I might be that you only have Photoshop on your desktop and you find yourself on the road with just you laptop.  You might be at a public terminal or at a friends, but for whatever reason, you don’t have your usual tools.

Enter Sumo Paint, a free online alternative that looks and acts remarkably like the old Macromedia Fireworks, or the interface for Flash. Sumo Paint offers all the usual suspects for tools, such as pen, brush and text, but the designers haven’t stopped there. The application packs one heck of a punch and is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a professional graphics editor in a browser-based app.

Text and brush tools, sure thing!

Pretty much every tool available in Photoshop is situated handily in the toolbar. color selection is web friendly, but with options to access a full 16 million shades if desired.  The interface is responsive and allows you to upload images for editing, as well as creating new works of art on the fly.

My real respect for this application is that it uses layers and an implementation similar to Photoshop’s layer effects, including drop shadow, transparency filters, stroke, bevel and emboss, etc.

Lighting filter in action

At the end of the day I’m not going to give up Photoshop, but I now have a viable alternative for it when I’m away from my iMac and out on the road with my Linux-based laptop.  Sumo Paint has the power you need to get the job done, the price can’t be beat and an enjoyable user interface to boot.

Go have a look for yourself.  I think you’re going ti love it.  And if you create some awesome artwork with it, leave a link in the comments, we’d love to see them.

www.sumopaint.com

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This is a completely understandable reaction.  Think about it, you’ve just singlemindedly poured your creative heart and soul into something for a month or more. Immediately turning your attention to something else will more than likely be difficult at best.

If this has ever happened to you, let me offer you a solution.   Clean your space and take a few days off. If you’re working for someone else, the second part of that equation may be a bit difficult to manage, but cleaning up your space should still be at the top of your priority list.

Long projects tend to build a lot of desktop clutter as well as mental clutter. Unless you are totally paperless in your working life, you’ll have scribbles of notes, scraps of research, printouts and assorted other “stuff” that ended up sitting on your desk while things were unfolding.  Take the time to go through all of these things.  File what you need and toss what you don’t.  Wipe down your desk and surrounding areas.  Make sure the trash is out.  Make a clean space for a clean start on the next project, it will help you focus on what needs to be done, rather than what you’ve been doing for the past several weeks.

The same goes for your computer. If you’ve been dropping links, photos or documents on your computer’s desktop for easy reference while you were working on that last project, now is the time to move them to a permanent spot on your hard drive or send them off to the recycle bin.  Leaving these items out where they can distract you serves no purpose once the project has been completed.

Once you’ve tidied up your workspace, walk away from it.  If you have the luxury of making your own hours as I do, take a few days off. Use the time you’ve earned to read a good book, catch up on your new favorite video game, plan to take over Chicago using just the resources you can find inside the city or perhaps get ready for that all-too-imminent zombie infestation.  Take a cue from the girl pictured at the top of this article and go have a long conversation with an old friend, even if it’s by phone, in the park or over coffee. Whatever you do, don’t go sit at your desk and stare at your monitor.

If you work for someone else, get up and take a quick stroll around the office.  Check in on a few coworkers or chat with someone in the office you may not know all that well yet. Sort through the inevitable folder of forwarded jokes and chain email to see if there really is something funny in all of that chaff.  But take a break from whatever is next on the list if it is at all possible.

These breaks will help you to be far more productive when you do get back to your normal routine just as much as a clean workspace will.  They are necessary to help achieve focus and keep you motivated to complete the task at hand.  Push too hard and you’re headed for what we in the freelance industry lovingly call a burnout, when we’re speaking in polite terms, that is.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve known people who can keep dogging away at project after project for a very long time before they suffer from burnout.  Unfortunately these people are not the norm.  If your mind is tired, your work will suffer and so will your productivity, especially after a very involved project that has taken a lot of time to complete.

Another way to combat this type of mental fatigue is to constantly flip between projects, never allowing yourself to become buried in one thing or another.  This helps to keep the mind fresh and moving freely from idea to idea.  This kind of mental exercise takes a bit of practice, but it can be a life saver if one project is threatening to fry what’s left of your grey matter.

I hope that these ideas prove helpful to you the next time you’re ending one project and moving on to the next.  If so, drop me a comment and let me know!

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Yes,  I said that I failed them. A concept, blog or website does not fail the owner.  Either the owner lost interest, lacked focus or simply did not put the needed effort into the end product that would have allowed it to reach the intended level of success.  Or the concept was flawed at the outset and the person behind it never bothered to do the necessary research, thus leading to an inability to survive.

