Typography Diagram

While rummaging through my old files I came across this typography diagram I designed in a typography class. We had to create a diagram based on our recently gained knowledge of the intricate parts of letter forms. It's a little rickety but the info is there. Enjoy.

The Best Watch Design I've Ever Seen.

This extraordinary minimal wrist watch designed by Iskender Asanaliev, features a clear LED display that shows the current hour with a hand built from the minutes. The minutes are ultra slick numbers fashioned into the shape of the hour hand. This watch is not currently in production. The designer is still looking for a manufacturer. Personally I think Nike could make this work with one of their product lines. A beautiful piece.
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3 Things Designers Need at the Next Networking / Meet Up / Event.

1. The Blomus Business Card Holder

Instead of cramming all those business cards you'll be exchanging into your overstuffed wallet, impress your new contacts with this elegant business card holder. Buy It Here

2. The Flip Mino HD Video Camera
Give your fans high quality footage of your event with this tiny HD digital video camera that lets you upload directly to YouTube and Myspace once connected to your laptop. Buy It Here

4. The E Connector
The physical version of the popular "Add Friend" buttons found on social networks lke Facebook, the E Connector allows you to add people you meet to your online social networks by simply touching your connector with theirs. More Info

This piggy bank is the bomb.

The Superbitus Money Box, designed by Art Ledebev Studio (creators of the Optimus Keyboard), comes with a white marker so that you can write your financial target on the side of the bomb, WWII style. The designers intend for you to burst open Superbitus once you've reached your target, but who could destroy such an awesome money box?

How to edit your host file on a Mac

Changing the contents of a computer's host file can be extremely helpful to web developers. You can basically manipulate the way your computer looks at the internet. I use it to keep Google Analytics from counting me as a visitor on my own site (or any site for that matter). Whatever your reasons for editing your host file, here's how to do it on a Mac.


1. Open Terminal

2. Type: sudo pico /etc/hosts

3. Type: YourPassword
*This is the same password you use to log in to your computer

4. Edit host file

5. To save your changes hold down CONTROL & press the letter 'O'. Then press ENTER

6. To exit your host file hold down CONTROL & press the letter 'X'.

7. To quit Terminal simply hold down APPLE & press the letter 'Q' at the same time.
*APPLE is the same thing as COMMAND.

A Designer's Coffee Mug

This coffee mug changes color as you pour hot coffee into its temperature sensitive core. It also happens to be exactly what my brain looks like as I down my daily dose of wake-up juice.

How to beat Desktop Tower Defense

To the right you will see the layout and strategy I used to beat Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 on Medium.

Here is my method:
1. Cover the entrances with pellet towers.
2. Use gold to create rows of pellet towers just far enough apart to let the enemies through.
3. Upgrade the towers once the board is full towers starting with the center

Then watch them die! The key is to keep upgrading constantly.

Notice that the only weapon I used was the Pellet Tower. I did this because they are cheap and easy to upgrade. No, they don't cause as much damage, but once upgraded to their highest level the pellet towers are all you need.

The crazy pattern I created with the towers was intended to keep the enemies on the screen as long as possible so they can get pummeled longer by my towers.

This may not be the best strategy but it worked for me. Try it out. Let me know how it goes.

Now... back to work!

The Email Standards Project... Thank God!

If the US government needs a non-violent method of torture to replace water-boarding, I would like to suggest email design. The detainees would be required to design an email that uses HTML, CSS, and images and works in all the major email clients. I am convinced that all terrorist activity would cease immediately after only one day of enforcing this dreadful task.

Email design sucks. For years designers were forced to bend over backwards to try to please the quirks of email clients like Microsoft's Outlook and Google's Gmail. Only now do we have hope of industry standards for email design.

While bouncing around the internet I found this... The Email Standards Project. In their own words,

"The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email."

Finally! God bless these guys. Seriously. Their site is very useful if you're designing for email. It features a quick reference on the state of email clients.

Check it out, tell your web design friends and end this repulsive form of torture, otherwise known as email client testing.

The Email Standards Project

Awesome Designer / Developer Video Tutorials

I LOVE KNOWLEDGE!

Today my wonderful employer purchased a premium subscription to lynda.com, the video tutorial site. Every designer / developer skill that I could ask for is bundled into easy to digest videos. Its awesome. Basically, I'm getting smarter (and more valuable to my company) by watching TV. Thank you God for the internet.

