Articles

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Evernote

An Everywhere App

Going paperless is an idea I have struggled with for some time. I’ve tried various applications and methodologies in the past only to be overwhelmed by the effort or dismayed by the lack of cross-platform support. Beyond the paperless ideal, data management, efficient note taking and good writing habits were also objectives for which I could not find workable solutions. My digital documents were scattered across different computers much in the same way my physical paper was carelessly stuffed in bankers boxes. I have been a casual Evernote user for some time and a Premium subscriber for about a year. But, it was not until the recent release of the Android application for my NOOK Color that I have decided to fully use Evernote as my organizational tool.

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A Redesign

When Good Enough is Not Good Enough

Months ago when I first designed this site, I was satisfied with the approach taken regarding its structural implementation. In an attempt to keep things simple, I divided the site into two sections, articles and notes, which were administered by my CMS of choice, ExpressionEngine. And in an effort to be creative I had decided to custom design each article and certain notes—thinking the process would be easily manageable—by dumping the cascaded styles in an internal style sheet contained in the head section of the document page.

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Nook Color

The Barnes & Noble eBook Reader

A criticism of the nook color is that it’s an inbetweener: a device that attempts to serve the dual purpose of being an ereader and a touch tablet. Caught in the technological purgatory between the exalted heights of Steve’s magical device upon which ethereal seraphim play Angry Birds and the earthly simulacrum of deadwood, aka the Kindle, it is claimed that the nook color can neither meet the needs of the avid reader addicted to the nicotine of e-ink nor the desires of the ritalin soaked electro sheep happily updating their status while downloading the latest kamasutra app.

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The Last Supper

The Aesthetics of Leonardo Da Vinci's Great Masterwork

When the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a depiction of the Last Supper on a refectory wall of the Dominican convent, Santa Maria delle Grazie, he could not have dreamed of the ways in which the painting would capture the imagination of not just academic scholars but the mass public over five hundred years after its creation. A painting which survived a bombing in the Second World War and was nearly lost due to a miscalculation by the painter himself has inspired authors and historians to pen theories about its meaning—the most popular and controversial being the claim that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus and is the figure seated to his right.

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Typography and Readability

On the Use of Web Fonts and Typesetting on the Web

Now that we are on the cusp of a not-so-small revolution in how the web is designed with the advent of type services and tools that will allow anyone, not just designers or typographers, the ability to set a specific typeface of their choosing for any given web site or project, there are many members of the type profession who are collectively holding their breath out of fear of what may come in terms of typographical excess. And what they fear most is not the treasure trove of choice and not so choice typefaces that will be made available over the next several years.