iFontMaker for iPad makes it easy to create your own fonts. After drawing your alphabet, simply send the file to 2ttf.com.

You’ll quickly receive a link to the company’s website where you can download your Open Type font.

My first effort – Fat Finger – is free to all.

Check out the gallery of staff favorites, too

iFontMaker is available from the iTunes store for $7.99

Safari Extensions – a new feature with Safari 5. Empower your browser. Instillation instructions here.

zootol.com – a sort of delicious.com for images. Gorgeous UI that allows for easy posting across social networks.

Cloudapp – a menu bar app that allows users to store web pages for later cloud-based reading. Excellent as a way station for later consideration.

Unlike other camera apps, like the omnipresent Hipstamatic, Plastic Bullet offers no real way to control the look of your image.

For each picture you take, Plastic Bullet offers four alternate versions. Don’t like what you see? Simply press the randomize button and you’ll see four new choices.

Fortunately, most options are pretty stunning.

Blogs

I blog here at ericmaierson.com, of course, and have also written extensively for the MediaStorm blog. (See the tutorial section.)

I use the WordPress plugin, WP to Twitter to automatically update Twitter when I create a new post.

I also have two tumblr sites. Tumblr makes blogging fun; it’s an easy way to repost things I find on the tubes.

I save pictures to my dropbox during the week then post on Sundays.

Finally, I am the proprietor of a single serving site, WhatIsTheMostImportantThingAboutMultimedia.com.

Twitter

I have three twitter accounts. The first is my personal and often neglected feed @gboy.  It’s neglected because I spend most of my time curating @MediaStorm. There you’ll find lots of links about photography, infograghics, Final Cut and tech news–particularly related to Apple.

Finally, there’s my pet project @FCPkeystrokes where I tweet one Final Cut keyboard shortcut a day.

I use the facebook application Selective Tweets which posts my @gboy updates to facebook if they include the hash tag #fb.

My Twitter tools of choice are Tweetie for the iPhone as well as the desktop version.

I post, however, using the web application Hootsuite. Hootsuite provides an excellent bookmarklet that when clicked automatically populates a new tweet with the name of the current web site and a shortened link. The only drawback is the link creates an iFrame on the resulting page.

Photography

Flickr is the main archive for my photography online. I also use the online editing site Picnik for last minute color corrections. Picnik can be set up to work from within the Flickr interface. For more information on integrating Picnik see Flickr’s FAQ.

Pictures I make with my iPhone, I email to the dead-simple blogging site Posterous which promptly posts them. Posterous can also autopost to a number of other social sites.

I’ve set up my account to post a link on twitter and repost images to Facebook as well.

Aggregation

I’ve just started using flavors.me which uses dropdown menus to compact your social network in to a very useful aggregation.

What Did I Miss?

I’m always on the lookout for new sites and cool tools so I’ve overlooked one of your favorites please drop me or add a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

To help me through this new terrain, I compiled a list of shortcuts. Try them out for best results.

View Timeline One Frame at a Time
Page up moves current time indicator one frame backwards.
Page down move current time indicator one frame forwards.

Two Ways to Select a Layer
Type the layer number on keypad to select it.
Use command up and down arrow to shuttle through the layers, respectively.

Jump to Current Time Indicator
If you’ve zoomed in too far and can no longer find the current time indicator, hitting d will bring you back to it.

Jump to In and Out a Layer
First, make sure the clip is selected.
I will jump to the in point of the clip.
O will jump to the out point of the clip.

Set In and Out for Playback Work Area
B sets in point for playback.
N sets out point for playback.
The Playback Work Area are the indicators above the timeline that determine how much of your composition will play back.

Jump to In and Out of Playback Work Area
Shift-home jumps to the beginning of the work area.
shift-end jumps to the beginning of the work area.

Make Playback Work Area the Size of all selected layers
command-option-b

Jump to the Beginning and End of Timeline
Home key jumps to the beginning of the timeline.
End key jumps to the end of the timeline.

Transform Property Shortcuts
S show scale
T show opacity
A show anchor point
R show rotation
P show position

See More than One Transform Property at a Time
Hold down shift while hitting another keyframe shortcut.
For instance, if the scale property is currently displaced, pressing shift-r will show the scale and the rotation property.

