Inside-ish Out-like: A Pop Culture Mom Font
Two of the things I'm totally addicted to now, the iFontMaker app for iPad and Disney/Pixar's Inside Out. So I've decided to marry them.
For those who don't know, iFontMaker is an app that allows you to draw your own fonts. The website says you can draw a font in 5 minutes. This is probably true for some people, but I'm Type A and complicated when it comes to anything creative, so for me, it's often the equivalent of five days. The font that appears on the web version of this site is my handwriting. This font was probably redone, oh, six or seven times. I have various fonts I've created for the purpose of one-key shortcuts (for example, a private signature font I use at work to sign PDFs), fonts of cartoons of my family just because I ran out of ideas, chalkboard fonts, fonts to make diecuts for my Cricut (also in the top five on my current addictions list) and of characters my kids love. That's where Inside Out comes in.
Inside Out is easily one of the best family movies I've seen in a long time. It has unseated Frozen as far as the Pop Culture Girls' obsession meter goes. You heard me, Disgust is more popular than Elsa. Seriously.
So after we saw Inside Out the first time, I started working on a font. I'm not exactly sure what we'll do with it other than using it in the Cricut and basically just randomly inserting it in documents just because we can [fan art made easy!], but my kids were super excited when I finally finished it today.
I'm not selfish, so I'm sharing it with you all. All I ask is that you let people know where you got it. So Inside-ish Out-like is all yours for the low cost of attribution.* Just click here. I hope you experience lots of Joy and make Core Memories using it!
* And it should go without saying, but DUH! no commercial use! Personal use only.
I am SO not the Early Adopter Type (Anymore)
I used to be the ultimate techno geek. If I didn't buy a product first, I darn sure knew about it before anyone in my circle. And then… life happened (I got one, I guess?). Kids happened. And then iPhone happened.
I was told very early in my Apple indoctrination induction to never buy the first generation of Apple anything; always give it a couple of months for them to fix the bugs. Every iPhone and iOS release has proven why this rule exists. Apple gets a little twitchy with the releases. Things slip through the cracks—major things (Apple Maps, anyone??).
And iPhones are expensive, yo. When you have two kids and a whole grownup existence to support, $400 every year [which, really, is a conservative estimate, because if you're buying a new phone every year, you're paying full price, so it's more like $800 every year] for a phone seems a little crazy unless you just have money to burn.
So once I switched from a non-Apple existence, I never again felt the need to be the first to have something new. Good thing, too, because I'm not the type to camp out for anything, let alone a phone.
I held on to my 3S until the iOS upgrades became unsupportable. Even then, I didn't switch to a 4 until I switched cell phone providers and didn't have a choice (3S wasn't an option). I didn't switch to a 4S until my trust old 4 flew out of my hands on an escalator and landed two stories below me, face down. That also wasn't my choice. Some 17-year old "Genius" forced me into it after he sarcastically informed me that they didn't even carry refurbished 4s anymore, so I was going to have to take a 4S. I skipped the 5, the 5S, and the 5C.
In fact, the main reason I decided to buy a 6 is because my trusty old 4S wasn't so trusty anymore. Somewhere around iOS 7.0.whatever, it decided that it would be fun to freeze crash every hour or so. And then that hour became 30 minutes. Then 10. This should have turned me off Apple completely. Instead, it made me crave a new phone.
Indoctrination. Complete.
Even with my constantly crashing phone, I didn't camp out or pre-order an iPhone 6. I (semi-)patiently waited a couple of weeks until Verizon gave me those magic words, "Eligible for an Upgrade." I waited another week or so for the phone to come off backorder and ship (two weeks earlier than projected).
And now I have my phone. And I love it. But I also remember another reason I don't like iPhones within the first couple of months of release.
Cases.
