vCards aside, nearly all QR code use that I encounter is simply pushing a web address. I know some people disagree, but I can generally always open my iPhone web browser and tap out a URL faster than I can open a QR scanner, wait for the camera to wake up, scan the code, wait for translation, tap the link, switch to the web browser, and let it load. And before someone asks something like, what about long URLs such as www2.fooblahfooflah.co.uk/?id=123456&stupid=sk30s&anynumberofotherURLoperators — My response: if you’re marketing a URL that’s any more than shortURL.com/something, then you’re doing it wrong.

Fine, some people like scanning QR codes, so I acknowledge that I’ll be seeing those ugly squares (a graphic designer’s nightmare) printed all over stuff for a long time to come. Doesn’t mean I have to scan them.

But now, these wretched abominations are creeping into venues they have no business in. The whole point of them is to bridge the physical world with the digital world—providing a means on a physical piece of paper to connect you to something online. Lately, however, I’m seeing them incorporated into social media profiles and such. Most recent example is Firehouse Subs’ Twitter page. They’ve got two of them on their background image pointing to their mobile apps for iOS and Android. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Firehouse sandwiches. Yet, QR codes on web pages is, as I commented to them on Twitter, simply ridonkulous.

Completely bypassing the fact that Twitter profile content covers over these QR codes unless you have your browser window stretched wider than the Mississippi River, I’m already online!!!! Just give me a link to click or tap!!

Put another way, providing a QR code on a web page to take someone to another web page (digital to analog and back to digital) is like recording a music CD to audiocassette and then digitizing it back to a new CD! Inasmuch as a CD can be directly/digitally/perfectly duplicated to another CD, can we please kill the appearance of QR codes on web pages and just provide clickable links!?

I simply do not use these services any more. Although I’m not necessarily planning to completely delete the accounts, I am removing external links that point to my profiles, starting with the links column right here on this blog.

Gowalla—I had been on the fence about this one for a long while anyway. Collecting items (as stupid as that was) pretty much was its only fun feature, and that’s gone. Version 4.0 is weird and I simply don’t like it. I only connected to 14 people (a fraction of the number to whom I’m connected on Foursquare). With only a single exception, none of those have checked in for at least four months—when Gowalla 4.0 debuted. Some of those people haven’t checked in for more than two years! And to top it all off, I just discovered that Facebook acquired Gowalla and the service is completely shutting down.

MySpace—do I really need to say anything here?

LinkedIn—I’ve determined that I completely missed the point of LinkedIn from the start. I created my profile to treat it as something of an online professional reference for people with whom I wish to interact. Ergo, I only connected to people I already knew who probably already had most of the information on my profile, anyway. I’ve never had a wish to use it to branch out and make connections beyond those I know. I don’t want a bunch of unknowns having access to my detailed work history. But that appears to be what LinkedIn is for—making those connections either for business deals or job searches. I’m interested in neither, so I’m putting LinkedIn on hiatus. It is probably the only service that I’ll ultimately/literally delete the account.

Google+ is on probation. I’m not ready to blast it yet, but it’s close. It needs a full API for third-party developers NOW. It also needs a mobile app that does more than the miniscule subset of Google+ features—especially ability to share links and access/update business pages. My social media blasting cannon will make preparations to target this service soon if something doesn’t change even sooner.

Not long afterward, Halloween time, the girls decided to add on to my title, branding me the stealer of candy corn.

Jump forward to today, and I’m pretty much the stealer of everything. Makes no difference I’m the one who bought the alleged stolen items from the grocery store, I’m the XYZ stealer.

Naturally, I attempt to have fun with it by branding them as the stealer of whatever it is they’re eating—an action that is always met with the response that they didn’t steal it because it was either given to them or mommy said they could have it. It’s one of those games kids will always win.

Well, Meg got me especially good tonight as I was trying to brand her as stealer of the play-dough she was using. She claimed she couldn’t possibly steal it because it was hers. I inquired how she knew it was only hers? Who’s to say I didn’t play with it after she went to sleep.

Her response: you don’t use the play-dough after I go to bed. You watch TV!

Guilty as charged.

He was quick to bash Facebook for something he hadn’t even yet laid eyes upon. It’s become the fad thing to do to start up the hate mail campaign against Facebook even if they just move a button one pixel to the left. Few people take a moment to consider that the changes may actually be a significant improvement—which is the case of the September 2011 changes. Here’s why.

Facebook has to update its interface from time to time. If it doesn’t, it becomes stagnant and irrelevant. Stagnancy kills a brand, and Facebook knows this. There’s a looming threat to the Facebook brand, and its name is Google+.

