Christi's Blog...Welcome

Inspiration Required?

2010-04-16T13:50:00.003-04:00

If you ever need inspiration, check out the photography of Quizz.

This Flickr account contains awesome fantasy creations, dramatic light and color compositions, and overall beautiful perspectives.

Problems with the USB

2010-03-14T17:19:00.003-04:00

Ever try to add files to your USB only to find there isn't enough room on the device? But wait, there are no files on the USB and I should have 4 GB.

Clear your trash can. Files aren't fully deleted from the device until you clear it from the Trash. Then you will see the full amount available.

How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis

2009-06-22T11:32:00.003-04:00

Good poem I just found. It can be found at www.felixdennis.com

Good fortune? The fact is
The more that you practise [sic],
The harder you sweat,
The luckier you get.

Ideas? We've had 'em
Since Eve deceived Adam,
But take it from me
Execution's the key.

The money? Just pester
A likely investor.
To get what you need
You toady to greed.

The talent? Go sign it!
But first, wine and dine it.
It's tedious work
With a talented jerk.

Good timing? To win it
You gotta be in it.
Just never be late
To quit or cut bait.

Expansion? It's vanity!
Profit is sanity.
Overhead begs
To walk on two legs.

The first step? Just do it
And bluff your way thru' it.
Remember to duck!
God speed...
and good luck!

Website are like tatoos....

2009-06-15T13:48:00.004-04:00

..you can’t just have one. My newest ones are:
www.extranycash.com
www.historyportaits.com
www.resumeleaf.com

My oldies but goodies are:
www.freeinnyc.net
www.christiterjesen.com
www.redlipsdesign.com

Work is a Philosphy

2009-04-28T11:02:00.002-04:00

Mike Rowe is a great speaker. Listen to this inspiring video about work, dirty work, and rethinking how you think about the things you do. Watch the Video.

So cool.

Free Images for Any Use

2009-04-01T15:08:00.005-04:00

Here is a list of my favorite websites for free stock photos. Some may have different policies so please check the copyright information before downloading an image however they are all easy to use and completely (if not almost 100%) free to use.

General Databases:
www.sxc.hu
www.public-domain-photos.com
www.everystockphoto.com
www.freefoto.com

Specific Databases:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/ (Large collection of public domain images including portraits, currency, and photgraphs)
http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/_browse.htm (Images of American Political History)
www.fromoldbooks.org (Illustrations and Photos)
www.oldbookillustrations.com (Illustrations and Photos)
www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/ (WWII posters)
www.ibiblio.org/wm/ (Art images)
http://cgfa.dotsrc.org (Art images)
www.picapp.com (Celebrity images -hosted images, not for download)
www.socwall.com (Desktop Wallpaper - very inspiring)
www.redlipsdesign.com/freewallpaper.html (Desktop Wallpaper)

Things That Are Magic

2009-03-20T11:28:00.003-04:00

Evaporation (things dry without any help)
Cats and dogs know when you are coming home
People survive teenagehood and/or college
People speak more than one language fluently (how does it all fit in one head!)
Cuts and bruises heal
Birds wake up before dawn
Flowers know when to grow
Memory

Awesome Website

2009-03-10T15:43:00.002-04:00

Sick of the website you just created, designed, fixed for hours? Get your aggression out with this website www.netdisaster.com. You can destroy your website with Dinosaurs, guns, flowers, etc. It's very cathartic after a long day with mean code!

More things I would like to see...

2009-03-05T15:10:00.006-05:00

Caffeinated Sprite (Lemon Lime Soda)

Pickle flavored lollipops

Women’s heels that are as comfortable as sneakers

Office lights give tans

Vegetables taste like potato chips

Two subway stops in Hoboken

President Dennis Miller

Vice President Stephen Colbert

Music is free but the concerts cost money

Comedy shows covered by health insurance

Leprechaun stop stealing one sock in a pair from the laundry basket

Sometimes I can stop time

A miracle, just one

More rainbows

“Undo” (COMMAND Z) in real life

Creating Radials, Rays, & Stripes from the Center in Photoshop

2009-01-28T14:27:00.006-05:00

How does one create stripes radiating from the center of the screen in Photoshop? You can do it manually but then you fight with equal spacing between each one. Here is the best way:

