I had tried tablets before, even Wacom tablets. Having a digital drawing tablets were a requirement when I went to college for web design. Unfortunately I had never felt the tablet love before now. Previous tablets I tried felt awkward, were not accurate and had few options to really make me want to use them. Sensitivity had been lacking and static cling on the drawing surface made the last one wig out on me. I knew there were good tablets, but I didn’t want to spend $2000 on one! I wrote tablets off and learned to perfect my craft via mouse.

That is, until I saw the Intuos4 at the store. I sat there staring at it, pondering whether it would really be worth the $350 price tag. A sales lady approached me and we had a nice long chat about the features and previous issues I’ve had with tablets. I was sold. I then turned to the lady and said “Hey, that man over there in cameras is my husband. He’s looking for a new SLR. Do what you do best and get him excited about his camera purchase, then he’ll happily agree to buying me this cool new tablet.” Yes, wives are evil sometimes. Hey, it worked and us girls have got to work together. He did get a chuckle out of the scheming.

So I get the tablet home and giddily rip it out of the box. First, I have to comment on the size. I purchased the medium one and the drawing space is perfect! I was afraid that it would be too small to get a good feel for it or to feel natural, but its definitely adequate. By the way, the Wacom Intuos4 comes in several sizes ranging from small to extra large, so there is a size (and price) for everyone. Next I notice the pen holder, when you open it up it has 11 extra tips for the pen. I haven’t had a chance to play with those but I presume they give a different feel when drawing. The tablet itself has programmable hot keys that you can set in accordance with your drawing program. I use Photoshop and Pixelmator and found that these come in handy. Not only are there buttons but also a LED display right next to them to tell you what they do! You can also set your hot key buttons based on program, so if you use specific shortcuts in one program and not another it will recognize that.

Actual use of the tablet is awesome! It feels like you are writing on paper, just the right amount of feedback and grip along with a smooth (static-free) surface. The sensitivity is nice as well and allows you to press harder for a thicker line as if you were really painting or drawing. I have to say, that after only 2 months of use I really am enjoying this tablet and it has made my drawing time significantly shorter.

All in all, this is a quality tablet and if, like me, you were afraid to try them again (or for the first time) I think this would be a good no-regrets digital tablet.

Sitting up at 1am my husband asks “Kristine, what are you doing?” My response is usually simple: “Emailing”.

People don’t really look at email as taking up much time. Email was supposed to make things easier, right? Today, while looking through sent messages looking for a specific email I realized just how much time I spend emailing! I thought this was interesting and would like to share my find with my readers and clients. I think we can firmly stick this one into the hidden value of my web design services. Unlike a lot of businesses, I have always offered free support and try my best to answer emails and help clients with learning their site or simply making sure the design process and site vision are are on track. All of this adds up and I just thought I’d share a few numbers.

4-8. The average number of emails sent back and forth during the quote process.
30-60. The average emails that are sent from me to clients as part of back and forth during the design process on small projects.
100-130+. The number of emails I’ve sent out to clients on average on larger projects.

And when I say that I mean that range would be one person! So during the design time frame when I take on 4 projects at a time I could easily sent out 400 or more emails to the 4 clients. The design time frame is 6-8 weeks. Some emails are quick, 4 minutes to write. Others take more research, 30-40 minutes. Lets say the average is 10 minutes per email. That’s roughly 67 hours of email time, or 10 hours per week and this is a LOW estimate not including the quote process.

Email! I never thought it would be so time consuming! So there you have it. This is the reason my husband finds me up in the middle of the night working, wondering what I could possibly be doing.

So when considering the value of my web design services, here is a hidden value that you are getting when you work with Web Savvy Mama. The one on one attention from me when I am making sure there is good communication and that you fully understand how your site functions.

By the way, check out Thunderbird email client. Tabbed email, filtering, sorting and all your email accounts readable right in one inbox. I love all the features and it does help me save some time!

Now you can read the Web Savvy Mama blog on your mobile phone! Of course you can always opt to view it in its original format as well.

The mobile formats boasts a slimmed down theme for fast loading and easy navigation on your mobile phone. You can search for keywords or even select tags from the drop down menu. You can still browse categories and view the RSS feed too.

There are several plugins available for mobile browsing, the one I chose was WPTouch. I chose this specific plugin because it was easy to install and offered a lot of customization options. I feel this plugin would be the easiest to use for even the not-so-web-savvy-blogger.

So if you like to browse the internet and read blogs on your phone then I highly suggest you ask your favorite blog owners to install this plugin!

Do you own a blog and need help installing this plugin on your WordPress blog? I can help with that! Contact Me for more information.

I’ve long been a fan of Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro (the old non-screwed up version, lol) on my PC computers. Two years ago I found the Mac love and made the switch. Unfortunately my PC software was not compatible and I began a search for software that was tailored to the Mac work environment. Of course Photoshop is Mac friendly, but I wanted to see what else was available. This led me to Pixelmator.

Pixelmator is a layer based graphic editor for Macs. I was skeptical at first and I downloaded the demo on 2 different occasions to see how I’d like it and instead left it untouched each time. I was intimidated by the prospect of learning a new setup. Recently I made the leap and purchased the program, knowing that if I just did it I’d be forced to play with it more. Boy am I glad I did! The layout is very similar to Photoshop, so if you can use Photoshop you can use Pixelmator… but I must say I find Pixelmator’s interface more eye appealing.

I’m making these wallpapers available for download, I created these in Pixelmator using the provided tutorials. Try one for yourself! To download Desktop Wallpapers click on the image to open large image and then right click image and select save from the menu.