Even though it’s 2010 some of my friends still forward countless stupid emails.  Angela, the same person responsible for sending me the insanely popular best pumpkins post just forwarded me an email that’s too good not to post up.

I’m already a huge fan of Mad Men, the TV show based in the early 60’s and focusing on the advertising industry of New York City so this collection of ads that just don’t work anymore, while totally sexist and completely wrong, still made me chuckle a bit.

Continue reading »

Thirty-nine months ago I launched this project known as Randomn3ss.  The sole intention was to use this site as a platform to rant, rave, give reviews, complain and write about anything I wanted.  A staff of sorts quickly started writing with me and now, this is the 899th article published!

During the lifespan and evolution of Randomn3ss many changes have been made and this now is the third re-skinning of the site and I’m very pleased.  After using premium themes to re-launch my own site and more recently a friend / client’s site it seemed to make sense that Randomn3ss would receive one too. Continue reading »

Last year I relaunched my own site utilizing a premium WordPress theme and had a wonderful resonance to the change.  Over the winter and into the spring the number of stunning premium themes coming out from developers is nothing short of amazing, so when my former client Jeff hit me up about rebuilding his site, I was all for it.  Jeff owns and runs Sabotta Imagery, a Pennsylvania based photographer specializing in weddings, engagements and family shoots, he also happens to be a friend of mine.  I had originally set him up more then two and a half years ago with WordPress and a free theme, but it was time to take his website to the next level, one that was on par with his photography and that his clients would appreciate more.  Knowing his needs, I found the solution with ThemeSnack and their Phototastic premium theme. Continue reading »

I have been job searching for three months and here’s a look at the experience in today’s economy and with the current methods of applying for positions.

(I’m not at an executive or above level, I’m not at the minimum wage level, I’m near the middle somewhere, so I am only speaking to my spot on the spectrum.)

The briefest, most honest characterization of job seeking right now: Totally sucks. This is due to several reasons:

We all have heard the unemployment numbers across the nation. With the exception of North Dakota, it seems, unemployment is at the highest levels seen in decades. Therefore, there are millions of people searching for work, decreasing one’s chances of getting hired. Hiring managers can pick the cream of the crop, so if you don’t have everything they both require and prefer, you have little hope of getting an interview.

Hiring managers have a very hard job to do, because of the above: Depending on the open position, dozens, hundreds and maybe even thousands of people are applying for it, whereas in times past, perhaps only handfuls or dozens and maybe hundreds would have applied, burying HR folks with application results and/or applications to sort through. This means the process takes longer. (E.g. it takes longer not to hear back from them and not get a rejection letter. More on that later.)

Online job hunting is difficult at best for many reasons, mostly because it is such a time suck:

First, everything is now so impersonal, it’s taken the “human” out of human resources. If you try to go the old fashioned route and go to a brick and mortar location to ask if they have openings and can you speak to a manager, you’re sent back home (without getting to a manager) to fill out an app on line.

Second, back in the good old early days of online job hunting, there was Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. Now there are hundreds and hundreds of similar sites, each one promising to deliver great positions to you daily. Because job seekers are anxious and even desperate, they spend hours and hours setting up their accounts on all of them, and end up with countless notices in their inbox for jobs that bare no resemblance to the preferences they set up. Often, when one finds one to click on, even though you just got the notice today, it comes up “job expired”. Well, at least not too much time was wasted, which is some satisfaction, though not really if you really wanted the position.

Third, perhaps the most maddening thing of all is when you have saved resumes and all your information on a job search site, ostensibly to save you time in your job search, you upload the resume, write the killer cover letter, thinking you’re done, only to be sent to the company’s site to input everything manually because it’s required. I can’t tell you how furious this makes me. It makes no sense from a design standpoint, and is certainly not user-friendly. If you’re an employer and prefer applicants use your online form, just have the applicant get right to your form and skip the job search engine’s protocol, or at least have a notice that you will have to do both, just out of courtesy. (I admit I’m not sure if these are options, but I’m pleading with anyone out there who has such a say to please make it so.) If you’re a job searcher, you’ve just lost another block of time you could have been applying or searching, and more time is lost to get back to focus because you’re so angry you had to duplicate your efforts.

