Get with the program! If you’re not using Firefox, I’d suggest now is a good time to switch. The newest release Firefox 3 is an excellent upgrade packed full of new features. In addition to a host of cosmetic features, I’ve been using it for almost a week, and the speed improvement is noteworthy. As a web designer/developer…I implore you to switch from IE! Although, as much as I bitch about IE I can say this…it has kept me employed, fixing cross platform issues etc etc., but honestly folks, we’d all rather be spending our time designing interface improvements and improving user experience. Check out all the newest features of Firefox here, personally I really like the tagging and the new “native platform look and feel”, but the speed improvements were most impressive. It’s still not quite as clean looking as safari, but you can’t compete with Apple on design. Join the over 8 million other people today!

Here is a cool site for all of us who are lucky enough to work with a two monitor set up! The site updates occasionally with background sets designed to fit both monitors.
Mandolux!

Apple has really made some inroads with their pro applications. Final Cut Pro has developed into a real contender for high end professional editing. The proof behind this statement is backed up by this article which talks to the Coen brothers about their use of FCP for editing their excellent film No Country for Old Men.

Macworld- Full Article
Coen Brothers Talking about FCP- Apple

Here is a nice CSS tip my comrade Mark passed on to me the other day. Say you have a tag and you already have an ID and a Class…you can actually add another class to it by just separating them with a comma, how handy is that in a pinch! <p id="first" class="red, bold">

If you are a web designer no doubt you have at one point or another been in dire need of some way to enlarge that tiny .gif logo your desperate client provided you with…CS3 to the rescue. Illustrator has the guts from the old Streamline program, which will turn a bitmap into a vector file for you, allowing you to size up without loss in quality…Here is a nice little tutorial which will get you rolling in no time.

So earlier in the year before we packed up and left Tucson AZ for the greener pastures of Oregon, we were fortunate enough to attend a screening of the film Heart of an Empire which chronicles the development of the Fighting 501rst, a group of self created Stormtroopers (and other Star Wars themed characters) who attend fundraisers, and visit children in hospitals, and are all around really decent people. We shot some footage of them promoting the film outside on the streets, which was pretty funny. Here’s a quick edit using a song from the sci-fi themed band SPOCK.

Learn more about these special people and their work- Fighting 501

Check out this great video montage of old motion graphics logos. I am sure you will recognize some of them.

This is some very interesting stuff. A new way to resize images using similar paths of color through the image in order to remove small sections or add space based on the similar colors. Watch the video and be stunned by how simple (with the use of a computer of course) it really is, and how great the results are. I sure hope to see a Seam Carving tool in the next release fo Adobe Photoshop! *Update- Apparently Ariel was snapped up by Adobe rather quickly already.*

More Info- Dr. Ariel Shamir

It’s always cool when someone melds modern technology with traditional art style. Here is a great “thesis” animation from RIT which does just that. Watch as a Monk learns the style of one of my favorite bugs (bug or alien life form? the verdict still has to be out on that one), the Praying Mantis.

Way of the Mantis-

Chances are you’ve heard something about this “iPhone”. If you have not, you are either deaf, blind or so in love with Microsoft you have enabled your sensory filters to block out anything Apple related. All the hype aside this is really going to be an amazing gadget. It’s certainly more than “just a phone”, and it will really raise the bar for the portable market. It runs a slimmed down version of Apple’s operating system, which makes it quite a powerful little device capable of running your itunes, playing video, surfing the web, etc etc. What we are all really excited about of course is the touch screen, and it remains to be seen how easy it is to use, initial reports have been very positive. Apple has just released this informative..rather lengthy 20 minute video that goes through all the features and apps included with the phone. It’s a good place to start if you want to familiarize yourself with just what all the hype is about. A “revolution” maybe not, but an evolution for mobile phones, and devices it certainly is.

Apple: iPhone Guided Tour