Coming Up On pix​e​lyzed​.com In 2011

To say that I have been busy in the lat­ter half of 2010 would be an under­state­ment… my lack of post­ing here or on my com­pany blog is a tes­ta­ment to it. But I’ve been learn­ing a lot and plan to share my best finds as usual. So, here are a few things that are com­ing up here soon…

First, I’m work­ing on yet another design for this blog. The one I’m using now has always been tran­si­tional… I just never planned on leav­ing it like this for this long But that will be imple­mented when it’s ready. Part of the rea­son I have not posted here in a while is I wanted to have the new design up before I did. I decided I didn’t care and will post any­way as I find the time.

The first thing I want to do is share my best finds of 2010. I have sev­eral more client sites done in WordPress under my belt and my toolset and skills are of course evolv­ing. Still a fan of Headway, phas­ing out Thesis (for many dif­fer­ent rea­sons… this site is my only one left using it) and a cou­ple pre­mium plu­g­ins are rock­ing my WordPress designer world.

Regarding design soft­ware, I finally moved to the CS5 Suite and will share my likes, dis­likes and dis­ap­point­ments. I don’t really like writ­ing about soft­ware when it’s too fresh. I’ve worked with these apps on real projects for a while now so, I have a good feel of what works for me and what doesn’t

On the gen­eral soft­ware front, I dis­cov­ered a cou­ple gems you will want to know about. I changed FTP soft­ware, came back to Suitcase Fusion with the release of ver­sion 3 and needed to cre­ate doc­u­men­ta­tion for my clients on WordPress sites… espe­cially artists sites where I use some key plu­g­ins. The app I dis­cov­ered to help me with that is awe­some… as is the doc­u­men­ta­tion phi­los­o­phy of its devel­op­ers. Awesome stuff.

In the longer term, I want to start pub­lish­ing tuto­ri­als again but either using the doc­u­men­ta­tion soft­ware I’m talk­ing about or Camtasia Studio. I think video is becom­ing my pre­ferred way of con­sum­ing tuto­ri­als and I want to use them to share some of my own processes.

So, hang in there! I know it’s been a while and my post­ing has always been spo­radic but I’m not apol­o­giz­ing for it any­more. The life of a lone free­lancer can be hec­tic and I’m still learn­ing to man­age my time. Personal projects always take the back burner first but I intend to devote more time to my own projects in 2011. I’m think­ing about strate­gies that will help me free up some time with­out hurt­ing my bot­tom line.

In the mean­time, Happy New Year to every­one and I hope this year brings you abun­dance and joy!