Hello Ziggy is simple: it’s a Hello Dolly clone that replaces the lyrics to “Hello Dolly” with the lyrics to David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”.  I’ve been using it for about a year and it works really well — kind of random, vaguely inspirational, the lyrics work when separated from their context which is sort of key.  yes, i’ve been sitting on this for a year (give or take), but i realized i never did any official release anywhere (since it came out of a day’s boredom, i can only assume), it sort of just manifested.

so here’s the official release announcement.  Hello Ziggy, for your downloading pleasure.  currently, Hello Ziggy is telling me: He could lick ‘em by smiling.  yep.  that’s right.

Hello Ziggy official download site

Related posts:

1. Free WordPress Theme: The Harbinger
2. Free WordPress Theme: AP-blueprint
3. Free WordPress theme framework: AP-blueprint

as much as i really liked my old theme, discount browncoat (yes, a firefly/serenity reference), it was narrow, had some leftover bugs, and took a long time to load because of the heavy graphics.  i wanted something i could expand on easily, and offer the possibility for advertising.  i also wanted a way to showcase a lot of the projects and stuff i work on, which was hidden down in the sidebar on my old theme.  now that stuff can go prominently in the header.

so here’s a rundown: top nav listing of pages with dropdown menus for sub-pages — this allows me to have a generic top-level page, say fiction, and then have links to all the fiction i’ve written.  260 px wide sidebar, which allows for 260×260 and 125×125px ads — fairly standard sizes for a design blog.  magazine-style layout using the powerful by TimThumb script.  i really like this style of displaying posts, ever since i first saw it in mimbo, and i’ve been using it on a lot of different sites i’ve worked on recently.  i’m also using a hack that displays a little tag underneath the most recent post to identify it as such.  i thought about doing an author page, but a lot of the author fields in wordpress are information i didn’t want to share, and i already have an about page with other stuff, so i decided to just do a page template that added in where i’m available online to the about info i already had.  this way, too, there’s more flexibility to update and change content.  i also made a blog page which filters out all the lifestreaming stuff and just displays the actual posts, because i could see it getting out of hand, especially when i’m playing music (and therefore getting a feed from last.fm).  there are three, fully widgetized sidebars, depending on what part of the site you’re on.  i did this so i could, in theory, make what shows up on the sidebar somewhat relevant to what you are looking at.  there’s also a customized 404 page, and separate category and archives pages.  by the time i got to the footer i sort of ran out of ideas, so i just blathered on, offering additional links to various parts and features of the site.

this has been a project on my mind for a few months with various ideas festering and growing in there.  i hope it comes off well, and i think i’ll probably be making additional tweaks as an ongoing thing, but i’m pretty excited about the new changes.  w00t.

Related posts:

1. jazzsequence.com redesign
2. more thoughts on new jazzsequence design
3. thinktank makeover, jazzsequence network

i already have a lifestream page that i’m not all that happy with.  and i was already thinking about using an “asides” feature like ma.ttand the morning after use on their themes. what if my various activity streams were fed in between blog posts, so the entire blog was like a lifestream?  this concept is really interesting and fairly new, and i am thinking i want to run with this idea.  i’ve used wp-o-matic for another site that literally aggregated content from various blogs onto its own blog (it was pretty much a hands-off money tree for ads) for a project i worked on a while ago, so i know how that works.  it would be fairly simple to use wp-o-matic to do the same thing here, except pull feeds from various social networking activity rss feeds.  assuming it all works the way it should, it would be fairly awesome…

Related posts:

1. planning a new attack on the design
2. new look for jazzsequence.com: presenting jazzsequence::metal::
3. starting thoughts

so i started a list of things that i want the new theme/layout to have:

• adspace
• asides section
• latest post
• magazine style?
• tag cloud
• flickr stream
• social networking/sharing links (on posts and in block)
• gravatar-ready
• twitter
• rather than lifestream page, link directly to profilactic

i really like what The Morning After does for the asides section, and matt mullenweg styles his links/asides different from his regular posts as well.  i am using twitter tools to feed notifications of new blog posts to twitter, but it could go the other way, too, if i enabled it, and the asides section (as seen in something similar to the TMA theme) would be a perfect place for those.

