Last week my hard drive on my iMac crashed. Died. Done.
When I called to tell my wife the news she said, “You sound much more calm than I thought you would.” That’s because the night before the crash my automated weekly backup (via the very nice iDrive) ran and all my client files were safe and secure in the cloud of the internet.
While I had always heard the importance of backing up your computer, that day’s calmness confirmed just how vital this task is to any business. After using TechTool Pro I was able to boot the drive up for a couple hours and pull the few files that didn’t get backed up (of course, I back them up now), but all in all the crash was nowhere near the disaster it could have been. Surprisingly the closest certified Mac technician is all the way down in Ellensburg, but in just a few days the awesome guys at CCS had me back up and running. In the meantime I could keep working on my laptop and everybody stayed happy!
Two lessons from this story:
- Apple no longer has the shiny halo around it that it once did for me. (the hard drive was only 1.5 years old!)
- Backups are critically important. The time they take (which, with automated backups is virtually none) is never wasted.
Remember when i said that people notice when you’re bad? But that people notice when you’re good too?
Well, some people have been noticing Apt’s new websites are pretty good. The new site I finished up for Leavenworth Summer Theater has been featured on some showcases of great web design, including:
And the new E3 website I created showed up here:
Read More »
so really, there are almost millions of photoshop shortcuts out there (no, really – take a look at all of these). but it seems you only learn new ones when you really start doing one task over and over and think, “there’s gotta be a faster way to do this.&quo{readmore}t;
well, one great shortcut i’ve found that you won’t stumble upon very easily deals with quickly running through the blending modes for a layer.
first, make sure you have the move tool (v) selected.
in your layers palette, click on the layer you want to change blending modes for.
now press (shift) plus (+) or (-) on your keyboard.
viola! you can quickly scan through the blending modes and see what effect each one has on your layer!
the apt design blog will now begin shifting its focus to its real purpose – offering graphic and web design tips, tools, ideas and suggestions; as well as connecting you to other interesting websites.
our first topic – rss. Have you heard the term RSS but really have no idea what it is or how it may make your life easier? read on for a brief introduction.
RSS in its current incarnation stands for Real Simple Syndication. As the internet continues to evolve more and more emphasis is being placed on website’s content being updated often. this is especially true in the realm of blogs which may be updated multiple times daily. other examples of constantly updated content include news stories, sports scores, photo albums, and forums.
now, if you are interested in getting multiple streams of current content often you could quickly find yourself spending all day going from site to site to check for anything new. this is where rss comes into play and can save you enormous amounts of time. instead of going to find all of this information, you can make it all come to you!
the first step is to download an rss aggregator. one of the most popular is google reader, though there are a variety of free aggregators. some customized homepages like igoogle and myyahoo can also be aggregators.
after you have an aggregator you need to subscribe to a site’s rss feeds. you will often see the rss logo or a ’subscribe’ link to click on. this will automatically notify your aggregator when the content you have subscribed to has been updated.
now instead of visiting multiple sites, you can just open your aggregator and it will let you see which of your subscriptions have been updated, as well as show you the new content. don’t worry, if you need to go directly to the page that was updated you can do so easily from your aggregator.
finally the best news – real simple syndication is all free! so go ahead and subscribe to this blog for updated tips, ideas, and links – just click the ’subscribe’ button at the top of the blog page!
