October 2007 - Page 2 of 2 - Art, Technology & People

Halloween is almost upon us!

October 25, 2007 Dan Richard Comments 0 Comment

Hi gang,

Wow it’s been a little while since I’ve had a minute to post, but the fun never stops. Truth be told, my schedule sucks and I just can’t get the time in that I used to despite having a TON of new projects I want to get going. Seems like all I can is struggle to keep my head above water at this point. But, all depressing thoughts of self-loathing aside, HALLOWEEN IS HERE! This weekend most of us will be out at Halloween parties and such, so here’s an early greeting from Simba, who is now 5 months old and already nearing 60lbs! Oh, and this is my pumpkin Ned. Ned says hi!

Happy Halloween!

Corina and I worked on some pumpkins this weekend while Terri handled pumpkin seed duty… for those of you missing out on this, baked pumpkin seeds are DA BOMB! Seriously, if you’ve never had pumpkin seeds before, you are missing out on a seriously good treat. Not those store bought nasty things that taste like small bits of salt, but I mean do it yourself seeds right out of the pumpkin!

Actually for those of you that want to seriously try this, here’s how I do it:

1. Get a decent sized pumpkin and cut a big round hole in the top and remove the lid. Then with a big metal spoon, scrape out the guts and then separate the seeds from the gunk and put them in a bowl.

2. Lay the seeds out on some cookie sheets (non stick or put some baking parchment underneath) and make sure you don’t pile them over each other.. you want them flat and not covered by other seeds. Don’t worry about orange residue from the pumpkin guts… that will all dry up and vanish.

3. Pop the tray(s) in the oven and let them dry overnight (no need to turn on the oven). Check them the next morning, you might have to flip them a bit.

4. Once dry, spray the seeds a bit with cooking spray or olive oil and salt them.

5. Pop them in the oven at 300F for 15 minutes or until they start to get golden brown and you’re done!

6. Eat them before other people find out you made delicious seeds!

You might find other recipes that say to boil them in water all this other stuff… that’s nonsense, just go with the dry route, they rock!

Now who says this is just a tech blog 😉

P2L Reviews the AMAZING photoFlow Flash Gallery Component!

October 12, 2007 Dan Richard Comments 1 comment

Welcome to another Sponsored Pixel2life Studios review! Today we are going to look at an amazing new Flash Component by Flashloaded.com called photoFlow. I've seen a ton of generic Flash photo galleries and chances are you have as well, but nothing like this at all, in terms of simple good lucks, robust functionality and customizable options. You can use this component as a scrollable gallery or even as a slideshow presentation. Check out some of the features you've got with this:

Easily update images using the Component Inspector, ActionScript or an XML file
Adjustable flip speed, spacing between stacked images and image size
Customizable perspective view and reflections
Option to flip images as a slideshow
Add links/hyperlinks to each image
ActionScript events to perform an action when an image has loaded, is selected, etc…
Images can be external or included in the library
Mouse wheel image flipping (Windows only)
Optionally display a name for each image
Option to set the number of images to preload
Option to automatically scale images to fit or to fill the defined size
Zoom in on selected image or on all images on mouse over
photoFlow can open on a pre-defined image
Customizable background color and opacity
Option to start flipping from left-to-right or right-to-left
Supports sound effects for image flipping
Built-in preloader
Light weight (weighs only 18kb with the scrollbar)

You can read the complete feature list and descriptions HERE!

I spent about 30 minutes playing around with this in gallery mode, it's really quite appealing and easy to use. Many gallery type scripts tend to be clunky but photoFlow is actually FUN to use. You can flip around through the photos and zoom in, use the scroll wheel and play around. Be sure to check out the photoFlow product page for live demos that look like this:

This really is a complete turn-key gallery, and at 18kb including the scrollbar, you're not even putting a dent in the page load of your site. It even has a pre-loader built right in, so you don't even have to mess with that. In terms of requirements, you can edit this in Macromedia Flash 8 or Adobe Flash CS3 and it runs under Flash Player 8 or 9 utilizing ActionScript 2.0. Here's a look at the Component Inspector for photoFlow:

How's THAT for customizing options?

If you are looking for a complete and easy to use image gallery for your Flash projects, I HIGHLY recommend you check out Flashloaded's photoFlow. I should also mention that's not all these guys make either… scroll to the bottom of the product page and you'll find a HUGE list of other awesome Flash products they make at very affordable prices considering the HOURS of development time you'll save with these.

Enjoy!
Dan

P2L Reviews the new Photoshop Contest Site PhotoshopTalent.com!

October 4, 2007 Dan Richard Comments 1 comment

I would like to introduce you to a new Photoshop contest style community website that launched earlier this summer that looks to be one of the best contest interfaces around, and has a HUGE amount of contests and content constantly on the roll. Welcome to the world PhotoshopTalent.com! Please note this is a sponsored review, however it is also honest… if this site was a waste of time, believe me, you wouldn't be hearing me talking about it other than perhaps a stifled yawn. I've actually registered and snooped around, played with some of the options and lurked on their forums and competition area so that I could give you a good idea of what to expect, especially for you folks that have never participated on a contest site. So, without further rambling, let's get in to it!

You might be asking yourself "What exactly is a Photoshop contest site?" and I can tell you when one of these sites is put together properly, they are a lot of fun to use. Simply put, it's a site where Photoshop (or other 2D programs) users get together and enter contests to see who has the best skills, ideas and sometimes sense of humor when pushing the pixels. You don't have to be an expert either, there are all sorts of skill levels and some contests are very simple and almost anyone can participate. As your skills improve, you can work faster, and compete in higher skill levels. These sites also normally have a scoring system, prizes and of course, bragging rights. If you have a bit of extra time on your hands and want to have fun competing with artists and increase your skills, these contest sites are fantastic.

Now, let's talk about what PhotoshopTalent.com has to offer.

Let me start off by saying this site is free to compete… that's important because many of these sites require a registration fee to get started. With these guys, you can start earning credits right away without paying a nickel. Credits are what you earn when you win a contest, and you can cash in credits for real money, participate in higher skilled, higher paying contests that require credits to enter, get in on large jackpot drawings and more. 100 credits are worth $1, so the more you enter, the more credits you can rack up, and if you're participation is pretty heavy, you can put together a pretty nice pot.

Even more fun is the ability to challenge other members in to 1 on 1 contests for a specific amount of credits… think you're better than me? Prove it with a bet!

The site also have a VERY detailed community based CMS, with great contest tracking and participation options. You can create you're own albums, set faves, talk with other members, track your contests and much more. Don't feel like working on a contest? No problem, you can also surf their growing list of tutorials!

Check out all the options:

Another important factor is how active the site is. Sure there's lots of other contest sites out there, but 99% of them have about as much activity as a snail… a DEAD snail! PT is VERY active with loads of new contests in all their categories and skill levels, so it's pretty hard to get bored. In fact, all you have to do is go to PhotoshopTalent.com and you can immediately see they've got some really fun themes going and many of the entries are awesome!

Even if you don't feel like participating, you can still sign up, comment and vote on contests, chat it up on the forums or just host your art portfolio. Here's some handy links to check out as well:

1. For questions about what they do, how they do it, and when they do it, check out their FAQ sheet.

2. Be sure to read their contest guidelines to make sure everything is on the up-and-up.

3. For the best of the best on this site, check out their hall of fame.

If you've been toying with having some fun with some friendly "Photochop" style competition or what to find out more about it, be sure to check out PhotoshopTalent.com, one of the best contest sites I've seen in a long time.