Bill # H.R.5889 & Bill # S.2913 - These bills effectively release creative work, whose authors or originators cannot be found, to be used by anyone, including major corporations. This will allow large corporations to take advantage of the limited understanding of Federal Copyright Law by artists, illustrators and other individuals who provide creative services.

These two bills would require the authors of so-called "orphaned works" to go through extraordinary measures to digitally copy and submit their work the federal copyright office if they discover that their work has been appropriated by another entity. This doesn't just effect artists and creative professionals, it will potentially effect everyone, including joe-Flickr-user. Regardless of who you are, whether you post images on Flickr, a social networking site, or in your online portfolio, if you do not take measures to protect your work, it could wind up appearing in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

Much like work-for-hire abuses, Bill # H.R.5889 & Bill # S.2913, would provide coporations with the legal means to "steal" creative work they want to use without having to compensate the author.

These bills are being sponsored by Democrats, Howard Berman (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Republicans, Howard Coble (R-NC) and Lamar Smith (R-TX).

Learn more about these bills here:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?billid=11320236
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?bill=11322171

Please write your congressmen and express your opinions, outrage, and/or contempt for the elected officials who are supposedly protecting the rights of small business owners and average Americans. 

In the meantime, learn how to protect yourself and sign, watermark, and/or add meta data to any work you post online.  Don't post high resolution images and use your real name in blog posts, not fake names or unidentifiable email addresses.  If you post on social networks or file sharing sites, be sure to establish and regularly check your email inbox for requests to use the work. 

Lastly, learn about your rights.

In lieu of subjecting our potential golfing partners to our superbly lame golfing talents, we decided instead to give back to UHF (our first web site for UHS-Pruitt) by making a generous donation.

We would sincerely like to thank all of the conference attendees who stopped by our booth to say hello and find out what the heck a "16toads" is ...

And, we look forward to working together to expand the capabilities and web presence of the UHS-Pruitt family of web sites.

The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an "Absolut" (perfect) world.  The U.S.-Mexico border is shown as it was prior to the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California was Mexican territory known as Alta California.

As a professional designer, my opinion of the ad is three-fold:

(1) The cartographical divisions depicted are not readily apparant due to how we have been conditioned to "see" the shape of the U.S., so it takes a moment to "see" the border lines. This is effective because it illicites a reaction once the message becomes clear. Overall, I like the ad and think it is very relevant to today's political climate.

(2) The political nature of the ad is obvious. Absolut, a Swedish company, approved this ad knowing fully well it would elicit cheers in Mexico and jeers north of the border fence. I also can't help but chuckle at the bottle placement.

What astounds me is how easy it was for Absolut to achieve what I believe was the goal of the ad - to reveal the true nature of Americans. A quick read through the comments section of the related LA Times Article highlights the average American's profound ignorance of history, culture, and politics as well as a complete lack of humor. The responses go a long way toward proving what much of the rest of the world now sees as reality, that America has become an angry and intollerant nation.

We have so little grasp of global, national, and local issues, that it is easier to take the time to vent about an Absolut Ad than it is to have a reasonable discussion about immigration ... because, somehow ... somehow, this ad represents Mexico's attempts to overtake the U.S. through illegal immigration. Note: Boycotting a mediocre vodka will not stop illegal immigration.

(3) Who cares!?

Conclusion: The ad is very effective y amo México

The Hymn Project has not kept up with iTunes updates for some time and there are no Mac compatible DRM stripping apps I am aware of at this time.  But, I digress ... Why did I have a run-in with DRM? I recently upgraded an iPod and passed my old model along to my wife.  I also purchased an iPhone.  In the process of uploading my iTunes library to my new iPod and selected songs to my iPhone, I discovered a large number of albums that would not copy to either new device.

Why? Well, iTunes DRM authorizes your computer for every iTunes store purchase and then assigns a globally unique ID to each device that iTunes syncs it's library with.  That's all well and good until you reach the limit of five (5) authorized machines for each song/album.  After so many years of purchasing music through iTunes combined with upgrading numerous machines, I had apparantly reached my limit of authorizations with certain albums.

Needless to say, I was rather peeved and did what any normal person would do. I ranted for a minute, then clicked over to Amazon to purchase a new album.

Enter Amazon MP3, their new 'beta' album download service. I decided to give it a whirl and compare its' ease of use with iTunes. It should be noted that comparing the two services is rather unfair. There really isn't any way Amazon's service could be more convenient than purchasing directly through iTunes. The question then is "does Amazon make the process easy enough to switch?"

