July 21st, 2008
For those of you subscribed to my del.icio.us feed, I apologize for two reasons. First off, I apologize because there has been no activity on it for months and months. Second, I apologize because you got bombarded with a bunch of stuff today. All of this was due to my new organization for bookmarks and stuff to read. I had been gathering links all over the place, Firefox, NetNewsWire’s flagged items, old del.icio.us links, etc. This made it difficult to figure out where stuff was and what I had read already. I decided to put everything together on del.icio.us now. Stuff I have read and want bookmarked will get thrown up there for everyone to see and stuff I have not have had a chance to read yet will get the clever toread tag on it. If you are curious about stuff I am reading or going to read, feel free to follow them.
Posted in Web Technology | Tags: del.icio.us
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July 16th, 2008
As you may have noticed after the redesign of my site, in the comments area there is a nifty little icon next to people. This feature is called a Gravatar, and it is my pick of the week. Gravatars allow you to have a common icon on any site that uses that service. It is really easy to sign up for an account and upload your picture. Then each time you make a comment on a site that supports them, it will grab the picture by the email address you use. It is a simple idea, but works really nicely.
Note: If you don’t have a Gravatar, my site automagically generates an icon for you, so you don’t have to see some weird grey figure next to your name.
Posted in Pick of the Week | Tags: gravatar
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July 14th, 2008
My wife has known this for awhile now, but I am now willing to publically admit it, I am addicted to typefaces. The more and more I designed for the web, I began to notice how important the selection of typefaces, or fonts if you choose, was to a site. I then watched Helvetica, a documentary about type throughout the 20th century, and I was hooked. Now I notice type all over the place. It is very easy to fall into this because type is all around you everyday. Look at a road sign, an entrance to a resturant, various web pages or whatever, and you can start to notice trends. You will see styles you like and others you don’t like. If you get more interested in it, you will even find typefaces you prefer and start to remember the names of them, it is crazy.
The point of this post is that content is always king, but how that content is displayed is a close second. You can write a great story, make a great web page, or make a clever sign, but all of that is supported by the choice of type you use. If you are more curious about the subject, I would recommend checking out ilovetypography.com. It is a great place to start out to learn about type and find other resources if you are so inclined.
Posted in Personal, Web Technology | Tags: type
2 Comments -
July 12th, 2008
Since I am going with podcasts this week, I thought I give you two different options as Picks of the Week. The first is This American Life, a podcast that takes one topic each week and looks at it from a number of different angles. It sounds weird, but it is wonderfully hypnotic. You can find out more about it at their site and it is for free on iTunes.
My second pick, You Look Nice Today, is completely different and could even be for a different audience. It is a collection of three guys basically doing stream of conciousness discussion about random, odd or even gross topics. That being said, it is hilarious if you are up for bizarre humor, which I am. It is also available for free on iTunes.
Posted in Pick of the Week | Tags: podcast
1 Comment -
July 11th, 2008
Today I decided to take a break and run down the street to buy an apple from the local food market. Walking back, I decided to start eating it. I was getting close to work again and had some apple left, so I sat on a bench outside to enjoy the rest of the apple. I got back to work invigorated and ready to get going again. It made me think that with smoke breaks going the way of the dodo, people might not have a good excuse to take a breather during their busy work day. If more organizations offered free fruit, people could take a fruit break for a nutritious snack and take a rest from their work. I am looking to organize a committee here to investigate the feasibility of fruit breaks. I encourage all of you to do the same and we can start a change in the eating and break habits of the American workplace.
Posted in Personal | Tags: opinion
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July 8th, 2008
A little halfway through the year and I thought I would give an update on albums I have listened to so far in preparations for the top 2008 albums. Here is the list so far:
All India Radio - Fall
Breathe Owl Breathe - Ghost Glacier EP
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Coldplay - Viva la Vida
Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Dengue Fever - Venus on Earth
The Dodos - Visiter
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Jim Noir - Jim Noir
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Matmos - Supreme Balloon
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
No Kids - Come Into My House
Nomo - Ghost Rock
Portishead - Third
Shearwater - Rook
Sun Kil Moon - April
Throw Me The Statue - Moonbeams
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Weezer - Weezer (The Red Album)
I already have a few albums I am aware of to listen to, listed below, but if there are other ones you think I shouldn’t miss, feel free to add them to the comments.
