Its been written many times across the web before but it needs to continue as long as the SOPA bill is still alive.

The internet will NOT exist as we know it.
Sites like (YouTube, Redditt, Digg, Facebook, Google, etc…). These sites will come under fire to the point where people will lose their access and ultimately companies like the RIAA will force their hand and big websites will cave. We’ve seen it in small form with the RIAA/MPAA and online piracy of content. You know, when ICE comes in and seizes a domain name? Well now that will be on a global scale.

How about when Viacom went after YouTube under the DMCA? It can/will happen.

Still don’t see the issue?
Okay, think Chinese-style censorship across the entire WWW (World Wide Web aka “Internet”).

The recent “hold” on voting until the New Year should not be seen as a victory because they are likely trying to remove exposure and then secretly pass it while everyone is busy with a new topic. Also keep in mind thanks in part to “line item veto” not existing the government can and probably will attach the bill to a much more favorable bill. Say maybe a two month delay of federal taxes?

We need change across the entire system but for now lets work on keeping the internet because if SOPA passed its possible a blog post like this could cause the agencies to come and force my and anyone elses blog offline for “infringing”.

What can you do?
Voice your concern, post about it, call your political office and write to Congress. Thats physically write a letter to your senator or governor. An email is nice but will likely get caught in a spam filter and/or be seen by some intern who will delete it. A letter is harder to “lose”.

Why should you care?
At this point if you still don’t get it but work or play on the internet I feel sorry for you. This SOPA bill has the potential to not only kill the internet but could harm potential web developers/designers, such as myself!

Reposted from PixelBit Lab

Over the last few months i’ve been looking into various web apps to use over at PixelBit. After looking over many, testing a few and reading reviews i’ve formulated a small list of the top tools. We use others as well but these are the ones that shine.

Basecamp
Project and client management. The Suite is a good deal.

Sortfolio
Good advertising opportunity for little cost.

Quickbooks Online
Perfect tools for managing the business, paying employees and contractors. Also integrates with our accountants systems.

Beanstalk
Hosted SVN for secure, offsite backups. While we don’t use this for all code (contract restrictions) it works quite well for our small team.

TestFlight
iOS Developers “new best thing”. It makes testing a breeze and makes it possible to push builds in minutes with a clear communication with our testing pools.

Dribbble
While not really a web tool it really is nice to get feedback in realtime as a project is being developed.

MediaTemple
I have a love/hate for this host, but so far they’ve allowed PixelBit to scale (internally) and provide solutions for our clients.

MailChimp
Excellent newsletter and one-off mailing. Clean, Fast and Intuitive. Plus it has chimps, whats not to love?

There you have it, a little list of the tools we use. I will post some more “company information” in the future as we continue to grow. For now we are focused on our brands and clients, so much that we haven’t even finished our own website. Its the “cobblers children” effect for sure.

What tools and services do you use?

Note: NONE of these recommendations were paid or compensated to be added.

In early 2011 I put the final steps into action on starting my first non-freelance company. I joined forces with @PhilipJNeal to provide a combined 20+ years of professional experience in development and design. The company may be new, but the work and clients are not.

Basically PixelBit is 3Pixels and mkeefeDESIGN merged into one company, though it is a bit more complex than that its a good overview. Right now the company is still in the building phase, but as luck and good contacts would have it we have our first project already underway. While I can’t speak on the specifics I can say its all extremely exciting.

Update: The mkeefeDESIGN blog will be transformed into the personal blog of Matthew Keefe and soon a new blog for PixelBit will be online.