The Wordpress blog platform can be used in a wide variety of web site applications. It can be a blog, a news site, a content management system, a simple static web site, a gallery site, e-commerce site, a social community and anything else you can imagine. There are thousands of templates available that only need to be customized with your graphics and content, and optimized with the applications and plug-ins that you need as well as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

I will customize and optimize your Wordpress blog theme, (free or purchased) for a one-time charge of $50.00.

I will customize and optimize your Joomla template, Mambo template, e-commerce template, etc. and teach you how to manage  them for a one time charge of $100.00

I will customize and optimize one of my own templates for a one-time charge of $40.00.

Just contact me and we can talk about what I can do to help you, your club or group, or your business get online with a professional and easy to manage web presence.

A club or organization is a group of people with similar interests or a common goal working together. Too often, however, that initial feeling of energetic enthusiasm for the work of your club slowly degenerates into a source of burn-out, annoyances, and endless mounds of paperwork and bureaucracy. Eventually you start to lose that enthusiasm and dread any phone call or email from the organization.

I find that people often call me with meeting reminders, tasks, forms to complete, questions about procedures and policies on a piecemeal basis. This means that I am writing all these things down on various slips of paper, in the margins of my club handbook and on the backs of business cards, only to go to the meeting and discover that I have forgotten something, someone else never got a copy of the minutes, etc. etc. etc.

I believe that every club and every chapter of a local organization or association needs an online presence…a website or blog or social networking community to make it all fun again. Here are ten reasons your club should have a website that users actually use.

1. Post meeting notices and event reminders.
2. Market public events and activities. Sell tickets online to your fundraisers.
3. Publicize club activities and community service. Build your club’s positive public profile, thus encouraging donations, sponsors and members.
4. Membership drives. Take applications for membership or conduct interest surveys from the community.
   
5. Communication between members. Your website can provide members a method of posting messages of interest to the other members.  You can disseminate timely news and information between scheduled club meetings.
6. Contact form…method of interested people to contact the club.
7. Repository for important documents, manuals, forms and other paperwork your group needs in order to function. Put your meeting minutes online to save postage and time in meetings.
8. Accept payments and donations online. Use a PayPal account to accept dues payments, charitable donations or to sell items via your website.
9. Share pictures of your activities and events with club members and supporters. The pictures form a virtual archive of your group’s history, timeline, and it helps generate enthusiasm among your members. When you can see what you have accomplished, you’re eager to continue the momentum.
10. Gives you a means of easily transitioning between club administrations. This is major. No more searching for those post it notes and interpreting  and transcribing the handwritten notes for the next person to take over your position. There is no gap in information, and your club benefits.

Whatever the size of your organization, club or association, I can help you create a viable, attractive and useful web presence. Contact me for a consultation now.

My client wanted a blog that would enable him to connect with fellow University of Oklahoma Sooners sports fans and trade stories, facts and stats. While this blog is for entertainment, it can be monetized. I am helping with the blog customization and the monetization, marketing and promotion of this fledgling community of Sooner fans.

We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of North Carolina.
Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.
But because the new law is drafted to go into effect once enacted – which could happen in the next two weeks – we will have to terminate the participation of all North Carolina residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that same day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from North Carolina residents.
The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers’ finance committees.

Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.
The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.
We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of the General Assembly’s action on this matter.

Sincerely,
 Amazon.com

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is critically important to us. At Celynoir Design we have a few fundamental principles:

• We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it.
• We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.
• We don’t store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of one of our services.
• In our blogging products, we aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what’s visible to the public, seen by search engines, kept private, and permanently deleted.

Below is our privacy policy which incorporates these goals:

(Note, we’ve decided to make this privacy policy available under a Creative Commons Sharealike license, which means you’re more than welcome to steal it and repurpose it for your own use, just make sure to replace references to us with ones to you.)

