Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Anti-Bush Grafitti from Around the World

Curitiba, Brazil

Unlike Bush's approval rating, attendance at Disney theme parks doesn't seem to have taken a hit in America's worsening economy.

Photo by mlbor

Granada, Spain

Bush's Starbucks-colored tank creeps toward a McDonald's logo.

Photo by juanti

Lisbon, Portugal

Photo by Graffiti Land

London, England

Painted on a wall facing East London's members-only Shoreditch House is this poignant portrait.

Photo by nickburcher

Sofia, Bulgaria

Faded from foot traffic, the sidewalk mugshot reads: Wanted Dead: George W. Bush, for crimes against humanity and the planet.

Photo by kiki

Berlin, Germany

Bush faces off with Osama bin Laden outside a record store in Berlin. War is terror, the caption reads.

Senator Obama's tour included a stop in Berlin, where he gave a speech to a crowd of more than 200,000. American blogger Fred Wilson responds: "This kind of worldwide popularity is something we need in the US right now."

Photo by shawnbot

Colonia, Uruguay

This makeshift banner welcomed Bush to Uruguay in March of 2007, when Bush met with President Tabaré Vasquez.

Translated, the greeting reads: Your dead, hungry, unemployed, disappeared [illegally imprisoned], lying cronies salute you.

Photo by MichaelO'B

Durango, Mexico

Photo by OliverAlex

Wellington, New Zealand

Give Bush an inch, and he'll bomb a country, one stencil remarks.

Bush's
critics argue he never should have sent troops to battle without
Congressional approval. Legally, the power to declare war lies in the
hands of the Congress, not the President.

Photo by glutnix

Gullbringusysla, Iceland

Flanked by missiles, could Bush be folding his hands in prayer?

Photo by choufiphone

San José, Costa Rica

Translation: Mentally ill in service of capital.

Photo by C-Monster

Rome, Italy

Photo by tracymadaj

Melbourne, Australia

Photo by Toots Fontaine

Rosario, Argentina

Joyfully
riding a missile — gut protruding, cowboy hat waving — Bush's
embodiment of Texan stereotypes is as much the subject of this artist's
mockery as the President's flippant attitude toward explosives.

Photo by pablodf

Mito, Japan

Prolific graffiti artist Og Akim shares his rich political artwork at the X-Color exhibit in Japan.

Photo by nattynattyboom

Johannesburg, South Africa

A donkey-eared Bush and his toy tank ponder their next move.

Photo by banter

Israel

Bush is pictured here with Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister when this photo was taken in 2006.

Photo by greenwonderland

Bangkok, Thailand

Photo by G4Glenno

Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine

Bush, a United Methodist, tries on some Devil horns in the city of Jesus' birth.

On June 10, 2000, the President declared Jesus Day in Texas.

Photo by hazy jenius

Riga, Latvia

Photo by Patient Dinosaur

Victoria, BC, Canada

On
a brick wall in Victoria, British Columbia, Bush discusses world
domination with Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper. (The dialogue
references a mid-90s animated television show, Animaniacs, which began airing in Canada late last year.)

What are we going to do tonight, George?
What we do every night, Steve. Try to take over the world.

Photo by ngawangchodron

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lyrics to the United States national anthem take on a less hopeful meaning.

Photo by Jamie Rushell

Wrocław, Poland

Photo by ChrisJ.

Styria, Austria

Photo by newsrepublic

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Bush mzushi, loosely translated: Bush is a rumormonger.

Photo by Msomi

As
voters and the media shift their attention toward the November
elections, Bush's reign as one of the most widely loathed political
leaders comes to a close. With fewer than a hundred days
before a successor is named, here's to hoping that displays like these
will stop appearing — and won't reemerge with the likeness of Senator
John McCain.

Laura Copeland

Laura Copeland is from Modesto, California, a bedroom community consistently ranked one of the country's worst places to live.
The wide-eyed nerd and Peace Corps candidate recently moved to Silicon
Valley, where she enjoys lively walks and cutesy photography shoots
with her newly adopted dog, Pixel.

200+ Resources for Freelance Web Designers

Posted by Steven Snell

Freelance Designer Toolbox

Most
freelance designers use an impressive number of tools and resources in
their daily and weekly lives. After all, they have to deal with the
design and development as well as all of the aspects of running a
business. I've decided to create a large list to clump as many
resources as possible all in one place. The post is broken down into two major sections, business resources and design/development resources,
and tons of smaller sections. I hope it can be helpful for you. Of
course, this is not by any means an all-inclusive list, so feel free to
ad some of your favorite resources in the comments.

Business Resources

Become more efficient and more take better care of your business with these resources.

Invoicing:

Whether
we like it or not, being a freelancer involves dealing with sending
invoices and collecting payments. As you can see, there are plenty of
choices to help you get organized with this task. Some are free, some
aren't, but most have free options or trial periods so you can see how
you like it before paying anything.

