Cjfay.com - Magic Designagina » chrisfay

Oh Ipad…

chrisfay — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:55:34 +0000

What Jobs is saying, is that he’s finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.

Now that he’s turned computers into toys, he can finally get “Grandma.” But this doesn’t really change anything in the computer world.

It’s something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald’s succeeds by not having a steak dinner.

…so true – I think the device is great, for what it does well – a fun shiny toy for playing with some great apps, social, reading, and for getting a generation of nonusers to pick up a device related to the computer in some distant leg of the gene pool. Certainly not going to revolutionize the computing world IMHO…

burning and itching…ok just burning

I’m going with…. Designer

chrisfay — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:51:38 +0000

Interesting post… http://www.drawar.com/articles/artist-designer-or-hack/160/

I like to think of myself as:

The Designer

The designer understands that he is there to do one thing and that is to solve problems. Rarely is there any glory in solving problems. You might spend 240 hours building a website only to watch users spend the five minutes needed on it and leave. It shouldn’t sting because if they leave completing the tasks they came to do then you have done your job and that is the satisfaction a designer gets.

At times there is praise for their work, but that is usually from other designers. Their best work is the stuff that goes unnoticed. Their best work gets out of the way and lets the user do what they need to do without complications. The invisible doesn’t get recognized because it is never seen (thank you Captain Obvious).

What is so hard for people to grasp about designers is their love for solving problems. People tend to think that designers like to create beautiful things (the artist), but they really want to create beautiful solutions. These people are very rare.

I personally find solving problems the most fulfilling aspect of web design, software development, and really anything tech’ish. You can slap together any solution, but there’s an art to putting together something that does it both elegantly and efficiently. Unfortunately, as the article author blatantly notes, there’s little glory in completing such endeavors – on many occasions I’ve tried to gloat to the wife about a self proclaimed masterpiece in C#, or web apps that made me crack a smile upon completion of again, my own brilliance (i would argue) – she laughs at me in pity and I realize then how alone I am in the world.

Thankfully, I’ve found a few online communities of like minded individuals that I can communicate with – work can on occasion moderately fill that void – but it would sure be nice to find some living breathing humans within my zipcode on the same level… maybe?

And just to be clear – I haven’t earned the title of designer in my opinion, yet at least. I have a long way to go before I can say that confidently. In all honesty I’m probably more a hybrid mix of 5 parts designer and 1 part hack/artist, trudging desperately away from the latter with hopes of learning to harness my own creativity far more than everyone else’s (ie freebies, tutorials, whatever). Sure, I can get caught up making things look pretty, or focusing on mastering new techniques, but I really do have an intense desire to understand why they work and how to improve upon them with my own style rather than simply pumping out copy cat designs. I guess ultimately I’d like to give back usable work full of value and originality.

Now that I’ve finished an undergrad in software engineering, I suppose it’s time to dig deeper into the fundamentals of design…

frustration

Week 3 – Day 6 – Plyo Cardio Circuit

chrisfay — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:48:17 +0000

So I haven’t been very consistent in recording the pains of this week’s workouts, but that doesn’t correlate in any way to our track record of completion. Somehow we’ve managed to find the time, strength, motivation, anger, whatever it is necessary to keep this going – and we’re about to move into week 4 of this program.

It’s about as nuts as it was in week 1 I think, although I see a huge improvement physically externally as well as internally (cardiovascularly). It really is amazing to see just how much improvement can be gained in a matter of a few weeks. I had a ton of room to grow going into this so that’s not saying too much I suppose, and I’ll probably plateau soon, but my physical appearance (ABS!) is a great byproduct fo sho…

I think I pushed a bit harder today than normal as I was dripping – much more than usual – or maybe that was because we did the workout mid-day with the windows open and the sun beating down on us…not sure. It felt good either way. I seemed to need to stop a bit more than usual, but in other areas felt I was keeping pace better – I suppose it’s difficult to really keep track of improvements in certain areas without reps and weights – this type of workout is very new to me, but fun in a different way…

Week 3 – Day 3 – Pure Cardio/ Cardio Abs

chrisfay — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:26:37 +0000

Tough from start to finish today. Lungs feel coated thanks to this respiratory infection that’s taken up residence – noticeably worse today than the last couple days – which I think made it much more difficult. I had some serious muscle tension in my neck from today and the workout completely removed it which was a nice byproduct. I will say the further in the easier it got – until I had to basically start over with cardio abs and jump around all ridiculously like I hadn’t just worked out for 45 minutes. Will that combo ever get easier?

chris_week3_day3 from chris fay on Vimeo.