Create blank document and choose your foreground and background colors.
Create the stripes. Click: Filter-> Sketch->Halftone Pattern. Adjust "Size", "Contrast", and make sure the pattern type is "Line".
Crop the canvas so that you see one half-sized A color stripe at the top and one half-sized A color at the bottom (B color is not at the top or bottom).
Turn it on the side. Click: Image-> Rotate Canvas-> 90° CW.
Now the magic. Click: Filter-> Distort->Polar Coordinates. Make sure it is Rectangle to Polar.
(Optional) Add a white (or another color) to transparent gradient fx. Choose radial (or I prefer diamond) and try inverse or not.

Enjoy the hypnotic effects.

Where’s my desktop files? (Mac)

2009-01-26T11:57:00.002-05:00

Ever save a Photoshop .jpg or a Word .doc or really any file to your Mac desktop only for it to not appear? You save it again - still not there. You go into the program and look to open it- Wow it’s there on the desktop- but you cannot see any thumbnail picture. 5, 10, 15 minutes later the file suddenly appears and only now can you transfer this file to a network folder or the live server. Inefficient to say the least and quite frustrating.

The file is hidden on your desktop and won’t appear for you. It delays for absolutely no reason! Well the next time that happens open a FINDER Window. Click “Desktop” under “Places” on the left side and instantly all the files you’ve been waiting for appear. Works every time!

Transparent Background with Full Opacity Text

2009-01-17T16:07:00.002-05:00

I recently came across this problem creating one of my newest websites. With the advent of CSS3, (so awesome, I only wish all the browsers supported these features easily) one can create transparent divs quite easily. The following is the code for all browser compatibility for 70% opacity:

filter:alpha(opacity=70);
-moz-opacity:0.7;
-khtml-opacity: 0.7;
opacity: 0.7;
zoom: 1.0; /* IE Hack for CSS (IE6 must have layout */
}

But using this code for a background, anything within that div will also have that opacity, including your text. The best way to combat this is to create another div within the div with the background opacity with the following code:

filter:alpha(opacity=100);
-moz-opacity:1.0;
-khtml-opacity: 1.0;
opacity: 1.0;
zoom: 1.0; /* IE Hack for CSS (IE6 must have layout */
}

Problem solved! Your welcome.

2008-11-13T21:04:00.003-05:00

I have to get these off this chest. I would like to see that:

Thinking burns calories

Worrying burns calories

We get to a point with answering machines where we don't have to review the instructions to leave a message or hear that you are unavailable

Teleportation= just beam me there already!

People actually use their turning signal

Strangers say hi to other strangers in the elevator

Scaffolding in NYC is taken down at the earliest possible time

Santa actually exists

My hairstylist cuts the right amount

Cats are nicer

Gas is almost free like water

People stop trying to make me a vegetarian

It only rains during the week while I am at work

Society does not expect people to get out of bed until the sun rises

Socially acceptable to say what you really mean and not remember people's names

Pop songs are actually good

Movie ticket prices go down in price

Models get paid like cops

There is at least one big holiday each month

Great Book!

2008-11-05T18:33:00.003-05:00

You may know that I love to read. I mostly read historical fiction, political nonfiction, Michael Crichton, and whatever is on the Bestsellers Lists when I am at the store.

Well, recently I finished The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. This novel is set in the twelfth century England. It is fantastic! The book is long (almost 1,000 pages) but I devoured it in about a week. The story is about a small town which is trying to survive through hard times and war and build a town cathedral.

I walk away from the book with a sense of general life back in history. The amazing thing is that life is basically the same today but with different clothes. The struggles those people endured are the same we see today: love triangles, deception, providing for one's family, money problems, losing loved ones. The only main difference is that peasants lived in fear of starvation in the winter. Weak babies perished without proper nourishment and a dip in the summer harvest could mean death for many. How lucky we are today that we never have to worry about starvation in the winter!

Synesthesia- Coloring the boring

2008-10-14T18:50:00.010-04:00

Only recently did I come to realize that my strange sensory condition has a name. Synesthesia (according to Wikipedia) is a neurologically-based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Basically the condition associates two unlike senses together. Some people hear a sound and visualize a color or see a color and sense a taste their mouth. You get the picture.