Facebook’s bottom line is to make money—not to blindly appease users with its interface. Advertisers pay the bills, and if Facebook users leave in droves to start using Google+ instead, that’s lost revenue.

Clearly, Facebook must keep tabs on what the Google+ appeal is and come up with a way to provide the same—if not better—appeal for its own users.

What did Facebook find? Circles. Okay, the answer may be more complicated than a single word, but a simplistic response to why people like Google+ better is Circles.

Guess what. The very thing that entices people to Google+ is the very thing Facebook incorporated into the latest update. The only difference is that Facebook isn’t using a cool, catchy, hip, jargon name for it. Observe:

Google+ Circles = Facebook Lists

That’s right. Lists. That’s the big new addition that’s getting everyone into a fit. What Facebook has done is address the popularity of Circles and implemented its own version.

What’s so great about Circles? They allow Google+ users to catch up on content posted only from people in those Circles. Likewise, a user can post content which only those in specified circles can view. It sounds like a generous amount of privacy control on the part of Google+.

Facebook Lists are the exact same thing. You can add whomever you like into various Lists and then choose a List to filter News Feed content only from those people. Likewise, when you post a photo or a status update, etc., you can specify that only desired Lists can see that content.

The only area where I feel Facebook missed the mark is addressing the two permanent, self-populating Circles in Google+. One represents every friend connection, and the other, Extended Circles, represents all friend connections plus friends connected to those friends. Observe:

Google+ Extended Circles = Facebook Friends of Friends.

If you’re missing that “Most Recent” function previously at the top of Facebook’s News Feed, you can restore it by creating a new List and putting all your friends into it. Call it All, or All Friends, or even Most Recent if that helps you.

The only caveat to this comes for those with hundreds of friends (or more) such as myself. Creating a List and manually adding all my friends into it is a daunting task.

Advantage: Google+.

But I’m certainly not stopping with a Google+ advantage. Not before pointing out that Facebook’s implementation of Circles…er, I mean, Lists…is actually better than Google+ Circles. Those Circles only manage groupings of people. I haven’t yet found a convenient way to browse only photos that all my friends have posted to Google+. This is one of my favorite ways for browsing Facebook. It’s possible to filter the News Feed to only see everyone’s photos, or only links, or only notes, etc. I don’t find this capability on Google+.

Advantage: Facebook.

Let’s get this straight. Facebook updated itself to offer a feature that was one of the biggest draws for Google+ and improved upon it by providing a means to not only filter people, but also filter content—and everyone’s upset about it.

Hrmm. Yeah. Stop that.

What’s the best way to take advantage of this improvement? In the left column of the News Feed page are various links grouped into categories. At the top of this column is a category named Favorites. Every link within all the other categories may be moved into the Favorites.

Look for the category named Lists. This is where you’ll find the equivalent of Google+ Circles. Hover any desired List, click the edit pencil that appears to the left, then click the popup menu item to add that List to Favorites.

If you don’t see a List that should be there, click the More link that will appear next to the category header when your mouse is hovered in that region. You’ll see a page with every List that has been created, each with the same edit pencil that allows you to move that List to your Favorites.

Suppose, like me, you enjoyed skimming through the News Feed while it’s filtered to only show Photos. Head to the Apps category in that left column. Repeat the above process for Lists to add desired Apps to your Favorites. You can also add Groups, Pages, and Games to your Favorites.

To put your Favorites in a more logical order, click an edit pencil icon next to any of the favorites, select Rearrange, then move them around as desired.

Notice this: prior to the redesign, in order to view a filtered News Feed of only photos, it was a three-click process. Generally, by default, the News Feed loaded with Top Posts activated. So, I first had to click Most Recent at the top of the feed. Next, I had to click Most Recent a second time to access a popup menu. Finally, a third click to select Photos.

Accessing a filtered News Feed of photos is now just a one-click process! If I’ve added Photos from the Apps category in the left column to my Favorites, all I have to do is click it from the Favorites list, and I’m immediately viewing all recent photo posts.

Advantage: Facebook.

By the way, the former Most Recent viewing mode, which many people think the lost after the redesign, is what you’ll get if you create the aforementioned List of All Friends. Just select it from the Favorites to view a News Feed of everyone’s latest posts.

So, what about that live-updating list of activity on the right side? The complaint I hear is, why have the duplication of updates there as well as from the main feed in the middle column? That’s just a rip-off of Twitter.

