In Disbelief

I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine about this. So a few short years ago I'd discovered Cufon. It allowed me to turn virtually any font into a 'live' font for the Web. It definitely had a few drawbacks though (too many to list here). And then there are Google fonts. They were nice, but, well, how awesome would it be to be able to turn ANY font you have into a 'Web safe' font?

Well that's exactly what I just figured out how to do. The headers now throughout my site are using Helvetica Neue Heavy Extended. And it's a 'live' Web font. My mind is blown.  I have verified this on three machines (two Macs and PC) that do not have this particular font installed.

It's not a graphic, it's truly a 'live' font running on the Web.

No More Daytime Recordings

They've been doing massive construction on our building since last Fall. It's a pretty big building and they made it to the opposite side by about January, but now they're winding back to this side where I'm at.

This means I can no longer do any voice overs or how-to videos during the day while they're drilling. They're rebuilding the decks and are taking them apart using what I can only assume to be jack hammers - from 9am to 5pm (can barely hear myself think at times).

Branding Myself

I just ordered a set of business cards and updated my resume!

I was going to augment the back of the business cards but I'd rather get an initial set in-hand ASAP. Plus I don't have my green screen set-up, so it would just create too much of a delay for right now.

The How-to Video Section is Now Online

The How-to Video sub section of my YouTube channel is now online. Just click the link in the main navigation!

I plan to keep adding to this (probably several new videos a week), so please be sure to check back regularly.

Up and Running

It ended up taking several hours to install everything I needed to install and to sync all my cloud based services to this new machine.

...but I'm now 100% up and running! This machine is an absolute beast! Just this morning I was re-encoding two videos (each two hours long, full 1080p) and decompressing a zipped archive that was 4.9 GBs - and surfing the Web while all that was going on. Not a single hiccup or sign of slow down.

Anyway, I've got some really exciting things in the works for today with my How-to YouTube videos.  So I'll be sure to post about that very soon.

Out for Delivery!

Back in January of this year I was asked to bring my quad core Mac Mini to the office to do a demonstration. The Mac was set-up on one table and connected to a large screen TV on another via a very short HDMI cable.

My boss decided to move the two tables slightly. Being that the HDMI cable I was using was so short, it yanked the Mac off and down onto the floor and it landed very hard. It seemed to be working fine for a while, but I noticed that the fan stopped working eventually (which I’m 100% sure is a result of the fall) - so it overheats after about just 15 minutes of use.

We ended up getting a replacement Mac Mini, but I needed one the next day - so we got the new model. …duo core with only 8 GBs of RAM.  Talk about a huge downgrade.

Life has been pretty rough ever since.

But today I have a replacement on it’s way for delivery right now! A quad core Mac Mini with 16 GBs of RAM again.

I. Cannot. Wait.

Getting Ready to Shoot

I’m planning on shooting some video to begin a new How-to Web series on YouTube. Today’s video will be on using Adobe Muse.

It’s only been four or five days since I began using Muse and each day it continues to blow me away. I know quite a few graphic designers who are burned out by Web design thanks to GUIs found in apps like Dreamweaver becoming more and more geared towards developers. If you haven’t used Muse before or are just curious about it, wait ‘til you see what it can do (and how easy it is to use).

I’ll post a link once it’s online.

The Best Leftovers

I have never been a fan of seafood but I have learned to enjoy crustaceans. Well recently, Amanda and I were at a place in Woodley Park called Hot N Juicy Crawfish and it was absolutely amazing.

Not only did we go back a week later (which is very unusual as Amanda doesn’t like to go back somewhere we’ve recently been for at least a month), not only did we wait a full hour to get in, but I brought home leftovers (shrimp).

…and it was the best leftovers I’ve ever tasted.