It’s that time again. I thought I’d let you peer into my head for a post, so I sat down with a notepad, a pen and a 12 pack of Bud Light. After some deep thought, I came up with this list of signs that you might be a hardcore designer. A lot of these signs can overlap other professions too. From my experience, the following list contains mostly truths, mixed in with a little humor.
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In my opinion, one of the most underused features of Illustrator is the creation of custom brushes. You can literally make ANY shape into an Illustrator brush to get all kinds of cool effects. I put together a set of 35 abstract brushes for you to play with. The example below was made only with [...]
[via BittBox]
Creating intricate circular designs and patterns may look difficult because the shapes can be very complicated, but you will be surprised at just how easy making these shapes can be. I will go over some neat tricks, tools, techniques, and settings that will have you pumping out perfect circular designs in no time using Illustrator.
[via BittBox]
When Lightbox 2.0.3 was just released I suddenly realised that we hadn’t posted about version 2 at all.
How does version 2 compare to the old faithful?
To group images into sets you simply put the set name in the rel attribute: rel=”lightbox[roadtrip]”.
Version 2.0.3 itself offers: “Improved keyboard navigation. Animation off toggle. Hides Flash movies under overlay. Imagemap support. Valid CSS.”
[via Ajaxian]
Kevin Miller has released LightWindow 1.1, another in the trend of light boxes.
Another one?
After researching every single modal window, lightbox, slimbox, etc out there nothing fit the bill. Granted some of them were very nice but only fit a specific purpose, others were a nightmare on the code end, and others were just hacks of another. None of them truly supported all of the features we needed and those that were close could not be easily adapted without a bottle of Prozac near by.
This puppy works nicely, and supports various media such as PDF, movies, Flash, and more. It also supports every way that you probably want to use a lightbox.
And, they do have a sense of humour:
This library is 52k uncompressed & requires both prototype 1.5+ and scriptaculous 1.7+, if you just screamed, then it’s probably time to learn how to publish your files like a grown-up. Compressed, this library is 9k.
[via Ajaxian]
Rico was one of the early libraries to show us nice effects on top of Ajax libraries. There has been a murmor that Rico 2.0 was in the works, and Tobie was right.
Rico 2.0 has a beta release available. What is new in Rico 2.0?
Components
Rico 2.0 extends the component set from the previous versions. The LiveGrid has been expanded to include filtering, column resizing, and many more features. The core of Rico 2.0 has been designed to enable custom components to be more easily built.
Animation Effects
Rico 2.0 provides responsive animation for smooth effects and transitions that that can communicate change in richer ways than traditional web applications have explored before. Unlike most effects, Rico 2.0 animation can be interrupted, paused, resumed, or have other effects applied to it to enable responsive interaction that the user does not have to wait on.
Rico 2 is built on top of the latest Prototype (1.5.1_rc2 as of this writing), which brings it up to speed.
It is good to have you back Rico. We look forward to seeing what you come up with next.
[via Ajaxian]
Brad Neuberg and the SitePen team has been working tirelessly to get this beta out of the door. Now we have the Dojo Offline Toolkit in beta, released to the world:
Dojo Offline is a free, open source toolkit that makes it easy for web applications to work offline. It consists of two pieces: a JavaScript library bundled with your web page and a small (~300K) cross-platform, cross-browser download that helps to cache your web application’s user-interface for use offline.
You can try out the Moxie demo, view source on the Hello World example, or go ahead and download the SDK.
Building offline apps isn’t simple. It isn’t a case of magically waving a “make my app work offline” wand. Developers need to re-think their architecture most of the time, and think about what it means to be offline. What can work. What can’t. How do I sync when I go back online. All tough questions for many applications. DOT gives us a nice playground to try out some of these ideas.
[via Ajaxian]
Fotowoosh, a new service from Maryland-based startup Freewebs, will turn any image (preferably an outdoor image) into a 3D model. They went live on Friday.
The 3D image is constructed in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) format, meaning you currently need a VRML reader to see it (future browsers will likely build this functionality in). In a week or so, the company say, users will be able to upload a picture and have a 3D animated image returned to them in a Flash widget that can be embedded on any website.
When you upload an image to Fotowoosh, their software tears it apart and distinguishes the sky, ground and vertical elements within the photo, then cuts and folds it into a 3D model:
Our system automatically constructs simple “pop-up” 3D models, like those one would find in a children’s book, out of a single outdoor image. The system labels each region of an outdoor image as ground, vertical, or sky. Line segments fitted to the ground-vertical boundary in the image and an estime of the horizon’s position provide the necessary information to determine where to “cut” and “fold” in the image. The model is then popped up, and the image is texture mapped onto the model.
The images below were processed by FotoSwoosh. The 3D results are immediately below the 2D images.
This is the creation of Derek Hoiem, a PhD candidate in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, who’s now working with the company. Additional information on the intellectual property behind Fotowoosh is here and here (these links auto-download a pdf and a powerpoint document).
Microsoft is working on something related to this in their Live Labs group called Photosynth (more information here). The product will construct a 3D model based on lots of photos of the same thing or general area from different angles.
Freewebs raised $11 million in venture capital in August 2006 from Columbia Capital and Novak Biddle. The company’s main product is a website building tool that draws 18 million or so visitors per month. Shervin Pishevar, the company’s president, say that Fotowoosh will be a standalone service, and they’ll also integrate it with offerings from partners as well as the Freewebs service itself.
[via TechCrunch]
San Rafael, California-based Graphita wants to let people add a little bling to their photos.
The company offers a Flash-based application that enables users to upload photos and add a personal touch via an easy to use toolset filled with stamps, text icons, captions, bubbles and more (Bubbleply does much the same for videos). The Graphita rich toolkit is easy to use to add, resize and customize each addition to a photo creation. The product is simplified for the masses and offers users the option of an authenticated or anonymous experience – thus positioning itself for higher adoption rates. Currently, Graphita is in closed beta and does not appear to support the addition of animated icons which might be something worth looking into implementing before its official launch in mid-May.
Upon customizing a photo, users can share them via email, print and send them back to their favorite photo sites (Flickr, MySpace, etc.), or even send them to photo pick-up locations (Costco, Walgreens, etc.). In addition, photo creations can be placed directly on consumer products like coffee mugs, tee shirts or other items. Graphita does not appear to offer its own social networking hooks but rather leverages existing products and services. However, registered users have the option to share uploaded photos in the public gallery or keep them private.
In the coming months Graphita is looking to further integrate with existing products so that users can have quick access to the Graphita toolset from their favorite online photo product. Competitors to Graphita include PikiPimp and Comeeko who both offer photo annotations. Of course, larger online photo products like AOL Pictures, Flickr and PhotoBucket could develop and add similar features right into their products, thus squashing Graphita chances for web annotation domination.
[via TechCrunch]
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