Design Talk

2D animation basics

2012-01-20T16:57:00.000+08:00

I recently spoke at St Scholastica on the basics of 2D animation. I have created a page where you can read a bit of information about 2D animation here - http://reymendoza.blogspot.com/p/2d-animation.html

For the most part I really like the stop motion animation process - it gives you enough creativity using photographs. But maybe im a bit biased because Im a photographer :). A student asked me, wouldnt it be easier if I just export the footages to jpg images - frame by frame? No, it is not the same. You cannot achieve the "magic" of animation where the next frame is a different photo. Kinda hard to explain in words but believe me, its just not the same. And the quality of a single photo is hard to match if you export a jpg from a movie footage - (not unless you have a very expensive movie camera like that can shoot 4K film)

I'm looking to do more animation this year. and most probably a short film. My client needs it for his project. Im looking forward to it.

Below is one of my favorite stop-motion animations - the Western Spaghetti

Michelin Baby

2011-11-03T13:10:00.000+08:00

My Inaanak (Godson) Inaki Flores Blanca also known as Michelin baby :) Guapo!

2011-04-25T15:23:00.000+08:00

One of the kids of the client I work for, such beautiful blue eyes!

Adobe User group Philippines

2010-09-06T17:51:00.000+08:00

Hi Everyone (at least from my readers in the Philippines) We are re-igniting our efforts to enliven the Adobe User groups Philippines. Here are some of the plans

Do a School tour and demo CS5 capabilities, we will get our sponsors for these :)
Maintain the monthly meeting and have invited speakers for each Product
these speakers will be carefully chosen, we wouldnt want to waste your time too

Head on to - http://www.augphil.org and register , we have short promises right now so we can fulfill them first :)

Our Camera will die

2010-04-26T19:12:00.003+08:00

If you’ve ever sold a camera on Ebay before, you’ll be familiar with the term “actuations”. Prospective buyers will often write and ask you how many actuations your camera has on it’s meter and you may think “what on earth?!” Actuations (or shutter count) is the amount of photos your camera has taken. And this is an important number because your camera has a life expectancy, just like your car.

Yes, I did say that: Your camera has a life expectancy. This is a troubling thing for an avid photo taker to learn for the first time because it’s not something we know until we are told. Although it makes perfect sense that your camera, like anything, will only last so long.

The inner workings of a camera are delicate and fragile and made to withstand around 100,000 shutter releases. Canon says that their 5D mkII is good for about 150k and the 1D, 200k. But life expectancy isn’t something you’ll find on the specs of a camera you’re looking at buying, much like mileage expectancy isn’t on the price sticker of a new Ford Focus. No manufacturer of items can assure how long an item will last and to do so would be a bad idea on their behalf incase your particular unit didn’t match those expectations.

Just like with cars, the best way to know what kind of mileage people are getting out of their cameras is to get on forums and see what people are reporting. You’ll find a host of certain cameras died around the 30k mark, others 100k. Just get out there and read the chatter because the manufacturers don’t say much.

When I first heard that magic 100,000 number, I was disheartened and frightened for the life of my camera. Isn’t it especially true that we have a false sense of security with digital cameras? We think there is no end to the photos we can take simply because we aren’t tied to rolls of film. But sadly, this isn’t so. We do have to think before we go hog wild with a heavy trigger finger. Although 100k is a LOT more than it sounds, a professional can easily hit this mark within a few years.

The best comment I read while scanning forums for actuations information was this: “If your car could only do 100,000 miles, would you be driving it 1000 miles a day?”

World Usability Day 2009

2009-11-02T11:50:00.002+08:00

You are invited! I will be speaking on Usability at University of Santo Tomas at Nov 12, 2009

Design/Sustain: World Usability Day 2009 in Manila

Design/Sustain is a half-day series of talks from experts from the academe and industry in the Philippines that focuses on initiatives on usability and sustainability. The event aims to highlight activities that hope contribute for the improvement of Philippine society on climate change, academic reasearch, and practical services centered on usability and sustainability.

Event Program:

2:00pm: Opening
2:10pm: Welcome Remarks & Introduction to World Usability Day - Anne Michelle Santos
2:25pm: Illac Diaz of Designer Village Challenge - "Designing Houses for Climate Change"
2:55pm: Short Q&A
3:00pm: Rey Mendoza of ShutterFox - "Affordable Usability Testing"
3:30pm: Short Q&A
3:35pm: Dr. Rosemary Seva of DLSU - "Usability & Sustainability"
4:05pm: Panel Q&A
4:30pm: Raffle
4:45pm: Closing Remarks - Regnard Raquedan

Registration fee is PhP 50.00. Food and refreshments will be served.

For event updates, visit also http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154439354899 and http://webstandards.raquedan.com/

Panoramic view of Arch of the Century, UST

2009-06-01T15:57:00.000+08:00

Panorama of Arch of the Century, UST on CleVR.com

Panorama on a budget

2009-06-01T15:00:00.000+08:00

How to make a simple panorama with a regular digital camera

Finding the nodal point of your lens

2009-06-01T13:22:00.001+08:00

It's hard enough to find the nodal point of your lens thru just reading about it, here's a video tutorial

Penafrancia Resort Panorama

2009-04-22T22:52:00.001+08:00

Panorama of Penafrancia Resort on CleVR.com

History of Penafrancia Resort

It was inaugurated September 1970 during the Fiesta of Our Lady of Penafrancia. Construction of the Main House and 2 pools started May of 1970. The initial intention of the owner was to have a summer home for their family in Naga. Their family eventually moved out of their home in Garcia St. in Naga City to live in Carolina.

