Tumblr excels for small blog posts along with other types of content like photos, videos, quotes, links and more. It compliments the way I like to write; short and informative. Plus it allows for a fully customizable design. Until I get all that squared away, check my new thought dump over at derekbender.tumblr.com.

Once there the Apple tech (I think his name was Kevin) gave me two options: 1. Leave it there to replace the harddrive which would take a week and cost $260 or 2. Go to an electronics store; buy a 2.5 inch internal SATA, a couple computer tools and do it myself... Tough choice. I picked option 2. After finding all the necessary items (the new harddrive from BestBuy and tools I borrowed from Derek Gallo; thanks Derek!) I started the impossible: dissect my beautiful MacBook Pro and replace its heart! So here's the tutorial...with pictures!

First, what you'll need: a new 2.5 inch SATA harddrive (I went with a 500gb from BestBuy), a #0 Phillips screwdriver and a T6 Torque driver. Start by taking the back cover off your MacBook by pressing down on and flipping up the release which is on the bottom. You'll see the the harddrive on the left and battery on the right.

Pull the little plastic tab to pop out the battery. Before you can take out the hardrive you'll need your trusty #0 Phillips to loosen the screw that holds the top clamp in place (on the far side of the harddrive if you're perspective is like in the picture). Once the screw is loose, remove the clamp (see picture) and pull the plastic tab to pop up the drive, then just pull out the connector.

You should now be holding your busted drive free from your MacBook. Notice the four tiny nubs/hex screws by each corner of the drive? These are used for mounting the drive in place. Take them out with the T6 tool.

Your new drive should have identical matching holes where you can put those screws back into. Once you've added the screws to your new drive, repeat the same steps, just in reverse. Plug in the connector, put the drive in its bracket and screw the clamp back in.

Once you have the battery and cover back on you'll need to find your OSX disc to boot from. Power it on and pop in the disc for Snow Leopard (or Leopard if you're old school) and hold the Option key. After a couple minutes (be patient, it takes some time until you get feedback) you should see the option of where to boot from. Select your DVD drive and follow the steps accordingly. Once I got a couple steps in I hooked up my Time Machine drive and picked it to restore my new harddrive from. An important note: once you get to the screen of where you want to install your backup or a fresh install of OSX, you won't see your new hardrive in the list. From here, pick Disk Utility in the top menu and format the new drive. This tripped me up a bit. You must do this step even if its not in the normal path to get back up and running.

Once your backup starts copying it should take a couple hours to restore your system to its former glory. Hope you found this useful! If you have any advice of your own, pointers, or questions, let me know in the comments.

Note: After Derek lent me his tools I bought my own set at Sears. You can easily find them there instead of any electronics store.

Always a good time. I will be there; talking, drinking, drinking and maybe some talking too.

Nude Nite Orlando is a juried art exhibition with hundreds of artists celebrating the body beautiful by creating a bazaar-like atmosphere of artistic talents not only in photographs and paintings, but also in live body painting, sensual performances, shapely sculpture and experimental installations. The abundance of imagery makes Nude Nite a must-see event.

The show was held in a wide-open warehouse close to where I live and work. I attended Saturday night and was pleasantly surprised to find a packed show (which added to the atmosphere). The live burlesque performances were a real draw as was the live sculpture. I also liked the more humorous Wizard of Oz nude series. Check out all my photos from the event on my Flickr photostream (yes, there is nudity).

Thanks to everyone who came up in support of me and I hope to see you there again next year!

I had a great idea. Why not grow a moustache like I did last year but only this time, document it and put the pics on a website? Upon further research I found the domain mymoustacheand.me to be open. It was in the stars. So I bought it and got to work. In less than a month I put together the site and January 1st it was launched.

After that I had to justify it a little more so I took the opportunity to hand craft some HTML5 and CSS3 along with a tiny bit of jQuery (I'm slowly learning)!

I have no idea what I was thinking but the feedback so far is positive with the word "ridiculous" followed by laughter coming up quite a bit. Take a look and let me know what you think.

PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise!!!

Pantone LLC, the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise, an inviting, luminous hue, as the color of the year for 2010.

Pantone goes on to explain Turquiose as envoking images of tranquil oceans, lush beaches, tropical paradises and healing during stressful times. Its also a popular color in fashion.

Depending on your point of view, Pantone may have missed the mark with last year's pick, Mimosa, which "embodies hopefulness and reassurance in a climate of change." Mimosa may have been wrong with "hopefulness and reassurance" but definitely lived up to the "climate of change" part.

