// 29.Dec.2009

TransM

Transm.js allows you to add programmable image transitions to your web-pages. It uses unobtrusive JavaScript to keep your code clean.

It works in all the major browsers - Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Safari 2+, Chrome 3+ and IE 6+. Works also on older browsers supporting JS 1.5 and images along with filter or opacity, else it’ll degrade and your visitors won’t notice a thing.


// 29.Dec.2009

WordPress Image Symlinks

An interesting WordPress plugin from Joen Asmussen. I don’t think I’ll employ it at the moment but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on the plugin’s development.


// 29.Dec.2009

DWotW #14

Desktop Wallpaper of the Week: I love this image. It was created by “h16” and is posted on deviantART. The monochrome to vivid-colour transition between the two girls is extremely well done and the hand-painted effect is simply gorgeous. I can’t decide if the girl on the right is holding a “fantasy” lover, or the ghost of a dead friend or relative perhaps? One of the comments on the deviantArt site suggested that this image represents good meeting evil — but I’m not convinced — there seems to be me to be too much passion between the two girls for this to be a meeting of such polar opposites.

Either way, it’s a gorgeous piece of art and makes a fantastic desktop wallpaper.

You can download the full-size wallpaper from the deviantART website. You should also check out the rest of h16’s work.


// 23.Nov.2009

AOL Reveals New Logo(s)

Are they serious? Have AOL paid good money to have these logos “designed” or were they thrown together by somebody’s kid with MS Paint and a couple of stock photo’s?

Can I stop laughing now?


// 18.Nov.2009

Image Director

Image Director
Photo Credit: Elisabet Garcia by Vincent Boiteau

Over the past few months I’ve been building up a library of imaging functions that I seem to end up using over-and-over again in my web development projects. On this website alone, I’ve added automatic thumbnailing, grayscale image conversion and CSS Sprite generation to supplement the various iterations of design I’ve been through. This has been especially visible on the recent redesign of the home-page, where imagery became the foundation of the design rather than an adjunct to it.

The imaging library I’ve built has become indispensable to me and, as it’s so very useful, I thought I’d package it up and release it under a GPL so that others can benefit from it too.

Continue Reading…


// 17.Nov.2009

ditaa: Diagrams Through ASCII Art

DIagrams Through ASCII Art:

ditaa is a small command-line utility, written in Java, that can convert diagrams drawn using ASCII art into proper bitmap graphics. ditaa interprets ASCII art as a series of open and closed shapes, but it also uses special markup syntax to increase the possibilities of shapes and symbols that can be rendered.

Works as advertised. I’m not sure if it has any worth outside of its curiosity value. I found it quicker by far to flowchart with a GUI application than to laboriously create ASCII artwork equivalents for ditaa to process. Neat hack though! [via]


// 11.Nov.2009

Free HQ HD Wallpapers

Oh yeah babe! I love a great desktop wallpaper and wlogger.com’s got some wonderful offerings.


// 29.Oct.2009

About the Redesign of the Home Page

Pantone 5497 U

The paint has now dried on the redesign of the Urban Mainframe’s home-page. The celebrations have begun to diminish and normality is being restored. As the dust settles, I thought I’d write a little about the thought processes behind the design. I’d also like to document a few of the little tricks I’ve employed (because I’m ever so proud of them).

Despite trying various tweaks and reshuffles of the previous version of the home-page, I was never totally happy with it. Looking back, I think I tried to convey way too much information on that page, which made it look terribly cluttered. It simply didn’t “feel” right to me. The problem was that I had no idea of how to remodel it, no inspiration.

Continue Reading…


// 25.Oct.2009

Content-Aware Fill and Spot Removal in Photoshop

This is absolutely mind-blowing. I can’t wait to get my grubby little mitts on whatever version of Photoshop this amazing algorithm makes it into. [via]


// 17.Oct.2009

7 Cool Websites You Might Not Know About

The Parade of Autumn Begins Today
Photo Credit: “The Parade of Autumn Begins Today” by Brian Hathcock

“Something for the weekend sir?”

If you’re a little bored this weekend why not check out some of these great websites? There’s some amazing content here and I guarantee that you’ll be able to kill a few hours with these exciting Internet destinations. Continue Reading…