Fourth, as previously mentioned, hiring managers do have a daunting task with so many people applying compared to years past. One way of screening people online includes requiring them to fill out questionnaires with items that typically would be asked in a first interview. Some of these include essay type questions asking you how you have handled x-y-z, explain your knowledge of 1-2-3, list your experience with a-b-c, and so forth. Some of these fields limit how much you can say, making it difficult to make your case for why you would be good at that and get results for them. Some ask you to list your experience with various software, or supervision duties, or situations you may have faced that you would face in this position, but there’s a very ominous tone to the statement accompanying it, in effect saying if you claim to have more experience than you actually have, if you lie or embellish or make false claims you will be immediately disqualified, your hand will be slapped, and you will have to wear a red U on your forehead for still being unemployed because WE won’t hire you and therefore no one else should. Okay, I embellish. But it’s very, very discouraging to be well-qualified for the position except for not having advanced Software A experience, which will disqualify you, because they state explicitly that not meeting every one of the qualifications is grounds for not being considered. I don’t embellish on that one. So, do you lie and take the risk, hoping that if they like you on the 99% there’s a chance you’ll get the interview despite the 1%. What would you do?

Job seekers always face ethical dilemmas with how much to tell or not tell about their backgrounds, this is nothing new, it’s now just more daunting and the stakes are higher. There’s been much discussion in the media regarding job searching about whether to list advanced degrees if you think they will count you out as being overqualified, for example, with no real answers or direction. I personally think honesty will let you sleep well at night, but this is a whole new cutthroat world of job searching.

Fifth, okay, you made it through the gauntlet of an online application, feel good about your chances after hitting that submit button, to get this: “Thank you for your application! We will contact you if we feel your qualifications meet our needs. Do not call or email to ask about the status of your application: Due to the large number of applications, we will only be calling those people we want to advance to the interview stage. Please wait for this notice, or if we don’t contact you, thank you again for applying, check in again for future opportunities, and we wish you great luck in your career search!” Meaning, if you aren’t contacted, you won’t get a rejection letter in the mail saying as much. You’re just left in limbo, wondering, waiting, or for those following the advice that has proliferated about how to job search, you go searching for a contact name, an email, anything that will allow you to follow up with your earnest interest in the position, typically to find a brick wall or a receptionist who is not about to cough up any names for you, and just gives the generic company line about hiring. I have only received one snail mail rejection letter out of dozens of applications. It’s a very dehumanizing reality of how companies manage applications now.

You hear that networking is the way to find job openings, that because of the vast numbers applying online for anything and everything, clogging the system for those that are qualifed and should be considered, your odds are better if you can get names and have someone on your side to refer to in your application. Given that networking is 180 degrees opposite of sitting at the computer alone searching and applying, you'd think job seekers would relish the chance to talk to people in the flesh. My experience: Networking events tend to be attended by solo entrepreneurs expecting that you are there to hear their pitch and hoping you will want their services, as that is what their industries tell them to do to find new clients. Networking events are rarely attended by people in hiring positions, for obvious reasons. Networking requires you to have your elevator speech polished and ready to go, which is a good thing, but no one seems to listen as they're so busy getting ready to give you theirs (and to get you as a client). Typically, the host or hostess gets to do their pitch to the group, during which you're expected to sit graciously, be attentive and actively participate as a thanks for this great networking opportunity. In fairness to many of the good people I have met at these events, there is some hope of some opportunity here and there (usually for freelance work more so that knowledge of open positions), and they truly understand the tough spot a job seeker is in, so at least the validation and talking with people face to face for a change is worth it. As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and new friendships and contacts can be developed at times. It's good to put on inteview clothes and work your best lines, prepping your interview skills for when you hopefully get one.

