fontleech.com
Posted on February 21, 2005
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment
I don’t think I’ve ever added a site to my bookmarks faster than I did [this one](http://www.fontleech.com):
>Every day we’ll tip you off to hidden gems from the free font world. We’ll be spotlighting the best foundries offering free typefaces. We’ll (hopefully) be bringing you interviews with some of the heavy hitters on the free font scene. We’ll be bringing you, uhhh… free font news.
To me, this site is like an alcoholic finding www.freebooze.com. 
The site’s rather new. I hope it lives up to its promise.
You know you get too much email…
Posted on February 17, 2005
Filed Under Internet & Technology | Leave a Comment
when it’s 9:22 pm and you see that the last message in your inbox came in at 7:30 pm. It’s rare to go nearly 2 hours without incoming mail that survives the junk filter (the most excellent [SpamBayes](http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/)). So you check the “Junk Email Folder” and relax when you see that the last spam was logged in at 9:12 pm so you know that your email isn’t down, it’s just that no one has had anything to say to you, inform you about or sell to you in the last 2 hours.
Seriously, that’s not as pathetic as it sounds…I have clients across a few time zones so it typically takes until at least 9-10 pm for my email traffic to slow to a steady stream of just overnight junk.
Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day
Posted on February 14, 2005
Filed Under Design | 9 Comments
So [Aquent](http://www.aquent.com) calls me today. I’ve been registered with them for a while, and they know that I’m extremely proficient in InDesign but they keep calling me for Quark jobs that are weeks at at time and start the next day. A, I haven’t touched QuarkXPress in almost 4 years. B, I have clients and commitments and can’t clear my schedule that quickly, C, I hate the idea of working in QuarkXPress and last but not least D, I really hate QuarkXPress.
As soon as the woman identifies herself, I say, “I’ll be honest, unless you have a one-day job I’m probably not going to be able to do it because my life is a little nuts right now and we’re in the process of selling our house.” She answers, “It’s a one-day job.” “Oh.”
It’s a production job in Westport. One day, producing a magazine supplement that already has a cover and template designed. There’s some charts in Illustrator and it’s in, you guessed it, Quark. I must have been drunk or just stupid, because I agreed to do it. Even though the money isn’t fantastic, it’s only one day and I’m trying to get income where I can.
I downloaded the Quark 6 demo to get myself familiar with the application again. The last time I touched Quark was version 4something back in 2001.
Oh. My. Goodness. **It’s horrible!** Why oh why do people still use this disgusting beast? The interface looks like a shareware application that a high school kid slapped together. I spent about 3-4 hours today putting together an 8-page, text-intensive newsletter in InDesign for a client. I thought it would be good practice to try and redo the newsletter in Quark. It involves graphics, style sheets, pull quotes, linked text, folios, etc. I’m trying to remember all the Quark keyboard shortcuts. I’m trying to get used to using one tool to drag out a container box and another tool to fill it. I’m trying to get used to the fact that I can’t just click on the arrow keys in a dialog box to adjust values. I’m trying to get used to the fact that I can’t simply select “Redefine Style” to change all the body copy at once. It’s ain’t easy.
And it’s buggy! At version 6.5! Still! I drew out a text box in a master page to create a folio. I changed the font, but it didn’t appear to change. I changed the zoom, and the new font appeared. Come on, *this* is the industry standard?!? Do I care that I can take my newsletter and change it into a record album, website or whathaveyou with the new “Project” menu? No, not in the least.
Here’s a good one…I like working in the font Minion so I have a complete font set. This is how it looks when I select the menu in InDesign:
Purdy. Notice how the name of the font is completely spelled out so I know exactly what I’m looking at. Notice how it’s grouped by style so generally, I know if I want to pick the lighter faces I look towards the top, heavier towards the bottom. Nice, huh?
Now, see the exact same menu in QuarkWe’reBigAndExpensiveSoWeDon’tHaveToBeUserFriendlyXPress:
InDesign is smart enough to recognize the true name of the font. So my “Adobe Jenson Pro” is alphabetical by “J” for “Jenson”, while Quark has it up under “A” for “Adobe.” In InDesign, “ITC Menodza Roman” is grouped with the “M” fonts, not the other “ITC” fonts. When I’m looking for Garamond, I don’t care if it’s ITC or Adobe or whatever. I want to look for Garamond so I want to look under “G” not the Foundry name. And while we’re ragging…Do I really need the word “Minion” repeated in the submenu? It’s in the “Minion” submenu for goodness sake. And I’m supposed to remember that “BoldOsF” is really “Bold Oldstyle Figures”? And where are all my black styles? Who knows.