FreshBooks - Very popular choice. They have a free option as well as a paid option.

Billing Manager - From the makers of QuickBooks, Quicken, and TurboTax.

Zoho - Handles invoices and quotes, manage payments, work with multiple currencies, create reports and more.

Simply Invoices -
Several different pricing plans based on the number or templates you
need, plus the ability to use a customized logo. Free option is
included.

Invoice Place - Easy Invoicing And Quotes

Blinksale - Offers free and paid options according to how many invoices you need to send each month.

Invotrak - Easy invoice and time tracking.

Invoices Made Easy - Send invoices and accept online payments. 30 day free trial.

Bill My Clients - Send invoices via email or regular mail.

Billing Orchard - Maintains hourly time billing, along with flat fee and recurring billing. Starts at $14.95 per month.

SimplyBill - Aims to make invoicing simple. Free trial offered.

Time:59 - Time and expense tracking, online invoicing, and more.

Bill4Time - Web-based time billing and project management. Free trial offered.

Pay Simple - ACH processing and merchant account services.

Cashboard - Free estimate, invoicing and time tracking software.

Invoice2Go - Over 300 ready-made form designs.

Invoice Creator for Excel - Another option is to create your own invoices in Excel.

Free Invoice Templates for Excel - Some basic templates.

Finances and Accounting:

Invoicing
isn't the only dreaded financial task for freelancers. These resources
will go a step further than creating invoices, they'll help you to
manage your finances more effectively.

Less Accounting - Invoices and a simple accounting system created for freelancers.

QuickBooks Online - Online version of popular software.

Xero
- An online accounting system that gives you and your advisors easy
access to your most up-to-date financial figures – bank transactions,
invoices, GST – anytime you need it, from anywhere in the world.

WORKetc
- Are you using one application to record time? Another application to
manage projects, another application to share documents and more
applications all in the name of efficiency? Consolidate all your apps
into WORKetc.

Accepting Payment:

Many of your clients may prefer to pay via credit card. You don't need an expensive merchant account to accept these payments.

PayPal - The leading choice for online payments.

Google Checkout - A PayPal alternative.

Contact Management:

As
a freelancer you will come in contact with a lot of potential clients
as well as other service providers. Keeping everything straight can be
a challenge.

Big Contacts - A web-based tool to help you to organize all of the information and activity about the people you work with and live with.

Highrise - Track contacts, leads, customers, vendors, and others with Highrise.

Zoho CRM - Complete relationship lifecycle management solution for managing sales, marketing, customer support & service.

Finding Freelance Work:

These are some of the best places online to find and bid on freelance work (not all of them are bidding-style sites).

Elance - The largest site for bidding on work.

Guru - Currently more than 5,00o projects to bid on.

oDesk - Find and apply for work.

Get a Freelancer - Not as many listings as some of the others, but still a good resource.

Smashing Jobs - Job board from Smashing Magazine

Freelance Switch Job Board - Leading freelance blog has a great job board.

Time Management Tools:

Freelancers
often struggle with managing their time effectively. Better time
management will mean more productive days and more income or less hours
worked. These tools can help.

Google Calendar - Keep track of your appointments and deadlines.

Backpack - Calendar, small business organizer, to-do lists, and more.

Ta-da Lists - Simple tool for creating and managing to-do lists.

RescueTime - Web-based time management and analytics tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

Tick - A simple and friendly time tracking application focused on helping you hit your budgets.

Slim Timer - Create tasks, track your time, and run reports.

Harvest
- Track time, log expenses, invoice clients, keep track of account
receivables and revenue. Harvest lets you do it all, so you can run
your business with style and ease.

Dejal Time Out - A break-reminder tool.

Jott - Converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.

Project Management Tools:

Sometimes freelancers will be working with others and may benefit from some assistance with project management.

Basecamp - A tool for collaborating on internal or client projects.

Project2Manage - A free hosted project management solution that virtually anyone can use.

Document Storage:

You may need to store some of your documents online. Here are some great options.

Google Docs - Create and store docs.

Zoho Writer - Online word processor with sharing capabilities.

Box.net - Online file storage.

Xdrive - 5 GB of free storage.

DivShare - Also 5 GB of free storage.

Hard Drive Backup:

Security
is important to every freelancer for obvious reasons. Avoid losing your
work by using any of these automated backup tools.

Mozy - A few different types of accounts offered. Mozy is my personal choice.

First Backup - Prices start at $5 per month and go up from there.

Intronis - Home and Business options. Prices start uner $10 per month.

Carbonite - Similar services to the others for $50 per year.

Communication:

Freelancers
will need to communicate with clients and other freelancers. These
tools can help for phone calls and video conferencing.

