If you know me then you also know that I tend to get a bit bored with subject matter if I work with it for too long. So in that vein I’ve been looking for a bit of a change in the job arena.

I love the challenge of the technology and the creation of my projects but sometimes the subject matter gets me a bit down. And that’s what I’ve been feeling lately with my existing gig - graphic/web designer for a major fitness facility. I mean - the work is fine and the company is ok to work for but I’m getting quite disenchanted with doing the same thing over and over again.

So I’ve been searching for other options and the idea of working freelance on my own has always held quite some sway over my career path - that’s really my end goal.

I’ve been in talks recently with one of the major oil companies and one of their contractors to do some technical representations of their facilities for a training web portal. It’s a small contract but worth a lot of money - enough to keep me in the black for a few months after the contract ends so I can wholeheartedly pursue my dream.

But I was just offered a full time gig at a major newspaper in the city and I’m extremely torn between the two.

On one hand I have the prospect of climbing the ladder at the newspaper while being happily employed by a major company - on the other I have the prospect (I say prospect because it isn’t a solid offer as of yet) of expanding my comfort zone and making ridiculous amounts of money with the oil industry.

I honestly am completely dumbfounded. Do I pass on a sure thing for the prospect of an amazing opportunity or do I play it safe and accept the full time job and maybe miss out if the oil company does decide to go with me.

For all things I am - I am not an unethical employee and if I accept something I will stick to it 100% so I must make up my mind before I commit to either one.

If I pass on the newspaper job in hopes of getting the oil job and the oil company decides to not go with me then I’m hooped and back to square one handing out resumes to other openings all over again.

If I accept the newspaper job and then the oil company offers me the contract - I really can’t commit to something and then renege a few days later - that’s just wrong and really rude. And I would miss out on an amazing opportunity because I jumped the gun.

Decisions decisions - any suggestions?

I’m about *this* close to digging out my 8 ball on this one.

Used to be that I couldn’t get work at all - now I have to pick and choose and it’s not as fun as it seems!

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So we all know optimization is a good thing. Whether it’s optimizing your images for the smallest file size or creating your html so that it renders correctly and cleanly - optimization is good.

But what about optimizing your CSS? There have been a few sites popping up lately that offer these services for you. Upload your CSS file and it strips out all the white space, line breaks, combines repeated elements and much more.

I personally have never worked on a site where the CSS got out of hand but I know a few developers who have created some extensive CSS for their sites and they would be the ones that this service would be optimal for.

In the grand scheme of things the optimization of a small CSS file for a standard site won’t make that much of a difference (unless it’s a high traffic site, then the bandwidth savings might be in your best interest).

The downside? Once your CSS is optimized it’s practically illegible so make sure you keep a backup for making changes in the future. I suggest that optimizing your CSS be the last step once you have everything else working and displaying correctly in your site.

For the beginners out there, it’s absolutely crucial that your CSS validates before you compress it because if it doesn’t some pretty unexpected results can occur.

Here’s the CSS optimizer I recommend - Icey - it creates the smallest file size out of any of them and usually has the fewest mistakes after compression.

Happy Compressing!

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