I have signed with a temp agency: In years past, this has always been listed as a way to meet new people, gain more experience and skills, and hopefully land a job. I signed up with one in June, have subsquently signed up with one of their partners, signed up at a different agency, and have yet to be placed into a position: The temp agencies aren't getting the work due to the economy. Or, the work they offer is, well, you decide: "We have an opening that is a long term position, 6-8 months minimum is projected, 21 hours per week, Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, and you must commit to that time frame." Oh and it pays slightly better than minimum wage (which, let's remember, is not a living wage) with ten times the responsibility for the pay. I don't regret signing up. It's been good to do the interviews to get the practice, and to take the tests and remember I do well under pressure. Remains to be seen if I get placed prior to finding a position myself.

A new reality of what work looks like is coming out at this time, related to this. Many people will take that temp job listed above, and hobble together two or three other part time positions, just to pay the bills and be working. There are thousands of people doing just this, and I think it’s a horrible trend – they have no health benefits, and companies are lowering and lowering the pay scales because they know people are desperate. Where is it going to lead? Where is the bottom? I guess that would be ‘I (employee) pay you (employer) to work for no salary’ (and thus it’s not even a volunteer position. Oh and I am volunteering, per the other conventional wisdom out there. Remains to be seen what that may lead to).

I initially thought I would not have a hard time finding a new position because so many of the job losses in the past year or so have been in manufacturing or construction, neither of which I am in, and because of a good work history and strong references (thank you, you know who you are), and of course, my, ahem, good personality (okay, I saw the eye roll, and yes, I know, that’s subjective). However, the latter doesn’t come through on most online job apps so the cover letter is your only chance, but given how heavily weighted the online forms are, it’s hard to know how much relevance the cover letter has, given the computerized nature of keywords and matching requirements compared to eyeballs on a page making determinations. If anyone doing online hiring can shed light on that, it would be greatly appreciated, but I’m guessing that info stays hidden away somewhere.

If you have done any reading about job searching, you will know it now takes five and ten times the effort, creativity and work to land a job. I had read that most job searches take 6-9 months, but this was prior to the current state of unemployment, so I know I have to pace myself and take all this into account. It’s hard to project how long this will last (the current methods of job searching and the recession), but it’s not for the feint of heart. (Remember that unemployment figures don’t count those who have lost heart and given up job searching, or are underemployed and still looking for a better position.) Even for those with a system for their search, faithfully working at it daily, it gets very disheartening and discouraging, even for those with lots of resources and stamina. It’s unnerving to think the economy won’t turn around until next year some time, based on current news reports; people’s severance pay, savings, and unemployment benefits won’t last forever (and I shudder to think of those relying on credit cards to see them through, given the whole scene there nowadays).

Whether you were laid off, fired, or voluntarily left, the reality of finding a new position is the same for everyone. It gets to your self-esteem, your confidence, your endurance. It’s a ripe ground for contemplation and values clarification, but it’s sometimes hard to justify the time when you don’t want to miss opportunities to apply for something, or network, or pound pavement looking for work not listed online. It is worth it, though (and, if you go to a networking event you are sure to find a life coach who would like you to hire them to help you with it; in all fairness, there are good ones and it can be worth it, but expect to put out a few hundred dollars or more). There’s nothing like a job search to make you take a hard look at yourself and your life, which can be rewarding if it sparks a new direction, a clarity or understanding of what you want your life to be.

All I can say is that I have to, and any job seeker has to, keep digging in and doing the work, look for opportunities everywhere, take breaks as needed, whine and vent as appropriate (just don’t get stuck there), and keep the hopes up. I do hope that something shifts in the way we apply for work, however, and that HR and software designers come up with better systems that still have some humanity and dignity to them. I know not every company and organization hires online and/or still has a sane process, but it’s a troubling trend that seems to be here to stay, and that the majority of job seekers have to deal with and find a way to make work for them.

Good luck to us all, and I’d like to hear from both job seekers and those on the hiring side, and those who have just landed a position through a process mentioned here as to their experiences and feelings about it all.