Here's hoping 15-5519 Turquoise lives up to the predictions in 2010. Now I'm off to buy a turquoise t-shirt.

This music video of Grizzly Bear's Two Weeks has the best concept & art direction I've seen recently. The video isn't official either; it was all made by a fan of the song. At first glance you'd probably think it was hand made, stop-motion work but its actually CG.

Check out the interview with Gabe Askew, the maker of the fan video for Two Weeks.

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Another quarter, another BarCamp. At least that's what it feels like between all the BarCamps taking place between Orlando, Miami and Tampa this year. This past weekend was Tampa's second annual BarCamp at the USF College of Business Administration, and my first BarCamp in Tampa.

Talks on Saturday included the latest IT & web development technologies and Sunday's talks (which I didn't attend) centered around new media. Standout talks included James Tryon talking on how to be a better freelancer, Steve Bristol's giving Advice to Startups, and a couple different talks on iPhone development. Another talk demonstrated the some really interesting, new technology called Augmented Reality.

Saturday is also the day I gave my talk on the topic on Object Oriented CSS which was about a new method on how to structure CSS in large projects to make your code reusable and modifiable. Aside from the technical difficulties with the projector, the talk went well and prompted good discussion afterwards. You can check out my slides below or take a look at them on Slideshare.

I adapted this tutorial from TweakOSX's Customizing Leopard's Dock post, but the techniques are still the same. Start by navigating to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock in Finder. Right-click Dock and select "Show Package Contents." Next navigate to /Contents/Resources and you're there. All the .png files are in this Resources folder.

Most of these files are images relating in some way to the Dock. The folders with extensions .lproj contain all the variables for each language's phrases used. This is handy if you want to rename the "Trash" or Dock feature to another phrase or word.

The images we need to find are:

• expose-window-selection-big.png
• expose-window-selection-small.png

These images control what the glow will look like when hovering over a window in Exposé. These images can't be changed in programs like Candybar, at least not now anyway.

Once found copy them to a safe place incase you want to change them back later. Next, delete them from Resources. You'll be asked to authenticate the action with your password. Go ahead and modify the original graphics you copied or make new graphics as replacements. I desaturated the original graphics which will make a white glow instead of blue. Now just copy the new graphics into the Dock's Resources folder. You'll be asked to authenticate once more.

Next, open up Terminal (its in the Utilities folder under Applications). Type this and hit enter: "killAll Dock". This will restart the Dock allowing the images you changed to refresh. You're done! Hit F9 and see how it looks.

Knowing this about the Dock and its images you could possibly change a lot more. I'm not a fan of the HUD look to the Dock's menus. Using the same ideas behind the glow we can find the images used in the menus too − although there are a lot more of them. The only thing I couldn't figure out is how to change the text color for these menus. It wouldn't make much sense to change the HUD menu back to pearl (like how it was in Leopard) if the text in it can't be read. If anyone knows how to change the text color, let me know as I'd also love to make those changes.

In the meantime, enjoy the new look of your Dock and if you feel like experimenting beyond what I've showed you here, please share your findings in the comments.

Some time ago I had ordered The Big Book of Contemporary Illustration from the publisher and it finally arrived. Normally I wouldn't write about a getting a new book except that some of my work is featured on its pages! Yes, on pages 195, 198 and 200 you can clearly see a few of my illustrations. The book is also full of amazing work by some very talented folks including illustrators Si Scott and Nik Ainley.

About 6 moths ago the author of the book, Martin Dawber, contacted me about putting some of my illustration work in a new book he was putting together. Of course I said "yes" and I gathered some high-quality examples and sent them off. Six months later, here we are with the book being released earlier this month. The pieces published exist on this site already, here, here and here.

A bit about the book:

From digital drawing, pixilated pictures, and Photoshop fantasies to traditional sketching and painting, it’s a showstopping display of style and technique from more than 160 international artists. With close to 1,000 images, the illustrations range over such categories as architecture, fashion, logos, manga, maps, nature, people, packaging, and pop culture. This is an essential anthology for artists, creative professionals, students, and anyone who appreciates the fine art of illustration.

I took a few iPhone pics of the book itself and the pages I'm featured on so check them out on my Flickr page.

I'd like to thank Martin Dawber and Anova Books for the chance to be part of this amazing collection of work by some of the most talented designers around. If you're interested, you can order the book from Amazon.