Lately I have really been putting some effort into social marketing. I have always been a modest kind of guy. Do a great job in your work, maintain a professional courteous attitude, the client is always happy: these have always been the basis of my work ethic. Going to social sites and shouting – look at me, look at me – just did not seem, you know, dignified. After diving in and really figuring out how these things work, I could not have been more wrong.

There is a certain amount of “look at me” but there is really a lot more. I have connected with friends I have not seen in years, I know what relatives are up to, and I have made new friends of people I would otherwise never have met. I have increased my work productivity through new found knowledge, I have found new work and new clients, and I have improved communication with my existing clients.

Does it take some time, yes, but as with anything, a strategy for achieving set goals brings it all into perspective. Is it worth it? I would have to say resoundingly yes. The important thing to keep in mind: shouting me! me! is a small part of the effort. The real goal is to strengthen existing relationships and develop brand new ones.

Having said all of that, let’s talk about me! me! Here are some of my online links!

• Red Creek Design Co
• BlueNoseGopher
• Art n Architecture
• Behance/EdwardSine
• CGChannel/EdwardSine
• Edward Sine Web Design
• FaceBook/Red Creek
• LinkedIn/EdwardSine
• Twitter/EdSine
• Twitter/RedCreekDesign
• Veer/Edward Sine

Hopefully you will enjoy meeting me, and you never know, it might be the start of something – social.

I have recently joined the Behance Network which is a web community dedicated to creatives doing exciting work spanning all disciplines of art and design. I am thrilled to be part of it. It does create more exposure for my work, but, more importantly, I am finding the networking and resources with other artists to be both fun and informative.

The above link will take you directly to my profile, but while you are there, spend some time looking at other artist’s work as well. You will find some mind blowing artwork, brilliant photography, and incredible graphic design from all over the world.

One of the challenges I have run across when posting tutorials, is making the article valuable to all different skill levels. Posting a beginner topic is great for newbies, but may hold little interest for those more advanced. On the other hand, making the topic more advanced may baffle the beginners.

The other day, however, I gained a new perspective. Even though I consider myself an advanced user on certain things (Photoshop is my weapon of choice), I found myself a newbie in search of an answer to a basic question on something outside my realm of expertise. I took to the web, and found another newbie with my same question, asking for assistance on a blog forum. His question was met with, shall we say, less than a courteous response. That is when it dawned on me, there are at least two newbie axioms:

1. Every advanced user was once a newbie on the subject.
2 An advanced user in one area of expertise, can be a newbie in another.

So to you advanced users being asked for assistance from beginners, remember, you were a newbie once. Also, the newbie you address on your forum could be the expert on another. So be kind and patient when someone asks for your help. I guarantee it will be a rewarding experience for both of you.

Being an avid reader, I guess it was only a matter of time until I jumped into Kindle. I did not actually get a Kindle though, I have been using the Kindle for iPhone App. My first thought was that the iPhone screen was too small, but it really has been just fine. The text is easy to read, there is just not a lot of text on each page.

You can browse for books online at your computer and sync the books to the iPhone, or just download books right to the iPhone. I have ordered most of my book selections so far with iPhone, it is quick and painless. Now for the best part – there is a nice selection of free books. The free selections are mostly classics, but they are still very fun to read!

Well, you will have to excuse me, I am halfway through a Sherlock Holmes adventure…

This month I finally broke down and bought a new computer. That was the easy part. Transferring six years of essential information from my old computer was another story. I do, however, have some tips based on this interesting experence.

Create a spreadsheet of all login id and passwords. Keep it updated. On your new computer you will have to know every single one.

Create a spreadsheet with all software serial numbers. When reinstalling your software you will need every single one. To make it more fun, if any software is an upgrade, you will need the serial numbers from the current version and the previous one. Also review authorization procedures before starting this. Software from Adobe and Autodesk, for example, require you to transfer authorizations.

Email can be transferred by exporting from the old computer and importing on the new one. My email software, Microsoft Outlook, allows me to do this using a .pst file. You will also need to export browser favorites using the export and import procedure.

Save all preferences, if possible, from your software. For example, brushes, gradients, patterns, and style can all be saved from Photoshop and reloaded on your new computer.

If you are like me, and you have a tremendous amount of data files such as artwork, photos, Itunes, etc., an external hard drive will help you considerably. Copy all of that to the external on the old computer, and then just plug it into the new one. A simple trick, that took me a while to figure out, is that if you copy your iTunes Music Library.xml file from your old C Drive to the new C Drive, you can retain your library and playlists just the way they were before.

The most important thing: keep your old computer, plugged in, connected to the internet, and readily available. Two weeks after I started this process, I am still transferring vital tidbits from the old computer. Six years, in the computer world is a long time. You will not believe how much important “stuff” is stored there and taken for granted.

If you are not familiar with Cleartype, Microsoft has developed an option that greatly improves the display of onscreen text. It works best on LCD monitors, such as laptops and flat panel displays. It may also improve readability on CRT monitors. If you are using Windows XP, it may not be running on your computer.

You can use the online tuner to turn it on and adjust the display to your preference. To access the tuner go to the Microsoft website.

Not too long ago, I thought it might be fun to start an online magazine (still working on it!), so I began a search for a content management system that would work for that purpose. I tried all of the main CMS options, and none seemed to do what I wanted. I finally ran across Movable Type which is fantastic, and is working out well for my needs on that project. But, during this evaluation process, I discovered Wordpress, and it really caught my attention.

So while reading Andy Clarke’s new book about CSS, my enthusiasm to try some of his techniques found me in front of Wordpress attempting a template design. Well, I am excited to say that setting up a blog was as simple as could be. In a very short time, I had it installed, a template created, and found myself looking at a “write post” screen. So without any intentions of really doing so, I find myself with my own blog.

I have to really give my recommendations for both Movable Type and Wordpress. But if you are really just wanting to get a blog up and working without a lot of effort, Wordpress is the real deal. Now I’m looking at the plugins and options that are available and my mind is racing with all of the possibilties . . .

ColorSketches is currently an experiment into blogging, to delve into one of my favorite passions – the world of art. My name is Edward Sine and my main interest at present is digital art. Art that can be created in Photoshop, Painter, 3d Studio, or Lightwave. I like to study traditional art techniques such as oil painting, watercolor, or sketching and apply these techniques to digital media.

In future posts I hope to share some of the techniques and insights I have learned along the way. I also plan to share links to other relevant sites or, if I find some exciting work from another artist, I will point you in their direction.

If you can forgive at least some personal promotion, I would like to point you in the direction of my own personal portfolio BlueNoseGopher.com. I am also trying to develop an online magazine that builds on my philosophy that different design and artistic disciplines are all related and, in fact, tied together. The website, Art n Architecture, addresses the different yet related forms of Art, Architecture, Graphic Design, and Photography.