Most of the technical stuff is working. It’s a working replacement for Stylish at this point. It will be a working replacement for Greasemonkey at the Beta and it will be a vast improvement on both by the time it’s stable (just a couple weeks from now)

Right now the UI is not where I want it. Especially the Edit page. It’s busy and cumbersome. This will be improving a lot, I promise. It’s also a bit glitchy sometimes. Just refresh and it’ll work itself out.

Anyone with moderate or better CSS or JS should feel at home pretty quickly here.

The main point of this release is to get  some feedback about how it works. Please share your thoughts at ansel@anselsantosa.com. If there are bugs, or you have feature requests post them in the tracker.

TL;DR

Imagine Stylish + Greasemonkey with a much better user experience:

• You won’t have to leave the options page to find new modules
• Syncing across computers/browsers
• If you don’t know how to code, there will be detailed instructions and easy-to-use starter code
• The interface will be pretty, simple, and easy to use
• IF YOU ARE A DEV, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU! Email me at ansel@anselsantosa.com

Backstory

As I’m sure you all know, Google has bee very busy lately. They have been launching new products and redesigning the old ones. This is great because it means Google has acknowledged that it’s UX needed some serious work. However significant change to Google’s ecosystem means significant change to the Minimalist Suite and although the solo-dev patch-as-you-go strategy has worked so far, it just doesn’t scale and I’m not going to be able to keep up.

Now don’t freak out just yet. I’m going to maintain the existing suite as best I can while developing a long term solution and I hope to have it fully functional and ready to start the mass user migration by September so I can deprecate the current extensions. So lets talk about Minimalist for Everything. I’ve mentioned a couple details about it in the past and they are all still true. However in response to Google+ (and everything else that is a part of the Emerald Sea initiative), the scope of the extension is going to have to grow a bit. Here is what I’m thinking (in the form of a conversation with myself. [what? That's weird <who are you calling weird? {I'm not crazy, you're crazy!!}>])

What does it do?

CSS and JavaScript injection. In other words, the same thing that my current extensions do.

So how is it different?

Lots more control. So that users can input JS as well as CSS and so that devs can use my framework to create powerful, easy-to-use modules without needing UX degrees.

Where does this data come from?

You! Well maybe not you specifically, but anyone can contribute. I will of course be contributing a significant number of modules (including ones to replace my existing extensions). The modules will be hosted on GitHub (so yes, they all have to be open source. This is on purpose). There will be a community-maintained index of modules in a wiki at minimalistsuite.com. These modules will be saved in the form of user-scripts.

So they can be loaded independently of MinEverything? Why should I use it then?

Yes, but just like writing for Greasemonkey, writing for MinEverything will have some big advantages. A simple API will allow devs to declare individual options so that users can toggle them and off just like in the current Minimalist extensions. Other API features are TBA for the time being. The extension will also function as a user script manager, unlike stand-alone userscripts, ones you install in the extension will sync across computers with your account.

What about sharing, import, export, etc?

The extension will enable directly install of scripts from userscripts.org and userstyles.org and will export scripts as well.

So what do you need from us?

If you’re a dev, shoot me an email or comment on this post. I want to get some dialogue going about this API and some other technical stuff. If you’re not a dev, any feedback you can offer would be great. I know this extensions sounds like it’s for the more technically minded and the first beta releases will be. But the target user base for the final product is as broad and diverse as my current users.

There are a few fundamentals that have driven me to create these extension:

1. I love Google
2. I love minimalism
3. I love choice

Because of the first part, I am a huge fan of Gmail. I believe it is the gold standard in consumer email. Its features are industry leading and it is highly accessible. The one aspect in which is falls short is design. Specifically the interface design of the Gmail webapp. This is where the other parts come in.

For years I have been using user scripts and browser extensions to improve my web experience in a variety of ways. However, I often had as many complaints about these scripts as I did about the products they fixed. Last year I got fed up and wrote my own user scripts for Facebook, Gmail, Google Voice, Google Reader, and Google Calendar. Since then they have been improved and refined. Just before winter break I had some free time and decided to go public. I figured that I wasn’t the only one who was frustrated by the lack of comprehensive scope and granular control over browser extensions and I wanted to help those who didn’t have the time or ability to write these scripts themselves.

I published my first extension, Minimalist for Gmail to the Google Chrome Web Store. The response was surprising. I knew other people would want it but I didn’t know how many and how fast they would find it. I got 14k users in one day thanks to Lifehacker and since then it has stabilized around 40k active installs.