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, Celynoir Design collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Celynoir Design’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Celynoir Design’s visitors use its website. From time to time, Celynoir Design may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

Celynoir Design  also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Celynoir Design does not use such information to identify its visitors, however, and does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to Celynoir Design ’s websites choose to interact with Celynoir Design in ways that require Celynoir Design to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Celynoir Design gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who desire to have us contact them to provide a username and email address. Those who engage in transactions with Celynoir Design – by purchasing services, for example – are asked to provide additional information, including as necessary the personal and financial information required to process those transactions. In each case, Celynoir Design collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction withCelynoir Design . Celynoir Design does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

Celynoir Design discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on   Celynoir Design’s behalf or to provide services available at   Celynoir Design’s websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using  Celynoir Design’s web development services, you consent to the transfer of such information to them.   Celynoir Design will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above,   Celynoir Design discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when   Celynoir Design believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of   Celynoir Design, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered user of an   Celynoir Design website and have supplied your email address,   Celynoir Design may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with   Celynoir Design and our products. We primarily use our various product blogs to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.   Celynoir Design takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Terms of Service:

The following terms and conditions govern all use of the Celynoir.com website and all content, services and products available at or through the Website. The Website is owned and operated by Laura L. Allen (Celynoir Design). The Website is offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies (including, without limitation, Celynoir Design’s Privacy Policy) and procedures that may be published from time to time on this Site by Celynoir Design (collectively, the “Agreement”).

Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing or using the Website. By accessing or using any part of the web site, you agree to become bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this agreement, then you may not access the Website or use any services. If these terms and conditions are considered an offer by Celynoir Design, acceptance is expressly limited to these terms. The Website is available only to individuals who are at least 13 years old.

1. Responsibility of Contributors. If you operate a blog, comment on a blog, post material to the Website, post links on the Website, or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) material available by means of the Website (any such material, “Content”), You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, or computer software. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
* the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party;
* if your employer has rights to intellectual property you create, you have either (i) received permission from your employer to post or make available the Content, including but not limited to any software, or (ii) secured from your employer a waiver as to all rights in or to the Content;
* you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms;
* the Content does not contain or install any viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content;
* the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
* the Content is not libelous or defamatory (more info on what that means), does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
* your blog posting is not getting advertised via unwanted electronic messages such as spam links on newsgroups, email lists, other blogs and web sites, and similar unsolicited promotional methods;
* your blog posting is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company. For example, your blog’s URL or name is not the name of a person other than yourself or company other than your own; and
* you have, in the case of Content that includes computer code, accurately categorized and/or described the type, nature, uses and effects of the materials, whether requested to do so by Celynoir Design or otherwise.

2. By submitting Content to Celynoir Design for inclusion on the Website, you grant Celynoir Design a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your blog posting. If you delete Content, Celynoir Design will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.

3. Without limiting any of those representations or warranties, Celynoir Design has the right (though not the obligation) to, in Celynoir Design’s sole discretion (i) refuse or remove any content that, in Celynoir Design’s reasonable opinion, violates any Celynoir Design policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Celynoir Design’s sole discretion. Celynoir Design will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid.
4. Responsibility of Website Visitors. Celynoir Design has not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, posted to the Website, and cannot therefore be responsible for that material’s content, use or effects. By operating the Website, Celynoir Design does not represent or imply that it endorses the material there posted, or that it believes such material to be accurate, useful or non-harmful. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. The Website may contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors. The Website may also contain material that violates the privacy or publicity rights, or infringes the intellectual property and other proprietary rights, of third parties, or the downloading, copying or use of which is subject to additional terms and conditions, stated or unstated. Celynoir Design disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from the use by visitors of the Website, or from any downloading by those visitors of content there posted.
5. Content Posted on Other Websites. We have not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, made available through the websites and webpages to which Celynoir.com links, and that link to Celynoir.com. Celynoir Design does not have any control over those non-Celynoir websites and webpages, and is not responsible for their contents or their use. By linking to a non-Celynoir website or webpage, Celynoir Design does not represent or imply that it endorses such website or webpage. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. Celynoir Design disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from your use of non-Celynoir websites and webpages.
6. Copyright Infringement and DMCA Policy. As Celynoir Design asks others to respect its intellectual property rights, it respects the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that material located on or linked to by Celynoir.com violates your copyright, you are encouraged to notify Celynoir Design in accordance with Celynoir Design’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”) Policy. Celynoir Designwill respond to all such notices, including as required or appropriate by removing the infringing material or disabling all links to the infringing material. In the case of a visitor who may infringe or repeatedly infringes the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of Celynoir Design or others, Celynoir Designmay, in its discretion, terminate or deny access to and use of the Website. In the case of such termination, Celynoir Design will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid to Celynoir Design.
7. Intellectual Property. This Agreement does not transfer from Celynoir Design to you any Celynoir Design or third party intellectual property, and all right, title and interest in and to such property will remain (as between the parties) solely with Celynoir Design. Celynoir Design, WordPress, WordPress.com, the WordPress.com logo, Amazon, Amazon.com, Amazon Associates and all other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with Celynoir.com, or the Website are trademarks or registered trademarks of Celynoir Design or Celynoir Design’s licensors. Other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the Website may be the trademarks of other third parties. Your use of the Website grants you no right or license to reproduce or otherwise use any Celynoir Design or third-party trademarks.
8. Changes. Celynoir Design reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check this Agreement periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to the Website following the posting of any changes to this Agreement constitutes acceptance of those changes. Celynoir Design may also, in the future, offer new services and/or features through the Website (including, the release of new tools and resources). Such new features and/or services shall be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
9. Termination. Celynoir Design may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. If you wish to terminate this Agreement , you may simply discontinue using the Website.  All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.
10. Disclaimer of Warranties. The Website is provided “as is”. Celynoir Design and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither Celynoir Design nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. If you’re actually reading this, here’s a treat. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the Website at your own discretion and risk.

