I hit upon some lovely free downloads for Photoshop today and thought I’d share:
Deziner Folio: Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients
and
Deziner Folio: Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles
Go forth and beautify the web responsibly.
It’s a happy day here at Heather’s desk! Six weeks ago I got a beautiful new MacBook Pro (17″ widescreen thankyouverymuch). I’ve really been enjoying it and am definitely now in full Mac mode as far as keyboard shortcuts and related things. But I’ve had one huge issue all along… I had super strange font display issues in Firefox. They’ve been so bad that I had to resort to using Gmail in Safari and I’d like to say that it has not been pretty. (It’s like Gmail in the Dark Ages — no formatting bar, no Reply button at the top, etc.) After multiple Google searches with a variety of search phrases, I finally found an answer tonight! The solution was so amazingly easy and quickly fixed my issues. I’m now back in the 21st Century version of Gmail and am so pleased about that.
In case you too are having the wonky font issues in Firefox on a Mac, here is the Holy Grail: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Text_overlaps_on_Mac
If you’re trying to come up with a compelling color scheme for a website (or anything else for that matter!), check out the Color Schemes Generator from Well Styled. It has an easy to use interface and is a good jump start for creativity.
Last week I was sitting behind a car that had a great bumper sticker. Along with the pink breast cancer ribbon it said “Save the Ta-Tas”. I laughed out loud! What a funny, clever way to support breast cancer awareness and research. They offer a wide range of clothing, buttons, bumper stickers, bags and more. Check it out.
Take a two-minute break from your day and check out this fabulous bit of innovative French web design. Don’t worry if you can’t read French…just sit back and enjoy the show to the very end.
If you’re tired of looking at the same old desktop wallpaper day after day on your computer, visit InterfaceLIFT. They have some fantastic wallpapers created by artists (both illustrators and photographers). Here’s the beautiful one that I have right now:
Thanks for the link, Michelle!
I came across an article last week on the Houston Chronicle website about someone who was obsessed with their Google Twin. (Unfortunately, I can’t link to that article because it’s now offline!) I did a Google search for the phrase “google twin” and actually found a Wikipedia entry about it: A “Google twin” is a person who shares your name, and whose information returns results on Google when you egosurf. There have been some instances of people who become obsessed with their Google twin(s) and their lives.”
So not only do we now have the new term “Google twin” in our lexicon, we also have “egosurf” which cracks me up. But I digress…
When you have a name like “Heather Foeh”, you quite safely do not have a Google twin. There aren’t too many of us Foehs in the world, and so far I haven’t come across another Heather. I can rest safely in the knowledge that when you Google “Heather Foeh” all of the entries you read are about me, me, me. It is a rather lovely, egotistical feeling.
My maiden name, however, is a different story. I was Heather Hunt up until 16 1/2 years ago, and let me tell you, there are plenty of Heather Hunts out there. Including most notoriously, a porn star of French and Pakistani heritage (and yes, I learned her parentage from Wikipedia). I am in the midst of writing a romance novel and have spent quite a bit of time deciding on my pseudonym (even though I haven’t finished my manuscript and have no current publishing prospects), because let’s face it, “Heather Foeh” is not gonna cut it. For one thing, it’s pronounced “fay”. Need I say more? I originally thought about using my maiden name, Heather Hunt, since it has that nice alliteration ring to it. But after finding out about the porn star with the same moniker, I decided that maybe I’d pursue something else. (In case you’re dying of curiosity, I chose Emma Clair.)
So I’m curious. Do any of you, my loyal readers, have a Google twin that you’ve researched? Are you obsessed? Are you perhaps jealous of their Google rank? I’d love to know.
I was reading Real Simple magazine this morning and in their article about the benefits of walking, they pointed me to the Google Pedometer map. Did everyone already know about this and I just missed it? Go here to check it out. In the Jump To field, enter your zip code, then zoom in to the area you want to measure. Click the Start Recording button then double-click at points along your path and voila! You can even calculate the calories you would burn by walking that route…amazing. Unfortunately, my neighborhood has many new streets that aren’t on the map yet, so I’m still going to need to get in my car and measure my route. But this was a cool enough feature that I really wanted to share it.
okay - this isn’t good. Gmail has been down for hours now and I’m starting to get panicky. I want my email!
After several searches, I did find this Google Group: Gmail Updates and Alerts and it made me feel only slightly better. There’s at least something comforting about the fact that they are clearly aware of it and are working on it.
Fingers tapping…
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Update: Wednesday 3/28 at 11 AM
I’ve now been without Gmail for 23 hours. I have a secondary Gmail account that I use for my writing pseudonym and that one is working JUST FINE, but my main account (which could be considered my lifeblood) is still not accessible. I am starting to slightly panic. What if they lost all of my email?? That is honestly too horrific to contemplate.
There have been no updates on the Google Group since 10:30 last night, at which time they said:
The account errors some of you have been experiencing are now resolved
for the vast majority of users. You may experience some delays in mail
delivery, although we expect these to be resolved shortly. A small
group of accounts, however, may continue to show errors, and we’ll be
watching these errors closely to ensure they’re fixed as soon as
possible. We apologize for the inconvenience today and appreciate your
patience.
Lucky me.
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Update: Wednesday 3/28 at 4:50 PM
HALLELUJAH! I’m back! And all of my email is there.
Whew — big sigh of relief.
