It’s Task Management, Not Time Management

We’ve all looked at our to-do lists and sighed in despair at how many items were still waiting for us to finish. Sometimes it can even seem overwhelming; we’ve got so much to finish, and it seems as though the days are shrinking in length, as there never seems to be enough time to get to everything. The good news is that there are several ways to regain control of your time.

Not getting enough work done? It’s not because you haven’t mastered that so-called holy grail of “time management.” In fact, the whole idea of time management is a myth.

That’s right, I said it. Why? Because you cannot actually “manage” time. No matter who you are or what you do, there are 24 hours in your day the same as there are for everyone else.

Yet still, some people manage to be so much more productive than others, despite having so much more to do than they should be able to “fit” into that same 24-hour span. Not to mention fitting in time for eating, sleeping, walking the dog, et cetera.

The main reason that you may not be getting enough done is not your time. It’s your to-do list. If you find yourself constantly overwhelmed by the items on it, it usually means that they’re not broken down into small enough tasks. That means that your tasks, rather than your time, are the thing that needs managing.

For example, if you have “submit 3 comps to client” on your to-do list, and it’s just sitting there intimidating you, it’s probably much too broad of a task for your brain to digest and get started on.

Try breaking down the big, scary item into smaller mini-tasks. Detail out your to-do list as small as you need to so that it’s no longer as intimidating. This process is a task in and of itself and can take several hours, so it helps to actually plan a time to do it – on a Friday afternoon or over the weekend. Believe me, it will take longer than you think.

Getting a bunch of things done at the same time is always faster than doing one thing at a time. If there’s something you can batch and get out of the way in one group, do it.

For example, if you have three layouts to do, instead of completing each one fully before starting on the next one, see if there isn’t a similar task for all three that you could tackle first, sort of like an assembly line at a factory, then move on to the next similar task, and so on.

Again, usually things are overwhelming because they haven’t been broken down enough into bite-sized chunks. However, it’s up to you what’s appropriately small enough for you and what could be broken down more. In our earlier example, “submit 3 comps to client” might be broken down into smaller steps, such as “finish first wireframe sketch.” This might be a good to-do item for you, or it might still be completely overwhelming.

Take each thing on your to-do list and figure out how you can break it down into smaller steps. Break it down again – and keep breaking it down until it’s doable. Even if you have to list step one as “sit down and turn on the computer.” It may be embarrassing, but anything that gets you started is worth the effort.

This is not quite time management, but it’s as close as we mere mortals can get. Rather than attempting, set up a timer to chime in regular intervals, alerting you to when it’s time to switch to something else. Stick to your ETA, and whatever you do, don’t let yourself go over the time limit. If it’s 20 minutes, don’t take 35. If you’re not serious about saving time, then you never will.

Sometimes things that you’ve written down on your to-do list, for whatever reason, just don’t ever get done. Sometimes this can stress us out because the item is still there on the list, staring us in the face every time we look at it. This in itself can make getting through your work a real chore.

If something’s been on your to-do list for over a month, either delegate it to someone else, do it now, or just admit that it will never get done and move on. Uncrossed items on our to-do lists pile on more and more stress the more we look at them, so be sure to get them crossed off or dropped ASAP.

And last, but not least, remember that “perfection” is an impossible goal, in productivity or in anything else. It doesn’t matter what app or system you use to boost your productivity. Someone who uses a simple pen and paper can be a thousand times more productive than the person who has all the latest apps and gadgets.

Productivity comes from actually doing stuff, not preparing or planning to do stuff.

The post It’s Task Management, Not Time Management appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

6 Best Web-based Image Editors

Web-based image editors have several advantages over their desktop counterparts. The most obvious benefit is that they allow you to work on any computer (that has a browser). In most cases, you can save your work online, avoid having to install desktop software, and interface with other web-based services such as Flickr or Picasa. This article shares 6 of the best, free online photo editors that are capable alternatives to desktop applications like Adobe Photoshop and GIMP.

1. Pixlr

Pixlr is a very robust, Flash-based image editor that shares a similar user interface to Adobe Photoshop. The Pixlr AP opens up possibilities of mash-ups an integration of Pixlr into your blog, web application, or website. It has a smart Wand tool to help you automatically select similar and adjacent pixels (which is equivalent to Photoshop’s Magic Wand tool).

