Category: Internet

Creative inspiration

If you’re looking get your creative juices flowing, two sites that are sure to inspire you are Ads of the World, and the AdGoodness blog. design inspiration Both sites feature ads from designers and agencies around the world, complete with clickable preview images that show you the big picture, reader comments, and more information about the advertisement. Both sites have been around for quite a while and are favorites of mine.

Add Web Search to Gmail

If you use Google’s Gmail service and find yourself a tad-bit annoyed by the fact that you have to leave the Gmail interface to search for something, check you Labs tab at the top of your Gmail page for a solution. Google Gmail Rather than leaving Gmail, searching for a link, copying the link, switching back to Gmail and pasting the link in your email – you can turn on the Search Box feature. The feature adds a Google Search box to the left side of your Gmail interface. But that’s not all. When you perform your search, a drop-down menu is available next to the link of each search result allowing you to send the link via Google Chat or an email.

The coolest Web site on the Internet?

I haven’t yet seen EVERY site on the Web, but Bio-Bak is definitely one of the coolest sites I’ve seen in as long as I can remember. Upon entering the site, you navigate around simply by “dragging” the page around your screen. I recommend going with the full screen mode. You must find the toolbox, then the metal detector. Once you do that, the metal detector will help you find the missing tools. Once you’ve collected all the tools, you can “zoom out” on the site to see the much larger picture. And trust me, it’s worth seeing!

Cool Web site

Is this the coolest site on the Web?

There’s a lot of animated illustration work on this site – quite frankly the whole thing is just stunning. Needless to say, if your client is looking for something out of this world for their Web site, this guy can probably help you out.

Using a PC is as easy as 1-2 3

I love the “Get a Mac” ads. They’re clever, and most times make me laugh. This one takes the cake… Here are the steps PC lists in the ad: 1. Remove unneeded bloatware 2. Configure security settings 3. Download and install OS security patches 4. Restart 5. Download / install extra security programs 6. Restart 7. Download / install drivers for peripherals 8. Restart 9. Remove optional Windows components 10. Update new virus list 11. Run full system virus scan 12. Update new malware list 13. Run full system malware scan 14. Download / install application updates 15. Restart 16. Clean out system registry 17. Repair corupt system registry 18. Defragment hard drive 19. Free up disk space 20. Scan disk for errors 21. Run system file checker 22. Read online instruction manual 23. Cross fingers

Tweetie for Mac: The good, the bad, and the beautiful

Looking at the screenshots of Tweetie, the latest Twitter desktop app from atebits, tells you all you need to know about the look & feel of of the app – it’s simply gorgeous. Fluid animations and an easy-on-the-eyes color scheme make looking at Tweetie as much fun as using it.

Tweetie for Mac

Tweetie for Mac

However, form is never above function in my book. As beautiful as Tweetie is, it lacks so much in the way of features, functionality and overall value. (more…)

Around the Web

4 Free graphics editors

Seashore – open source image editor using Cocoa framework. Inkscape – open source vector graphics editor similar to Illustrator & CorelDraw CinePaint – open source image editor that supports 8, 16 & 32-bit images Gimp – the most popular open source image editor with a huge following of users

Dealing with disk fragmentation in OSX

OS X does a great job at minimizing file fragmentation by rewriting files in contiguous space when a file is opened, is under 20MB and contains more than eight fragments. This works quite well to prevent heavy file fragmentation, but what it doesn’t prevent is free space fragmentation. TheAppleBlog covers disk framentation in this informative article. The article includes a brief tutorial on how to tell if your free space is fragmented without the use of a commercial program.

Adobe Creative Suite tips

InDesignSecrets offers a tutorial on how to customize your Links Panel and have the settings stick across workspace resets and app restarts. VectorDiary has a quick tutorial showing you how to converge points together using the Average function. The Average function is pretty powerful, and wildly under-used.

Typography

Snap2Objects discusses all aspects of typography, including anatomy, categories, adjustments and more in Fonts101. The article is fairly informative, and includes plenty of links to find fonts, font managers, and more type-related articles.

Twitter notes

If you’re not on Twitter, you’re missing out on a great resource. You can follow me on Twitter to receive tips and links I don’t normally post here, as well as general discussion. If you’re already using Twitter and looking for a more advanced desktop client, you might want to check out atebits on Monday – as they’re scheduled to release a desktop version of their popular iPhone Twitter client, Tweetie. There’s a brief intro video posted their now, and it looks fantastic. If you use the popular Evernote service, you’ll be interested in knowing that they now have Twitter integration.

Inspiration

There are plenty of sites that offer the opportunity to view other designer’s work on the Web. The latest I’ve come across is DesignFridge. The site offers a clean interface for viewing inspirational Web design from users around the world. The gallery is categorized by style, so it’s easy to find samples of just what you’re looking for.

Gmail adds progress bars to attachments

One of the things that has always irked me with regards to Gmail was that it was never painfully obvious when you could actually send an email with all your attachments, or how long it was going to take to attach those files. You either sat and waited for the name to appear, or stared at the sending notification. Neither very productive. Thankfully, Google has added progress bars to the attachments area of Gmail. So now you can select multiple files, or one giant one if you wish, and know exactly what the progress of the attachment upload is. Gmail keeps getting better and better!