Using Music Recordings in Your Project

Adding a music clip to your audio or video project can make that project stand out and be noticed. You need to be aware though, that you can’t simply grab a clip of your favorite Top 40 song and use it on your latest Youtube video. Why? Because that’s illegal. Short and sweet. So what can you do? Music and lyrics published before 1922 are in the public domain, but sound recordings of any... read more

Designers Need To Reject Gray On Black

Lately, I’ve seen quite a lot of sites (usually blogs) put gray text on a black background. Tonight, I noticed it from StumbleUpon (a site I love, btw), and was just dismayed. (Yes, the screenshot above is from something SU wants me to know). Stop it, people! Just stop it. I don’t care how uber-cool it might be, it just plain sucks for readability. Show off your dark side in some other... read more

Portable Apps Will Not Be My Future

I had hoped that I could become less hard drive dependent by running off of Portable Apps, but my hopes were dashed today. This might be useful for some people, but the fact that the apps load and run EXTREMELY slowly makes it a deal-killer for me. If you do decide to try it out, make sure you have several hours free to install the apps. Some are quick, but some take a really long time to install. Oh... read more

Portable Apps – Can This Be My Future?

Yesterday, when discussing how I plan to survive my next computer crash, I mentioned that I was going to start storing music and photos on thumbdrives (USB Flash drives). Since that time, I’ve come to the conclusion that I *may* be able to run most of what I do from a USB flash drive. I’ve ordered a 2 GB flash drive and when it comes in, I intend to install a bunch of portable apps onto it. ... read more

The ABCs and 123s of Social Networking Sites

Social Networking – What is It? I get asked this fairly often, so I thought I’d give a brief explanation. Social Networking sites are all different in some respects, but they all have some things in common. As the name implies, they are “social”, and revolve around a community of users who are all actively participating in some way (rather than just passively reading). The users... read more