Dra Studio.com - Design & Illustration

IF : Foggy (uploaded by DRA Studio)

It is currently 7:00 am the following day, and I am still hyped up on the rush that is iPhone 3G.

My class ran for close to the entire 8 hours, so we (Jodie and I) didn’t get to the Apple Store at Millenia until around 6:30pm. Luckily, Courtney was holding spots for us.

Four or so hours later, we had Chris the Apple Genius help us purchase and set up both of our iPhones. Then it was another 1/2 hour or more just hanging out in the store, drooling about the ease-of-setup that MobileMe made of our contacts, calendars and email.

Leaving the Mall near-midnight (with still about 20-35 people still waiting in line), Courtney and I heading to the LOOP for a midnight showing of “Hellboy II”. I am a big fan of Mignola’s art and writing, so I really enjoyed the show. After a quick ride home, while watching “David Blain spoofs” on YouTube and playing around with Midomi, we all hung out at the house until everyone else feel asleep.

Which brings me to my current state of “ready-to-finally-fall-asleep-ness”. Apple, I had a great day. AT&T, for shame. Del Torro, nice work bringing some much appreciated character detail and creepy crawly organic-ness to the Hellboy movie franchise. Everyone else, enjoy this little sketch for today’s Illustration Friday theme of “foggy”. It came about as I alternated between sitting and standing in the iPhone line … which is why it is on the back of my iPhone 3G flyer. Night!

Me in a Dash (uploaded by DRA Studio)

( listening to The Polyphonic Spree )

While enjoying an amazingly relaxing and fun-filled day with visiting family today (love you guys!), I realized it has been a while since I used my sketch blog to write about anything in-depth. About life … about tech … really, about anything at all. Hopefully, you have been enjoying the more frequent sketches I have been posting (how about those 365, eh?), as well as those few del.icio.us links I try to add daily.

In addition to all that wonderfulness, why not add some good-intentioned thoughts about life? For now, why not start slow with my world as it currently stands in terms of the “meta”. Because of the vast amount of things I am currently trying to accomplish/do/intake/etc, I have been experimenting with different methods and mediums for staying current on news, art, learning, and all those other things I see on my pretty 1280px by 800px screen. Not too long ago, I had come to the point where it all just felt like overload and time mis-spent … and just opening my computer was such a chore and neglecting it felt like 20 missed deadlines. I am guessing that many of you (with the absolute bloom of Web 2 o’s out there) have been feeling the same way.

Here’s the happy compromise I have come to with my news feeds, emails, blogs, photos, articles, artists, music, dates and so much more … listed via an ordered list … well, because I am an XHTML designer and it just makes sense, right? Here we go:

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dotMac Galaxy (uploaded by DRA Studio)

Another Photoshop goodie for you kids. Sound off if you are enjoying these or want to see them in any other sizes. :D

So, I’ve got my new 160 GB hard-drive, directions on how to swap it out on my MacBook, a nice tutorial on using Disk Utility to create a bootable backup (or I might end up using SuperDuper), and if everything goes well, my copy of Leopard tonight. Looks I am all set to get this cat unleashed! I am so stoked.

Besides the biggies (TimeMachine, Spaces, and Quicklook), the other magical updates I am looking forward to are Automator, Webclips and pretty pretty Stacks.

In case you didn’t see TUAW’s liveblogging, it is a sweet read on what is probably everyone’s typical Leopard install.

And yes, if you were there for the Leopard Launch at our store, I WAS the Time Machine guy. :D

I am in the process of updating the Illustrative site and I found some old copy that I never implemented … kinda sad and still fun:

Wet iPod fund

On the early Friday morning of April 7th, 2006, my dearly loved and cherished iPod Nano (4 GB, 1st Generation) was lost forever in the mirky abyss of laundry detergent and foamy suds.

Though it struggled for life and fought to maintain consciousness, its fate was sealed with 3 fate-ed quarters and a handful of dryer sheets.

After an hour and 28 minutes of ordeal and painful agony, it was finally rescued and released from its denim pocket prison—but alas, it was too late. Robed in its favorite pink case, iPod Nano passed from this life.

Please help to keep the memory of our dearly departed alive for future generations by donating whatever amount you are comfortable with. You can send donations to drastudio@mac.com via PayPal. Proceeds will go toward the purchase of a new iPod in the near future.

Fun, huh? I am so glad that Jodie bought me my new iPod, “Love”, for Christmas. It is so difficult not having one.

Oh … and of course, I am very stoked for the Leopard launch next week. I will be at our store if you decide to stop by! :D

I bought my newest set of Apple iPod Earphones last night … I feel a bit more comfortable with life now. It’s a bit like Jerry Fletcher, needing my next copy of Catcher in the Rye, but really I do love my Apple earphones.

And sadly, the only reason I had to purchase a new set is because last week the night I brought home my new pair that Apple replaced free for me, my kitty was wonderful enough to chew right through them. (Sigh).

