sugarenia.com

If you’re like me, you have propably scribbled notes all over your hands more than once. For some weird reason, everyone keeps bashing me when I do this, and I mean everyone. Why? Is it a secret code for “bash me now”? Is pen ink too toxic for my hands to handle? Is everyone jealous of my handy todo-list (pun oh-so-intended)?

Well, worry not, me dear to-do list jujitsu masters. Now you can proudly wear your productivity anywhere! A Fred & Friends product is here to help you!

Yes, you guessed it. It’s an outline of a todo list. Or like, a dozen of them. Temporary tattoos. Stick ‘em on your hand and write away. Keep this mind flowing like the water and get some things done!

[thanks Stelios]

fred & friends, tattoo, todo list

I’m busy these days - or rather, my mind is very busy these days.

Personal and day job projects fly around my mind and I’m always on the lookout for inspiration, especially as far as web application UI design is concerned. I often find myself staring at an every day object and trying to decipher its form in proper XHTML and CSS, what, hasn’t this ever happened to you?

Those are the places which I visit in order to get some steaming hot design inspiration:

• Every 37signals project I’m a member of, mainly Basecamp and Backpack. For me, they’re design paradigms, so simple and effective applications.
• Flickr. It’s where many designers I admire post bits and pieces of complete and unfinished work in form of screenshots, which I find really really inspiring. I’m currently loving the Wufoo photostream, but even the myriad screenshots by factoryjoe is fine.
• CSS Galleries, namely CSS Mania, which is the only gallery I pay a visit every now and then. Most of the times, the sites featured are too overdone or too fancy - but once in a while, I find something really good which I capture with Paparazzi! and keep in my “Design Inspiration” folder.
• A recent addition, UI-patterns.com. I was waiting for a site like this for months, it just gathers all common web design patterns and showcases them in a simple interface with lots of examples. A great reference site, thanks George.

One thing I’ve realised from my trips around the Web is this: I don’t like too fancy sites. Well, I like them, but I don’t find them inspiring. Simple, effective stuff, that’s inspiration for me.

web design, inspiration, 37signals, flickr, css mania, ui-patterns

Etsy.com is a wonderful shopping site aka web community based on one thing: selling handmade stuff. Except for a sweetly designed (and actually usable) site, Etsy.com sports a great community that day after day adds hundreds of quality handmade things for the lovers of unique items.

While I was browsing the site the other day, I saw and fell in love with these notebooks. After much thought I decided to get the Green Washed Lillies one.

The little package arrived from US to Greece in a bit less than 4 days after the purchase (Amazon, beat that) and while I was searching around the package I found this cute note from the vendor:

How often do you get a package with a personal note from a stranger?

That adds a more than pleasant personal touch to the whole purchase process. It made me smile and consider buying again and again from this little lovely place on the ‘nets.

Do I get too sentimental over a mere site? Maybe. But that’s the story of my life.

etsy

If you follow this blog for a while, you must know how much I like Microsoft OneNote for Windows. I consider it a very helpful tool for brainstorming and notetaking, and being a to-do list addict, I decided to give it a go and try to keep my work to-dos in it, using its built-in tag system.

Well, I don’t know if I did something wrong and broke the thing, but it seems that OneNote is not suitable for keeping tracks of to-dos.

Why?

I created a list of notes and added a tag of “To-do” (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-1) to each of them. Then I added a bunch of custom tags, added some more todos, added my custom tags to them. So far so good.

I decided to give the “Tag Summary” page a go, and I saw in satisfaction that I could see all my to-dos from all my notebooks grouped by tag name, conveniently shown there. I thought wow, that’s cool.

Now you see the to-dos…

Then I marked one of the to-dos (simple to-dos, not my custom tagged notes) as done. Refreshed the tag summary, and tada! All my to-dos are gone. What the f?

…now you don’t!

Is it how it’s supposed to work? Marking a single to-do as done marks the whole group? What’s happening here, can anyone enlighten me?

microsoft onenote, onenote

Horizontal scrolling is tricky. It’s a relatively new idea in web design, but its peculiar character restricts it to portfolio and art sites. Most users won’t even see the scrollbar down below, not to mention that all of them will think that it’s there because of a peculiar layout error.

Horizontal scrolling is very fitting for the portfolio of mr. Eric Ryan Anderson though. Entering the page, you’re greeted with nice big stills, a sample of his portfolio, that make your eye wander to the right, and not to the bottom. I like this approach, even though I’d prefer to have a floating “back” link of some sort at the bottom (right now, you can only go back to the start by clicking on the link at the far right):

EricRyanAnderson.com simple horizontal portfolio site

The photos are crisp, the colour theme helps, the typography is nice, but I’d lose the peculiar logo symbol next to the name, it doesn’t add much to the style, on the contrary.

EricRyanAnderson.com is a nice, clean portfolio site, without the horrific Flash and the hullaballoo of other similar sites.

eric ryan anderson, ericryananderson.com, horizontal, web design