Favorite Songs of 2011

I found plenty of songs I loved this year. I couldn’t stop at 50-ish, so here’s a list of 100 songs that I didn’t get tired of hearing. As usual, most are indie rock and electronic artists that need more attention. I have issues with online streaming services because they don’t let people listen to the full song unless they are a member, or they don’t have all of the songs I want. Spotify doesn’t carry all of the songs I have here. In addition to streaming these kickass songs, check out some of my Fave Albums of 2011 on Amazon. Enjoy!

1. Villains of the Moon – Cold Cave
2. Way Back Home – Bag Raiders
3. Youth Knows No Pain – Lykke Li
4. Street Clothes – Fool’s Gold
5. Problem Solved – Kaiser Chiefs
6. Machu Picchu – The Strokes
7. Up, Up, Up – Givers
8. Sometime – Dive
9. Jump Into the Fog – The Wombats
10. Climbing Walls – Strange Talk
11. No Future Shock – TV On The Radio
12. Every Melting Degree – Violens
13. Belong – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
14. Still Life – The Horrors
15. Amanaemonesia – Chairlift
16. Air Arizona – Maritime
17. Winter 1 – Pete And The Pirates
18. All of Us – Painted Palms
19. Mindkilla – Gang Gang Dance
20. Midnight City – M83
21. You Are a Tourist – Death Cab for Cutie
22. Bury Us Alive – Starf*ckr
23. Contact High – Architecture in Helsinki
24. Utopia – YACHT
25. Please Ask For Help – Telekinesis
26. Colours – Grouplove
27. Norgaard – The Vaccines
28. Aberdeen – Cage the Elephant
29. By Your Hand – Los Campesinos
30. Icarus – Edelweiss
31. Manners – Icona Pop
32. Young Blood – The Naked And Famous
33. Moneygrabber – Fitz and the Tantrums
34. Rubicon – UME
35. New Beat – Toro Y Moi
36. Waiting for the Fall – Torpedo
37. 2 Hearts – Digitalism
38. She Wants – Metronomy
39. Nuclear Seasons – Charli XCX
40. Replicants – Millionyoung
41. Greenleaf – Generationals
42. Windows – Broken Bells
43. Living Dead – Selebrities
44. Drops – Jookabox
45. Options – Gomez
46. Baby It’s Fine – A Classic Education
47. Polish Girl – Neon Indian
48. Life Fantastic – Man Man
49. Modern Art – Black Lips
50. Lonely Boy – The Black Keys
51. He Gets Me High – The Dum Dum Girls
52. My Rescue – Canyons
53. Beaver – Holger
54. Memories of the Future – Handsome Furs
55. Can’t Keep Johnny Down – They Might Be Giants
56. Louder Than Ever – Cold War Kids
57. Walking Disasters – The Wombats
58. Helena Beat – Foster the People
59. So High – Ringo Deathstarr
60. Senator – Stephen Malkmus
61. Chasing It Down – Mother Mother
62. White Elephant – Ladytron
63. Hold Your Hand – Tom Vek
64. Satellite – The Kills
65. The Choke – Austra
66. Balance – Future Islands
67. Dreaming – Seapony
68. Shadow – Gringo Star
69. Get in Line – I’m From Barcelona
70. Glawio – Com Truise
71. Real is a Feeling – Pictureplane
72. Humdrum – The Pallers
73. Shell Games – Bright Eyes
74. Wake and Be Fine – Okkervil River
75. K is for Kelson – Bibio
76. Call It Off – Washed Out
77. Hours – Tycho
78. Monte Carlo – U.S. Royalty
79. This is Why We Fight – Decemberists
80. Überlin – R.E.M
81. I Follow Rivers Dave Sitek Remix – Lykke Li
82. Corvalis – Dive
83. Reunion – M83
84. Tongue Tied – Grouplove
85. Civilian – Wye Oak
86. If You Wanna – The Vaccines
87. Fall – M83
88. Fever Chill – Telekinesis
89. The Look – Metronomy
90. Whirring – The Joy Formidable
91. Still Sound – Toro Y Moi
92. Mine is Yours Passion Pit Remix – Cold War Kids
93. Beat and the Pulse – Austra
94. Run Right Back – The Black Keys
95. Forever Boy – A Classic Education
96. Baby Missiles – The War On Drugs
97. Lose It – Austra
98. See Blind Through – Canyons
99. A Chore (Tom Vek’s Re-Edit) – Tom Vek
100. Under a Blue Sky – Canyons

Favorite Albums 2011

Top 40 + honorable mentions on Amazon.com Listmania.