Skype - Leading choice for making calls from your computer.

Vonage - a leading provider of broadband telephone services

Gizmo5 - Save up to 98% on international calls from your computer or mobile phone.

Yugma - Free online video conferencing.

VoipStunt - Based in Germany.

Design and Development Resources

Use some of these tools to help you create more attractive, more effective websites.

Typography and Fonts:

Of
course, one of the most important elements in design is typography.
These resources can help you find the perfect choice for your next
design (or maybe they'll keep you up all night looking at all of your
options).

80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design from Smashing Magazine.

40+ Free Fonts for Professional Design from Smashing Magazine.

101 Typography Resources for Web Designers from Vandelay Design.

Dafont - One of the leading sites for free fonts.

Urban Fonts - Another leading source for free fonts.

Better Fonts - Over 10,000 fonts for download.

TypeTester - Compare fonts on screen.

Font Tester - View and compare fonts easily.

What the Font? - Upload a file and it will identify the font.

CSS Menus:

Navigation
is not only a critical element of design, but it is also an area that
is often used to create a more visually-appealing design. While you can
always create your own menus from scratch, there are plenty of free
scripts that can save you some time or at least give you a starting
point that you can customize.

Listamatic - A nice, big collection of scripts to choose from.

Dynamic Drive - Another solid collection.

Alvit.de - Several choices from Vitaly Friedman.

Exploding Boy - A nice collection of horizontal tabbed menus.

CSS Play - Another collection of menus.

List-O-Matic - Tool for creating your own menus.

CSS Menu Generator - From Webmaster Toolkit.

Tabs Generator - Create tabbed navigation.

Color Tools:

Finding
the right color scheme can be one of the biggest challenges when
designing a site. The tools listed here can help you in a variety of
different ways to find the right color combination quickly.

ColorSchemer Gallery - Color palettes.

COLOURlovers - Color palettes and more.

Kuler - Adobe's resource for helping you with color palettes,

ColorJack Sphere - A pretty cool resource for exploring color combinations.

DeGraeve Color Palette Generator - Get Colors from a picture.

WhatItsColor - Find the colors of a picture.

I Like Your Colors - Get the colors of a web page.

Colour Tools, Palettes, Schemes and Theory - A more complete list from David Airey.

Layouts:

The
resources listed here may be able to help you save some time in
development by giving you a starting point that you can work from.

Blueprint CSS - CSS framework from Google.

CSS Creator - Quickly creates a layout for you.

Layout Gala - Collection of 40 CSS layouts.

DynamicDrive - 12 CSS layouts.

Intensivstation - 16 CSS-based layouts.

Layout Reservoir - 3 basic layouts.

Code Sucks - Over 90 layouts.

Generators:

Here
we have a collection of various generators that will give you some cool
things that you can use at your sites for different purposes.

Stripe Generator - Create background images with stripes.

Web 2.0 Badges - Easily and quickly create a web 2.0 style badge.

RoundedCornr - Rounded corner and gradient generator.

ThrashBox - A semantically correct CSS Box.

Spiffy Box - Simple rounded corner CSS boxes made easy.

Web 2.0 Logo Creator - Easily create your own logo.

Gradient Image Maker - From Dynamic Drive.

Favicon Generator - From Dynamic Drive.

Button Maker - From Dynamic Drive.

Button Maker - From Adam Kalsey.

CSS Sprite Generator - From Website Performance.

Lorum Ipsum - The best tool for creating dummy text.

Stock Photography:

The
choice and quality of images will have a huge impact on your end
result. Here are some places to find free or low cost photos and
graphics. Even those that are not free are very reasonably-priced, and
they'll usually save you some time as compared to browsing through the
free sites looking for something of quality.

iStockphoto - The leading choice for low-cost photos.

Stock Xpert - Low cost stock images.

Big Stock Photo - Low cost stock images.

Stock Xchng - Huge site of free photos.

Flickr - Creative Commons section is a great source for designers and bloggers.

Vector Stock - Purchase stock vector images.

Vecteezy - Vectors for download (not really stock photos).

Icons:

There are tons of free icons available. Here are some of the best, and some places to help you find others.

96 of the Best Ever Free Icon Sets - This roundup from Specky Boy is about all you need.

Icon Finder - Icon search engine.

FamFamFam - Some of the best free icons.

Feed Icons - The standard RSS icons.

Web 2.0 Icons - UtomBox provides icons for common web 2.0 purposes.

Validators:

Validators can be great for creating more accessible sites and for finding some coding mistakes.

HTML - From W3C.

CSS - From W3C.

RSS and Atom - From W3C.

CSS Tools/Resources:

Stylesheets can easily become overgrown or messy. These tools will help to get your CSS cleaned up and optimally-sized.

CSS Tidy - A parser and optimizer.

