Webdesigninformer.com

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As I’ve waffled about before on The Hickensian, I’m on the never ending search for the right digital media centre setup. For quite a while now, the PS3 has given me what I want, due to it’s ability to do many things in one package . The only areas where it lets me down is that its too fussy about video formats, and a lack of folders to organise videos on its hard drive. It wins over a HTPC for me, because it’s designed to be controlled by a remote, rather than keyboard and mouse. I also own an original Apple TV. While its 160gb HD isn’t enough for a movie collection, it is for my music, and it grabs new albums from my Mac without me having to think about it… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

How to Design a Perfect Bathroom : This post comes from Mike Davidson, who built a stunning custom home in Seattle. He documented nearly every step (including expenses tallied in the sidebar) and shares what he learned along the way, such as this advice: The most important thing about shower controls is that they should not be placed underneath the showerhead. At least 90% of showers get this wrong, probably just out of builder convenience or laziness. You should be able to step into your shower, fiddle with your knobs, wait until the temperature is right, and then hop into the spray. Consider putting your controls as far away from the showerhead as possible… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Typography Lesson Plan Print : A typographic lesson in the form of a letterpress, wax-sealed poster. Keep an eye on this page. The print will likely sell out within a few hours once it’s available. Update: Now available for purchase. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

Pixel patterns for Photoshop or Fireworks : Handy set of pixel patterns by Naomi Atkinson in .pat, .mpx and .pdf formats. Beats drawing them by hand every time (of which I’ve been guilty). … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

David McCandless: The Beauty of Data Visualization : This 18-minute TED talk is worth watching. I’ve been following David’s site, Information is Beautiful , for some time now. His presentation is as informative and entertaining as the site. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Probably old news to some and nothing terribly educational, but this morning I was intrigued by the creativity in Stéfan Le Dû’s Stormtroopers 365 Flickr collection — a daily shot of Stormtroopers. The collection concluded on April 4, 2010. Below are a few of these. These kinds of activities are, in my mind, what keep the creative senses fresh, sharp, and well-rounded. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Vimeo Releases Embeddable HTML5 Video Player : Adrianne Jeffries, writing for ReadWriteWeb: Vimeo is releasing a ‘universal player’ today that allows user to watch embedded Vimeo videos on mobile devices including the iPhone and iPad using the video playback capability built into the new HTML5 standard. Vimeo will deliver the optimal player — Flash, HMTL5 or native — based on a user’s browser, as well as the appropriate video definition (HD, SD, mobile) and compression standard (H.264 or WebM, an open format developed for use with HTML5). Also announced is an Instapaper -style feature: Vimeo also announced a ‘watch later’ button today that will cue videos up in a playlist for users to catch up on when they get home from work. The ‘watch later’ feature is also cued up to be added to Vimeo’s Application Programming Interface, or API. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

jQuery Mobile Framework : Scheduled to be released “late 2010”, this cross-platform, cross-device UI system looks really promising. The design mockups are looking fantastic, too. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Tempus Fugit : Former office mate Rob Foster, describing a task management system he’s been proving for several years: Here’s where this system really diverges with the others. Those systems rely on review. You have to refer to them throughout the day as you do things. Some of them are time-based and have date-related features but still require you to go back to them to adjust the system, close things, etc. They require MANAGEMENT. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Eight Principles of Information Architecture (PDF) : Not that Dan Brown , but this Dan Brown : Information architecture, a field in relative infancy and constantly rediscovering itself, does not yet have a well-established theory that drives the design of structures for websites. You can pick up two books on graphic design and see the same topics covered in each. Why is there no such agreement for books on information architecture? Indeed, information architecture has yet to normalize, and the constant new demands on our work make progress toward that goal challenging. While the industry has yet to settle on a standard theory, there are a handful of principles I keep coming back to – principles that guide my design decisions but don’t dictate a particular approach. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

The Purple Heart: Sought by None, Respected by All : The 228th anniversary of the oldest, in-use U.S. military decoration was just a few days ago: In an order dated Aug. 7, 1782, Gen. George Washington wrote: ‘Whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings, over his left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth or silk.’ Complete respect. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

CSS3 Playground : Explore CSS3 radius, box-shadow, text-shadow, and transforms in a WYSIWYG environment. See Mike Plate’s notes on the development of it. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

