Delicious Redesign
Posted on July 31, 2008 by C Lin
Design, Industry | 1 Comment
‘Change is good.’ So they say. Delicious, the number one most popular bookmarking site has a new design which launched today. Luckily, I got a chance to screen capture the old design so I could compare the two. Overall, I like the organization of the new site. You can find things more readily. The links that your friends send are no longer buried. Navigation is much better on the new site. I also like that the bookmark page lumps your links by the date you posted them. I do have a few complaints, however. First of all, why does the new Delicious have to look so Web 2.0? Don’t we have enough of that style of design already? Secondly, I don’t like that the Save a new bookmark link is on the upper right corner away from your bookmarks. After hitting save, you also have to go through a useless screen, that makes you hit ‘next’ in order to label your bookmark. Thirdly, I’m missing the more obvious color delineation from the links you’ve clicked and one’s you haven’t yet. In the new version, it’s so subtle you can’t tell the difference.
Review of VECTORTUTS
Posted on July 21, 2008 by C Lin
Industry, Process | Leave a Comment
VECTORTUTS brought to you by PSDTUTS is a great resource for those of you who are in need of Illustrator help. Much like PSDTUTS, the site has tried and true tutorials with loads of tips and tricks that even the savviest user could benefit from. When I personally tested out one of the tutorials, I was amazed at how it broke down complex illustrations into steps that I could understand and grasp quickly. It gave me the tools to be able to create illustrations with simple shapes and shading techniques. Even if you’re not a talented illustrator, you could pull off realistic Illustrator drawings by knowing how to implement these techniques. There were a couple of points I felt needed improvement. For example, the tutorial asked the user to choose a few different shades of yellow without citing the exact Hex number. Missing crucial color information can really change an illustration!
Regardless of your skill level, I highly recommend trying out one of the tutorials, even if it’s just to practice your Illustrator ninja skills!
Marvel Productions and The Incredible Hulk
Posted on July 17, 2008 by J Tepper
Culture, Industry | Leave a Comment
After seeing marvelous Marvel characters such as Daredevil, Elektra, and Ghost Rider get not so great reviews on the silver screen, Marvel comics has decided to take matters into their own hands and create Marvel Productions. This new force to be reckoned with in
Why Creative Commons is a Good Idea
Posted on June 12, 2008 by C Lin
Culture, Industry, Tech | Leave a Comment
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which provides free licenses to copyright holders to use when releasing their works on the web. The idea is to avoid current copyright law issues when dealing with the sharing of information. CC sort of clears the clutter and confusion of copyright infringement for web users and creators. They are also really good at visually organizing these complex copyright laws in a very digestible way. Besides, the group has a nicely designed website and their free licensing icons are beautiful. The free software and open-source web world is in need of these guidelines! “We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them – to declare ‘some rights reserved.’” – Creative Commons
VideoJug: Life Explained on Film
Posted on January 30, 2008 by C Johnson
Culture, Industry | Leave a Comment
The Information Superhighway can be surprisingly unhelpful. If you’re like me, you’ve spent many bleary-eyed hours hopelessly sifting through site after site after site to find the answer to what you’d mistakenly believed to be a simple question. (Try Googling something mundane like ‘how to remove grass stains’ and see the dizzying results it turns up.)
The Ethics of Stealing a WiFi Connection
Posted on January 16, 2008 by C Johnson
Advertising, Culture, Industry, Tech | Leave a Comment
It is my considered opinion that fine folks at Arts Technica deserve a Pulitzer Prize. Their recent article “The Ethics of ‘stealing’ a WiFi Connection”
blows the baloney out of the idea that accessing WiFi is a black-and-white crime and is one of those rare, shining moments in internet journalism where you just want to stand up and salute.
eBay’s Woes on Acquiring Skype
Posted on October 8, 2007 by C Johnson
Industry, Tech | 1 Comment
In the first place, no one was really thrilled about it to begin with: a proposed feature that would allow eBay sellers to add voice-calling capabilities to their online stores. It wasn’t necessary, power sellers were lukewarm about it at best, and what’s more, the asking price was much too high. And yet eBay bought Skype in 2005 for a mind-blowing $4.1 billion dollars, confident that synergies between the two companies (such as the voice-call feature) would lead to major profits.
The Internet Turns 16
Posted on August 8, 2007 by C Johnson
Industry, Tech | Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the Internet turned the big 16. In human years, that’s just old enough to get a provisional driver’s license, some countries will even let you drink legally, and you also get the green light to be extraordinarily obnoxious. But unlike most 16 year-olds, the Internet has spent its formative years, not leaching off mum and dad, but making enormous contributions to society. Sure it can be a petulant pain in the backside, but the Internet has done more to change the world we live in during the past sixteen years, for better or for worse, than any other invention in recent memory. Revolutionizing the way we live our lives in nearly every aspect: the way we work, the way we talk, how we shop, organize, communicate and socialize.
Enhance Your Apollo
Posted on August 6, 2007 by C Lin
Industry, Tech | Leave a Comment
Artemis is a community project to extend and enhance Adobe’s Apollo by connecting it with Java. Essentially, any desktop application written in Java can have an Apollo front-end. Some one has already used it to create a game in Apollo that uses Wii controllers. Seen here.
For Flex developers it provides a way to collaborate on building extensions to the Apollo framework. Developers have the capability of tapping into a multi-threaded environment using Java.
To learn more about it go to the website.
Keeping Both Hands on the Wheel
Posted on August 2, 2007 by C Lin
Culture, Industry, Tech | Leave a Comment
‘An industry spokesman said cell phones don’t cause accidents, people do.’ I agree with the spokesman from the Forbes article titled Driving While on Cell Phone Worse Than Driving While Drunk. Of course cell phones don’t cause accidents: most people are simply bad drivers. Period. How many times do you see a bad driver on the road? When I say ‘bad,’ I mean both your overly cautious grandmother who is taking her sweet old time AND the super aggressive SUV driver who wants to mow you over. And don’t even get me started on stereotypes. (Yes I am Asian and female—I know the stereotypes intimately!)