Clean CSS - Optimizer and formatter.

CSS Analyzer - A validator plus.

CSS Mate - Online CSS editor.

CSS Compressor - From CSS Drive.

Browser Add-Ons:

Free
browser add-ons can often save loads of time and sometimes perform the
actions of a standalone program. Here are some of the best.

Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

Firebug for Friefox
- Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools
at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor
CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar - Provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages.

FireFTP - An FTP client within Firefox.

Dust-Me Selectors - Finds unused selectors.

Load Time Analyzer - Firefox add-on for testing page loads.

Firebug - Popular Firefox add-on for editing, debugging, and monitoring CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

EditCSS - Allows you to edit the stylesheet right in your sidebar.

YSlow - Another popular Firefox add-on that can help you to build faster pages.

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar - Variety of tools for working in IE.

DebugBar - A variery of tools for debugging.

Tools for Building Grids:

These tools can help you to build a grid-based layout quickly and efficiently.

CSS Grid Builder - From Yahoo!

Blueprint - A CSS framework from Google.

960 Grid System
- The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development
workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960
pixels.

Grid Designer 2 - A simple, helpful tool for building grids.

Grid Calculator - Another easy way to quickly create grids.

Coding Resources:

This
section is kind of random, but it includes a number of tools and
resources that can help you with some aspect of coding a website.

Snipplr
- Snipplr is a public source code repository that gives you a place to
store and organize all the little pieces of code that you use each day.
Best of all, it lets you share your code snippets with other coders and
designers.

AJAX, DHTML, and JavaScript Libraries - Smashing Magazine's extensive list of over 60 Ajax, Javascript and DHTML libraries.

80+ AJAX Solutions for Professional Coding - Another huge and helpful list from Smashing Magazine.

jQuery
- A fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse
HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax
interactions to your web pages.

Subversion - Version control system.

Screenshots:

Here are a few tools that can make life easier if you're looking to get a lot of screenshots.

Super Screenshot! - Enter a URL and get a screenshot.

Screengrab! Firefox Add-on - Easy tool for Firefox users to get screenshots.

Better Screenshots - For Windows. Several features, costs $15.

Statistics and Analysis:

Every website needs some type of statistical analysis. There are countless options, but some of the best are listed here.

Google Analytics - Leading analytics tool.

Clicky - Paid option that provides some different features than Google Analytics.

Mint - Helps you identify where the most interest is being generated and over what.

ClickHeat - ClickHeat is a visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones.

Crazy Egg - Create tests to figure out what people are doing on your website.

clickdensity - Real-time user behavior analysis.

SEO Tools:

Building search engine-friendly sites should be a goal of every designer. There are tons of tools out there to help with SEO.

Google Webmaster Tools - A variety of tools that help you to understand how Google sees your site.

Dead-Links.com - Enter your URL and it will check for dead links.

Spider Simulator - Tests your page's ability to be crawled.

Search Engine Rankings Checker - See your rankings for a particular phrase in a few major search engines.

Rank Checker Firefox Add-on - Aaron Wall's helpful add-on for watching your rankings efficiently.

WordTracker - Leading keyword tool.

Online SEO Tools - The Ultimate Collection - Nice, comprehensive list from Search Engine Journal.

Content Management:

More
and more websites are being built on some of the most popular CMS's.
You've got lots of options and plenty of ways you can improve your
clients' sites with these.

WordPress - The most popular open source platform, particularly popular for blogs.

Joomla! - Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems

Drupal - Also open source, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.

Expression Engine - Flexible, feature-rich content management system.

Pligg - An open source CMS that's popular for social media sites.

Textpattern - Another open-source option.

Source Code Editors:

There
are a variety of different types of source code editors and each has
it's own set of features. This is a short list of what's available.

Coda - Popular choice from Panic.

Aptana - Develop and deploy Web applications with ease - for AJAX, Ruby on Rails, PHP and more.

TextMate - TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors.

UltraEdit - Text, HTML and HEX editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers.

Komodo Edit - A free, open source editor from dynamic language experts.

BBEdit - Professional HTML and text editor for Mac users.

EditPlus - A text editor, HTML editor and programmers editor for Windows.

TopStyle - Edit XHTML, HTML and CSS (Windows).

CSS Editors:

You may find that your stylesheets are kept cleaner or more efficient with an editor. If so, try one of these.

CSS Vista
- A free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit
your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.

CSSEdit - Real-time styling of absolutely any web page (Mac).

Style Master - From beginner to expert, Style Master will make working with CSS more efficient, more productive, and more enjoyable.

Rapid CSS 2008 - Quickly and easily create and edit cascading style sheets of any size and complexity.

Eric Meyer's CSS Sculptor - A Dreamweaver extension.