Yes, that’s sort of true. But that live feed can actually be very useful, especially since it stays put even while you’re scrolling through the News Feed.

Suppose you’ve got your main feed set up like I often do, only displaying Photos. The live feed on the right would let you keep tabs on what people are doing right now while still browsing photos. Or, even if the main feed is displaying all activity, suppose you’ve scrolled down and are looking at posts from many hours (or even days) ago. The live feed is still there giving you a heads up of what’s getting added to the top of the main feed.

For the third time, Advantage: Facebook.

In closing, I’ll touch on a change Facebook made prior to the recent big change with Lists and Favorites. By default, Facebook no longer sends you an e-mail notification on a wide range of activity. Facebook touted this as a positive change in that it reduced e-mail inbox clutter by offering summary e-mails instead of individual messages for every notification.

It’s no surprise that Facebook wishes to keep as much activity on the web site as possible rather than e-mail. There’s lots of advertising revenue generated by visiting the site. But here’s another consideration: just imagine how many e-mails were generated every minute…nay, every second, of every day. That’s a lot of strain on an e-mail server. By making this change, Facebook instantly relieved a substantial amount of that strain, enabling the server to be more efficient.

But what about those who, like my wife, primarily keep up with Facebook messages and responses to posts via the e-mail notifications? Good news, they weren’t eliminated, only deactivated. You can turn them back on. While you’re at it, it’s a good time to prune exactly what types of notifications get e-mailed to you.

Start by clicking the small, downward-pointing triangle in the upper right corner of the blue bar. Select Account Settings. Then, on the left, select Notifications. At the top of the resulting page, uncheck the selection in the gray E-mail Frequency box. After that, scroll down the page to the All Notifications section and click the Edit link on each category of notifications. Enable or disable the checkbox next to each individual notification for which you do or do not want to receive by e-mail.

So there you have it. You’re now informed and can move on. From now on, remember to give a good look at what Facebook has changed before complaining about it. You may actually like what you see!

I’m not saying MobileMe’s price was unreasonable—only that it was a value if you could legitimately benefit from all of its features. If Apple had made just the synchronization features available for a subset annual cost, I’d have almost certainly bought into it.

Yes, admittedly, I’m somewhat of an Apple Fanboy. But can you blame me when Apple makes stuff that works this well?

I am curious of one thing, though: for those who were using the 20+ GB of MobileMe storage, what happens to them? I’ve not read anything about file storage. In fact, the only fee-based feature I’ve seen is the amnesty scenario for music not purchased from iTunes. That feature doesn’t increase storage. I’ve read nothing but 5 GB on all the PR. So do MobileMe storage customers have to pull down the potentially dozens of gigabytes worth of data and find some place else to put it?

All generalizations are false, including this one.

It’s actually a very insightful statement. Each of us—myself included—would be well advised to keep ourselves in check about making too many generalizations. And while we’re at it, consider a corollary I came up with:

All constants are true, except this one.

My wife’s cousin asked on Facebook this morning which choice of two different reactions to a scenario was better. In short, my answer was, “it depends.”

Yeah, that seems like a cop-out answer. Yet, as I see it, we humans seem to rely too heavily on things being constant. We feel good when we can apply a rule to a particular situation with the mentality that this rule always works in this scenario. I’m as guilty as the next person.

The reality is, as I see it, God’s love is the only constant that exists in the universe. Everything else is a variable. If you think about everything in your life that you’ve always believed should be done a certain way, you will realize that situations do exist where the right thing to do is deviate from that pattern.

Whether it’s meaningless simple choices, corporate policy, or an ethical life choice, it depends!

We should be willing and able to bend when necessary. Doing so enables us to handle situations that we couldn’t handle if we stuck to constants. Consider the support structure of large buildings. One might think the steel beams used in construction have to be a rigid as possible for the building to be stable. Yet, engineers know very well that such buildings have to be able to flex a little bit in order to survive severe winds. A rigid structure is prone to snap when faced with high winds, but when the structure is designed to be flexible, rather than snapping, it simply sways a bit in the wind. Sure, standing at the top during such winds may be kind of a scary ride, but you’d be safe.

So too with us. Never assume the same answer or rule always applies to every instance of a particular situation. Whether you’re standing at the top of a swaying building, or making a choice which you know is the right choice, even though it goes against all the experience of your past—it may be frightening but, in the end, you’ll be just fine.

For some bizarre reason, I don’t generally tap the suggestion to clear it. Various forms of retyping is how I usually get around incorrect autocorrections. In this case, I didn’t mind dragging out the “awwwwwww” even longer (the picture deserved it). I typed one more “w” and the iPhone suggested, “sweetest.”