In either case it is not the concept that failed, it was the person behind that concept that failed.  Even the failure of the concept isn’t a bad thing if taken in the right light.  We learn from failure, we seldom learn anything from success.

Out with the old, in with the new

The new year is as good a time as any to look over what you have on your plate, check projects and determine whether or not these projects still have any value in the grand scheme.  For me it was time to finally let go of several sites that I had poured myself into for years.

The reality was that they weren’t going to get any more of my time and that they had not been profitable in a very long time.  I’d held on to them for sentimental reasons, not practical ones. these sites just weren’t doing what they should have been.  They were costing me time and money, not making my life better nor helping anyone else.  It was time for them to go.

On the other side of the coin, there are several ideas that I had begun but then found I hadn’t had the time for.  These properties have potential and are back on my list of things to get going this year.  The only reason that they aren’t generating a profit is that I didn’t give them the opportunity to do so. That’s my own fault and I need to remind myself of that whenever I find that I’m getting whiny about it.

This blog is among that second group. The past year has found my attention devoted to other things to the point that my own namesake web presence has done nothing for me at all.  This will no longer allowed.  With all the chaff tossed out the window I now have the time to focus on things that should have been making an impact, on setting a brand or on helping other people.

When was the last time you examined your priorities?

If you haven’t looked over your projects and objectives in the last six months or so, you might want to take the opportunity to do so. Remember, your goals change, so do your priorities.  If you are pouring your effort into a project that you no longer care about, how well are your efforts being rewarded?

It’s also a good time to check the pulse of your readers as well.  One of the blogs I discontinued this year was once a very profitable venture. It was packed full of useful information, insight and topics that were extremely relevant tot he topic.  The problem with it was that the public at large no longer cared.  Nobody was visiting. It had died long ago, but I’d kept it around for my own reasons.

In this industry you have to know when to let something go when its time has come. Sentiment in your own projects doesn’t make a buck, it costs money. Don’t beat a dead horse. It still won’t run.

Make this year your year

Take the time to examine where you want to be by this time next year.  Drop the dead weight.  With the time you’ve gained, start a new and more rewarding project of give more time to something that’s been neglected.

Use the renewed energy you’ll have from losing the chains of something you no longer loved doing and pour it into something you can’t help but do. and remember:

The man who works at what he loves never really works at all.

What are your goals for the new year? Whatever they are, I wish you the best of success with them.

Peace. I’m out.

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Thanks to Chris Garrett, this should no longer be an issue. If like me, you’ve got a slew of drafts and posts that are already scheduled to publish in the future. I could go on about how cool his discovery is, but it’s simpler by far to let him do it, so without further ado, here’s Chris’ video explaining the Editorial Calendar WordPress plugin.

You can check out the original post here and if you prefer to download your WordPress plugins for upload, the plugin is here.

I don’t know about you, but I’m about to install this on every blog I run that has posts scheduled for the future. Being able to see post frequency in a calendar format is a beautiful thing.  If you post daily you’ll know for sure you haven’t missed a day.  If you post three times weekly you can make sure that there isn’t anything doubled up.

This is one of those plugins that is going to be on everyone’s top ten list within the next year or so.  Why not jump on the early adopters bandwagon?  I know I am.

What productivity tools to you use to keep your blogging schedule running smoothly?  Do you have any hot tips for making daily blogging easier? I’m sure we’d all love to hear about them.

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Maybe it’s the fear that once this thing is done, no one will find it of value.  I’ve poured just about everything I know about blogging into the pages of that manuscript.  If it flops, is that really a reflection on what I’ve written, or is it just that the market is saturated with other books making inane promises that I refuse to make?  After all, I don’t promise I can make you rich, just that if you follow along you’ll be able to boost your traffic.  It’s a fact.  I use these methods and they work.

Whatever it is that’s keeping me from jut writing those last few words, it’s got me frustrated.  I mean honestly! I write every day for a living, what’s so difficult about this?  It should be the same-old same -old thing that I do every day but it’s not for some reason.

Have you ever had this problem?  If so, what did you do to get through the last push?  I’d love to hear about it, because If I don’t get this thing finished I’m going to go insane.  Really.

Help me out here guys, will ya?

