Click the image for 33 colorful hot air balloon desktop wallpapers at various sizes
33 desktop wallpapers full of hot air
Category: General
The Graphic Mac Link Box #2
A collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:
Steve Ballmer’s days are numbered
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, has apparently done more to reduce the value of Microsoft than any other product, service or company. That bit of news comes to us from an in-depth opinion article by Ben Brooks.
Your next logo design: RGB vs. CMYK
MycroBurst attempts to answer the question of what color standard you should use when designing your next logo. It isn’t a particularly in-depth article, but I felt like it was a great lead-in for a list of 9 rules for logo design I wrote a long time ago!
25 Weird interview questions from large companies
I can’t say I’ve ever been asked any of these in a job interview, but I have been asked some odd questions that were clearly intended to set me off pace for the purpose of gauging my reaction.
Text Wrap and Fit Content Options in Adobe InDesign
New users of Adobe InDesign may find this article quite helpful. It covers the ins and outs of InDesign’s Text Wrap and Fit Content Options most excellently!
How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop
Creating eroded, grungy, nasty, weathered metal text in Photoshop is probably something you do 50 times a day, right? Ok, probably not. But if you did need to, this tutorial will make it easy for you!
Apple to introduce us to Lion: Maybe you’ve heard?
Ok, so that was a smartass question. If you’ve been on Twitter, Facebook or the web in general, you’ve probably heard that Apple has a lot to announce Monday at their annual WWDC conference. Expected in the announcement are details about Apple’s MobileMe replacement, iCloud. Also expected are announcements concerning the next release of iOS 5 which will reportedly include Twitter integration and much more. As for me, I’m prepping my hard drive for a rather large (and price discounted) download of Lion from the Mac App Store!
Tips for controlling your DSLR autofocus
Digital Photography School offers a few tips for a better autofocus
Sometimes the autofocus on your DSLR camera can be really annoying. For some shots it’ll focus on the right part of your subject, but then the very next shot it may choose to focus on something far and away into the background.
Steve Berardi from PhotoNaturalist talks about three ways to get better control of autofocus in his guest-post at Digital Photography School.
Extensis announces Universal Type Server 3
Extensis Universal Type Server 3 makes font license compliance easy
Extensis has announced Universal Type Server 3, their industry-leading font server, which helps makes managing fonts and font licenses in multi-user environments easy. It’s like having a hired gun to enforce your font laws! (more…)
The Graphic Mac Link Box #1
A collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:
You can’t replace email if you require email
You can’t replace pants with shorts when your definition of shorts is: everyone buy pants and cut the legs off . That’s the premise behind this article which points out the shortcomings of current web services.
iMac (early 2011) benchmark results
Macworld published benchmarks of the new iMacs shortly after they were released, using Speedmark test results. Though they were impressive, Primate Labs released their own test results based on Geekbench testing and found the new iMacs to be even more impressive than we thought. You can also download a copy of Geekbench for free to test your current Mac and compare the results.
OS X and the death of the scrollbar
GigaOm mourns the death of the scrollbar in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Flipping your scrollwheel down to move up may take some getting used to when Lion ships later this summer. Thankfully Apple has offered an option to switch it back to the way Macs currently work. But is this change to the OS a sign of things to come?
Listen to Mac OS X Lion’s amazing new text-to-speech voices
MacOSXDaily has posted a few samples of the new voices that will appear in Lion when it ships. For those who live in the UK, you’ll appreciate Serena’s British accent. The quality of the voices is a huge improvement over the current Snow Leopard voices offered.
100 Principles for designing logos
Who would have thought that there were at least 100 different things to consider when building a brand? Apparently there are. I’m not sure anyone considers all of these when designing a logo, but it does give you a lot to think about, and perhaps helps guide your decision-making process.
Web browser choices have never been better for Mac users
Some of the most popular browsers from Mozilla, Google, Apple, and others
When Apple first released Mac OS X a decade ago, Mac users had little choice in web browsers. There was Microsoft Explorer, and Netscape Navigator, and… well, that was it. Soon after we were treated to a few more options, but nothing like we have today.
With Safari shipping on every Mac, and the world-wide popularity of Mozilla’s Firefox, you would think there wouldn’t be much room for competition in the web browser market. But the options have actually never been better for Mac users. (more…)
Logo design trends for 2011
Logo trends for 2011 features ribbons, lines, and multi-part logos
Every year for the last nine years, Bill Gardner of LogoLounge.com puts out his eagerly anticipated Logo Design Trends report. The 2011 Logo Trends report is now available for your enjoyment. While last year’s logos seemed to favor “brighter” – this year is all about “lighter.”
Free Freehand group files antitrust lawsuit against Adobe
There was a time when the battle for vector creation dominance was a heated battle between Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand. Illustrator was the dominant player, but not by much. Freehand users were extremely loyal, and the application offered many features that are still absent in Illustrator to this day. All of that changed in 2005 when Adobe acquired Macromedia and discontinued Freehand completely.
Freehand users were absolutely furious. To this day, Illustrator faces no real competition in the professional vector art creation world.
Out of nowhere (for me anyway), a group called Free Freehand has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Adobe Systems, Inc., alleging that Adobe has violated federal and state antitrust laws by abusing its dominant position in the professional vector graphic illustration software market.
I suspect that the group is seeking to have the code for Freehand sold to another party for active development, or donated to the open source community. At this stage of the game, I’m not sure if anyone could resurrect Freehands popularity among professional designers. Illustrator is a great program, and as part of the Adobe Creative Suite it is a staple product for every professional designer; a group that doesn’t take well to drastic change. But it will certainly be interesting to follow the lawsuit.
New Microsoft product leaked
Leaked Microsoft TV Dinner box shot
Details are sketchy, but we got our hands on one copy of the new Microsoft TV Dinner, expected to ship any day now. An unboxing video isn’t available, but the only thing inside beside the dinner was an instruction sheet containing the following: (more…)
Advanced CSS3 training in plain English
CSS3 is the technology behind most of the eye-catching visuals on the Web today, but the official documentation can be dry and hard to follow. Luckily, The Book of CSS3 distills the heady technical language of the CSS3 specification into plain English, so you can get started on your next project right away.
With real-world examples and a focus on results, The Book of CSS3 shows you how to transform ordinary text into stunning, richly detailed web pages fit for any browser. You’ll master the latest cutting-edge CSS features, like multi-column layouts, borders and box effects, and new color and opacity settings. You’ll also learn how to:
- Stylize text with fully customizable outlines, drop shadows, and other effects
- Create, position, and resize unlimited background images on the fly
- Spice up static web pages with event-driven transitions and animations
- Apply 2D and 3D transformations to text and images
- Use linear and radial gradients to create smooth color transitions
- Tailor a website’s appearance to smartphones and other devices
“The Book of CSS3 doesn’t waste time teaching the basics,” said Author, Peter Gasston. “It’s for experienced developers who want to build on their existing knowledge. It gets right to the good stuff, so you can put it to work on your own sites today. And the companion website offers up-to-date browser compatibility charts and live CSS3 samples for you to explore, so you can actually see the book’s examples in action as you read.”
NoStarch Press is offering a free copy of the Ebook version when you buy the print copy for just $34.95. The Ebook only version can be had for $27.95. You can also purchase a copy of the book from O’Reilly, but it does not come with a free copy of the Ebook.