Just finished up a redesign and preliminary launch of The Drops‘ Website. This was an especially fun project because the client gave me a great deal of freedom to do pretty much whatever I wished in terms of the design, photography and user experience. They had some great ideas for interactivity so I got to integrate an installation of WordPress and write a couple of fun web applications. One is a vote for your favorite scent app and the other is a free sample request app that has a little bit of smarts built in. Both made for some fun with PHP and MySQL. This client is near and dear to my heart because they allowed me the privilege of handling their initial branding several years ago (which was also a really fun process). It’s been a joy to watch them grow and prosper over the years and I wish them continued success with their unique product line. They are a terrific group of hard working people.

I have been avoiding contaminating my MacBook Pro with the Windows “operating system” like the plague. It just didn’t seem like a nice thing to do to my mac – it’s always been so good to me. That said, a little bit of convenience and a lotta bit of need for increased efficiency finally made me take the plunge. As a rule, I test the websites I build for proper layout and functionality in all the popular modern browsers. So these days that means I’m testing in IE6, IE7 and beginning to test in IE8 Beta 2 on the Windows side (more…)

Google’s new Web browser, Google Chrome (BETA), has arrived and it should be very interesting to see what they’ve come up with. The initial release will be Windows friendly while Linux and Mac versions are said to be on the way. The word is that Chrome is based on the efforts of the Mozilla and WebKit open source projects. As a big fan of both, I’m anxious to see where Google has taken things. Should be interesting to see how things develop (pun intended).

It has just come to my attention that I have not been receiving most of my incoming email over the course of the last 24–48 hours. After some preliminary investigation, the opportunity for a solution appears to reside with the .mac/.me imap server(s) administrator(s). I’m working with Apple support now to understand and resolve the issue as quickly as possible. I’ve already been through a round of first level support and will be escalating first thing in the morning. I apologize for any inconvenience and will follow up with another post as soon as the issue has been worked out. Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter for updates. Believe me, this hurts me more than it hurts you (or at least that is what I hope).

Update 9/2/2008, 6:30am: My email volume is back up to about 3/4 of normal and I have successfully received several test emails that I sent to myself through various channels, however it took nearly 20 minutes for the test emails to find their way to me. If it’s urgent, probably better to not rely on email yet, please call instead.

Update 9/2/2008, 11:14pm: I’m fairly confident that the folks over at Apple have gotten my email account straightened out now. It appears as though the email woes are over for the time being. Sorry again for any inconvenience this caused anyone.

After spending a full day working with Firefox 3 in conjunction with Firebug 1.2.0 Beta, I have formed some initial qualitative impressions. Overall, Firefox 3 feels like an upgrade over the previous version of the browser. It seems snappier and more responsive and in general I am getting used to the new skin fairly quickly. The new Firebug beta is definitely still a beta (more…)

A few days ago my brother turned me onto a really slick little freeware application for Mac OSX that I think is worth mentioning. It’s called iStat Menus from iSlayer. It’s a cool little tool that allows you to monitor the vital signs of your mac in real time (more…)

Something I’ve been meaning to post about forever is one of the podcasts that I most look forward to every week: The MacCast. As host Adam Christianson exclaims each and every week, it’s the “…show about all things Macintosh” – and it really is. (more…)

In the spirit passing along some of the web design and development tools that I just couldn’t live without, I wanted to mention another plugin that works great with Firefox that is created by Chris Pederick – The Web Developer Toolbar. This is another one of those amazing little gems that has been around for quite a while and has proven to be invaluable to me for both getting work done on a daily basis and learning from time to time. The toolbar has a ton of useful features that can be life savers during the design process. There are options which allow you to, among other things, very quickly enable or disable images, css, and javascript, precisely resize the browser window, quickly validate code (HTML and CSS), and even outline various elements right in the browser window to graphically see how a document is built. (more…)

Needless to say, Firebug is not new news these days. It’s been around, widely used, and in my opinion, very excellent for quite some time now. Occasionally, I have found Firebug to be a handy tool for deconstructing and understanding Web pages that have been mysterious to me in terms of their functionality or design. Historically, Firebug has not been a primary tool in my daily workflow, but rather a little gem that I employ every now and again when I need it (kinda like decaf coffee – admit it – you know what I mean). (more…)

A List Apart’s annual survey for web professionals is available. The survey is anonymous and painless (and beautifully designed I might add). I managed to get through it in just a few minutes. I really enjoyed looking over the results from last year’s survey and am eager to see what’s new or different or surprising or otherwise in this year’s results. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare I recommend participating in the survey.