WYSIWYG Editors:

Some
designers love WYSIWYG editors while others hate them . If you're going
to use one, try to stick to the more professional options and get used
to working with the code as well so that you can be sure you know what
code is being created. They can save you a good bit of time in many
cases.

Dreamweaver - The most popular choice.

Expression - Microsoft's competitor to Dreamweaver.

RapidWeaver - For creating websites on the Mac.

Backgrounds and Textures:

Background
images and repeating patterns/images can help you to create the look
you want. FOrtunately, there are some tools and resources that can
spare you the need to create them from scratch.

BgPatterns - A handy and simple tool for quickly creating patterened backgrounds.

TextureKing - Free stock textures.

Stripe Generator - Easy striped backgrounds.

Grunge Textures - More free stock textutres.

400+ High-Quality Patterns - Useful list put together by Design Reviver.

300+ Vintage Style Textures and Photoshop Brushes - Another list from Design Reviver.

Free High Res Grungy Paper Textures - Excellent giveaway from Bittbox.

Ornate, Floral, Swirly and Curly Vector Roundup - A list with some nice options for backgrounds.

COLOURlovers - The pattern section at COLOURlovers.

36 Cool Free Textures - Nice collection from Abduzeedo.

CSS Galleries:

If
I listed all of the galleries here this post would be even longer than
it already is. Instead, I'll point you to a few resources that will
help you find what you're looking for.

Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries - A list that gives some detail like Alexa rank and frequency of posts (a few months old).

The Ultimate Web Design Gallery Resource - Lots of info on the galleries.

Inspiration Overload: 100 Galleries You Need to Check Out - Lists galleries by category.

The Great Web Design Gallery Roundup - Great for comparing the galleries.

Forums:

If
you're looking for an answer to a question or just looking to interect
with some other designers, here are some of the more active forums to
visit.

Webmaster-Talk - Coding, design, SEO, hosting, etc.

SitePoint - Popular forum with lots of topics.

WordPress - Get support from the WP forum.

Digital Point - Internet marketing and SEO.

DesignersTalk - Primarily focused on design with a few additional topics like advertising and SEO.

Web Design Forum - Variety of different topics from design to affiliate maketing.

TalkFreelance - Topics relevant to freelancers.

Photo Editing/Graphic Design:

Photo editing and graphics are obviosly a big part of design. Here is a short list of the leading programs.

Photoshop - Adobe's market leader.

Illustrator -Leading Adobe product for illustrations.

Photoshop Express - Free online version of Photoshop.

Picnik - Free online tool with a good number of features.

GIMP - A popular and free option.

Aviary - A suit of tools including photo editing.

Fireworks - Another Adobe program, formerly from Macromedia.

Other:

Here are a few resources that didn't fit perfectly into another category.

YouSendIt - Securely deliver large files.

Brusheezy - Photoshop brushes for download.

Will Mayo - Add speach bubbles to blockquotes or blog comments.

Bubblesnaps - Add speach bubbles to your photos.

Originally Published July 29th, 2008


10 Habits that Bosses Love

by Margaret Steen, for Yahoo! HotJobs

Every
boss wants employees who do their jobs well. But even among highly
competent employees, there are distinctions. Here are 10 tips for
making sure you're on the boss's A-list:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
Especially at the beginning of your relationship -- that is, when
either you or the boss is new to the job -- err on the side of giving
your boss too much information and asking too many questions.

"There's no such thing as a dumb question," says Marianne Adoradio, a Silicon Valley recruiter and career counselor. "Look at it as information gathering."

Don't
keep up the constant stream of communication unless your boss likes it,
though. It's best to ask directly whether you're giving the boss enough
information or too much.

2. Acknowledge what the boss says.
Bosses appreciate "responsive listening," says John Farner, principal
of Russell Employee Management Consulting. When your boss asks you to
do something or suggests ways for you to improve your work, let her
know you heard.

3. Collaborate. When your boss has a new idea, respond to it in a constructive way instead of throwing up roadblocks.

"Be
willing to brainstorm ways to get something done," says Michael
Beasley, principal of Career-Crossings and a leadership and career
development coach.

4. Build relationships.
You'll make your boss look good if you establish a good rapport with
your department's customers, whether they're inside the company or
outside. Bring back what you learn -- about ways to offer better
customer service, for example -- to your boss. This is also helpful for
your own career development.

"Everybody wins in the long run," Adoradio says.

5. Understand how you fit in. Is your boss detail-oriented, or someone who keeps his head in the clouds?

"The boss's personality is just incredibly important," says Norm Meshriy, a career counselor and principal of Career Insights.

Equally
important is understanding what your boss wants in an employee. It may
be, for example, that a boss who is detail-oriented will expect his
employees to be as well. But a boss who has no time for details may
actually appreciate an employee who does.

