today sucks

Jon
03.25.08 @ 08:20 PM CST
listening to: New Amsterdam
feeling: ugly

Today sucks. If you care why, hit the jump.
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Today's New Trick...iPhone Icons

Jon
03.21.08 @ 11:58 AM CST
listening to: Bones on Hulu

I was reading a website on web development yesterday and in the little bio blurb at the end it said that the author tries to learn a new trick every day. I thought that sounded novel..so I decided to learn a new trick today.

Todays Trick? How to make a proper iPhone Icon for your website. You see, if you do not make an icon for your site and someonen adds it to their iPhone, they see a little mini-screenshot of the home page. Not really attractive, or distinctive, nor emotionally rewarding.

So, not wanting users of ScreeNerd to be emotionally unrewarded, I made one for ScreeNerd.com. Here's how you do it:

• Make a 45px x 45px PNG of your icon.
• Do not add any 3D elements, shadows, or rounded corners. Turns out the iPhone does that for you.
• Save the graphic to your website's root directory as apple-touch-icon.png

Boom. You're done. The next person to add it to their iPhone's home screen will see the proper icon. If you have an iPhone, go add it: ScreeNerd.com
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1st entry from my new iphone

Jon
03.20.08 @ 02:51 PM CST
listening to: bones on hulu
feeling: woo hoo!

So...guess what I just got!
[1 Comment]

My sincerest wish for .Mac...

Jon
03.19.08 @ 12:10 PM CST
listening to: The Ri¢hes...

So, many of you won't care about this because you don't use Macs, and if you do, you don't use .Mac. So, you can tune out...Now. Everyone else, here's what I have to say. I'll keep it brief.

You know I love Apple, and El Jobso, and all of the wonderful things that they make. I have .Mac service because I wanted to make full use of all the fun tools that come with my computer, like iPhoto web galleries, iCal syncing, iWeb Publishing, etc. It's also great for trading large files with people who don't know how, or aren't allowed by their employers (or IT department) to run FTP software.

Here's my problem: When I upload files, I want it to tell me how it's going. The image above is what it shows me a the whole freakin' time I am uploading a file. I have no idea how much it's putting upstream, how fast, or when it'll be done. It drives me freakin' bonkers. I've been looking at that identical progress bar for well over 30 minutes at this point...and I don't know if it's just because it's a 190 MB file, or if it's because it's stalled out and I'm wasting my time.

So, my biggest feature request for my .Mac service is this: An Accurate Data Transfer Progress Bar. Or, at the very least, let me FTP files into my .Mac space. Cyberduck does a great job of telling me how it's going. ;-)
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Hulu is out of Beta...and MUCH bigger.

Jon
03.13.08 @ 05:04 PM CST



Some of you may have actually read the blog lately and seen that I have been using a site called Hulu to watch free and legal TV programs on the web. The only caveat of the system is that you had to get accepted into the private beta in order to use it...well, and the ads. I actually don't mind the ads too much. They're short. One ad per break, instead of four or so on TV. It takes about the same amount of time to FFWD through the ads on TiVo as it does to watch the one ad. No biggie.

Anyway.

The site is out of Beta, which means you can join now for free, without waiting to get into the program, and start using the site to watch TV. Why would one do this? Easy. The writer's strike wiped out TV and we've still got anything from a few weeks to a few months (or in some cases, like 24, almost a year) before new episodes will begin airing.

The other great purpose of the site, as far as I am concerned, is that I have been able to catch up on shows that I didn't watch the first time around, such as Arrested Development, Andy Barker PI, the last few seasons of the Simpsons, etc.

I'm also one of those people who can't not have a distraction going while I am working. I need to have something to ignore in order to concentrate. I'm broken that way. So, for me, Hulu is an endless stream of contend that I can have on in the background without exhausting my waning supply of Don & Mike Show Podcasts. In fact, most times I minimize the window with the video in it and just have the noise on.

Regardless of your reason to use it, the site works pretty well. It used Flash Video to stream the content, so go get your Flash Plug-in updated. I used it both at home on my 1.5 Mb DSL connection and at work with my 5Mb ViOS connection, and it seems to adapt itself pretty well to both conditions. They have a pretty impressive catalog of content, including TV and Movies, and some Internet-Only programming, including what essentially amounts to DVD-Extras...but not on DVD.

So, go watch some TV on the Internet at Hulu.com.
[1 Comment]

Visualizing Goals...

Jon
03.10.08 @ 09:29 PM CST
listening to: Monk on Hulu
feeling: Fine.



So, I want a new Forester (when they come out). In order to help me reach the goal of saving sufficient moneys to purchase my first "New" new car, I spent a little time making a desktop for my laptop, to remind myself what I am working towards. Check it out.

my weekend

Nicole
03.10.08 @ 11:51 AM CST
feeling: oh you'll see

So, this past weekend was all planned out. Kevin and I were cleaning on Friday, okay all went just fine. Saturday, we were supposed to go to the bank, rock climbing and be back 1/2 hr before Judy was supposed to arrive for showers. What actually happened- Bank (at 9 instead of 8 (learned what time they open on Sat) we were there until 10) then rock climbinbing 11 - 1, would have been fine except I took a bad fall and twisted my knee- the muscle hurt all day and all Sunday. Then because of the rain Judy was delayed so we went to lunch, and got back 1/2 hr to shower, so that was ok. Sunday the plan was to get up and go to theflower show, buy plants and go home. All fine, until we got home and I decided to work on the basement, cleaning up the ceiling tiles that verizon had to rip down, sounds like not a big deal- until I cut my thumb open from the top down and across the top of my knuckle. Now keep in mind that we were out all day and it is almost dinner time so we dealt with it ourselves, so now my thumb is in a splint!

2009 Forester...aka my next Automobile

Jon
03.09.08 @ 01:57 PM CST



So, I found a good gallery of photos for the new Forester. Keep in mind, the photos are of the Japanese version of the car, so it has an extra mirror, and the steering wheel is on the wrong side...and the buttons are all in Japanese.

Anyway, I think it's worth checking out:

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2009-subaru-forester/545167/

Cool Photoshop Technique...

Jon
03.03.08 @ 10:32 PM CST



See, this is what I get for writing off Photoshop™ as a tool for, well, tools when I was in college. I am painfully behind the times in a piece of software that lets me do really neat stuff.

I've actually been learning a lot about Photoshop™ lately, thanks to the fine, fine folks over at photoshop user tv...and I've come around on the usefullness of photoshop as a design tool, and as a tool for expressing myself. The fact that one can now make non-destructive changes to files makes it all the better...but mostly my problem was the bevy of bad work being produced by people who thought photoshop = design. Enlightenment feels good.

Anyway. I just read a tutorial on how to make a photo look like a photo of a miniature, which I have applied to this photo I took of Alcatraz while I was in San Francisco this fall. What's even cool is that because of my generally expanding knowledge of photoshop, I could go outside the walls of the tutorial and make a genuinely insightful improvement to the technique...which makes me super happy.

I'll include the regular version of the photo after the jump, just for comparison's sake. Let me know what you think.

It's Snowing in Dallas

Jon
03.03.08 @ 09:18 PM CST



Well, okay, Euless. I don't know what the hell it's doing in Dallas. Snow is a fragile thing here.

New Work: myIT.com Job Banner

Jon
03.02.08 @ 12:20 PM CST
listening to: The Cable Guy
feeling: Fine.

myIT.com recently had me design this 3'x4' display for a series of job fairs they are participating in at Dallas area universities. It's designed to accompany and compliment the trade show booth I designed for them a little over a year ago.