Carolina is situated about 12 kilometers from the Naga City Business District (CBD). During the 70's it would take a 45-minute drive to get to the Resort from the City. Today it is a short 15 minute drive to the CBD. The Naga National Airport is also just 20 minutes away. This is located in the Provincial Capitol Town of Pili, CamSur. The World famous CWC WATER SPORT CENTER is 5 minutes away from the Airport.

During the 70's, the Resort started out as a swimming destination. With its fresh water spring from the mountains, the place became a popular destination to families in Naga. Carolina became popular due to The Carolina Spring Resort of the Jimenez Family. This was where the owner would bring his family beforehand, during their visits to Naga. This inspired the owner to build his own resort.

Penafrancia Resort now host a lot of activities from the usual weekend swimming, to live-in seminars, weddings, team building activities and family reunions

Kerzon's Art

2009-03-26T08:36:00.000+08:00

I thought Kerzon, my eldest son, did not have the skill for drawing, as all his drawing projects was done by her sister Keziah. He just hated drawing for the simple fact that his siblings draws better than him.

Then came this youtube tutorial , discovered by keziah, where you just follow the video when it draws cartoon characters (or anything for that matter) This was Kerzon's output. I was just amazed, both for the drawing and what youtube can do! This is certainly a different generation, the resources are there online, you just have to find it.

Funeral Walk

2009-03-17T16:43:00.000+08:00

Young

2009-03-17T16:27:00.000+08:00

Young enough to enjoy just making bubbles

Enzo Manuel

2009-03-17T16:26:00.001+08:00

Lakeview Suites at Tagaytay

2009-03-09T17:43:00.000+08:00

Lakeview Suites at Tagaytay, all units are for sale (residential). This is a thing of beauty, I would have bought a unit on a whim If I can afford the Php10 million on the spot :)

Lipa Cathedral

2009-03-09T17:21:00.001+08:00

Top of Lipa cathedral

50 year old calculator

2009-03-09T17:19:00.001+08:00

a 50 year old claculator, mainly used by banks a long time ago, brand is burroughs and is very, very sturdy.

Pineapple Plantation

2009-03-03T22:57:00.000+08:00

Tagaytay is a place where you can find many plantations for pineapples. My friend and buddy photography enthusiast John Zuno told me he had this favorite spot and we both took turns in shooting it. That house in the hill was pretty amazing, and we were lucky that there was some farmers working on it and included one in my shot

Penafrancia Resort at Naga City

2009-01-27T19:09:00.002+08:00

Here's one of my latest web projects. Penafranciaresort.com one of the pioneering resorts at Naga City in Bicol.They have been in the resort business since 1970.

Virtual Tours are available if you want to see the facilities first, in 360 degrees! and they already had their first booking because of the website. Come and view the city too, coz they have pages dedicated in promoting Naga.

Have you ever been to Bicol? Have you seen the Majestic Mayon Volcano? Have you visited the Virgin of our Lady of Penafrancia? Or the CWC Watersport Center in Pili?

Why not plan a trip this summer with your family and friends and enjoy the beauty of Bicol. By land trip, you can take the aircon buses at the Araneta Center.

Or take a 9 hour drive with your car. Better yet bring along with you a group. Manila to Naga is about 9 hours. This can be broken down to 3 legs.

* Ist leg is from Manila to Lucena City about 3 1/2 hours drive
* 2nd leg Lucena to Calauag about 2 1/2 hours drive
* 3rd leg Calauag to Naga City about 3 hours drive.

It is recommended that you leave Manila about 5 A.M. No problem with clean toilets as there are lots of Petrons, Shell and Caltex stations along the way. Lunch? No problem too. In Lucena you have Maxs, Jollibee, McDonalds,etc.

But I like eating in the native restaurants along the way. If you're not in a hurry you can have your lunch at PalayIisdaan inbetween Tayabas and Lucban in Quezon . Very good native food. Inihaw na baboy per kilo , Fresh tilapia, veggies, lots of other goodies for a very reasonable price. Or at LITA's Seafood Restaurant, along the National Highway in Atimonan. (You will not miss it there are lots of cars and trucks parked on the right side of the road if your going to Bicol.)

On the 3rd leg starting in the town of Calauag. The next concern is not to miss the turn going to The Quirino Highway now Andaya Highway. You will see a sign to TAGKAWAYAN . The idea is not to pass to DAET AS THIS WILL BE AN ADDITIONAL 2 HOURS DRIVE. so from Calauag its TAGKAWAYAN, DEL GALLEGO, RAGAY, LUPI, SIPOCOT. From Sipocot to Naga is an easy 45 to 1 hour drive.

Glenn and Meg Rosales

2009-01-27T19:02:00.001+08:00

One of my favorite shot on the pre-nuptial shoot of my client/friend Glenn and Meg Rosales, see full album at Picasa

Paco Catholic School Panorama

2009-01-22T21:34:00.000+08:00

panorama of my alma mater. Paco Catholic School at Paco Manila, taken on December 2008

Synchronized gift opening

2008-12-27T19:19:00.001+08:00

This twins are my nephew, William and Aaron. They were opening their Christmas gifts and their mom called them and they both looked up and I snapped the photo.

New resources for CSS and web design

2008-10-26T21:47:00.000+08:00

I made websites for my CSS and Photoshop Class (short courses)in which my course outline and articles plus the exercise files are all online.

This makes my life so much easier as an instructor.All I had to bring in my class was my ipod or any usb drive plus some notes (the pen is still mightier than the sword) If you want to take a look and read, be my guest!