6. Learn the boss's pet peeves.
If your manager has said repeatedly that she hates being interrupted
first thing in the morning, don't run to her office to give her a
project update when you first get in.

7. Anticipate the boss's needs.
Once you have worked with your boss for a while, you should be able to
guess what information he will want before approving your purchase
order, for example.

If you provide it ahead of time, "that's a gold star," Farner adds.

8. Think one level up.
You still need to do your own job, of course. But when managers
consider who deserves a promotion, they look for people who understand
the issues that their bosses face.

9. Open yourself to new ways of doing things.
When your boss comes to you with a new idea, don't simply dismiss it.
If you don't think it will work, offer to discuss it further in "a
mature, responsible, adult-like way," Beasley says.

10. Be engaged in your work.
Arguing with your boss over every request is not a good strategy, but
neither is simply shrugging your shoulders and agreeing with everything
your boss says. "The manager would like to see an engaged individual,"
Beasley says. That means both showing enthusiasm for your work and
speaking up when you see room for improvement.

7 Web Developer Resources

Are
you a website developer? Or maybe striving to be? Then have we got a
nice assemblage of invaluable sites for you to check out. These seven
are the ones we believe that you need to be aware of to help keep you
in the developer's proverbial loop. So once more, we ask that you give
a gander to the list below…you don't have to…it's not like a
requirement. You could stumble if you want to, but you might miss
something spectacular. Oh, yeah, there's some razzle, little dash of
dazzle. Just saying. Could be worth a few minutes…

1. A List Apart

A List Apart Image

A
Band Apart, powerhouse innovative production company with a massive
following. A List Apart, powerhouse innovative web developers blog with
a massive following. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. I don't really think
one inspired the other, but it could be the case. Not that A List Apart
needs any other reason to be the revered site it is, have you checked
it out? It's only the "The Blog" for web developers discussing content,
code, culture, design and more. Seriously it is an amazingly useful
site for those in the biz.

2. Blog.SpoonGraphics

Blog Spoon Graphics Image

Blog.SpoonGraphics
is a vast collection of decent resources for web designers, tremendous
tutorials, fabulous freebies, and even topical up to date news. Hours
of useful data to get lost in are waiting for you. This site comes
highly recommended from the entire Arbenting team. Both of us. What can
I say, we're fans.

3. Design Float

Design Float Image

Design
Float is the Digg of the design community. Need we say more? Well, we
probably don't need to, but since brevity is not really a strong suit
among the staff, we'll say just a bit more. This is a great place to
get all of the best of the best from design blogs all over the world
wide web. This has become a daily must read around here, and it will
probably be for you too, once you check it out. Go on, don't be shy.
It's just a painless click of the mouse away.

4. I Love Typography

I Love Typography Image

What
good is a designer who knows nothing about typography? Not to step on
any toes, but honestly, not too much. So many lament over the numerous
magnificent designs that have been devastatingly ruined by the
incorporation, or afterthought, of a lackluster font type. It can
detract and often distract from the originality and beauty of the
creation. To learn more about this underrated artform or just to sort
and sift through the splendor for some inspiration visit I Love
Typography. And see why you will soon be feeling that same way.

5. W3 Schools

w3 Schools Image

W3
Schools is a comprehensive and intensive online learning institution,
that is quite literally, the best place to get started if you want to
learn about coding websites or any other kind of online content. So
many great resources and classes designed to allow the user to progress
and advance at their own speed and comfort. Even more advanced coders
still have lessons that can be learned or reaffirmed from the basics
and beyond at this wonderful and welcome addition to the online
community.

Edit: It was pointed out by a few of our readers that
W3 Schools actually teaches some invalid markup and overall bad usage.
So you actually may want to think twice about using them to get your
start. We're all learning together here so we thank zombieloffe &
bobachu for pointing this out to us.

6. Web Designer's Wall

Web Designer's Wall Image

Web
Designer's Wall is seriously, one of the best, and most visually
stunning, blogs on web design in the whole of the blogosphere. With
ever informative, cutting edge contributions to the world of web
design, this site offers post after post of pure gold. While writing
this post we tried to recall a time when we came across a blog entry
that wasn't helpful to us in some way, and we kept coming up empty. And
subscribers? Well, lets just say that they get their fair share of
fantastic free stuff from time to time. Oh, yeah.

7. Web Developer's Handbook

Web Developer's Handbook Image

If
you think this is a good list, then we are grateful, and humbly direct
you now to the behemoth that this list wishes it could be. But what
would be the point of that. I mean, it already exists. It's here. In
fact, many of the websites on this list can also be found at the Web
Developer's Handbook. A huge directory of almost every website a web
developer would ever need for any purpose or predicament. Seriously,
dude, it's HUGE! Web Developer's Handbook. Tell your friends.

