Since we’re doing a lot more online marketing these days with our new offering and a lot of it involves the use of social media (Twitter, Facebook etc.), it’s interesting to note how things are ever changing. Email becoming old fashioned?! Who would ever have thought that hey?

Let me know what you think.

Here’s how…

1. Go to Gmail.com and sign up for a new account. Use whatever name you like, but preferably one relating to you and one you’ll remember. Use your current work email address as the secondary account (joe@joeblogs.com).
2. Click on “I’m ready, show me my account”.
3. Click on “settings” at the top right of the window.
4. Click on the “Accounts” tab in the main content area.
5. Click on “Add another email address you own”.
6. Make sure your name is correct and put your primary email address (joe@joeblogs.com) into the email address field and click “Next step”.
7. Click on “Send verification”.
8. Check your main email and copy/paste the code supplied into the field waiting and click “Verify”.
9. Now you have 2 email accounts showing. Click on “make default” next to your work account.
10. Click on “Compose Mail” on the left, and send an email to your work account. It should come directly to your gmail interface, and from your work account.

You’re done… give yourself a pat on your back.

If you’re wondering why someone would do this then you’ve either never used the gmail interface, or you don’t like the way it works.

I have been working like this for a good few months now. I can check my email from any device from anywhere. I occasionally download all my mail into Thunderbird to keep a backup, but on a whole, I’m embracing the cloud and it makes life so much easier and cleaner.

If you want to modify things like a signature, display settings, filters etc. then fiddle around in the settings area until you’re happy.

But you want to write emails while you’re offline? No problem, just download Google Gears. It downloads your last few month’s emails and allows you to compose emails even when you’re offline.

That being said, I can’t deny the fact that I sorely miss a number of Firefox plugins that are too important in my regular browsing and web usage to to not have at hand. Perhaps the Chrome arsenal will grow over time, but for now, I can’t do without the following:

• FireFTP
• Web Developer Toolbar
• Delicious Plugin
• HTML Validator
• Search Status

There are other non-essentials, and they all add up to a lot of features I’d really like to have at hand. Believe it or not, the Google Page Rank indicator that comes with the Quirk Search Status is one of them. I’ll admit, I haven’t searched much for a toolbar/plugin for Chrome that does this.

All in all, Chrome should be more than suitable for the average web user, but I suppose working on the internet and specifically in design and development, it just doesn’t cut the mustard for me.

That thing, be it skiing, writing a book, climbing a mountain, designing the next Facebook or cooking & eating every exotic meat in the world, thats what you should be basing your life on. I must admit, it makes sense.

There was the counter argument that it’s an invalid concept as the world would suffer a shortage of janitors, street sweepers and whatever other job you couldn’t imagine anybody ever “wanting” to do. Valid point, but if you want to live the life you want to live, you should be able to get your foot in the right door if you’re passionate about something!

Living the dream

I am an absolute motorsport nut! I love screaming engines, and the thrill of the race. I’d wanted to swing my leg over a race bike and put my skills to the test against equally as tenacious competitors ever since I first went on the back of my father in law’s Yamaha FZR750.

The last 2 and a half years have given me that opportunity and through a channel most people might not have considered a viable route… I became a motorsport photographer. Did I mention I love photography too?

I won’t go into the whole wheeling and dealing I had to pull to get onto the track with my camera, and the great expense of the equipment, but suffice to say, I got there. Published in some top motoring magazines to boot.

After some marketing my name and using my website circuitchaser.com as a conduit for selling photos online, I soon had a medium in which I could offer advertising space. I cashed that in as money, or goods that went into racing. It effectively paid for my bike, suspension, leathers, helmet, boots, back protector and a lot of consumables like tyres, brake pads, race entry, fuel and oil.

Keeping things realistic

I have no delusions of grandeur. My name is Ross Allchorn, and although I race with the number 46, I am not Valentino Rossi, nor will I ever be. I’ve done the better part of a full season already, already won a race and claimed two second overall placings for the day. I hope things grow from here, but I’m a happy man.

I’m not making a living as a racer (far from it) as it’s a hellishly expensive sport, but it does provide some pocket money, and just taking pictures (as unprofitable as it is) has been great fun.

One day, in some way, I hope I can mix my passion for motorsport, photography and computers into one thing, or share them all equally with some form of synergy at least.

I made it here one time!