Last month I installed WordPress and theme for Juliart Photographics, a photographer who wanted a clean, simple site with a manageable back end so she could do updates herself.  She had no need for a blog but that doesn’t mean that WordPress wasn’t the best choice for a back end for her needs.  A premium theme was chosen from Theme Forrest and then slightly modified to fit her specific needs.  As the project was coming to a close, I realized that an update to my own photography site was in need, mostly because I never fully finished the last version and partly because my site needed a better focus and direction.

Having such great results with the premium theme from Theme Forrest, I searched around and found what looked to be the perfect theme, fitting all the needs I had without me even knowing what I needed when I started.  Before this review goes further, I’m going to be as specific as I can with regards to the theme itself, this is not intended to be how-to install WordPress or Themes.  You can hire me to install WordPress and the theme of your choice / customize it though.

Why a premium theme? Like I mentioned, I had great results with my previous client’s site.  Most of these results were because of a well documented install directions, PSD files of the entire site and solid code.  There are thousands of free themes out there, but for the $15-35 for a premium theme from Theme Forrest, the value seems overwhelmingly worth it for me.  They are half or a quarter of what other premium sites charge for themes and some of the best looking one’s I’ve found.  The other reason for me choosing a premium theme is that I know it will limit the chances of seeing another person using the same one as me.  As it stands now, only 50 people have downloaded the theme I chose, who knows if they all got installed yet.  Compared with the average downloads of free themes, I like my odds more of having a somewhat unique theme.

Gallerific.  The theme I chose is called Gallerific and was created by Justin Scheetz, who through a little research also happens to live less than 20 miles from me.  Even though it’s the internet, I like to support local artists.  It instantly appealed to me because of the large images used for the home page navigation, it comes with two different color schemes and utilizes some creative and unique image handling techniques.  It also has a drop down menu system for the header navigation for a super simple and clean look and feel.  I’ve always felt that photography portfolios should be focused on making the images look good, not be so overly complicated that it takes away from the photographs featured.  This meets my needs.  Here’s what my site currently looks like.

Gallerific was a simple install, following the instructions included.  There were however some speed bumps along the way that I needed to iron out, which I’ll cover later in the article.  Because I already had content, most of the initial tweaks were minor ones to properly display the home page.  If you are installing this for the first time, plan on having at least seven unique blog postings ready or this won’t work for you.

Breaking down the home page and all the features.

The header navigation is powered by a combination of both Pages and Categories.  In my case, the Home button takes you obviously to home and is hard coded into the theme.  Blog and Galleries are actually categories for posts, Archives and Contact are Pages.  During setup of Gallerific, you specify which comes first (left to right), pages or categories.

For my site, every post is labeled with the Blog category, this gets everything to show up nicely in one spot and because I sometimes need to post non-photographic updates, like site updates or to promote an art show.  The Gallery category is the Parent and utilizes ten Child categories, all neatly displayed in the roll-over drop down menu system. While the theme comes widget ready, I didn’t like the idea of storing my archives in the sidebar and wanted a specifc page for them.  I created the Archive page and installed the Clean Archives Reloaded plugin that I feel serves as a better overall archive and site map than one in the sidebar.  Lastly is a rather standard Contact page with another plugin for the form used.

Included with Gallerific is a PSD file to customize your logo, I made a minor color tweak to my existing one and uploaded it.  The directions do not specify the file format and I’m thinking it needs to be a PNG, as the JPG I used is slightly off in color.  Search is well integrated and, well searches.  The default install of Gallerific includes a section in the admin panel to easily put your name, address and phone number below the search box.  Because I’m not a studio photographer, I don’t really have a need for those fields and have a specific Contact page for such information.  I edited the theme file header to include some social networking links and an RSS icon.  The only design flaw I found for this theme was the lack of an integrated RSS button, something I hope makes it into the next version release of the theme.  For the time being, I’ve installed the overly trendy Web 2.0 style buttons, these happen to closely resemble iPhone icons.  They will more than likely change when I find something that fits in a bit better with the overall theme.