Wanna try to convince me Apple hasn’t infused iPhones with artificial intelligence? ;-)

A local news station, WESH Channel 2, posted a story today about The Journal of Animal Ethics calling for a change in how we refer to animals.

My social media response about this story was:

Out: “pets.”
In: “companion animals.”

Out: “pests.”
In: “free-roaming animals.”

GAH! #gagmewithaspoon

By inventing the phase, “companion animal,” these people are just creating what I’m going to call “companion language.” It’s ridiculous, stupid, and foolish. We don’t need phrases unnecessarily created for the purpose of making us feel good.

We’re all fans of eliminating animal cruelty, but I assure you that our PETS and PESTS don’t care what we call them. Can we stop adding needless syllables to words and phrases that work perfectly fine as they are?

I’ll leave you with a transcript of George Carlin’s most excellent monologue on the subject:

I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms, because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.

I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago.

Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock.

Shell shock!

Battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now.

Operational exhaustion.

Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I’ll bet you if we had still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha.

I’m not saying I would turn it down if someone handed me one and said, “This is for you.” But for myself, no, I’m not planning on picking up an iPad 2. There, I said it.

Unlike the iPhone 4 which brought significantly newer functionality compared to my iPhone 3G that I knew I would take advantage of, I don’t get that same sense about the iPad 2.

iOS 4.3 is where some of the new features come from that were mentioned in Wednesday’s announcement, and iOS 4.3 will run just fine on my iPad 1. I’ll enjoy the performance boost given to Safari, the ability to restore the side switch to an orientation lock, and access to my computer’s iTunes library. Although it was unclear at first, from what I can tell, the iMovie app will more or less work on my iPad 1. But even if it doesn’t, I’m content to work with iMovie on my iPhone.

Apple made plenty of comments about how much faster the iPad 2′s processor is, but I’ve never had a sensation that my iPad 1 is slow. The iPad 2 processor probably really shines when using it for gaming, but I don’t do much gaming.

I definitely have no significant need of cameras in my iPad. I can video chat with my iPhone 4, and even in Apple’s own promo video, the people looked kinda goofy holding up the iPad to take photos or video of things with the rear-facing camera.

Online mogul Chris Pirillo probably described the updated iPad most effectively: the iPad 2 is evolutionary compared to the iPad 1. It’s reasonable to expect that the iPad 3 will instead be revolutionary compared to both the iPad 1 and 2. So get back to me when iPad 3 is announced. Perhaps then I’ll be looking to trade up. What would Apple need to throw in the mix to make an iPad 3 a worth-while upgrade for me? Honestly, I have no idea, but that’s why I love Apple. They have a talented team of engineers who are skilled at figuring out what people like me want. I’m an Apple fan for that very reason. No other computer maker does that.

By the way, I can’t help but chuckle at all the disdain toward Apple about there not being a Retina display in the iPad 2. Follow me here: my 23-inch and 24-inch monitors at work and home, respectively, run 1920×1200 and are driven by respectable graphic cards. To retain best-looking compatibility, if there was to be a resolution upgrade, Apple would only exactly quadruple it, just as they did for the iPhone 4. That means 2048×1536, which is some pretty kick-butt resolution even for a desktop computer. In spite of the enhanced processor and graphics chip in the iPad 2, my impression is that it would struggle to drive a 2048×1536 display. We might see a device with that resolution when the third generation model comes around—maybe.

To fully appreciate this, you need to click it to see it at 100% full size, and make sure your browser isn’t scaling it down to fit your browser window. What you’re looking at is a representation of the orbit paths for Pluto and Tyche. On the left is a small circle representing Pluto’s orbit at just 40 AUs from the sun. The tiny gray dot inside Pluto’s orbit was originally circles I drew for the orbits of several planets, including Earth. I had to reduce this graphic so much to show Tyche’s orbit, all those planets smushed into a quad of four gray pixels.

On the right is the orbit path of Tyche at a whopping fifteen thousand AUs from the sun. We all grew up thinking the distance from the sun to Pluto was all but immeasurable. Travel that same distance 375 times, and you’ve got the distance of Tyche’s orbit!

Assuming, of course, the existence of Tyche is proven to be true.

I’m entering Disney’s Magic Kingdom park, except it’s different. For some reason, the entire front section (Main Street USA and its outskirts) is not there. Instead, there’s just a large, open, outdoor area, and it’s all smoothly paved with blacktop. The summer sun beating down on the blacktop is making it almost unbearably hot. The rest of the park is visible up ahead.