View Keyframes
U shows all properties that have key frames applied.
UU shows all values that have been changed from their default.

Insert Keyframe Shortcuts
option+transform property shortcut key will place a keyframe in the timeline for that attribute.
For instance, option+t will insert an opacity keyframe at the current time indicator position.

Replace Footage in Timeline While Keeping the Original Keyframes
First, select track with media to be replaced.
Next, hold down option as you drag replacement footage on to selected track.
The media is replaced but the keyframes will remain intact.

Markers
Markers are added using the Layer>Add Marker menu
K jump forward to marker
J jump back to marker
Right-click to delete or lock
Drag to move
* (star key) makes marker on audio timeline

Move Beginning or End of Footage to Current Time Indicator
[ (open bracket) moves start of clip to current time indicator.
] (close bracket) moves end of clip to current time indicator.
These keys do not  change the length of the clip.

Trim Layers
option [ (option-open bracket) – trims the footage so that the clip begins at the current time indicator. Shortens the clip’s time.
option [  (option-close bracket) – trims the footage so that the clip ends at the current time indicator. Shortens the clip’s time.

RAM Preview to Hear Audio
Keypad 0

I used to be a slob. Or rather, I’m still a slop but after working at MediaStorm for the last three years, I’ve become a bit of a neat freak when it comes to organizing my computer.

Besides the hard drive, my desktop also sports my dropbox folder. Dropbox offers easy cloud storage in what looks and acts like an ordinary Finder folder. The free account boasts 50G of storage.

On my menu bar:

• Hazel: a utility that sorts files according to personalized rules. Think Mail rules for the Finder.
• Dropbox: Unfortunately, Dropbox does not offer am option to remove its menu bar icon.
• Spirited Away: small utility that hides applications after a user-defined period of time. Keeps the clutter down.

Also, Minimalmac.com is an excellent resource for running a clean ship on your mac.

The minimal desktop is a thing of beauty. And as the poet said, A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

But Lynda’s $25 monthly fee shouldn’t be a barrier to learning this amazing application.  A wellspring of free AE tutorials are available across the web.

My favorite of these is VideoCopilot.net which offers a series of ten basic lessons hosted by Andrew Kramer. Kramer keeps an easy pace as he walks through the fundamentals.

I’m also a fan of aetuts.com. They have some great looking tutorials. Many are a bit too complex for me, or require third-party plug-ins, but there are also some real gems for the beginners like how to create the JibJab effect.

Other resources:

• 1001 Adobe After Effects Tutorials
• All Bets Are Off Productions hosted by AE guru Aharon Rabinowitz
• Gray Machine
• GreyScale Gorilla

Here’s what I’m talking about. Usually I export my images from Aperture to the Finder. Then, I drag that folder of pictures straight in to the FCP browser. What happens though when I need to go back to Aperture and export new images to that same folder? Well, I have to hunt for the new image, then drag it back to the correct Browser bin.

It’s a tedious process.

But what if I could assign a browser bin to stay in sync with it’s Finder level counterpart? iTunes has smart folders. Final Cut should have them, too. Other program call them watch folders.

I suspect, though, that the real culprit is the legacy Carbon code on which FCP is built. And that just may be the biggest wish of all. Update Carbon to Cocoa and now we’re talking a 64-bit app that is multiprocessor aware and can finally access more than 4G of RAM.

Don’t think Apple hasn’t heard that request.

Made with $1.99 TiltShift application for the iPhone.

Needless to say, there’s a lot going on with the Final Cut timeline.

So it wasn’t a total surprise when my Final Cut suddenly suddenly refused to play through an entire sequence. The playhead continued to stop at the exact timecode and a pop-up window informed me that I had a “general error.” I searched the internets for an explanation, trashed preferences, replaced clips, all to no avail. The timeline continued to stop in the same location each time.

Finally, I exported the timeline as XML, then reimported. After that, the timeline worked just fine, playing all the way through without issue.

I’m not exactly sure what the lesson is here other than whatever your problem might be, don’t hesitate to try everything.