Internet

Hello Safari

For those who follow me on twitter you will know that I have been having some problems with FireFox on OSX. As I used FF on Windows I naturally loaded it up first on my iMac and didn’t really give Safari a chance. I have several extensions that I have used for awhile to make life easier when designing. I wasn’t ready to give up these extensions and still not. However, after using FireFox with no problems for a few weeks it started to crash often. This alone was a pain but then the keyboard would just stop responding inside FF. Did I switch yet? No, of course not. After the almost hourly crashes and daily keyboard not responding it started locking up my iMac to the point that I would have to perform a hard restart. So, as I was in the middle of client work and was having internet problems with my AT&T DSL and (mt) was having Grid-Service problems as well it was just a really off day. I finally had to force quit FireFox and just launched Safari instead.

At first Safari was a little different and I didn’t like it. In fact as I was changing some settings I was still eyeing the FF icon in the dock and kept thinking I would give it one more try, although I didn’t. After changing a few preferences I jumped back into client work as I really needed to get this design sent off. I was missing my extensions a little but overall Safari started to grow on me. I have found it to also be faster then FF which has been great. Best of all though is that it hasn’t crashed or locked up once. This alone makes it that much greater then FF. The only thing that really bothers me is that there is currently no way to middle click (button 3) to close tabs in Safari. I did find a ‘dirty hack’ that does this but I will just learn to do without it. I haven’t given the latest FF Beta a try (I’ve been meaning to, but haven’t gotten around to it) but will to see if this might solve my problems. If it doesn’t, I don’t think it will bother me much as Safari has been good for me.

Sick Kids

Well it seems that I didn’t get sick and have been feeling great but both my kids are sick. Chase stayed home from school today after being sick over the weekend and today my daughter started a fever and feeling sick. Its never fun to have a house full of sick kids.

On another note; the MacWorld Keynote is tomorrow and of course I’m looking forward to it. Mostly excited about anything announced for the iPod line and the iMac (rumor of an HD iSight?). I know most of the news should be about the MacBook and iPod/iPhone but I’m waiting to see what is announced regarding the iMac so I can hurry up and purchase mine already.

8 Cores?

With MacWorld just around the corner Apple has been releasing minor information regarding their products. Of course its nothing earth shattering and no major overhauls yet but everybody is waiting for MacWorld for that. One of the announcements which is also now available for purchase is 8-Cores in the Mac Pro. I’ve looked at getting a Mac Pro as my first Mac but the cost just wasn’t great for me which is why I will be getting the 24″ iMac. I priced a new Mac Pro without the monitor of course and for one that I would like (not maxed out or anything) it comes to $4,500. Compared to the $2,100 my iMac will be costing thats double. Then of course a Mac Pro I would like came to $18,000. I’m pretty sure I will never be in a position to purchase an $18,000 Mac and I’m not sure why anybody would want to but just in case Apple has left that option open. I’m looking forward to what else Apple has in store for us at MacWorld.

Need Inspiration?

Everybody needs inspiration and I’ve browsed around hundreds of business card designs in the past always looking for more. You can find several great pools on flickr with plenty of great business cards and moo cards. After reading a post on the Project Designs Blog of some inspiring cards he has found I felt like posting my own. My new business cards were printed recently but have not gotten here. They are due here tomorrow so I will be posting them then.

Some original cards. My favorite are carpal tunnel and brother in law. Original here

This is one of my personal favorites.

Creative and clean.

I’ve always loved these and wouldn’t mind one like this myself. To the point.

Much like the above its clean, simple and to the point.

Seen lots of cut-outs and this is one of the few that still look great.

Another favorite that is simple, clean with all the information needed.

As the inspiration for this post ProjectDesigns also has a clean card.

Most ‘grunge’ style cards just don’t work but this one looks great and the inverted sides are perfect.

When cards mimic the name.

And last but not least a simple way to let people know your out of business cards.

Video Blogging

I have been a blogger since 2003. I have always been interested in new media. I have done audio and video editing in the past (promotional dvd’s, highlight reels, music videos, etc) and have always wanted to do more in that field. I haven’t really jumped on the VideoBlogging/Podcasting wagon. I do enjoy many podcasts and videobloggers though. Clintus McGintus is of course awesome. I’ve also watched a few of his Justin.tv casts and he really shows his interest in new media and video. Then you have Brent Spore of iBoughtAMac and PodcampAZ who is a very interesting guy. Then who could forget Justine. She is the internet. She not only vlogs but is also a lifecaster as seen on Justin.tv. It becomes addicting to watch her and is sometimes hard to keep up with her as she is everywhere most recently at PodcampAZ and now at BlogWorld.

As I said before I’m more of a blogger (and some say not much of that, to which… I would agree). I do however plan to join the vlog scene and start video blogging. This is one of my plans for the new year. I’m not sure how it will go but we will see. I don’t plan to lifecast (although might be cool in the future to go mobile and lifecast) I might put up a cam at my desk (much like Clintus and Chris Pirillo). Personally I love catching up on everybody’s videos and reading blogs and my Google Reader is growing with loads of new feeds. I planned to keep this post short so thats it for today.

NaBloPoMo

In accordance with NaBloPoMo I am to post a blog every day for the month of November. It looks like I am 6 posts behind. Anyways as I normally don’t post that often these daily posts will be quick and very short.

Back to work today after taking yesterday off to move my desk (near a window, lovin it so far) and rearranging the house. Our house of course looks like we moved in yesterday (even though it was a few months ago). So, we started moving stuff around and going through boxes and trashing stuff we meant to trash years ago. It felt good to finally get rid of some boxes that normally sit in a corner for months. It felt good to have the house look more like a home instead of a place with boxes stack in the corner for a year. Although the house is still a mess as there is still a few more things to do it looks good. Finally made a place in the closet for our camping gear (didn’t know we had that much). Spent most of today doing client updates to some sites and will be doing the same tomorrow. Looking to gain a few new clients this month before slowing things down in December to work on some other projects (such as FieldStatus, 2532|Gigs, and 2532|Cal). Thats it for today. Tomorrow look for my comments on Macs and why I plan to finally make the switch from PC to Mac this January. Some other topics I plan to discuss for this month of blogging (as my life isn’t interesting enough to fill up a month) include VideoBlogs, PodCasting, Music (and lots of new artists), Twitter and the future of this site.