John Mayer Singing Free Fallin’ Live

By Spencer Barfuss | October 8, 2008

Love this cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ by John Mayer.  Check it out.

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Google Talk Labs Edition

By Spencer Barfuss | May 12, 2008

Well, I just downloaded the new Google Talk chat client for Windows, but not the one that’s been there for a while. There’s a new Google Talk Labs Edition now available for download.

Let me point out some of the features of the new Google Talk Labs Edition.

First, the new Google Talk Labs Edition is definitely more visually appealing , compared to the older version of Google Talk. The older version was basically just plain white and grey. The new Google Talk Labs Edition has a cooler feel to it, with some nice blues and some gradients in there.

Second, the new Google Talk Labs Edition makes use of tabs when you click on a friend to chat with, instead of opening a new chat windows, like the older version of Google Talk does. It’s a lot like the tabbed browsing feature within Firefox, so this should be a big hit with chatters on Google Talk. One thing I did notice that is not currently available with the latest download is that there is no button to call someone on the Labs Edition. I’m assuming that they are not getting rid of this feature on the older version of Google Talk, but will add it in later.

Third, when the Google Talk icon sits in your taskbar at the bottom right hand corner of your screen on a PC, there are some other options that it gives you. Starting from the top, this is how it reads…

  • Disable Notifications for One Hour
  • Sign Out
  • Launch Gmail
  • Launch Google Calendar
  • Launch Google Talk, Labs Edition
  • Launch Orkut
  • Settings…
  • Help
  • Exit

On the older version of Google Talk, when you right-click the Google Talk icon in your taskbar, these are current options available…

  • Inbox
  • Check Mail Now
  • Disable All Notifications
  • Check for Updates Now
  • Sign Out
  • About
  • Exit

So, as you can see, the new Google Talk Labs Edition seems to be adding more options so that you don’t have to visit each and every website. If you are wondering what Orkut is, it’s basically Google’s version of Facebook. They are trying to get into the social networking race that others are already running.

I guess there’s a lot more I could say about the new Google Talk Labs Edition, but there’s too much for this blog post. Go ahead and download it today.

Posted in Recent News, Tips | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Where is Woork?

By Spencer Barfuss | May 8, 2008

Well, the reason I asked the question, “Where is Woork?” is because I haven’t seen another blog post from him since April 14th. I saw some Tweets on his site that said he was really busy at work. Just can’t believe that he posted all those tutorials, but then has decided not to post anymore. Just wondering where my friend has gone…

Antonio, if you are reading this, let us know what you’re up to… We look forward to hearing from you again soon.

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Band Website Template

By Spencer Barfuss | May 8, 2008

Well, I’ve decided to start selling a new Wordpress theme on my site Barefoot Web Design . This theme was created by Chris Coyier and David Walsh. You can purchase this template now through E-junkie.

This is a great template for a web designer or developer who is wanting to provide this design to potential music clients. I guess this theme could be modified for other clients besides musicians. But this is a great looking theme that has all the features a musician would want in band site.

Here are a couple of reasons to purchase this theme:

1. It’s cheap. $30 to be exact.
2. It can be customized. This template can be easily modified to fit your band’s personality through the power of CSS.
3. It’s a great looking theme.
4. Easy to manage.

Again, you can purchase this band website template on my Wordpress themes page.

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Google Offices in Zurich

By Spencer Barfuss | May 5, 2008

Check out the new Google offices in Zurich. How would you like to have free breakfast and lunch during the day? Maybe making a phone call from a renovated Gondola? What about sliding down a twisty slide to the cafeteria?

Check out the video here…

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YUI Compressor Tutorial

By Spencer Barfuss | May 2, 2008

So, I’ve been looking for the best way to compress my CSS files and also the bulky Javascript files that I need to use on websites that I build. Beautiful websites can sometimes weight a lot, in terms of file size due to the large external files that your browser is trying to load. So, I came across the YUI Compressor, which supposedly has the best compression rate out of all the CSS and Javascript compressors out there. So, I decided to download it, and see if I could wrap my brain on how to use it.

I’m guessing that this tutorial will help out many a designer like me who’s not that familiar with the command line…

So, here goes…

1. Go to the YUI Compressor website, and click on “Download” under the Quick Links heading.

2. Extract the file using whatever ZIP extractor you use on your computer.

3. If you are using a PC, right-click on Start, and click on Explore. Once in Explorer, navigate to the place you unzipped YUI Compressor, and double-click on it. Once inside the unzipped YUI Compressor folder, double-click on the folder that says “Build”. Then, highlight the address in your Explorer address bar. Mine reads like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Desktop\yuicompressor-2.3.5\yuicompressor-2.3.5\build

You will need to paste this in a little while once you go to the Command Prompt.

Alright, so now you need to take whatever CSS or Javascript file you are wanting to compress, and Copy it to the same Build folder that you were just in.

Now, click on Start, then click on Run, and type in “cmd” and Hit the Enter key on your keyboard. At the command prompt, type in:

cd “C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Desktop\path\to\yui-compressor\build”

Once you do that, then type in:

java -jar yuicompressor-2.3.5.jar whatever-your-file-is-named.css -o new-filename.css

And press the Enter key. Your newly created, and compressed CSS file should be sitting in the Build folder that you were just in with the new filename you made for it.

I must say that this YUI Compressor is a pretty sweet tool and should be very useful for any developer wanting to decrease CSS or Javascript file size.

Posted in CSS, Javascript, Tips, Tutorials | 4 Comments

Legacy Multimedia

By Spencer Barfuss | April 14, 2008

Hello everyone, I just finished a website with a client that I had previously worked for under another employer. We had worked on her website trying to improve the design of it, and there were some things that she had another designer do previously that she didn’t like, and she wanted to change it on her site.

This job was one for the CSS Doctor because it was unbelievable how bloated her site’s code was before I started working on it. I mean, this was a long surgery, a lot of blood was spilled, and her site’s code had everything that I loathe as a web designer: table tags inundating every page, no h1 tags for heading (span p was used instead!), and a slew of other code issues that made her site slow and outdated, not to mention difficult to understand.

So, after a few months of literally deleting massive amounts of code, and inserting new cleaner code, and making her site cross-browser compatible, I now present to you the new and improved Legacy Multimedia.

Let me know what you think if you have a minute. Thanks!

Posted in CSS, Recent News | Tagged | 1 Comment

Speed Up Your Website

By Spencer Barfuss | April 12, 2008

Here is a little slideshow from Slideshare that showcases different methods of speeding up your site. It’s a very good list, and should help you out on your next project if you’re really wanting to speed up your client’s website.

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Organizing Fonts

By Spencer Barfuss | April 7, 2008

Hello everyone, I just received a free catalog from a font producing company called House Industries.  They have some pretty cool looking fonts that I think I’d like to eventually buy for future projects, but here’s my question…

How do you organize your fonts?  Or maybe I should ask, “What is the best way to organize your fonts on your computer?”  My main concern is just wondering if I’m going to remember which ones I’ve purchased, and which ones are just cheap fonts that I’ve downloaded for free somewhere.

Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.  Really wanting to get organized in here!

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Wordpress 2.5 Successfully Upgraded

By Spencer Barfuss | March 29, 2008

I’m really lovin’ the new interface design for the most version Wordpress 2.5. The design is great, and it’s also great how you can customize the look of everything through CSS. Happy Cog should did do a great job on this redesign for Wordpress. Can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Check out the screenshot of the login page below.

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