Site Update

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Just a quick update to anyone following the site to say that I’m still around and haven’t given up on writing content. I’ve been busy lately with a recent project which is now complete. I was doing a site for my Dad for his new business selling classic cars  and muscle cars in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and Spokane Washington area. I think it’s a decent site and it should serve his needs well. Anyway, I’m thinking about giving away some more Google Wave invites, if anyone is interested.  Stay tuned within the next few days for details.

Creative productivity

I don’t know if anyone who happens upon my website really knows about my history of web projects. For the most part, nothing has really taken off in popularity. I’ve got this blog, but I’ve also got a blog over at Riding the Wind which is dedicated to spiritual matters, my daily life, my photography and my creative writing/poetry. It hasn’t been updated in a little while because I’ve been busy with this, but I fully intend to continue posting there. I’ve also got another site. HandRooster started out as a little project my wife and I started for fun. We decided to make a webcomic. I wrote the comics and she drew them, and for a while we were pretty productive. It was fun but after a while I found it difficult to come up with new standalone ideas and I didn’t want to have Steph constantly grinding away on super long projects. Some of our comics were much better than others, and we were occasionally accused of ripping off one popular comic or another, but we didn’t really care that much because we weren’t huge comic readers. The only comic I used to read was Penny Arcade and there was no way we could copy that stuff. Anyway, after a while Steph started to find it was taking her a really long time to do these comics and she didn’t really want to do it anymore, so it sort of died out. I didn’t really want it to die out because at this point we were getting some decent traffic and it was the most successful thing I had ever done on the internet. We had actual fans and it was rewarding in that way if not in a monetary way.

I decided to draw the thing on my own, but I think I found it even more difficult than she did, because I am in no way an artist. I can’t really draw, so it took me many hours to create simple stick art. One thing led to another and I found myself lapsing and nothing really got done. That is, until now. I’ve just posted an update on the site and while I make no promises about my reliability in updates, I’ll try my best. You see, I’ve got a new method.

I started to think about how I could adapt my system in order to be more productive in making a comic. Originally, I was creating the comic with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a Wacom tablet. Sketchbook is really great software if you can actually draw and I love the way it is designed for a tablet but every line I make is a shaky squiggly line and I have to blow things up super huge in order to make things smooth. Basically, I suck at that. I’m not an artist. I’m more of an idea guy in general. This problem had me looking for other solutions. I tried Photoshop and some other software but I still had similar problems. I tried to draw things on paper, thinking I could scan them in to do coloring, etc but it turns out I’m even worse without an undo button, despite finding it easier to make normal lines. After all of this, I decided to try Adobe Illustrator. I’d tried it before and found it difficult to get used to, but I used to use Macromedia Freehand with some success years ago before the comic. I decided to give Illustrator another try. It was not easy, but I did find a way to use it which was much quicker and less labor intensive for me. The result can be seen over at HandRooster. It isn’t a work of art but it is the basis of a webcomic, in the loosest sense of that word. I’m thinking about starting to create longer story lines after being inspired by a comic written by Mr. John Campbell of pictures for sad children.

I think what I’ve learned through all of this is that creativity is work too. It’s not easy stuff and in order to continue to create, you must give something of yourself. It’s natural to have highs and lows of activity and to find yourself searching for inspiration or ideas. It’s natural to want a break sometimes. It’s also possible to rejuvenate your creative energy and continue to create. Sometimes you’re going to have critics and hatemongers hounding you and sometimes you’ll start to believe that what you’re producing isn’t worth anything but the good thing about continuing to do anything is that you’ll only find better ways to do it and gain skill in the process. Since the whole talent thing has been proven to be nonsense and mastery is really about lots and lots of practice, why shouldn’t your (or my) projects be out there for the world to see just because you’re new to the process?

Make Gmail Your Productivity Center – Part 3

This is Part 3 of my multi-part post detailing various features you can use to improve your productivity by using Gmail. If you haven’t read the previous parts, you may want to start at the beginning.

So in the previous parts of this series, I’ve talked about using filters and labels (I noticed today that Google has made labels a more prominent feature in Gmail, which should really help highlight how important they are) to organize mail, using canned responses to automate repetitive emails, using GMail as a central hub for all of your various email accounts, a little bit about keyboard shortcuts and I briefly mentioned a few preview options in Labs which can help save some time when viewing emails.

There are some more quick and easy tools which are easily enabled within Gmail which can really make a difference when it comes to usability and productivity. A couple of these features can be found under the General tab in your settings. The signature and the personal level indicator settings may not seem like a big deal to you, and they really aren’t. They’re sort of necessary features, which is why you should enable them. Who wants to have to retype their signature or paste one on from an external file? Also, isn’t it nice to know at a glance whether or not you’re the main recipient of a message? Easy.

Some more settings which I find absolutely necessary can be found in the Labs section.

Tasks – This is a tool which works great, integrates well with the interface, and gets out of your way when you don’t need it. You can create tasks from existing emails, which is an awesome feature. You may want to upgrade to a more robust task system later, but this is a great place to start.
Message translation – If you get a a lot of emails in languages you don’t speak (I don’t) you’ll probably find it useful. I have it enabled just in case I happen to need it.
Quick links – This is a pretty great tool. I actually use it to save searches which I use a lot so I don’t have to remember exactly how I found something.
Signature tweaks – this is just a preference thing. I prefer to have my signature before quoted text and without the double dash.
Sender Time Zone – I live in the UK, but most of my contacts and work is in the US. This means that I’m often awake while other people are asleep and that I may be sending emails at times which aren’t great for other people. This option helps me keep that in mind and reply accordingly.
Quote selected text – It’s just nice to be able to highlight a chunk of text and have it clearly displayed in your response rather than having to direct someone to the appropriate part of an email. It just makes things simpler.
Navbar drag and drop – not much to say on this one. If you have the option to be able to drag things around or not, why not choose to be able to do it?
Forgotten attachment detector – Oh, I think everyone has done this a time or 2. I’ve so careful about this these days that I rarely need this option, but of course I’ve got it enabled anyway. There is nothing more embarrassing than mentioning an attachment and not including it.
Mark as Read – Before I had this button, Gmail was sort of the bane of my existence. One button and my problems are solved. I don’t always want to open an email. Sometimes you already know what’s in there, right? Well you can select a veritable cornucopia of emails and with one click of this button they’re all marked as read. Simple? I would say so. I have no idea why this is an additional option instead of a built-in part of Gmail.
Go to Label – This option enables a really nice way of navigating through your labels. Once you start using labels you’ll realize how great this is.
Create a Document – If you use Google Docs you’ll want this. I use Google Docs all of the time, and I’d argue that you should be using at least some form of cloud based office suite as well. It’s really too good to not use. Anyway, this option enabled you to do awesome things like creating a Google Document from an email conversation. Pretty cool.
Suggest more recipients – Enough said. I use this all of the time.
Search Autocomplete – Why not make search better and easier?
Inserting Images – This lets you put images in the message body of your emails, if you want to do that.
Google Calendar gadget – This is a gadget which allows you to view and manipulate calendar entries from the left sidebar within Gmail.
Google Docs gadget – Like I said before, I use Google Docs a lot. This lets you see your docs, create new ones, open them, etc. It sits on your left sidebar
Add any gadget – this is great for adding third party support. There are tons of gadgets you could add. One example is the gadget for Remember The Milk, the popular task/to do manager.

After you’ve got all of this stuff enabled, you’ll probably find that things are a whole lot more usable, but you may not know exactly how to go about using this new system you’ve created. Don’t worry. We’ll get there soon enough. Head back this way for Part 4 or stay tuned by by subscribing now.