Adobe, do whatever you have to do to put this dog out of its misery once and for all so poor, desperate designers don’t have to stoop as low as to take one-day jobs working in this nightmare. I just hope that when I sit down tomorrow with the actual work that I’ll be able to get around with minimum cursing and they won’t throw me out by lunch time.
Camp College
Posted on February 13, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | Leave a Comment
The sale of this house is still going along nicely. A little back and forth, nothing that makes me worry that the deal will fall through. I’m hoping the contract is signed in the next week or so. ::fingers crossed::
Despite the accepted offer, my broker held an open house today. There’s no harm in trying for a backup offer in case this one falls through before contract, and these things are selling points more for the broker than my house. We like our broker, so we have no problem with that. Afterwards, our broker told me that in addition to regular folks, a few of our neighbors came by because they were thinking of remodeling and wanted to get ideas from what was done to our house. Can’t exactly take that to the bank, but we should be fine with the offer we already have. We escaped by heading to New Jersey to check out [Camp College](http://www.mccc.edu/community_youth_camp.shtml) at [Mercer County Community College](http://www.mccc.edu).
We got a brochure a few weeks ago. The girls loved what they saw. It’s a summer day camp, Monday-Thursday 8:30 am to 4 pm. The kids pick “classes” to take on the campus, in addition to recreation time. The [classes](http://www.mccc.edu/~procacck/4week%20course%20descript.html) are in the typical camp stuff like swimming, sports and art, but there’s also things like pet care, yoga, computers and needlework. The instructors are all elementary school teachers during the school year. We visited the campus open house today. I have to say without exception everyone we met was helpful and easy to talk to. We went on a tour, and we’ll be registering the girls for the 2nd session, 4 weeks, beginning July 18th. It’s cheaper than the camp we usually send them to here in Connecticut. If all goes well we’re closing here on June 20th and we hope to close on our new house shortly thereafter. So they should be more than ready to begin camp in mid-July. If for any reason something goes wrong and we can’t send them, then we only lose $75 per child. Worth the risk to register them now. We don’t want to miss out by waiting until we have a contract on a house there.
But this is a little strange…Emily is in that stage where reading “clicked.” She can read almost everything (mid 1st grade). She enjoys reading road signs, directions, instructions, you name it. I took her to the bathroom at the college and it had a condom dispenser on the wall. The building was the college student center. Not horrifying. But I admit I was surprised to see one in a non-residential college. Emily was washing her hands, looked up and saw the machine. At first, I didn’t realize what it was. I thought it was a feminine products thing. She started reading it, “Life-styles-ultra-lub…Mommy, what’s that word? What’s that for?” She’s 6.5 years old, and that’s a conversation I just didn’t want to have on any level. I changed the subject and quickly ushered her out the door. I’m not faulting the college for having the machine in the bathroom, I just have to figure out a way of answering her question honestly the next time it comes up without bringing up more questions that neither of us are ready to deal with.
Tivo laugh of the day
Posted on February 11, 2005
Filed Under Internet & Technology | Leave a Comment
We had the inspections today, and I got a chance to meet the folks that will buy our house. Not going to say too much until the contracts are signed, but so far so good. They seem like very nice people and my sense is that the inspections didn’t turn up anything major that we’ll have to fix/replace. Minor, mostly nitpicky stuff. If their bank agrees that the house is worth what we think it is, then we’re all set.
I’m sitting here watching [All My Children](http://abc.go.com/daytime/allmychildren/index.html) on Tivo, catching up on blogs on my iBook and generally just unwinding after an especially eventful week. Did I mention that on top of everything else I got two new jobs! More on that later.
Anyway, [this](http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opinions/questions_frequently_asked_about_tivo_answered_by_someone_who_loves_tivo_too_much.php) is a really funny read, which anyone who has one of these miracle boxes will surely relate to:
>Q: Will TiVo change my life?
>A: No, TiVo will not change your life so much as He will destroy your previous life, permitting a new and improved life to rise, phoenix-like, from your ashes. Switching from cable television to satellite is “change.” Moving to TiVo is closer to rebirth.
