How to Create Digital Letterhead for Your Department and Job Search We at ProfHacker are quite aware of the onset of the academic job market. That’s why you’ve seen recent posts from Erin about the five things that helped her survive the job market and one from Heather about keeping track of job postings. (Don’t miss Heather’s call yesterday for your tips on managing the job application process.) If you dig a bit deeper into the ProfHacker archives, you will be able to find posts from Nels offering ways to stand out on the job search; from Erin on using an NFL analogy to explain the academic job market; and from me last May advising you to get started new (then?) If I had to pick just one tool that helped me survive the three runs at the academic job market that I’ve had, it would be Interfolio. There’s just one drawback to using Interfolio: you’re not able to put your letter on your prestigious school’s fancy letterhead. It turns out that it’s not all that hard to make your own digital letterhead template. How to Make Your Own Digital Letterhead
Weird and Wacky Furniture By Straight Line Designs EmailEmail Straight Line Designs is a one-of-a-kind workshop that has been operating out of Vancouver, British Columbia for the past 25 years. In addition to installations, sculptures and private commissions, designer Judson Beaumont and his staff of eight full-time craftspeople have designed and constructed a variety of wacky cartoon-style furniture and projects for public institutions and children’s exhibitions throughout North America and abroad. Focused on quality and custom design, Judson’s studio stays far away from mass production and is as imaginative as children themselves. Website: StaightLineDesigns.com 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.Daddy Long Legs
The real cost of free | Cory Doctorow | Technology Last week, my fellow Guardian columnist Helienne Lindvall published a piece headlined The cost of free, in which she called it "ironic" that "advocates of free online content" (including me) "charge hefty fees to speak at events". Lindvall says she spoke to someone who approached an agency I once worked with to hire me for a lecture and was quoted $10,000-$20,000 (£6,300-£12,700) to speak at a college and $25,000 to speak at a conference. Lindvall goes on to talk about the fees commanded by other speakers, including Wired editor Chris Anderson, author of a book called "Free" (which I reviewed here in July 2009), Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and marketing expert Seth Godin. In Lindvall's view, all of us are part of a united ideology that exhorts artists to give their work away for free, but we don't practice what we preach because we charge so much for our time. It's unfortunate that Lindvall didn't bother to check her facts. Why do I do this? Networks won't be harder to use.
» The Many Reasons We Rely Upon Our Clutter Post written by Leo Babauta. Clutter isn’t an easy problem to solve, no matter how many times I might tell you to toss it out, tell you that you don’t need it. A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements. Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us. We put our emotions into them. They are our crutches. What are we to do when we discover these crutches? The Roles of Clutter These aren’t all true for every person, but I’ve found they’re very common: 1. New habit: Learn to combat fears with information. 2. New habit: Learn that you don’t need external objects to be attractive or good enough. 3. New habit: Learn to live in the present. 4. New habit: Realize that things aren’t love, and that the love is only in people. 5. New habit: Squash every bit of hope in yourself. 6. New habit: Deal with the problems. 7. New habit: Take one piece, and deal with that. 8. Clutterfree Book & Course
How To Convince The Client That Your Design Is Perfect - Smashing Magazine Swing Shelf So…as you can see this pregger mama has been quite busy with all sorts of DIY projects that will complete the room being shared by kiddo #1 and kiddo #2. This project was quick and easy, plus it turned out really cute and was theme-appropriate for my lil’ surfer boys. I was inspired by the adorable Swing Shelf from Pottery Barn Kids (no longer available…bummer dude!). So, what’s a girl to do? I had to make it!! Here is the Pottery Barn Kids version ($69.00): Here is the Rebecca version ($12.00): Pretty cool, eh? Materials: (1) 27″ x 7″ Prefinished Laminate shelf (Home Depot) (2) Small Drawer Pulls (8) Drywall anchors and screws Jute Rope – cut to preferred length Drill, Hammer, Screw Driver, Level Drill four holes—one in each corner, offset approximately 1 inch. Measure the distance between the drilled holes on the shelf, and mark that distance on the wall once you decide on the height of your shelf. Feed the rope through the holes in the shelf closest to the wall and knot.