People are scattered around walking in random directions toward different parts of the park, and in a few places within the open, paved area of the missing Main Street are vendor tents. I walk inside one to cool off for a moment and notice that this particular tent has those jars of Bama swirled peanut butter and jelly for sale. (At Disney!!??)

I then realize there’s something inside the Bama jars that can make them light up, causing the jelly to glow, but only the jelly—because jelly is translucent and peanut butter is not, duh! The reason for this technological gimmick completely escapes me.

The last part of the dream I can remember is discovering that my car’s remote lock fob turns the lights in all the jars on and off. After messing around with the employees in that tent and causing minor panic attacks as to what’s going on, I eventually ’fess up, we all have a big laugh, and I continue on toward Tomorrowland.

Zoom mode is helpful when a station broadcasting 4:3 shows widescreen content in letterboxed format. I can zoom it to fill my 16:9 screen.

Stretch mode, however, is stupid. Its purpose would be to make widescreen content squeezed into a 4:3 broadcast fill a 16:9 screen. But I’ve never once seen this happen. What I have frequently seen is the opposite: 4:3 content stretched to fill a 16:9 screen.

Dear Bright House, please convert your useless stretch viewing mode to a more helpful squeeze viewing mode.

• TV Media Entertainment Center – $100
• CD Storage Towers – $30
• Corner Computer Desk – $50
• TV Stand with Shelves and Media Storage – $25
• Sony Trinitron 24″ television – $25

Also please note that if you are reading the Facebook Note version of this post, it may not be formatted properly with paragraphs and image placement. You can head to http://albj.net/2010/10/stroke-masks/ to read it properly, if necessary.

Since I am required to utilize the logo, I have struggled on numerous occasions to work around an issue left by its designer. One part of the logo—a somewhat complex shape—has a rather thick stroke (outline) that is in place to create a gap all the way around it. Behind this shape is a series of horizontal lines. All the lines appear to be cut just short of where they would “touch” the complex shape on the top layer. The white stroke is actually covering the horizontal lines, but since white generally doesn’t print (it is assumed to be the paper color), the lines appear to be cut off.

This would be fine if the logo was only used on top of white. Indeed, when it was designed, administrators had only given thought to printing it on white paper as stationery (alas, my department wasn’t consulted about the logo as it should have been until just about the day it had long been finalized and was to be printed). Yes, I can make the stroke a different color if I place the logo on top of a solid-color shape, but that workaround is out the window if the background is multiple colors.

Adobe Illustrator has a function to select two shapes—one on top of another—and perform a punch so that you are left with the topmost object gone, and the topmost object’s shape punched out of the bottom object. However, this only works for the filled-in portion of an object. Strokes (outlines) are ignored.

After more than a decade of battling this quirk, I’ve at last discovered the solution. Before demonstrating with my office’s logo, I’ll share the technique with a much simpler shape. Please note that all the images in this post are scaled down. You can click any of them to enlarge the detail.

So I’m starting with two very simple shapes. The blue star overlaps the red rectangle. But I want a gap around the star so that the background shows through between the star and the rectangle. It’s an easy fix—just apply a white stroke around the star at whatever thickness is desired.

Voila. The task seems to be complete. But we still have a long way to go.

Let me point out here that Illustrator does have a setting when applying a stroke to choose whether 1) the center of the stroke follows the edge of the object’s fill (meaning half the stroke overlaps the edge of the object and the other half is beyond the original filled area), 2) the entire stroke is just inside of the fill’s edge, or 3) the entire stroke is just outside of the fill’s edge.

Normally, I’d probably want to use the third option. The first two will always make the filled portion of the object appear a bit smaller because the stroke is either partially or completely overlapping the outer edge of the object. For this example, however, I’m going to leave the stroke set to the center stroke option for two reasons. First, since the first option is the default way a stroke is applied, I’m not going to assume that a designer has changed it to follow the outer edge. Second, there may be some instances where overlapping the stroke was intentional.

So, while simply adding a white stroke works perfectly fine for flat, two-dimensional shapes on a white background, what happens if the background isn’t white?

Suddenly my gap shows up as the stroke it really is instead of as a way of keeping the star from directly touching the rectangle. Okay, I can fix this. I’ll just change the stroke to the same color as the background.

There! I fixed it! (With apologies to http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/) Or did I? I just got a call from the client who says to try things like a bevel or a drop shadow on the rectangle.

Whups, that doesn’t look right. But maybe it’s okay. The client called again to say forget about the shadow, but there’s this pattern that should be in the background.