I've only watched a few videos and brain has already increased its size by 25.7%. It's like plugging into The Matrix and having skills downloaded directly into your cerebral cortex.

They've got all the acronyms you need to become a great designer or developer. XHTML, CSS, SEO, PHP, MySQL, and AJAX to name just a few. They also have the big names like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and even Wordpress.

If you're into online learning and need to brush up on your design skills or learn a new web deveopment language, then lynda.com is the place to go.

Halarious Tech Support Quotes and Stories

Tech Support: "May I ask what operating system you are running today?"
Customer: "A computer."

Overheard in a classroom:
Student: "How much do Windows cost, and do you have to buy each one separately?"

Go here for more:
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_os.shtml

Gulf South Solar | Logo Design and Wordpress CMS

About the Client:
Gulf South Solar is the leading solar provider in Louisiana. They are based in Baton Rouge and have been installing solar for 5 years. They provide a wide range of solar power systems.


The Process:
It has been a pleasure working with a company that's changing the world by spreading the use of clean energy across the South.

Services Provided:
- Logo Design
- Content Management System - Wordpress
- Consulting - Web Strategy

Red Ribbon at the Beach

A straw hat with a red ribbon sailing in the wind at the beach is being held by my wife. We were in the Gulf of Mexico a few years ago, enjoying the white sands and blue-green waters. This photo would make an excellent desktop background.
Download image from iStockPhoto

Free High Resolution Wallpaper: Black Burst Design

Here is a free wallpaper background I designed. It contains a dark gradient with rays beaming from left to right. I use it on a Mac to highlight my Dock that I've positioned on the left of my screen.

Do you want a custom wallpaper design? Contact Me.

Resolution : 1440 x 900 ( Widescreen )















Resolution: 1024 x 768 ( Fullscreen )



Resolution : 800 x 600 ( Full Screen )



Resolution : 320 x 480 ( iPhone )





Do you want a custom desktop wallpaper background design? Contact Me.

Present: past’s future

pre-sent. This suggests that what is, became, as a result of something that has already happened.

What you do now is literally creating tomorrow’s present.

What will tomorrow bring? Well, what did you send?

My wife and child.

My Growing Family, originally uploaded by wisepeace.

There they are.

The two people i love most in this world. Candice and Ezekiel. Ezekiel David is expected to begin his adventure on August 28th. Every time I feel him kick, or roll, or hiccup I'm blown away at the thought of being a father. I mean... there's a new human in my wife's stomach!

I get lost in happy premonitions of a baby turning into a boy that eventually grows into a man. These thoughts are only enjoyed after I sift through images of those pesky stomach-bursting creatures from the ALIENS movie series. SIDE NOTE: Cover your mouth when entering a room full of face-sucking alien larvae pods.

Aliens aside, the experience of feeling our little Ezekiel bounce around inside of my wife's stomach is quite surreal. I'm struck with the thought of creating someone's childhood memories.

Maybe creating is too strong a word. We'll at least be daily... influencing Ezekiel's childhood memories. That's huge. Yes, our first few years together may only be remembered as vague nostalgia, but then we move right into the cherished childhood memories of innocence and better days.

You know the kind I'm talking about. (For children of the '80's think Night Rider, Ninja Turtles, Atari, MC Hammer, Arnold Schwarzenegger in good movies (Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonya) and the tint of faded polaroids from the early 80's mixed with the flashing and click-clacking of an old movie projector and you've got an idea of what goes on in my head.

You know... the classic family flashback scenes in movies. The good old days you look back on when you're older. Running on the beach naked as a toddler ( I never did that ), taking a bath and using the bathroom at the same time ( did that... we're talking #2... yes, it floats ), and other things that are OK, and even cute, if kids do them, but are "off limits" as we get older.

So what if I want to streak at the beach ?(...so hairy people would think I still had clothes on) What if I did feel like peeing in the shower? (...wait... I still do that) All I'm asking is where does the line between childhood and adulthood exist. Is it at the jewish celebration of 12 years? Or does it lie somewhere in the mysterious netherworld of ... the "teenage years". Maybe it's found in the epiphany-rich twenties.

It's probably different for everybody. Wherever that bridge is I'm just excited that, God willing, I'll be there when my son crosses it.

The Mazda Furai explodes my face.

