Gedy Rivera Creative Web Design

What’s happening at IHOP

Supernatural Stuff Going On

For six years I have had a condition in my reproductive system that caused me to get very sick, but since Wednesday night, the sypmtoms are gone. I will be explaining more in detail in the next couple of days.

Can’t Live Without Him

Man can’t do without God. Just like you’re thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can’t go without God. -Bob Marley

5 Tips for Creating More Accountability

As business owners with 42 things to do to get through the daily grind, not to mention long-term business goals to pursue, most of us are constantly seeking new ways to create accountability – to drag ourselves (kicking and screaming, if necessary) to the finish line.

Here’s five ways to build accountability into your daily routine:

1. Declare goals publicly. This functions on many levels. In terms of an entire company, it could mean publicly stating an ambitious goal and tying it to a date. In terms of individuals, it can mean declaring your goals in front of those you respect – your team, your inner circle of friends, or your family. The moment that you tell someone else you ARE going to do something, an outside gravitational force takes hold, making you feel more duty-bound to reach your objective.

2. Share your planning documents and to-do lists. Whether it’s a timeline with project milestones or a regular old list of to-dos, sharing your working documents transparently with your team builds trust and increases accountability. Essentially, it’s a passive way of publicly stating your agenda and creating a powerful accountability mechanism for getting things done. If your colleagues notice you are constantly missing milestones, they’ll start asking questions.

3. Rewire your focus on short-term rewards. We love instant gratification, which is why it’s so much easier to get the small, no-brainer to-dos done than the big tasks that require deep focus and hard thinking. We can spend our whole day just responding to emails, while we neglect the long-term future of our businesses. Rewiring is about finding ways to take pleasure in the long haul required to truly achieve great tasks and cause real change. We can’t get rid of our desire for short-term rewards, but we can be aware of it. The first step is identifying your long-term goals, and setting up a series of short-term rewards that keep you moving towards – and accountable to – those goals.

4. Leverage fighting to stay on track. In a work setting, we often shy away from arguments, thinking that easy agreement (and not rocking the boat) is preferable. But particularly productive teams actually encourage healthy fighting, where coworkers duke it out to explore all of the possible solutions for a given problem. While a quick consensus is comfortable, vigorous debate means our teams will stay accountable to finding the best solution.

5. List out action steps after brainstorming sessions and impromptu gatherings. Accountability often slips through the cracks when we get high on the rush of a good meeting or an ad hoc conversation about a new idea. To ensure that these daily insights get captured, every meeting of the minds should end with a quick recount of each person’s “action steps.” No amount of talking about the future helps if we don’t ensure that we’ve articulated the very concrete next steps necessary to get there.

*** This post by J.K. Glei is based on research by the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network, the 99% productivity think thank, the Action Method project management application, and the Creative Jobs List.

Wordpress Page Template Hack

I have found that when I create a new page template in Wordpress, it doesn’t appear on the ‘Template’ drop down menu, to assign it to a specific page.  It is so frustrating to sit there and try everything and find that nothing gets your silly page template to show as available.

Here’s the Hack

1. Create the page template and save it.
2. Go to the ‘Themes’ area in Wordpress and deactivate and reactive your current theme.

Voila! This should force the new page template to appear on the ‘Template’ menu.

I took forever trying to figure this out so I understand how frustrating it can be now to know what to do and how silly this solution is.  Hope it helps!

OUCH! 19-Pound Baby Born in Indonessia

A diabetic woman from the North Sumatra province gave birth to a 19-pound baby boy, who is believed to have broken the size record for the Southeast Asian country.

Source: Today MSNBC

Melting Men

I found this blog and just had to share it.  I have my own thoughts about Global Warming, which I will share at a later date, but for now, enjoy the post.

Melting men: Thousand ice sculptures left to thaw in the sun to highlight climate change in Arctic
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 9:03 AM on 03rd September 2009

A thousand miniature people have slowly melted away in a Berlin square in an effort to draw attention to melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica.

Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo carved the figures out of ice and placed them on steps in the central Gendarmenmarkt square where they began to melt within about half an hour.

Temperatures in Berlin were about 73 degrees Fahrenheit (23 Celsius) Wednesday.

Ice cool: Small ice figures are seen on the stairs of Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, German today as part of an art project by World Wide Fund for Nature

The installation, Melting Men, was meant to spotlight the World Wildlife Fund’s warning that melting ice could possibly cause levels to rise more than 3.3 ft by 2100.

The group warns that the warming of the Arctic will change weather in different parts of the world and increase the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Since 2005, Azevedo has been setting up her Melting Men in various countries around the world. Although originally intended as a critic of the role of monuments in cities, environmentalists around the world are adopting her work as climate change art.

Ice ice, baby: Around a thousand ice figures by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo were melting within 30 minutes symbolizing the effect of global warming

Center of attention:  The action was meant to spotlight the World Wildlife Fund’s warning that melting ice could possibly cause levels to rise more than 3.3 ft by 2100

When asked if she was a climate activist, Azevedo told greenmuze.com: ‘No. I’m an artist, master of visual arts from the University of Sao Paolo.

‘This work was conceived as a critical view of the official historical monuments. As the reading and interpretation of an art piece is open, I’m glad it can also speak of urgent matters that threaten our existence on this planet.’

‘The project started with solitary figures, later a multitude of small sculptures of ice were placed in public spaces of several cities. The memory is inscribed in the photographic image and shared by everyone. It is not reserved to great heroes nor to great monuments.’

Burnt by the sun: Although originally intended as a critic of the role of monuments in cities, environmentalists around the world are adopting her work as climate change art

Little people: The installation lasted till the last one melted in the heat of the day

C.S. Lewis Song by Brooke Fraiser

Every time I listen to this song it gives me goosebumps. It’s so deep yet so simple. Check it out!

Microsoft.com Web Design

I’m confused.  Why does Microsoft.com have 4 different widths (header, menu, main ad area and content)? Then this random ad on the lower left side of the page.  :-/

Tweet of the Day

I follow many fellow web designers on Twitter, but my favorite are my fellow girl web designers and for this reason exactly. Check out the Tweet of the Day by @meaganfisher.

Whatever happened to the art in design?

I really enjoyed Mike Kus’ talk on Web Design being art. It’s interesting how we can easily forget that we’re artists when we sink in to a project. I highly encourage any web designer to watch this.

Creative Portfolio by Mike from Carsonified

I don’t think I’ve seen a design portfolio like this before. Very creative. Thumbs up to Mike for the awesome work!

One-Stop-Shop for All Your Mac Apps

My world just keeps getting better and better! I’ve been wondering when something like Apple’s App Store was going to be released but for Mac Apps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful to MacAppStorm and MacUpdate for the awesome listing and reviews of apps, but you just can’t ignore the awesomeness of great navigation, beautiful interface, and the power of having everything in one place, plus it’s FREE!

This is a huge milestone in my app world. It could definitely get better if Apple released their “Downloads” version of Apple.com on iTunes. Now that would be wonderful! Until then… thanks Bodega!

Watch the screen-cast below to see how it all works.

My Work: Wedding Invitations

It’s been a while since I did a print project, so this one is pretty exciting. My friends Andrea and Kenny wanted something very simple, vintage-looking, non-traditional, and I thought this would be right up my alley. They are super happy with them and I’m just so excited about the way that they turned out.

Lego Arcade

Found this cool video! Enjoy.