Download A Bite | Billy Argel

Download Bill Hicks | Jason Ramirez

Download Copystruct | Heinrich Lischka

Download Depraved | Rob Dobi

Download Dirty Ego | Eduardo Recife

Download Downcome | Eduardo Recife

Download Immoral | Rob Dobi

Download Rez | Faizal Reza

Download Trashed | Gyom Séguin

Download Uncle Typewriter | Germán Olaya

I often want my screen shots to be really neat so I go above what Screengrab! is capable of. The resolution of my laptop screen is 1680×1050 pixels and when I take a screenshot of the visible area of the screen with Screengrab! the end result is 1663×893, which, to be perfectly honest, bugs me; I like my numbers to be even. So I have created a standard size that I use for my screenshots: 1200×800. However, you cannot just crop the image from 1663×893 to 1200×800 or you will lose information on fluid-width websites, and you have to take into consideration if the design is left-aligned, centered, or right-aligned. So what I did was to create a few bookmarklets that resize my browser window so that the screenshot will automatically be 1200×800 in size. The code that I use is: javascript:window.resizeTo(1233,943); but if you want to use it you will have to adapt it to your browser since there is a small variation between operating systems, and the look and feel of the Firefox browser can be changed with customization.

The first step is to create the bookmarklet, and you do this is by creating a bookmark, but instead of a website link you add the code from above. The simplest way to personalize this code to your browser is by running my code and taking a screenshot with Screengrab!. Then you investigate the file dimensions; e.g. if you were to get 1205×770 you would change the code to: javascript:window.resizeTo(1228,973); (i.e. subtract 5 from the first number and add 30 to the second number). However, there are some variations depending if the website is taller than the screen, which makes the scrollbar pop up, or if you only have one tab open, which leads to no tab bar appearing at all, so it might be a good idea to create a few different bookmarklets for the different cases. Furthermore, you might prefer a different size for your screenshots, so please make changes to the code so that you get your preferred size. Of course you can still take screenshots of the complete page, in these cases you will get a predetermined width but the height will be decided by the web page content.

Typographical

Starting off with t-shirts that focus on typography, I have to say that Damn Scientists (by John Slabyk) is my absolute favorite. It is one of the oldest t-shirts on the site, but it does have a special place in my wardrobe; I have it in black and charcoal. Two other interesting typographical t-shirts are The Signs Are Everywhere (by Thomas De Santis) and Poker Hand Values (by Tan Nuyen).

Collections

The next set of t-shirts I would like to call collections because each t-shirt depicts a set of similar items. To me there is an almost hypnotic quality to this concept. It is intriguing to observe the collections of items whether it is pipes in Smoking Hot (by Steven Harrington), rayguns in Rayguns (by KID_Z), or keys in A Key For Everything (by Richard Lee).

Beautiful Illustrations

Last set of t-shirts, lack of a better word, I chose to call beautiful illustrations. First t-shirt that I chose for this category is Napoleon In War Paint (by Jesse Lefkowitz) which is another one of my favorites. I cannot really put my finger on what makes this t-shirt so great, I just know that I love to wear it; it might be the unexpectedness of the illustration. The Greatest Connection (by Threadless, inspired by Anke Weckmann) reminds me of the singer Björk and the colors are striking. The Season Has Landed (by Freshfauxx) looks like a really colorful watercolor painting and it has a nice composition. And last but not least we have Liberty Nor Safety (by Jeff Battocletti). I have always been a fan of skull imagery, so who can resist a paisley covered skull wearing a gas mask surrounded skull-headed ghosts?

After I created my previous personal website I submitted it to a bunch of CSS galleries and to my delight it was accepted by most of them. Since that date I feel that my design skills have improved somewhat so I decided to give it another try with my new blog. The process of submitting your website to a CSS gallery is a snap, usually you have to fill out a form with name, email and website address (membership is in most cases not needed). I did notice something this time around though that I did not come across a few years ago, at some CSS galleries you have the option for a small fee (about $5-$10) to have your website reviewed within 24 hours, but this is not something I bothered with since the process is relatively fast anyway. In my experience the waiting times are anything from a day to around a week, so that is not bad at all.

As luck would have it, my blog was featured on several CSS galleries. Here are some of the highlights: Best Web Gallery, CSS Built, CSS Divine, CSS Elite, CSS Mania, Design Shack, Design Snack, FaveUp, W3C Sites, Web Creme, Website Design Awards, and We Love WP (this one is technically a WordPress gallery, but it is still awesome). My favorite of the group is Best Web Gallery created by Nick La who is also the mastermind behind two other inspirational websites with great articles: N.Design Studio and Web Designer Wall.

Step One

Create a new image in Adobe Photoshop that is three times the size of your final desired image size. Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the image with 50% grey (#808080). Then use Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone with the following settings: Max. Radius 5 pixels, and all the Screen Angles 135 degrees.

