.. well, except when it decided (on my special themed sites) to take my background image and put it in the iframe for the editor.  As in this example, on a number of the sites it is a rather dark image which makes the editing process a bit harder.

Happily, upon searching, I found a comment in the “Tips & Tricks” section of drupal.fckeditor.net that I don’t think had anything to do with my weird image issue.  They mentioned adding the following line to the “Advanced options” section of the FCKEditor administration:

EditorAreaStyles = "body{background:#FFFFFF;text-align:left;}";

… and voila! White iframe happiness.  :)

At our core, interaction designers are anthropologists. We design interactions between people and people, and people and things. There is only one way to better understand people and better anticipate how they behave: observe.

The user experience profession is pretty weird. Some argue it isn’t a profession at all because you don’t need to belong to any associations or hold any certifications in order to call yourself a practitioner. We’re an occupation or concentration, or maybe we’re just a mindset.

I see us at an intersection, as a liaison. We combine principles of design, psychology, statistics and computer science to bring humanity into technology. Whether your day to day activities include drawing wireframes or interviewing prospective users or conducting usability tests, we are ultimately advocates for change — and in order to change the world, you have to see the world as it really is.

Most of my life I have been an avid people watcher.  I am constantly noting peoples movements and actions through life. I started doing this at a young age because I had issues with depth perception.  I needed to know what people were about to do, simply to move around in the world.  So, I note.. how people walk, what they look at and how it affects movement, etc.  Growing up around various religions and psychology, I can understand why people react to and do things the way they do. Years of this information has been taken in and assimilated, so I usually can predict what people are about to do spatially.. and comprehend the rest of why they do what they’ve done.

My problem is that I never found a way to put that information into words.. or even cohesive thought.  I know these things.. I just never developed a voice (even internally) enough to write things down or speak them.  I’ve thought about buying a journal for years in order to write stories that I have in my head, but I always talk myself out of it.  So, how does one develop this?

I wonder if I should just do as Whitney says, and force myself to write down those basics.. and maybe the rest will follow.

Well, my cousin posted something on my facebook wall about the dangers of wearing Uggs. Quelle surprise!  I’ve always hated them.  I liken their wearing to sporting pajamas outside the home.

Dr. Ian Drysdale, the head of the British College of Osteopathic Medicine, said, “Because these boots are warm and soft, young girls think they are giving their feet a break. In fact, they are literally breaking their feet.” Drysdale continued, “Their feet are slipping around inside. With each step, the force falls towards the inside of the foot and the feet splay. This flattens the arch and makes it drop. The result can be significant problems with the foot, the ankle, and ultimately, the hip.”

…

Dr. Rock Positano, Director of the Non-surgical Foot and Ankle Service for the Hospital for Special Surgery, sees no difference. “Whether they are real Uggs or fake Uggs, we’re dealing with footwear that offers no substantial and necessary orthopedic support for the foot and the ankle.” He has many clients come to him with complications from wearing Uggs and pseudo-Uggs.

Ada had been taught mathematics from a very young age by her mother and met Babbage in 1833. Ten years later she translated Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s Analytical Engine, appending notes that included a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the machine – the first computer programme. The calculations were never carried out, as the machine was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Understanding that computers could do a lot more than just crunch numbers, Ada suggested that the Analytical Engine “might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” She never had the chance to fully explore the possibilities of either Babbage’s inventions or her own understanding of computing. She died, aged only 36, on 27th November 1852, of cancer and bloodletting by her physicians.

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John Basilone is one of the famous Marines we have to learn about at boot camp and they talk about him all the time in Marine Corps history, but they never mention that his wife Lena Riggi was a Marine too!  more»

Everyone from my area knows about Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone.  Although he was born in Buffalo, he grew up in Raritan, New Jersey.  So of course there are tons of things named after him and we can’t forget the parades each year.  But, I had no idea that his wife was a marine.. they met at Camp Pendleton after he re-enlisted.  Very interesting!  :)

SO, for now.. I’m focusing on the first and third bits of my tagline. :)

Have a great weekend, lovelies!

~ emi

I laughed it off at the time, but suddenly it’s really bugging me. As if my 13 year old self was annoyed, but too damn shy to say anything. Or maybe it’s that propriety thing rearing its ugly head.. .. have I been too long in the ‘silence is golden’ rut?  Obviously I couldn’t correct the person in the moment.. they were accusing laughing that I was posturing.. so it would sound exactly like I was deluding myself into believing the lie.

I know that I am too literal for some of my friends’ sensibilities.  (I totally empathize with Bones‘ Dr. Brennan most days.)  But assumptions like this are the exact reason is why I am this way. Maybe it shouldn’t bother me so much.  Maybe everyone else should just deal with the fact that I like being understood.

sigh.

When someone makes assumptions about you.. how do you handle it?  How do you explain to someone that you were not, in fact, lying about yourself?  How do you explain your true self?  Or do you not bother and tell them all to bugger off, as one friend suggested?

These realizations forced me to take an extended ‘navel-contemplation’ vacation to visit my best friend in PA.  I left in July and will be returning to FL in another week.  I am so excited about my new life that is coming.  I cannot even tell you how much I’ve changed simply by being up here.  When I first arrived, I was so strung-out by stress that I jumped at the littlest things, couldn’t sit still, and apologized for everything I did and said.  Now.. well, to hear Christa speak of it, I’m a different person.  :)  I know I am.  Now, I get to delve deeper into the process of finding bits of me I’ve long since left behind.

I cannot wait to tell you news of my life.. and I’m not even stressed about being in limbo anymore.

Please excuse it for a while though – I am trying out new themes and playing with the ones I like in order to make them more me. In the mean time, feel free to poke around and visit some of my friends on my reading list.

Oh, and if you’re looking for my old blog..  go here.

~e