2. Splashup

Splashup is feature-packed web photo editor that integrates with popular photo sharing services like Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook – allowing you to access your photos remotely. Some of the cool features that Splashup has are layers with blending modes, the ability to interface and capture images from your web cam, and a nice variety of filters and layer effects.

3. Phoenix

Phoenix, a powerful web-based image editor by Aviary, rivals the capabilities of desktop image editing applications. Check out this list of tutorials to fully appreciate the potential of this excellent image editor. You have to sign-up for an account to access Phoenix, but it only takes a few seconds and also gives you access to other Aviary tools and services such as Peacock (“Visual Laboratory”) and Toucan (color and swatch tool).

4. pixer.us

If you’re looking for an application to meet your simple photo-editing needs, check out pixer.us – a free, web photo editor. It has an intuitively simple interface and useful photo-editing features like cropping, resizing, and rotating. It also has some color adjustment options such as Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast adjustments. You can save your work as one of the four popular digital image files (PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP).

5. FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is a free, browser-based photo editor that has tons of features but is still simple to use. Check out FotoFlexer’s demo page to see some of the useful capabilities of the application. FotoFlexer certainly does an excellent job for common photo-editing needs such as cropping, resizing, and rotating. It also integrates with popular web services such as Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Facebook, MySpace and more.

6. SUMO Paint

SUMO Paint is a free, online image editor that allows you to edit and create images. It has a Shape tool that gives you the ability to draw unique shapes, a Brush tool with a surprisingly high-quality set of brushes, a Transform tool to help you scale, move, and rotate objects, and much more.

What’s your favorite?

Is your favorite web-based image editor not on the list? Share it with us in the comments, along with your experience and why you like it over other web-based image editors.

Similar posts

• 25 GIMP Video Tutorials to Help Get You Started
• 16 Free JavaScript Solutions for Displaying Your Images
• Web-Based Tools for Optimizing, Formatting and Checking CSS

The post 6 Best Web-based Image Editors appeared first on WebFX Blog.

WordPress 5.8 Release Candidate 2

The second release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is now available!

WordPress 5.8 is slated for release on July 20, 2021, and we need your help to get there—if you have not tried 5.8 yet, now is the time!

You can test the WordPress 5.8 release candidate 2 in any of these three ways:

• Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the Bleeding edge channel and then Beta/RC Only stream)
• Directly download the release candidate version (zip)
• Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=5.8-RC2

Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta/RC releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is a critical part of polishing every release and a great way to contribute to WordPress.

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.8 and update the Tested up to version in the readme file to 5.8. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums, so they can get ready for the final release.

For a more detailed breakdown of the changes included in WordPress 5.8, check out the WordPress 5.8 beta 1 post. The WordPress 5.8 Field Guide, which is particularly useful for developers, has all the info and further links to help you get comfortable with the major changes.

How to Help

Can you speak and write in a language other than English?  Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages!

If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

Props to @lukecarbis for the haiku, @webcommsat and @marybaum for peer reviewing!

Five-eight in two weeks
So test your plugins and themes
Update your readme

ffmpeg: make a video with a static image and an audio file

tsia

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -i audio.mp3 -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -shortest result.mp4

Community News: Latest PECL Releases (07.06.2021)

Latest PECL Releases:

• xhprof 2.3.3
  - Fix memory leak on array_filter #60
  • Custom xhprof_error
• phalcon 5.0.0alpha3
  Full changelog can be found at: https://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon/blob/master/CHANGELOG-5.0.md

  Changed

  • Changed version format to allow alpha/beta/RC releases on PECL.
  • Changed:
    • PhalconMvcModelResultsetComplex::__construct now accepts PsrSimpleCacheCacheInterface for the cache
    • PhalconMvcModelResultsetSimple::__construct now accepts PsrSimpleCacheCacheInterface for the cache
    • PhalconMvcModelResultset::__construct now accepts PsrSimpleCacheCacheInterface for the cache
    • PhalconMvcModelResultset::getCache now returns PsrSimpleCacheCacheInterface #15471
  • Changed PhalconDbAdapterAbstractAdapter:delete() signature of optional parameters. #15363
  • Changed bindCounts argument to array type in:
    • PhalconDbDialect:getColumnList()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlColumn()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpression()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionBinaryOperations()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionCase()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionCastValue()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionConvertValue()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionFunctionCall()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionGroupBy()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionHaving()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionJoins()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionLimit()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionList()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionObject()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionOrderBy()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionScalar()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionUnaryOperations()
    • PhalconDbDialect:getSqlExpressionWhere()
    • PhalconDbDialectInterface:getSqlExpression()

