Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 7, 2009 in
Blog So, where do you buy your music? I remember going to record shops back when I was in college and looking through racks of music. It was fun to see all of the album artwork, but that probably isn’t the best way to pick out music. Today I buy most of my stuff online. It is so much easier to listen to the sample of the music before you decide on buying anything. I guess that you can do it at the local record shop, but they probably don’t have 10 millions songs available. Today I thought that I would mention a few music shops that I have found, and ask you where you go to buy your favorite music. Read more…
Tags: Amazon MP3, Buying Music, eMusic, epitonic, iTunes, mp3
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 6, 2009 in
Blog Mac World keynote is just ending. This is the last Mac World that Apple will be attending. Can’t really blame them for not wanting to have a big event the first week of January. I always thought that it hurt their Christmas sales. I have been watching the updates on Gizmodo, and have to say it was rather lack luster.
First of all it didn’t have Steve Jobs. Read more…
Tags: DRM, Gizmodo, iTunes, Mac, Mac Book Pro, MacRumors, MacWorld, Steve Jobs
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 5, 2009 in
Blog Fun typographic design sites lead to other design sites. Just some link surfing that I did today.
Words are Pictures: Love this site. Craig Ward uses his illustrative skills to come up with some of the most interesting typographic designs that I have seen. You have to see his portfolio.
Alison Carmichael: She seems to specialize in hand lettering, and nice handiwork it is.
Si Scott Studio: Don’t really like the site navigation, but I like this guys ink.
Sean Freeman – Ink Lady: Sean Freeman has some good work on his site, but the Ink Lady is my favorite.
And finally we end with a big blinking eye at HideYourToys.net, which seems to me to be what the end of the internet would look like.
Tags: end of the internet, handwriting, illustration, link surfing, Typography
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 4, 2009 in
Blog Have you ever wanted to make your own font? I don’t know why, but the idea has always interested me. Maybe it is just the fact that sometimes you can find that just right font, and it will bring your design to a different level. I don’t know what kind of font I would create, but I found a good write up by Alec Julien at his I Love Typography blog. His “So You Want to Create a Font” (Part One, Part Two) post go through a lot of the basics of what you will need to think about if you would like to create your own font.
Turns out it isn’t quite as easy as scribbling some letters on a page and scanning them into your computer. Read more…
Tags: Alec Julien, Creativity, Design, Fonts, Gutenberg, Making Fonts, Typography
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 3, 2009 in
Blog I just found a new web gadget today. I have been doing a lot of web research in the last couple of months. It has been complicated keeping all of my web research organized. I was putting a lot of URLs in folders and printing pages and such. I needed something to streamline that process.
This brings us to today’s first gadget is Evernote. Read more…
Tags: Backup, Dropbox, Evernote, Note Taking, Productivity, Research, Software, Web Gadgets
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 2, 2009 in
Blog I never was a big fan of college. It was hard to get excited about learning information that just didn’t have any relevance to my life. I was always learning new things, but not necessarily what they wanted to teach in class. The large classes were the hardest for me. A professor spouting information that I could easily find elsewhere just didn’t do it for me.
This professor, Dr. Michael Wesch, is one that gets it. Read more…
Tags: Education, Ethnography, New Learning, Video, Wesch, YouTube
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 1, 2009 in
Blog I have been getting ready for the new semester here at school. One of the projects that the students will be working on is a photo slideshow with audio. I needed to find the best software for the student to complete the project. I had a few requirements that I would like to have in any program. First, these are Journalism students, so I don’t want anything that involves code writing. It is about storytelling, not computer technology. Second, I would like it to output a flash slideshow. Read more…
Tags: Audio Slideshow, Education, Journalism, Multi-media, Photo Slideshow, Software, Sound Slides, Web Design
Posted by Brian Paris on Jan 1, 2009 in
Blog Hi, everyone. My name is Brian Paris, and I’m just a junkie.
New Year’s resolutions time. This year one of my resolutions was to learn something new everyday. I thought that blogging these bits of insight everyday might become a good resource (both for me, and hopefully for others).
I work as a computer and production support technician at a university in Doha, Qatar. I work with journalism and communications students, so most of the time I am learning new things to help them out. So you will probably see a lot of post about digital cinema, multi-media production, websites, photography, journalism, and education.
Tags: welcome