The problem is both buttons look the same. If I want to quickly save an article, I might not see which is which in that split second. It’s a user interface annoyance.

Fig. 1: Near the bottom of the browser pop-up window, the save and cancel button both look the same.

Also, the save button is first, on the left, while the cancel button is to its right or last.

Since we read from left to right, it makes more sense to have the save button on the right; it’s the next page, or final destination. In usability terms, I see left pointing arrows to mean go back, while right pointing arrows go forward. Same with cancel/submit button systems. Mac OS and apps place the final ok button on the right. Since I’m an Apple/Mac user, the order seems backwards.

Some of you might say it doesn’t matter what order the buttons are in — it’s a personal preference. True, Windows systems have the desired action first, with the cancel option last. Usability studies show about 50/50 preference for action button order.

However, the consensus was the same for which button needs to be most noticeable. The desired action button needs to stand out more than the cancel button (which is secondary).

I’ve redesigned the save button, making it (the desired action) stand out more. Cancel is less bright because it isn’t the user’s first choice. I used green because it matched their brand identity, and green is another good action button color (besides red). Also, the button doesn’t have to be a graphics file, it can be done in CSS.

Fig. 2: After a slight UI rework, it’s clearer which button is the confirmed action.

Learn more about Evernote. You can do a lot more with it. It’s like a digital scrapbook that holds a variety of media like web page screen shots, articles, photos, lists and notes.

– Anita

On January 1, 2010, I decided to participate in Project 365 — where I took a photo a day for a full year. I chose the photo medium because photography is faster production-wise than drawing or designing something. Taking photos requires looking for interesting details, seeing the composition boundaries of the frame, and knowing the right moment to take the photo if there are people involved. Since I’d be capturing something that already exists, I knew I could commit to the full year photography challenge outside of my full-time job.

With digital photography, I could download the photos to my computer after pressing the camera’s shutter button. Adjusting the contrast, colors, sizing down each photo in Photoshop, tagging in Flickr, or catching up on shots took more time. My project requirement was carrying a camera with me nearly everywhere I went, every day. I used a Canon Powershot G11 camera because it was lightweight but decent quality, as well as my iPhone camera.

Life gets in the way

After a few months, I started to get tired of the consistent daily challenge. Most days, taking more than one photo wasn’t difficult. Other days, I couldn’t wait around for some street photography moments to happen because I had to get back to the office. Sometimes I didn’t see anything interesting to photograph in my work neighborhood area. I admit, I didn’t upload a photo every day that day. And sometimes I used photos from the same week that I hadn’t taken the exact day. I’d batch upload photos at the end of a week, and assign a date to them. My photos were a combination of street photography, people, objects, signs, places and events. I would have loved to do more arty shots, but didn’t take much time to set up the lighting or props.

I fell behind after I got back from Vancouver BC, and after I moved from San Francisco to Pacifica. I had to catch up editing, uploading and tagging about two and a half weeks’ worth of photos. Most of my life, I’d started many outside art and design projects but never finished them. I wouldn’t give up on Project 365, it was doable, and I needed to prove to myself I could finish it.

Advice on how to make it through

I always eye details around me as I walk down the street during lunch hour or my commute. Some days when I didn’t see much to photograph, I’d capture objects in my house. If you’re stuck when you do it, try photographing objects around your home. To break up the monotony, I threw in some drawings I made during that time as well. The key is to take lots and lots of photos, try different angles, framing/composition, abstract close-ups or lighting. Then, pick a few decent ones.

Mix up photo ideas with people (street or portraits), places (environment, nature, weather), things (objects, architecture, sculptures, signs, patterns, books, bags), events, holidays, colors, numbers, pets, your commute, or something that represents a summary of that day. Nowadays, there are lots of iPhone apps that make photo effects more interesting if you want to add something extra.

