Apetown

Imagine our delight when we discovered quite accidentally while browsing the internet that our quirky (ex) neighbour is a published author! :) When I told Sven I had found him out & had bought his book he said that I had just doubled his sales... Very witty, Sven :)

When we were away this weekend, I finished reading his book 'Apetown' to Geoff in the car & in various chilled environments (beach carpark etc) during the trip.

In my humble opinion, I think this book is well worth a read - its so "Cape Town", contains great metaphors & really fun character descriptions...

Just so you know, I really am waiting for the screenplay, Sven!
Apetown would make a great "Cape Town" movie... or maybe the book was so descriptive & vividly written that it feels like I did see the movie...Either way: I'm chuffed to know the author and have read his book... I love to see what friends are achieving creatively! :)

Gmail

Does anybody know what the stats are of corporates using Gmail?

I'm not sure what they are, but I think that a lot of people who are mobile use Gmail - or at least they should!! Some people have Gmail set up as their main base for multiple email addresses as Gmail... I believe that Gmail is definitly something to keep in mind....

My example:

• Although I have Outlook, I never open it unless I have to send out emailers with embedded images.
• I have 3 email addresses linked to my gmail account - which I can send from / receive to in one place.
• I also have my INCREDIBLE Gmail calender my documents and my blog linked
• I can access them / search for anything I've sent / received for the past 8 years, even from my cell phone at any given moment - no matter where I am...
• I never have to be afraid of losing anything due to computer crash or virus or anything going funny on my system...
• not to mention, Gmail has the best spam filter system I've ever come across ]
  

I've checked with a few very progressive & web-savvy friends, and they say that Microsoft Exchange has the biggest market share (for Corporates), and that if Corporates are using a Gmail type solution - they would use Google hosted Apps: www.google.com/a

I found this interesting article

I'm hooked on Gmail -- What do you think??


.

District 9

Geoff and I had a meeting in Durbanville again on Tuesday (after last Tuesday's meeting, we went to see 'My Life In Ruins' and I sprained my ankle)... This time, we arrived via detour to Paarl (don't even ask!!) and missed our meeting due to traffic and a lack of street names...

So we ended up in District 9. Joking - we were stuck in Durbanville..and there was nothing for it but to hit the nearest Thai restaurant (at 5pm!)...have a lovely dinner...and hight-tech me decided to book a movie via cell phone....

Ster Kinekor's website on mobile looks great...so I went through the whole process of booking tickets & we headed off to Tygervalley centre.......to discover that the movie we had booked for, EARTH....

"The story of three animal families and their amazing journeys across the planet we all call home. The film combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet⿿s wildest and most elusive creatures. "

only starts in about 2 weeks!!...and there's no way we're driving for over an hour to go see a movie......(why the site gives an option to see and book a movie that is only coming on in 2 weeks time is beyond me)....

The nice guy at the sales desk let us choose another movie to see so we chose the one that was starting next...and so we saw DISTRICT 9

We were blown away. A genre - Sci-fi Action Thriller - that I never expected to enjoy, by a 29year old South African (Neill Blomkamp), produced by Peter Jackson that is well worth seeing.

Have a read of some of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ....see the movie(!!) and decide for yourself.

.

Pushing Daisies

Geoff and I have been utterly FLOORED and are addicted to the brilliantly designed and executed series 'Pushing Daisies'
(Thanks Pete & Elaine!)

Wikipedia has some great info.

This is truly a 'designer' series. It is a visual treat for the senses...you can almost taste the pies! The detail is extraordinary...The wardrobe is exceptional....what I wouldn't give for some of the outfits that 'Chuck' wears... (She has a remarkably amazing wardrobe for a dead girl who has 'lost everything') !

...and to add the Dandelion car company staff uniform (or Bettie's Bees) to my fancy dress wardrobe...(or even my regular wardrobe if I had a job where I could be seen in funky funky outfits - working home its an effort to not put my slippers straight back on after my bath!)

The story line and sub-plots are great...very addictive: each one involves a murder & some crime solving by the main characters, Emmerson Cod, Ned, Chuck and sometimes Olive (who you will possibly dislike in the beginning but grow to LOVE!).
All characters have been perfectly cast.

The aunts: Lily and Vivian are amazing!!! They formed a synchronised swimming duo called the 'Darling Mermaid Darlings' and share matching personality disorders. Emmerson Cod is a knitter (!!) ... Olive breaks out into the odd musical number...Chuck is a bee keeper and Ned is the pie maker. The whole series is quirky from the way it is filmed to Aunt Vivian's eye patch!

I can go on and on about this. But I won't.
You'll just have to watch it for yourself! ;)

.

Font Q

For a long time I have been wishing I had the means to draw my own fonts / create my handwriting as a font....I have also wanted to give friends their handwriting in a font as a completely different and personalised gift - the main problem has been that font creation programs always seemed, to me, to be quite labour intensive way to go about things - I downloaded a free trial of a font program once & tried to create a font via digital drawing with a drawing tablet....and then with my mouse: both with unsatisfactory results & a waste of time.

Last week, through Smashing Apps' Twitter updates, I discovered YourFonts.com & within about 15 minutes I had my handwriting - as a font - installed on my computer!

The YourFonts.com site is super-easy to use:
There are steps on the right hand side which lead you through the process (which is clearly explained in the body of the page, with buttons to click that you just can't miss: no hunting around the page) -- one hardly has to think about it because it's all done for you! Easy as 1..2......font!

1 Print the Template
2 Complete the Template
3 Scan and Save the Template
4 Upload the Template
5 Preview Your Font (so quickly it's almost like magic! ...and you can put your own text in to see how it looks)
6 Download your font
7 Install and Use

The only place I got stuck at first was that I forgot to name my font, so the second time I did it, I ended up with a font of the same name 'YourFont' -- how blonde!! So remember to name your font on the upload page! There is also a copyright you can customise to attach to your font!

I re-drew & uploaded a few quickly drawn versions & found that if I tweak the alignments slightly in Photoshop - just move letters / characters to their base-lines if they're a bit up/under or rotate the letters slightly - the font looks more even, cleaner and nicer over-all in a body of text . I particularly had an issue with 'j' - especially after an 'a' - there was too much of a gap between the letters.

The best thing of all: It's FREE! ...and you don't need to sign up for anything if you don't want to!
Crossing fingers & holding thumbs (yes-simultaneously) that this service will stay free...

The site has clearly EXPLODED with popularity which is a clear indication that I am not the only person in need / want of this service - There were over 400 font generation tasks 'currently in the queue' after 1/2 hour of trying to get my upload in queue - repeatedly pressing the 'Upload Template' button & watching the queue decrease in hope that I'd be able to upload soon......And so I found myself in my first-ever 'digital queue'. The return of The Big Q? I sincerely hope not!