so that’s what i’m thinking right now.  i’m also working on a website for a pair of designers who want to have a design blog, and my other thought is that i might use something similar to one of the designs that doesn’t get used for their site.  or something based on that.  their layouts are very grid-based, with room for 260px square ads and 125px square ads along the sidebar, with a magazine style and a big featured post area with lots of room for the post body (~700px).  having just discovered blueprintCSS, grid-based design is another thing that’s been on my mind and, while i like dirty, the clean simplicity of the layout would be a good compliment to a dirty/grungy style like the design that the site has now.

anyway, i’m sure as i get closer to actually doing the redesign, that i’ll post more musings on it later.  right now, gavin needs my help with The Magic Schoolbus: Volcano Adventure.

Related posts:

1. new look for jazzsequence.com: presenting jazzsequence::metal::
2. more thoughts on new jazzsequence design
3. thinktank makeover, jazzsequence network

at the end of his explanation of rss and what it can do for you and how he implements it on his site — and i have to give him props because a lot of bloggers force you to go to the site for full content, especially when there’s art and graphics or at least extended articles — he has a link to a blog post on colorburned  for 127 rss feeds that all designers should subscribe to.

127?  really?

seriously.  i check twitter, i glance at rss, i read my email, and somewhere in the middle of that and working a part-time job working in cheese, i get some design done.  when the frack am i going to have time to read 127 feeds?  i mean, really.  and that’s the thing i have against these posts.  53 grunge themes?  how about giving me the 5 best, because i guarantee there’s 48 that suck, and there’s not enough hours in the day to check every single one of these links.  127 rss feeds that all designers should subscribe to?  and in keeping up on those 127 feeds, when exactly am i going to have time to, i don’t know, do any design work?

see, i get the thing that these lists are good for seo and people who are searching for the best whatever, but here’s the catch 22: for most of the x number of tips posts, they’re the same tips you see everywhere.  for the x best blogs to read, ditto, you get the same links. upstart blogger posted a while ago his lament for not being able to find a legitamite list of influential female bloggers.  every once in a while i see a list on tips for twitter and think it might offer something vaguely enlightening and am sorely disappointed.

that leaves the similar posts for designers.  these are tools, plugins, textures, stock photography, or graphics that can be used in our work.  and honestly, if you are a designer, there’s a need, a hole to fill for really good sources for this stuff.  especially if you want to stay on the cutting edge and have new and interesting designs.  every once in a while i see the same old price tag i’ve used or the same cracked paint that i found on stock exchange and i wonder just how many times these things have been used on other sites.  so there is a definite need, but half, if not most of the things that get on these lists are really worthless, unusable or incomplete or so highly specialized you’d use it for one client in a hundred.  so give me 5, 10 at the most.  don’t give me the 53 that answered your tweet when you posted a call on twitter.  i don’t have time to sort through all the crap to find the rare diamonds in the rough.  i have work to do and kids to feed and not enough hours in the day to spend wasting on these huge ridiculous lists.  there’s something to be said about being concise, and if you, the poster of 100+ of anything can’t break that down into smaller chunks and weed out the less useful or lower quality entries, really, what are you doing for the design community?  what’s the last rule of the rules of design?  good design is as little design as possible?  yeah, that.

Related posts:

1. 50+ Top Design Blogs Highest Ranked Posts in 2009
2. archived blogs
3. 9 Awesome Single-Serving Tumblr Blogs

so here’s the story:

back in the mid- to late-nineties, i made a lot of music.  i was angsty and in high school, and spent a lot of time focussing that angsty into some screamy tunes set to bad synthesizers that i called music.  i even had a fake record label.  or three.

first, i used Abyss Records.  it was half homage to Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss” (which in eighth grade was often pronounced “ay-bee-us”) and half a tribute to the dark void of my soul.  because dark void records didn’t have as much of a ring to it.

when i moved onward from my exclusively thrash and death metal choices in music to more punk and riot grrl, and likewise my approach to songmaking, the label changed as well.  this time i released tapes under the CRAP Records moniker.  this was partially an acronymn for “Chris Reynolds’ Abyss Productions” and partially a self-deprecating nod to how bad the music i produced was.