Although that’s not as bad as when the shadow was applied, the stroke is still visible.

As I explained in the opening of this post, Illustrator does have a function which could be the solution. It’s called “Minus Front,” and its function is simple. When two objects are selected and the Minus Front function is applied, the object on top disappears and that object’s shape is punched out of the object beneath.

The problem with this function, as I’ve said, is that it only works with an object’s filled area, completely ignoring the stroke. This is the crux of why I’ve struggled with my office’s logo for so many years—not knowing a way to punch out a stroke.

Turns out, I was backwards in how I was trying to solve this problem. Instead of the stroke punching out an object, which cannot be done, the solution is convert the stroke into a filled object which can punch out another object.

Yes, it’s that simple, and it took me 10+ years to realize it.

So here’s the procedure. First, I’ll select the blue star which has a green stroke around it (although the color of the stroke makes no difference). Then, I’m just a single command away from converting this object with a stroke into two objects: the original filled object plus a second object matching what the original object’s stroke looked like. The command I’m looking for is under the Object menu, Path, Outline Stroke.

If you click to enlarge the above image, you can make out a blue line just beyond the blue star which follows right in the middle of the green stroke outline. This blue line represents the actual boundary edge of the star’s fill. Remember when I described how a stroke can either follow the center, inside, or outside of an object’s boundary? The above image shows how half of the stroke set to center mode overlaps the star and the other half extends outside the star’s edge.

These two objects—the blue-filled star and the green outline—will be grouped together after the Outline Stroke command and will need to be ungrouped. With the grouped items selected, I head to the Object menu and choose Ungroup.

Since the stroke that was around the star is now an independent object that is filled and contains no stroke, I could simply use it now to punch a shape out of the rectangle. But not so fast. Remember earlier that I said I was leaving the default setting of a center stroke that partially overlapped the star as well as the rectangle. I’m going to need to punch the stroke’s shape out of both objects, so I’ll select only the new object that was converted from the star’s stroke, copy it, then in the Edit menu, I’ll select Paste in Back which will make a copy in the exact same location as the original, but send it behind the original so it’ll be waiting for me when I’m ready for it.

Supposing the stroke shape needs to be punched out of three or four objects, the task is simple. I just copy and Paste in Back two or three more times so I have a copy of the stroke object for each additional object I wish to punch. Much more than three or four, however, and there’s a shortcut that I’ll describe later.

Just to make sure I know which objects I’m working with, I click off of the pasteboard to deselect all objects, then carefully click to select only the new stroke object that the Outline Stroke command created. Then, I will shift-select the blue star so that both objects are selected.

In the Pathfinder palette (accessible in the View menu if it’s not already available), the second Shape Mode button is what I need next: Minus Front.

Voila, the star now has been reduced in size a little bit where the stroke object had been overlapping. Now, I simply repeat for the rectangle: select the copy of the stroke object I made earlier, use the Bring to Front command, found in the Object, Arrange menu, to make sure it is above the rectangle (although it should already be), shift-click the rectangle to select it as well, then use the same Minus Front function.

And there it is. The background pattern shows through the gap, and if I click to select the red rectangle, I can see the control points which prove the object really was cut out by the stroke object.

Not only will this work for either a multi-color background or using a drop shadow, but I can even do both.

There is one small caveat. If I move the blue star away, I see that some possibly unwanted portions of the red rectangle are still present.

What has happened here is that only the stroke object punched through. There’s a simple fix, though. Just click to select the undesired leftover fill area on the right edge of the rectangle, and delete it. Note that it may be difficult putting the star back in the exact same place. I moved it by using a counted number of arrow/cursor key nudges, but it doesn’t have to be moved at all. Alternatively, I could have selected that leftover object by using the Select menu, Next Object Below command.

Well that takes care of the problem for a very simple design, but in the case of my office’s logo, it was considerably more tricky. Here’s a look at part of the logo, placed on top of a black background instead of white to show the stroke mask.

The procedure was much more difficult for this logo for several reasons.

1) The white stroke actually is not part of the visible brown palm graphic. Instead, the designer duplicated the palm directly beneath and applied the stroke to the copy. My only explanation is that he wanted the appearance the center stroke mode as opposed to an outer stroke, but avoid having stroke partially cutting into the fill area of the palms as it did with my blue star example.

2) The palms were made up of numerous objects all with the thick white stroke applied, but this was probably the easiest part to fix—I simply selected all the stroked objects that made up the palms and used the Unite function in the Pathfinder palette to make them a single object.

