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Anyone who’s ever created an HTML email knows what a pain it can be to get the document to render properly across the numerous email clients out there. Because of the lack of standards for email clients to follow HTML emails are a nightmare to develop and I personally try to avoid designing them at all costs. In the past I’ve used Campaign Monitor which I found to be one of the best resource in easing the burden.

It turns out the guys behind Campaign Monitor in addition to running a great business are trying to do something about HTML email standards too. Taking a page from the Web Standards Project (WaSP) book they’ve created the Email Standards Project which attempts to do some of the same great things for HTML email that WaSP did for the Web. You can help by spreading the word.

A couple weeks back U.S. News published an article titled “Best Careers of 2008” that highlights a list of 31 jobs the magazine considers to have strong outlooks for the future and overall high employee job satisfaction. Although the definition of Usability Specialist by U.S. News is somewhat generic (most likely to include multiple industries ) It’s still great to see a web related career on the list. I’ve always wondered if people outside of the web development community were even aware of usability as a profession and it’s importance to a good consumer experience. It seems so often that even seasoned professionals will often times discount the importance of the user experience so it’s great to see usability getting some recognition from the outside world.

On a somewhat related note, i ran across a new tool called GigZig, from the Payscale people. It’s a “career path explorer” that allows users to type in a career title and see what positions people have held 5 years prior to that title and what positions they might hold 5 years in the future. The tool attempts to give a rough estimation of how many people have followed a certain path by illustrating with little people icons. Using “User Experience Specialist” as an example on GigZig we can see that in the past those people have been Web Designers or Developers and in the future they are Product Managers, Directors. Nothing earth shattering about that profession’s results but the tool could be really useful for those looking to get into certain professions if they’re unclear of what path to follow. The data is a little skimpy at the moment but product is still in beta so hopefully more people take the surveys so the experience is more robust.

Tired of those old Christmas classics, had too much “Grandma got ran over by a reindeer” have you? Sounds like you need to spice things up this Christmas and broaden the families listening horizons. The latest edition of Sound Opinions (The world’s only Rock and Roll talk show) features Andy Cirzan aka DJ Lo-Fi playing his “Santa Set …. further adventures in holiday obscura”. It’s a collection of random Christmas tracks that DJ Lo-Fi has spent years accumulating by scouring dusty record bins. There’s even a collection of some nice Christmas album artwork.

I ran across a suite of JavaScript based development tools for web designers called “Design“. The suite is comprised of four tools: Grid, Ruler, Unit and Crosshair. I currently use a lot of Firefox extensions that perform similar tasks but this bookmarklet has advantages because you can use it in Internet Explorer (no IE 6 support), Safari and Opera and it’s an all in one package. It’s also a JavaScript bookmarklet so it’s easy to install in any browser. Just visit the site and drag the “Design button” up to your bookmark bar and presto it’s installed.

“Grid” is probably the most robust and impressive of the bunch. Quickly create grids with any number of columns, tweak gutter space and vertical row height. “Ruler” functions the same way as it would in Photoshop or any other design app with rulers on top and left and it allows you to pull grid rules for alignment. “Measure” is my least favorite. I find the “MeasureIt” Firefox extension to be superior and easier to use for grabbing quick dimensions. The biggest thing missing from the Design suite is a color tool. Maybe it will show up in the next release. If you’re using Firefox a substitute is the ColorZilla extension which allows you to sample colors via an eyedropper.

As 2007 comes to a close it’s time to look back at he albums we’ve listened to and the ones that flew under the radar. Pitchfork just posted their list of Top 50 albums of 2007 and it looks like I’ve got a lot of music listening to catch up on. Pitchfork for the first time this year is also conducting a reader poll, be sure to give your two cents. For a more comprehensive list of top albums from the year be sure to check out Metacritic’s Best of 2007 listings.

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Chicago based poster designer Jay Ryan of the Bird Machine has an exhibit on display at the University of Illinois’ I Space gallery down in River North. If you’re unfamiliar with Jay Ryan’s work he’s known for his whimsical hand drawn posters promoting rock band shows which often include images of an assortment of animals. I believe the exhibit focuses on some of his newer work from 2005-2007.

Luckily the exhibit just started last week (Dec 7th) so there’s plenty of time to check it out. The exhibit is running through February 12, 2008, check the I Space site for the gallery address and hours.

“See, I’m a designer, and I make my living off my award-winning, mind-shaking creativity. While lesser designers settle for gilded edges, pillow embossing, and premium fonts for their visual identity, my business card is unto itself an interactive experience”

Business card directions here.

Last week I attended the PhizzPop Design Challenge in Chicago. The event was sponsored by Microsoft and and it was pretty much a big marketing event to raise awareness of Microsoft Expression Suite and woo the creative web community into trying the product. I’m not one for attending events as such but I decided to give it a shot since I heard about it through the IxDA group. I was pretty much clueless as to what was to take place other than the vague description of designers competing in some type of challenge. The event was held at the Underground and I figured at the very least it would be worth attending for the free drinks.

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The ChicagoTribune has a nice set of 30 vintage winter photos to get you in that holiday spirit. In particular I especially like photo number 16 (shown above) of the motorists snowed in on Lake Shore Drive up near Foster Avenue. That reminds I need go toss a bunch of random junk in the street to reserve that parking spot i just shoveled out!

If you haven’t heard the latest effort from our government to try and infringe on our rights you should read this post about the new bill called the “Safe act” proposed by the House of Representatives.

Our government want’s to keep us safe from all smut peddlers online by creating legislation that would enforce the monitoring of all publicly open WiFi networks for “obscene” image downloads. I’m all for keeping our children safe from pedophiles posing as 13 year old girls online but this clearly is not the answer to those problems. We don’t live in China nor a police state and I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to enforce such a ridiculous law. It’s guaranteed if this thing passed we’d immediately see a huge reeducation in public WiFi.

It begs to the ask the question, what lobbyist are behind this B.S? Telcos and ISPs seem to be the only ones who’d benefit from the bill.