WordPress plugins in use
There are a few WordPress plugins that help me publish this site as I want it. Here are a few of the key plugins I currently use on Stopdesign.… ~400 words
Choosing the right tool
It’s rare these days that something pulls me out of the woodwork to write something here on Stopdesign. A few recent posts by Jason and David at 37signals (Why we skip Photoshop and Web designers should do their own HTML/CSS, respectively) got me thinking though. This post began as a response on an email thread at work. I’m expanding it here to a wider audience. ~1,000 words
xScope 2
Simply put, xScope is a back-pocket, time-saving utility for designers and developers created by designers who understand the nature of working on screen. I haven’t written much about the software I use. But once in a while I come across something that’s so useful, I’m compelled to spread the word a little further. And the latest update of xScope to v2.0 adds some really nice enhancements worth drawing me out of hibernation. ~500 words
Mac app: High Priority
Every once in a while, an application/utility comes along that hits a sweet spot. Something for which I’ve been looking, but haven’t been able to find. I’m a list-maker. Especially to-do lists. For more than a year, I’ve been wanting a simple to-do list manager that I can call up from the Mac OS X menu bar. Something simple, light-weight, nicely designed, and above all else, reads and writes to pre-existing data in iCal. ~600 words
Photon open sourced
The inner-workings for a clever little plugin named Photon that enables photo export from iPhoto directly to Movable Type and other publishing tools (to create photo galleries like this) are now available for anyone to explore and build upon. Jonathan Younger, who originally created the plugin, doesn’t have enough time to dedicate for updating and expanding the plugin. So he generously released Photon’s source code under the GNU Lesser General Public License so that others could continue evolving it. ~100 words
Underline text in Adobe Illustrator
When creating web comps, it’s not uncommon to underline some of the links on the page. Despite the fact that users have been asking how to underline text in Illustrator for several versions now, Adobe somehow manages to exclude this feature in each new release of the software. Here’s how to work around that limitation. ~1,400 words
Drag-scrolling in Safari
One of the small, less-talked-about features of Saft (the plugin for enhancing Safari’s features) has one person interested enough to write a full entry about it. ~600 words
Version troubles
Todd Dominey beats me to the punch, and says everything (and more) about software version naming schemes I was thinking of writing. Inspired by Adobe’s drop of the numerical versions in favor of a letter-based system (“CS”) for their new “Creative Suite”, the move seems to be a short-sighted marketing ploy in attempt to follow a trend set by Apple, Microsoft, and Macromedia. ~300 words
Weaving CSS dreams
In promising news for web design and development, Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX 2004 claims it will possess much more powerful CSS support, as well as significant improvements which will help its users create accessible content. ~700 words
Quark delivers for Apple
In January of 2002, Quark dumbfounded Mac design professionals by releasing QuarkXPress 5 sans support for Mac OS X. Because of Quark’s rush to release an already outdated product, Mac-based print designers have either held back in upgrading from OS… ~200 words
Opera 7 release
My hat’s off to the Opera team for pushing out what looks to be a fine browser in the final release of version 7. So far, only the Windows version of Opera 7 is available. As always, it’s lightweight,… ~100 words
Safari
At last, we may finally have a competitive browser market for the Mac. Apple enters the picture with Safari (v 1.0 Beta), self-dubbed the turbo browser for the Mac. As Jobs likes to do, Safari is compared side by… ~300 words