  Fixed

  • Fixed PhalconDbAdapterAbstractAdapter:delete() when bindTypes argument is passed. #15363
  • Fixed PhalconStorageAdapterRedis::getAdapter to use passed connectionTimeout, retryInterval and readTimeout options for the connection #15484
  • Fixed PhalconMvcViewEngineVoltCompiler for a use case when a block will return null vs an array for statementList in PHP 8 #15556
• memprof 3.0.1
  * Fix build
• simple_kafka_client 0.1.3
  ## Features - support oauthbearer mechanism (#47, #48, #49) ## Bugfixes - fix for PHP 8.1 (#52) ## Internals - cleanup and refactor (#43, #44, #45, #46)
• yaf 3.3.3
  - Fixed issue #546 (Segfault due to get_gc handler changed) - Use interned strings - Fixed Issue #545 segfault in yaf_route_simple::construct - Optimized Yaf_Route_Map::route
• awscrt 1.0.1
  Changes in build process
• scoutapm 1.4.2
  - Fixed some missed free calls after DYNAMIC_MALLOC_SPRINTF usage in PHP 8 only (#92)
• scoutapm 1.4.1
  - Fixed memory leaks from DYNAMIC_MALLOC_SPRINTF un-freed usages (#91)

Xdebug Update: June 2021

Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 1395 bytes)

How Taylor Arndt Brings a First-Person Perspective to Accessibility

The importance of accessibility is often preached to web designers. Thankfully, many of us have taken it to heart. In this day and age, there’s no reason why a website shouldn’t implement best practices.

However, if you don’t regularly use assistive technology, accessibility can be a bit of a guessing game. With that in mind, how many of us have consulted a person with a disability – someone who uses this technology daily?

Taylor Arndt is someone who understands website accessibility from multiple angles. She not only consults with all types of organizations regarding the subject, but she is also blind. This provides her with a first-person perspective on the challenges of using a typical website. In addition, she has the expertise to both define and fix any outstanding issues.

If you really want to learn the ins and outs of accessibility, Taylor is someone you’ll want to know. She was kind enough to answer some questions about her background and offer advice for fellow web designers.

The following is our Q&A session, slightly edited for brevity and context.

Could you tell us a little bit about your background in web development? How did you get started?

I got started when I worked for the local university auditing and fixing websites to meet the web accessibility standards. During 2020, after I lost my job at the university, I decided to start a business.

Today, I own my own company, Taylors Accessibility Services LLC, where I build websites but also educate developers on the best ways to ensure websites meet standards. Not only that, but I emphasize compliance along with usability.

How did you come to focus on accessibility?

I came to focus on accessibility because being blind myself, I faced these challenges and I wanted to do something about it.

What sort of assistive technology do you use when browsing a website?

The assistive technology I use is called a screen reader. A screen reader is a tool that reads what is being presented on the screen aloud to users so they can get information – just like the rest of society.

Is there any particular item related to accessibility that developers commonly miss or implement incorrectly?

The most common thing I see developers not implement has to be heading structure. I see lots of times where headings are used as a visual formatting indicator, rather than the real use of a section indicator for a new block of content.

Are there any specific website features that tend to hurt accessibility?

There are for sure features that are not accessible most of the time. One good example is carousels or slideshows. While these features make the website look nice, they can be an accessibility nightmare.

How do you go about certifying that a website meets the appropriate standards?

The certification of websites is not the easiest thing to do. There is no real recognized thing that says you met the standards. Instead, there are companies like mine who do accessibility statements saying that the website has been reviewed and meets all standards.

This review is done using manual auditing performed by users who have disabilities along with an automated report that only catches the things wrong with the code aspect. (With) those things working together, we can make the statement.

What advice would you give to web designers who perform accessibility audits?

