There are many websites out there that boast the ability to have designs done for you on the cheap, or more quickly, or what have you, and most of them I tend to ignore. That being said, there is one that has come to my attention recently which irks me more than any I’ve seen before it. 99designs.com is a giant pile of ripoff, wrapped up in web 2.0 jargon. I’m being quite forward and mean, yes, but the “how it works” statement is enough to make me very angry.

To quote the opening line:

Getting something designed at 99designs is easy. We help you run a “design contest”, where thousands of designers compete to create the best possible design to meet your needs. All you need is a clear idea of what you want designed and how much you’re prepared to pay for it.

First off, just the initial idea of a “design contest” is very off putting. Let’s be honest, you’re not running a contest, you’re trolling for a cheap designer. Also, contests are generally a situation in which you throw in your name (sometimes some sort of entry fee) and you win a prize. I can’t recall how many contests I’ve entered in my life, but I can say I never entered a contest where I win the right to be exploited.

Another point “designers compete to create the best possible design to meet your needs” is completely and utterly false. Blindly submitting a design, amidst “thousands” of other people, to a project you know very little about (reading a small brief is no substitute for actual client-designer interaction) is not meeting a client’s needs. Face it, most of the designers probably glanced over the brief, if that, and a good majority of the clients don’t even really fill it out to any useful extent. It’s a small step above picking a template. The design is going to reflect the designers habits and likes, and it may not suit the client at all.

Secondly, and probably my biggest problem, is this line:

Step 2: Set Your Budget

We will ask you how much you’re willing to pay the winning designer to purchase their design. This is called the prize. Prize amounts generally range from $50 to $500 depending on the type of design you require.

Right off the bat, they are instructing users to not only underpay the designer who “wins” but also, undercut any potential freelancers who would be competing against this site for business.

Essentially, this whole website is a pitch for spec work. It dumbs down, and devalues what a good, honest, and knowledgeable designer can do for a client. It’s also flooding the market with less-than-inspired designs, because most self-respecting designers are not going to commit their work to this website.

I urge you to go ahead and poke around on the site, think long and hard about what they are doing, poke around in their terms and conditions, and make an educated decision for yourself.

Also, while deciding what to write in this article, I came across another designer aggravated by this “service” graphicPUSH says this a lot more eloquently than I probably could, and I suggest you read his article as well.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, so to make up for it, I give you free icons. (You can’t be mad at me now, internet people)

It’s a 4-icon pack, consisting of some of the illustrations in my site. You’ll find them both in Mac and Windows format. I hope you enjoy!

[drain file 3 show mytemplate]

[drain file 4 show mytemplate]

Wordpress version 2.5 has hit the internets. I’ve just completed the updating process, and the site is now using the latest 2.5 build. I’m pretty impressed with it so far, it seems all my functions and plugins are still in tact, minus a few minor problems that I’ve corrected (by either fixing or disabling). So far, everything seems okay. The auto update feature for the blog and plugins is really nice, and worked flawlessly on the few things I tested it with. The visual/html post editor updates are also nice (although unfortunately a few of my plugin’s TinyMCE buttons have disappeared, which I’m sure will be sorted out eventually). I’m going to be messing around and testing the features today and as the weeks pass, but I’m sure none of ya’ll will see any of that.

As always, if anything is acting wonky on the site, feel free to comment on this post, or head over to the about page and fill out the form.  Thanks, and Stay Tuned!

So, I’m a pretty big fan of 8 bit stylings. I’m especially fond and nostalgic when it comes to 8bit sounds and music made with 8bit sounds. So when my friend Ben pointed me in the direction of MilkyTracker, I couldn’t pass up playing with it. Turns out it’s super fun. I’m not very musically oriented. I had a brief stint as a flautist in school, but I really only retained the ability to read sheet music and perhaps keep a beat better than your average person, but even that may be a stretch. In other words, I’m not so good at the music making. Despite this, I had fun playing around with it, and was able to churn out a little something. Check it out of you would like. Some more may begin to pepper this site occasionally.

So, I wanted to get into soldering, circuit boards, micro controllers, and all that super fun tech nerd stuff. So I went ahead and bought myself some supplies.

Then I got some soldering tools and started to get down and dirty with circuit boards. I haven’t soldered anything in a VERY long time, and this was my first excursion into soldering electronics. It actually went quite well. I only screwed up a few times, and each time it wasn’t something major or unfixable.

In the end I ended up with a working arduino board, and a prototyping shield to test out circuits before committing them.

Check out the full gallery of stuff here.

Also, the most FUN PART, is this video of me (finally) working out how to fade LEDs using the arduino. I created a little makeshift cube, with LEDs fading in different patterns to create a color shifter. It’s very purty. (it had to be super dark in the room so I could effectively pick up the color shift on camera)