Turns out, once you download and install the AmazonMP3Downloader (which takes 20 seconds), all you have to do is select "Copy to iTunes" in the preferences, and the process for purchasing music through Amazon becomes every bit as easy as purchasing directly through iTunes. The Amazon Downloader automatically adds the new album or songs to iTunes and also creates a backup "Amazon MP3" folder in your Music folder for all of your purchased music. Nice.

So, what are the benefits of purchasing downloadable music through Amazon?

(1) MP3s are DRM-Free

(2) The album I purchased was over a $1 cheaper on Amazon than it was through iTunes. It goes without saying that not every album will be cheaper, but it's nice to have the option to compare prices.

For my money, Amazon just got more of my business and Apple ... Well, I think you can finish this thought.

Business applications

1Password This program is probably the best investment we have made in a single piece of software. Period. 1Password is a secure password management tool that solved our issues with trying to manage hundreds of passwords spread across god knows how many web sites, memberships, and clients. Simply put, this program is a must have app that will make your life easier by a factor of a thousand. For $30, it's an absolute steal ... oh, and it works beautifully with iPhone.

Link: http://1passwd.com/

SuperDuper
Our never-ending quest for the most airtight backup solution ended last year when we discovered SuperDuper. Not only is this app the best backup solution for Mac bar none, it is also supported by one of the most diligent developers in the industry. Our backup system utilizes a three-pronged approach that is probably far more robust than most people need, but after a massive system failure occurred late last year, we decided not to take any more chances.

For those of you who have made the leap to Leopard, you may have found Time Machine a welcome tool for backing up your data. TM is a reasonable backup solution for the average home user, but for businesses or independent professionals it is simply not the be-all-end-all solution. That position is reserved exclusively for SuperDuper. We use SuperDuper for daily automatic bootable system backups, TimeMachine for incremental backups, and ChronoSync for daily automatic file-level backups.

Doesn't TM do all that? Yes and No. TM is not configurable and runs every hour. This is useful, no question, but the downside is that it means your system (if it houses millions of files) will constantly be allocating resources to TM every second of the day. In addition, while you can use TM for system recovery, the external drive you dedicate to TM is not bootable and the recovery process will require a ridiculous series of steps (read: hours) to complete. Whereas, with SD, you have the ability to automatically backup your data daily, weekly, or monthly at times of your choosing to a bootable clone of your entire hard drive(s). This means that on any given day you have a system failure, you can be back up and working within minutes.

Link: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

ChronoSync
Chronosync is a configurable file-level synchronization tool. We use it as part of our overall backup strategy. But, our primary reason for purchasing this app was to solve one problem that has, over the years, been one of our biggest headaches ... travel. Transferring critical system files (Mail, iCal, Address Book, prefs), application support files, project files, and assorted crap to your laptop is a royal pain-in-the-ass. Under normal circumstances, getting our laptop ready to take our business on-the-road involved a few hours worth of hunting and pecking for each and every file needed to keep 16toads running smoothly while we were away from our main tower. And, nine times out of ten, we always forgot to copy something important, like that one obscure application support file needed to access your client's FTP site.

Once ChronoSync is set up, this process is as simple as rebooting our laptop in "target" mode, launching the Chronosync "travel" Container on our main computer, and clicking "sync". A few minutes (or seconds) later, ding, we are done and ready to go out-of-town with all the files needed to stay on top of our work. Then, when we return, we copy the same files in reverse (configure another sync container). Worth every penny even if you only have to take your work on-the-road once a year.

Link: http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html

MailSteward
Email management is a pain every company has to deal with on a daily basis. But, how do you manage your email paper trial? We tried every solution out there before settling on MailSteward (despite many negative reviews) and we have been nothing but pleased with this piece of software. Built exclusively for use with Mac .Mail, MailSteward is an email archive solution that helps us manage our ever-growing collection of thousands of emails and, in turn, helps us keep our inbox sparkling clean. MS allows a user to manage as many or as few email accounts as he/she wishes and to schedule automatic backups on a daily basis, which means you never have to worry about accidental deletions or remembering to back up your collection. We tested a few other solutions, but we chose MS simply because it's fully compatible with OSX and bone-headed simple to use.

Link: http://www.mailsteward.com/

EagleFiler
If you are in need of an elegant and simple application for managing your information, look no further than EagleFiler. This app is made by the amazing developer who brought us SpamSieve and DropDMG.  Archive websites, documents, serial numbers, graphics ... you name it, you can collect and organize it with this app. (In fact, you can also archive emails with EF, but we found MailSteward a more attractive solution due to it's simple integration and speedier search capabilities). Yes, we looked at Jojimbo, but decided that we didn't like the idea of having all of our collected information stored in a single massive database. EagleFiler saves your data to a folder based system, which provides you with easy access to your saved data should you ever need it.