Minimalist for Google Calendar, Minimalist for Google Reader, and Minimalist for Facebook came next are stabilized around 20k.

Note: For those wondering why I deviated from Google Apps for the latest extension, it was user demand. For the 4th extension, I took a survey and Facebook overwhelmingly won.

What’s next

Well it’s very much still a developing concept but there are a couple things I can confirm so far:

1. Minimalist for Everything will launch this summer (probably late summer, don’t get too antsy)
2. It will be very different from the existing extensions.

The concept is this: take what I’ve learned from the other extensions and enable users to apply it to the entire web. Fundamentally it will be an extensions for injecting HTML, JavaScript, and CSS into any page. This of course has been done before but I don’t want this to just be a tool for experienced developers. I also want it to be a playground for curious amateurs. Here are some ideas (not confirmation, just what I’m playing with right now)

• Drag and drop template blocks of code for common tasks (users will be able to submit code blocks)
• Heavily documented in the options page and in the wiki
• Point and click targeting of elements on webpages
• Easy to use GUI for beginners to create custom CSS
• UserScript import/editing/export

Basically I want it to create a simple and powerful tool for seasoned devs to craft their web experience, and at the same time make it easy enough and well documented enough that any curious beginner can start to learn about JavaScript and CSS.

I’m deep in the conceptual and research stage right now so keep at eye on this post in the coming months for more updates.

The Links

• Minimalist Suite
• Follow me on Twitter [@anstosa]

• Minimalist for Gmail
  • Project Home and Issue Tracker
  • Source code

• Minimalist for Google Calendar
  • Project Home and Issue Tracker
  • Source code

• Minimalist for Google Reader
  • Project Home and Issue Tracker
  • Source code

• Minimalist for Facebook
  • Project Home and Issue Tracker
  • Source code

Like my embedded OS of choice, Android, I have very strong opinions about my desktop OS of choice, Windows. I think decreasingly OSX increasingly Ubuntu are offering aggressive intellectual competition to Windows, however, unlike in the mobile space, Windows is by far the market leader and isn’t going anywhere. However the reality of near-monopoly market-share is a harsh one. Legacy support continues to hold back many innovations in Windows because so much of Microsoft’s software business is enterprise. Windows 7 took steps away from legacy support but I think they need to do more and Ballmer seems to be willing to take major risks in the next version of Windows. Here is what I think needs to happen.

Centralizing software

The Linux repository has been around forever. Microsoft brought it to the enterprise in Windows Mobile. Most recently Apple  brought it to the mainstream with the iOS app store. It’s a centralized list of installable resources which handles adding, removing, and maintaining software. It has become a necessary element in embedded OS’ and third party repositories like Steam are becoming popular in desktop OS’. With the preview of OSX Lion and the leaked Windows 8 slide deck it’s clear that app stores are coming to the desktop. The OSX app store scares me because it’s clear that although users still have choices, Apple is continuing to make as many choices as possible for them.

The Windows App stores is exciting. Will I use it? To some extent, yes. Will it replace repositories like Steam? Absolutely not. Will I still sideload apps? Mostly. A native app store is a great way to make finding software easy for novices. It also offers unified software maintenance which is really nice. If software I want is in the store, that’s where I will be getting it. Basically the way I see things going is I have Steam for games, and the Windows Marketplace for utilities and other software.

Security

Microsoft is more aggressive than any other company at distributing security updates and they finally wrote their own free anti-virus. The only thing that is missing is to actually bundle the damn thing with Windows. Obviously certain manufacturers will want to replace it with their partners AV but out of the box, Windows should run MSE.

Updating and maintenance

This is very closely related to the Marketplace. Updating Windows is a pain sometimes, but keeping every piece of software on my machine updated is basically impossible. Updates need to be centralized. I think there should be a Windows Update API that third parties can access. This would allow everything on your computer to update itself through a single interface. Windows would automatically download updates for all software in the background when the internet connection is idle and when updates are downloaded it would offer to install them. Alternatively, you could opt-in to auto updates for certain software which would allow Windows to automatically backup and update software without your permission.

Bloat

Resource management has always been a problem in Windows. 7 took some huge steps but it could be much more aggressive. Windows should identify when you are using an extremely resource intensive program like Photoshop or a fullscreen game and freeze or lower the priorities of other unrelated tasks to free up resources.

