AJ Kandy of “West of the Expressway” has made some perceptive observations on The Economics of Urban Sprawl. Not only do the suburbs exterminate culture, they may be an economic drain all-around. It’s great to make the decision to not buy a gas guzzler, but how about designing our lives so we drive less to begin with?
The eventual realization of these economic consequences may result in the End of Suburbia, looks like an interesting documentary, analyzing “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.” It probably won’t be coming to a theater near you, but they do encourage public screenings. Anyone up for one in Omaha?
Now that kadavy.net is included in the sites drawer for NetNewsWire 2.0b10 (a great RSS Reader for the Mac), I figured it was time to gain a little edge with my own favorites icon (that little icon that is showing up next to the web address on your address bar on most browsers).
To make one for your site, design a 16×16 pixel gif and upload it to your root directory with the name “favicon.ico”. It’s best if you can stay within the standard 256-color216-color web palette.
Tip: When working at the pixel-level in Photoshop, it’s a good idea to have one window zoomed way in (like 1600%) so you can see each pixel clearly, but also have a second window open for the same document (Window < Arrange < New Window for document name) at 100%, so you can simultaneously see what it will look like at actual size.
Compare, which enables you to use conditionals in your templates, is absolutely essential.
I’ll also have to eventually get Acronym, which automatically attaches an acronym tag to known acronyms…and you can even add your own.
Get XML looks very promising: you can suck data from an XML document to syndicate on your site. This would be good for syndicating my recent posts on Be A Design Group, but I couldn’t get it to work, and I think FatCow may not have the required Perl Modules installed, so I’m waiting to hear back on that.
Notifier also looks nice. It enables users to subscribe to comments on specific entries.
As a typography enthusiast, I have to get Smartypants to automatically generate “smart quotes”.
I also thought I saw one that would automatically generate hyperlinks for certain keywords that you could specify. That would also be a must-have. In exploring these plugins and Movable Type Template Tags, I am really beginning to appreciate how incredibly flexible Movable Type is.
Some good reasons to consider using OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office. One of the more compelling ones, rather than it being a free package that still works in the Microsoft formats is that it can produce XML format documents, which means that the data in your documents will probably always be accessible. I still haven’t used OpenOffice.org, but I will be sure to. I have heard, though, that if you exchange a great deal of files with people who use Microsoft Office, that you will run into problems eventually.
I recently got a new laptop. It’s a 15-inch Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz, and its quite nice. I got it in my endless pursuit of comfort, and I haven’t used my new desk since I got my new laptop. Instead, I use it on the couch, in coffee shops, Panera Bread, and on the road. You’d think with all of that laptop using, I would be blogging more, but sorry. Maybe it’s because my new Powerbook came loaded with GarageBand, and now I can finally record music with my guitar. My tower didn’t even have an audio input! Maybe I’ll let you guys know if I post any music on iCompositions. Probably not.
I have been spending time on my blog, though. I’m working on a big re-design, and posting my portfolio, using Movable Type as a content management system a la Stopdesign’s Portfolio. Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign was kind enough to post how he used Movable Type to manage his portfolio, and I’ve been able to figure out alot of it, but he seems to have left some crucial information out. I can’t figure out how he managed to get going to a category to go directly to the first post of that category, rather than to an “index” page. Oh well, it will take some tinkering, but not that I haven’t already done enough with no results.
This entry already has a long trackback list, but that’s because it is well said. Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make. It seems almost all of them make these mistakes. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
One of the things I do at RDG, is occasionally draw maps. I also impart my knowledge of graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator to those in the company who draw maps more often than I do, to enable them to draw them more efficiently and attractively.
An underlying theme in the the research I have done to achieve this has been to try to make things as live-editable as possible. Anyone familiar with Illustrator can imagine what a headache it may be to create, and make changes to, a map full of city blocks that look like those in the image below:
Changing the street routes or widening the streets, while maintaining a uniform street width, will be an enormous and time-consuming pain. And what if you want to change the amount of bevelling of the street corners? With Illustrator’s Live Effects and Appearance Palette, if you start your drawing off right, you can change these things in seconds.
MacMerc.com has announced the winning letter, in which Jeff Ferzoco explains to Quark why he’s switched to InDesign. Anyone who has used both programs regularly can relate and will find this letter hilarious. My favorite part: “Certainly, Quark, I won’t undo this decision.”
I switched about 2 1/2 years ago. I was amazed by the ease of use of InDesign and the familiarity of its interface (after using Illustrator), literally, within the first few minutes of using it. It’s so satisfying to hear more and more users making the switch and Quark getting what’s been coming to them. This is good news along with Firefox gaining rapidly on IE even before being a full release, and I look forward to seeing more people abandon their OS entirely.