If the Flickr community comments on your work, it’s rewarding and helpful. Some photographers are supportive and will critique your work if you give them feedback on their photos. Social media encourages people to share information and make connections. Posting your photo links via Twitter is useful, but do it in moderation.

Why do it?

I participated in Project 365 to finish a long term side project, to challenge my way of seeing things, and to become better at the ‘medium.’ A side perk was finding interesting photo opportunities. The photo project also chronicled pieces of my life for that year. View my Project 365 on Flickr.

– Anita

Favorite Songs of 2010

Every year, I’m amazed at the great music indie rock and electronic artists produce. It’s sad how bland and repetitive commercial radio continues to be. These songs have great melodies, you can sing along to, dance to, rock out to, or savor the lush electronic sounds. There are a lot of songs, but I encourage you to explore them all. These artists deserve more credit. I’m sure some are new to many of you. The link to my favorite albums on Amazon is at the bottom. Enjoy!

1. Something Good Can Work – Two Door Cinema Club
2. Let’s Write a Book – Field Music
3. Doubt – Delphic (tie w/ most of album)
4. Heart is Strange – School of Seven Bells (tie w/ most of album)
5. Ambling Alp – Yeasayer (tie w/ Madder Red)
6. Acid Reign – Violens (tie w/ Another Strike Restrained, Violent Sensation Descends & most of album)
7. Never Follow Suit – Radio Dept
8. Floating Vibes – Surfer Blood (tie w/ Anchorage)
9. Your Hands (Together) – The New Pornographers (tie w/ Crash Years)
10. Breakneck Speed – Tokyo Police Club
11. Cascade (Mattie Safer Full on Remix) – Deluka
12. Moonless March – Aloha
13. Boy – Ra Ra Riot
14. Red Lights – Holy Fuck
15. Recall – Hesta Prynn
16. Ready to Start – Arcade Fire (tie w/ City With No Children, Sprawl II, & most of album)
17. Cameras – Matt & Kim
18. Everything You Wanted (RAC Mix) – Kele
19. Write About Love – Belle and Sebastian
20. The Worse it Gets – Penguin Prison
21. Up, Up, Up – Givers
22. Starring – Freelance Whales
23. God Will Break It All – Krikor & the Dead Hillbillies
24. Darling – Magic Man (tie w/ Daughter, Like Sailors)
25. You Were Young – Yes Giantess
26. Way Back Home – Bag Raiders
27. What We Do – Devo (tie w/ Later is Now, Mind Games, Human Rocket, Please Baby & most of album)
28. Ribbons of Light – Kids of 88
29. Photojournalist – Small Black
30. Odessa – Caribou
31. My Kz, Ur Bf (Grum Remix) – Everything Everything
32. Black Gold – Foals
33. Sometimes – Miami Horror
34. Got Nuffin’ – Spoon
35. No Pins Allowed (Here we are remix) – James Yuill
36. Neckbrace – Ratatat (tie w/ Drugs)
37. Bottled in Cork – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
38. Home – LCD Soundsystem
39. Stylo (Alec Metric Remix) – Gorillaz
40. Bang Bang – Mark Ronson
41. Indestructable (A–Track Remix) – Robyn
42. AM/FM – !!! (Chk Chk Chk)
43. Scribble – Underworld
44. Lovesick (Once Again) – The Hundred in the Hands
45. Colors – The Pass
46. Bright Lit Blue Skies – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
47. Sunray Venus – Throwing Muses
48. Chaos – New Young Pony Club (tie w/ We Want To)
49. Mouthful of Diamonds – Phantogram (tie w/ When I’m Small, Let Me Go, Turn it Off & most of album)
50. Swim Until You Can’t See Land – Frightened Rabbit
51. Sun Demon – Stereolab
52. Boy Lilikoi – Jonsi

Favorite Albums

Top 40 + honorable mentions on Amazon.com Listmania.

