Author Archive

How to use Star Tool effectively in Illustrator

. Art & Design, Tutorial

Star Tool secret tip... unveiled!

Adobe Illustrator’s Star Tool is a tool that not only can create lovely star shapes, it also can create the web badges which is popular right now in web design. To use Star Tool is very simple, just point your cursor to Illustrator’s Tools panel and select the Star Shape icon which grouped together with Rectangular Shape tool.

Then, you can start doing Star shapes by dragging across the canvas. Release the cursor to finalize the shape. It’s just that simple. But what if I want to have more controls to customize my Star shape? In this post I will teach you some essential tips so that you can use the Star Tool effectively.

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7 Web 2.0 badges vector download

. Resources, Web 2.0

7 delicious web 2.0 badges vector free for download!

Today, I will give out the my latest vector collection which is 7 different styles of badges vector, all free for download! šŸ˜€ As you can see, the 7 badges each I created is unique shapes and styles, read more to take a clearer view of 7 of it.

To make the series special, I put some effort on the last badge. I used some Japanese pattern and sunshine to design it, the result is not bad right? The most important thing is the shape of the badges, the graphics inside are the possibilities of designs, you can always change it to make it yours. This time I provide EPS format for download, I think EPS is more convenient right? Many vector softwares can read EPS, but I recommend to use Illustrator CS2.

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A beginner’s guide to Web 2.0

. Tutorial, Web 2.0

A beginner guide to Web 2.0

Remember when first knowing the term Web 2.0, I have no idea about what it is except Web 2.0 is the latest generation of web trend. It took me sometime to have a clear picture of it. So, if you are new to Web 2.0, this post is for you because I will teach you the best way to understand the Web 2.0 and what its web design trend.

Learn from the term inventor – Tim O’Reilly!

Tim O'Reilly explaining Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is invented by Tim O’Reilly, during a conference in 2004. According to him “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” He posted an article title “What is Web 2.0” to explain the essence of Web 2.0. Here I quoted the graph from the article that is showing the movement of web 1.0 to web 2.0:

Web 2.0
Google AdSense
Flickr
BitTorrent
Napster
Wikipedia
blogging
upcoming.org and EVDB
search engine optimization
cost per click
web services
participation
wikis
tagging (“folksonomy”)
syndication
Web 1.0
DoubleClick –>
Ofoto –>
Akamai –>
mp3.com –>
Britannica Online –>
personal websites –>
evite –>
domain name speculation –>
page views –>
screen scraping –>
publishing –>
content management systems –>
directories (taxonomy) –>
stickiness –>

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Ebihara Yuri – the pro smiler

. Downloads, Japan

I forgot how I get to know her, but I think is somewhere where there is a news about the trendy icon is no longer my idol Ayumi Hamasaki but her. I do some picture search about her and I found out that she is pretty! And her name is Ebihara Yuri (č›Æ原友里).

Yuri Ebihara little profile

Yuri Ebihara or nickname ebi-chan is one of the toppest model in Japan and her popularity is high. She was born in October 3rd 1979, in Sadowara, Miyazaki Prefecture. Before getting into modeling, she was studying fine arts in Kyushu Sangyo University and graduated there. She got her first exposure when she won an audition for TV advertisement for Zespri Golden Kiwi Fruit.

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Yasutaka Nakata’s remix is HOT

. J-Pop, Japan

Or shall I say cute? Recently I was keep listening to his works. Starting from LIAR GAME Original Soundtrack to Suzuki Ami’s “FREE FREE” single. His remix is very nice, and I like it very much! He has great talent and skill to play with electronic instruments mix with Japanese urban/pop/cute rhythm.. or people call it Picopop.. I don’t know how to explain it, but you have to listen to his remix to understand what I mean!

Actually when the first time I watch LIAR GAME drama, I don’t know the soundtrack is done by him. Indeed the soundtrack sounds really good. The mood, the music fits well to the story. I can say that, if without this soundtrack, the drama will lose 50% of its tense already.

Next is Suzuki Ami’s “FREE FREE/Super Music Maker” single. That time I still roughly to get to know his name, because this single’s spotlight is Suzuki Ami going sexy. I give myself a try on the single and it actually sounds rocking good! The disco/pop tune is catchy and it instantly become one of my most frequently played music.

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TOKIO – Honjitsu, Mijukumono

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Today I want to share a nice song from TOKIO with their latest single release “Honjitsu, mijukumono (ęœ¬ę—„ć€ęœŖē†Ÿč€…)”. This song is written by Nakajima Miyuki who last time wrote a song for them too which is “Sorafune”. This song was release in mid August and it was the theme song for a very nice drama “Juken no Kamisama” which acted by one of the TOKIO’s member.

In this song, the lyric is challenging and the melody is strong, but very suitable to the TOKIO lead singer Tomoya Nagase because of his great voice. The song is really nice because he put his soul in performing it and this song is actually pretty high pitch! I always amazed at Tomoya’s ability to sing in high tone yet maintaining the great control. He is one rare great singer in Johnny’s Entertainment!