Btw, anyone not use their iPod Earphones? Want to trade? I probably have something we can barter. ;)

IF – Juggle (uploaded by DRA Studio)

Here is my entry for this week’s Illustration Friday theme, “juggle”. My current trick is juggling my three awesome jobs … Full Sail, Apple and Illustrative – all with my two little hands.

Oh, and why am I in my underpants? Who knows. Isn’t just like life for you to be at your best, but still everyone only sees the embarrassing stuff?

iPod Love Bag (uploaded by DRA Studio)

If you’re like me, you have fallen in love again with iPods … especially the new touch. How simply wonderful, though direct downloads could prove to be pretty dangerous for impulse music lovers.

Here is one of the shots of the iPod pattern I painted on Courtney’s old Fossil purse. Click thru for more.

Digging the Bounce (uploaded by DRA Studio)

How is it that I did not know about the amazing Message “Bounce” feature of Apple’s Mail? It’s straight up awesome! Thanks Mac Specialist Nina. :D

If you’re like me and don’t know what all the bouncing is about … here is the quick rundown: Instead of just filtering or deleting your junk mail, you can “bounce” it back to the sender. To them, it will look like they got the e-mail address wrong. Pretty sweet.

For this past week at camp, I created a custom Apple Keynote theme called Dark Aurora. The biggest goal behind it was to make something dark and simple, yet still engaging. It should be perfect for some of your upcoming worship-related events, were limited projector color/contrast is a problem.

You can download the iWork ‘06 version here (if anyone happens to need compatibility with iWork ‘05, just let me know).

Sticker System (uploaded by DRA Studio)

If you have been as depressed as I have by the lack of quality themes to make good use of your ShapeShifter license, the wait is over. I just heard about the canum theme over at MacThemes and it is one heck of a solid download! And if you are looking for a great complimentary icon set (besides the excellent one done by Jonas Rask), I would recommend David Lanham’s Sticker System. Simple and clean, with just a hint of peel-able fun!

(Side-note: Since I can’t afford CandyBar, I went ahead and put all of the SS icons into one nice guikit, which I can pass along, if you are interested.)

Yesterday I fixed an iBook for Brittany Kopp:

Problem
Seconds after startup (before the ‘chime’) a Kernel Panic would occur, forcing Brittany to restart the machine.

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Yesterday I fixed an iTunes issue for Lucie Bazin:

Problem
Lucie had added several CDs of music to her iTunes but after she restarted, none of them were showing up in the Library. Also, she originally put music on her 2nd Gen iPod nano with a PC and now that she was trying to synchronize with her Mac, it wasn’t showing up when connected.

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Mac Help (uploaded by DRA Studio)

I just realized today that I frequently forget the specific details and diagnosis steps I take when helping others with their Apple hardware and software woes. I guess after the issue is resolved, I just sub-consciously push all the particulars aside and move forward with life. This especially happens when the repair ends up being a typical simple solution. But today I also realized that I have, in the past, had to re-visit and address the exact same issue (or at least a similar one) for someone else. Rather than letting this slip by, I have decided that in addition to the already planned increase in writing, reviews and sketches I will be making to this refreshed blog, I will take the opportunity to chronicle the Mac repairs I make. Of course, the added benefits to you, the reader, are the supplementary content, as well as some handy advice for free.

This is, of course, in no way related to my new position at Apple and all the enthusiasm that it brings … well … maybe a little.

**Note: This is the second version of this post. Why, you might ask? Let’s just say that staying up late, typing in a comfy cozy bed and feeling drowsy while waiting to talk to a friend on iChat aren’t the best combination for blogging. At some point while typing in my sleep, I managed to lose the first version. Oh well.**

So Christmas morning was most wonderful this year. Not only did we get to enjoy some yummy Chesser “breakfast puffs” (quite delicious), but there were stockings for all and plenty of presents and gifts to sedate our materialistic urges. ;)

As you might have guessed from my little sketch, I am very happily back among the “I own an iPod” cult (thanks, Jodie!) and what a good cult it is. The dues are cheap, the poison is long-lasting and you get to name your own vice. I call mine “Love”, after the scripture from Psalms that Jodie had engraved for me. And since I knew an iPod might be among one of my presents, I requested one of the (Product)RED ones, so that I could participate in their worthy campaign (My gift will provide anti-retroviral (AVR) treatment for one month to a person living with HIV).

There were plenty of other gifts and giftcards and fun toys (and some pictures of geeky me growning up too … thanks Mom! ;)), but “Love” was of course my favorite. Coming in second were probably the Prismacolors (also from Jodie) and 3D drawing paper (cuz I miss the Wilsons) and then the iTunes card (I’ve been making a Buy Me! playlist for awhile now). Oh and of course the yummy yummy cookies from my Great Grandmother’s recipe that my little sis made me! So delicious.

