Archive for the ‘web design’ Category

Adobe had been emailing me for several weeks before the big release of Creative Suite 5, and I even signed up for the “Global Online Launch”, which seemed to actually be a couple videos they would have sent me anyway. I guess I was hoping for a live, Apple-style event or something.

Don’t get me wrong, Adobe makes great improvements to their tools with each update, and I’ve even seen a few updates that make me excited. The Illustrator “shape builder” tool and art board enhancements look great, and this video (via yewknee.com) on the content-aware fill looks too good to be true. But other than this, I haven’t really checked it out too much.

Here’s the thing — I’ll buy it. New tools, enhancements, all great to see. But I’ll buy it because it’s the software for my industry. It’ll get hard to do my job if I don’t stay up-to-date. So that’s that — I’m saving up for it. And (begrudgingly) looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

Not only does Focus Features’ feature length animation “9″ look fantastic, the website has a piece of technology I hadn’t seen before. It accesses your webcam, and by holding up a special graphic (downloadable PDF on the same page) you can see the different characters in 3d, perched on the paper in your hand.

I had to install the latest version of Shockwave player, but the effect was worth it. This is a straight screenshot (click for larger), no photoshop work, and the character rotates and tilts in real time as you move the paper. Nice!

I love the way iTunes handles podcasts. My church offers the ability to listen to sermons online (http://royaloakvineyard.com/sermons/), but they don’t offer an RSS feed I can submit to iTunes.

So, I wrote my first RSS feed*. It’s a testament to how well I like iTunes that I’m willing to manually update the RSS feed weekly in order to listen to the sermons in my favorite format. Of course, I love a project that requires research and problem solving — that played more than a small part.

I found a great guide on how to create your own rss feed, and I wrote and uploaded my own feed:

http://www.sethkimball.com/ROVCpodcast/feed.xml

It basically tells iTunes where to find the mp3 file of each sermon. Updating the feed manually is a little labor intensive, but it was a fun project.

Now don’t anyone go submitting this to the iTunes store. I don’t know if I’ll keep updating it. But if you want to podcast the Royal Oak Vineyard Sermons, open itunes and choose Advanced >> Subscribe to Podcast. Copy the above url (..feed.xml) and paste it into the box that pops up. I’ll try to keep it up to date!

*Check out this video if you’re thinking “What’s an RSS feed?”

Original design

Redesign

I finished Amy’s new photography showcase site a couple weeks ago. I first designed her site several years ago when she was just starting her photography business. Notable changes are the complete front-end redesign and a new wedding photography section. The photos are bigger to increase their impact, and I added a client login for online proofs. I also made some major upgrades to the flash backend. The new site will be much easier to update and expand when needed, saving myself time and Amy money.

And I got a call yesterday that a prospective client of mine found Amy’s site through my portfolio page and was planning to hire her for a family photo shoot. Amy’s photography doesn’t need much jazzing up to be impressive, but it’s nice to know her site’s doing its job.