Every little bit helps

I'm still on my kick of learning new stuff. As I said before, I didn't do much design work for about three years and I spent the better half of my first year of freelancing just trying to get comfortable with the Adobe applications again. With my confidence back up, my brain has time to design again. I've found my mind wandering on to bigger and better designs while I'm still layout out my first idea. I know that was supposed to be happening all along, for all the clients I've had, but it just wasn't. I was too focused on the how-to to let my mind create. Now in my spare time I've been watching tutorials online and I also subscribed to Layers Magazine.

Layers touts itself as "the how-to magazine for all things Adobe." It has tons of articles and tutorials about every Adobe product. InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, DreamWeaver, it's all in there. Their website also has a bunch of video that combine two or three applications in one lesson.

I also picked up a couple issues of Photoshop User. It teaches me to love this big beast of an app again.

Do you have any resources you like? Share with me.

Five iPhone apps I can't live without

These are my favorite apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. What are yours?

1. Google Mobile - Google is my life. I use Google for searching, gmail for email and even Google Apps to host my website. Plus there's Blogger, Calendar and Google Docs. I love them all. The Google iPhone app lets me get to all those services and then some. The voice search is just cool. And locating business near your current location is so helpful and quick. [iTunes store link]

2. Remember the Milk - The best online task management service I've ever tried. In combination with the website, rememberthemilk.com, Remember the Milk stores tasks with due dates, priority, repeats and time estimates. It can also be seamlessly integrated into your Google Calendar. Use of the website is free but the iPhone app requires the purchase of a Pro account for $25/year. I think it's worth every penny for keeping my business and personal tasks organized, easy-to-use place. [iTunes store link]

3. Twitterific - I love reading Twitter when there's nothing else going on in the world. (Twitter is the online social network where you post short snippets of your life.) Twitterific makes flipping through Tweets simple and fast. It even has a built in web browser to make life easier. [iTunes store link]

4. Chess with Friends - Want to play chess with your best friend but can't because they live on the other side of the country? Chess with Friends is the answer to all life's problems. Challenge a friend to a game and your move shows up on the opponent's phone in a matter of seconds. My dad taught me to play chess when I was about 10 but then I didn't play much through high school and college. This app has renewed my interest in chess and it's also renewed my husband's interest in whooping someone's ass at chess. [iTunes store link]

5. WikiTap - Sometimes Google just isn't enough. Sometimes I want to know the answer to a question right away. That is why I love WikiTap, it searches the giant wikipedia.org. Look up words in the dictionary, bizarre topics of conversation or just read random articles for fun. [iTunes store link]

Knock, knock

We're heeeere!!

Now I get it

Even the GPS is bored by the straightness of this road.

Mountains and valleys

All our friends kept telling us how the drive to San Fran on the 5
freeway is boring. We've never seen these parts of California and
we're really enjoying the scenery. Thank goodness we left home earlier
in the day rather than going with our original plan of driving through
the night.