• Check out the site of one of a great friend of mine, Design by Firgs. There’s a lot of great downloadable content over there for free and great thoughts and articles as well. It may be a new site but don’t let it fool you, it’s a super site!
   
• If you are having troubles picking a domain name for your website then maybe you could use the help of a domain name generator. It’ll help you find a great available domain name. I came across this little top five list of domain name generators made by Linda Chardbourne. Check it out!
   
• Pixelmator have released an update bringing the app to 1.3.1. It’s basically a bug fix and general improvement version but it has a few really good improvements like better colour management.

You’ll see some of the old site intact in the new design, some kept in part and some things that are gone.

Do leave your comments on the new site here in the comments of the post as I’d love to hear them as I continue to develop the site and make it better!

To all my US readers, you could see this as Thanksgiving and Black Friday off (even though we don’t have it here) but despite that we don’t have it, I’m going say a thanks to all of you readers who make it really fun to blog and for reading of course!

By the way, for anyone curious, today’s test was maths so if you find me speaking in equations and functions today, you know why

1 – Don’t over prepare yourself!

All the time you are thinking and hearing that you should be prepared for everything. That is however not the same as preparing for everything. I like to look at it this way: When I’m about to give a presentation, my mind is set on the fact that anything could happen while I’m giving it. I’m not at all preparing for what to do if certain events happen that is out of my control.
Also, don’t write everything you want to say down. It’ll just make it very boring to listen to. It is better to have some things be cut off than trying to remember exactly what you wanted to say.

2 – Memorize and use key phrases.

Despite what I just said above about not trying to remember exactly what to say, you should still have some key phrases that you know and use. This way you will have something for your listeners to instantly remember clearly. You can draw a parallel to the speeches of for example Winston Churchill who in his speech “We shall fight on the beaches”, repeatedly used the phrase “We shall fight” over and over again, giving all listeners something to focus on and remember. Use it wisely!

3 – Use your body language to your advantage.

I know a lot of people who when they give presentations, stand very still, don’t move and hold their arms very still as well, clinching to their sheets of notes. Not only does this give the impression to the audience that you aren’t confident but it also hurts you as well. Moving your arms a bit and walking around the “stage” will not only make you seem more comfortable but it will also increase the blood circulation in your body and make your voice hold up and don’t go stiff.

4 – Use small sheets of notes!

You need notes in one form or another. If you are giving a power point/keynote presentation you might take advantage of the built in notes field to have your hands free of any paper, allowing you to move around better. If you aren’t, then just keep small handy sheets of notes (preferably written on the computer) in large writing that’s easy to see from a distance. Make sure these note sheets are indeed small and that you’ll be able to change them nicely with your hands when you move onto new subjects. Watch a TV show where they are using these little papers to see how they use it.

5 – The pauses are part of the show.

Just about the worst thing I know in presentations are when people go on and on and on all the time without giving the listener or the audience any time to think about what they hear. The pauses are as important as the words you are saying as it gives the audience a little time to relax their ears and ponder what you just said. It also keeps the presentation from becoming boring.

I know I said it was going to be five tips, but I have one extra which is a pretty useful one after reading these five. Practise these at home in front of family or friends in a serious, yet not as serious environment. Forget them when you are actually giving the presentation. If you’ve been working on it, some will already be in your body and don’t worry, it’ll all come to you with practise, so don’t chicken out of any opportunity you have to present, it’s really fun!
 

There’s truly a whole lot of WordPress plugins that will help you with your day to day WordPress work that may not perhaps be the largest ones, or even visible to the public. These plugins may also be the ones you don’t hear about as often which is why they today get the prime focus.

Admin Big Width

Normally in the WordPress interface right now, the content doesn’t take up the full width of the screen—only the design does. This plugin will simply extend the admin are to be the full width of the screen, giving you a more pleasing work area.

InSeries

This is a very neat plugin if you are often running article series. It will let you easily create and end series (and add new ones in between) in the new post dialog that will also display with the post on the front end, so that the users can browse through the series.

Twitter Tools

If you are using Twitter you might like the idea that your blog automatically posts a quick tweet saying that you have a new blog post, with the name and the link to it.

Clean Notifications

The default notifications for comments and pings sent from WordPress is based on a quite messy design and it can be hard to get a good overview. The clean notifications plugin makes those notifications a lot simpler and cleaner.

Admin Links Widget

If you’d like to get some quick links to the admin panel, post pages and other admin pages right in the sidebar of your blog, check out Admin Links Widget. It’s a simple widget that let’s you simply drag it out and place where you want the link list to appear. Handy and effective.
 

Go and make your voice heard now on what you think matters most on a website! I figure this is a very interesting thing to look on and as I plan on making an article sometime in the future about this, make your voice heard and get into the article!

• First off today I want to get the attention of everyone who is thinking about mailing in a Canon rebate check! Canon USA has some important news about sending them in as the company they and many others hire to do the processing of the rebate, mail-in checks apparently has gone bankrupt.
   
• I get a lot of questions on where to start when building your own WordPress theme so today I’m turning everyone who are asking that and linking you to a great guide made by Nick La over at Web Designer Wall where he goes through from the ground up how a WordPress theme works and how to get started on the coding.
   
• Apple in the days released an update to fix the trackpad in the MacBook that many have had major problems with. You can download the new fix from Software Update.
   
• On the lines of Apple and their latest laptops, tech guru, Terry White has posted his review of the new MacBook Pro. Go and read it right here.

Check back here tomorrow for some more goodies and until then, have a great day!
 

Adobe has just released the first prerelease version of the Adobe Configurator 1.0 that will allow you to customize your panels in Photoshop CS4 as you want! It’s all a simple drag and drop interface and it’s well worth a check. It’s a download from the Adobe Labs which does meant that it is a prerelease version, nonetheless it is very stable as it is released.

To learn the deal about Configurator, view this introduction video made by John Nack, then go to download it.

Yesterday Adobe released the new Pixel Bender plugin for Photoshop CS4 is now available (for free) at the Adobe Labs for download. The main thing about Pixel Bender is that it uses the GPU to make rendering of special filter effects, really fast as well as opens up the world of filter development to practically everyone. Furthermore, Pixel Bender is available for Flash 10 as well as After Effects CS4 and the cool things is that the filters people write for Flash, will be compatible with Photoshop CS4 directly.

Once people have started writing filters, you will be able to download a lot of cool filters at the Adobe Exchange. To install extra bundles, just drop the downloaded file into the Pixel Bender Files folder (any PBK or PBG Pixel Bender will will work) you will create upon installation and you’re done. Then just go to Filters > Pixel Bender > Pixel Bender Gallery, chose the filter and start working!

Pixel Bender has a lot of cool things in it for Photoshop filters and could partly be a reason why we haven’t been seeing a lot of new filter related things now in CS4 at all. Enter this new, free, product that allows you to do it all!

• Apple has released Safari 3.2, available now through Software Update. News in 3.2 is better protection from phishing websites and includes the latest security updates.
   
• One guy over at the Macrumours forums has apparently got the new four finger gestures working on the old MacBook Air by applying just some .kext edits. If you try it out, make sure you have backed your computer safely.
   
• Over at Gomedia Zine there was an article today with tips on how to avoid getting designer’s block. Any designer will know how miserable and frustrating it is and a lot of good advice in there that I definitely will try myself!
   
• Antonio Lupetti posted an article on his blog yesterday about the sematic approaches in naming classes and code when coding CSS. Semantical coding is, while it may not be the most important, a very important subject.