I like January. It's been frigid this year (-27 Celsius a few days ago), but when a new year comes around, it helps me focus on the future and brings fresh energy and hope into the workplace. Granted, feelings pass quickly and without careful resolutions and follow-through, it's easy to squander the new year's energy. So after a good deal of thought, I've decided to make a few 2009 resolutions. Note that these are my resolutions and I don't expect everyone to agree with them. But perhaps you'll

As both a freelancer and former firm designer/developer, the slowest month for business has always been December. Couple that fact with the economic slowdown this year and you can easily find yourself having more free time than you're used to. So what is there to do after you've already scoured the ususal job boards and are waiting for responses from proposals? Consider these ten profitable ways to spend your extra down time.

It's been a while since we gave away free stuff, so in partnership with Flashloaded (those fine purveyors of Flash components), we are giving away 3 copies of their new 3D Spiral Component (normally $49.95). I have personally purchased and used several Flashloaded compenents such as 3DWall and 3DEnvironment, so I can vouch for their usefulness and value.What is 3D Spiral?True to its name, this Flash component creates a rotating spiral image gallery that is interactive and easily customizable, b

Knowledge is a web worker's number one advantage in an industry where ideas and technologies move fast. Although the internet is full of sites promising such knowledge, there are few quality tutorials or lessons out there. And if you want such lessons for free, then your options are even fewer. Here are 12 multimedia resources for expanding your skillset and staying in front of your competition.

Seeing that this blog has been dormant for several months, what better way to get back into it than a post about falling behind? The truth is, if you work in the design or technology industry, it doesn't take long for your skillset to become outdated or your design aesthetic to become stale. Every potential client job I've ever had inevitably asks either, "How well do you know ___________?" or, "Can I see a recent design example of ____________?" If you don't have solid answers to those questio

It's recently occurred to me that I've been doing Flash sites now for 10 years and have seen it come a long way since Flash 4, where I first cut my teeth on Actionscript, tweening, and pixel fonts. Over the years, I've seen and done many projects, some of which utilized Flash in very useful ways, while others had no business using it. Sometimes, a Flash implementation hurt the company, detracted from the site's purpose, and had poor results (all the while costing them more to build the site in t

It's recently occurred to me that I've been doing Flash sites now for 10 years and have seen it come a long way since Flash 4, where I first cut my teeth on Actionscript, tweening, and pixel fonts. Over the years, I've seen and done many projects, some of which utilized Flash in very useful ways, while others had no business using it. Sometimes, a Flash implementation hurt the company, detracted from the site's purpose, and had poor results (all the while costing them more to build the site in t