To use or Not to use Photoshop

So a while ago I read a post by 37signals called "Why we skip Photoshop” and since then I never truly understood why not to use photoshop. I’ve learned a few things, and I have tried a few things. I have come up with this. Photoshop is a great tool, if your working …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Working together online

Lately I have been working on a new desktop application for the Mac called “Snippet”. I don’t want to talk about the app itself but the experience of making the app. As many or some of you may know. I’m a designer, I create websites, write awesome HTML and CSS …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Users need instruction, but they aren't mentally retarded.

So lately I have been trying to mockup some ideas for a new part of the admin section of a project I’m working on. As a designer, part of your job is to create an easy to understand user experience. I spent a lot of time thinking of new ways to solve problems we had …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Users need instruction, but they aren't mentally retarded.

So lately I have been trying to mockup some ideas for a new part of the admin section of a project I’m working on. As a designer, part of your job is to create an easy to understand user experience. I spent a lot of time thinking of new ways to solve problems we had …

(via Stephen Korecky)

How To: Write professional emails

1. Picking the right font

Sure anyone can use Helvetica or Lucida, but if you really want to grab their attention, you’re going to want a font that stands out and says “look at me!” Zapfino is a great font, but you can always use a classic like Comic Sans or …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Working together online

Lately I have been working on a new desktop application for the Mac called “Snippet”. I don’t want to talk about the app itself but the experience of making the app. As many or some of you may know. I’m a designer, I create websites, write awesome HTML and CSS …

(via Stephen Korecky)

To use or Not to use Photoshop

So a while ago I read a post by 37signals called “Why we skip Photoshop” and since then I never truly understood why not to use photoshop. I’ve learned a few things, and I have tried a few things. I have come up with this. Photoshop is a great tool, if your …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Hosting HTTPS Rails app with plesk

This article assumes you have already setup your SSL cert on plesk (plenty of articles on that). Also, assumes you have running an existing Rails app on non-secure HTTP. We need to setup our vhost and vhost_ssl conf files that PLESK creates. Mine are located …

(via Stephen Korecky)

Server Density on a MediaTemple (dv) Server

I was reading a 37signals case study about one of their products and the company they mentioned was Server Density. I have been looking for a way to monitor my server resources and be notified when something has gone wrong or is about to go wrong.

This is what Server …

Passenger and Ruby on Rails on your MediaTemple (dv) Server running Plesk

So this has been a frustrating journey, but I finally got ruby on rails to work on my (dv) box at MediaTemple.

First you need to follow the first part of this guide http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/279/ ,Stop when it comes to installing Mongrels.

You will first …

Are You A Sudoer?

As many of you know, it’s a good idea to not run as root on your server for several reasons, one of which is when you create anything, it gives it root permissions. But what happens when you need to be sudo to restart apachce? Sure you can login as root, but then you …

Wait! That's Mine!

So this happened a while back when I worked at a photography studio in Chicago. It was pretty big and I worked in the IT department, so I had a lot of running around to do and so I had a scooter, a harmless little scooter that never did anything to anybody. I came in …

Fixing The Web With Attribute Selectors

If you’re like me, there are website that just bug you how they did something, or the amount of ad’s they display are annoying. With the power of Safari, CSS, and Attribute Selectors, we can change how we have to view the web. Here is what I have in my short but …

Git's Trailing Whitespace

This is a recent problem I have come across with Git. Now I love using Git, but this put a damper on my workflow since the white space isn’t causing any problem, and aren’t even visible in my text editor. When you get the error, you may see something like this.

*
* …

Teach Yourself by Teaching Others

I often get asked by family and other “how do you know this stuff”? I usually respond with something like “I don’t know, I just read a lot” and laugh a little. Truth is, that’s not how I learn. That’s not to say I don’t read, but I learn by teaching …

More UI, Less FU

While using OmniGraffle for the first time, I came across this…

When I fist saw this, my first response was “why is there an eject button?”. Turns out it expands the toolbar to show you more tools. From a end user experience, this made no sense to me, I …

Using IA, Why It Sucks

So at my day job I have been assigned to help work on an Information Architecture document to show the flow of this project. It’s a good concept in theory sure, and the one argument I hear from it is: “If a client goes back on something and says ‘I didn’t want …

Adding your SSH key to your MediaTemple Server

If you would like to add your SSH key to your MediaTemple server so you no longer have to enter a password when connecting to your server, this is how. First off, this assumes you have a unix type machine (Linux, OS X) and you have SSH enabled on your server.

First …

Symphony & Localhost Sitting In A Tree...

So, recently I got sick of .htaccess and more specifically mod_rewrite not working locally, so I set out to figure out why. Why I wanted to do this is because as you know or should know. You should always work on your site locally and then publish them when ready, so …

New Website Section Up!

I just launched my new website section. Much improved. There a few things I'll be adding in the near future such as the "Launch Site" Button which is missing while I fix up the sites.

In other news I have fixed the way the date is displayed in my blog post, now it …