Needless to say, priority number one was to get a plane ticket to Durban and tie up as many loose ends as can be tied in 2 days. Kudos to 1time for a reasonably priced ticket at such short notice. Aside from sitting on the floor in the departure lounge, it was a pretty painless trip.

Learning to speak, but the beer still flows

I’m now sitting in a room in Durban a week later. My old man is out of the hospital and we’re on what looks like is going to be a relatively lengthy recovery period. He needs to learn how to speak again, and his right hand side has lost most of it’s coordination and strength. Really though, it sounds worse than it is.

He’s fully alert (or at least as how he was) and understands all what is said to him. It’s a one way street though, as he’s struggling to say things, and writing is not much better. It’s often a guessing game and thankfully he sees the humour in it sometimes. At least some words (f***, sh** and beer) are easy for him… I think they’re ingrained in his psychi.

Internet connection?

Please sign here… in blood, and bring your first born with a DNA sample and proof of address.

Connectivity in Durban… thats a joke. I went down to the local postnet today to use their internet service. A screen, a keyboard and a mouse. Disabled start menu. No Skype, no MSN messenger, and thank f*** I migrated all my mail to the gmail interface or I’d have lost at least 3 possible projects by now.

All of my clients and prospects have been very understanding thus far and hopefully I will be back online shortly. For now, my best bet is sitting at the Musgrave Mugg & Bean and feeding off their wireless hotspot. Not ideal, but I do like their coffee. I’ll hunt down a second hand 3G modem on Gumtree or the like and buy a 1GB bundle to start with. If you’re reading this, I’ll either have done it already, or doing it as you read.

Better news to follow shortly… I hope.

My fiancee commented today that I’m actually quite diligent about my work time and although I don’t clock in at 8am and clock out at 5pm with a 30min lunch break from 1pm – 1:30pm, I do tend to work a full 8hr day and usually more.

Occasionally (more often than not), I start around 9am or just after and tend to get stuck into some recommended reading. Of course industry related stuff and I attend to most email enquiries and urgent IM discussions in the early part of the day.

The most of the rest of the daytime duties include emailing quotes, writing emails and general client communication and updates. Sometimes with a design comp. being worked on in Photoshop on the extra screen.

Come mid afternoon (around 3pm onwards) I reach my creative peak, and generally get stuck into something which requires a fully operational mind. This is my time spent on important quotes, writing scope documents, conceptualizing strategies, ploughing through design concepts and generally doing all the meat of my work.

This peak time can go well into the night with only necessary breaks being in the way of me working right through (eating, bathroom and the occasional clear-my-mind walk around the house). I generally don’t let it go past 11pm though, and if I start early, or there is some important “domestic” thing to do (grocery shopping etc.), I can usually pick up on things the following day.

If my time is not filled or I am waiting on someone to send something through before I can continue, I usually get stuck into improving my efficiancy by building templates for important documents, honing my skills by watching or reading tutorials, and working on new design concepts for my own personal projects which I may or may not ever use.

I believe that if you have a passion for what you do, you need to treat every moment you can as one that can be used to improve on what you know and how you do things. This has made me a bit of a forum junkie, and my online browsing experience is heavily modified and optimised to my interests using the Google Home Page.

There is heaps of advice online about time management, and my method won’t work for someone merely trying to make money. My day is structured around someone who is passionate about the internet, computing, design and running an effective, professional business.

I don’t wear a tie if I can avoid it, I prefer people not call me after hours (within reason) and I have the freedom to pick and choose when, where and how I work. As long as my clients and I (and my bank account) are happy… whose to argue with my lifestyle?

Last word: Creative productivity does not come from 8hrs of scheduled labour. Productivity in a creative field comes from passion, diligence, patience and hard work that doesn’t necessarily keep office hours.

Fear not… for we have published a backup copy of it for you to view it in all it’s glory. There was some valuable content there, which we’re re-writing and migrating across to this new version of the site, but it’s mostly still relevant, and not worth removing from the intarweb.

I’ve chosen to use a theme for now and it’s called Cutline. A nice basic theme that allows you to focus on content rather than the frilly edges. To coin a rather old phrase in saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, I intend to make things a little more worthwhile for all by steering a little more away from unnecessary frills and embellishments. I’m not scrapbooking here after all am I?

Well, I hope you stick around, bookmark, subscribe to my feed, or do whatever you do to keep up to date with your favourite sites. I’ll post again shortly.