Install size is also a problem. Windows is big. I think they did the right thing by cutting out Windows Live Essentials and having it as a free download. I think they did the wrong thing by not telling people where it was. The Windows Marketplace will fix this problem. By only pre-installing the absolute essentials, bloat will be cut down dramatically. Then the first things people see is the Marketplace. They open it up and are offered a myriad of free software from Microsoft to help them fill in their library.

Cloud

Windows should come bundled with a cloud service like Ubuntu One which would give you syncing, streaming, and storage with deep OS integration. Microsoft already has a handful of great cloud projects, but none are connected to Windows in a unified and easy way.

Multitouch

Two form-factors specifically targeted in Windows 8 are slates and all-in-one touchscreens. Windows 7 has some really competitive pen-based enterprise touch tools but this needs to be broadened. There needs to be tools for both finger and pen input and it should be integrated into every aspect of the OS [finger friendly buttons and gestures, etc]. See Ubuntu 10.10 to see what I mean.

Installation

Software installation on Windows [and Linux] is a pain. 5 years ago when storage wasn’t so cheap, distributed installation was a very elegant solution. But now that the average laptop ships with 500GB rotating media or 128GB SSD, the resource in short supply is time and frustration and single directory installs [a 'la OSX] are the more elegant. Windows needs to ditch the registry. Old installers can still be supported through emulation.

Windows explorer

Windows explorer is old and outdated. They’ve polished it up with each version of Windows but it’s essentially the same one that shipped with Windows 98. They need to go back to the drawing board with this one.

Connectivity

Libraries, homegroups, and media streaming are a huge selling point for Windows. Nobody knows about these features though because Microsoft is only just starting to learn how to market it’s products to consumers. These features need to be simplified and advertised.

In addition the Device Stage needs to be refined. There is a lot of potential but it doesn’t serve a practical application at the moment.

Versions

One. There needs to be one version of Windows. None of this Starter, Home, Professional, Ultimate garbage. Sell a single version and any other enhancements should be advertised as add-on packages through the Marketplace.

Performance

Boot, wake, hibernate, battery, heat control, all places where performance should be improved. There are a lot of hacks and patches that you can do to fix these problems, but Windows needs to be re-written from the bottom up. This will greatly improve performance and any legacy issues that arise, like the registry removal, should be handled through emulation and virtualization.

Wrap up

Alright, I’m sure I missed some things here and I didn’t proofread at all… This post was mostly just what I’ve been thinking about since the dutch MS blog accidentally leaked the 2012 release date of Windows 8 so it’s not nearly as thorough as the rest of the posts in the series and I may add to it later if I think of something else important. If you have any other ideas, let me know in the comments.

Angry birds

Since it launched on Android, it has been consuming my life [and those of two million other Android users].

Minecraft

Minecraft is what I’ve been doing when I’m not playing Angry Birds. It’s a really amazing game. I’ll probably do a complete post about it after the Halloween update. I would encourage you to check out X’s Adventures in Minecraft to get a feel of what the game is like and CraftHub to see the beautiful things that people can create with the game.

Apple

Apple previewed OSX Lion. Notable features [via BGR]:

• Multitouch gesture support
• Mac App Store
• Launchpad
• Full-screen apps
• Auto-save and auto-resume within apps
• Mission Control: unification of full-screen apps, Expose, Spaces and Dashboard

This is all very evolutionary, nothing unexpected here. They are putting an iOS layer over OSX with Launchpad, they are locking down developers with the App Store, they are generally unifying the two platforms [including the deprecation of Flash and Java in OSX which they originally insisted on doing themselves and which every other major hardware manufacturer still takes responsibility for.]

They also updated iLife. Nothing revolutionary there either.

The biggest announcement was the new Air. It is a really beautiful product. I hope more manufacturers pick up the all metal look, the SSDs and the big batteries but this is not a good product. It’s very heavy for an ultralight [because of the unibody design], it’s underpowered [Core 2 Duo ULV is netbook horsepower] and it’s expensive. You can get an i5 and twice the discrete graphics memory for less. Like the iPad, it’s pretty and uses a lot of great ideas, but it’s overpriced, it cannot function as a primary computer, and as with all Apple products, you don’t own it. You lease it. Throughout all these announcements, a lot of tech journalists seem to be echoing the same things “I love the products, but I hate the company” [many of them won't stop buying products on principle like I do] and “The only thing macs have over PCs is that you can install Windows on them”.

