Artboredom is the portfolio+ propaganda home of designer/artist Chris Huller. This is a platform for verbal and visual opinions as well as promoting + advancing art and design.
Officially I'm closing up shop here on Movable Type and this version of my portfolio. I'm working hard on getting things up and running on my new site that's powered by the tasty Wordpress app and until then, I'm putting no further effort into this site.
When I get a chance I post things to my Tumblr account, but even now that's a stretch. Just want to get the new site live.
I know you all can't wait.
As if I didn't have enough things to do and not enough time to do any of them, I decided it would be a good idea to try out Tumblr. Tumblr is a publishing platform for tumblelogs. Tumblelogs are usually a conglomeration of everything that normally doesn't make it into a normal blog. When I'm writing for my regular blog I tend to overthink everything feeling the need to make things perfect. That also goes for the subject matter. If it doesn't feel important to post about then it never sees the light of day. That's where Tumblr comes in. If I see something that I want to write about, perhaps something that doesn't have any categorization whatsoever, then it has a home in a tumblelog.
I'm not sure where all this desire to share has come from. I'm an only child and I don't like sharing anything. I guess we all have our reasons. Now start reading my Tumblr!
Actually, let me reword that. Why is it so hard to decide on your own site design? When I think about the amount of work that went into the last one, and the inevitability of another arduous code tasking for the new one I shudder.
I know I should keep it fresher than I have been regardless of all my additions and updates. I see some designers out there that can't go half a year with out having some kind of overhaul. I spend nearly all my free time on the computer, and there's no way that I'd have time for that.
But here I am, contemplating what I want my CMS to do, and why. More importantly-how it will look. Still pretty sure that I'm going to use Wordpress for this one. I've been taking another look at Joomla, but I still like the WP community better.
Even if I knew what I was going to use for my back end, I still don't know how I want my front end to look like. Things that I liked not more than a couple of months ago aren't tasting the same as before and I'm stumped. I'm guessing this is just a little design slump, but I'd better figure this out sooner than later!
Just so you know, I've been posting on another site that's just for cool people. You can't see it because you're just not cool. This site is for people that suck. Since I can't keep posting regularly to save my life; I suck too. That's why we're here.
Obviously I've been busy. I branched out and grabbed some logo work in addition to my coding. It was an eye opener to say the least. It also was the highest level of work I ever produced. Unfortunately since the project isn't finished, I can't talk much more about it.
Onto things I can talk about but you don't want to hear, I've been busy trying things out on the app front as well.
A big one that stands out for me is Curio. It's a combination of several different programs, but for those of us that really enjoyed OneNote from the Office Suite it's the closest thing I've found for OSX. I abhor nearly the entire suite except for that little gem of a digital notebook. I can put down my thoughts like I would in a sketchbook, brainstorm, and take notes during client meetings. It even has a decent mind-mapping element that does the trick when needed. The only thing that it's truly lacking is security. I'd really like to have the ability to lock down a certain page like you could in OneNote. Perhaps that's in the future.
Another icon in my dock is the sexy leaf of Coda from Panic.
I've completely made the switch from Dreamweaver and it's been relatively easy. I'll admit there are a few things that I enjoy form DW that I'm missing in Coda; mainly the ability to save and upload the page file I'm presently working on (Cmd+Shift+U I think), but that's just a small thing in comparison. I have to admit that some impetus to make the transition was that I wanted to code with the cool kids. Too many people whose work I respected were hooked on it and I figured there has to be something deeper. The biggest thing for me has been the sites page. Double click on the screenshot and all the pages you were previously working on are loaded, and your FTP hierarchy is instantly set up. That's so genius that I can forgive having to click on the little arrow next to the file to upload it.
I don't however utilize the CSS editor in Coda. I'm working with CSSEdit and loving it. Moving things around on the page has never been easier since giving this app a try. I'm still hand-coding, but it's MUCH easier to debug and correct things as you go. The biggest help is actually seeing the site change in real-time as you alter the code. The X-Ray tool allows you to focus on specific areas pointing you its corresponding CSS rule. For me it's simply guiding you to where you want to go faster than scrolling through several hundred+ lines of code.
Although the process of migrating my design workflow from XP to OS X has been an relatively easy one, there have been some issues that have arisen. Like most designers (especially web) I have a massive tome of bookmarks. And as a web designer who works on both Mac and Windows systems I need to have my bookmarks regularized between them. I don't want to have to create separate accounts either; I want the same pages marked in the same hierarchy as they are on all machines. Not too much to ask is it?
For a long time now I've been using Foxmarks for Firefox on the PC. It backs up all my saved pages and sites to a server that can be recalled by any of my other machines running the Firefox plug-in. When I create a bookmark in one, it syncs with the server which in turn syncs with my main machine at home.
Now on the Mac side, .Mac takes care of my bookmarks between machines as well as creating a backup so I'm not left aimless on a fateful rainy day. Obviously I can utilize Foxmarks to make the leap from the blue-screened world of Windows to my MBP and iMac. But how, besides an unsyncable import from FF, do I get Safari on the same page?
My search led me to a small software developer named Everyday Software and an app called Bookit. While I still have to have some manual contact to get things started between Firefox and Safari, the idea is that the bookmarks will be exactly the same no matter what machine or what browser I'm looking at. It doesn't sync the Safari on my PC, that's not a huge deal at the moment. The app works as expected so there isn't much need for verbosity describing the truly dazzling process of synchronization. They did a great job so give 'em some money!
As corny as it sounds, I can't describe the feeling of having redundant access to all my stored sites on all my machines.
Yes it even syncs my iPhone (via .Mac) as well. Delicious indulgence!
Rich. As in rich emails synchronized over all my devices and warez. After nearly a week of excruciating waiting and wondering Google has knighted my Gmail inbox with the power of IMAP. That in turn set me on my holy quest to discover the secrets of my Media Temple mail account. They too know the art of the temple; fashioning my POP into the all seeing, all knowing IMAP. I now have my .Mac, Gmail, and Media Temple accounts all synced between my iMac and iPhone.
I wonder if my old Hotmail account that I haven't checked in a year is still active?
Most designers shudder at the thought of Comic Sans, but yet it still shows its face everyday. Just for fun, yet probably not as I'm looking for a job, I'm going to use it for my portfolio site. Maybe a little Courier as well...