Moving down is the Featured section of the home page.  Photos in this section appear when posts are in the Featured Category and the photo must be set to a specific width to work properly.  The screen shot above shows what happens when you roll the mouse over it.  Note that it shows the post name, categories it’s filed under, number of comments and the first few words associated with the post.  Clicking the post title or View Details will take you to the specific post.  The arrow to the right will take you to the next Featured posting. This is way cool and a great way to spotlight specific files and a very creative use of WordPress.

Directly below the featured header box are square boxes numbered, in my site’s case, 1 through 3.  When you hover over them a small thumbnail will appear of the other featured posts that can be displayed in the header if clicked.  From the overall size, I’d guess two dozen or so images could be utilized as Featured and gives the viewer another way to access and see images used.

The main body features cropped images from the last six blog postings made and text, customizable from the back end of WordPress.  I really like the fact that every blog post means fresh content on the front page utilizing these lower six boxes, always giving visitors something new and fresh to look at, while the featured box at the top can remain a little more static.  The text to the right is where I’m displaying what would normally be on an About page, which I usually hate on portfolio websites.

The six images also hide one more secret, they are not just links to the blog posts associated with them.  Hover over and you will be given two options.  The first is View Details which will take you to the blog post, the second is View Larger Image.  When the second option is clicks, the uncropped photo opens up and gives the viewer a better idea of what could be seen in the rest of the article.   Once again, giving the visitor to the site more to do while remaining super clean with design.

The footer is clean and utilizes the same header navigation, sans the drop down menu system.  Copyright info is displayed to the right, I’ve chose to leave the credits in the footer and added in text for my RSS feed, which again was lacking, and a little icon for stats tracking.  One design element I find missing here is an Up or Back to Top button, often usefull so the user doesn’t have to manually scroll.

Looking at more details.

One setting that is kind of unique for Gallerific is how Categories are displayed.  Each Category can be displayed as a blog or as a gallery.  For the Blog category, I’ve chose to display it as a blog, same is true if you click on the word Gallery.  This shows one highlighted image that I specify for each post (same as used on the front of the site or for the featured section) and about 40 words followed by a Continue Reading that takes the reader to the rest of the individual post.  This keeps the page neat and clean, which is why I like it.  For each of the child Categories under Gallery, I’ve set them to gallery view, as seen below.

This displays 10 posts that are in the People category in the same fashion as the front page, looking like a nice gallery with the options to roll over images and view one larger or be taken directly to the post.  Text indicating older entries takes the reader to the second page and so on. You’ll note the two images / articles featuring cars in the screen shot above and may wonder why they are showing up in the People gallery.  Because I’ve associated each of those posts with more than one category, including People, they show up under different galleries.  Because you can only specify one image for the display square, it’s hard to be exactly perfect.  Each of those posts also feature photos of people, clicking the View Details button reveals that in the full post.

As I’ve said, the install went really smoothly and once I wrapped my head around how the categories section worked, I’m more than thrilled to use this as the theme to power my site.  Making images Featured on the front page and creating the thumbnails for the gallery view is very straight forward and well documented.  I do have plans to utilize Parent / Child categories more for an upcoming wallpaper section of the site which I hope to launch in a few months, as well as a page to sell prints from.  The only main problem I had with the theme during install and configuration was that I had existing posts, more than 150 to be exact.  Each post was in a category but didn’t utilize the parent / child sections because, well I had no need to.  Gallerific almost requires that and relies heavily on categories to function to its fullest potential.  Because I wanted every post I’ve published to show up under Blog and needed to move every post in an existing category under the parent category of Gallery, some time was going to need to be invested.  WordPress does not feature a bulk or mass edit categories option, and I spent two full days searching google with different search strings, asking on Twitter and Facebook for a plugin that would simply let me bulk edit categories with no luck.  The plugins I found weren’t supported by the newest version of WP and I was left high and dry.  A week after giving up I tried a new search query and found exactly what I needed and compliant with the newest version of WP, Manageable.  This plugin should be included with the theme as it’s almost essential to anyone looking to use Gallerific on a site with existing content.