The advice is simple. Have someone on your team who has a disability to audit along with you. The reason for this is that people without disabilities may have a basic idea of how to use the assistive technology, but they don’t use it daily, and they may not understand how a disabled user navigates.

Many thanks to Taylor for taking time out to speak with us! Be sure to check out her website and connect with her on Twitter.

The post How Taylor Arndt Brings a First-Person Perspective to Accessibility appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

35 Basic Tutorials to Get You Started with Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a very powerful and versatile image editing/graphics creation application that is the industry standard in its category. Though Photoshop’s interface is intuitive enough for an absolute beginner to learn basic image editing tasks such as cropping and resizing, to be able to fully master and utilize all of its tools takes a considerable amount of time.

If you’re interested in honing your Photoshop skills to create spectacular compositions, this is for you. In this article, you’ll find 35 Photoshop basics tutorials for getting started with Photoshop.

General tutorials

1. Getting Started with Photoshop

If you’ve never had any experience with Photoshop, this tutorial from SitePoint will get you up to speed with Photoshop’s basic features.

2. Adobe Photoshop Interface Tutorial

This tutorial outlines Photoshop CS2’s interface. Even if you use an earlier or later version of Photoshop, this Photoshop CS2 tutorial is still helpful in familiarizing yourself with how Photoshop – in general – is laid out.

3. You Suck at Photoshop (series)

This wildly popular and humorous screencast on Photoshop techniques by (probably) fictional character Donnie Hoyle is an excellent Photoshop series to follow if you like laughing and learning at the same time!

4. Photoshop’s Toolbox

This basic Photoshop tutorial goes over the anatomy of Photoshop’s Toolbox.

Photoshop tools and features

5. Retouch and Healing Tools

Photoshop has a host of tools and options for retouching and correcting images. This tutorial goes over the tools at your disposal and what situations each tool excels in.

6. Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide

Photoshop’s Pen tool gives you the ability to draw objects in a vector-like fashion. This thorough tutorial even comes with a practice sheet that will help you master the concepts of working with the Pen tool.

7. Photoshop’s Painting Tools

Photoshop’s Painting tools allow you to draw and fill in objects with colors and color gradients. This tutorial showcases Photoshop’s painting capabilities.

8. Photoshop Color Replacement Tool

Sometimes you want to replace certain colors in an image. With the Color Replacement tool – you can specify which colors you’d like to change and Photoshop will automatically replace them for you. This Adobe Photoshop basics tutorial goes through the color replacement process and discusses all the things you need to know about the Color Replacement tool.

9. Understanding Layer Masks

One of the fundamental skills to learn in Photoshop is the art of masking (isolating certain parts of a composition). This comprehensive tutorial goes over the Layer Masking features of Photoshop.

10. Photoshop’s Image Masking Tools

There are different methods of masking objects in your Photoshop composition. This tutorial goes over the basic masking tools available to you.

11. Layer Styles in Photoshop

Layer Styles are the effects and options you apply to a particular layer. This tutorial discusses the concept of Layer Styles and how to utilize them in your Photoshop documents.

12. Understanding Bevel and Emboss

Bevel and Emboss is a particular Layer Style. There are many options you can tweak and change (such as the shading and the angle of light); this tutorial goes over what each option does.

13. Understanding Drop Shadows

Drop Shadow is another Photoshop Layer Style that applies a silhouette to the objects in a layer. In this basic Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn about the different options and settings of the Drop Shadow Layer Style.

14. Introduction to Blending Modes

In this video tutorial, you’ll learn about the different Blending Modes available at your disposal.

15. Photoshop’s Filters

Photoshop filters are simply effects applied to your image (much like the concept of using photographic lens filters). For example, the Blur filter unsharpens the focus of your images. This tutorial goes over the Filters interface in Photoshop.

16. Useful Applications for the Clone Stamp Tool

This tutorial goes over some excellent uses of the Clone Stamp tool in Photoshop.

17. Getting to Grips with the Vanishing Point Filter

Master the Vanishing Point filter (a Photoshop filter that adjusts the image’s perspective) with this excellent Photoshop tutorial.

18. The Hidden Power of Photoshop Brush Tool

The Brush tool is a versatile drawing feature of Photoshop the mimics different art brushes and styles like water coloring, oil painting, or charcoal painting. This tutorial covers some of the best features of the Brush Tool in Photoshop.

