Today launches the Email Standards Project. I can not begin to convey the importance of this project. To help relate why this is so important, I’m going to give you some background on how I ended up designing emails for a living and a typical day.

Background
I started designing websites in 1997. It was at an internship while in high school. My goal was to go to college and get a degree in Graphic Design. I did go off to college and have my degree in Graphic Design. While at that internship I made a significant switch from the world of print which I started learning to digital. After college I continued to work designing websites.

In late August 2007 I was introduced to the world of email design. The company I was employed with decided to get into email marketing. It was there that I learned I’d have to step back to 1997 in terms of markup for my HTML. Marking the first frustration.

A Typical Day
I get a project, that a company wants to send out an email to their customers. It’s best when I am able to design the piece from scratch but many times I get “suggestions” or the actual photoshop file handed to me to “make work”. From here I deconstruct the PSD file, or work off my own, and make precise cuts and determine what can be actual text and what will not be guaranteed to translate over correctly in all email clients.

I then go into Dreamweaver and layout my HTML file with CSS. After it’s displaying correctly as a webpage, I then change over all my CSS to inline CSS. For “padding”, many times I need to use transparent spacer.gif files, even more so when dealing with Lotus Notes which does not render any padding/margins what-so-ever.

After all the CSS has been placed inline and no shorthand. I copy it over to our system, upload all the images, make sure the images have full paths and start testing.

This is the “fun” part. Every email client wants to render things differently. I also have to plan ahead for the end user having turned off images.

Apple Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird are hands down the best at truly rendering things as you think they should look. Lotus Notes is hands down the worst.

So in a nutshell this is why E-Mail Standards are so important. Head over to http://www.email-standards.org to learn more, join up and help support a very worthy cause!

My very first MeToday. Craig and I took a walk in White Memorial Park this morning.
Pics from today Flickr White Memorial Set

Ordered one of these from B&H Photo and Video earlier today. I was going to go through Amazon, but I want to guarantee I receive it before Thanksgiving. That’s a whole other story of how Amazon has screwed up our shipping multiple times.

After listening to the Talk Show episode 4 and coming across several posts in my Google Reader feeds about getting a fixed lense, I took the leap. The price is definitely in our budget. I’m really looking forward to going out and taking some photos.

We’ve been using iSale since November 2006. It’s been a pretty good program making eBay listing much less of a pain. Since we purchased it for $40.00. Then an update came out in February, which we upgraded at $16.00. And now it’s November and another upgrade for $20.00.

While I like the app, if I were to upgrade again, I will have spent $76.00 on the program. Nothing says I have to upgrade, but there’s something to be said for companies that offer free upgrades for at least a year from your purchase.

Tonight I went and met with my trainer. We did a slightly different work out from the last time. This time we focused more on my upper body.

• 10 minutes on elliptical
• 5 minutes on the track
• upper body free weights, 4lb weights
• machine upper body workout
• stair case x3
• upper body free weights, 4lb weights
• machine upper body workout
• crunches, sets of 15 and 20 x2
• reverse crunches set of 10 x4
• 15 minutes on crossramp

It was an intense but good work out for an hour. I’m amazed at how much clearer I feel and think afterwards. Now I just need a kick in the ass to go more regularly.

For me I keep waiting for Craig to get me motivated but right now I think it’s going to need to be the other way around.

I’m hoping next week to try skiing again and get some hiking in.

Spaces @ Work, originally uploaded by criana.

I love the new Spaces feature in Leopard, aka Apple OS 10.5.

1) Lotus Notes
2) VMWare Fusion
3) iTunes
4) Apple Mail, Safari and iChat

I’ve gotten pretty quick with using the keyboard shortcuts to jump around screen.

[Update: I stopped using Spaces while at work, it became more of a pain to remember which window had what folder view open and having to move back and forth. I might revisit this in the future with a more concrete plan for each space]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been attended knitting. Tonight I made it along with Kelly, Kathy, Pam, Fran, Barbara and a new person Lorraine. It was a lot of fun. Kelly picked up Panera and then for a treat Saranac Pumpkin Ale.

She watched the WLTV episode on beers too and was interested in possibly a pumpkin flavored beer. Neither of us are big beer drinkers, wine is our preferred choice. But the pumpkin ale wasn’t too bad.

I got through a row of cables on my fetchings. I even taught some knitting tonight! I showed Kathy how to do a cable cast on. We had a great time, munching on french baguette too.

Goal for tomorrow, wake up with the alarm. Simple as that.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie for a few months. I’m hooked on Peter Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” song, it’s been on repeat in my iPhone for a while.

We went to go see it last week on opening night. The showing sold out, which surprised us. I had read movie reviews in the morning that blasted it for being anything but “real” life. I was getting a little worried, but everything I had seen in previews it looked good.

It was just as funny as the previews showed. It was very real to life. If you don’t have a family member(s) like this, count yourself one of the lucky. Steve Carrell was great, he does a great job as the self-deprecating character who you love. There were several scenes Craig and I were laughing really hard.

The moral of story, to follow your heart, not be too hard on yourself and take risks were conveyed very well.

[rating:4.5]

This week started off all good and well, I went to the gym, had a really good work out sessions with my trainer. That night I was feeling really good and organized.

Tuesday I woke up exhausted as I have been for the past few weeks. No matter how little or lots of sleep I get I wake up exhausted. I didn’t plan my meals and tried to just eat as best as I could while on the go.

Wednesday was Halloween and I was getting more and more down. I also saw the nutritionist that day. It went so-so, I had gained 2 lbs, and I hadn’t really been following the plan since the 19th. She asked what the problem was and I vented a moment about my life, which she then said, “I can recommend someone for you to talk to.” So… that was a confidence booster.

On going I’m having an extreme amount of stress in my personal life with a family member. I don’t want to put it all out here, but if you would like to lend an ear please email me. I’m trying to cope and move on and choose to be in control of my life.

As the week finished up I just got more and more down. It’s also “that” time of the month and cramps seriously don’t help.

So I’m sitting down right now having a little pep talk with myself…

Issues/Obstacles:

• Exhaustion
• Inability to focus
• No planning
• Lack of a routine

Goals (Need Suggestions) :

• Create a routine
• Own my time, it’s for me not others
• Grattitude Journal (thanks for the idea Corrie)
• Be Happy
• Schedule time just for me

Any other ideas?