My inspiration for switching to designing table-less websites back in 2005 came from colleagues in the Open Source design community, and also from a site called CSS Zen Garden. The challenge at that site is to create a total different look using the same HTML file without altering it, and by changing only the CSS file and, of course, the graphics.

Experimenting with CSS Zen Garden’s files is how how I practiced and honed my coding skills. But coding alone is not enough. The designs showcased on CSS Zen Garden are created by very talented graphic artists whose works of art, even though they are a few years old, still look good and function fine to this day. Here are three of my favorites, although it wasn’t easy to pick them:

• Elegance in Simplicity
• Vin Rouge
• Greece Rememberance

It’s amazing what can be done with CSS, and learning it made web design so much more interesting for me. With a few changes to a style sheet, you can virtually create a whole new website design. That excited me then and it still excites me today. Once you know how to write CSS, you can pretty much customize any type of template-driven site powered by WordPress, Joomla, and just about every forum or shopping cart software. That’s the beauty of CSS.

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If this video doesn’t fire you up, I don’t know what else will. There are some stellar speeches all combined into this 2 minute video that I just found and after watching it, I was raring to go. Watch it, it’s catchy!

For some extra motivation, here’s a classic Napoleon Hill video: What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

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Yesterday the nightmare with my unstable computer finally ended with the purchase of a new hard drive and Windows 7 Professional. I was so impressed that Windows 7 found all my drivers, and that I didn’t need to use the HP-specific ones. So basically my computer is no longer HP-dependent and is now a clone. No more recovery disks! Yippee! I’m running the 64 bit version and holy moly, everything runs super fast compared to before…Wow!

You might be thinking what’s the big deal? Whenever you have the opportunity to upgrade anything, it always feels good. Upgrading a computer is no different, especially if your computer is the most critical tool you use to earn a living. I can’t wait to upgrade a few more parts, but for right now, I’m happy. Now I can get back to being a lot more productive than I have been since the end of June!

I’m very grateful that I have a dear friend (LL) who always has my back, always helps me get through stuff, and installed the hard drive for me. I appreciate his friendship so much. One day my friend will be rewarded for all his good deeds because he really deserves it. I’ve always got his back, that’s for sure.

Anyway, he sat with me and watched as Windows 7 installed, and performed the updates without a hitch. After giving me the high five, he left to go sit outside and relax with a beer, because he knew he wouldn’t see me for a few hours while I got to work reinstalling all my software.

It took me 3 hours to get my on-board high definition audio to work, though. I started to get frustrated and was about to give up and install a PCI sound card that I happened to have. I finally fixed it by changing the Bios setting for the on-board audio from “Auto” to Enabled”. Such a simple solution came to me in one of those light bulb moments. I was so happy it worked.

Now here I am, someone who is tech-savvy having computer problems, so I can just imagine how someone who doesn’t know much about computers can get really upset when they don’t know what’s wrong with their computer, don’t have money to invest in getting it fixed, try to fix it themselves and in doing so, make matters worse. Yikes!

My advice to those of you reading this who are not computer-savvy? Do not mess with stuff that you don’t know anything about. Computer repair technicians are everywhere and I’m positive that you can find someone who not only knows his/her stuff, but is reasonable too. With the price of computers going down all the time, sometimes it might be easier to just go out and buy a new one. Or get someone like my friend LL to help you breathe new life into your existing computer.

It really all boils down to money and how much you’re willing to spend, or how important your computer is to you. Above all, be patient. If you ever want to become computer-savvy, patience is what you’ll require the most. Patience has been a hard lesson for me. Lately I’ve had no choice: be patient or be a stressed-out frazzled mess. My patience has paid off and life is good. Very good, indeed.

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