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The issue with a lot of these trailers is that they use copyrighted music as their background tracks.  The producer just grabs whatever song suits their mood and drops it in behind the video.  While this can make the clip more appealing, it can also open both the producer of the clip and the author and publisher of the book to substantial lawsuits if the artist or their publishers choose to press the issue. The artist will almost invariably win in these situations.

The simplest solution for this issue is to use Royalty Free Music tracks in place of a piece of commercial music. Royalty free music does come with a cost, but it is generally very low, starting at around $4.00 for a 2 minute track. These pieces, once purchased carry no need for royalties.  The artist is paid per purchase of the track instead of on a per-use basis, which allows content publishers to build a library of music that can be used over-and-over again without any legal issues.

If you’re planning a video trailer, book trailer or just your next PodCast and you need backgraound music, make sure you know where royalties lie.  Use royalty free music tracks for your project and save yourself the issues associated with using commercial and potentially pirated music.

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There is no reason that you can’t take on the world if you have the motivation, but following just a few basic guidelines will make succeeding at your task a much more pleasant experience.

Be reasonable in your estimates.

Whether you bid contracts for clients or have just decided to do a remake of your own blog, be reasonable when estimating the amount of time it will take to accomplish a task.  Be sure to factor in common delays. (Do you have a Day Job that will most likely get in the way?  A two year old in the home with you? Family obligations coming up?)

Make no mistake, there will be delays.  If you are prepared for them you have avoided the pitfall of feeling that you’ve been working extremely hard at nothing.  you can comfortably get the work done in the time that you actually do have, and save the embarrassment of an overdue deadline with a client or your readers.

Break Large Projects into smaller, more manageable pieces.

If you’re tackling a larger project, break it down into well defined milestones.  Doing so will allow you o focus on specifics, not the entire project. As each piece is completed, the project gets a little closer to done, seemingly all on its own.  working in this manner can keep you from placing undue pressure on yourself.

If it’s going to take a week to get graphics back from the design shop, you can focus on a portion of the project that doesn’t need those images. You don’t tie yourself up in the details you can’t handle now, and other people don’t have to wait on the next piece you were supposed to deliver.

If you’re handling the project alone, Makee sure that you’ve ordered your milestones so that the work needed for the upcoming bitwas completed in your last session.  It keeps the project as a whole moving along at a good pace, rather than bogging down in details, which not only costs you time, but can lead you to walk away entirely.

Don’t be afraid to hire out what you can’t complete yourself.

In the end, always be sure that the work gets done.  If you don’t have the time or resources on hand to finish a project in the timeframe required, don’t be afraid to hire someone to handle those portions of the project that they are best equipped to handle.

While hiring out a part of the project might cut into your margins a bit it will more than pay for itself in time needed to get the work completed and in customer satisfaction.  If you’re not na expert in PHP, hire one.  the time you’ll save will more than make up for the expense in time while you try to learn enough to get the project done.

Experts in many fields can be hired online through companies like elance.com.  Don’t be afraid to shop around.  There is certain to be someone willing to do the work at a price you can afford, just be sure to check references before you hire someone online.

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In the battle of the search engines, Google has long held the top position. Most of the big G’s die hard followers claim it is the simplicity of the tool that keeps them using it.  Another smaller percentage will claim that they would rather eat week old gym socks than to have anything to do with a Microsoft product. In either case, they may need to rethink their stance on search.

Enter Microsoft bing, the new search platform from the software behemoth that has brought the world such mediocrity as Windows 95 and Windows Me along with such utter failures as Internet Explorer and Windows Vista, just to name a few. (Does anyone remember Microsoft BOB? <shudder>.) With a long sting of disappointments and failures under their belt, it would be a fair assumption to immediately class the newly re branded Microsoft bing as one of the many almost-great ideas the company puts out on a fairly regular basis. The only problem is, it’s not a failure at all.

On the contrary, bing works, and it works very well.  Under threat of being ostracized by every member of the “I hate Microsoft Society”, I’m willing to say that so far I’m willing to skip Google as my primary search engines in favor of this new Microsoft tool in most cases.

Wait! Before you get out your torches and pitchforks, let me explain why!

Bing is fast…  Blazingly fast. While Google Search isn’t usually slow, bing just feels faster, and that counts for a lot when you’re in the midst of looking for something important.

Bing gives you options… need to refine your search?  bing hands you a list of suggestions in a manner similar to Apple’s spotlight or Microsoft vista’s Desktop Search.  This can drastically reduce drill-down times. The mouse over quick view of page content can be a lifesaver in rejecting that “almost relevant” page or two in the listings.

