17
Jan
Posted by: flirtations / Category:
Adobe Photoshop,
Tutorials,
Web Development
I get a lot of people asking me what the best way is to get started with graphic design. I always have some immediate resources that I use and refer them to, and I also have my standbys. Here are some of my favorite recent resource finds and standbys that you can visit for some great inspiration, tools, and techniques to use with Adobe Photoshop CS4.
- Adobe Photoshop CS4
Well, this is the first step. You can download a free evaluation copy to use for 30 days before making your (very worthwhile) purchase!
- Qbrushes.com
Qbrushes is one of my favorite new finds. It is a great resource that is FULL of amazing, detailed, and hi-resolution Photoshop brushes to use in your projects!
- Dafont.com
There are a lot of great font resources out there, and this one almost never fails me. Most are free for personal use, and you can test out your typography with custom text before you download!
- Tutorialvault.net
It can sometimes be a daunting task to find just the right online tutorial for the project you’re looking for. There are some great subscription-based resource libraries (see below), but if you’re looking for some quality, free help, this is the place to go. With over 2500 tutorials on almost anything you could imagine, this site constantly inspires me in my projects.
- Lynda.com
As far as training libraries go, THIS IS THE TICKET. They have an unbelievably extensive database of VIDEO tutorials for all Adobe products (currently to CS4) ftw! They have hours of extremely helpful videos on each Adobe product available for subscribers to watch at any time. You can, however, watch a select number of videos from each product without a subscription (aka: free). I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this site to anyone who wants to learn all the nooks and crannies of Adobe CS4 in the most efficient way possible.
Enjoy these resources as you get to know the amazing possibilities held within Adobe Photoshop!
16
Jan
Posted by: flirtations / Category:
Social Networking,
Twitter,
Web Development
Ever wanted to make an interesting Twitter background?
Here’s how to do it.
A note, this layout works best on higher res monitor settings. I imagine that most active Twitter users that are going to be viewing the site as opposed to sms or mobile versions are on high res settings. That said, let’s roll.
Creating your background
File Dimensions: 2048 px by 1707 px (no clue why i used these dimensions but I am sure I knew what I was doing at the time)?Branding Dimensions: 80 px by 587 px?Coordinates: X=20, Y=14?Horizontal position: 20 px from the left (give yourself some padding)?Vertical position: 14 px from the top (will line up your graphic with the top of the twitter logo. our eyes like symmetry) File size and type according to Twitter: “Images must be smaller than 800k. GIF, JPG, PNG.”
Aesthetics
Color palette: Pick colors that match that with default Twitter stylesheet colors. If they contrast too much follow the Change Background directions above and change the colors for Text, Name, Link, Sidebar fill and Sidebar border as needed.?Recommendation: Choose colors that work with the default and save yourself the headache of matching the CSS to your image. Follow Twitter’s lead.
Uploading your background
Change Default Background: Login and click ‘Settings’ >> click ‘Design’ >> Select ‘Use my custom style below’ radio button >> Upload your imageIt may take quite a bit of time to get a background image that you are happy with. There maybe a lot of editing and uploading again, and again until you get it right. So have patience when getting it just right. And remember that you are working within someone else’s website and can’t control all the features.
08
Jan
Posted by: flirtations / Category:
Web Development,
WordPress
Hopefully this will help some people, with encrypted theme files. Use these tools to decode them yourself.
Better yet, avoid encrypted themes entirely. They’re always malicious in some fashion. There is no legitimate reason for a theme author to encrypt a theme file.
This page will let you decode the encryption that seems most commonplace, the one that looks like $o=whatever:
http://ottodestruct.com/decoder.php
I based the interface for it off of this one, which will decode the type of encryption that starts with $_F=__FILE__:
http://www.tareeinternet.com/scripts/byterun.php
Another one is here, for those that look like: eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('...')));:
http://www.tareeinternet.com/scripts/decrypt.php