CSS Kungfu - http://sites.google.com/site/csskungfu/
Web Design Kungfu - a collection of RSS feeds on the best of web design
All Photoshop - Photoshop course and exercise files

Of course all this resources are better explained by the instructor (thats me!)I have come to a point that these lectures are second-nature to me and I can explain them with ease because I also use this stuff everyday in my web design projects. After more than 10 years in web design, I still find this career exciting as there's something new to learn everyday.

Flash gallery webpage with email ordering

2008-10-26T21:25:00.000+08:00

I've just finished another website for a photographer client Miss Sofia Genato - http://www.thestorkstudio.com/

The website design is clean and simple. but that doesnt mean that it did not go through a lot design revisions, because we really wanted to achieve a certain look and that needed revisions here and there. But it was well worth the effort.

Another feature added was to have a client page where each client album was password protected. That was the asy part via cpanel. What was challenging was how to make the web gallery and teach the client how to upload it via FTP. and the client should be able to select the images and email those selections to the photographer. Another consideration was these had to be in flash to make the images a little harder to grab.

It turns out that all this can be done via Lightroom, and the web gallery album used was - LRG FSS Select - Version 1.1 Here are the features;

# Scrolling Horizontal strip of images
# Can display 800+ images
# User can select and comment on images and submit the list to you via email.
# Selected images are listed with details in the email thats sent as well as a comma separated list so you can copy and paste those images into Lightroom’s Find feature and instantly pull up the images that were selected by the viewer
# You can use Left and Right arrow keys to scroll through images
# Uses PHP send out emails, please make sure your server supposts this(most all do).

This is a perfect template for pro photographers!!

Of course if you need to customize it, you can do it via Lightroom or better yet via XML, which you can edit in Notepad. Here are the steps I did to make it easy for my client

# Create folder in the server (webhost) via Cpanel
# Password Protect the folder - via Cpanel (dont forget to click save button)
# Log-out on Cpanel
# Create web gallery in lightroom, customize settings
# Upload via FTP on Lightroom
# Youre done!

You can even add paypal payment if that's something the client wishes, of course in Philippine settings, there are still few who wants to pay via Paypal, I think the better alternative right now is pay via texting (gcash or smartmoney), via bank or via ATM cards online.UCPB (bank) even has a one time payment module so you can protect your accounts. And Credit cards of course :)

Top Ten reasons to have Virtual Tours on your website

2008-08-29T18:20:00.001+08:00

1. 60% of internet users take virtual tours online
(Source: ClickZStats - Nov 2006)

2. Properties complete with virtual tours are , on average clicked 10 times more than those that do not offer the service
(Source: Property Week)

3. Virtual tours reduce the amount of wasted viewings by 40%
(Source: Property Week)

4. Virtual tours serve up over 5 million trips per day, up from roughly 2 million in 2004 (Source: ClickZStats - Nov 2006)

5. On a typical day, more than six million people are taking virtual tours in cyberspace, up from roughly two million in 2004.(2006 Pew Internet & American Life Study)

6. Statistics from REALTOR.COM show that listings with virtual tours get clicked on 40% more than listings without virtual tours. -- Susan Barber in the Business Development section of RISMedia's Real Estate magazine (May 2006)

7. 80% of Internet shoppers say images are imperative when deciding to buy or use a company's product or services.(2006 Pew Internet & American Life Study)

8. A compelling use of virtual tour technology will keep visitors on your site, and will also keep them coming back.

9. In cyberspace, a site with a virtual tour and interactive media will receive
38% more views than a competitor's site that is lacking media. (2006 Pew Internet & American Life Study)

10. 47% said virtual tours were very important to a listing

And more...

• 80% of consumers search for information online. That means at least 60% of your marketing dollars should be spent optimizing your company online.

• 96.2% of travelers use the Internet as a source of information when planning a trip.

Dont Blame it on someone else

2008-08-18T10:07:00.000+08:00

I have heard this theory that the Philippines will never be a strong country because we have inherited Spanish traits, we have been colonized by Spain for 300 years and thats why we have their traits.

Baloney.

Spain is a powerhouse in the Olympics, they have been gathering olympic golds in the past, even in the present. A country that wins in Olympics reflects how the people behave and work in their own country.

Now, why are we blaming our colonizers?

Sure we have been seeing red tape, and corruption in the Philippines since birth and seeing that in early stages make it seem normal, sometimes we even see it as something right, God forbid. Manyana habits, being late and procrastination are something we blame for our colonizers. But isn't those bad traits universal to other culture as well?

But as these things are learned, they can be unlearned.

If it is wrong, just refuse to do it. People will respect you for that. and they will not ask you next time to do it again (usually) because they know your stand prior to that.

We stand a chance, if not in your lifetime or mine, maybe in our children's lifetime. But we need to plant the seeds right now

Galatians 6:7 says - You reap what you sow.

Let's plant the good sees - the good traits now, so our children can reap the harvest later. Maybe even in our lifetime.

But we need to do it now.

Proud of my Mama

2008-08-17T18:34:00.000+08:00

My mom, who retired a month ago from teaching at Aurora A Quezon as a Public Teacher, was suddenly taking charge of our Village "beautification" services.

Her first project is to clean-up our public park and repaint the whole thing. Here are some pics, and then some.

Team Hoyt

2008-07-25T19:41:00.005+08:00

Once in a while , you get to read about something that moves you, touches your heart and makes you close your eyes and thank the lord.

This is one of them.

The son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?'. The father who, despite having a heart condition, says 'Yes'. They went on to complete the marathon together. Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request of going through the race together. One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.' To which, his father said 'Yes' too.

For those who don't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island Father and son went on to complete the race together.

They were called Team Hoyt

and this is their story...