Microsoft

Windows Phone 7 launched to surprisingly good reviews. I say surprisingly because there was so much hype, everyone was sure it was going to be disappointing. I think it is a really promising platform but it’s definitely still young. The reviews agree in general: It’s a good mobile OS, great in fact for a band new OS, it’s really a unique offering compared to the rest of the market, and it shows tons of promise. However all the reviews also agree that this won’t mean anything unless they get a groundswell of developer support. They said those same things about WebOS when it launched and we know what happened there… Check out the Gizmodo and Engadget reviews for more.

As far as I go, I won’t be jumping ship because Microsoft took a lot of cards out of Apple’s playbook for this one. It’s a gorgeous UI and I’ll be sticking with Zune for my media player [the Zune HD 2 is due in the spring] but nothing beats Android on my phone.

There is also some excitement about Windows. I’ve said before, and I’ll say again that Windows is a good platform, Windows 7 is a great operating system, but I’m getting tired of my desktop operating system and I need something fresh. At Gartner Symposium, when asked what Microsoft’s riskiest product bet was going to be, Ballmer answered “the next version of Windows”. YES! They took a risk with Vista too and failed miserably but I think that Windows Phone 7 proves that they are really getting themselves together and can now actually execute on the good ideas coming out their research teams. I can’t wait for this. Maybe I’ll hate it. If so I’ll just stay on Windows 7. I don’t hate Windows 7 but I don’t love it either. I want to risk disappointment to find an operating system that I love and I think that Microsoft is the only company that can deliver on that.

Google

The harbinger of major updates, the Google Android sculpture has arrived. The Gingerbread man is in the open at Google HQ which means that Gingerbread, Android 2.3, is just around the corner. According to leaks broken by Phandroid, it should be the release that I’ve been waiting for, the last bit of polish that Android has desperately needed. It’s not a complete redesign by any measure, I think that will come with Honeycomb [3.0] but it will still be a big improvement. See Phandroid’s leaks here and here for all the details.

In addition, this is was the first project that I used my own jquery/javascript implementation. In the past I’ve always modified other people’s javascript library extensions but they never feel quite right because they always have more features than I need so the code gets bloated. This time I wrote the scripts from scratch and it was really fun. If you haven’t been to the site yet, check it out. When the video starts and stops playing, you’ll see the script that I’m talking about.

Brennan was the best client I’ve ever worked with because he knew exactly what he wanted in simple concrete terms. When I presented my original design to him, I was using Helvetica Neue Ultra-Light. He liked the thin and light font but wanted something more classic. except he didn’t just stop at “more classic”. He went on to say “like Goudy Old Style or Garamond”. The translation from the abstract to the concrete and trying to figure out what clients actually want is the hardest part of web development so having an awesome client like Brennan is what makes the difference between cranking out a site in 36 hours [brennanvance.com] and having it get stuck in 2 months of corporate ambiguity [centerstonepartners.com]

This spring I talked about my dream computer. Last week I talked about where Android needs to go. In continuation of that series, I want to talk about my dream phone. My dream computer is based on what I think will [should] be around in 1.5-2 years because that’s my computer upgrade cycle. My phone upgrade cycle is quite a bit snappier. About once a year which means I’ll probably have a new one by next spring.

My next phone will probably whichever one Google employees are using because I need my phone to run stock Android out of the box. So lets talk specs:

Screen

• 4″ 960×640 OLED*
• Atmel MaxTouch digitizer

Ports**

• 3.5mm headphone jack [on the bottom of the phone]
• microUSB [on the left side of the phone]
• microSD [behind battery cover, but removable without removing battery]

Buttons**

• Volume rocker
• Sleep/wake [on top left]
• Backlit trackball with RGB LED [physical trackball, not an optical one]
• Navigation buttons [hardware buttons, not capacitive, back-menu-home-search in that order]

Logic board

• ARM 1GHz core [Cortex A8 or A9] with PowerVR SGX graphics integrated
• 4GB NAND Flash
• 512MB RAM
• 1GB ROM.

Communications board

• FM & FM HD
• 802.11 b/g/n
• T-Mobile USA GSM & HSPA+***
• Bluetooth 3.0

Body

• Aluminum or Magnesium alloy frame
• Rubberized plastic panels over battery and communications board.