RIP woxy.com I hope it gets resurrected soon…

– Anita

A bunch of free indie rock and dance mp3s with Halloween-themed content. I could add more, but I’ll stop. You can stream all songs by clicking on bottom left grey tab (music player). Enjoy

1. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
2. Blood Gets Thin – Pete And The Pirates
3. Sukie in the Graveyard – Belle & Sebastian
4. Bone Machine – Pixies
5. Dawn Of The Dead – Does It Offend You, Yeah?
6. Everyday Is Halloween – Ministry
7. Heads Will Roll – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
8. Ghosts That Wake You – Follow That Bird!
9. Blood – Editors
10. So Haunted – Cut Copy
11. Wicked Blood – Sea Wolf
12. Bones – Electric Tickle Machine
13. Nemesis (Extended Mix) – Shriekback
14. Skeleton Boy – Friendly Fires
15. Black Eyes (Le Castle Vania Remix) – Snowden
16. Ghost Under Rocks (Passion Pit Remix) – Ra Ra Riot
17. The Shaded Forests – Deastro
18. Creeper – Islands
19. Ghost Of York – As Tall As Lions
20. Howlin’ For You – The Black Keys
21. Bite Hard – Franz Ferdinand
22. Cemetry Gates – The Smiths
23. Walking With A Ghost – Tegan and Sara
24. From the Devil Himself – Viva Voce
25. Spider Cider – Man Man
26. They Are Night Zombies They Are Neighbors They Have Come Back From The Dead – Sufjan Stevens
27. Skeleton Song – Kate Nash
28. The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead – Crash Test Dummies
29. The Killing Moon – Echo & The Bunnymen
30. Cuts You Up – Peter Murphy

– Anita

Your conflict is not making something. You are driven by the need to express yourself. Ideas float around your restless mind.

You sketch, toy around with chords, write a draft, cut out a model, get your hands messy. If you are multi-disciplinary, you crave to make something great in each medium to cover those interests. Once you start, the problem is which idea to create into a final project. Then, it’s how to stay motivated to follow through and finish.

When you’ve gotten farther along in the creation process, you get doubts. You ask yourself if it makes sense, or if you’ve covered enough bases. You tell yourself it isn’t good enough, there is more to learn, and you’re afraid to finish. And how can it be finished if you are a perfectionist? You see projects from others who do it better. What’s the point?

The point is to try to make something. When you “get into the flow,” your mind is fully absorbed in a task and engaged in the creation process. Getting into the flow stimulates your mind, entertains you, gives you meaning and propels your sanity. Your creation might make your life better — but if you’re clever — it makes other people’s lives better.

–Anita

*larger version on Flickr*

“Mystify.” Art with some song lyrics from the late Michael Hutchence (INXS).

• Mystify (mp3)
• Mystify full lyrics (no annoying pop up ads)

*larger version on Flickr*

I visually played around with the brilliant lyrics “Heavy words are so lightly thrown” from the Smiths song “What difference does it make?”

Some Morrissey songs for your enjoyment in honor Moz’s Birthday on May 22nd.

• Tomorrow
• Boy Racer
• November Spawned a Monster

These are some of his faster paced songs. There are a million Smiths songs I love, but no time to go through those now…

Here are my sketchnotes from the session “Hit It (Hard) with the Pretty Stick” from Jenny Lam:

View my Web 2.0 Expo photos from this year, 2009, 2008, 2007.

This article does not go into the marketing aspects of how to send bulk emails through an Email Service Provider (ESP).

Why are HTML Emails so Finicky?

The main reason there are limitations with HTML Email is because there are many Email Clients (ie. Outlook, Mail for Mac OS X, Lotus Notes) and web based email services (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail). Nearly every one of these services or clients has their own system of dealing with rendering HTML. There is a similar issue when dealing with web browsers. If you have ever been surprised by the look of a web page when after building it, it looks okay in one browser and not so good in another, you will know what I mean. Many of the modern techniques we now rely on in web design don’t translate well or work at all in HTML email.

Coding like it’s 1999

Outlook is one of the most common email programs businesses use. It has almost no CSS support and there are some unexplained spacing quirks it renders once a preview is sent from an Email Service Provider. The article below can be used as a guide for the archaic html coding that is used.