Latest news on my Photoshop Seminars

2008-07-24T12:35:00.000+08:00

I'll be teaching Complete Photoshop on DLSU Manila. 6 intensive saturdays of Photoshop heaven, guaranteed learning or your money back! (No, i have not returned any money) Schedule will be on July 26, August 2,9, 16, 23, and 30. If you want to enroll pls call Sheng of DLSU Manila at (632) 526-4247

For students, or any interested individuals, here's the Photoshop Course Outline (pdf 101kb), or just read it below.

Course Description:
Learn basic to advanced course on how to use Photoshop CS2 the indusrtry standard for image enhancement and compositing for print, multimedia and the Web. Duration of the course is 36 hours.

Who should attend:
Anyone who wants to learn computer imaging, even with modest or no background in graphic design. Ideal for photographers, designers, even painters who wants to learn the digital way of design.

At the end of the course the participants will:
1. have knowledge of setting up Photoshop for print and/or web
2. know the basic necessities in understanding the more powerful features of Photoshop CS2
3. know the tricks of the trade in graphic and web design
4. Experience how to create their own imagery in their style.

Pre-requisite:
Basic Computer skills

Course Outline
● Setting up Photoshop
● Working Foundations
● Production Essentials
● Creative Explorations

Setting Up Photoshop (3 hours)
1. Introduction to Photoshop
2. Setting up Photoshop
3. Bridge and History
4. What Photoshop can do

Working Foundations (12 hours)
1. Photoshop's Tools and Palletes
2. Layers ( Concepts and applications)
3. Masks and Channels
4. Using Filters effectively
5. Adjustment Layers
6. Blending Modes
7. Color Management

Production Essentials (9 hours)
1. Resolution Solutions
2. Saving for the Web
3. Optimization
· GIF – graphic interchange format – 256 colors, transparency
· JPEG – joint photographic expert’s group – 16 million colors, no transparency
· PNG – Portable network graphics – transparency and lots of colors
· Keep your psd files as reference
· Demonstration of transparent gifs
· Demonstration of jpeg matte
4. Text Properties
· Text palette
· Text on a path, text on a circle
5. Different Ways of Masking (Knock-outs)
6. Steps in Digital Imaging
· Crop
· Clean
· Tonal Correction
· Color Correction
· Manipulation
· Sharpen
· Convert to CMYK (if for print)

Creative Explorations (12 hours)
1. Photo Restoration
2. Design for the web
3. Customized Color to B&W
4. Soft Portraits
5. Artistic Edges
6. Scan Lines
7. Displacement Maps
8. Actions
9. Droplets
10. Text Effects
11. Create a panorama

Small actions vs. Big Actions

2008-06-22T13:13:00.000+08:00

I will be reformatting my hard drive soon and instead of deleting some quotes, I'd rather share it with you.

"Don’t ever let anyone tell you that something is too competitive. Once you subtract the people who don’t work very hard, or the people who aren’t as good as you, your competition shrinks dramatically."

"I view my life in a way … I'll explain it to you, OK? The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that's how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer, I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father, I will be a better husband, I will be better as a friend. That's the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better."

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

So there, and instead of just marveling at these quotes do something with them as I did today, maybe not that dramatic but small actions are part of big actions. I remember Michael Jordan saying that his average of 32 points per game in his pro season was not just looking at making 32 points per game but 8 points per quarter , now that's manageable.

Just do it. :)

We had a bang at the CSS workshop

2008-06-21T09:46:00.002+08:00

The CSS training and workshop that I conducted at NCC - National Computer Center was successful thanks to the help of NCC, NCDA and PWAG. Special mention goes for Mam Grace Amberong, Miss Nelia De Jesus and PWAG president Jojo Esposa. The participants was also very interactive and asked a lot of questions which signified their interest.

Participants came all the way from Bacolod (Rebie Relator), Aringay (Elvira PAjo), Bicol University (Jose Michael Appan) and from Phil Rice Institute in Nueva Ecija (Marlon Velayo and Arturo Arocena). Food was great and I still had time to do some card magic (yes, magic!) at the end of the the course.

Web Accessibility was promoted by Jojo Esposa and all participants were willing to be part of the solution after his talk, meaning they all want to make their sites aceessible after they learned about it.

Photos are available at at my picasa website

CSS Training at NCC (National Computer Center)

2008-06-02T17:06:00.000+08:00

CSS training and workshop is brought to you in partnership with NCC (National Computer Center), NCDA (National Council for Disability affairs) and PWAG (Philippine Web Accessibility Group)

Course: CSS training (Basic and Advanced)
Schedule: June 19 & 20 (Thursday and Friday)
Venue: NCC (National Computer Center) at UP Diliman, Quezon City

There are only 15 slots for this course.

What you will get;

• 2 days intensive training course on CSS
• Open source tools for CSS development
• Hands on training, every student will have his own PC
• A portable web development office in your USB stick (all open source, and free!)
• Certificates for the training duly signed by trainer, PWAG and NCC
• FREE Book - "Basic Web Accessibility Guide for Filipinos"
• FREE lecture on Web Accessibility by Jojo Esposa (author of the book)
• lunch and snacks for 2 days
• handouts of the workshop

Course Fee: 4,000 for 2 days (whole course)
DISCOUNT for PWAG members: 20%
Course fee for PWAg members: P3,200 for 2 days (whole course)

Registration starts on May 30, 2008. Firstcome, first serve basis.
Last day for registration is June 16, 2008

Payment will be made payable thru Metrobank.
Account Number: 349-3349797349
Account Name: Reynaldo Mendoza,Jr.
Account Type: Savings

After payment pls email (scan or photo) the deposit slip to reymendoza@gmail.com We will then send you an email and/or call/text confirming your slot.

