Mister Nifty

I am immersed in digital culture on a daily basis, however I have a profound affinity for the analog side of life as well.   I carry two things with me at all times.

The Lamy Safari Fountain Pen

The Moleskine Cahier Notebook

Penmanship is quickly becoming a lost art. With the onslaught of typing and the Internet, we rarely find ourselves writing more than a scribble here and there. Good handwriting involves motor skills and concentration. Typing for me is more of a subconscious activity that doesn’t take much effort at all.  Also, typing is uniform and doesn’t give way for much creative, artful expression. My pen/notebook combo help me escape from the realm of digital and use my right brain. Instead of typing text all the time, I can doodle and notate creatively. (more…)

The ever awesome Chris Coyier from CSS-Tricks has now released a course on Lynda.com teaching you how to create a custom WordPress theme from scratch. The cost is $25.00/month for a Lynda subscription with no monthly contract obligations. This is a small prices for the value of the education you’ll get from this course. Lynda also offers many other video courses about a plethora of programs and topics.

Go To Lynda -> WordPress 3.0

If you’ve ever tried to convert a video from one format to another you know how frustrating it can be. I’ve tried dozens of products over the years and each one has its quarks. I finally found a free solution that hasn’t crashed on me yet. It’s called Freemake Free Video Converter. Sorry Mac guys, this one is only for us lowly PC guys.

Here are some of the features (from their site):

• Input Formats:  Convert video from DVD, video cams (avi, mpg, tod, mov, dv, rm), mobile phones (3gp, 3g2), Internet (flv, swf, mp4), PC (wmv, mkv, qt, ts, mts), music (mp3, aac, wma, wav, ogg), photos (jpg, bmp, png, gif, tif).
• Output Formats: avi, wmv, mp4, 3gp, dvd, mp3
• Combine multiple videos into one file
• Create a slideshow video easily from a batch of photos
• Minimal video editing – cutting, rotating, etc.
• DVD burning with menu support
• YouTube uploader
• Much more!

Get the Free Video Converter

If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, and you’ve tried opening a .AI file, you know what a hassle this can be. Certainly, you can open it up in Photoshop, but it will convert your resizeable vector file (lines and fills) to a rasterized image (pixels and dots). Since most churches don’t have a person on staff who knows how to use a vector program like Illustrator, they don’t have anything capable installed on their computers. Also, Illustrator costs hundreds of dollars and is not worth the cost to be used a few times a year in most cases.

And now, after reading this paragraph, your life will get immensely easier. Enter Inkscape. This is an awesome free open source program that you can download without paying a dime. It import Illustrator, EPS, SVG, PDF files and allows you to work with paths, shapes, curves, lines, text, etc. It also exports in all of these formats as well. If you have a logo you need to convert to an editable format, they have a fantastic trace option that will convert your image to a vector shape. Inkscape is a great tool to add to your arsenal for vector editing on a tight budget. Inkscape is available on PC and Mac!

Here are a few screenshots from Inkscape;

Go to Inkscape

If you’re looking for some great looking free icons for your web design, Webalys has released a pretty awesome icon and style set. Also included in the package is a massive library of web elements you can drop into your design. This kit is worth a pretty penny, but they have been so kind to give it away for free to the public.

Here are some previews:

Download the User Interface Design Framework

Have you ever tried taking a color photograph and converting it to black and white? A lot of programs do this for you automatically, but they simply desaturate (take away all the color data) and leave a limp grayscale image with no contrast. The leading quality of black and white photography is contrast. In order to take your photo from good to great, you need to add contrast and possibly some synthetic grain to your image. I’ve created a quick tutorial to show you how to easily make your photo go from Ooooo to Ahhhhh.

If you don’t have Photoshop, try downloading GIMP which is a free alternative to Photoshop.