Other

• Dual mics [for noise cancellation]
• RGB LED status light
• 5MP Rear camera
• VGA Front camera
• Light sensor
• Proximity sensor

*Why OLED?

Because when it’s done right [see the Zune HD], it uses less power, it has truer colors, more contrast, and deeper blacks.

**Why so picky about the locations of buttons and ports?

From experience, those are the best places for all of those buttons and ports to be.

***Why T-Mobile

The lesser of lots of evils. All the carriers in the US blow. All of them. Verizon is famous fro bloatware and is  CDMA, Sprint chose WiMAX over LTE and is CDMA, T-Mobile is uses non-standard GSM 3G frequencies and chose HSPA+ over LTE and AT&T just sucks in every possible way. I choose T-mobile because it uses GSM, because it hasn’t adopted tiered pricing or official data caps and it’s marginally supportive of tethering.

I know that was a lot of hardware geekery but if you actually made it through all that you must be into this stuff. If you could make a phone based on parts available today, how would it differ from mine?

Long story short, I have a new host and it’s great but I had to migrate manually and I probably messed something up so if you see something off about my website [or Sarah's] please let me know.

Look and feel

It’s Android’s greatest weakness and apparently it’s easy for everyone else. Windows Phone 7′s “metro UI”  is absolutely gorgeous but extremely limiting [to make sure that all apps are equally and similarly gorgeous]. WebOS is soft and elegant. iOS is flashy and glassy [too glassy if you ask me, I like matte interfaces...]. All three are visually pleasing and most importantly visually consistent.

Android needs a beautiful, unique, and unified look. Most of Android actually looks pretty good but the problem is that every part looks good in a different way. The notification system has nice subtle gradients, the gallery has clean lines and flashy accelerometer effects, the clock has defined glassy buttons, and Car Home has a dark smoky look. They all have their merits but they’re not a family

The future of the Android UI is bright. After HP’s acquisition of Palm, they were hemorrhaging senior staff and Google was lucky enough to snatch up Matias Duarte to be Android’s User Experience Director. Duarte’s work with the WebOS interface speaks for itself and he had previously worked on Sidekick with the head of Android, Andy Rubin so they can hit the ground running. Duarte’s hiring was just one part of a reshuffling of Android staff after Froyo and although the engineer-heavy management created all that I love about Android, I’m happy to see more design experience running the show now that we’re in the refine and evolve stage. Honeycomb [3.0] will definitely be a big leap forward for Android but hopefully some of the changes will start to be introduced with Ginerbread [2.3?] this fall.

In addition to updating the OS  skin in general, Google also needs to re-evaluate the tools that they give their developers. Most developers aren’t designers and don’t have money to hire one so they go with the framework and graphics provided by the SDK. From an engineering perspective, Google’s tools are the best, hands down. Apps scale effortlessly to any screen size, it’s stupidly simple to set up most layouts and if you’re not using custom graphics you can throw together a functional UI in no time. However the SDK should give developers the tools to create great looking apps, not just functional ones. Some of the new UI patterns show that we are getting to that point. A design that started with the official Twitter app has spread to Facebook and even the official YouTube Mobile:

OEM/Carrier skins

This is a huge problem for Android. It’s open source so anyone can do anything they want with it. This means that the manufacturers and the carriers fill it to the brim with ugly skins and proprietary apps. Would it be better if the system was locked down? Absolutely not. Customization is important for the end user and the carriers will never let that through without getting in on the action.

I think that there is a middle-ground in this chaos. Android will always be open-source but that doesn’t mean Google is helpless to take a little control. The Google apps and the Google name are proprietary and must be licensed [Anyone can make an Android phone, but you need to get permission to make an Android "with Google" phone.]. This gives Google a tremendous amount of power because their Android apps are phenomenal [Gmail, Maps, YouTube, etc.], access to the Android Market is crucial, and the carriers want to Google name in their ads. Google needs to clamp down on the situation and offer alternatives to the brute-force skinning that is fragmenting the platform and often destroying usability. This is what they should be:

• Manufacturers and carriers may pre-load apps and assign defaults of their choosing, however the user must be able to change those defaults and uninstall those apps.
• Modifying the stock Android framework should not be allowed. [because it should be modular, I'll get back to this in the next section]

It’s as simple as that. If you don’t like the VCast music store, you should be able to uninstall it. If you don’t like the HTC Sense SMS app, you should be able to replace it with the stock Messaging app from the Market. If you don’t like MotoBlur, you should be able to restore every facet of your OS to it’s Vanilla Android form.

