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Web414 Meeting: Thursday, April 12th, 2007

Milwaukee web nerds and graphic designers… Join us at 7PM on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 to hear Mike Rohde talk about the Importance of Iteration in Design…

Web414 - The Importance of Iteration in Design

Mike just had an article published on the subject that may be a good preview: Embracing Iterative Design

If you haven’t been to a Web414 meeting yet, and are interested in building the new web (as a designer, coder, whatever) stop by and check it out. (I’ll also talk about Lightbox-type libraries a bit if there is time.)

Note that we will still be at MSOE, but in the The Brady Corp. Conference Room this time. Details are at web414.com


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NAS versus Server

I’ve written quite a bit about the Linksys NSLU2 we’ve been using at the office, and the problems we’ve have with it. (Linksys NSLU2 Update, Linksys NSLU2 versus ????) Overall it’s been a nice device for what it does, and for the price (about $80) but we’ve outgrown it, and we’re looking for a better solution.

I think that better solution is just going to be a server. (Going back to Small Business – Server & Backup I guess.) We should be able to solve most of the problems we had with the NSLU2 by using an old G4 PowerMac. The Mac should be faster than the NSLU2, and should not have any of the permission problems we’ve experienced. We’ll also be able to just deal with AFP instead of SMB since we’re a Mac-shop.

(I still think the NSLU2 is a good device for what it is, and for a home network would probably work well. Though reading up on FreeNAS it looks like a cool solution, and something I may try to play with in the future.)

The Mac will also allow us to do a few more things, like run the internal wiki, and possibly handle the office calendaring needs. What I really look forward to is automating our Amazon S3 backups using a Mac file server.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll keep posting updates on this as we go…

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For the Love of Fonts

I come from the design world. I don’t often admit this, but I love type. I love type design. I’m a fan of fonts. It’s all true…

FontExplorer X

I just started playing with Linotype’s FontExplorer X. It’s an amazing application. Besides managing the fonts you have installed, it also acts as a front-end to the Linotype store. Imagine iTunes for fonts. You can browse, search, test, and purchase fonts all through FontExplorer X. Damn that’s cool!

It may only appeal to design geeks, but if you have hundreds of fonts and need to quickly go through them all to find what works for a specific design, this may be just what you need. (I know I said “hundreds of fonts” even though some designers have thousands of fonts, I just didn’t want to scare non-designers too much.)





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Videoblogging Week 2007

It’s Videoblogging Week 2007! Yes, I am behind, but by the end of the week, I will have 7 videos at tinkernet.org

Videoblogging Week 2007

I haven’t gotten too many videos online in the past 6 months. I will cite two reasons. 1. Because I’ve been busy working on other projects. 2. Because it takes time to create the type of videos I really want to create. I’ve been videoblogging for close to two years now, and at first it was very exciting. I was just getting into video editing, and learning a lot. As time went on, it seemed to take more time to create videos, maybe because I wanted to push myself creatively. I also get meticulous about metadata, so that takes time as well, and I still use an old G4, so even compressing and uploading things takes time. I know, excuses, excuses. The good news is, I will be moving up to Final Cut Pro this year. Woohoo!

But dammit! I said 7 videos this week, and that’s what you will get! Stop by tinkernet.org and see what’s up.



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Linksys NSLU2 Update

We are still using the Linksys NSLU2 as our file server, and we still aren’t 100% happy with it. (See Small Business – Server & Backup and Linksys NSLU2 versus ???? for background.)

Some Macs in our office seem to be able to connect via browsing the network, while others require typing in the smb://192.168.0.xx address. At least one Mac seems to see it, and use it, but then not be able to use it, then when you try to dismount, and remount, it says it’s already there and requires some command line magic (or a reboot) to clean things up.

After a recent reboot of the NSLU2, we noticed a few days later the backups were not running anymore. Seems that after the reboot the 1st drive was recognized fine, but the 2nd was not. I was just about to reformat the 2nd drive but thought I should reboot one more time – that fixed it! The 2nd drive was recognized and I just had to re-setup the backup schedule.

I think if we continue to have issues, I may just take a weekend and install Unslung on it.