Reader Recommendations:
Madison pointed out to us that DesignBump.com was left off of the list.

So, we showed you ours…what's your's look like?

Monday, July 28, 2008

Where are the Voters Going?

Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should.

by Greg Palast

In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.

In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.

In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.

In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.

My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was "concerned" about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.

He's concerned. I'm sweating.

It's time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama's candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.

And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team. Here's how:

We have been offered an astonishing opportunity to place the Kennedy-Palast investigative findings on a national, prime-time, major-network television broadcast. Plus, separately, we have an extraordinary offer to create a series of reports for national network radio.

But guess what? The networks will NOT PAY for our public service reports. We have to raise the start-up funds in the next two weeks to film it, record it and get it on the airwaves.

WE need YOU to fund the reports, DISSEMINATE the findings as we post the print, audio and video on the web– and ACT on it.

So, for only the second time this year, I am asking each one of you to make a tax deductible donation to the non-profit, non-partisan Palast Investigative Fund of $500, $150 or $100.

Progressives have complained for years of no opportunity to get the hard, cold sweaty truth on the air. Well, put your money where your heart and soul is.

Donate at least $500, I'll send you every book I've written and every film, signed.

Send $150 and I'll send you as a gift, a copy of John Ennis' film Free For All, the brilliant and funny film about the Theft of Ohio. AND I'll send you, signed, a copy of my book, Armed Madhouse, plus a copy of the BBC/Democracy Now film investigations, The Election Files and a copy of the spoken word CD Live from the Armed Madhouse all signed.

Donate $100, and I'll send you 3 copies, one signed to you, of "The Elections Files, " the best of our BBC/Democracy Now films – including special never-broadcast interviews with Kennedy and fired prosecutor David Iglesias.

I know you're ponying up for your favorite candidates. But what's the point of winning folks' votes IF NO ONE COUNTS THEM?

Please make your donation – today. No corporation, no big foundation, is going to take on this emergency in our democracy. The election's about to be stolen – for a third time. SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Donate today (for $1,000 minimum, we'll list you as a Producer of our next DVD, in gratitude). Why? Because the only way to get the vote-chewing cockroaches out of the voting machinery is to turn on the lights – tell the truth on them. On prime time.

After our team busted the story of Katherine Harris' attack on innocent Black voters as "felons," the NAACP sued and won back their rights. The truth CAN make the difference. Yes, we can. Indeed, we HAVE.

Think all votes should be counted in America? Then YOU stand up and be counted. Don't expect networks or commercial sponsors to pay for your democracy. Feed the truth, donate $100 right now and pass on a copy of the Elections Files to your dippy cousin who thinks Kerry lost fair and square.

Donations from our prior and only request already paid for some of our filming in the Southwest. Don't let this story be swept under the border.

If you want more information, go to GregPalast.com, or write me directly at GregPalast.com – and hit the button, "contact Greg."

Pass this on!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Top 10 Smart Playlists

Top 10 iTunes Smart Playlists


One of iTunes' most powerful and useful features is Smart Playlists: dynamic, search-based lists of songs that save you the work of grouping tunes by hand. But with almost 40 fields to search against—from Album and Artist to Bit Rate and Category—there are thousands of possible Smart Playlist combinations. If you listen to music while you work, but don't want to waste time manually creating playlists in iTunes, today we've got our top 10 favorite Smart Playlists that will keep your tunes fresh and focused automatically.

10. Only Music

The base recipe for all your music listening needs in iTunes should be the "Music Only" Smart Playlist, which excludes podcasts, videos, PDF's, spoken word, and audio books from the rotation, leaving only tunes behind. Use this playlist in conjunction with the ones below to narrow down your music even further. (Hat tip to 43 Folders for suggesting even more thorough criteria on this playlist.)

9. Holiday/Seasonal Music

Avoid hearing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in the middle of March with a well-tuned holiday music Smart Playlist that you can exclude from your current playlist during the other 11 months of the year. Just match the word "Holiday" and specific names of holidays (i.e., "Christmas") against the track name, album name, genre, or description. (Make sure you change "Match" rule to "any," not "all.") This same trick works well for Broadway musicals as well: usually the Artist name is "Original Broadway Cast" so "Artist contains Broadway" works in that scenario.

8. Not in the Last Week

Keep your tunes rotation fresh with a simple Smart Playlist that says "don't play anything I've heard already in the last week." I use this one in conjunction with Party Shuffle all the time—just set "Last Played" to "not in the last" then "1 week."


7. PDF's Only

iTunes can store more than just music and video files—it can also handle PDF documents. If you're organizing your PDF library in iTunes, it's easy to create a Smart Playlist to separate your ebooks and scanned receipts from your media files. Just set the Kind to "PDF document."