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Santogold - Santogold
Posted in Music | Tags: 2008, top albums
4 Comments -
July 3rd, 2008
I let the Album of the Week go awhile back because of time and I didn’t make it a resolution for the new year so I didn’t feel obligated to do it. I also felt guilty with my last design where only one post showed up that it would not get displayed long out there. With the new design, I figured I could play catch up with the album of the week. I am still unlikely to post every week, but I will try to do a few albums a month for you. In the meantime, I will suggest an album for each week since April 16th, the last Album of the Week
April 23: Know by Heart - The American Analog Set
I once told Mattbot that I would like to listen to some new music and he obliged with a bunch of artists I had never heard of. One of my favorites was the this album. Softly sung but strong lyrics infiltrate this entire album.
April 30: Hello Rockview - Less Than Jake
A flashback to my short punk/ska days, this album is still a great listen for a little angst with your horns.
May 7: Mary Star of the Sea - Zwan
While I did not love the album by the new Smashing Pumpkins last year, I did love the more obscure album by Zwan, Billy Corgan’s band between Pumpkins stints. It is meant to be listened to loudly, and I would encourage doing that.
May 14: Rodrigo y Gabriela - Rodrigo y Gabriela
A guitar instrumental album, this is simply amazing. I don’t need to say more, just check it out.
May 21: Dial “M” for Monkey - Bonobo
Nice relaxed electronic music that is interesting enough to keep you listening, but also works as great background music.
May 28: Narrow Stairs - Death Cab for Cutie
I decided to buy this even after I couldn’t find someone who recommended it. It is a little darker than other Death Cab albums but also a little more entertaining.
June 4: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone since I loved the EP so much. This will likely be one of the contenders for album of the year.
June 11: Rook - Shearwater
If you like Okkervil River, you will love this album. Will Shelf, the vocalist for Okkervil River, lends his talents to Shearwater once again to make one of the most touching and powerful albums of the year.
June 18: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
For most people, this will need no explanation. That being said, this album had to grow on me, but when it did, it has become one of my favorite albums ever.
June 25: Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
An obscure hip-hop album from the year 2000 was re-released with a few more remixes making it an even better value. This album is set in the 3030 and has sci-fi themes throughout. For a nerd, hip-hop doesn’t get much better.
July 2: Ghost Rock - Nomo
To commemorate Jazz Fest in Iowa City, I give you a kind of funky jazz sounding album from Nomo. If you arn’t sure, check out the track Rings as it will give you a good sense of what the rest of the album is like.
Posted in Music | Tags: aotw
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July 3rd, 2008
For the pick this week, I was inspired by my wife forgetting her iPod at home and not having a source of music for the day. I looked for a way to share iTunes music from the home computer across the Internet. After a brief search, I found Simplify Media, a client you install on your machine to share music libraries across the Internet. It also allows you to share your libraries with up to 30 other people. It isn’t perfect as it does not bring over ratings for songs, but it does bring playlists along so if you setup some clever playlists on your original machine, you should be all set. Simplify Media is free to use as well, making it all the nicer.
Posted in Music, Pick of the Week | Tags: Music, simplify media
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June 29th, 2008
For the Pick of the Week, I am choosing the one podcast I follow as soon as it comes out, Macbreak Weekly. Macbreak is where my Pick of the Week started since each host does one on the show. The show itself is entertaining because it not only covers the Mac news of the week, but often sidetracks into other discussions involving productivity, photos or random other technology. Due to the sense of humor of each host and their interactions, it feels like a bunch of tech savvy friends hanging out and talking about Mac stuff. I find it entertaining each week all for no cost.
Posted in Pick of the Week | Tags: macbreak
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June 27th, 2008
Once again, Marktopia has a new design with some changes to the way some stuff was done with the organization of the site as well. The first thing I want to do is give credit to PSHero.com for their Interstate Road Sign tutorial in Photoshop. The wonderful detail it gave set the theme for the new design and allowed me to add more texture to the site.
The next thing you will notice is that the Categories are back. When Wordpress introduced the tagging feature, I jumped all over it and abandoned the categories. It allowed me to do the tag cloud I had on the previous design and made me feel all Web 2.0. When working on this new design though, I realized without categories, I had lost some focus for what I blog about. I decided to look at my content a little harder and found everything could fit into 5 neat buckets, Music, Personal, Pick of the Week, Reviews and Web Technology. I went through the lengthy task of adding a category to each post so now if you only want to follow one type of post on my site, you can use the RSS feed for that category.
This is also a nice lesson for other bloggers, use categories and tags together on your site. Combining few categories with many different tags gives you a well rounded organization for your site and can also help you better define what you want your site to be. I would love to hear opinions of the site, so feel free to comment below.
Posted in Personal | Tags: design, marktopia
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