3) The horizontal lines, representing a sunrise, were individual stroked lines with no fill. Just as much as strokes cannot be used to punch a shape out of an object beneath, a stroke itself also cannot be the recipient of such a punch. Double whammy. Actually, it was a triple whammy because, as depicted in the image above, the lines are all inside of a circular mask. This can be seen when I switch to Outline view mode.

4) Complicating matters even further was an an additional layer of stroked objects on top of both the palms and the horizontal lines. This additional layer is the words for the name of where I work which I have chosen to remove and not mention for the purposes of this tutorial. Suffice to say after punching the stroke around the palms out of the horizontal lines, I then had to repeat the process to punch the stroke around the words out of both the palms and the horizontal lines.

Someone would probably tell me I could have worked with the horizontal lines as is, but I chose to temporarily remove them from the clipping mask to make sure I didn’t introduce any unforeseen problems. Easy to do: select any one of the lines, right click (or Control click if you use a Mac with a single-button mouse), and choose Release Clipping Mask.

It is important to know that the object used to mask the horizontal lines into a circle is still there. It just isn’t generally visible because it contains no fill and no stroke. But if I hover the mouse pointer over its boundary, it is temporarily highlighted.

Because working with the commands to select objects that are beneath other objects is cumbersome to me, I’m going to move the brown palms out of the way. To make sure they get back exactly where they came from, I held down the Shift key and pressed the right arrow key 10 times to nudge the object off to the side a precise amount. (The shift key multiples the nudge amount by an amount defined in preferences.)

Notice how the horizontal lines touch the palm object when there’s no white stroke to mask them? Just as before with the blue star, it’s time to convert the white stroke into a filled object.

Same procedure as before: Object menu, Path, Outline Stroke. Then I can do the same command on the horizontal lines to change them into filled objects which can be punched. In this case, they were grouped together so I only needed to select one of them and repeat the Outline Stroke command.

The next step took me a little while to figure out. You may remember above where I described how to make multiple copies of the stroke object to punch more than one other object. Rather than do that more than a dozen times for this logo, I wanted to punch them all at once. The fact they are all the same color made things a little easier. If not, I’d have had to temporarily make them all the same color, then change them back afterward. After a bit of trial and error, I discovered that all the horizontal lines needed to become a compound path.

There’s the secret. From the Object menu, I selected Compound Path, Make which causes Illustrator to treat all the objects as a single object.

The next step is to punch the palm’s stroke mask out of the lines. Just as before, I select the stroke object that was formerly the white palm outline, then select the horizontal lines with a single shift-click of any line, then head back to the Pathfinder palette to use the Minus Front function.

Now, all that remains is to put everything back where I found it. After nudging the palms back in place with the shift-left arrow key, I mouse around to find the circular mask, click to select it, shift-click one of the horizontal lines to select them as well, head back to the Object menu, highlight Clipping Mask and choose Make.

And with a final VOILA, I am finished. Okay, excuse the pathetic background, but it will suffice. Here’s the logo, sans white stroke mask, with a gradient background showing through the gap.

I hope you were able to follow me. It was something of a challenge within the space of this blog post to explain what I’d been wishing to do for more than 10 years and ultimately fiddling around with actually doing it for the better part of a day.

I still miss Freehand’s simplicity and always will, but I am finally beginning to gain a better appreciation of Illustrator’s capabilities, especially since I’m not sure this stroke-to-object procedure was possible at all in Freehand.

In case you didn’t know, the State of Florida invoked legislation that requires no expiration on gift cards, and specified amounts can’t be deducted on a regular basis after a certain date has passed.

What I’m thinking is starting to happen is that Florida’s change in law only applies when these cards originate from Florida, and vendors are taking advantage of this. I’ve received two different Visa gift cards, and I discovered several days ago that the older of the two had reduced in value from $30 to $21.15 without my having used it (a $2.95 deduction per month starting six months after acquisition). My supposition is that vendors do whatever they can to no longer release cards that originate in Florida, even if they ultimately end up in Florida. Ergo, when a person procrastinates at using the card, the vendor still gets to subtract value from the card and pad their bottom line.

Dear friends and family, I appreciate gifts I’ve received from you. In the future, please do one of the following:

1. Use cash or a check.
2. Amazon.com credit (it doesn’t expire).
3. Confirm beyond all doubt the gift card you’re picking up originated from Florida and is not subject to expiration or balance subtraction.

The full version makes sense, but the short version? If I buy one, I certainly hope I’d get one! After all, that’s why I’m buying one. If someone is giving me an extra item free if I buy one, shouldn’t the phrase be, “buy one, get two?”