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| This baby needs protecting. And, so far, the contenders aren't cutting it. |
If that "phone flying off an escalator" reference wasn't a hint to you, I'm kind of a klutz. Yes, I may be only on my fourth or fifth model of an iPhone, but this is easily my 20th iPhone. I'm not really sure how long my record is for keeping an iPhone without submerging it, breaking it, or having my screen shatter to bits; but I know that record is held by my last phone, which was lovingly protected by a Lifeproof case [suggested by the "Genius" who was no doubt looking at my replacement history when he made the suggestion]. My other phones weren't case-less; their cases simply failed them. Miserably.
And here I am with a brand new phone, and Lifeproof can't even give me an estimate of when is making me wait another month before I can breathe a sigh of relief. There's not even a waiting list; just a "leave your email address here if you want us to notify you when we are close to maybe someday in the near future releasing a case." Sigh.
I have had my new phone for one week, and I have tried out three cases. Three. All bought after hours and hours of wasting time I don't have research.
I hate them all. And I hate every stupid blog, article, or Amazon reviewer that led me to them.
There isn't a single one of these cases that gives me the confidence that if I drop my phone while exiting the car, my phone will survive the concrete. I have already dropped my phone four times (FOUR) and consider myself lucky that each drop has been on laminate rather than tile or pavement.
I'm a nervous wreck. I'm on edge. Even Pop Culture Dad has said, while staring down Case #1, "That thing will be broken by end of the month." And he's probably right.
There is no room for error here. If this phone breaks, I'm looking at the end of a wait list to get a replacement. And then there's *gulp* the money.
Hmm... Maybe I should just get a Jitterbug?
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| Case #3: Pretty and pretty pointless. No screen protection whatsoever. And it doubled the weight of my phone. Doubled. Yeah... That's not going to make me drop it faster. |
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| Case #2: I don't even know WTF this is. It's practically paper. |
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| Case #2: Sadly, I probably never should have abandoned my first "love" [okay, not really. Not fan-girling this one either]. It also lacks screen protection, but at least it was solid, leather, and weighs nothing. |
Forget the Gold Phone
First thought just rampant speculation and silly rumor, it is apparently now all but officially confirmed that a gold (but not a tacky gold, mind you, "more of a champagne color") phone will be the new edition to the iPhone line when Apple makes its announcement next month. And I could truly care less.
Okay, I get that the gold color is more for the Chinese market than the American, so "gold iPhone" isn't really for us. And I get that every other year, Apple doesn't make any major improvements to its phone line, it simply adds an "S" to the model number [for "Seriously no different"?], changes a couple of things around, and expects (justifiably, it seems) for millions of iPhone owners to ditch their phones and camp out overnight waiting to be the first to get the new ones. I will not be one of those people.
I love my iOS devices. I carry both my iPhone and iPad everywhere. I now even take all of my meeting notes on my iPad. But I've never bought into the fangirl-like crazy that surrounds the iDevices. I used to be a technogeek who wanted everything first. Then I grew up. Now it's about utility and common sense.
I skipped the iPhone 5. Other than a better camera, there wasn't much available on that version that I didn't get on my iPhone 4 with a simple iOS upgrade. Yes, there is the new port, but that was more of a con than a pro. Had Apple changed to a universal plug like every freaking other phone maker on the planet, that would have been a draw. But noooooo, always one to be different, Apple simply changed to its own tiny, non-interchangeable port, which would make every plug, dock, stand, and radio I own obsolete. No thank you.
So now there's a new phone. And you can get it in gold. Whoopdefreakingdo.
There's a possibility that the 5s may have fingerprint technology to keep your files safe. Unlike the gold, this feature is purely conjecture based on Apple's purchase of the security firm AuthenTec back in 2012.
One confirmed feature is that the new phone will be equipped with iOS 7; but, like every iOS release since the beginning of iPhone time, the operating system will also be available on every earlier model (with some feature limitations on the older models).
So... Basically... Gold. That's what you're getting with the latest iPhone that's different from its last incarnation.
You wanna impress me, Apple? Add a USB port, allow Flash websites to play, let me customize fonts in e-mail, make Siri more useful, or stop deleting my contacts randomly.
Of course, I'll have to wait until the official September 10 announcement to completely pass judgment; but since CNet and other tech bloggers have rarely steered me wrong before, I'm not generally expecting much different.
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