As mentioned earlier, this song is the theme song for just ended j-drama “Juken no Kamisama” which means exam god. The drama is about primary students study hard to pass the exam and enroll to their dream school. Actually it is pretty sad to see in such a young age, and they already have so many pressures to handle, maybe because of their education system. This situation was portrayed clearly in the drama. The theme song “Honjitsu, Mijukumono” which means I’m still a kid today or Today, I’m the amateur, and really match the drama’s story.

On the other hand, it is also good to see that, they are mature enough to think about their future and fight for it. So, let’s work hard together for a better tomorrow and be cheerful :D. Listen to the song below as well as the lyric (with romaji) and translation!

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Create a simple scrollable content with CSS

. Tutorial, Web Design
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus a turpis. Donec accumsan tellus eget velit. Maecenas eget risus. Praesent quis nisl. Sed in odio non orci varius pretium. Nam convallis tincidunt nulla. Quisque malesuada massa eu elit. Aliquam ac diam vitae neque fermentum pulvinar. Morbi eget mauris eget justo convallis fermentum. Fusce hendrerit. Donec nonummy nulla sed purus. Proin ut quam vitae quam semper rutrum. Vivamus fermentum urna dictum felis. Etiam at ante. Cras vel dui. Sed porta, ipsum eget auctor congue, justo nunc viverra dolor, vel molestie metus diam sed elit. Nulla facilisi. Quisque euismod, lectus non tristique gravida, lectus pede aliquet massa, non rhoncus elit tortor vitae dolor.

Curabitur varius ipsum ac ante. Integer at felis. Nam ac leo sollicitudin velit faucibus fringilla. Praesent lacinia ipsum quis sem. Proin fringilla lacinia ipsum. Etiam imperdiet pede nec massa. Nulla interdum, nulla non sollicitudin volutpat, diam turpis tempor libero, quis egestas nunc orci ac sem. Mauris nisl nibh, condimentum ut, aliquet in, tincidunt vitae, leo. Fusce consequat, lectus eu sagittis bibendum, lectus odio aliquam nisi, in aliquet erat ligula nec nibh. Proin tincidunt. Aenean pretium blandit neque. Etiam libero nibh, molestie eget, sodales id, placerat sed, turpis. Proin ligula velit, ultricies id, hendrerit et, molestie ut, sapien. Nunc facilisis.

Basically, the scrollable content above is just done by using CSS and not iframe. This can be achieve by setting up a specific width and height of a div tag, and putting a lot of text inside the div. Finally, we add the overflow property to allow the scrollbar appears. The specific CSS styles is shown below.

.scrollable
{
height: value px; /* set the height */
width: value px; /* set the width */
overflow:auto; /* make the scrollbar appears */
}

That’s it! The basic property to make a scrollable content. It works on Firefox and IE6 browser. You can add other styling as well if you want, for example border or background properties. Some advance styling will be putting a fade off effect on top and bottom of the content area.

This scrollable content CSS is particular useful if you want to display data like Latest News for example, and wanted to control the height of the content. Plus, it is better than using this method than iframe is that, all the contents will be in the same page and not load from other page (which iframe did this), so the SEO value is preserve.

16+ the ten list for web designers

. Inspiration, Resources, Web 2.0, Web Design

As web designers I am always hunt for resources on the web, for example tutorials, gallery showcases, and thoughts from the experienced designers so that I can learn something from it. I subscribed to many designer’s blog feed and surf Del.icio.us regularly, and I found out some The Ten List from various websites to inspire and help many web designers.

What I mean about the ten list is that an article that contains ten essential points that presented in a list. I categorized them into several big categories for better navigation. Please have a look. Continue reading

Google celebrates 9th birthday

. Art & Design

Today early in the morning, as usual I open up the Firefox browser and it loads Google homepage. I saw something different. Yes, it’s the logo! The small “g” transformed into a “9” indicates its 9th anniversary with sweets below. Happy Birthday Google! If you want to take a look on the previous anniversary logo iterations just check out google’s blog.

I always like the Google’s Holiday logos, a little iterations or add ons can really make my day šŸ˜€ and creativity can sparks from there. Just click on the link above to check out other nice holiday logos. Previously they also have a special Google logos to honor the author Roald Dahl who wrote the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

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Upgraded to WordPress version 2.3

. General

I just successfully upgraded my blog to the latest WordPress 2.3 version. The latest version is much intelligent and the most important thing is the Tagging System is implemented. If you don’t know how to add it into your theme, just go to this site and they have a good tutorial on how to do it. I also putting in the Tag Cloud too. Because my blog has around 100 posts, it is going to take some time to tag all of them, and I have to think of re-categorizing it.

During the upgrade, the process is smooth and all the plugins is supported except Similar Posts. It gives me error message but luckily someone has posted up the solution, and now my Similar Posts is working like a charm as usual šŸ˜€ . Try looking at the comment #159 or#161 for instruction.

And then I found my blog is getting messy. I’m thinking of changing to cleaner theme. But before that I should do the tagging job first! šŸ™‚