20 June 2007

It’s like winning the lottery

Well, not really, not at all in fact. Out of all my non web worker friends I am the only one running a website (or five). I do have a few fellow industry professionals running sites so they know about what I’m going to rant here.

I neglect this site for a few days at a time sometimes, either work is piling up, or it’s stuff with the house, the wife and I need to get away for some quality time, etc. But from out of the blue my spam filter on here caught 93 comments in the past two days! I’m wondering at this point what the traffic influx is from… If it were good traffic I’d be stoked, but it’s more than likely from me commenting on someone else’s blog and getting the spider action, then again maybe not. I normally post my “business” identity on peoples sites directing them to media|extranet.

Oh well, run it up the flagpole I guess.

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15 June 2007

Out to lunch

It’s been a few postless days for me, I’ve been super busy at work and trying to maintain sanity at the same time Also, it is damn hot in the house, I may fill the tub up with ice and cold water, hmmmm, swimming in the bathroom!

Well, a lot is going on, our home purchase is finally in the can, we will be moving in at the end of the month! That means I have a lot of phone calls to make in the next week, movers, electric, gas, my internet, water, etc. Also I am headlong into three projects at work with very unrealistic deadlines, so that’s a ton of fun I suppose it isn’t all bad, can’t be right? I look at that as Job Security, which is important as the wife and I are buying a house now, tons more responsibility over renting a flat. I have been coding away at chunks and ideas for some redesigns I’m thinking about, plus I have a few freelance projects in the works so I am starting to feel stretched thin on time, but I’ll come out ahead, I always do. I ran into a creative block earlier this week though, that sucked a ton, I didn’t feel like I could create anything, lol. I also need to pick up the camera a bit more and do some photos, something fun to mess with when I hit another creative roadblock.

Well, that’s it for now, I will try to check in later with a more solid write.

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11 June 2007

Safari Sellout?

Apple has opened up Public Beta for Safari 3 today, I am currently testing on a remote PC, that’s right folks, a remote Windows machine! While I am not a big fan, nor a fan at all of Windows I do have to work with one for development reasons from time to time. This has been mentioned from time to time, but nobody thought it would actually happen, Apple to release their famed browser for a PC, then again, they did give the Windows users iTunes, and went from PowerPC to Intel for processors… Anyway, give it a try, for Mac/Win at apple.com/safari.

I’ll post my “official” test shortly of how it works on this Windows box, as well as the Intel Mac here at work and my PowerPC at home.

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9 June 2007

Development Workflow

Computer customization can be a great thing for productivity, however it can take a turn for the worse. Case in point, today I decided to get my computer at work really ready for some hardcore GTD, but the problem with a guy like me is I never really know when to quit. I started with of course cleaning up the cluttered desktop, putting files in the works in their correct places, okay, five minutes later we’re done.

Then I started to stare at my cluttered Dock, the Apple Dock is wonderful and awful all at once. So I thought about being able to manage the order of the programs held within the Dock, would this help?

In a way it does, all of my communication apps are on the left, then come development apps, then fun, you cannot forget fun stuff or what’s the point right? I came across a few great ideas that I will share with you now.

For Dock Spacing I came across an article by Adam Betts where he made “apps” out of icons to space things, simple idea, very useful execution. Next step is image previewing, this can be daunting as I have taken over the spot of three previous artists at my job. Each doing things in their own unique way, not wrong by any means but difficult to find and edit things for the guy walking into the fray. Some files open in Photoshop, some in Fireworks, and then finally some in Preview.app, which takes less time. But while I could Control Click all files and select Preview to open this is a bit of a PITA throughout the days workflow. I came across Xee which seems to be a great replacement (will follow up with a review) for Preview, plus it has an option in it’s Prefs that allows you to auto select using it as the replacement file by file or all files supported!

Now, so far I feel like the choices I’ve made will increase my productivity and workflow, I did end up wasting about a day to figure these things out, hopefully I saved you a bit of time in this from my findings.