Bing listens and tries to adjust to what you’re looking for. Rather than just throwing out a list of keyword specific results that may or may not have the slightest thing to do with what you were actually searching for, bing seems to take the time to put your searches in context.  Google doesn’t bother with little things like this; it deals more with keyword relevance. bing responds a lot more like the original Ask Jeeves, which was my search engine of choice before it was bought out in the early 2000’s

Bing Feels finished… This may be the Mac user and designer in me, but Google’s interface just doesn’t have what it takes to be considered a modern application. It stagnated somewhere in the early 90’s and now relies on iGoogle to make it feel mature.  Bing delivers a modern experience without the need to log in to an account.  In my opinion this is a huge plus.

In short, I think bing is giving users all the options and power of Google Search with the added advantages of intelligent algorithms and a polished experience that far surpasses the competition.  This time Google does have something to worry about, because bing is bringing a new level of search to the table, and one I think deserves your attention.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about ecto, a blog updating tool for Mac and Windows. At the time I was singing ecto’s praises and while I still enjoy using it, I may have just found a tool I can live without even less, ScribeFire.

ScribeFire is a Firefox extension that can update your blog from your PC desktop in the same way ecto can.  It has all the basic features, such as spell checking, the ability to assign posts to categories, WYSIWYG formatting of posts and the ability to save drafts (or notes, as it calls them) for later editing,  but it has several advantages that I think make it more usable and user friendly than ecto.

First and most importantly, as a FireFox extension ScribeFire is 100% platform independent and runs equally well on my Mac, My Windows Machine and all four of my Linux machines.  This alone would have made ScribeFire worth looking into, but would not have kept me looking at it if it was the only thing it had going for it.

Another plus is that since ScribeFire is a Firefox extension, it’s always ready when you are.  The activation icon sits happily in the status bar waiting for a click from you, at which point Scribefire will happily launch and let you post on whatever topic you like with the page still visible.  If you need to do more research, just click the utton again and ScribeFire falls back to the status bar to wait patiently for you to continue.

Another advantage over ecto is ScribeFire’s ability to edit blog pages as well as posts.  While this might not be necessary all the time, it’s handy if you just want to quickly update a page that you already have posted.

Just like ecto, ScribeFire will allow you to highlight text inside any webpage and launch a new post with that text quoted in the new post.  The advantage of ScribeFire is that the formatting used to do so is customizeable, which leaves you in control of your citations, rather than leaving it completely up to the software.

On the downside, even though ScribeFire will allow you to add tags to your posts, it does not store the tags you already have.  this means no auto tag completion and allows for the possibility of mispelling a tag name.  In my installation, the post preview function is not working properly and ScribeFire has no facility at all for adding custom fields in WordPress. These are small issues to me, but may have more significance to you.

After only messing with ScribeFire for a few hours, I have to say that I’m impressed.  For the moment it’s my new tool of choice for most things, though I’m not quite ready to give up completely on ecto, which is a more mature tool.

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If, like me, you prefer to be able tu use left click and right click (CTRL + click) functionality with this litle guy, you’ll find that because of the rigid case design, the Mighty Mouse from time-to-time has issues figuring out which “button” you actually pressed.

It can be quite annoying to suddenly have a menu pop up when editing a crob selection or other photo related task, but it’s even worse when it happens the other way around and the mouse clicks on a link you were trying to copy.

The side buttons may work for some, but I have relatively large hands, which means that I’m constantly dealing with unexpected activations of Exposé when I squeeze just a little bit too hard, or having firefox seemingly randomly jump to the page I was viewing previously.

Each of these hings is a bit annoying, but for me the real deal breaker is the trackball. this tiny little addition which also doubles as a third button is prone to getting tiny particles stuck in it.  Every time this happens (sometimes several times a day, even in a clean work environment) you’re required to clean it by flipping the mouse over and rolling the ball over a damp, lint free cloth.

The loss in productivity from just cleaning the trackbal has cost me more time than the mouse is worth. I’m hoping that Apple will re-think this portion of the Mighty Mouse soon, but from all appearances even the next generation of iMacs is shipping with the same old flawed design.

For me, I’m going to go grab a Kensington bluetooth Mouse later today.  It has all the same features in much the same form factor, but includes an optical trackball that has no moving parts to get gummed up.  If you’re planning to buy a Mac soon, I would suggest doing something similar.

In the end, I have to say that Apple’s Mighty mouse was, at least for me, a mighty big dissapointment.

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