6. Best of the Year

Automatically create your very own yearly hits playlist with the right Smart Playlist criteria: specify the Date Added range as anywhere from January 1st to December 31st of the year in question, and set the Play Count to be larger than, say, 20. (Tweak that number to your liking to narrow down or expand the length of the list.) And there you have it—an instant list of your personal hits of that year.

5. Neglected Tunes

Funny thing about Party Shuffle—it'll serve up songs you've heard five times in the last month and neglect others with a sad Playcount of 0. Dig deep into your iTunes library and make sure you've heard everything with a Smart Playlist that contains only songs with a Playcount of 0. Combine this with the Music only playlist to narrow it down to, well, music only.


4. Not in This Folder

One of the lesser-known playlist features in newer versions of iTunes is the ability to create folders of playlists, and match against the folder name in playlist criteria. For example, all my audio books aren't tagged quite right, so I've got an "Audio Books" folder of playlists. Similarly, you can create folders for "personal genres"—like "College Favorites" or "Summer Camp '99." Then, when you create Smart Playlists, you can grab from or exclude from the folder itself. For example, a playlist called "Adulthood" might exclude tracks in the '80s playlist, as well as the "High School Flashback" and "College Favs" folders.

3. No Skippies

What, you've been too lazy to apply actual ratings to the music in your iTunes library? Chances are if you started to hear a song you didn't like, you skipped it. Use the Skip Count criteria to avoid songs you've avoided in the past. If you do rate your songs, Mac guy Merlin Mann suggests using the Skip Count and Ratings criteria to re-rate songs you thought you liked, but skipped anyway.


2. No Shorties

If you've acquired music from less-than-reputable sources over the years, chances are you've got a few cut-off tracks in your library, or maybe you've got a few short intros and outros. To weed out the songs that have been cut off or other short tracks, create a Smart Playlist that contains tracks longer than a certain amount of time (like one minute.) Combine this with your Music Only playlist (#10) to make sure you're only hearing full length songs.

1. "Tag" Your Tracks with Keywords in the Comments Field

When the single "Genre" field just doesn't go far enough to describe a track for you, add keywords to a song's Comments field that you can use later to make a Smart Playlist. For example, add the words "gym," "highschoolflashback," "boyrock," "mashup," or "danceparty" or any combination of those to a song's Comments field. Then, create a Smart Playlist that matches those "tags." Voila—instant High School Flashback playlist. (Note: you can also use the "Grouping" field to same effect, but the Comments field is stored within the MP3 and on your iPod. Thanks, Craig!)

What's your favorite iTunes Smart Playlist? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, also check out our previously posted iTunes power tips feature.

Post XP Installs

What to Install After a Fresh XP Install

Uncategorized July 23rd, 2008

his post is more of a note to me so I know what to do when I need to install XP again, as I have just un-installed Vista after a months use and gone back to XP.

The honest truth is Vista is a very poor OS, even Microsoft admits that Vista is broken, Microsoft own vice president Mike Nash couldn't get things done in Vista.

I had a lot of problems with Vista, most of my games didn't work with Vista, I have a £100 printer that's as good as a brick because it's not compatible and copying files to a USB device took forever. I haven't got the best PC in the world but its still a pretty good PC and got a Windows Experience Index Score of 4.1, but when I was running Vista it was very slow and painful to use.

I did like the look of Vista and some of the new features, like the Sidebar the fast search results and the start menu, so I found away to get these features in XP without losing performance and stability.

How to give XP some of the features Vista has.

Themes.

Install royale-noir first then Royale-Remixed, when "Display Properties" window opens after installing Royale-Remixed choose the "Media Center Edition 2006″ theme then open "Appearance tab" and choose "Royale" then under "Color Scheme" choose "Royale Noir".

The Royale-Noir theme uses the same resources as the default XP theme so it won't bog down the system, this is the best theme to use if you would like to use a dark UI. The Royale-Noir theme was actually developed by the Microsoft design team and that's why you don't need to use the Uxtheme patch to use this, you can read more about the theme here.

Programs.

To add additional gadgets to the Vista Sidebar you need to add them manually, download the gadget that you want from Windows Live and use a program like WinRAR/7-Zip to extract the contents to a folder, then name the folder to what ever the gadget is called then put .Gadget to the end of the name e.g. BBCRadio.Gadget

Then all you need to do is place that folder to C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Shared Gadgets

If you are using SP3 and don't mind playing about with the system files, you can replace the Uxtheme.dll file with this patch and use this theme to give you a better Vista look.

Free programs for a complete OS after XP is installed.

These are the programs I install, you may not need to install all of them so check out the program first to see if its a program you would use.

Not free but worth the money.

  • Nero An all in one burning and coveting program, plus many other features.
  • PowerISO

If there is a program you still need that isn't listed have a look at my list of free software, there maybe something there that might help.