Monday, January 26, 2009
I had recently come across this CMS called Indexhibit which is really simple and great for folks who just need a place to show their work and put up a CV without being concerned with designing the whole presentation — or, as the website says, Indexhibit is a web application used to build and maintain an archetypal, invisible website format that combines text, image, movie and sound.
Our friend Toby and his wife were over last weekend and I was showing him the software. He’d been using iWeb for his photography but couldn’t settle on a design and get it going. So, we set up Indexhibit on his site, and bam. He says he really likes it. It seems to be working really well for him.
He has an understanding of the relationship between light and camera far superior than anyone I know. He was showing us some really beautiful images he’s made, and I can hardly wait till he puts up more …
Saturday, January 24, 2009
In light of long-held convictions and the present state of economic affairs, I hereby declare that I shall no longer link you to Amazon for literature. I really enjoy Amazon, mostly for the sort of reference it has become, reviews, associated or similar books, et cetera. However, I love local economies more than I love the convenience associated with Global Economy’s monetary values.
I urge you to check your local public library for availability of books you find interest in. We don’t need to own everything. Public libraries are a really great resource and one we should take full advantage of. If you can’t find what you’re looking for though, or if it’s something you just gotta have, shop a local bookstore. I find that I’ll often have to pay a few bucks more, but I also find peace in knowing that I’m helping to keep my neighbors stay in business — and if I’m patronizing my public library, I can afford it.
From here on, until something better comes along, I will be linking through IndieBound any books I mention. It’s not perfect; there aren’t …
Thursday, January 22, 2009
My friend, Tyler Deeb, who does design and illustration at Pedale Design, has started a new blog. Check it.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
I’m hearing on the radio today some fellow local citizens talking about blogging and its associated perceptions, misconceptions, etc., and I have to admit, part of me wants to cringe, just a bit.
What is blogging? It’s a freeform publishing means for writers in which they, more often than not, set their own boundaries in terms of what they will write about, and how they will go about writing it. It’s also a weird contraction-made-verb of the term weblog which, of course, is a derivative itself (world wide web + journal/record/register/ledger/log).
All that to say I have a personal distaste for the word ‘blog’. (For what it’s worth, I also have a general distaste for anything to do with contemporary or popular culture.) People sometimes approach me and say Hey, I read your blog, and I think to myself, Oh yes, I do have one of those things you could call a blog. But I don’t call it a blog. I call it a journal, just to satisfy myself.
Anyway, the larger issue talked about in at least the first third of the radio episode (I couldn’t really take any more …
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Photo of Sloan McLain/NPR
From NPR’s This I Believe:
Seven-year-old Tarak McLain was born in Thailand and lives with his family in Austin, Texas. He collects and hands out food to the homeless and raises money for orphans and impoverished schools. He reads about the world’s religions and listens to public radio.
Is there anything else so important?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
From a 1996 interview between Marianna Cook and Barack and Michelle Obama, here is an excerpt of Barack talking about Michelle:
And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.
Be sure to see the lovely photo.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
I saw this new Adobe Air application on swissmiss called DestroyTwitter, which is desktop software for Twitter, and decided to give it a whirl. I haven’t been active on Twitter in a while, but I do keep up with what’s going on its development arena. So, I installed DestroyTwitter and really liked it — so much so that I decided to publish a tweet, my first one in about 4 months. Then I started thinking, maybe I’ll start twittering again.
In a twist of irony, just today Tina (swissmiss) shared this fine excerpt about realtime distractions:
The biggest impediment to concentration is your computer’s ecosystem of interruption technologies: IM, email alerts, RSS alerts, Skype rings, etc. Anything that requires you to wait for a response, even subconsciously, occupies your attention. Anything that leaps up on your screen to announce something new, occupies your attention. … By all means, schedule a chat — voice, text, or video — when it’s needed, but leaving your IM running is like sitting down to work after hanging a giant “DISTRACT ME” sign
…
Sunday, January 11, 2009
OMG I changed my favicon!
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Update — Fontcase & FontExplorer X Pro
As soon as I got excited about Fontcase, Linotype swooped down and released FontExplorer X Pro (verson 2.0). It has a way better app icon. It’s a little different this time, though, because it’s no longer free. It’s $39 until the end of February, and then jumps to $79. To be clear, I have no problem with paying for good software.
The Pro version cleans up some details of the interface that 1.2.3 left out. I mean, they finally cleaned it up (that icon included). I couldn’t complain about it before because it was free. There’s also a bunch of other technical details that probably matter, but I don’t care because it’s just not as exciting as Fontcase makes looking at my fonts. Plus, as good of an idea (and business move) the integrated Linotype store is, I just don’t care about it. I don’t use it.
Here’s FontExplorer X Pro:
And here are some different …
Sunday, January 04, 2009
This is kind of dumb, but I won’t hesitate to admit that I’m a bit of a software nerd. My eyes and ears are always open for new apps to evaluate; almost always having some trial app installed. Sometimes I’ll reset my trials after a few months of the first try, because I wasn’t sure I understood the app correctly.
Some software I just can’t seem to enjoy or reap benefit from. I don’t mean to disuade anyone from trying out software for themselves, but a few examples of software that fail for me are: Billings, anything from IGG Software or Jumsoft, MoneyWell, anything from OmniGroup other than OmniWeb, feed readers other than NewsFire. There are plenty more. Most of these apps have good ideas behind them, but they either fail in their UI details, are too complicated, or otherwise don’t feel …
