This guide will show you how to create your own favicon for your website without using any fancy Photoshop plugins, exterior websites, or any other dependency.

Create your image

All favicons are 16 x 16 pixels. This doesn’t give you a lot of room to play with, so try to stay simple. Focus on one simplified image, logo, or a couple letters. Using complicated gradients or text effects can also be troublesome, as there aren’t many pixels in your square to create many effects.

Regardless of the image editor your using (I’d suggest Adobe Photoshop), it may be easier to start off with a larger work area (for instance 50×50) and work wiht that until you get it right, then reduce down to 16×16 and save.

Save the image as a BMP file

After getting a design you like, select the “Save As…” option under the “File” menu. Then, under you file extensions options, select “BMP.” Hit “Save.” Another dialogue box pop up and ask what bit depth you’d like. 24bit is the default, and will be fine.

Rename the file in you folder (finder for Mac)

Navigate to where you new shiny favicon is on your computer, then simply right click, rename, and replace the “.bmp” with “.ico”. Your operating system may warn you against renaming the file, but just continue. Now you have a favicon! Drop it into your root directory for your web application, and the browsers will do the rest.

Example of minimum height problem and solution in Internet Explorer 6.

Styles

.min-height-post { color:#fff; }

.min-height-post div {
margin:0 0 20px 60px;
padding:10px 10px 10px 110px;
border:1px solid #ccc;
background:url(http://www.nothingarbitrary.com/wp-content/images/height-bkg.jpg) 10px 10px no-repeat #303f42;
}

.min-height-post .min-height { min-height:90px; }

.min-height-post .ie6 { _height:90px; }

There’s good news! The solution is simple: add a {display:inline;} to the floated element. This attribute will get IE6 back in line, and doesn’t have any negative affects on more contemporary browsers.

Stay tuned for more IE6 CSS tricks!

Check out the plugin here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10137

Download the full size image here!

For the hordes of us that sit at a computer all day, click-clacking away at keyboards and frying our eyes with LCD displays, there’s always the question of what to listen to. There’s a fine line between enjoyment and distraction, and knowing how to negotiate it can mean the difference between productivity and inaction.

Throughout this past year of working and listening, I’ve figured out what works best for me, choosing to listen to things that will help me maintain my focus and successfully block out the office chatter. So far, I’ve worked out a few basic truths to office productivity.




Talk Radio
It’s tempting to listen to audio books, podcasts, and internet talk radio during the day, but time after time I’ve found myself glazing over my work because I’ve been caught up in a sea of words. This is the most distracting and dangerous audio int he workplace. I love podcasts, and regularly listen to “Stuff You Should Know”, and “The Adam Corolla Podcast”, but only do so when I don’t have other more important things to concentrate on. Reserve the talk radio format for your commute.

Playlists
Playlists and “shuffle” are you best friends during the working day. I regularly throw together playlists that are hours long so that I don’t waste time browsing my music library.

Now for the good stuff. Here’s a list of my favorite music to work to. I’ve found that these bands offer the perfect mix of ambient, yet upbeat tunes that will keep you energized, focused, and productive.

1. Daft Punk

Website: http://www.daftpunk.com
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s definitely something to the catchy repetition that makes long periods of concentration easily to handle. I consider Daft Punk the Red Bull of work music.
Suggested Listening: Homework

2. Talkdemonic

Website: http://www.talkdemonic.com
The folktronic Portland-based duo consisting of Kevin O’Connor and Lisa Molinaro combine electronic percussion with acoustic drums, viola, banjo and accordion for a startling effect. Their punchy beats and smooth string melodies will serve to drown out the office ambiance without dominating your cerebellum.
Suggested Listening: Beat Romantic

3. Tortoise

Website: www.trts.com
Suggested Listening: It’s All Around You

4. Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto

Website: http://www.sitesakamoto.com
These two titans of ambience combine to create other-wordly sounds that make a perfect companion to the work day.
Suggested Listening: Insen

5. Junior Boys

Website: www.juniorboys.net
Suggested Listening: So This is Goodbye

6. Chihei Hatakeyama

Website: http://www.myspace.com/chiheihatakeyama
This Japanese electronic musician makes ambient “audial-meditations” similar to Sakamoto, but is much prettier and less challenging than his more-famous predecessor.
Suggested Listening: Minima Moralia

7. Riceboy Sleeps

Jón Þór Birgisson (lead singer in Sigur Ros) and his partner Alex Somers make “their ambient album.” Heavily treated synths and strings augment the singer’s famous falsetto for fantastic results.
Website: jonsiandalex.com

8. Mogwai

Website: www.mogwai.co.uk
Suggested Listening: Happy Songs for Happy People

9. The Books

Website: http://www.thebooksmusic.com
With the perfect blend of folk, electronica, soft vocals, and unusual compositions, this experimental duo keeps getting better.
Suggested Listening: The Lemon of Pink

10. The Necks

Website: www.thenecks.com
The Necks are an experimental jazz trio, whose blend of upbeat, yet enigmatic songs are a perfect accompaniment to the working environment. If you have to concentrate on your work closely, they’ll set the mood without getting in the way.

