“Starting out with print design in 1996, Forrest has worked his way across most every aspect of the print and web mediums. Having worked from scrubbing print plates to streaming audio/video server administration and from drawing with conte crayons to working with the latest in digital rights management, Forrest has always seen that to be the best in one area, he needed to know the aspects of all the surrounding areas.”

After all these years, I’ve finally decided to make some of my thoughts, perspectives, research…a little more public. Many requests have been made asking that I post my research, for example, for more to see. It often ends up on forums across the web. However, since I know not many will see it, I don’t put a strong effort into it.

With my “blog,” that changes.

This will serve as a creative outlet, enabling more people to benefit from my hard work, mistakes and triumphs.

HOBBIES & INTERESTS
– The Internet. I <3 Google News. Great way to get news from a variety of sources on the same topic. The Wikipedia. An absolutely great resource. I wanted to create something like this years ago. It has its downfalls, but is still a great source of information and answers. I like buying music online, instant messaging, video chat… can’t forget email (since I just responded to a few, mid-sentence.) And that reminds me, 2987 emails in my inbox, I should clean that up. – Snowboarding. Used to work at a snowboard shop. I don’t get to ride as much as I used to. Well, I don’t make it that big of a priority. I want to ride more and my wife has started skiing. – Mountain Biking. Same as with snowboarding, I don’t do it as much as I like. Last summer my wife got a bike and this summer I’m sure we’ll be riding more. – Macs. A friend once called me “A Mac guru’s guru.” I was a Mac lab aid back in college, and somehow always ended up doing Mac tech support for coworkers. I started out with Windows 3.1. (Well, technically a Commodore 64.) I use both Mac and Windows machines on a daily basis. My theme on the continual Mac vs. Windows: They each have their strengths, they each have their weaknesses. Use the one that works best for you. – PC Gaming. Not a console fan. Burnout is pretty cool, but other than that I don’t like them. The control of a keyboard and mouse is about 10 fold as useful as the game controllers. I dislike how linear games often are. I am irritated by invisible walls or not being able to open a door until one walks past a certain point. If I find another way to create a solution, it shouldn’t be thwarted by a game developer not thinking it was possible for someone to do that. Anyway, I do like the strategy, learning, having fun with others while playing, trying, failing, trying again… WHY WORDPRESS?
Those that know me are aware I could easily build this whole site from scratch. However, I’m not interested in maintaining another one of my creations. I already do that for work, and it’s not as much fun as it used to be to tinker. Well, at least not tinker reinventing the wheel.

WordPress offers a solid foundation for me to build the way I build and incorporate features and functionality others have already built. WordPress offers this in the way of a well thought out theme system, and a popular plug-in architecture.

Some of the plug-ins I use on this site are:
All in One SEO Pack
CG-FlashyTitles 1
A sIFR 2.0 implementation. SIFR is a method to utilize a wider range of typography, that is SEO friendly, does not disrupt usability and degrades gracefully.
Contact Form 7
I’ve tried a lot of contact forms. This one still has its quirks and oddities, but works well.
Slashdigglicious
Thumbnail Viewer
Still surprises me that WordPress doesn’t have something like this built in.
WP-chgFontSize
Why not just let users change the font size in the browser? Because doing so hinders my ability to communicate.
WP-Footnotes
One thing different about this blog is I’ll actually cite information. So many opinions on the web, so few citations.