Coding Checklist

Do’s

• Start a table and be sure to specify widths and quote all html attributes. The <td> cell also should have widths and aligns set. Don’t set height attributes for tables or table cells. e.g.:
  <table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="600" valign="top" align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff">content</td>
</tr>
</table>
• Avoid CSS (style sheets) for layout, or padding. Use inline CSS (I see you cringing…) for font declarations, which should work for most email clients, that means surrounding the the copy sections you want to style with the css code each time. You can add it in the table td tags: <td style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:12px; line-height:21px; color:#222222">content</td>
  If you need to style extra items, use a <span> tag.
  A Headline e.g. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:18px; line-height:21px; color:#222222">content</span>
• Embed html tags in their proper order, and make sure to close them. e.g. <ul><li>item</li></ul>. or <table...><tr><td>item</td></tr></table>.
• Line spacing issue – collapsing line-spacing between paragraph tags <p>, line spacing gets reset to 0 on some modern email clients. Solution: try <p style="margin-bottom:15px;">, or just use break tags <br> for line spacing.
• Use absolute filepaths for images and links (link to full hosted URL online)
  For example, don’t use this relative URL structure: images/file_name.gif
  Images should be hosted on an external web server. Use the absolute URL (full link path) e.g.: http://www.urlnamehere.com/email/images/file_name.gif
• Use alt tags for images, use .jpg or .gif image formats. Images used as background images behind some text in CSS won’t show in most email clients. You’ll need to fill the <td> cell with a background color
• Use widths and heights on all images and widths only for <td> cells
• Specify absolute widths for all tables e.g. width="600" (html 4 pixels) (height is not a table attribute)
• Keep the maximum width of the email to 600px – 650px wide so it’s viewable in many window sizes.

and Don’ts

• Empty table cells can collapse, use a "spacer" gif not   to pad cells
• No spaces in file names or links
• No CSS for positioning (floats)
• Do not use Flash, JavaScript, video or forms.
• Do not use background images

Special Characters

• Don’t use spaces or "%" symbols in file or image names. Limit names to alphanumeric characters and the underscores or dashes where spaces would have gone
• Watch out for formatted text characters such as curly quotes and spaces from Microsoft Word that don’t translate to HTML. Make sure special characters such as quotes and ampersands use the Nmemonic or Numeric format. Microsoft Word will usually format these wrong with it’s own curly quotes that won’t paste into Dreamweaver or an html editor properly, and inserts %numbers% for spaces or messes up links. You can paste the word doc text you’re working off of into a plain unformatted ASCII text reader or remember to retype those characters.

e.g. of common special characters used and their Nmemonic code format (copy the full characters in bold including the semi-colon:

*Run an html code Validator in Dreamweaver or on the web to ensure all tags are properly closed, and characters, etc. are encoded properly.

Sample file URLs (Based on existing campaigns)

• Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco
• Interop New York
• Enterprise 2.0 Conference
• Web 2.0 Expo New York

Resources

All in One Guides and Articles

• Ultimate Guide to HTML Emails – Basics, Tips, Tutorials and Resources (huge)
• 42 HTML email design resources
• Rock Solid HTML Emails
• Campaign Monitor Blog
• A Guide to CSS Support in Email
• Mailchimp Resources
• Sitepoint Article on Coding HTML Emails
• Marketing Sherpa: Email Marketing Category
• Surviving Inbox Congestion (Email usability study results)
• Are Your Email Messages Designed for Outlook 2007? Handy Tip Sheet of What NOT to Do
• Email Marketing Resources
• Glossary: Email and Direct Marketing
• eMarketer.com
• Clickz.com Features

HTML Email Templates

• Free Email Templates – Campaign Monitor
• ThemeForest Email Templates
• Free Email Templates | Mailchimp.com

Galleries – Note: While using mostly images looks better, it isn’t advised if your audience might have images turned off

• Beautiful Email Newsletters Gallery
• HTML Email Gallery – Campaign Monitor

Some great references for character encodings:

• html character entities
• http://vzone.virgin.net/sizzling.jalfrezi/chars.htm

Code converter tools: If you don’t want to write inline css these will convert for you

• Premailer
• Inline Styler
• The Automatic CSS Inliner Tool

Email Standards Resources

• Email Standards Project