Week 3 – Day 1- Fit Test

chrisfay — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:11:16 +0000

Two weeks down in this crazy workout and with that comes some results – I threw together a quick little chart of the fit test results so far. I took it a bit easy during week 1 but the improvements are still very much real. 6 more weeks and can’t wait to see what these results show then…

chris_week3_fittest from chris fay on Vimeo.

No related posts.

Week 2 – Day 6 – Pure Cardio/ Cardio Abs

chrisfay — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:20:29 +0000

Dear God that was by far the most intense workout I have ever done in my life. Pure cardio is crazy hard by itself, but to throw in another 25 minutes of ab crap is just not very nice – seriously, I already did a warmup, then a cool down – did I really need another warmup before doing abs? Didn’t think so…

I took a nice 15 second video clip of Jennie looking all shtoit like a tiger, passed it over to her to return the favor and what does she do? She stops the video while aiming it at me, then clicks record before setting it down on the counter. Long story short instead of my video clip I got 3 minutes of hard wood counter top and some grunting off yonder – not much of a clip, so instead you get me talking about how much the workout sucked and little to see…sorry.

Actually though, I felt really good – it was the first time in the last two weeks where I didn’t have to stop once during the entire warmup. Not one little break, pout, yell – you get the point. My heart felt great, I sweat like a little beotch, but pushed through well and my lungs kept up better than any of the previous workouts. Really hoping this keeps up. The ab workout was rough in the beginning with all the jumping – tons of it – but finished off with some wicked sitting/crunch type stuff that was lower impact, but manageable. Good times…

Week 2 – Day 4 – Pure Cardio (makeup day)

chrisfay — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:16:52 +0000

Jesus that was rough. I almost quit once during the warm-up and a good couple times during the actual workout – not sure why I didn’t, but whatever. Had to make this day up from a headache I had earlier this week and didn’t want to miss my favorite heart wrenching workout on the menu. I was dragging the whole way through, as you can tell from my video clip with legs sprawling body flailing. I’m blaming it on the sickness my entire family has been fighting as of late, though I have yet to succumb to it completely, only morning coughs and minor annoyances so far. And of course the sluggish workouts.

I have noticed one major improvement over the last couple workouts – the subsiding of the dizzy spells. I was experiencing about 10 minutes worth of minor lightheadedness- enough to be a bother – after each workout. Recently however it has stopped. I’m guessing my cardiovascular inferiority has been waning, in light of a new set of lungs, blood vessels and all around pumpatude – or something…

Chris – Week 2 day 3 – Pure Cardio from chris fay on Vimeo.

Week 2 – Day 3 – Plyo Cardio Circuit

chrisfay — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:16:32 +0000

Just finished it off a few minutes ago – almost didn’t as I seem to be battling a respiratory infection and well, I’m looking for any excuse to skip a day of abuse – the wife wouldn’t have any of that. It was nasty – I think this workout is one of the hardest from an exercise combination/difficulty perspective, even though you do get rest breaks throughout, the routine is just crazy – much tougher than the pure cardio workout I thought was worse originally.

In any case I made it, barely…

Chris – Insanity – Week 2 Cardio Circuit from chris fay on Vimeo.

chrisfayconsulting.com – new face

chrisfay — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:46:57 +0000

After about 6 months of ‘This site is being updated, check back soon’ I finally got around to painting a face on chrisfayconsulting.com. It’s just the skin – more of a splash page for now, and mostly points back to where the juice is currently (chrisfay.net), but it’s the initial motion on one of my new years resolutions – seriously building a brand for my freelancing/consulting business for 2010.

I do quite a bit of theme development for ThemeForest.net and in doing so generate a steady flow of clients for a variety of projects, many of which I am unable to show due to non-disclosures. Aside from those projects I work on my own startup ideas, webapp fronts, and anything I can get my hands on with hopes of revolutionizing the online industry in any way possible. Chris Fay Consulting, LLC is the umbrella from which I work, and my goal this year will be to strenghten this brand to make it a stronger avenue for revenue and a future business model for things to come.

I went with a more minimal’sh modern feel, focused on bold typography – you’ll notice the site is pretty light on content at the moment. This is due in part to a conflict of interest between chrisfay.net and chrisfayconsulting.com – I’m still figuring out how to mesh the two into one brand, and will be my next big project.

Curious you’re thoughts on the look so far…

Face off: cjfay

Week 2 – Day 1 – Cardio Power & Resistance

chrisfay — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:10:20 +0000

Done and done – dragged a bit in the beginning with that wicked warm-up, but finished stronger I think than the last time around. Jennie and I took some week 2 pictures and can definitely seem some results so far, but won’t post anything until the second fit test at the start of week 3. I did notice my lungs felt a bit locked throughout the workout, probably due to the respiratory infection I’ve been dancing around but hasn’t really caught on yet – hopefully it doesn’t take me out.

Untitled from chris fay on Vimeo.