And that one remote doesn’t require 3 inches of wasted space for a company logo or model number, either.

With input from the students (who had never worked with web stuff before) and my refusal to use shit like Comic Sans, WordArt, ClipArt or generally anything ending in the word “art”, we put together a pretty nice page in under four hours of work:

I’ve been working on a new slate of improvements for myself and my business. I’ve introduced a new support system, so anyone who wants to open a request for support can do so without needing to remember my email address. Soon, people can email a specific address and they’ll automatically be tabulated into the support system and there they will be able to monitor their support requests whenever the want, 24/7.

I’ll be updating my portfolio of work, soon, too. Right now, all of the sites on there were done before I started working full time for myself. I have dozens of new projects that I love that I need to get online. Namely, Jake’s website, Springs of Cambridge and FAIR. I’ve got half a dozen more sites in the pipeline, three of which are days away from publication.

I’ve added an online store that, while a little rough around the edges, is a good first go. I’ll be adding more stuff into it, but customers can now come directly to my website and purchase a new website immediately. If they know what they want, who am I to stop them from buying what they want so long as it fits in the guidelines of the contracts for that product? Want a blog? Super, just go buy one — custom made, directly via PayPal or cash on delivery. It’s like buying a birthday cake at a family-run bakery.

I’ll be adding a “Learning” section someday, too. Currently, it’s a walled-off area for clients to learn about their new website.

Speaking of things for clients, I’m now blasting off great looking HTML emails to clients to let them know the progress of their site after I’ve spent at least an hour working on it. It tells them what I’ve done, what I need to do and where they can view their site while in development. To ask questions, they simply just need to reply to the email. No one else offers that level of updating and progress reporting.

And, my proudest new goal: be even faster. I’ve long been told that I’m blazing fast at getting to most things. Technical issues and errors are priority 1 and site updates, development, etc. all falls into line after that. Every client I’ve ever had that asked a question or for something to be done has responded at some point to say, “Wow. That was fast.” Now, I have a new goal of responding to every client’s email within 1 hour. Yes, that won’t always happen, but between my time at home and with my iPhone and iPad, it can work. And, I have a goal of getting new site changes and requests done in 24 hours or less. Not to mention getting new sites developed under time.

I’ve been at this for 6 months and have managed to be just as successful as I set out to be. Initially, I said, “Make at least as much money as you would if you still worked for the State of Indiana.” Today, I did the math, and I’ve discovered I’m $3,000 over my goal. I’m right where I wanted to be. Actually, I’m about a month ahead.

Here’s to the next 6 months and years. Thanks to all of my clients and friends who have referred me business.

“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

Turns out, the solution is to setup your Google Apps account and set yourself up with your own admin email, so you@yourdomain.com, then setup your client’s email, like them@yourdomain.com. You can use Google’s Fetch Mail settings to pull mail from GoDaddy into Gmail. However, there’s a catch. You technically have two email addresses that are identical – them@yourdomain.com in Gmail and at GoDaddy. And Gmail’s fetch settings won’t allow you to fetch mail from the same address you’re already using.

That’s why you setup you Admin account as the middleman, you@yourdomain.com. Fetch mail via POP from GoDaddy into you@yourdomain.com. After that’s done, setup fetch (under the Settings > Account, tab) to fetch mail from you@yourdomain.com into them@yourdomain.com. Emails basically go from GoDaddy, to your Admin Gmail account, then into your client’s email account. That takes care of their inbox and you’ve got mail backups in three places now in case something goes wrong.

To import the sent mail, deleted items, etc., you’ll have to push them into your inbox in the GoDaddy system, then re-filter them when you get them into Gmail. Which sounds daunting, but if you setup a filter and do it in stages, it’ll do it automatically. So, import your inbox first, then your sent items, then deleted items, etc. until you’re done.

You’re welcome.

The Rolling Stones delivered again a minute ago, with a re-release of Exile on Main Street. It’s from 1972. Nineteen and seventy frickin’ two. Name one other thing that’s been around since 1972 that still works, delivers or matters.

This is the first album I’ve bought in 5 years. I’ve only purchased a handful of individual songs in the meantime, mostly some Dylan tracks and a few from the likes of Mellencamp and The Black Crowes.

I’m picky about music. I only want to listen to people or bands that can prove they know their stuff. Name one band or artist from the 90’s you can remember. Can’t? I know. The only person I could think of that’s actually still around and doing anything is Justin Timberlake, and he’s just around because he’s in movies now. What’s that leave? Chumbawamba?

I wish I were born in the 60’s so I could have been a teenager in the 70’s.

• I downloaded Design Premium, which weighed in at about 3.5 GB, which actually seemed kinda small to me.
• The installation used some stupid non Mac-standard installer system, but it looks like it’s for the purpose of recovering broken or interrupted downloads.
• The install process went pretty quick. I was impressed.
• The new 64 bit architecture across all the apps is nice, I guess. But, I don’t really notice any speed improvements on product launch. It could be because a lot of the apps are being launched for the first time and I don’t count the second immediate launch since much of the program is still in memory. I’m willing to give it the benefit of a doubt.
• The Adobe Fireworks blog says they finally did nothing to Fireworks except improve its backend. They claim to have squashed 900 bugs and created a file-recovery system for OS X. I’m sure that’ll be busy.
• Using Dreamweaver, the UI is pretty similar to CS4. It only modifies the layout from two panels horizontal to two panels vertical.
• Dreamweaver’s panels are still as sluggish and delay-ridden as they always were, even on my 64-bit capable dual core Mac with 4GB of RAM.
• Dreamweaver, which is my bread-n-butter app, has a host of new run-time-come-design-time features. But, since no one uses those or deals with staging servers in Dreamweaver, I and everyone else will go on not caring. Dreamweaver’s FTP management is still a turd.
• First thing I did in Fireworks was draw a black 1 pixel line horizontally, then tilt it vertically to see if it learned how to draw a better line than a first grader with a ruler. It didn’t. It still turns your black horizontal line into a gray vertical line — at all zoom levels.
• All of the apps have an embossed “Xx” logo in the top left, which is dumb.
• First thing I did in Flash was see if they fixed the lack of transparency on the “Fl” in the splash screen (all other apps in CS4 had transparent black letters). They did. Probably because they made all new splash screens that are even bigger and more obnoxious than the last one.
• Every tutorial I’ve seen on the hot new “refine edge” feature in Photoshop CS5 involves people selecting hair — a challenge, indeed. No doubt, on every tutorial I’ve seen the person giving the tutorial has an “ideal” photo for demo purposes and they still end up saying, “Well, at least this is a bit better.”
• Everything in CS5 seems geared to getting you into Flash and the new Flash Catalyst. I doubt those get much use from anyone who knows anything about anything.

In short, everything in CS5 that was fixed is everything that should have been fixed back in CS, if not earlier. Most new features focus around a dying technology (Flash) and everything else is kinda ho-hum. If you’re using CS3 or earlier, go ahead and upgrade. If you have CS4, don’t waste your money and wait until CS6. The 64 bit app rewrites for Mac users may hold more weight, but only if you have the money and a newer model Mac.

Still waiting on my true Mac native apps, though. Don’t make Windows crap and pawn it off to us Mac people, Adobe — we Mac folk notice everything.

As an aside, one tutorial I saw from LayersTV (which are basically Adobe shrills — smart guys, but come on) actually had a guy saying, “They took a good first stab at this lens correction feature”. Can you imagine Apple ever releasing something and calling it a “good first stab?”