So the new look and feel for my current place of work is up. I’m pretty pleased at how smoothly the transition went. I still think it needs to continually be improved (I’m already ready for an overhaul to the look! Oh how fickle…), but I’m happy with myself and the organization’s treatment of the project.

AAPT Redesign - Nov 2009

It was an important to the American Association of Physics Teachers (my employer) and myself that the project was done right and made it to completion. With the assistance of a great web developer and friend (and the crew that were testers and stakeholders), we were able to push it out in just under a year of my arrival. While it’s not as polished or as feature-rich as I’d like, I still think that’s impressive considering I was tackling day-to-day activities at the same time.

I’m just happy it’s “done” for now. I’ve been definitely taking a “breather” (the holidays coming up) after such an intense year. I’ll be having two Thanksgiving dinners (Wednesday is my fiancee’s mom’s place, Thursday is my parents’ place). Maybe next year we’ll host it at our house.

Thoughts? What did you do after the last big project you completed for work?

PS – Left 4 Dead 2 and Torchlight are GREAT post-redesign-launch relaxation games

It’s Sunday and I’m partially recovered from a short, fun day trip up to NYC with Stephanie, her mom, and her sister. I’m not sure how I survived, as I’ve spent the last week catching up on a semester project I had somewhat neglected in favor of other priorities. That’s OK, though, because it marks the end of the semester for me. I have a single course left before I’m eligible to get my Master’s at UMBC. Hooray!

On another related front: I took up a new position as a web designer at a local non-profit organization. It’s been great so far and their site does need a lot of help (lots of room and opportunities to prove myself). The people there are amiable and vibrant, probably thanks to the web team being nearly entirely new. Yes, that sounds like a bad omen, but I can see the situation being very stable. The new web developer came in after me, and he’s a bright guy. We’ll be collaborating some big projects to get the site into shape. I truly believe this was the move that I needed, even if I’m no longer at an office and have to sit in a cubicle-like station. I even got lots of compliments for the Christmas lights I set up around it. Fantastic!

Finally, it truly looks like Valve’s Steam (a downloadable games service) is going to be facing true competition. While Steam is, in my opinion, an amazing service with great deals, it can only be good for the consumer that things like Good Old Games, Direct2Drive, and now Impulse Driven are cropping up with competitive pricing. Impulse Driven comes from Stardock, who makes all kinds of games (Galactic Civilizations) and software (Object Desktop). I particularly like GOG, because not only are they updating classics to play on the latest operating systems (Windows XP, Vista), but they are cheap and DRM-Free. You hear that Ubisoft and EA? Follow these guys and stop blaming poor software sales on terrible games on piracy.

Sidenote about NYC: A great place to look for design inspiration, from the ads to the architecture to the subway signs.