Jodie liked what I got her (every boy can relate that it is always good when those gifts go over well :)) and the rest of the morning did result in some Nintendo Wii fundage, which is very exciting.

So, tell me. What did you get for Christmas? What were the expensive things and what were the personal things that meant alot to you? Ohh and what was your favorite Holiday song this year? Mine was “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by U2. Peep the music video on YouTube … so 80’s amazing!

So in past couple of days I have found my way into a few nice Mac tips/improvements … and now you can reap the benefits.

• Wondering what all those arbitrarily-named processes showing up in Actvity Viewer are? No problem. Just do a Google search for “Activity Viewer [blank]” … replacing the [blank] with the name of the process. Gets it every time.


• Need a cheap replacement for Roxio’s Toast Titanium? Check out the freeware, Burn. Simple and straightfoward, it uses OS X’s built-in features to handling all your media-burning needs … including appendable discs.


• Still upset with the way Safari handles Microsoft’s Outlook Web Access? Annoyed with either having to enter your password repeatedly or resort to using Firefox? I was too, until I was able to change that one small setting that made web access work in Entourage on my Mac. So exciting!
  
  

Oh and isn’t this the nicest picture of Simpsons family togetherness you have ever seen?

Blogged with Flock

… let’s make out!

Well, it looks like all of us MacBook-toting designer illustrators finally know the price of our new-found Intel speed goodness. Today on Terry White’s excellent podcast, he previewed the new Acrobat 8 Professional and dropped the news that the big A is TODAY announcing the new Adobe Creative Suite 2.3, complete with Universal versions of all our favorite design apps. Is the .3 upgrade going to cost us? You betcha!

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Wow! It’s been awhile since I put anything here. Don’t blame me … the fault lies with that dang Illustrative. and all the bass-playing I have been doing. Despite my best efforts, I can only either stay productive and complete projects on time (which makes my clients love me) or blog, rss, draw, and socialize. Even if it is my dream to be a bass-playing, artist, designer, etc., etc., etc. … I only have so much time during the day. (sigh)

The real reason for the title of this post, though … not that long ago (it still seems like yesterday), my amazing workhorse of a machine, an Aluminum 12” Powerbook G4, decided that it was time to call it quits. To the best of my knowledge, the hard-drive suffered from a temporary anomaly that was only present until after I had done the extensive repair of swapping out the hard-dive with George (my external media USB hard-drive). After the swap, I took an ENTIRE night to set up my machine and software on the new drive … only to have that drive completely die the following day! Agh! Sadly enough, I am still not 100% sure if the problem is logicboard related or if it is just a coincidence between the two drives. So, not knowing and need to get back on track from about a week of not moving forward with Illustrative. business, I decided to take the plunge financially and pick up a new MacBook. I know! In spite of the emmense amount of depression I was facing because of my sick Mac, I am still really excited about new white baby. It’s a 1.83 Ghz with soon-to-be 2 GBs of RAM … so the lowest end model (but still a beauty!).

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Looking for ways to get the most use out of Mac OS X Spotlight technology? Here is one of my favorites:

Backing up Files

Whenever I make a new backup CD, I use a great little application called Print Window to create a PDF folder list of the files on that CD. I do this with all of my backup CDs and in my Documents folder, I have a place for all those PDFs.

When it comes time to find an old file, I can hit up Spotlight with name and it tells me which PDF (and consequently, which CD) my file is in. Now that I have like 25 or so CDs full of archived files, it comes in really handy.

So, apparently there is a new reason for me to want to visit New York again. The (unbelievably) 24-hour 365-day Apple Store on Fifth Avenue! That’s right … this baby is set to never close. So when you decide you are in the mood for a juicy iPod Nano or a beefy PowerMac G5 after the Thanksgiving Day Parade, you are in luck. Now you won’t have to deal with those pesky “holidays”! Family time? Pssh! More like “Mac time”. (No, really … I am being facetious … honest!)

My favorite part about this new store? It is entirely underground. The only street level part is the 30 foot glass cube entrance in front of the GM building. From there, the immense Apple sanctuary is just an elevator-ride down. Amazing.

Clearly, this was one of the better conversations that I had today … :)

If you haven’t already heard about it somewhere else, be sure to check out the website for the upcoming remake to Charlotte’s Web. Although I am plenty skeptical (mainly because Dakota Fanning still scares me a little), the site is well-made and enjoyable to look at and use.

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Just for the record, here are some of good resources for all things Mac:

General Stuff / Support
Apple.com - Guys … com’n, that should be a given!
MacOSXhints.com - Solve all those problems you are having.
MacUpdate.com - “The” place to get your Mac freeware, shareware, and updates.
MacMinute.com - Up-to-date information on Mac-edness.

And for a list I was just pointed to, of some great FREE Mac software:
OpenSourceMac.org

Enjoy!

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