We will also send you a pdf version or original receipt.We will give you the original receipt (hard copy) on June 19, 2008

UN Ratifies Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2008-05-07T11:40:00.000+08:00

I think not too many people know that Im also an advocate for web accessibility. But I am :) I am a founding member of PWAG (Philippine web accessibility group). We help as private citizens improve websites so people with disabilities can also access private and government websites (with emphasis on government websites)

But enough of me.

After six years of deliberation and almost a year after its signing, the Philippines became the 23rd country that ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

This landmark event will have a simultaneous worldwide celebration on May 12, 2008 at UN Headquarters in New York City. For its part, the Philippines will also have a prayer and walk for unity on May 12 from 7:00 am - 12:00 pm at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. Autism Society of the Philippines President, Erlinda Koe, was adjudged to be the emcee of the unity walk. Captain Oscar Taleon will be the in-charge of events security and together with Lauro Purcil, he will help for a courtesy call with Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary, Alberto Romulo. Sorongon will also help in security marshals.

The organizers will also invite the SM Bands to add color and music to the walk. Carmen Zubiaga and Joy Garcia will make a miniature of wheelchair as a token for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

A program will also be held at Worshops and symposium will also be scheduled after the grand celebration.

How can you, our reader help? well, you can email this news item to people who you think may be interested to participate or celebrate with us. Or just blog about it.

Whiz Kid at Web Design

2008-05-02T09:41:00.002+08:00

It is not rare for us to hear some news about whiz kids at every facet of skill building. But it is rare to meet one.

Meet Kim T. Selorio, my 12 year old student at DLSU manila in a web design (short) course. He's in grade 6, already a BLOGGER using Wordpress, asks advanced CSS questions, already an expert an html ( I suppose, coz he's the only one who doesnt ask about it) and manages his own site thru Cpanel, and even asks about web security using Chmod.

This kid is great.and he's humble too. Her mother enrolled her in this web design course. Kim tells me her mother is asking her to build the company website for them. Now, how many of you can say that your company website is built by a 12 year old whiz kid? Not too many I guess, and the ones who do may not be too relaxed to say that to the public.

But a little more guidance and this kid will go places, and maybe a lot of schools may want to give him a scholarship.

See Kim's Profile:

Kim T. Selorio

Personal data
Date of birth : 9th September, 1995
E- Mail : admin@kimeh.net
Nationality : Filipino
Age : 12
Languages known : English, Tagalog (spoken & written)
Contact Details : 2604 T.Ayala cor Vito Cruz Sts., Manila, Philippines
Height : 5’4 ft.
Weight : 140lbs.
Gender : Male

Academic Qualifications
Incoming Grade VII student at PWU- JASMS
Computer Skills & Knowledge
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Frontpage, Publisher, Outlook,
Infopath)
• Adobe Photoshop, Adobe ImageReady.
• Adobe Illustrator.
• PaintShop PRO.
• Adobe / Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash Professional 8, Fireworks.
• Managing Websites (FTP, cPanel)
• Knows HTML, CSS, and a little PHP and JavaScript.
• Knows how to Troubleshoot Computers (Hardware, Software) and Websites.
• Knows how to configure email clients (POP3, IMAP4, SMTP).

Computer Work History
Wordpress Theme Maker / Coding
October 2007 to Present.
Blogspot / Friendster / CSS, xHTML Theme Maker.
November 2006 to Present.

Other Achievements
• Blog of the Month (April 2008)
• Nominated for Candy Magazine Blog Awards
• Has won a domain.
• Manages two domains (http://kimeh.net & http://extinct.uni.cc)

Educational Background

Elementary : PWU – JASMS Manila
2001 - 2008 Incoming Graduating Class of 7th Grade.
Pre School : PWU – JASMS Manila
Graduated w/ Diploma
Other Courses Taken:
CEC- Short Courses : De La Salle University –
Summer 2008 Graduate of Short Summer Course in Web Design

APC South Tour at Tagaytay ( Caleruega)

2008-04-17T12:04:00.003+08:00

The day Manny Pacquiao fought Marquez the second time around, the Accenture Photography club (APC) was busy at Tagaytay having our photo shoot. This also coincides with the Cebu APC having their own photo shoot at the South Side.

There was also a contest on both manila and cebu participants on 3 different categories, travel and place being one of them. A beginners luck maybe but I won that category (travel and place) and 1st place no less! And to think that photo I entered was something I took out of the album the second time I rummaged thru my shots. If youre wondering about the photo, its about a grand staircase I took with my sigma 8mm fish eye at the Caleruega. on my Canon 400d

Below is the flash album on google's picasa

What I had fun with was making the the Virtual Reality (VR) photography where you can pan around 360 degrees sideways , upward and downwards, real 360 virtual tour! Interested to see that VR? head on to my personal site at reymendoza.com

Those cute, little rascals

2008-02-06T21:50:00.001+08:00

Ahhh to be kid once again... even only in the photographers' eye. They are adorable, cure, little rascals. And yeah they can be mean sometimes but only when they are tired already.

They are interesting, hard to capture subjects. They are almost always on the move, credit that to their adrenaline pumping every minute. Shoot them at their eye level, shoot them when they are dirty. Be on the shutter priority setting and you will always be ready to capture those "Kodak" moments.

Still Life Photography

2008-01-13T19:33:00.001+08:00

Studying photography is exciting. These are my shots on my Canon 400d (Rebel Xti) on various ocassions. Im not worried if people like them or not (I do like them hahaha) coz it's the journey on my photography I'm enjoying. It's inevitable I'll make some good shots and not so good ones.