later, when i got a tad more serious, and also somewhat better at what i did, i had an epiphany and found a name that was both edgy, serious, and had the same kind of dual meaning of its’ predecessors without the same level of sucking: Think Tank Productions.  i even had a logo.  this was about 1996.  the internet was young.  i was on my first computer built by NEC with a relatively new operating system called Windows ‘95.  I started learning html by viewing source code and practicing on several GeoCities homepages.  I was connected to the internet via a 28.8 modem through a fledgling company called EarthLink.  back then, Think Tank sounded new and fresh, and i was pretty proud of myself for thinking of it.

i used the Think Tank name for various things over the years including music and a couple student films i did in college.  so, when erin and i decided to start a t-shirt company and she said she liked thinktank as a name, we went with it.  it was only natural to stick with the name when we decided to do web design.

here’s the thing:

it’s a long time since 1996.  back then, thinktank website design would have been cutting edge, new, fresh, creative, all these great things that they were in 1996 when i had the stroke of genius and came up with that name.  but now, not so much.  just here in the salt lake valley there’s a think tank creative, and thought lab design studio, and they both do graphic design.  there’s also a think tank in san diego, and various think tanks all over.  and they all do design.

we decided that if we want to be as creative, unique, and artistic as we say we are, we need a name that speaks to all of those things.  and we can’t be one-of-a-kind when there’s 9 other think tank graphic design studios.  so we’re changing the name.  we figure, this is our first year, we’ve learned a lot, and grown a lot, and you’ve grown with us, and if we’re going to do it, now is better than later.  so come january 2009, we will start transitioning to a new name and domain: enter Arcane Palette Creative Design.  i will still use thinktank for the new tshirt dealio i’m doing on zazzle.  erin’s gonna start making custom jewelry to sell on etsy, and has already decided to use a unique name for that; Arcane Palette will be exclusively our web design face.

this is only going to be a good thing for us and our clients — we’ll be easier to find, having a more distinctive name to go by.  when we create a site as arcane palette, you won’t be doing a search on google and say “which arcane palette?”  

speaking of faces, and arcane palettes — erin got me a photoshop filter for christmas.  now that may not sound exciting, but i’m pretty excited:

 

Mister Retro -- Permanent Press

 

Related posts:

1. a sneak peek at the new look for jazzsequence.com
2. thinktank makeover, jazzsequence network
3. Ada Lovelace Day

okay, actually not, i’ve been slacking, but i did finally come up with a design that i am going to start building.  here’s a peek at the new design.

the new look for jazzsequence.com

Related posts:

1. new look for jazzsequence.com: presenting jazzsequence::metal::
2. jazzsequence.zapto.org is now JAZZSEQUENCE.COM!
3. thinktank makeover, jazzsequence network

saying we’re excited would be an understatement.  sure, we’ve had to cut our prices to be more competitive because many buyers are wary of new providers, but now, while we still have the new provider tag next to our name on our bids, we have positive reviews and a history of completed projects — we end up looking better than the other new providers.  and we’ve only had to stop bidding on things we didn’t really want anyway, and take projects we’re more interested in.  the ultimate decision was to play to our strengths — we don’t like making professional, corporate websites nearly as much as we like making fun, artistic websites.  and anyone who wouldn’t want to hire us because we’re not professional enough is someone we wouldn’t want to work for anyway.  so we’ve changed some of the language on the thinktank site and changed how we word our bids to be much more honest, and conversational, and less canned.  and it seems to be working — we think we’re really the only ones who talk like human beings in our bids and it seems to be attracting a positive response (oddly people seem to feel more comfortable with that…).

and this is working for ourselves, not through a third party.  which means that when we do work for someone they can say we did a great job, not the company we’re working through, which all just reflects better on us.  we’re really just excited we’re doing so well.  and it means we can cut down the number of projects we need to take from that other freelancing job.  it may be a while, yet, before we feel comfortable cutting them off entirely, but since doing these Elance jobs, we’ve had to chase down our customers much, much less, and they’ve been much easier to work with, and we don’t need to worry about calling them during business hours or really talking on the phone at all.  And oddly enough — although hws says that their customers are the type that want their site up cheaply and asap — the projects we’ve been working on outside of hws have gotten done faster than those for hws.

