Weekend Warrior'n

I spent the majority of the weekend hanging out with my brother, nephew & nieces, my family, and my iMac.

I am currently working on two different websites, one is a brand new site; while the other is a complete redo of one I built over 4 or 5 years ago.

I had committed to having something up on the server for the latter, so the powers that be could get a glimpse into the direction of look and feel, so I spent about 8 hours straight, yesterday working on this site. Normally, I think I would have been able to accomplish a lot more in that amount of time; however, as you can see in the pic, (at the bottom, that’s the top of my netbook) I was having to use my netbook with Photoshop to do all my graphic work, save that to my server, then go grab it on the Mac and move it into the MAMP directory so I could use it in my page… The main problem I have, is that I have only a windows copy of Photoshop – this makes it really hard to get into a workflow like I’m used to. This is the first time I’ve done a lot of work, without having a windows machine that I’ve done most all of my web/graphic work on… I’m used to it, my workflow is great. Until the only windows machine you have is a netbook (10” screen)… I made it happen, but it really pointed out a lot of things to me.

First off, on the iMac I’ve found that Aptana is an excellent tool for writing web pages (even has a python extension) – probably one of the best that I’ve used thus far (keep in mind, I am limiting myself to FREE apps). But it is different than what I’m used to – so it took a little getting used to – but the biggest issue I have with it is that the background of the code is BLACK… I HATE THAT! I spent a little time looking for an option to change it, but I haven’t found it on the first pass.

Secondly, I realize that I need to get on the stick and order Photoshop for the Mac. It’s horrible to use two different machines (diff OS’s) to do work like this… let alone that I have about 6 inches to do all my graphic work (real-estate-wise).

Thirdly, I need to start saving for a Mac Book Pro -  I like to be able to move around and get comfortable when I’m working on things like this – remember, this isn’t my day job – and my weekends and evenings are family time – so I’d like to at least be able to sit in the same room as the rest of my family. Plus, the close-up-in-a-computer-armoire is located in the kitchen/dining area. This is an area that we don’t have a lot of airflow from the A/C going – so it was quite hot all day.

Eventually, I finished up the initial page for a sample of look and feel, uploaded it to the server – and sent out a link. I’m awaiting their feedback. As for the other site, I’m hoping to finish it up tonight or tomorrow – there’s gonna be some jscripting, so it may take me a bit to hack my way through that… once that’s done, I’ll have that online and we’ll be done with it for now.