Enjoy! (I know I am)and if for any reason you want to see larger version of the photos, head on to Photoshop Daily

Multiple IE versions on your computer

2007-11-13T14:26:00.000+08:00

I have a need for multiple IE versions because we develop websites that are both used in IE6 and IE7. So I need to be able to have both IE6 and IE7 so I can see both browsers on how they behave and be able to edit and develop websites rapidly or as needed.

One caution: Dont settle for standalone IE7 and have IE6 as your default IE browser. Standalone IE7 is buggy, at least in my experience and other developers have also shared my sentiments.

What works: If you have IE6 or lower, upgrade to IE7 and install multiple IE versions that are lower (IE6,IE 5.5, etc). This way IE7 would be your default IE browser and if you need to test in IE6 or lower, then you can just fire it up on your start menu.

No guarantees: Although I have used this set-up for 8 months now, your situation might be different. I use a Windows xp pc, have 2gb of ram and 160gb hard drive. So dont assume that it will work as intended but most people on the net are more than
willing to help you. Just learn to ask, it's that simple.

There are more than 2 browsers: Most people would know IE and Firefox, because that's more than 90% of population using those browsers, so you should never fail to test in these 2 browsers if you are a developer. However there tons of other browsers like Opera, konqueror and Safari to name a few. If you have a need to test on this browsers (and only by asking your client would you know about this requirement) download them and test them out.

Strike A Pose

2007-09-18T21:03:00.000+08:00

#Addendum# Jan 14, 2007
========
I have edited this post as when the new blogger came out, the previous code did not work - head on to the updated blog at Blogger Buzz
========

Well, I just found a better way to embed those photos from picasa, an additional fullscreen feature and a cleaner look (well, just a little) on the User interface menu.

Here's the link where you can get your own code too. Be wary of steps no. 5, which is posting to your blog directly, didn't work for me. After step #4, go straight to step #6 where you get the code, paste this into your webpage.

Wonder Island

2007-09-18T13:21:00.001+08:00

I just found a way to embed photos in my blog through my google acount using my picasa photos. I know, I know, this is not something new for you, but it is for me :)

Below are shots of Wonder Island in Batangas, Philippines. I think this is wayback 2003 when I was still with De La Salle University in one of our summer outings. How to do this? read below.

Picasa itself gives you the ability to embed your album's slideshow in any webpage;

read it here:
http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=66969

One important thing,if you logged in to your picassa account & didn't see the "embed slideshow" link on the left panel of your album page, you have to go to settings & change your language to "English (US)". Then revisit your album page and you can see the "embed slideshow" link.

And yes, it works on WordPress. Cheers!

Panoramic shots

2007-09-18T12:17:00.001+08:00

A collection of panoramic shots when I started doing them in 2003 where I was bitten by the panoramic style and made it available on the web through quicktime, java applets and lately flash VR. I was using an Epson 300Z by then, using a simple tripod and using a variety of stitchers but was using apples quicktime applications (freewares) to stitch photos and photoshop for the final output.

See a larger preview at picasa, panoramas are meant to be shown in a large scale, not in a 4oopx wide flash album.

Its so CleVR

2007-08-27T18:28:00.000+08:00

CleVR is a web application to turn your photos into a Flash 360 degree panoramic view or otherwise known as Virtual Reality (VR). It uses Adobe Air, formerly known as Apollo in its beta. Since I've had panoramic photos in my pc, I tried uploading one, a view from the facade of the main building of the oldest University in Asia - The royal and pontifical University of Santo Tomas. And it was easy, really! and you can add hotspots (links to other panorama) within the panorama itself.

You can stitch photos online in this application but I'd rather stitch offline so I can still tweak it in Photoshop. This is a good application, not to mention free. And it works!

There's a button on the panorama page to email it to a friend. Or you could add it to your blog or website or click one of the little links at the bottom of the page to add it to Facebook etc. You need to intall Adobe Air in your computer to take advamtage of these services and register so you can upload your panoramas. The company uses Amazon's web services for it's hosting which is something like $0.18 per gb of upload or download (bandwith)

below is the (embedded) Flash panorama of UST's main building with hotspots to the football field and UST Hospital

XRAY for web developers

2007-08-14T08:09:00.000+08:00

XRAY is a tool ( a bookmarklet actually) which behaves like the web developer toolbar by Chris Pederick. But the tool is basic and the web developer toolbar have more features than this, but hey it's free, so I wont complain. Besides sometimes it's not about the tools but how you use that tool. Case in point, you may have the latest Dreamweaver or Photoshop but who among us can honestly say we know each and every feature of this piece of (wonderful) software?

That's why its good to interact with other developers/designers, because you can always learn from anyone, regardless if they are a newbie or an expert. People have different approach, in anything they do, that what makes us unique, that what makes our experience different from everybody else. And that makes learning variable.

CSS Tab Designer

2007-08-13T17:49:00.000+08:00

CSS Tab Designer is a unique and easy to use software to help you design css-based lists and tabs visually and without any programming knowledge required!

I've been using this tool to create menus and navigation. But as the designer, you should not be contented by what it produces, you should be able to customize it to your own needs. Not that the output is bad, it's good actually. But it's rare that a menu output from this freeware will suit your project from the very start, you will need customization and you'll need basic CSS knowledge to do that.

Ah yes, it also produces the images that it needs to create those good looking menus, so you wont have to do it manually. You will just need a good image editor to tweak those images to your liking. Go ahead and download it, it's free and you get to practice your CSS skills on customizing your menus.

You can also navigate around it's originating website for more resources other than the CSS tab designer, there are other freewares like the Code export.

Is God in the Internet?

2007-08-04T05:16:00.000+08:00

This is inspired by Max Lucado's book "Grace for the moment". This might well be a spritual insight on the state of the World wide web. or I just maybe nuts :) , you decide.

