I am an “ESTJ” personality which means Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging or Extraverted Thinking with Introverted Sensing. Approximately 13% of the American population is like this apparently. Here’s the summary:

You are great at getting things done. You like to run the show and make things happen. You are responsible, conscientious and faithful to your commitments. You like structure and can remember and organize many details. You systematically set about achieving your goals on schedule and as efficiently as possible.

You are driven to make decisions. Often you base your decisions on your own past experience. You are logical, objective and analytical and have great reasoning power. In fact, you are unlikely to be persuaded by anything but logic.

You are realistic, practical and matter-of-fact. You are more interested in “real things” than intangibles, such as abstract ideas and theories. You tend to not be interested in subjects for which you see no practical application. You know what’s happening around you and are concerned primarily with the here and now.

Because you live by a certain set of rules, you are consistent and dependable. You tend to be traditional and interested in maintaining established institutions. You are consistent in your relationships although your emotional and social life is not as important to you as other aspects of life. You are comfortable judging others, and can be a crisp disciplinarian. Your personality type is outgoing, sociable, direct and friendly. You are usually easy to get to know, since “what you see is what you get.”

Interesting. So, I dug a bit deeper. ESTJs generally have the following traits:

• Natural leaders – they like to be in charge
• Value security and tradition
• Loyal
• Hard-working and dependable
• No patience with incompetence or inefficiency
• Excellent organizational abilities
• Enjoy creating order and structure
• Very thorough
• Straight-forward and honest

Of course there must be negatives as well:

• Can be impatient
• Not always OK with change
• Little patience for inefficiency
• Can talk a lot or interrupt frequently (haha!)
• Focuses on present needs at the expense of future ones

All in all pretty interesting. Glad I took the test…

Oh, and if you can’t tell by looking at my blog design, the White Stripes are by far my favorite band! So, you know I’ll be there…

Here’s the synopsis of the film:

From the cinematic genius of Emmett Malloy is spawned this unprecedented account of The White Stripes reality- their unrivaled musicianship, and unfiltered commentaries on life and life on the road, all in the Canadian summer of 2007. Through his 16mm camera lens, Malloy brings to full exposure the essence of Jack and Meg White in his documentary “Under Great White Northern Lights.” The film was conceived from the band’s initiative to do the undone- tour each province in Canada, every reasonable (or unreasonable) nook of the landscape including bowling alleys and city buses, in order to deliver their legendary sound to unsuspecting townspeople and diehard fans alike. And as to be expected, the duo does it all. They play their longest show ever at the Savoy Theater on their 10th anniversary, only to balance it out with a subsequent one-note ensemble. And somewhere between tinkering on old pianos and firing off cannons in an empty field, the band evokes and sustains a most intimate connection with their audience. “Under Great White Northern Lights” illuminates the soul of the White Stripes, their rooted spirit for Rock ‘n Roll, and their unshakable dedication to their fans. As Jack White simplifies it in the film, “from the ocean to the permafrost” he and Meg only come to delivery some of the most unforgettable performances our generation has ever seen.

So when I heard of a possible Apple Tablet Computer coming out (for real this time) I couldn’t wait to hear all the details. Sure, it’s still technically a rumor but Apple has announced a big press conference for this Wednesday so I guess we’ll all soon find out then if the rumors were true. In addition to the possible new tablet computer they are expected to talk about iLife ‘10 and iPhone OS 4.

A friend of mine found some pics online of the rumored new tablet device and posted the pics on his blog. Check them out here.

Finally, everyone is guessing at what Apple will call the new device. Some of the ideas people are throwing around are iSlate, iSlab, Newton, and iPad. They’re all decent names but I really hope they don’t go with iPad. Anyone remember this old Mad TV spoof commercial? LOL…

Anyway, a friend posted this image on twitter earlier and I thought it was worthy of reposting.

You can buy the image above as a poster or printed on a t-shirt here if interested.

I give you The Kuro-kamikiri (black hair cutter). It’s a large, black-haired creature that sneaks up on women in the street at night and surreptitiously cuts off their hair. Anatomical features include a brain wired for stealth and trickery, razor-sharp claws, a long, coiling tongue covered in tiny hair-grabbing spines, and a sac for storing sleeping powder used to knock out victims. The digestive system includes an organ that produces a hair-dissolving fluid, as well as an organ with finger-like projections that thump the sides of the intestines to aid digestion.

Here’s one sent to me by a friend titled “Late For Work”

Edit: Of course when I took the 5 seconds to do the math (assuming it’s counting seconds down) it will finish in 14 days (ie. News Years Day).

http://www.holytaco.com/25-hilarious-wifi-network-names

Some of my favorites:

• PicturesOfBalls
• TurdBurglar
• GetOffMyLawn
• H1N1
• JoelsADoucheBag

MS Project licenses can cost a ton of money depending on how many you need and Basecamp charges $24 per month for their smallest hosted plan. Enter ProjectPier. ProjectPier is an open source project management tool that’s been around for a while which you host on your own web server. It was built to basically clone the functionality of Basecamp but since it’s open source it’s free to install and use. Take a look at the screenshot below to see what my install looks like.

click to enlarge

As you can see not only can ProjectPier mimic most of the functionality of Basecamp it can also be made to look almost identical as well. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Download and install the latest beta of ProjectPier (v0.8.5.0) located here
• Configure your ProjectPier installation by following the install guide
• Once fully configured download and install the free BaseQamp theme for ProjectPier located here

After following the steps outlined above you’ll have a great tool to manage all those projects on your plate and some extra cash in your wallet each month as well.

I look forward to hearing what people think about the music I feature so please put in your two-cents by commenting and also feel free to suggest stuff as well for posting.

• A CSS reset that eliminates the discrepancies across browsers.
• A solid grid that can support the most complex of layouts.
• Typography based on expert principles that predate the web.
• Form styles for great looking user interfaces.
• Print styles for making any webpage ready for paper.
• Plugins for buttons, tabs and sprites.
• Tools, editors, and templates for every step in your workflow.

Within about an hour or so I pretty much had it down. Check out this quick-start tutorial and this more detailed one to get yourself going. It eliminates a lot of the repetitive CSS work you normally have to do for each new project you start and creating a standards compliant layout takes just minutes using their included CSS classes and “the grid”.

Click the thumbnail above to download the larger PNG version for use with Fluid App.

TheSixtyOne is a free music website that a friend of mine introduced me to. It’s a great place to check out new music/artists. It’s similar to Pandora but seems to feature lesser known artists and has a type of game aspect added into the service. Here is what the people who operate the site say about their service:

thesixtyone makes music culture more democratic: artists upload their work for review, but, rather than allow a stuffy suit in a boardroom to decide what’s good, thousands of listeners do. The best music automagically bubbles up on our homepage where you can listen to the most popular songs for any genre. It’s a quick way to find new music for your iPod powered by pure excitement as opposed to some contrived marketing budget.

Think you’ve got a good ear? Aside from customizing your experience, creating an account allows you to earn reputation, level up your influence, and collect badges for discovering and recommending good music that others may enjoy. On thesixtyone, tastemaking becomes fun, competitive, and trackable.

We’re on a quest to help people fall in love with something new while giving deserving artists an efficient channel for finding their audiences.

One of the more interesting things to me was that they offer a Creative Commons section of music. This just means the artists who release their music under this license allow it to be downloaded for free and used in various capacities without needing their express written permission. Open-Source music, pretty cool!

I chose to go with Overnight Prints to get the cards printed. They had good customer reviews, used higher quality paper stock than most, and offered affordable offset press printing. Most places for the price I paid can only offer digital printing which is no where near as high quality.