This is something that I don’t expect to happen. I think that devices which run stock Android are going to continue to be few and far between. Google is going to make sure that at least one is always available to their developers and employees [that's the one I'll be using, currently the Nexus One] but their stance has continued to be very clearly hands-off on this issue. I’m sure Duarte is furious about the skins so hopefully he’ll be able to talk some sense into Andy Rubin to protect the beautiful new interface that I’m sure is well under-way.

Getting around the carriers

Currently the way skins are made are by replacing the stock graphics library. I think there is a better solution. Android’s modular design allows you to replace almost anything in the OS that you don’t like. Don’t like the keyboard, download a new one and next time you find a text box it’ll ask you which one you want to use and whether it should remember your choice. Same with the launcher [homescreen], messaging app, mail app, browser, photo gallery, etc. However I think some important parts are left out. I think the basic OS functions should be modular and uninstallable] . For example, dialog boxes, overlay messages, the notification system, the graphics library, etc should be like apps that you can install, uninstall and replace from the Market. That way carriers and OEMs can make whatever ridiculous changes they want to their phones when they ship but the second a customer opens the box they should be able to go to the Android Market and download the stock graphics and notification system, the stock launcher, the stock gallery, etc and very quickly have a “vanilla” phone.

Google has already started this process by pushing updates to Maps, Calendar, Gmail and more through the Market instead of bundled with OTA updates. However if they made rest of the OS modular they could completely eliminate skinning as an issue. Is this going to happen? Probably not. Now that Google has so many devices, partners, and customers, it’s running into the Microsoft Legacy problem. Once you make a mistake [like the registry for example] and you have that many customers, it’s very difficult to change without making everyone angry.

Hardware

Android offers a truly absurd variety of hardware [almost 100 "with Google" devices, see the full list here] and they have guidelines for these devices [trackball, volume rocker, camera, 4 hardware buttons, touchscreen, etc. Full CDD here] however, I think they could be a little more strict.

• Requirements for memory, processor, screen resolution, etc should rise more steeply and devices must ship with the newest version of Android that they qualify for. [For reference, I think Android 2.2 standards should have been 800MHz CPU, dual-touch digitizer, 480x800, 256MB RAM 512MB ROM. The actual requirements are much lower]
• Devices must be updated within 2 months of a release of a new version of Android until such a time as they no longer meet the minimum hardware requirements.
• Button layout should be standardized. Volume on the left side, trackball in the middle, buttons in the same order [right now the order is different on every single phone. I think Back, Menu, Home, Search makes the most sense]

Natural Evolution

Beyond that, most of my complaints will be addressed by evolutionary updates. For example the ROM that I’m running, CyanogenMod, has touch-to-focus in the camera and camcorder but vanilla Froyo doesn’t. I should be able to swipe my notifications to the side to dismiss them individually but I can’t. These are small annoyances that will be fixed in the natural release cycle.

…And so I play the waiting game. I’m sure we will start to hear Gingerbread rumors toward mid-October and I expect them to launch the online Android Market and Google Music along with Gingebread this fall. Google’s snappy release cycle puts Honeycomb in the spring so needless to say this school year will be action-packed for Android lovers.

A super cool, kinda nerdy music video by Steve Buss. I love typography like this. If you do too, check out The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Long story short, it’s finally done [and she's actually excited about it, yay!]. It was super fast and super easy [turns out we work really well together]. I have 4 other ongoing projects but there was 48 hours where I was waiting for them all to get back to me about various things so I cranked it out in 48 hours.

Here it is. Inspired by sites she showed me. Using a color scheme she made [she makes the color schemes for all my websites, and gorgeous design boards for me to present them to my clients]. It’s not quite done yet, she still has to write her resume and pick out a couple projects to show off but it’s mostly there:

My favorite part is the Inspiration page. Since about a year ago shes been saving all the photos of things that inspire her in this folder on her desktop [organized by room of course, with descriptive filenames saying why she likes them]. Not only are they fun to look at because she has a great design aesthetic, but they’re also perfect illustrations of her personality [which I'm quite fond of]. The inspiration page is basically an online version of that folder, organized into albums with expandable images and descriptive captions. If you need inspiration for a remodel or just like looking at pretty houses, check it out.

It’s definitely one of my favorite sites so far. You can see the rest of my work on my portfolio page. Look for three new sites in the next month or so.