it’s all just so much more satisfying and rewarding and we’re really starting to feel like we know what we’re doing.  and, you know, i’m excited, too, because we’re expecting our business cards to arrive tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. kubuntu = success!!
2. simplifying things, cutting off painful extremities
3. what do you do with a kangaroo?

well we didn’t want to do that.  but we did want to make it a bit more like what other people were doing.

so i had a brilliant idea to try to find a script or something that would allow for a dropdown menu that would choose the theme for the thinktank site.  so you could pick which one you were looking at.  not only would it be cool just for the cool gadget factor, but it would showcase our skillz and make us look more badass and give a lot of variety to the site.  it would (in theory) be as good a representation of what we can and do…do…as the portfolio itself!

BEHOLD!  thinktank-studio.com and the glorious dropdown of awesomeness!

(as a sidenote, we’ve been watching way too much how i met your mother recently…..)

i’ve got a couple more themes for the thinktank site in the works and erin’s gonna make some so it should be pretty sweet.

—————————————————–

in other news, it’s not quite done yet, but i’ve created a kickapps community for jazzsequence.  you might remember me talking about kickapps a couple weeks ago in this post.  mostly this was an experiment to set it up, get it working, and know what it’s about so i can start building it for other people.  but it’s also cool in its own right and i think could take the place of the now-dead forums and such if, you know, i still *have* a community….if you have a login on the jazzsequence.com blog, you should already be able to log into the members area with the same info.  if not, make one, and be awesome.  there’s blogs and message boards and stuff (at least when i set it all up).  you can see what i’m talking about at members.jazzsequence.com.

Related posts:

1. quick note about jazzsequence network…
2. thinktank affiliate buttons, vista experience, computer woes resolved, and other stuff
3. more thinktank updates

i also just finished optimizing this blog for search engines.  from which i learned a few things about seo-friendly coding, and hopefully does something to counter the last part of the paragraph above.  all this seo’izing and working on a new blog made me think of making affiliate buttons for thinktank.  well, the other thing that made me think of that was the email i got that said that firefox set the world record for most downloads in a 24 hour period for the firefox 3 download day campaign.  it all made me think that creating more ways for people to link back to thinktank couldn’t hurt, and the buttons are prettier than my cleverly unobtrusive “website designed by thinktank” tag at the bottom of our sites.  oh, the other thing the seo stuff taught me (or reminded me, really, i already knew it, but i wasn’t implementing it) was that it’s better to link the whole phrase “website designed by thinktank” than just the “thinktank” which is what i was doing before.

when i started using vista on the media center i discovered a problem — while i could create new folders (and new files through the right-click option) i could not NAME them.  i.e. New Folder.  New Folder (1).  New Folder (2).  etc. etc.  no matter what i did, i couldn’t get it to work.  apparently, after googling a bit, i discovered this was fairly common and required a registry hack to fix.  annoying, and a waste of a couple hours of banging my head on the computer screen.

random lockups and freezes in explorer, especially when accessing files on a shared network drive.  both vista computers do this so i can only assume this is fairly normal as well.  also, having to log in to the network drive after every reboot is obnoxious and i’m still trying to figure out how to save my password.  :/

so that’s the scoop.  a few quick, final closing remarks:

to answer the comment in my last post: avatars are user icon things for social apps like blogs and forums and messaging programs, but also are used by microsoft to visually represent different users.  it’s sort of the digitized representation of yourself to the world.

i’m planning on sending off my 8mm reels to get transferred to dvd in the next couple weeks.  once i get the dvd back i will rip the video, add new soundtracks and post them here (possibly to youtube as well).  i’m also going to do something about the gavin video and the guy in a hat video (guy in a hat might need to move to youtube also, just for kicks).

i want a google phone.

yes, i’m playing guild wars again.

look for joss whedon’s Dr. Horrible in a couple weeks.  it’s gonna be aweX0me.

Related posts:

1. thinktank makeover, jazzsequence network
2. Windows Vista, oh how I loathe thee
3. computer explosion