God's blessing are dispensed according to the riches of his grace, not according to the depth of our faith.

Why is that important to know? So you wont get cynical. Look around you. Arent there more unvalidated html pages than validated ones? Arent there more unusable websites than usable sites? Arent there more inaccessible websites than accessible sites? How can information be maximized if they are not accessible? Isn't information useless when they are not accessible? This is a simple fact, but why are most web developers dont have enough iniatiative to have this problem solved?

So what do we do? Throw up our hands in disgust and walk away? Tell the World Wide Web we cant help them?

No. We dont give up. We look up. We look up to Christ and the W3C to formulate standards that could make data uniform so the whole world may use that data.

We dont give up. We trust. We trust the lord. We trust our fellow developers to improve on the existing solutions and improve on them. We trust that AJAX can be made fully accessible so we can all reap it's benefits.

We dont give up. We believe. We believe that God moves in mysterious ways. That he makes solutions not directly from heaven but thru people. We believe that eventually browsers will contribute to the advancement of others browsers by opening up their technology and research to open source.

And our optism is not hollow. Christ has proven worthy. Isnt it true that the state of internet has improved when it started not too long ago? He has shown that he never fails. That what makes God, God.

So dont give up there is hope, because there is a God.

Are you reading this?

2007-07-03T11:07:00.000+08:00

If you're a web designer/developer , you should know these sites. If you dont, here's your chance to be a better designer developer in just one or two clicks

http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.zeldman.com/

I've just read their articles today and boy, these guys are not just in the know, they are visionaries, and well experienced to boot, read about them and make yourself more experienced = more expensive, hahaha.

below is just one paragraph that made me ponder it for this day alone, enough said.

Waterfront

2007-06-22T16:48:00.000+08:00

a derivation of a technique used by Photoshop guru Jeff Schewe in his website. Photo is from a friend - www.rommelbundalian.com

Intelligent and lazy

2007-06-22T14:54:00.000+08:00

An interesting part of the book "Living the 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More"

================================================
German military chief General von Manstein said:

“There are only four types of officers.

First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them alone, they do no harm.

Second, there are the hard-working intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring that every detail is properly considered.

Third, there are the hard-working, stupid ones. These people are a menace, and must be fired at once. They create irrelevant work for everybody.

Finally, there are the intelligent lazy ones. They are suited for the highest office.”

Cultivate lazy intelligence. Do you lack smarts or lack laziness?

If you think you’re not so smart — and to think this, you have to be quite intelligent after all — work on your knowledge and expertise in a very narrow area, where extraordinary results are available for modest effort.

If you are smart, but not lazy, work on laziness. To do everything, simply because you can, lowers effectiveness. Concentrate on the really important things that get amazing results. Do only the few things with greatest benefit.

It’s amazing how often people dispute this advice. A typical conversation runs like this:

Friend:
“You must be joking when you say become lazier.”

Me:
“I’m deadly serious. I can’t focus well enough on the 20 percent if I’m also trying to do everything else. Far better to spend twice as much time on the magic 20 percent, and far less on the rest. Bottom line: 60 percent more results for 60 percent less energy.”

Friend:
“Shouldn’t we put 100 percent energy into the magic 20 percent and get four times more?”

Me:
“Fine in theory, and in practice eventually, but first slow down. Stop inessential things. There’s a limit to how much time we can spend on the magic activities without diluting quality. Force ourselves to do less. Win time to find more vital areas to work on and more effective things to do.”

Friend:
“But you don’t really believe in being lazy, do you?”

Me:
“There are lazy people, like Ronald Reagan, who achieved a great deal just by being focused on one or two objectives. And there are super-hard workers, like President Carter, who had too many objectives and failed frenetically. Still, there are excellent scientists or artists, obsessed with their work, who love it. I wouldn’t tell them to become lazy. I’m not really advocating laziness, but time to concentrate on what matters. If you don’t like the word ‘lazy,’ try ‘relaxed.’ Do what you enjoy, do it calmly and without worries.

“A hard-working person is often too busy to spot what’s really significant. A lazy person wants to do as little as possible and so concentrates only on the essentials. What’s really productive is a lazy person who thinks new thoughts and is focused on making them happen. Thinking is often disturbing, sometimes even frightening. Burying ourselves in trivia is less threatening.

“For most of us, the only way to create something new and valuable is to slow down, do fewer things, chill out. If you really love what you’re doing, you don’t need to be lazy. If you’re doing lots of things you don’t enjoy, cut them, keeping just the valuable and enjoyable things.”

Uninspired

2007-06-04T09:13:00.000+08:00

I have not find time to blog lately because I really wanted to focus on my new job as a User Interface designer, I know I have to learn things fast and that was both fun and time -consuming, not that I complain. And so this artwork was just a product of me missing my time to produce artwork from photoshop as I usually use photoshop to create web-ready graphics.

The title "uninspired" is because I just wanted to create an artwork for no particular reason (yeah thats what artist do!) and I just picked up anything in photoshop to create this. The photo I used is from my friend http://www.rommelbundalian.com , a great photographer and artist as well ( he recently won an adobe contest, worldwide, my friends!)

And I wanted to have this thing go daily if time permits, just push myself and produce artworks which is usually, if not always, a self-expression (at that particular point of time).

Usability - Visibility Check

2007-04-25T14:35:00.000+08:00

Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. I have downloaded Visibility Check or VisCheck as a useful plugin for Photoshop. It lets you see how your design looks from the eyes of other kind of users- specifically the color blind ones. And you should know that there are different kinds of color blindness. For this reason the design output of VisCheck is also different, that is according to types of color blindness

You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.

What is it good for?