In particular, I have Grapheme-color synesthesia. Allow me to describe it to you: each letter and number I read has a color. For instance, my brain reads the letter A like A. I don't hallucinate, it is more like in my mind's eye. Here is basically what I see (O is white/q has no color):

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS
TUVWXYZ 123456789

Some letters are distinct and bright colors like J is solidly green, some letters can change slightly depending on the letters next to it like S. Notice the different shades of purple and yellow. Names and words take on the dominant and first few letter colors. So for instance Christi is yellowish-orangey-white, John is green and white. Maybe this is why I always thought I should blonde hair and have dyed it for most of my life?

Months are the exception to the rule and I am not sure why. Perhaps experiences during the month or from lots of use writing the months, they have their own colors not a collection of the color letters that make them up. January February March April May June July August September October November December

I don't consider this a detriment, in fact I actually enjoy this extra injection of color into my everyday life. It does not affect my learning or processing at all. In fact no one would ever know unless I told them.

The only time I do sense it is when two associates clash. For instance, July 4th has always bothered me. July is a light blue color (not sure why because the collected letters do not add up to the color but that is the way it is.) plus 4= July 4. This has always bothered me because the USA's colors are red white and blue and so every year I think, our Independence Day should be July 5. However Christmas is perfect on December 25. Strange I know.

Anyway, I recently discovered this watching a TED video. I finished the video and actually was shaking from excitement. I had never told anyone that I do this in my head and it was such a relief that this had a name and that other people also had this!!

I think I came to these associations because when I was learning letters at a young age I played with magnet letters on the fridge. Those letters and colors probably cemented in my mind together. If I had had a different brand of magnet letters perhaps the colors would be different. As I got older, I must have muddled the end of the alphabet somewhat because that part doesn't follow the red, orange, yellow... pattern so much.

Anyway drop me a line if you experience it too!

For more information see:

www.ted.com/index.php/talksvilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html

www.synesthesia.info

Fixing Web Design Problems- Why isn't the code working?

2008-10-06T18:39:00.004-04:00

I know how frustrating it is! You feel lonely and frustrated because you can't figure out why the code isn't working. Either you working by yourself or the code is too complex for someone to simply take a look and see the error. You want to scream!!!!!

First of all, take a breath, take a break, and sleep on it. I can't tell you how many times I went to bed and woke up with the answer. Apparently your brain will try to work out the problem in your sleep if you actually fall asleep with that nagging feeling of failure hanging all over you.

In creating web pages with HTML, I have found that the simplest solution is usually correct. Computers generally do exactly what they are told so if your HTML is not working properly it probably is your code. 9 times out of 10 you spelled something incorrectly or left off a quote mark. Validate your code through Dreamweaver (Shift F6 on MAC) before you go too crazy.

The best way to find the offending area is to comment out "...-->" parts of the code until you find which section is running amok. Then look over the code line by line and character by character. If you have to write the code over again or write it in a new way. It shouldn't be too much trouble if you honed the offending code down to a small area.

If after all of that, the code still doesn't work... then it's probably a browser bug, mostly in IE. This is my favorite websites to figure out which bug: www.positioniseverything.net.

And most importantly, keep up-to-date with web design standards. Here are my favorite sites at the moment:

www.smashingmagazine.com

www.alistapart.com

Good luck!

Free Awesome Wallpaper!!!

2008-09-14T21:31:00.003-04:00

For free and really cool desktop wallpaper go to www.redlipsdesign.com/freewallpaper.html. All digital creations were made from scratch by Red Lips Design and all photographs were taken by Christi and later retouched for optimized color and feel. Enjoy!

Chivralry is not dead...

2008-09-09T20:37:00.004-04:00

Last week I had a great and rare New York moment. I was standing on the subway platform when I hung up my phone and dropped it. Yes the worst thing possible happened... it hit the ground and bounced down between the two train tracks (also known as the rat hole).

I stared down not knowing what to do feeling helpless and mad. Before I could think about my next move, the young man next to me jumped down and grabbed my phone. He handed it to me and jumped back up. I shook his hand in shock repeating, "You are my hero, thank you thank you!" He humbly shrugged it off. A minute later the train arrived.