The Mazda Furai is a beatifully designed piece of machinery that will melt your face. I was shocked when I first saw it in TopGear magazine. Whatever your style, you have to appreciate the extravagance of thtis design.

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Pimp yo ride:

Scientists Invent Holodeck!

FINALLY! Every gamer has dreamed of the day of real virtual gaming. Well, my cheeto-loving friends, our day has finally come. The VirtuSphere let's you run around in what looks like a huge plastic soccer ball that sits on rollers. With a headset over your eyes and a gun in hand, you can literally run, jump, or crawl around the virtual environment. Of course it's very expensive right now. Only military forces, governments, and big entertainment companies have bought them so far. It may take a few years for VirtuSphere to come to your nearest discount super-store. But when it does, Halo will never be the same. WOOT! WOOT!

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Myspace Sucks

I think all designers would agree that Myspace sucks. A usability nightmare, Myspace is the perfect example of those money-hungry banner-ad-loving sites that cares more about squeezing pennies out of pixels than creating a sane user experience. I know they've got to pay the bills, but... they suck. Appropriately, Myspace recently got #1 on PC World's list of the 25 worst websites ever. If you have any knowledge of the use of "white space" I think you will read the review and nod smugly, as I did, in justified agreement.

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Open source software in schools could save taxpayers billions

Open source software is all over the place. Google Apps being a prime example. If schools switched from paying for software to these open source alternatives, the savings would be substantial. It could also provide enormous opportunities for the home-grown technology sector based around open source software. So contact your representatives and let's change the world.

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Solar and Wind Leaf Photovoltaic Shingles

While the future of solar technology seems to rest on nanotechnology innovation, these GROW panels by SMIT are fairly remarkable. Inspired by leaves, these tiny generators do one better than their biological counterparts, drawing power from the sun, but also capturing energy from the wind as they are jostled by the breeze.

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Fusion Power by 2035 ...ish.

If fusion can be perfected, it could mean a golden age for power production, with systems providing all of the benefits of nuclear reactors—but none of the drawbacks.

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$1 per watt solar panels from NanoSolar... Thanks again Google.

Googling Green
Recently Google posted an article on there blog about encouraging green energy. They also made it obvious that, as usual, they were ready to put their money where their mouth was.

Where is Google's mouth?
Well, at moment Google's billion dollar mouth is salivating all over a change-the-world sandwich. First bite: The way we produce electricity.

A few years back Google invested in a little startup called Nanosolar. Fast forward to today's headline and we see that Nanosolar has come a long way. They figured out a way to "print" solar panels. That's right, semi-conductor ink and all. This process turned out to be way cheaper than traditional ways of producing solar panels. That's why they can charge such a coal busting rate of $1 per watt.

We're talking about finally accomplishing what the tree-huggers have been praying for the last several decades: Renwable Energy as a our main source of electricity.

Revolution?!... where... I don't...?
Well, for now the company is backed up for 18 months from their first shipping date. So it may be awhile before the general public gets their hands on these things. But you just wait. One day you'll all be at Target/Walmart getting some eggs and you'll pass by the rolls of Nanosolar sheets. Then I'll throw an elbow in your eye so that I can get them first. Sorry...



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Body Clock 'Control Switch' Found

Our DNA amazes me. It is a complete language describing how to build a human. Beautiful. The good ole BBC came out with this interesting story a day or two ago. "Researchers say they have identified the chemical switch that controls the genetic mechanism regulating our internal body clock." Read on with the links below.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007: w00t

That's right..."This year's winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community."1. w00t (interjection)expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay" ex.{ w00t! I won the contest! } or more accurately { w00t! 10 head-shots in a row!} Digital Culture has exploded on in large part to the success of video games and the evolution of online gaming. Soon we'll all be speaking to each other in chat room shorthand. TTL.

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Microwave beam car stopper fries cars in nanoseconds.

There is a new weapon on the police force. At 5 feet 200 pounds an officer may not be effective on the highways when faced with runaway criminals. Given his stature he may not even make it back to his patrol car before the vandals completely escape. But 5 feet 200 pounds of microwave laser gun mounted to the top of a patrol car would get the job done easily. As soon as the bad guys started to pull away the microwave beam would "fry" all electronics in the get-away car, rendering it motionless. Eureka Aerospace has built such a weapon and are getting powerful results.

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