or MacBook), one already has a MacBook and the other one doesn't want a Mac. We offer news, desktop goodies, updates about gadgets and laptop bags and witty columns. We beg for money and with the holidays approaching, we hope people will be generous enough to donate a little money. But my main goal is to show my saving progress (which you can see in the sidebar).

I decided it was time for a new Twitter design on my @Rosiewosie Twitter account. I've had the old one for over a year and since I love Christmas, I designed a new background, along with some matching colors:

You may not know what this is all about. I don't think I have really explained this yet on my own blogs so I will try to do this now.

Before December started, I was looking at my own blog and realized I only blogged a few times a month. And it's not as if I'm not doing anything else. It's not always a possibility to blog whenever you please. Then there's the issue that your topics may not be interesting to others. But you will always have this. Not everyone can enjoy your posts. With that in mind, I decided to (at least try and) post every day in December. So that's how the December Blogging project was started.

Paul noticed this, and thought it was so much fun, he'd join in as well and do the same on his blogs, in Dutch and English. Very soon, Junior followed, doing the same on Juniorwood in Dutch and English. Mollie Moonbeam decided the world really needs her environmental tips during this expensive and materialistic month. Who can blame her for that? Rens also started the December blogging in Dutch on Renssies. Corosben Mini'Mata shares us about his planet's festivities. And Mogway has also seen the light and decided to join us on her blogs in English and Dutch! Jimmy joined us today and is blogging in Dutch on his blog.

Who's next? You? Everyone is welcome to join. Just let us know on our Facebook page, or through Twitter (send us a reply @december_blog on Twitter).

I cannot guarantee I will post every day in December. But I will most certainly try.

Tomorrow is the big day; MacDesperate will finally launch. And even though most things are already done, I still have this nervous feeling because of the deadlines. And how will people react on our site? Will they react at all? So far, we haven't gotten too many followers on Twitter. We've only just started so we can't expect too much of course. But it would have been fun to get a bit more feedback on the things we have showed so far. We just love the feedback and interaction. We planned the opening of MacDesperate tomorrow on December 6, 2009 at 7pm! We invite you to be there and let us know what you think of it!

As you can see in the title of this post, we're going to launch the MacDesperate website on December 6, which is only a week from today! A short intro to MacDesperate:

MacDesperate consists of 4 crazy Dutch people. Three guys and one girl. No, this is not the title of a lame sitcom Cheetah, Wouter, Tales and me are the people behind MacDesperate. Cheetah helped building the website, writing scripts. Wouter will be writing witty columns, he's usually incredibly funny so I suggest you read those columns. Tales will be updating the site with news and possibly reviews. I designed the MacDesperate website, I have made (and will be making many more) goodies for people to download and I will post on a regular basis with must have items like laptop bags!

In the meantime, please follow our updates on Twitter, Facebook or Identi.ca!

You may have read about the release of the Powerful Pink theme for Wordpress today. Now the Drupal version has been released today on the official Drupal website.

I created a free Wordpress theme for Breast Cancer Awareness Month a while ago. My intentions were good but I used a name that was registered to a Dutch organization. This forced me to take down the theme for a while, only to change the things that were not right. I changed those things now and the theme is available for download on the official Wordpress website.

So you may have noticed that the free themes I made for Wordpress and Drupal have been removed. I tried to do a good thing by spending my time on a charity project for the breastcancer awareness month. Unfortunately I used the Pink Ribbon name and that's not allowed. At least not in my country. I'm from The Netherlands and was contacted by the Dutch Pink Ribbon organization about legal matters concerning the themes, especially the name and logo. It's not so much that I don't understand that the organization wants to protect their name. But I don't really understand that the Dutch organization has issues with me trying to help out while the international organization doesn't. And to be honest, I've seen many people use the name for themes also. And those are still available on the net. Mine aren't because I'm Dutch. I always thought Pink Ribbon wasn't just the name of the organizations. I thought it was just a general term. Apparently not.

As for the logo I used, it isn't the official Pink Ribbon logo. It's user made and therefore not illegal. The user who made it released it using a license saying clearly it's allowed to copy, redistribute and modify the file.