Luckily I could partly return the favor. I had just come from the wine store and had a not so inexpensive bottle which I promptly handed to him in gratitude.
Good men are hard to find but sometimes they are precisely there when you need them. Thank you green-eyed stranger!

Is the Theory of Evolution Inherently Racist?

2008-07-11T16:57:00.006-04:00

The Oxford English Dictionary defines evolution as:

"the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed, especially by natural selection."

Though we all know this theory very well, have we ever truly considered its implications? We've heard this as (not literally) gospel truth from our high school science teachers and have swallowed it whole without too much more explanation or evidence. Why should we delve deeper, we have so much going on it our lives? It makes sense, it sounds good, and we don't have energy to question everything we hear.

But is this theory racist? Yes this politically correct, you're-an-archaic-right-wing-nut-if-you-don't-believe-this, almost universally accepted theory definitely has undertones of racism.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is defined as:

"...a belief or ideology that all members of each racial group possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another racial group or racial groups."

Let's now review the Oxford English Dictionary for natural selection (as seen in the definition of evolution):

"the evolutionary process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring."

This definitions sounds purposefully blunt and non-judgmental. It offers that nature is the selcetor of whom is "better adapted". Couldn't "better adapted" be substituted with "superior"? And when we hear something is superior certainly there must be something to be compared. Therefore the compared is inferior. And who can argue with nature?

Evolution is the theory that natural selection weeds out the fittest and thus these survive. The not-so-fittest die out. Can this theory be applied to all things in nature but not the human races? We snidely nod our heads that the species X justly died out because it couldn't keep up with its more fit cousin, species Y, who avoided predators better and found food easier. Is it a stretch to put that to the human races, to the mentally ill or disabled, or even the sexes?

Whether or not evolution is racist does not prove or disprove the theory. I merely write this article to bring you attention that evolution has and could continue to be used as a scientific justification for outright racism, genocide, slavery, or euthanasia.

On second thought, evolution is not so politically correct.

To read more on this subject I suggest, "Bones of Contention" by Marvin L. Lubenow.

Why are there nasty people in this world?

2008-06-18T20:40:00.003-04:00

The sign says it all: Mean people suck. Trust me, you cannot find more mean, nasty, and downright miserable people than during the morning rush hour on the NYC subway, particularly on the N train.

But I cannot help but wonder if they serve a purpose. If everything happens for a reason then what is that mook for?

Perhaps mean people are around to keep us all humble. If everyone told us how great we are and helped us along the way maybe we would lose our ambitious go-getter attitude. If people weren't there to push us down, then why would be rise above? How would we understand nice without nasty? We couldn't.

Thank you mean people. Yes I probably mean you. If it weren't for you then I wouldn't seem so nice. And I probably wouldn't have proved you wrong all those times either. Ha!

Would I want to be my cat?

2008-06-01T12:14:00.006-04:00

Every morning, when I leave for work, my cat (Ferdinand) watches me sadly as I close the door and I think, "Would I rather trade places?" Ferdinand has a pretty good life. He sleeps all day, watches birds, lays around on the couch, and is nimble enough to leap anywhere he wants. He doesn't worry about the rent or if he'll go hungry. He doesn't agonize over life-changing decisions or get aggravated about the state of our economy. He is carefree. Would I give up my husband, my freedom, my career, my life to live so stress free?

Then again he doesn't have a girlfriend. He has never laughed at a joke or read a good book. He'll never leave my apartment and never see Ireland. On a hot day, he cannot put on the AC nor tell me he does not like the color of new rug or if he hates my perfume. In short, he has to accept whatever we provide for him.

Perhaps that's a good lesson. Maybe I should accept what I am given and try harder to make due in a less-than-perfect situation. He doesn't get mad if I don't pet him long enough; he is grateful for however long I do.

Sure he's a cat, so he's a little persnickety and certainly can hold a grudge longer than a dog. But he always forgives us and he is always happy when we come home. How many times can I say I ran to the door when my husband came home?

Ferdinand has a pretty good life but mine is certainly better. I think I could learn a few things from him nonetheless.

Hello!

2008-06-01T11:04:00.001-04:00

This is my first blog. Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy my rational rantings.