After getting a POP or IMAP email account with a hosting company, one of the most popular questions is how to I access it? This can lead down various rabbit holes that ultimately leave you frustrated and switching back to gmail, yahoo and, hopefully not, hotmail or AOL.

Stop right there! You picked that new email address for a very good reason, so lets put it to use.

The easiest way to access the account from anywhere is using the web mail that your hosting company has made available to you. For my hosting company 1and1 the mail can be accessed from their webmail address. With some email hosting this is not as simple, for example godaddy members have to log in to their account then navigate to their email account. A hassle for sure. Going to a simple web address is much easier. (*hint* *hint* use 1and1.)

If you’re thinking, “Well that’s great but I’m normally just on my personal computer. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could always have access to my email without logging in constantly.” I have a solution for you. An email client. You install this just like any other program and just like any other program there are many options.

A few basic requirements that narrowed my search, and should yours.

• Cost – Must be Free. There are too many great free options to pay for an email client.
• Ease of use – Should be intuitive to the user and familiar.
• Speed – The software will be on in the background, slowing down your computer is not an option.

I’ll address a few of the top ranked; Mac OS X Mail, Thunderbird, and Eudora Free.

Mac OS X Mail

Mac’s come with an email client installed, Mac OS X Mail (Mail). Since it is already installed, it’s going to be the easiest to access and its free. +1 so far.

Mail’s interface and client look like most other email clients, nothing out of the ordinary here. In this case, that’s a good thing. It has common features such as RSS feed reader, task list (to-do lists), and notes. The junk mail feature is pretty good at detecting and moving or removing spam mail. Ease of use check.

Since Mail is developed by Apple it is pretty well integrated in using the OS X engine. I have not experienced any noticeable delay’s while using Mail

Mozilla Thunderbird

This can be obtained by a simple download from mozillamessaging.com You’ll install this like any other Mac App. Download the file and for the option “Open with” choose “DiskImageMounter.App”. This will automatically open the installer when it has completed downloading. Once it has unpacked, drag the Thunderbird icon over to the “Applications” folder. This will copy the Thunderbird application to your applications folder. Finally, if you want it in your task bar, just drag the icon from you “Applications” folder to the Dock. Not too tedious and if you need more guidance, Mozilla has the answer. Overall easy set up and it is free.

Thunderbird for me is slightly more intuitive. This is more of a user preference issue. There’s nothing I can really point to other than it “feels” better. I swear it has nothing to do with the fact that it is an open source project and out there for developers to work on. I swear. Ok so that probably plays a part in my decision, but I think it should yours as well. This also means that the development of plug-ins is quite high. If there is a feature that you need that is not bundled with the initial install, chances are there is a plugin for it.

While running Thunderbird I have not noticed anything being slower. As far as how it compares in use to Mail for the most part they are quite close. Mail’s search seems to be quicker for me, while Thunderbird can speed up my use by it’s tagging functions.

Eudora (Free Version)

Like I stated in the beginning they had to be free. Eudora’s paid version is quite nice and might be better than the other two, but it is paid thus it is off the table for this comparison. On the Eudora’s Free version.

Eudora is refined like paid software should be. Eudora offers a fast and comfortable UI experience. Eudora provides several nice features like HTML formatting, multiple accounts and even throws in usage stats.

The free version has all the speed and refinement of it’s paid brother. It activated very smoothly and was prompt to repond to what I was doing. I again noticed nothing lagging or slowing down when in use.

Final Verdict

I declare the winner: Mozilla Thunderbird, on the strength of numbers. All three of these clients are at the top for a simple reason, they are all very good. You really can’t make a wrong choice with any of them. My select for off of the following. Eudora was passed over because some nice features that the other have are unavailable in the free version (Anti-spam measures and Fast Search – available for Windows only anyway). Mail and Thunderbird are close, but I gave the edge to Thunderbird for it’s flexibility in using plugins.

Thunderbird the best mail client for a Mac, rather, free email client.

The answer is none of the above. It is simple really, work from home. I don’t mean to quit your job or change jobs. Simply telecommute. The reasons are many and the downfalls have solutions.

A quick pro list for telecommuting:

• - No lead time to working. You wake up, and then 10 minutes after a shower you’re working.
• - Transportation emissions. Whether by car, motorcycle, or public transit there are emissions.
• - Time savings. No traffic between you and your computer.
• - Meetings or lack there of. At home you are not constantly fighting against being distracted. (If you are then it’s you’re own fault. Remove the distractions!)
• - More control over schedule. The ability to adapt your schedule to changing needs increases dramatically. (Need to pick up the kids at 4, just work a little later. Your likely to be done with work before you would have been home normally.)

Negatives for telecommuting:

• - Not in the office. There are few activities that you really need to be in the office for. The main one is social interaction. To solve this suggest meeting up with everyone after work at a bar close to you. (Preferably within walking or cycling distance.)
• - Technology. If you currently can’t connect to your office pc to do your work from home, suggest software that makes the process easy. (gotomypc is just one example)
• - Management. You might have laughed at this one, but it is a concern. To alleviate this, go over what you plan to do the day before telecommuting. This sets clear tasks and goals for the next day between you and your boss.

Overall you will be more productive, live a “Greener” lifestyle and have an overall higher job statisfaction. All wins in my book.