design
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
by admin
Remember the good old days where you had “custom” made backgrounds for Windows 95 and 2000? Remember when you had the bubble backgrounds, and the puzzle pipes? Well now technology has taken us hundreds of steps further to what we have today, quality backgrounds that graphic artists around the world spend countless hours plugging away at. Well now there is a way to constantly see new and fresh backgrounds for your Windows Pc, or Apple Macintosh.
It’s called Desktoptopia, and it’s a free software which can manage backgrounds to bring you fresh new designs in intervals. You can set it so that it changes every 5 minutes, 20 minutes, or basically whatever suites your needs. It runs in the background automatically so you don’t need to open it every time you turn your machine on, and it surprisingly doesn’t slow your computer down at all.
Not Sold Yet? Well below i have a few of the backgrounds that are rotated through the Desktoptopia software.
One of the great things about this software is that it’s available for both Mac or Pc. Here is some information on how Desktoptopia works according to their website.
Once you’ve installed Desktoptopia, you can set up your preferences for what categories of Desktops you’d like to see, and how often to change them. Then the magic begins, as Desktoptopia signals design teams from all over the world.
These über talented designers then pick a gorgeous desktop from the categories you’ve requested, then they gently take it from our climate controlled shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and place it onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspects and polishes your desktop it to make sure it is in the best possible condition before delivering.
Our compression and delivery specialist from Japan lights a candle and a hush falls over the crowd as he places your desktop into the finest gold-lined particalization chamber that money can buy.
From within the chamber your desktop is then energized using a proprietary and highly complex particalization process. The millions of pixels are then streamed through our super fast, feather-lined T12 lines- right to your computer.
We all have a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marches down the street following the T12 lines, waving ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your desktop, on its way to you.
Desktoptopia then proceeds to put all those pixels back together on your desktop for you to enjoy. This, of course, all happens in milliseconds.
I’ve been using Desktoptopia for about two weeks now and have not been disappointed. They give you plenty of options on how you would like to view the backgrounds, along with special permissions including rejection of unwanted backgrounds. They also allow you to implement your Twitter profile with Desktoptopia, which essentially tells your followers when your background changes. I personally haven’t tuned on this option as I’d prefer my followers not having to deal with the constant Tweets of my background changing.
- If you have any interesting software you’d like to share with the community please feel free to comment below, or send me an email. I’m also available on various social networks such as Twitter.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
by admin
We are all so used to Microsoft’s paint application that is regularly included within a newer Windows machine. When it first came out it was all the rage, and now it’s widely known as one of the most boring applications within the Windows environment. What if i told you there is a much better application? What if i told you that you that you don’t necessarily need a Windows Machine to use it as well? Well today i was “Stumbling” around and found a pretty interesting web application that allows you to utilize all of Paints tools and more.
It’s called Sumo Paint and it really is quite interesting. It allows you to paint in many different style formats including dry brush, air brush, chalk brush, spatter brush, and much more. They also let you choose from a wide variety of colors when using their program along with the ability to zoom and add layers to your project. Sumo has also included different filters you can apply to your project including blur, sharpen, emboss, and plenty more.
Another great thing about this program is the ability to either save directly to your computer or save to your Sumo account. You can also do the alternative by opening projects from your computer. You can find images that people have created by going to their website.
Sumo really is a great application and in my opinion is leading the way when it comes to simple, free, easy to use paint applications. If you have any more interesting new applications that you think should get some publicity please feel free to comment below or send me an email. I love hearing what you guys think is the latest and greatest in new technology whether it’s through the internet, or right on your desktop.
Thanks
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
by admin
Below is a little feedback report that i sent to Facebook related to their new theme. There really isn’t that much different but i thought i would give my opinion on what things should be fixed, and what shouldn’t.
Hello,
I have found that a good portion of my friends dislike the change of the New Facebook. In my opinion they are just affected by the massive change. This opinion should wear out eventually.
Here are a few things i think should be improved on the new Facebook.
- Make the photo’s section on the home page appear in albums. This is so you don’t have to scroll down for ever to find some old pictures.
- I also think you guys should distinguishing the lines a bit more on the profile page. I’m finding myself getting a little confused when it comes to deciphering what is what especially with the wall.