Link: http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/

BookDog
Manage and maintain bookmarks across ALL your browsers with this app. Simple premise, robust features.

Link: http://www.sheepsystems.com/products/bookdog/

MegaPhone
From eCamm Software, MegaPhone is a feature-packed utility for iPhone. iPhone is an amazing device with plenty of room for improvement and the one item that has driven us nuts is (unlike iPod) iPhone's completely useless Notes feature. Enter MegaPhone. Notes can be copied to and from iPhone (although we hate the process), making Notes actually useful. We will readily admit to being highly annoyed at having to purchase additional software simply to make such a basic feature useful and while we fully expect this basic iPhone feature to be improved eventually (thereby rendering MegaPhone useless), we, nonetheless, find it highly useful now.

Link: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/megaphone/

Work flow applications

Adobe CS3
We are going to skip CS3 simply because, well, if you are a designer this is a must-have software package. Gripe all you want about Adobe's monopoly on the design market, annoyingly restrictive package deals, and yearly (ridiculously expensive) upgrades, this is a software suite without compare.

That said, our process for web design has undergone a few changes in recent years, most notably our ever-decreasing use of Dreamweaver for web development. WSYWIG is useful, but we have been relying heavily on TextMate and CSSEdit for most, if not all, of our web development.

TextMate
This app rocks. It's superbly easy to use and has one feature we have found unbelievably useful ... "foldings". This simple, yet highly useful, feature allows you to collapse related tag pairs. Why is this a big deal? The "foldings" arrows are an indispensable aid in helping clean up code after we have rocketed through hand-coding our HTML templates and can't find that one tag pair we forgot to close properly. This basic feature has saved us countless hours tidying up code.

Link: http://macromates.com/

CSSEdit
In our opinion, CSSEdit is the single best "real-time" visual CSS editor on the market. This app makes layout and visual adjustments to CSS-based web sites an absolute breeze and has helped us tweak layouts in fractions of the time it would normally take re-uploading files each time you want to view a change in a browser.

Link: http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

Transmit
FTP at it's best.

Link: http://www.panic.com/transmit/

You may ask, why not simply use Coda instead of three separate apps? Well, we have tried it and, frankly, really like it. It's interface is beautiful and, taken as a whole, it's a solid web development app that could easily replace Dreamweaver. Conversely, taken as whole, it's still young and lacks many of the robust features that the Apps mentioned above (including Dreamweaver) support natively. In the final analysis, until Coda can match CSSEdit and TextMate it's off the table as a dev solution for us.

Be sure to stop by EE Design to read the full interview and pay Brandon Meeks, the proprietor, a moment of respect for his stellar work supporting the web design community.

What do you do as a creative professional when the job that you have worked hard to land starts to slip from your grasp? You've done your research, you have experience, you know what it takes to get the job done, and you know your rights and what standard industry practice is for this type of work. You know you are the best man (or company) for this particular design job.

You were patient, managed to get invited back for three interviews with various team members and upper echelon executives. You did your research and spent dozens of hours studying project schematics in order to put together an airtight proposal. Your estimate of hours is realistic based on your past experience, and your pricing is far below what even a mid-size agency would charge. You have done the best job you can to prepare and are confident that your proposal will be accepted.

You get the call. They want to work with you, and now it's time to begin the contract negotiations. Then your original contact passes the approval process on to the one man who rubbed you the wrong way in one of the interviews, and you get a feeling that all the work you did to get to this point was only a pre-approval. It no longer matters that you have experience that directly parallels this particular job. It only matters where the decimal point lands and how much you are willing to give them. You send your proposal to your new contact. A couple days pass, and you receive an email with a laundry list of "issues" your potential client has concerning your proposal. Upon first read, you don't notice anything out of the ordinary but put it aside to clear your head and think about potential solutions.

You consider your options and draft a generous solution that is more than fair to your potential client but still protects your interests as a professional creative vendor. You submit your first attempt to bridge the gap and wait. A day passes and another response is returned with more issues.  The cycle gets repeated a few times, and you begin to realize that your contact is intentionally rewriting your solutions and ignoring your own concerns in a deliberate effort to strip every protection you have as a creative vendor.

The project scope gets slashed. They no longer see the value in retaining you for the length of time they originally specified and demand that you accept an hourly rate over a project fee. They don't understand why they should have to pay an additional fee for your "original" source files and materials. They ask you to remove specific clauses designed to protect you if they decide to kill the project (or your involvement in the project) mid-stream. They make demand after demand but never acquiesce to even one of your demands or concerns.

