Mick's World

Since using WordPress for a while now i thought i’d write a list of some of the plugins that i use to enhance various features of this particular WordPress installation.

These are plugins that i wouldn’t want to be without since activating them in the admin interface. So here’s the list (in no particular order):

• Akismet - Anti comment spam
• Email Immunizer - Immunizes email addresses from spambots
• More Smilies - Extended smily sets
• PJW Wordpress Version Check - As the name suggest, excellent plugin to have
• Google Sitemaps - Creates sitemap xml file for use with Google Sitemaps
• Scrobbler - Displays Last.fm playlists
• WP-DBManager - Manage your WordPress database, optimize, backup and restore easily
• WP-ShortStat - Excellent statistics plugin with heaps of information
• WP-ContactForm - Insert a contact form with one tag
• WP-Cache - Caches accessed pages and posts for faster load times

I’m really bad at drawing. I’ve never been good at it, i don’t know why, but i’m not good with a pen or pencil. Don’t know about painting as i haven’t done too much of that, apart from water colour paintings in primary school but that’s about it.

I stumbled across this site about a week ago, illustrationclass.com. As stated on the site “The tutorials on this site are geared to equip the creative in their pursuit of artistic excellence”. The author of the site has written articles on creative exercises as well as tutorials on creating illustrative works.

There isn’t a huge amount of text within each post, but downloaded examples of the creative process in which each piece was produced. I find this useful as practical examples are a great way to learn. Each file has the steps from the idea stage to the final design.

The definition of procrastination:

pro·cras·ti·nate (pr-krst-nt, pr-)

v. intr.
To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.

v. tr.
To postpone or delay needlessly.

Setting goals is easy. You think about what you’d like to achieve and make a plan of it. Milestones are a great way of making sure you stay on track. There really is no excuse for not setting goals.

There’s something that’s heaps easier than making a plan of what you’d like to achieve in the future. Procrastination.

You start something and then get distracted and the procrastination snowball sneaks up behind me and i feel like Indiana Jones in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Anyway of course it is possible to talk your self out of the downward spiral, but you gotta get the motivation to do that. The best way i’ve found is to just bite the bullet and get on with it, although that’s not always that simple.

While writing this i thought that there would probably be something written about procrastination on Steve Pavlina’s blog. He’s written many great articles and it’s worth bookmarking his article feed.

There’s an article about Conscious Procrastination, which if you are a procrastinator you’ll agree with many of the points made. To help overcome procrastination there’s also an article named Overcoming Procrastination.

Well i’d better finish this post because i’m currently procrastinating. Time to get back to work.

DataTiles from Sony. This is absolutely insane. I don’t need to say anything, but watch the movie on that page.

More good stuff like that can be found at the Sony Interaction Lab

Looking at this reminded me, due to the interactivity, of a site called Worthers’Original. If you go into the works sections you can find some pretty crazy stuff made using Processing.

Processing looks interesting and i’d like to look at it in more depth. But the DataTiles from Sony, they’re on my Christmas wish list!

First off take a look at this crazy Lego construction, the soccer stadium in Munich has been made out of Lego, it’s even got the lights and all.

I didn’t watch much of the soccer, as i’m more of a football fan, i know i know soccer is football, but i don’t watch is so, moving on. I do watch CSI though. If you’re a fan of the whole forensic science stuff, finding the pieces of the puzzle and piecing it all together to solve the crime, then this site is for you. Solve the Murder is, as the name suggests, a game where you solve a murder. You go to different crime scenes finding evidence and interviewing suspects. It’s put together well and is quite a fun game.

Another game that i had a go at recently was the McDonalds Flash game. You get to run your own McDonalds, either in to the ground or well, it’s your choice. It’s pretty funny though, you’ve even got the business section of the company and you can pay people of off to let a few things slide. So the game can be realistic because you can corrupt a health minister so that the crappy McQuality won’t matter. Just like the real thing.

Although it’s not really a game, it can be the etc. part of the title. Anyway it’s an ad from a bank you’d never use, according to the title of the video. Great video though, would have taken a lot of practice to get it all right.