Family stuff has settled into something manageable. Comics to resume next Monday. Did you miss us as much as we missed you?

Sharp & Useless is still active. In fact, Kate has met someone new! And Sydney is embarking on a huge, if potentially disastrous real estate venture… We know the storylines and are looking forward to sharing them with you.
Unfortunately, we’re presently having some significant technical difficulties with our main working computer, and therefore can’t access [...]

…Um, I mean, era. Whatever.
News! First, our web-guru has created some guru-iffic things. We will install those things this week and then tell you how they work. Unless, of course, we blow up in the process. In which case, please tell our mamas we thought of them at the end.
Second, we are tinkering [...]

Like Spiderman, but with PHP!
We’re meeting with someone who could, fingers crossed, become the guy who does our “honey-do” web stuff. We will ply him with caffeine and big, soulful eyes, until he agrees. Wish us luck.

I spent all day today doing things out of the office. Sometimes it’s nice to be out — new scenery, better food, less paper-shuffling. Today, it was just a headache — voicemails, e-mails, and unbilled time piled up.
Two things I’ve found:
1. When you come back to the office, you repeat yourself. You go from office [...]

My firm has a surfeit of them. And all of the firm’s vendors are throwing happy hours and get-togethers, too. For efficiency’s sake, I suggest one designated party day, with videoconferencing as necessary.
Or start letting me BILL to attend these things. That would be a great holiday gift, thanks.

I love authors who provide free and substantial samples of their work. I think it’s exactly what you’d do if you walked into a bookstore and began flipping through the books to see if you like them. It amazes me that more authors don’t take this route.
I’ve never read J.C. Hutchins before, but he evidently [...]

A couple of readers have asked us why Sydney’s hair and eye color keep changing. The answer is that Sydney practically lives at a funky hair salon in Venice Beach, and she owns two dozen sets of Hollywood FX-grade contact lenses. (Convenient perks for the well-off and fashion-fluid.)
Maybe this belongs under Q&A, [...]

There’s a members area in the works; free desktop patterns every week, and a giveaway contest every month. In scant days, you can be part of the “in” club, without having to wear Mickey ears!
The Tumlbr blogs are being overhauled, which explains the absence of new posts.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and many happy returns of the [...]

This beautiful Friday is absolutely hampered by various legal concerns. Hmf.
I would complain more, but I feel guilty when the court reporter isn’t complaining.
And why is that? Every court reporter I’ve ever met has had a sense of humor, an inextinguishable supply of patience, and an excellent memory. Why would court reporters be nice people, [...]

After much trial-and-error tweaking, we think we may have finally overcome Internet Explorer’s infamous rendering bugs. Or, at least, we’ve got a site that appears to display properly on IE7 and IE8, on our Vista and XP machines.
We don’t have a copy of IE6, which some behind-the-times companies are still forcing upon their staff. Therefore, [...]

A reader just alerted us to the fact that carnivorous Internet Explorer doesn’t display our comic strip anymore. It useta. Now it doesn’t. Evidently, an Internet Explorer user can’t see our comic on the home page OR through archives. An IE user can only view our strip by clicking on the RSS Feed.
More proof that [...]

We need a better system for indicating that the Q & A page has been updated. Maybe one of those FLASHING THINGS! “Update! Update! Update!” And a klaxon alarm.
No, really. We want to organize the Q & A page to sort the questions by topic, and have some automated process that publishes a one-line update [...]

Google Analytics tells us how many people are looking at our site and where those visitors live. We try not to check every day — after all, we’re a fledgling site and we should be spending time on content! The readership issue can be addressed later. But we indulge now and again. Every time we [...]

As promised, here’s a shout-out to Teresa Thompson, a real life person who really linked to our comic. Thanks again for reading!

Miche: I love radio plays. Sharp and Useless should have radio plays.
Panino: What’s a radio play?
*Miche explains*
Panino: Okay. So, we’d need to get good voice actors, a recording space, equipment, software, and the time…
Miche: Yes, that’s true.
Panino: …so that we could tell a story using conversation instead of comics?
Miche: Er. Yes, I suppose.
Panino: Let’s get [...]

Kate: kate-su.tumblr.com
Sky: sky-su.tumblr.com
Bailey: bailey-su.tumblr.com
The Tumblr pages will be updated daily, Monday through Friday, with character-appropriate posts. Feel free to befriend them! Fictional people are still people!
We’re figuring out how to widget-ly host the Tumblr posts on the Sharp & Useless home page, too.

Entirely without being paid, and altogether without any kinship ties, and even without being forced by means foul and violent, Teresa Thompson listed Sharp & Useless as one of the “Comics I Like.”
This is our first referral link! We can’t go to sleep. We’re beaming at each other and hitting refresh repeatedly. LOOK! Right THERE [...]

Setting up Tumblr accounts for Kate, Sky, and Bailey today. Also, a Facebook account for the strip.
Very soon, Sharp & Useless characters are going to have more active social lives than we do! (Which isn’t that difficult a feat. I think pre-schoolers with play dates have more active social lives than we do.)

Today, we discovered that there is such a thing as Google PageRank. We also discovered that our PageRank is zero. This is what happens when you start a webcomic — you write a story, you draw some characters, you find someone to host your website, you find software to help you design your website…and then [...]

Awful enough that lawyers meet. More awful that they’re meeting early in the morning. Awfullest of all that it’s a strategy session. It could conceivably last until I die.

Not the kind off dress shirts. Button ads — slightly bigger than Miche’s thumb, slightly smaller than Panino’s. We placed bids via Project Wonderful. Exciting! (This is the nascent stages of webcomickery, when everything is exciting. )

With luck, and Frumph’s gracious help Panino’s sharp eyesight, today may be is the grand unveiling of a functional blog! Woot!

Klondike should pay us for the product plug.

2GB more RAM than before. Illustrator is running SO fast…this strip is being written from the future!