-It would be nice to have your personal activity feed separated from the wall. It just makes deciphering what is what a little easier.
- Get rid of the chat. It slows my browser down, and it really bothers me having the bottom bar in the way. If you do keep it though. I think you should have a sign into messenger feature rather than signing in upon arrival.
In all it is an improvement. In my opinion the big thing that effects me is the lines being a bit to soft, and need to darken up. If that could be changed it would be great.
Congratulations.
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
by admin
Gnomedex has officially started in Seattle Washington with Kris Krug and his photo tips. Kris Krug is a fashion photographer, technologist, and author from Vancouver, Canada. He is a developer from Bryght which is a Web 2.0 project. He also works with photography on The Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
A few things Krug pointed out at Gnomedex is “To post your pictures every day” if you are an aspiring photographer, and to “Share your Gear”. He sais to try new things out and to share with your buds when trying to find new gear.
He also says a beginner to learn the white balance. KRis showed us a picture of what he did with the balance and it appeared to be really spectacular. He also points out that you should try and take pictures from above you as it makes you look thinner.
Along with some other great tips, Kris was doing this speech at the Gnomedex Conference is Seattle. You can watch him and other technology influenced speakers at live.pirillo.com.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
by admin
A couple of days ago i came accross a free hosting website called 000hosting, and assumed it was going to be one of those spammy crap web hosts. Therefore i neglected it and moved on. The next day (yesterday) i came across it again. This time i thought “Why not try it?”. So i did and i was to my delight presently surprised. Most of the features that came with the account are features you would expect to find on a major web hosting companies plan.
Here are a few of the features this free web hosting comes with.
- Disk space of 250 Megabytes
- 100 Gigabytes of Bandwidth
- Unlimited domains allowed
- A pretty good control panel
- No company advertising
- The ability to ad your own ads
- Website Builder
- PHP Scripts auto installer
- Unrestricted PHP Support
- My SQL Database
- Instant backups
- FTP Support
- Web file managing
- 99.9 percent up time
- Instant activation
- Email including Pop 3 accounts, Web mail, Auto responders, Spam Protection, Mail forwarding, Imap Support, Modify MX Entry.
Again this is surprising to find throughout the internet. New up and coming websites are being displayed using 000’s servers including Xurba, and The Limit. I would first recomend trying it with a free domain before you move your main .com website to their servers just to try it out.
Also feel free to give me your opinion on this website or any other free webhosting websites. I would be very interested in knowing. So leave a comment below to give your opinion.
BB
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
by admin
I have multiple websites up now. Actually i would estimate to have about six or seven different ones. Making these websites require headers, buttons, fonts, clipart and much more. The website I use to solve all of my “wordy needs” is called Flaming Text.
When you first pull open Flaming text you may get the impression of boredom, but later on you will see the opposite. Right below the advertising banner at the top you will see the Navigation bar featuring all of the designs and idea’s they have. The Navigation Bar consists of Headings, Buttons, Fonts, Clip Art, Forums, and of course a search box. Now i will take you through examples of what Flaming Text has to offer.
If you click on headings you will see a step by step guide. I usually just skip that and scroll my way to the designs which are unprofessionally placed at the bottom of the page. There you will see a selection of header designs. Here is an example below of one of the designs this website consists of:
As you can see the images are very well colorful. Of course they give you options of the color, style, background, size, and other stuff. But they also give you the option(s) of Shadow Color, The Shadow Opacity, Y Offset, Blur Radius, whether you want bevel, or for it to become a transparent picture.
All of these things make the headers a very unique product. Now there is a pretty similar concept with the buttons, fonts etc. Flamingtext gives you the option of downloading them, and editing them with your personalized text. I should also add that the ClipArt isn’t up to my standards. By saying this i am presenting that the Clip art is well…. more Microsoft Word, and possibly a bit more than i would prefer.
In the end i am still a dedicated Flamingtext user, and will probably use it until i find the latest and greatest in font design. If any of you know a website similar to this, feel free to leave a comment in the fields below, and don’t forget to leave your website in the “Website” field so everyone can see what you have burned into your creations with Flamingtext.
Bradley Bradwell
Website: bradwelltv.com
