So it has been 5 years since i first came up with this concept.the idea behind the celebration was simple, more than any other career choice IT can be learned on the go, provided that there are people willing to teach. I owe my career and my livelihood to the countless techs forum posters and how to authors out there. A degree in anthropology can do many things but teaching you how to run an apache web server isn’t one of them. So this is a chance for those of us with some small amount of knowledge to give back to the community.

I Picked April 15th, tax day to pay your karmic dues as well. The original tagline was Pay your Taxes Pay your due. Teach a Man to Tech. It has changed over time to a yearly theme. This year is Teaching and Sharing Tech, hopefully focusing on bringing and creating more pieces of usable information for anyone no matter their level of expertise.

You can either pick an individual to take under your wing for the duration. Or you can commit to writing a guide or how to on some common topic. Last year I write a guide to improving your blog through good design. Either way blog about it, share your experience, because only through constant sharing can we ensure the next generation of techs have sufficient resources to teach themselves, or at the very least they know who typo ask for help.

Help us combat the image of the grumpy tech, and the cranky helpdesk worker. Lets fill the space with good and helpful content instead. Feel free to use a graphic and drop me a line if you would like to commit to the Adopt a Newb Celebration for 2010, Graphics after the Break.

Tag Any Posts or guides with AaN10 to get included in the summary. You can also link back to this article to provide a directory of currently active Helpful projects

Read the rest of this entry »

A while back I started a series of articles with the intent of bringing the basics of graphic design to the masses.  I started with the premise that good design concepts should be accessible to everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are an artist, an accountant or a homemaker the basics of color and layout are accessible concepts.

In the spirit of those articles i decided to collect the thoughts and examples into an easy to read E-book, or PDF for the rest of us. I hope you enjoy. This book distills parts of my lecture from podcamp on graphic design tricks as well as touching on simple accessibility design hacks to make sure that your blog reaches the widest number of people.

How you present your ideas can matter more than what you have to say.

If you have great content why make it painful to read.

CaffiNation Blog Design Guide FREE  E-Book Download right here

For those f you not in the Know Adopt a Newb is a Festival i started three years ago in an effort for techs to reach out and spread the wealth of their knowledge. Every April 15th i celebrate Adopt a Newb Day were I ask people to be more mindful and helpful towards the less tech savvy around them. i always considered it a way for people to reach out and hopefully pass along some interesting and useful skills to others.

However there have been several small hitches in the road, first off the name, Adopt a Newb, has negative connotations towards the people you are helping, at least according to some comments we have received. So We’re looking for suggestions for names of the festival. The theme this year is Helpful Tech, Happy People.

The second little bit of concern people had was that the idea was sound in its most basic form but that Tech should be doing more in general to help people. Three April 15th’s have come and gone with the same questions being levied so I’m opening it up to discussion. How do you think we should change?

Comments, Feedback or Emails are all helpful. Either way I’ll have a right and proper Post for Launching the Campaign Shortly. We also have a series of graphics we’re releasing for the first time. I’m still working on the finer points of how the graphics will look.

Adopt a Newb Day is Done Service Project style, work with one person, group of people or produce content specifically meant to educate people. Tag it with Adopt a Newb Day 2009 or AND09 and we’ll build the list of people participating this year.

The yearly Adopt a Newb day festival is nearly upon us. For those of you not intimately familiar with the concept I see it as a way for the Techy’s, the geek’s, and the nerds to try to help other people around us understand and accept technology more readily and feel more comfortable with it. So each April 15th i set aside time on my Podcast and ask others to spread the word themselves and Teach a Man to Tech. Pay your taxes, pay your dues and adopt a newb. Read the rest of this entry »

Spend this Tax Day helping those with less Technological Know How-then yourself. Turn a negative infamous day into a positive experience for everyone.

The long and the short of this holiday are that I want all of those able minded Tech’s out there to set aside one day to work with someone less technologically fortunate than yourself and teach them a skill they will be able to use technology to its fullest. Keyboard shortcuts, smoother work flow, install firefox and walk them through it. Anything is fair game.

Give me your tired, your frustrated, your unsure users yearning to click freely. The elder statesmen of your family group. Send these, the grandparents, the parents, the anger challenged, the hunt and pecks. I share my experiences with them and lead them to the golden shore of understanding. Read the rest of this entry »