Tis the season!

Out of all of the holidays in the calendar, this time of year is probably my most favorite. The nip in the air causes us to dress more warmly, a nice cup of cocoa sounds divine, and it's the best time of year to snuggle under a blanket. I have a thing for candles as well - so I love opening up my pine candle which fills my office with a wondrous scent of a pine forest.

It's also a time of year when things are happening at a bustles pace.

I'm wrapping up a video project that's due this coming week - which will be a good feeling that it's off my desk when it's all edited and sent away. That means my December will be spent working on the remaining websites that we're working on and gearing up for the Christmas season!

Finding the Balance...

As we creased the calendar to reveal our eleventh month of 2007 -- a sudden panic overwhelmed me: exactly where did the rest of 2007 go? In the middle of one project after another - what happened? I found myself confronted with that blur of a moment where you re-live the last 4 months in a span of 14 seconds. OUCH that hurt...

In the middle of that painful realization, I fell ill to the local bug and have since grounded myself to sleep and recovery. A strange thing happens when one is under the influence of cold medication - as for some, it becomes an almost philosophical experience. So, in the middle of one of my couch-ridden programs, I discovered the inherent necessity of finding and achieving balance in my life. Almost like a flash of light - I realized that not only was I lacking the forceful Monday through Friday weekly structure, my days blend together until I'm utterly and completely overwhelmed.

Usually, however, whenever I've tried to dedicate myself in a more structured endeavor, the ever-changing the project list continues to overflow and disrupt any attempt to maintain the balance. The quest of finding balance dissipates and I'm right back in the 7-day a-week rut once again.

So when I started to feel better yesterday and today, I resisted the temptation to startup any of our projects. I literally forced myself away from my office and onto the couch watching movies, sipping water and sucking on throat lozenges. I could've worked, but: a.) it's technically the weekend, b.) I'm sick, c.) the projects will still be there and d.) I felt very rundown and unfocused.

I initially felt that the unfocused feeling was the result of the head and chest cold, until I realized tonight that I'm actually looking forward to a renewed day of business tomorrow. The forced rest and relaxation path I traveled on this weekend has allowed me to catch my breath and have a way to re-channel and re-focus my efforts in the coming week.

Maybe there's something to be said about having weekends after all. Now that would be completely revolutionary considering the events which have transpired over the course of the past year. Maybe I'm getting a little smarter as time goes on and may this entry serve as a reminder for myself -- the next time I consider working a weekend.

(well, there's always hope!)

A busy month and a web tip!

A lot of projects on tap here lately - including one that's going to take us out of the (970) area code for awhile. We're heading to Louisiana on a road trip production down south for the next three weeks. As one can imagine, it has been pretty busy getting things squared away before we leave.

I'm wrapping up a video-edit production for a dear friend of mine who is retiring after 24 years. I'm proud to say that I worked along side David for 10 great years and I'm looking forward to working with him again in the future! I've been going over old photographs and videos the past week and there have been several times of going down memory lane. I loved the people I worked with - I don't necessarily miss all of the stress that came with the job.

So that's been the scoop around here lately. We'll return in mid-late October and if I'm able to upload some photographs along the way - I'll try to get them posted on here.

Web Tip: TURN OFF YOUR SIDEBAR

As web designers - we work within a canvas that is so mobile and flexible. Statistics show that the majority of the surfing public uses either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox while having their monitor resolution set to 1024x768. That's a nice sized canvas that we start with, however a year ago we had a client who was having problems looking at her website because it wouldn't fit on her screen and it would look completely askew.

We checked her website coding, ran it through several validation checks and could not find out what was the problem. I eventually got the chance to check out her computer and discovered that she was surfing while having the bookmarks/history sidebar open. Once she closed the sidebar, the website returned to normal and everything was resolved.

The issue with the bookmarks/history side panel is something we debate with all the time because while we want visitors to enjoy their browsing experience as they see fit, from a design point of view - an open bookmarks sidebar ruins the experience we're trying to produce. It would be the equivalent of watching a movie at a theater and have a "picture in a picture" on the screen that is showing Jerry Springer re-runs. Why would you want to watch "Jerry Springer" at the same time of "Gone with the Wind??"

When I'm surfing the web - I want to experience a website the way that it was originally designed. Even when we optimize the website to accommodate the bookmarks/history sidebar - the design element is lost and people will immediately be turned off by the design aspect. Instead of planning for a wonderful 1024x768 canvas, we now have to optimize the browsers to "fit" the content - and it doesn't always look nice and pretty.

So today's tip is essentially: turn off the sidebar if you're not using it so that you can enjoy your websites as they were intended.