19. “Background Eraser Tool” is the new Magic Wand

This tutorial goes over the usage of the Background Eraser tool in Photoshop.

Common tasks and techniques

20. A Comprehensive Introduction to Photoshop Selection Techniques

In order to become a Photoshop master, you’ll need to understand how to select different sections and objects in your composition. This guide goes over some techniques you can use to selectively isolate certain objects or groups of objects.

21. Sharpening the Details

You’ll often need to sharpen photos for image correction. In this video tutorial, you’ll learn about various sharpening techniques.

22. Saving Images for the Web

One of the most powerful features of Photoshop is its ability to save compositions in a variety of web formats. This tutorial explains the different options and settings of saving images for the web.

23. Create Your Own Custom Shapes in Photoshop

Custom Shapes are reusable objects in Photoshop. It gets stored in a library and you can access them later on from another Photoshop document. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create, import, and save your own custom shapes.

24. Photoshop Smart Objects, smart but not always that smart

Smart Objects are instantiated objects – that is, you can create multiple instances of a source object and make a change to an instance of that object while still keeping the original object intact. This basic Photoshop tutorial goes over how to use Smart Objects.

Enhancing your workflow and efficiency

25. Using Pen Tablets in Photoshop

You can use a Pen tablet (an input device that lets you draw images directly into an image editor) over a mouse to create more accurate drawings by hand. This tutorial shows you the basic concepts behind utilizing a Pen Tablet to supplement your workflow.

26. Automating Photoshop with Actions

An Action is a sequence of Photoshop tasks that you can repeat and reuse. For example, if you find yourself constantly resizing images to 550 pixels in width and then saving them in  PNG file format, you can record a Photoshop Action that will apply these settings automatically. This excellent tutorial covers the basics of creating and using Photoshop Actions.

27. Using Palettes in Photoshop

Palettes are sets of tools and options that help you organize Photoshop’s interface. In this Photoshop basics tutorial, you’ll get a great primer on how to take advantage of using Palettes.

28. Installing and Managing Brushes & Other Presets

You can install pre-made brushes (instead of creating your own) in Photoshop as well as save important settings for future use. This tutorial will show you how to work with brushes and other Photoshop presets.

29. Layer Comps in Photoshop CS

A Layer Comp is a version of your composition that you can switch back and forth to. Learn a little about an actual use of Layer Comps.

30. Photoshop Secret Shortcuts

Shortcuts enable greatly increases your efficiency. In this excellent tutorial, you’ll learn about some of the lesser-known but tremendously useful Photoshop shortcuts.

31. Manage your shortcuts in Photoshop

If you don’t like the preset keyboard shortcuts the Photoshop comes with out of the box, this tutorial will show you how to change and manage your Photoshop shortcuts.

Learning by doing

32. Manipulate an Image with Scripting

Scripting allows you to automate and extend Photoshop’s features by authoring your own code. Learn about Photoshop Scripting with this tutorial that uses image manipulation as a working example.

33. Use Photoshop’s Filters to Make Simple Illustrations

Learn to use Photoshop Filters to transform a photo into an illustration.

34. Custom made Seamless Texture Tutorial

Learn to create seamless textures in Photoshop.

35. Simple organic shapes in Photoshop

This tutorial goes over a technique for creating simple organic shapes using several Photoshop tools and techniques such as the Shape Tool and Gradient Masks.

Benefits of Photoshop

Photoshop can help increase the user experience on your site by making images more engaging, and assuring you are getting the most for your SEO budget.  It’s a great tool to use to build icons, edit pictures, and make the media on your site more appealing to your users.  It’s so much more than a random color picker because it allows you to change almost anything you can imagine on the media you have on your website.  For highly competitive industries on the internet, such as auto parts, a company can really make their images stand out from the crowds, and make their site more appealing than competitors.  Simple photoshop techniques can make even the most boring of images have a little more pop.

Got more?

Do you have a tutorial you think will help beginners get started with Photoshop? Please share it with us in the comments.

Related content

• 25 Photoshop Tutorials for Web Designers
• 40+ Useful Cheat Sheets for Designers
• 30 Beautiful Photoshop Illustration Tutorials
• 30 Beautiful Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials

The post 35 Basic Tutorials to Get You Started with Photoshop appeared first on WebFX Blog.