Take Your Web Designs to the Next Level By Shannon Noack When you start out as a web designer, you do all you can to grasp the basic design principles so that you have a solid foundation to start your journey on. As you become more proficient in your craft, you start to learn techniques that are more advanced, and you begin to implement bigger and better things in your work until you reach a point where you feel pretty comfortable to step outside the bounds of the ordinary. What else can you do to take your web designs to the next level? Here are just a handful of ideas you can consider if you’d like to take your web designs the next level. Delve Into Design Details If you look at most beautifully designed websites, you’ll notice that they are often set apart not because of big things, but the little details that let you know the designer took great care and attention of even the smallest of things. Here are three good examples of web designs that delve into the details. Foundation Six TNVacation Capo Hull Digital Live 10 8 Faces
Rashad Alakbarov Paints with Shadows and Light « Cat in water Artist Rashad Alakbarov from Azerbaijan uses suspended translucent objects and other found materials to create light and shadow paintings on walls. The best part is that you can easily create something similar at home – all you need is one or two lamps and some items from your desk. The stunning light painting below, made with an array of colored airplanes has found its way to exhibitions like the Fly to Baku at De Pury Gallery in London. Rashad adds, “Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself.” Comments comments
Test Usability By Embracing Other Viewpoints - Smashing Magazine Advertisement As Web technology improves, users expect Web-based widgets to be useful, content to be relevant and interfaces to be snappy. They want to feel confident navigating a website and using its functionality. They crave being able to get things done with little friction and on demand. People are picky. A good user experience leaves people with a sense of accomplishment. Unlike certain other phases of production, testing for user experience is an ongoing process. Developing a website or app often takes up several phases. Does this solve a problem or serve a purpose? These questions are relevant when the concept is being refined, half-way through development and six months after launch… in fact, they never stop being relevant. Regular Upkeep And Rigorous Pruning If a website is to serve its visitors well, then the people who maintain it must address the problem of relevance. How does it benefit or persuade the end user? If content might be useful, then it also might be unnecessary. (al)
A dream treehouse · Sheepy Me I've always wanted a treehouse when I was a child but living in a city made it a little difficult. Instead, we would built forts, tents or just crawl under the bed to play. It's weird right now but back then we really loved having those hideouts where nobody could find us. But what happens if you're an adult and still dream of a treehouse? I did a little web research for treehouses all over the world and oh my what I found. Safe Arbor in Switzerland. Trillium. The enchanted forest. A modern, pitched roof treehouse. A treehouse morning. A dream treehouse. Those are just a few of many treehouses.
Open Leadership on Transparency One more post on Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead , by Charlene Li. This time on transparency. I hear librarians talk about making the library “more transparent.” Or library staff saying “management needs to be more transparent.” What does that mean, exactly? I like how Charlene redefines transparency. Maybe it’s just semantics, but makes a lot more sense to me than . So, how does my library make our information and processes visible? all our policies posted online (actually, you’d be surprised how many libraries don’t do this), as are our financial and board meeting minutes. most of our website’s pages include a comment box and/or multiple ways to connect with us … and we answer those comments promptly. Our weekly management meeting notes are shared with staff on our staff intranet (again, with a comment box). We tend to include all levels of staff in workgroups. What are ways YOU make your information and processes visible to staff and to customers?
7 Major Ways We're Digitizing Our World, And 3 Reasons We Still Want Hardcopies Photo via AMagill via Flickr Creative Commons The digitization of our world has been a forward march for years now; still, it might be surprising to step back and look at how physical copies of our stuff have changed into something else entirely. And even more surprising might be to go beyond the debate of the level of pleasantness of reading a paperback book versus an e-book on a Kindle and look at how digitizing everything might save space and shrink the environmental footprint of everything we produce, but also put the longevity of our information at risk. 7 Ways We've Digitized Our World Photo via mccun934 Flickr Creative Commons1. 2. 3. Photo via smip.co.uk Flickr Creative Commons4. 5. 6. 7. Photo via Evil Erin Flickr Creative Commons 3 Problems Of Turning from Atoms to Bits 1. That's part of the danger of our digitized world -- we don't know how to store things for safe keeping hundreds of years into the future. From the BBC: 2. From Technology Review: 3.
71 percent of tweets are ignored Ever feel like you're talking to a brick wall on Twitter? That might be because 71 percent of tweets get absolutely no response from the world. Toronto-based social media analytics company Sysomos scanned 1.2 billion messages that were sent in August and September 2009 to try and get some idea of the kind of conversations that are going on. They discovered that more than seven in every ten tweets sink without any kind of reaction from the world. Of the remainder, just six percent get retweeted, and 92 percent of those retweets occur within the first hour. Multiplying those probabilities together means that fewer than one in 200 messages get retweeted after an hour's gone by. That leaves 23 percent of messages that get an @reply. It's not clear how the company treated messages that were both replied-to and retweeted. The company also commissioned an animated visualisation of the data.
37 Productivity Tips for Working From Anywhere The Non-Traditional Workspaces Series is supported by RingCentral, the leading business phone system designed for today’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, and mobile professionals. Visit RingCentral.com to learn more. The days of shackling your business to a brick and mortar office are over. Even people who work primarily in traditional offices occasionally find themselves working on the road or from their kitchen tables. We asked people who work from home, from coworking spaces, in coffee shops, on the road and in offices to share their secrets for a productive day no matter where they're working. From Home Joel Ohman, the founder of Domain Superstar, uses three monitors to maximize his productivity at home. Home workers reduce their commuting time to zero, aren't distracted by coworkers, and can work on whatever schedule fits their style. Have a work space that has a door that can be closed. From the Office From a Coworking Space From a Coffee Shop From The Road