Domestic Geek

There was a PPP opp today that I didn't take, but the content of the site that wanted a review reminded me of something from awhile back. When I was in school, my web design instructor also taught the advanced computer illustration class. He was playing with a program called Terragen, a free scenery generator program that can be found at Planetside. He was creating some really cool effects with it. I had intended to download it and play with it, but that guy rear-ending us put my life on hold for awhile and I totally forgot about it. I'm glad I was reminded of this program's existance.

Over on the PPP boards today, Amy Jo pointed out a really cool holiday Firefox theme that's available called Tinseltown. I installed it and am loving it (except that I keep forgetting the reindeer head is refresh...that throws me a bit!). My browser is so festive:


If you haven't downloaded Firefox, you really should! It's my favorite browser ever!

I really hate crooks on the internet. You know the ones. They think just because you post something online, it's theirs for taking to do with as they please. Every once in a while, I need a cute little graphic for a post and don't have the time to make one myself. One site that I used to go to to grab and appropriate graphic was http://www.graphicgarden.com/">Graphic Garden (and I always either gave a text link or hyperlinked the graphic itself for credit). I popped over there yesterday because I wanted a cute little graphic for my sticky Christmas card post and she's taken all but two of her free sets down. Here's why she is no longer offering very many free graphics:

Sadly, I have had to remove the free websets from the site. Every single day I get reports about clipart galleries spreading my graphics, people selling them on eBay etc.. There are even companies in Mexico and Taiwan massproducing and exporting stickers, stationery and other products!

That is such a shame. I will have to get myself a CD or download some of her graphics once I'm employed again. She really does do some wonderful work.

I love fonts! Much to Marcus' dismay (fonts are the bane of his existence—he thinks the world would do just fine with Helvetica, Arial, Courier, Times New Roman and maybe Garamond), fonts are what designers need to make the world a more interesting place. Unfortunately, fonts are expensive to buy. That's why I love it when I find legitimate sites where I can download free fonts and free dingbats. You have to be careful, though. Most of them anymore redirect you to places with malware and viruses.

I had a really cool website linked here that was once a paid post that I kept because I wanted to remember to go there to buy fonts, but since they care about Google page ranking, they asked me to remove the link. I guess when you care more about Google and less about actually selling things to customers, I will forget you exist. I'll find my fonts at sites that didn't try to game the system.

Just like I wasn't happy being a public school teacher because only about 10% of the classroom time was actually spent teaching anything, here's probably why I will never do web design for a living:
(click to go to original)