I’ve quietly launched this, now 4th version of MikePanic.com over the last two weeks while tweaking and making minor customizations to it, and adjusting all the categories to fit my needs.  Today marks the unofficial relaunch, in this review, and the best my site’s looked since buying the domain name 9+ years ago.  I can’t thank the coder / developer Justin enough for making such an amazing, low cost theme.  Justin currently has six super high quality, amazing themes available for WordPress here, some as low as $15.00.

Randomn3ss reader Ashley sent me a link to the very best resume I’ve ever seen, period.  Take a gander (click for larger image)

I mean, this says it all and then some, and has pretty colors too! Intrigued, I typed into my browser the rather unique domain name listed in the top right corner, theportfolio.ofmichaelanderson.com.  A quirky blog from a designer who clearly likes his job and enjoys amusing others with his design work.  I’m hooked.  If I needed a designer, he’d be one I’d look for.  Only one major design flaw in the whole site, there’s no obvious way to contact Michael Anderson without looking at the full resolution image here and then typing his Yahoo! email address into your mail client.

Found from a Tweet by @scottwyden, CrowdedInk, a Social Media Swag site, has combined two Web 2.0 technologies to give you a mug wrapped with all the profile pics that your Twitter friends use.

It’s stupidly simply to create one, simply enter your Twitter user name into the little box and click Make the Mug. In roughly twenty seconds the browser refreshes and dumps you onto the Zazzle web-page, a company that will create on-off products for you.  You’ll now be shown a live preview of how your new mug will look.  CrowdedInk randomly lays out your friends profile pics and you can’t change the, I don’t see this as a bad thing though.  The image used here is a screenshot of what a mug would look if I got one made, but for fun I did a second one to see how @kevinrose would turn out.  With roughly 83,000 people following Kevin Rose, I was kind of testing the script to see if it would break.  Sadly, it only uses the same number of images and clearly repeated a lot of them.  With 83,000 friends, I wouldn’t expect them all to fit on a mug but I would at the very least expect them to not duplicate.

Pretty cool little script, even cooler that I found out about it because of Scott posting it on Twitter.  Social networking at it’s finest.

From today’s earlier article about fwdfwdfwd, this is something that Kevin was talking about in the diggnation podcast, and I found the link on the second page and the inner-geek in me wants this.

The table is built by none other than Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, the same people that made bristlebots more than 2 years ago.  For just under $2,000 you can get one of your very own from Because We Can.

Randomn3ss reader Scott sent in another great link over the weekend, FFFFOUND! (not always safe for work), a new twist on social bookmarking.  FFFFOUND,

is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

Now, I don’t sign up for every Web 2.0 social networking / bookmarking site out there, and I haven’t signed up for this one yet, but I have subscribed to their RSS feed and been somewhat hooked on it all weekend.  It’s photos, graphic designs, marketing material, basically anything that is found that someone thinks is worth sharing, all in one blog.  Because of FFFFOUND I found some really cool photo blogs along with some inspiration for design concepts.

They are currently on an invite only basis, which I’m sure is fueling the fire and making people even more curious as to what the back-end offers users, but I’ll just continue to lurk for now.  If you are into cool imagery, FFFFOUND might be for you, just wait till you get out of work to view it since occasionally there is a fine art nude photograph on the front of the site.

Randomn3ss reader Scott shared a really interesting link with me this morning on Amazon’s website.  Amazon apparently understands the frustration that goes along with buying toys for kids, and by the way they are also helping the environment out.  Working with manufactures they’re now able to offer Frustration Free Packaging.  They describe it as recyclable and coming

without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging

Great news for parents who have to fight opening up toys for kids, and then try to locate all the zip ties and other small objects used to bind toys into pretty packaging, great for the environment since there is simply less packaging and great for the kids because now they can play with their toys that much faster.

Check out the FAQ on Frustration Free Packaging to get all the answers you may have and then browse the products currently available.