christine ibbitson's blog

Lonely? In Need of Company?

myspace.com decribes itself as "a place for friends". All kinds of friendships are being built if you look at some of myspace.com stats.

• largest online social networking portal on the web
• 61 plus million registered users with 21 plus million unique visitors (media metrix)
• for page views it is the second largest destination on the web
• 50.2% male, 49.8% female
• primary age demo is 16-34
• site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily

Wow. With statistics like that you have to ask yourself what kind of friends can I make on myspace?

Well if you are only down with hangin' with the cool cats, myspace.com makes it easy for you. One stop peer shopping. Just visit the myspace.com homepage where they showcase a fresh crop of "Cool New People". You can get the hook up to gangsta G$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ who defines himself as a “pimp so what are you”. Finally a place where I can meet people that not only share who they are but want to know more about me.

Not really into an A-list type crowd or maybe you just want to kick it old school. No worries. Just do a search for your current role model – like Kevin Federline. For real, yo. K-Fed lets you drop a listen to his new single Americas Most Hated. Track highlights include “lyrical exercise workin’ every muscle” and “the most anticipated but most under rated, Kevin Federline Americas Most Hated.” Nope – that isn’t a typo in the spelling of Americas.

I can't help but think that myspace.com is today's version of Geocities and Angelfire after a solid year of doing Texas sized doses of meth. But I'll think about all this later - I need to figure out some new moves to bust out for K-Fed's track. Yo. Laters.

Saving the Enviroment One Flush At a Time

Toilet Lid Sink allows you conserve water and get clean at the same time!

With each flush of your commode, clean water that would otherwise go straight down the toilet is first routed up through a chrome gooseneck spigot to dispense pure water for hand washing. The Toilet Lid Sink installs easily without tools, is attractive for any bathroom and is a great space saver. Shuts off automatically. Porcelain-like white plastic replaces your existing tank top and adjusts to fit standard toilets up to 8in wide and 18-22in long. Built-in soap dish. Cost $90 USD.

Keeping An Eye On Yourself

Interested in stalking yourself? The folks at ZabaSearch have created an interface that displays your current location in Google Map based on your IP address.

ZabaSearch says: "We provide this as a public service to allow web users to find out what specific information they broadcast while surfing the Net."

View cognisance report.

Firefox Extension: Rendered Source Chart

Firefox extension View Rendered Source Chart creates an illustration/chart that allows you to easily visualize the nested code of any web page.

This estension wil help you from getting lost in the maze of div’s, span’s and so on. View Rendered Source Chart lets you look at your source code the same way that a Right-Click -> View Source does, but it adds a really cool colored chart that shows you the nesting of elements inside your web page.

Find out more.

SQUIDOO – It's Not About the Fish

Created by marketing guru Seth Godin, Squidoo is an online platform of hand-built directories that anyone can create for free.

Seth describes Squidoo as:

"Squidoo lets anyone build a simple, free web page that points to blogs, online stores, maps and other information on a single topic—any topic. Each page can contain insight, bullet points, links, products and pictures, and each page earns royalties for its creator or for charity.

Squidoo leverages the power of personal recommendation. The site will eventually host millions of handmade ‘lenses’, each a focused, useful guide to some area of expertise, some glimpse of the net. Instead of aimlessly poking, a lens lets a user see the big picture—a human being’s big picture, the overview you need to get the meaning of the idea.

The heart of Squidoo is the lens. A lens can point the best hotels in London. Or blogs with pictures and articles about Paris Hilton. Or personal accounts about Hurricane Katrina.

A lens can expose a cross-section of the web, a more personal and more humanly relevant take that no computer could ever create. A lens is an easy-to-build page of links and referrals. Two lenses may be on the same topic, but they are never the same — every lens is personal, and every lens is built by a person, a Lensmaster."

Read more about Seth Godin and Squidoo at CNNMoney.com.

Create your own lense at Squidoo.

Unbelievable Creativity by the Folks at Creative Artists Agency

According to Wikipedia, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is perhaps the most powerful talent and literary agency in American show business. Headquartered in a I.M. Pei-designed building in Beverly Hills and with offices in New York, Nashville and Beijing, the agency represents a vast array of actors, screenwriters, directors and other "creatives," as well as a variety of "projects," companies and ideas. The agency was founded by superagent Michael Ovitz in 1975, and is now headed by his successors, nicknamed the "young turks."

Some of the artist represented by the CAA are; Tom "I'm not depressed or crazy" Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Natalie Portman.

CAA is great at earning millions of dollars to make phone calls, negotiate contracts and have lunch.

Take, literately a moment, to check out their entire website.

My Worst Client

I have finally met my worst client – me. I am terrible at meeting my own design, content and timelines objectives. Forget about getting an answer or a commitment when I need one. The good news or bad news, I don't think I am alone.

Why is it so many designers have an enormous difficulty designing and updating their own personal sites?

My portfolio, which hasn’t been updated in two years, took me at least five years to put together. Oh sure, there were tons of concepts, sketches and colour palettes – some even making it all the way to be three quarters finished.

Geez. Just post something, was the design theme of my current online showcase.  How did I finally get one done? Simple. It was either create and post a portfolio site or starve. Apparently employers aren’t fond of you showing up at their offices offering to do a dramatic interpretation of your work. 

I found myself avoiding this blog because I disliked the ‘out of box’ design. So I started to commit an evening here and there to come up with some ideas and to even go as far as trying them out. Trying some paint on the wall so to speak.

So if you happen to stop by – I appreciate you patience and please excuse the mess.

OK/Canel - Time Well Wasted

 It is so easy to get sidetrack and end up spending considerable amounts of time online doing and accomplishing nothing. I seem to spend quite a bit of time reading blogs that are interesting but often irrelevant to the knowledge that I am currently searching for. I was happy to come across a very entertaining and informative blog about this industry.

"OK/Cancel is a comic strip collaboration co-written and co-illustrated by Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. Our subject matter focuses on interfaces, good and bad and the people behind the industry of building interfaces - usability specialists, interaction designers, human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, industrial designers, etc."

An article accompanies each cartoon. The articles are honest, insightful and articulate ideas that are often being mulled over in most designer's heads.

Now if I can only remember what I was originally looking for.

Essential Mac OS X Applications

Mac Specialist has compiled a list of essential OSX applications. The app list is in alphabetical order with a brief description of each item.

Don't forget to check out the "What would you add to the list" comment section where users offer thier recommendations.

Do you hear what I hear?

Dean Garstecki, chairman of Northwestern's Communication Sciences and Disorders Department is warning people who listen to thier portable audio devices using earbuds to be careful or else be prepared for the likeihood of hearing loss.

According to research the "earbuds' close proximity to the eardrum, in combination with their ability to magnify the sound signal by as much as six to nine decibels, raises the intensity of the sound" thus promoting the likelihood of hearing loss.

"Garstecki and other audiologists want music listeners to adopt their so-called "60 percent, 60 minute" rule. The solution, they said, is to spend no more than one hour each day listening to an MP3 player or iPod with the volume level lower than 60 percent of the maximum.

"If music listeners are willing to turn the volume down further still and use different headphones, they can increase the amount of time that they can safely listen," Garstecki pointed out."

Read the full article.