11. Limitation of Liability. In no event will Celynoir Design or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of this agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement or substitute products or services; (iii) for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data; or (iv) for any amounts that exceed the fees paid by you to Celynoir Design under this agreement during the twelve (12) month period prior to the cause of action. Celynoir Design shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

12. General Representation and Warranty. You represent and warrant that (i) your use of the Website will be in strict accordance with the Celynoir Design Privacy Policy, with this Agreement and with all applicable laws and regulations (including without limitation any local laws or regulations in your country, state, city, or other governmental area, regarding online conduct and acceptable content, and including all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the United States or the country in which you reside) and (ii) your use of the Website will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party.

13. Indemnification. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Celynoir Design, its contractors, and its licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of the Website, including but not limited to out of your violation this Agreement.

14. Miscellaneous. This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between Celynoir Design and you concerning the subject matter hereof, and they may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorized executive of Celynoir Design, or by the posting by Celynoir Design of a revised version. Except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise, this Agreement, any access to or use of the Website will be governed by the laws of the state of North Carolina, U.S.A., excluding its conflict of law provisions, and the proper venue for any disputes arising out of or relating to any of the same will be the state and federal courts located in New Hanover County, North Carolina.

(Note, we’ve decided to make the above Terms of Service available under a Creative Commons Sharealike license, which means you’re more than welcome to steal it and repurpose it for your own use, just make sure to replace references to us with ones to you.)

O.K., this is major! While business users (and others) can use web-based applications like Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, or tons of other web apps to conduct their everyday business, there are drawbacks.  One big drawback is the fact that they depend on the browser to run, with the browser’s corresponding interferences (the windows, tabs, ribbons, etc.). Using Prism from Mozilla eliminates the browser interface, and the application comes up on your desktop like any other local application.

I tried it and I love it. I now have Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and my blog in my Start Menu, with a desktop icon. Now, when I want to open one of these applications, I just click the icon, and it starts, without the browser! I could even put it on my Startup menu, so it will start automatically when I log on.

Read more about it here!

Even better, get Prism HERE!

I want my logo for Celynoir Designs to consist of the letters CD, for many reasons. So I have been experimenting with different fonts, and these are my favorites. Tell me what you think.

I love crime stories, mysteries, crime writers, crime fighters and the people who read and write mysteries, so some of the happiest moments of my life was when I administered the Cape Fear Crime Festival web site. Unfortunately, due to budget issues, the festival is no longer in existence. I wrote, updated and administered this website and the associated blog. I also provided a system for online registration for the 2006 and 2007 festivals. I was so sad to be forced to shut it down.

An early stand-alone web site I created back when I was a Professional Bridal Consultant. I had a really good time with this site, and went on to design a site for a German Shepard Dog kennel, for which I received my dog, Nala.