When Apple’s Magic Trackpad was announced on Tuesday, I was quick to order one. With the suite of software I use — design, video, sound and so on — having a gestural device on my desktop to interact with that software was an easy sell. I didn’t necessarily see it as a replacement for my mouse prior to purchasing, and since its arrival yesterday, I still don’t see it as a replacement. More about that in a minute. Size-wise, it’s a little over 5” by 5” square (13 cm × 13 cm). Compared to the trackpad on a MacBook Pro , it’s nearly twice as tall and roughly 1” wider. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

A Real Web Design Application : This is a very thorough overview by Jason Santa Maria of the current tools available to web designers, their shortcomings, and the friction and waste created by transferring work from tool to browser. Jason’s argument toward the end of his article will certainly continue a debate that’s already raging: A web designer jumping into the browser before tackling the creative and messaging problems is akin to an architect hammering pieces of wood together and then measuring afterwards. The imaginative process is cut short by the tools at hand; and it’s that imagination—or spark—at the beginning of a design that lays the path for everything that follows. Without it, you’re at best able to make a website that looks like a website—rather than a design that tells a story in the form of a website. To read only the above quote on its own would be to take Jason’s remarks out of context. The paragraphs that follow demonstrate he favors designing in the browser if the tools to do so can be improved. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

iFontMaker for iPad : Create your own handwriting font in TTF format. Check the gallery for samples. /via @wTyeRogers … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Camera+ for iPhone: $253,000 in First-Month Sales : tap tap tap’s Camera+ , which sells for $1.99 in the App Store, sold 217,000 copies in its first month. That’s a quarter-million dollars in one month of sales for an app that sells for two bucks. Is it surprising to anyone that, right now, any mobile platform other than iOS is “ largely out of the consciousness of your average developer ”? BTW, the article, written by founder John Casasanta, contains lots of good advice for those hoping to accomplish the same as tap tap tap. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I’ve finally been through the entire site, and kicked out any legacy stuff (some of which went back to 2003!) and implemented the new responsive design. Originally, I’d intended to change the layout in the various sections, but in the end I’ve used the same one. After trying the other options, it just felt right. Wallpapers One of things I’ve changed is a new Goodies section. With the exception of the Hill House font (download link now works!), everything is new, including brand new desktop and iphone(4)/mobile wallpapers. Icon Reference Chart Another new goodie is a little labour of love: The Icon Reference Chart . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Tapworthy Book: Designing Great iPhone Apps : Josh Clark’s Tapworthy is now available from O’Reilly Books: Tapworthy takes you from concept to polished interface design with plain-spoken principles and a rich collection of visual examples for designing exceptional interfaces for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The ebook version, which is available in the ePub, mobi (Kindle), Android, and PDF formats, is on sale for $9.99 today only (normally $31.99). Use code DDTAP. The print version is also available on Amazon . … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

One of Textpattern’s drawbacks has always been that page templates are saved in the database. Editing them means using the textarea in the TXP admin interface, but I’m sure most people would prefer to use their favourite text editor. Here’s a workaround that works in TXP 4.2.0 (I haven’t tried other versions). Once you’ve enabled ‘Allow PHP in pages?’ in Advanced Preferences and set up your sections and page templates, put everything in your page template into a file (such as ‘pagetemplate.php’), and replace it with a PHP include: <txp:php>$docRoot = getenv("DOCUMENT_ROOT");include($docRoot.'/pagetemplate.php');</txp:php> You still need to setup your templates in TXP admin, but from there on in, you can edit the templates in a text editor and upload them. There may be a performance hit doing this, but all TXP tags work. Much easier! Update : Thanks to Sam Brown for this much neater version: <txp:php>include(txpath.'/pages/default.php');</txp:php> This is much shorter, but be aware that the ‘txpath’ value takes you to the textpattern folder rather than the site root… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

With the iPad and iPhone 4, there are as many, if not more, different size icons to create for iOS than there are for desktop apps. While there are plenty of templates and reference sheets for Photoshop users (see Cocoia ) I prefer to use Illustrator CS5 to create mine. So I’ve made my own template, and it’s available here if you find it useful too! Download the iOS icon template for Illustrator CS5 The top layer of the file contains labels and a mask to add the rounded corners of the icon. Don’t forget to hide these before you export. Corner Radius Something that Apple doesn’t include in it’s documentation are the various corner radius dimensions for all the icon sizes… Read the rest here