Happy developing my fellow monkeys! Oh, and a preview of my dock/desktop so you can see what I mean, it’s flickR (which I loath saying as much as Tivo) but I can then outline why I do what I do.

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7 June 2007

Insert witty title here!

It has been a few days since I’ve posted, I have just been busy at work. I have been soaking my brain to the max lately with thoughts of Green as well. My wife and I started recycling early this year, but it really got me to thinking about all of the other things I could be doing to reduce my carbon footprint. We are planning to give up on bags at the grocery store and I’m looking into alternative/renewable energy sources for our new home. I bought my wife an iMac, it’s an older G3 but it is helpful so she can be on whenever she wants and I can get work done whenever inspiration strikes, so yay me! We were going to go this weekend to check out a 1972 VW Fastback, however we’d have to more than likely tow it back from Springfield IL (which is a couple hour haul, and the Passat doesn’t taut a tow package). It’s for the best, I’d rather find an old Beetle to have as a project car, something fun to fix up and go cruise around in with my special gal. Oh yeah, Apple updated their Powerbooks, which if your into Apple at all you already knew by now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or in a coma, hey, quit reading this if your in a coma!!! More later on!

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31 May 2007

More stuff and things

I’m told this is one of the most difficult things in the world, buying a house. And whoever told me this wasn’t kidding. We’ve been going back and forth with an Underwriter that doesn’t seem to want us to get into a home. But all is not lost, hopefully tomorrow we find everything out and get to planning our move. I think that we’ll use Simple Moves again, we used them to get my wifes stuff out of her old apartment and they were inexpensive, quick and careful. But this really puts my mind to a standstill, I really need to take a “stuff” diet, get rid of a lot of things.

In the process of getting rid of things I am now able to buy or build things to replace them, this makes me happy. For over a year now I’ve wanted to remedy my desk situation, it’s too small for the double (and soon possibly triple) monitors I have running. I figured out how I’m going to design the legs so now all that’s left is to buy supplies, and get to cutting and staining wood. This has been my biggest downfall thus far. I suppose I’ll use this desk for my wife’s computer or possibly turn it into a bedroom entertainment center, that’s all up in the air at this point.

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22 May 2007

The client and You

I’ve been working with a client for one of those ASAP type projects, only they have kept changing their mind on the creative direction. With around two hours till deadline I was able to whip them out something that they liked.

Now if they would have allowed our creative input from the get go, we could have had time for any possible revisions. I suppose I’m just trying to be logical, that rarely works.

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12 May 2007

Observations of Undershirts

Today is dawned on me as I was getting ready for work, man, I need more undershirts. But that sparked a completely different train of thought as I brushed my teeth and got ready for work. When I was a little shaver (my term for a young man) I used to think my father was goofy for having seemingly hundreds of undershirts. We’re talking A-Frames[1], the classic whites and even coloreds when he was feeling daring. It’s funny when you start to realize that your becoming an old man, heading towards Eric Clapton Town as Henry Rollins would say. So now I know that I must hit the local Target or Wal-Mart and get myself some more shirts, I chuckle slightly but also am trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m getting on in this world. A man I once thought was a dork I now admire for all of his efforts and strength to keep our family together, I only hope when my time comes that I can fill those shoes the same.

fn1. AKA(Also Known As) the wife-beater

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5 May 2007

One more month

That’s one more month of rent, I have pissed away over a decade of rent averaging out to around seven hundred a month where I could have shown some equity. But next month is my last rent payment, moving to the mortgage payment WOOOHOOOO! It is scary though, but the best thing that my wife and I could do in our “moving forward” plans. Soon we can move forward on the “baby” thing that everyone says is so great! We’ve had a boy’s name picked out for a while but are a tad up in the air about a girls name, we have time …

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4 May 2007

I am ….

I guess the best way to put it today is WTFO. Yesterday I helped unload eighteen pallets of EV speakers for a casino job. Didn’t get a lot of work done on the graphics side. But to help ensure things were/are running smoothly sometimes you have to wear a few hats.

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