One of my big projects at work right now is redesigning our website. I tried messing around with a couple different designs I had seen, first from just a plain text editor (jEdit), then with a WYSIWYG app (Nvu). As much as I enjoy goofing around, I saw very soon how much time and effort it was going to take me to get something very unprofessional thrown up there. Not what I wanted, and a pretty crappy business decision.
Now, I have long been fortunate enough to surround myself with people of great talent. I don’t want to give his name away here, since he’s doing a bit of freelance work for me here and I don’t want to take any chance of causing him any stress at work, but a great friend and incredible designer agreed to put something together for me. And I can’t wait to see what he’s got up his sleeve!
I still enjoy playing around with design stuff, that’s one of the reasons I’ve got my little blag-o-blog here. So while my buddy has the skills and tools to work magic, when I want to put my own meager visions to the screen I can really use the help of places like these guys:
The aptly named Button Maker lets you whip together custom web buttons, the kind you usually see for RSS feeds and the like.
This simple little web-based tool lets you choose background, border and text colors using a pop-up picker. You can even make modifications down to the pixel level, like how far text should start from the side. Click Submit and presto: Instant button. Alas, you can’t change the overall size of the button, but this is still a nice little tool. Want something a little fancier? Check out the oldie-but-goodie Glassy button maker. —Rick Broida
It’s amazing how much I wasn’t doing at my old job. I’m embarrassed to admit it, purely out of professional pride, but man, was I ever checked out at that dump. I mean, it was no surprise that I was totally unmotivated, but I didn’t realize just how good I was at finding other things to do until I came here and actually started spending my time… you know… WORKING!
This is a good thing of course, but once in a while I do miss the whole “I’m going to spend my entire work day surfing for interesting links to put up on my blog” thing I had going. I do still give myself the occasional break to flip through my RSS feeds (gotta make sure I stay up to date with Wil and Joey and the AICN crew), and of course I can’t get through my day without a healthy BoingBoing and Fark fix. I realized this week that I hadn’t checked out Lifehacker in a while, and true to their productivity preaching, they had a LOT of ways to improve pretty much everything I do in life.
Managed to get up to date again (for now anyway), below I’ve posted a few gems for future application/reference. Along with a few pictures of 2 of my favourite cities. You can probably guess.
Google Apps Premier Edition
Geek to Live: Run Windows XP inside Vista with Virtual PC – Lifehacker
How to set up a smart Out-of-Office autoreply with Gmail – Lifehacker
Mac Tip: Add the Path button to Finder’s toolbar – Lifehacker
Build a 10-Day Survival Pack for $25
10 Nasty Money Habits To Kick
Top 10 Free Mac Downloads – Lifehacker
Meals Matter: Healthy Eating and Meal Planning
UltraNewb: How to move your iTunes library to an external drive – Lifehacker
Alpha Geek: Make Microsoft Word less annoying – Lifehacker
Understanding Games: Episode 1
“Last Morning”
by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
This is the last mornin’ that I wake up in this dirty city
Looking for the sunshine as the buildings block the skies
This is the last mornin’ that I wash in rusty water
Tryin’ to shave a face that I don’t even recognise
Down the hallway rats are skitterin’
I can smell the garbage rottin’
Hear the children cryin’ in an apartment down below
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to listen to it
I’m going home, yeah
This is the last mornin’, that I try to breath the heavy air
Fight the crowds, avoid the traffic, watch the world turn grey
This is the last mornin’ that I drink my coffee standing up
Smile and speak to strangers who just turn and walk away
This is a tough cold city here
And I’ll guess I’ll never cut it here
And I’m so tired of tryin’ to stand against it all alone
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to fight it
I’m going home, yeah
This is the last mornin’ that I wear these greasy overalls
Punch the clock and do just what I’m told to get along
And face the long evenin’, layin’ close beside my radio
Imaginin’ the kisses of the girl that sings the song
Down below the subway’s screaming
As I lay here halfway dreaming
Looking at the ceiling, wondering where, the dream went wrong (where, where)
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to think about it
I’m going home
I’m going home
I’m going home
I’m going home