Sooner or later, the reality hits: This client is giving you the run-a-round in an attempt to break you down.

This client, that looked so promising, isn't interested in working with you. They are looking for a designer they can manipulate (because we are all starving, right?) This client is only interested in getting the design they want, cheaply, and with no restrictions of any kind.  Truth is, employers will always try to own everything. You have to be able to recognize when their demands start to infringe on your rights and on your business. Even in contracted jobs, you need to be able to negotiate terms that provide you with enough security to hold the company accountable for their portion of the agreement.

As an independent creative or small business owner, it is critical to know when a job is no longer worth your time and effort. Do the math. Know what is and is not standard industry practice. A company that refuses to acknowledge your concerns is not a company you need to risk working with.

Know when to walk away.

Knowing when to walk away Part 2 >>

1. Preparing an airtight proposal
How much room for negotiation have you left for yourself in your proposal? Did you leave room to explore alternate means of structuring the contract? How many hours will you have to set aside to get the project done? How will accepting this job affect my ability to take on additional work? What would happen if the project is cancelled early?

2. Reading responses carefully and looking for patterns
What is the client looking/asking for? Why did they ask you to remove a specific clause? Why are they still not understanding a specific point or are they stalling on purpose? Are they intentionally rewriting, restating (or misstating) my offers? Why are they rewriting, restating (or misstating) my offers? Do they really want to work with me or do they believe I just fell off the creative turnip truck?

3. Paying attention to the job specs
Has the scope changed significantly (more or less) since you discussed your role? Are they suddenly wanting to bring significant portions in-house? How will this affect your ability to provide the best product?

4. Setting your bottom line and sticking to it
Study the issues at hand and determine what your bottom line is. For larger projects, does it make sense to work for hours only? If you take on the project without a retainer or a fixed(-price) number of hours, how much time will you have to set aside (each month) in order to service the needs of this client? In order to do your best job on this job, will the time you have to set aside restrict your ability to take on other work? Consequently, does the scope of work demand a set project fee in order to provide you with a minimal amount of security for your time?

5. Protecting your rights of copyright
Is the client asking for or demanding "all rights" transfers?  Are they requiring you sign a work-for-hire document? Do they expect you to surrender your "original" files (intellectual property (IP)) because they believe that is what they are paying you for? www.Stopworkforhire.com

6. Determining a project fee or hourly rate
Project fees provide you with a set goal and provide the client with a set expectation.  Project fees allow you to do your job and provide your client with specific terms within which to operate.  In short, it provides a baseline "commitment" for both parties. Sure, commitments can be broken, but at least you got a retainer fee. Why is the client resistant to a project fee?

Hourly fees are optimal for short-term projects. An hourly rate sounds great (you may just make more money), but understand that it also provides you with no recourse and no compensation if the client kills the job mid-stream. Projects with hourly fees are not "scheduling-friendly" jobs. Think of hourly fees as "they-need-you-when-they-need-you" fees and understand that you can't plan for a project engagement of any length.  What do you do if, for any reason, the client refuses to pay for your hours?

7. Assessing internal staff
Can you really work with the person in charge of the project?  Assess the team - how competent are the major players? They are hiring you for design, but what is the project lead telling you about his view of the importance of design in his project? What will happen to your beautiful design after they bring the work in-house?  Do they have anyone on staff skillful enough to maintain the integrity of your design? How many people will be sitting on the design approval committee?

What is your intuition Telling you?
Pay attention to the client's demands and determine what that feeling is in the pit of your stomach. How difficult are the contract negotiations? If contract negotiations are this much trouble ... how much trouble will the client be during the project? If they are asking for so much and offering so little, how does taking on this project benefit you and your business? If you accept an hourly rate versus a project rate, what is the likelihood they will dispute hours and refuse to pay? Why are they insisting on XX?

... If the project doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.

The fact is that every client and every potential project will have positives and negatives. There are no perfect clients (but some are certainly better than others). You have to be able step back and assess the job and determine whether or not the project / client is worth the risk of acquiescing to too many demands. You have to be able to walk away when the client is simply asking for too much and giving nothing in return. There are very few clients who understand that design is a two-way street. There are even fewer who understand that you, as an independent, are a business partner, not their de-facto employee.

Be smart and protect your interests. No one else will do it for you. By doing so, you help yourself and, by extension, you help your colleagues ... and, your clients.

Big phone and cable companies are trying to get rid of Network Neutrality, the principle that protects our ability go where we want and do what we chose online.

We must pass this bill to protect everyone's right to search the Web, share videos and photos, connect with others and use cell phones without blocking from phone and cable companies.

How much more crap do you want to take from corporate America? Do your part.