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Woo Hoo ... it's Monday and it's a public holiday and that means that we can work without having to worry about the phone ringing all the time. When you're working solely in adult the phone isn't something that's going to distract you all that much but it sure does cut into your work flow when you're doing mainstream as well.

I know you're probably thinking that I'm always stressing the importance of taking some time off but we did that yesterday. We drove down to the state capital and wandered around an exhibition for a few hours and did the things that normal people do. It was fun but today we have to work ... although maybe not quite as hard as we would if it weren't a public holiday.

As the title of today's column suggests I want to give you a couple of links to some very useful programs that Steve and I have come across in the last few days.

Gliffy
The first one is called Gliffy and you can find it at gliffy.com. It's software for drawing diagrams and while it may not have a huge amount of application for adult marketing I'm sure there will be a time when you will find it rather useful.

With Gliffy you can create flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, wireframes etc. and publish the diagrams on your website. So instead of trying to produce something that looks professional using software that's not really designed to produce diagrams ... something like Photoshop for instance ... there's Gliffy.

When you use it you too can produce all those neat diagrams that you see around the web. There's a fairly basic free version or you can upgrade to a premium account. How much that premium account costs is a bit of mystery because I couldn't find anywhere on the site that actually tells you.

Artisteer
Have you ever wanted to build your own website templates, blog themes or Joomla templates but have lacked the basic skills? If you have then you definitely need Artisteer because even a web design dummy like Steve has been able to turn out some neat blog themes since we purchased Artisteer last week.

You will find Artisteer at artisteer.com and there is a trial version that you can play with. Unfortunately you won't be able to publish anything that you produce with the trial version because the background to any template you build will clearly display the fact that you used the trial version.

So if you want to use Artisteer you're going to have to shell out some cash. The program comes in two versions ... Home and Standard ... and if you want to do Wordpress themes or Joomal or Drupal templates you will need the Standard version but at $129.00 that really shouldn't break the bank.

Using the program is really very simple and I've turned out a couple of themes without having to refer to the instruction manual. However, if you're one of those people who need manuals then there is a very extensive downloadable manual on their site and it will walk you through everything you need to know.

IE8 and Chrome
By now, if you use Windows as your operating system you probably will have been offered the latest version of Internet Explorer by Microsoft. Of course it's up to you to decide whether to download it or not ... just as long as you have automatic updates turned off ... but perhaps it's something you should seriously consider downloading.

Of course not everyone will download IE8 but most people out there in Internet land will take the offer and so it's something you should now be checking your sites in. We got the offer over the weekend and have downloaded it to one of our PCs and one of our laptops just so we can do the sensible thing and check our site designs to see that they're rendering in all the major browsers.

The same goes for Chrome too and Google seems to update that browser frequently so be sure to stay up to date with the latest version. While it's unlikely that Google would produce something that wasn't backwards compatible it always pays to be safe than sorry.

And before I go let me just share this little gem of scientific research with you. Scientists have now discovered that some genes thought to cause behavioral problems in humans may also cause temperamental behavior in cattle. Hmmm ... I'm not sure where that should take you but at least it's good for a laugh.