For starters, of all the past packages of Sun Chips, the color of this bag is the least appealing I’ve ever seen. It’s a drab shade of brown and doesn’t visually persuade me to pick it up.

Then there’s the typo. “Sundried” tells me it’s a haphazard assortment of different kinds of tomatoes. Dear Sun Chips makers, it should be “Sun-dried Tomato.”

But then when looking at the ingredients, one has to wonder why “Monterey Jack and Sundried Tomato” was even chosen as the flavor name in the first place. Unless I’m mistaken, product ingredients are always listed such that the ingredient that has the greatest proportion of the entire product is listed first, and then other ingredients are listed in order of their overall proportion. In other words, there is less of the last-listed ingredient than there is of any other ingredient. So lets look at the ingredients of this new Sun Chips product:

So, what are we consuming here:

• whole corn
• sunflower oil
• whole wheat
• whole oat flour
• rice flour
• monterey jack and sun dried tomato seasoning (note different, but still lacking hyphenated spelling)
• sugar
• corn bran
• natural flavor
• corn maltodextrin

Okay, there’s various corn, wheat, flour, and oil to make up the chips themselves, and some seasoning for the flavor. But then there’s the whole list of what makes up the seasoning:

• buttermilk
• salt
• corn maltodextrin
• tomato powder (note, not “sun dried” tomato powder)
• sugar
• cheddar cheese (cheddar??)
• whey
• spices (um, parsley is an herb, not a spice)
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• cream
• skim milk powder
• citric acid
• oh there’s the monterey jack cheese
• mozzarella cheese
• and there finally is the sun dried tomato powder
• natural sun dried tomato flavor
• blue cheese
• paprika

If I’m right that the later ingredients are less in quantity than the earlier ingredients, there’s more cheddar in this product than monterey jack, and with the addition of mozzarella and blue cheeses, it’s not impossible that there could be more of all other types of cheese than monterey jack alone. And what’s with the “sun dried” variety of tomato being down at the end?

From what I can tell, some marketer was simply hell-bent on naming this product as monterey jack and sundried tomato, regardless of the ingredients.

Assuming you’ve even read this far into my little soapbox, I’ll suggest you set all of that aside and consider the one last fact that trumps everything I’ve typed to this point: the flavor was boring, so no, I won’t be buying these again. I’m hoping the Garden Salsa flavor doesn’t disappear forever from Subway!

One of our intimate times together while dating provoked me to ask Lee one evening, “Can you imagine being monotonous—after all, this is ME we’re talking about?” What I meant to ask was: Can you imagine being in a monogamous relationship? I wanted to be sure he could see himself be faithful to me—and only me—something I wasn’t sure previous relationships had afforded me; and after hearing him say he’d have been OK in his previous relationship never being married—just as long as he was with her—concerned me. So, I brought up what I saw to be a legitimate question.

Imagine my shock when he started laughing almost hysterically at me. “Be monotonous…with you? NOT POSSIBLE!” My heart must’ve sunk ten feet. He couldn’t imagine being with only me. And if that were the case, that meant no future for us—no point in dating either.

The look on his face held humor, but grew serious when he observed the solemn look that must’ve been on mine. He was so with me in that moment, I couldn’t understand how someone who got me so completely couldn’t imagine being with only me. Why wasn’t I enough?

Instead of childishly withdrawing, I dared to ask, “Why isn’t that possible?”

“Because nothing is boring with you, my dear!” he answered.

Now I was really confused. “So, you’d rather be bored the rest of your life?”

“No. And I’m not gonna hafta be. I have you.”

About this time, a light bulb came on in my head and I fumbled to push Lee away from me and retrieve my iPhone.

“What’s wrong?” Lee watched me dumb-founded. “Is it something I said?”

“No. I think it’s something I said.” I flipped through the apps until I found the dictionary. Discovering my mistake, I laughed like crazy until tears fell. Poor Lee was bewildered.

Taking in my amusement, he finally asked, “Are you going to share it with me?”

Regaining my composure, I relived the past several minutes, cluing him in on what I had really meant to say. “See? Nothing will ever be monotonous with you,” he laughed, “and for reasons such as this!”

He then assured me that he, too, believes in MONOGOMOUS relationships and that he found whom he wanted to be monogamous with—forever.

In the end, we both agreed: Monogamy does NOT equal monotony!

I do want to utilize is blog space more often—so it’s now up to me to get back to keeping a more open mind about the kinds of things I want to write about.