Anyway I've spent so much of my valuable time on this and this feels like a huge stab in the back. So much for trying to help out. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon.

I will release the themes again soon, using another name and another logo. I'll post about it when I do.

Every year I try to change my portfolio to improve it, better looking and user friendly. I've already changed the design this year but I felt it was time again for some changes since I added quite a few things to my portfolio this year. Below is a overview of the first version until the version you can see now and all the changes I made.

You should know that I'm so happy with the colors and styles which I barely changed since 2006. I did however change the layout itself quite a few times. I started out in April 2006 with two equally sized sidebars and the content in the middle, a header on top with photos in it. This version never made it online but I worked on it for quite some time to make it perfect.

The version after that, was the first one to actually be seen live on my blog. It launched in September 2006, when I was just in college. This version got three sidebars, fairly small ones. One left sidebar, then the content, then two more small sidebars on the right. It looked cluttered but I loved it so I could live with it. This version still had a header with pictures, but the photos were smaller and I added a picture of myself so people would know whose website they were visiting.

In 2007, I kept my design untouched, I was pregnant and busy taking care of my personal life. But in 2008 I slowly started to make a comeback and I did indeed redesign my portfolio. Same colors, same styles, but quite some changes. I removed the two sidebars on the right and replaced it with a wider version. This opened up a lot of opportunities like a nice Twitter block showing mine and other people's Tweets. Other changes in this design were the picture of me, I also changed the dimensions, meaning I also needed to adjust all the photographs used in my header. Other changes included a whole new top navigation which made it possible for me to remove the clutter in my sidebars. The small banner in the sidebar was replaced with a wide version right below the header. I also added a promotional banner showing some of my own designs.

In 2009 I changed my portfolio again. Unfortunately I had to disable the nice Twitter block because it was too heavy to load, Twitter was often experiencing downtime so that messed up my own website's loading time and of course I didn't want that! I also changed the top navigation. I realized I had too many menu items I didn't use yet and I didn't have time to fill all my pages. So instead I changed the menu until I had more pages done. I added promo blocks on the right side so people would see my latest website and my latest artwork.

I didn't think I would change my design again this year, but I did. The second version of 2009 is now done. I changed the menu again, slightly. I removed the Search button as people were not really using it, and I needed some space for a Themes button as I started sharing Wordpress and Drupal themes with the public and those should be easy to find.

I removed the middle section below the header, containing a Google banner, promotional banner with my own projects in it and the RSS button. It was taking up too much space and I liked the idea of having the content just a little higher up the page. If people come across a non-existing page, they still get the option to use my Search page.

On the right sidebar I added a Hire Me section, where people can read about my services and contact me if necessary. And then there's the Traditional Art block, showing my paintings and drawings, a Photography block with one of my (randomly chosen) photos, a Wordpress Themes block, as well as a Drupal Themes block. I removed the Current Desktop section. It's nice but I'm trying to show off more of my work and less fun stuff. I added a Wishlist section for those people who would like to thank me for my work.

On the left sidebar I removed the Meta block (where you login). I disabled registration because of the many spam registrations (I don't have time to check for spammers every day and there weren't any real people signing up anyway). So only existing accounts can login. And that can still be done, I moved the login to the footer. I changed the Team & Friends block to just Friends. Most of my team members are not using their SNWeblog at all and I don't feel like linking to terribly inactive blogs. I will add more friends in the future. I also changed the My Websites block. I changed the text links into nice images. I'm pretty sure it looks a bit cluttered but it will be easier for people to recognize the types of websites I added there. And I actually love it like this!

I'm pretty sure I will change it again in the future. I will continue to adjust it to suit my needs and hopefully make it better for the visitor as well.

I created a theme for charity but unfortunately due to legal reasons I had to remove it. I didn't want to let my hard work go to waste, so I changed the name from Pink Ribbon to Powerful Pink. And I've changed the logo (was a custom made pink ribbon) into hearts. Read about and download Powerful Pink for Wordpress here.