Step Two

Next we will use Filter > Sketch > Chalk and Charcoal with Charcoal Area 15, Chalk Area 15, and Stroke Pressure 1. You might have play around with Levels to get a nice medium to dark grey color.

Step Three

Create a new layer above the first layer, and fill it with any color. Have white (#FFFFFF) as your foreground color and black (#000000) as your background color. Then use Filter > Render > Fibers with Variance 5.0, and Strength 50.0. Click on the Randomize button until you get nice thin white fibers on a black background.

Step Four

Set the Blending Mode of the second layer to Screen, and Opacity to 50%. Create a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer above the second layer. Click on the gradient to edit colors. Make the first Color Stop on the left dark blue (#032340), add a medium blue/grey (#475160) Color Stop in the middle (50%), and make the last Color Stop on the right a light color (#DDEAED).

Step Five

Create a new layer above the adjustment layer. Set the Blending Mode of the layer to Overlay, and Opacity to 50%. On this layer, paint highlights (white) and shadows (black) using a big feathered brush with an opacity setting of 5-10%.

Step Six

Use Image > Image Size to resize the image to a third of its original size; use the Bicubic Sharper option for a sharper image. Here’s the resized image of the denim texture, as you can see it looks a lot better after its been resized.

BookMooch

This is the first book trading website that I became a member of and it is the one that I use the most. As of today I have sent over thirty books and I have also received about the same amount. When you list a book in your inventory on BookMooch you receive one tenth of a point, so ten books would give you one point. You also receive one point if one of your inventoried books is requested; three points if you are willing to send the requested book abroad. To request a book from another member will cost you one point, or two points for a book from abroad. The extra points required for trading books across borders is added to help pay for the increased postage cost. Furthermore, you also receive one tenth of a point if you leave feedback on the member that sent you a book. What is great about the point system is that you build a surplus of points when you trade, and all point transactions are made at the request, you do not have to wait for the member to receive your book before you get the point. When a popular book is listed on BookMooch and many members have it on their wish lists the system randomly chooses one of the members who then gets a chance to “mooch” the book, if this member is not interested in the book the system then randomly chooses another member. BookMooch was created in 2006 by John Buckman.

PaperbackSwap

New users to PaperbackSwap get two book credits when they list ten books on the website. Any subsequent books listed in your inventory will not yield any more credits, so those are the only free points that you receive. To request a book from another member will you put you back one credit (two credits for audio books), but the member who sends you their book will not receive their credit until the book is delivered. So the book sender often has to wait a couple of weeks before they get their due credit. It is pretty easy to run out of credits on this trading site, but when you need more credits you have the option of purchasing more from PaperbackSwap. Book credits cost $3.45 each which is not bad at all for a used book, and I assume that the proceeds go towards website maintenance. Wish lists are handled differently at this website, members line up for popular books. The member who listed a book on their wish list first will be first in line to receive the book when it is listed in somebody’s inventory. This can be somewhat hopeless at times when you are number 200 in line for book, but at least you do not have to rely on chance to get your wish listed book. PaperbackSwap.com was created in 2004 and it is only open in the US, but it is still the biggest book swapping website with over two million available books.

Technology and Computers

This Week in Tech is a weekly technology news podcast with Leo Laporte and guests that often gets a little bit crazy. Tekzilla features reviews of new gadgets and software, but also tips on how to use to software you already own. This video podcast is hosted by Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont.

Entertainment

If you love the social news site Digg.com and have an immature sense of humor you should totally check out the Diggnation podcast where Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht discuss some of the top stories from the aforementioned website. Another show with Alex Albrecht is The Totally Rad Show that is co-hosted by Dan Trachtenberg and Jeff Cannata. This video podcast is full of film, television, video game and comic book reviews.

Web Design

For some reason there is not too many good web design podcasts out there. If you know of any good ones please leave a comment and I will check them out. One that I often listen to is the Boagworld.com: Web Design Podcast that is hosted by Paul Boag and deals with usability and web design in general. Chris Moyier’s excellent CSS-Tricks Screencast has step-by-step CSS tutorials, often creating a full site from a Photoshop mock-up.

Science

It is always good to stay up-to-date with what is happening in the world of science so I subscribe to a few scientific podcasts. The first one is from NPR’s radio show with Ira Flatow called Science Friday. The second audio podcast is hosted by Steve Mirsky and is called Science Talk. Both shows have knowledgeable guests and discuss current scientific findings.

Xbox 360

My console of choice is the Xbox 360, our poor Wii does not get too much play time. From the people behind the Official Xbox Magazine (which I subscribe to) comes the OXM Podcast where new games are reviewed and contests are held. Another podcast with similar content is Xbox Live’s Major Nelson’s Radio hosted by Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson).

The blog is still pretty basic. I will refine the design and add extra functions the following weeks. What I will be looking into is sIFR for the headlines, something like Lightbox for bigger images, cleaning up the forms, and adding some content to the sidebar. I am also interested in learning jQuery for all my JavaScript needs. So please stick with me, and I will try to find interesting topics to write about.