Cyan & Collis Ta’eed have just finished what looks to be a fantastic book for freelancers.

Collis & his wife Cyan are the team behind www.freelanceswitch.com the ultimate online resource for freelancers. Having been out on my own before I know how hard it can be, although for some reason every person starting out has this romantic idea about freelancing.

If the book is anything like their site, it will rapidly become must read for all people looking to go out freelancing. If you buy now the ebook is only $29, or in Jan it will be on lulu.com for $35.

» How to be a rockstar freelancer

Firefox 3 is getting closer to full release with each new day. It’s great to see today that the 2nd beta version is now available for download, as announced by Mozilla

For those of you new to software you don’t have to purchase, many companies now include the wider internet community in the testing process. Firefox for example was first released as ‘alpha’ software. This means it’s sort of usable, prone to crash but gives cutting edge people a chance to help shape the future of the product.

When a product goes into ‘beta’ it means its almost ready to go, but might still have a few things to work out. Firefox for example is now very close to production ready, with small (mainly visual) things to tweak. By allowing more and more people to download and use the beta, the Mozilla team have more chance of having bugs reported before the software goes into release candidate.
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Muks posted a story yesterday about an ‘incident’ with their boiler deciding to spit water everywhere. To her rescue came ‘Magic Denty’ the superhero, who fixed the boiler with his magic hands and devices.

So I thought to myself - every superhero needs a shield, something they can adorn to their cape. I had a spare 20mins at work this morning, so whipped into photoshop to create the official “Denty Shield”.

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“Mamma always said you’ll never learn nuthin’ from TV”, well mum was wrong. Deadliest Catch is a show on Discovery Channel following the crab fishermen of the Bering Sea, a show that has taught me at least 5 things about life, work and humor.

1. My job is a walk in the park compared to these guys
2. I don’t like crab
3. When ice forms around you, break it off
4. If you thought being a fisherman was hard, try being a camera man
5. Life might be tough, but you can still laugh

Right now I’m watching the behind the scenes, showing us what the camera crew have to do to shot the show. These guys are just plain insane, but I have a new respect for the entire crew.

Biggest lesson?
No matter what shit your life throws at you, remember to take time to have some fun and laugh.

CSS (cascading style sheets) is the defining layer of any website. For those not sure, CSS is the bit of a web page, that tells your browser where to put things when rendering (drawing) the page.

CSS is fantastic, however with little to no Web Standards between the many browsers out there you can’t be gauranteed that your layout will always work. For example a default paragraph may have more margins in one browser over another.

Darren Wood is someone I would class as a CSS Guru (although I’m not sure he’ll agree with that). He spoke at the recent BarCamp mini-conference in Auckland specifically about this. He has some tricks to help level the playing feild & he’s kind enough to share his files for you to learn and work from.

I’m adding this to my ‘Must Recommend’ list for any web designer, hobbiest or professional. Starting your web project with Darrens framework, means you will have less headaches.

» Darren Wood » DIY CSS Frameworks

Tags: CSS, frameworks, develpment, web, barcamp

I love a good movie, I love a good animated movie & there are a couple of good (looking) ones coming out soon.

First up from the BlueSky studios team comes a Dr Seuss movie. Horton Hears a Who comes out March 14 2008. I don’t know what but there is something about Dr Seuss that lends itself to the BlueSky animation style. The quirkiness of Seuss plays so nicely in the trailers.

The next one harks back to a tv show that was on a number of years ago. Alvin & the Chipmunks. The squeaky voices, the songs, the styles - it’s all there. No it’s not a cartoon as it was many years ago, now it’s a live action with 3D composites and yeah it looks great.

Check them out below:
» Horton Hears a Who
» Alvin & the Chipmunks

Tags: moives, animation, 3D, bluesky, Dr Seuss

I decided we needed to try some different seats at work. Our office furniture is a mix match of typical looking blue chairs. Some with arms, so looking decidedly scary.

So I organise to test the NZ$1,500 Aeron chair for a week. The office chair arrived, so too did it’s little brother the Mirra (a cheap $700).

Being the unselfish guy that I am, I immediately gave the Mirra to a work mate and allowed him to try that. I took the Aeron. Well I must admit, the Aeron chair is like nothing else. It feels like sitting on a cloud, no really it does. Sure it takes a degree in chair setting, to set it up, but once it’s there….wow.

After a day or two I moved back to my normal chair and it dawned on me as to why the Aeron (and Mirra) is so good. It’s hinged at the back of the seat. The normal office chair puts you on top of a shaft, the Aeron allows you to float softly supporting you from the back.

So before we gave the chairs back I thought I better try the Mirra. Well to this day I can’t figure out the huge price gap between these 2 chairs, infact most people actually preferred the Mirra.

Needless to say, we aren’t getting either.

I’ve been a Firefox fan for .. well for as long as it’s been out. Firefox is a web browser for those of you wondering about that.

The main reasons for using Firefox have been

• more secure than Internet Explorer
• better CSS & web2.0 support than Internet Explorer
• not developed by Microsoft
• use extensions to expand Firefox
• and many more

However those of you using an Apple computer will tell you that Firefox is not as lovely on OSX as, well as Safari (Apple’s web browser). Firefox is plagued with memory leaks, meaning from time to time it just eats up your memory, crashes and well is a pain in the butt for someone, like me, who spends easily 8+ hours a day working in a browser.
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I’m a car nut. Okay maybe thats an understatement - while other children wrote letters to their penpals (no, we didn’t have facebook when I grew up), I wrote letters to car companies.

My most famous of course was when I wrote a letter to Lamborghini and one to Pontiac. Of course it would have helped if I had sent the right one to the right company. However a few weeks later a letter from Italy arrived informing me that Lamborghini didn’t make the Firebird. *embarressed*

So I’m a car nut, so this year I decided to part with my pride and joy (an immaculate ‘99 Altezza RS200 Z edition - with limiter removed, don’t ask how I found out), and buy an 18 year old 1989 Toyota Hilux Surf - a truck.

So I’m a car nut, right! You’d think I might know a thing or two about vehicles. I ask myself the same thing every time I hear the funny noise my truck randomly makes. It’s in the engine .. no it’s not in the engine bay, it’s in the engine - as in under the rocker cover.

It’s an interesting truck to drive, each day a new noise, vibration. The truck only cost $3000, I have a gut feeling fixing this noise might just be a little bit more expensive :(

For sale: 1x 1989 Toyota Truck complete with own sound track

Tags: truck, fun, noise, motor, toyota, 4×4

So you want some inspiration? You really can’t go past Design Inspiration Gallery - FAVEUP probably the best resource for fantastic & inspirational design, web, CSS, Flash and logos.

Brilliant resource!

» Design Inspiration Gallery - FAVEUP

Tags: flash, css, web, inspiration, design, logos