Pixies in the New Year

Yesterday, I sent out a New Year's edition of The Occasional Newsletter.  That is a pretty common occurrence around here, and one that is not normally fraught with danger.

I use Constant Contact (CC) for my newsletters.  I find it easy to use and it presents a fairly professional product.

Last month, they offered me the chance to try a Beta version of their templates - and I decided to use the new templates for yesterday's newsletter.

The new templates are great as they employ a WYSIWYG format.  I don't think the new templates are any faster than the old, but for folks who aren't proficient in HTML, the changes will be welcomed.  I know enough HTML to get through w/o the new templates, but still, I love new technology so I was excited.

CC offers the chance to send a "test copy" of the newsletter to yourself or others for proofing etc.  I always do this because I am not known for great spelling, and it just helps me make things nice.

My test newsletter came out beautifully - and so I happily sent it out and then spent the rest of the day dining and hiking with friends.

When I got home last evening, I had a chance to look at my "real" version.  I saw that text had shifted places, entire sentences were missing - it looked awful. 

UGH!

I love doing these newsletters, and get great feedback from clients and colleagues about both the layout and the content.  I certainly would not have knowingly sent it out with the text scrambled. 

So, I began 2007 with a cuppa coffee, sitting at my laptop, completely redoing the newsletter in the OLD format.

A friend calls getting dizzy or woozy "getting pixie."  I certainly think my newsletter was pixie - or pixied (charmed by faeries).  Hopefully, the newsletter faeries will look kindly on this revision and let me spend the rest of the day in peace.

I did complain to Constant Contact, and they have asked for copies of both the correct test copy and the wacky actual copy - that gives me hope.  However, I did not mean to impose the very betaness of this on my clients...

I am off to make a fresh pot of coffee - with fingers crossed.

Happy New Year -
Cynthia
ps - I'll post photos of the hiking and tamale making a bit later today - we had a grand time.