bubbl.us

A really nifty online brainstorming tool! Wow, can this come in handy!

I recommend everyone try this out. You will be hooked. Create an account and save your brainstorms. I kid you not, this can really mean a difference to your planning and task and creative thought-process.

And... It's much more fun to use than pen and paper...

Upon exploring it further I found that on top of all that you can also collaborate on brainstorming with others, as a team! Perfect for team projects.

Lulu - Self Publishing

"An on-demand publishing tool for books, e-books, music, images, movies and calendars."

I have not looked deeply into this service yet, but from what it looks like, it takes the strain and costs away from working with a big publisher and allows you to control publishing of your own work, be it writing, music, art and more.

If it really does what it says it does, it can really be good for the small fish, competing with the big fish in the world...

I am working with a client that may be using this service soon, so I will update and give a proper review of Lulu when the time comes.

Some Mac and GTD linky-links

From The Efficient Mac User

• 11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance
• 13 Sources for Free and Shareware Mac Software
• Getting Things Done: 12 Task Management Solutions for Mac Users
• Getting Things Done: 9 Online Task Management Solutions

How to Crop a Raster in Illustrator

Tips on how to crop using the clipping mask, and better yet... Cropping permanently. I could never figure that one out...

But thanks to Anne-Marie, now I know!

Check out "How to Crop a Raster in Illustrator"

Kuler

This is a pretty neat development at Adobe. Make color palettes till past your bed time!

It is described as being "the first web-hosted application from Adobe Labs designed both to stand alone and to complement Adobe Creative Suite 2.", "Kuler is all about color: color for exploration, inspiration, experimentation and sharing."

With it you can easily search, create, and share color themes online, then you can download themes you like as an Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) file for use in Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, Photoshop CS2, and more.

Be weary though... They may soon start charging for this service as it is currently within their "lab" experiments. Once it's been perfected, they may charge, who knows. But if so, it would be dumb since all the content is user generated....

Reducing Bloated Illustrator Files

A tip coming from Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion.

In "Illustrator CS, you could run a built-in Action meant for just this task:

1. With your bloated file open, open the Actions palette (from the Window menu).
2. Select the tenth one down, Delete Unused Palette Items, and Play it.
3. If you've already saved the file, do a Save As and overwrite the previous file.

Running this action and overwriting the file reduced my original rectangle.ai file from 436K to a far more palatable 120K. Woo-hoo!"

This could really be a space saver if all my Illustrator files were re-saved without the unused palettes.....

MailChimp

"MailChimp makes email marketing easy.You can build signup forms and permission lists, design HTML email newsletters, track opens and clicks, manage bouncebacks, unsubscribes, and so much more..."

Homentasch Cookies

Recipe below.


It was fun and delicious! My first time making Homentaschen. This recipe was altered by me, to make it just a little better!!!!

Blood Orange Homentasch Recipe (makes 32 such)
(You can cut recipe in half to make 16 instead)

Dough
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
a little salt
200 gr cold butter
blood-orange zest, of one blood-orange or more
2 egg yolks
2-4 Sp blood-orange juice

Filling
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
150 gr poppy seed
2 Sp honey
1 Sp lime juice
some spoons of apricot preserves
some spoons of Triple-Sec (by taste and consistency, to make a paste)

Preparation
1) Dough:
Mix all dry ingredients, add orange zest. Chop butter to shards and work with fingers into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles crumbly sand.
Add egg yolks until a grainy consistency. Add 2 tablespoons of orange juice until the dough is smooth.
It may require an additional tablepoon of juice.
Wrap in plastic sheet and chill for at least 2 hours.

2) Filling:
Bring water and sugar to boil. Add poppy seed and bring back to boil. Reduce heat and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the mixture becomes thick and reduced.
Remove from heat, add honey and lime juice. Mix and let cool. Mix apricot preserves with triple-sec to make paste and add to poppy seed mixture. Taste and add more if need be.

3) Preparations:
Prepare a bowl with egg yolk/water and a brush. Line a baking dish with non stick paper or greased foil.
Prepare a chilled, floured cutting board. Cut the chilled dough to 4 section and leave 3 in the refrigerator.

4) Cutting circles:
Roll the dough or flatten with the back of your palm, fight stickiness with flour but do not overdo or it will change the crumbly nature of the dough.
Roll out sections of the dough to 1/4th inch width. It may be easier to work with small portions of dough due to stickiness.
With the help of a round floured glass press the dough to cut out circles.
Wet a little the edges of each circle of dough with water.

5) Fill up and form:
Put 1/2 or 1/3 spoon of the poppy seed filling onto the center of a circle. (Do not overfill or the triangle will burst during baking...)
Fold over to create the triangular shape. Press the wetted edges together firmly and put onto the baking dish.
Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

6) Preparing to bake:
Set the oven to 325 F.
Brush the triangles overall with the egg yolk mixed with a tablespoon of cold water

7) Bake:
Bake for 15 minutes or until nice and golden

8) Cool off:
On rack for 25 minutes

9) Sugar powder:
Once in room temperature, sprinkle sugar powder amply.