Roughly 1 in 20 people have some sort of color vision deficiency. The world looks different to these people: they often find it hard to tell red and green things apart. This often means that they sometimes can't see things that 'color normal' people can see (examples).

Many pictures, documents and web pages are hard for color blind people to read because the people who designed them didn't think about the problem. Vischeck lets them check their work for color blind visibility. It is also interesting to anyone who is just plain curious about what the world looks like if you're color blind.

The technical stuff

Vischeck is a computer simulation of the entire process of human vision. The model can be divided into three parts.

The first stage includes the physical properties of the display devices (including various CRT and LCD monitors, and standard CYMK print on paper), the ambient lighting and the effects of physiological factors such as corneal haze, lens opacities and short or long-sightedness which might degrade the optical image.

The second stage of the model describes the transformation of optical image on the retina into a neural representation of that image in the optic nerve. At this point, visual disabilities and anomalies such as color-blindness or retinal degeneration can be included in the model.

The final stage in Vischeck is a model of human cortical vision. At this stage, we include information about the way in which color, spatial patterns and motion are combined and processed in the visual cortex, to form the observer's perception of the image

Create More with Less

2007-02-28T13:48:00.000+08:00

Have you heard of the 80/20 principle? probably yes, but can you explain it and provide concrete examples? Ok, maybe not, at least for me. So I read this book - Living the 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More by Richard Koch

Here's a teaser/ excerpts from the book which could get you excited. The book is full of examples. citing real-life stories to prove the principle of 80/20

Chapter 1: What’s the Big Idea?

Life today divides into the fast track or the slow track. Both are less agreeable than the broad track of yesteryear. For many the slow track means economic insecurity: low earnings, low social standing, anxiety about unemployment, and missing out on the increasing material delights enjoyed by those on the fast track. But the fast track is not without its hazards. For many it means a single-minded obsession with getting ahead, total commitment to the job at the expense of personal relationships, and a frenzied lifestyle where work takes precedence over everything else. The fast track, too, brings anxiety and poverty, though in this case it’s poverty of time and love rather than money.

If this analysis of the material advantages and personal disadvantages of modern life strikes a chord, I’ve great news. If we accept that modern life works at the material, scientific, and technological level, but often screws up our personal lives, I can announce that there’s a novel way out of this box.

I am referring to the 80/20 principle, the observation that roughly 80 percent of results stem from 20 percent or fewer of causes. Later in this chapter I’ll explain how the principle works and give many fresh examples. For the moment, let me just say that whereas the 80/20 principle has been used successfully in business and economics and has driven progress throughout the modern world, it has not yet been applied, on anything like the same scale, to the lives of individuals. If it were so applied, we could enjoy life much more, work less, and achieve more.

Chapter 2: Create More with Less

All human history, all progress in civilization, involves getting more with less.

Nearly 8,000 years ago, humans moved from hunting savage animals and gathering wild fruits to a system of agriculture, cultivating land, and domesticating animals. Our ancestors got much more and better food with much less struggle and danger.

Until 300 years ago, 98 percent of the working population labored on the land. Then a new agricultural revolution used machinery to transform productivity. Today in developed countries, agriculture employs only 2–3 percent of the workforce, yet produces vastly more food, which is also more varied and nutritious. That’s more with less.

The highway of economic progress in the past 400 years has also been more with less: identifying the few very productive forces and methods (the 20 percent) and multiplying them, so that more results can be obtained from fewer resources. Smaller and smaller amounts of land, capital, labor, management, materials, and time have been used to generate larger and better outputs: more steel for less iron ore, capital, and labor; more and better cars for less energy and cost; more consumer goods of every type, with more features and higher quality, at ever lower prices.

A century ago, computers didn’t exist. Just 40 years ago, a few massive, clunky computers were made with enormous effort and cost. The planet’s total computer power then was far less than that of the small laptop I’m using now. Computers keep getting cheaper, smaller, easier to use, and more powerful. They exemplify more with less.

Every material advance of humanity — in science, in technology, in living standards, in housing, in food, in health and long life, in leisure, in transport, in everything that makes modern life so much richer and more fun than before — gives more with less.

We can often get more with less simply by leaving something out. Algebra does this: it lets us compute more easily by leaving out the numbers, the basis for all computer programming breakthroughs. The World Wide Web operates by taking distance and location out of the equation. The Sony Walkman, a brilliant innovation, is really a cassette player minus the amplifier and speakers, yet it creates a fantastically versatile way of listening to music anywhere. A dry martini makes a great drink by cutting out the Martini. The whole fast-food industry is simply restaurants without the waiters.

It is scant exaggeration to say that more with less is the basic principle by which modern science, technology, and business advance living standards everywhere.

The 80/20 principle says that a small minority of causes lead to a large majority of results. If we know what results we want, therefore, we can look for a super-productive way to get those results. The 80/20 principle guarantees that there is always a way. Every time, more with less is possible, provided that we identify the golden 20 percent: the people, methods, and resources that are extremely creative and productive.

Companies and countries that devise ways to deliver more value for less effort, peoplepower, and money flourish; but they can never rest on their laurels, because there is always a way to deliver even more for even less and somebody will soon find it. Because of the 80/20 principle, economic progress cannot stop.

Yup, this book is interesting, so go grab one at amazon or your local bookstore, I'm sure they do have access to amazon if they dont have the book :)

Web based FTP

2007-02-16T15:12:00.000+08:00

Is it an oxymoron? isn't doing an ftp an always web-based activity? Well yes and no. doing an ftp requires internet connection, so that is the YES. NO because some firewalls block the ports which allows you to do ftp. So what is the solution?

You've guessed it - web based ftp like the services of net2ftp. Web-based means that net2ftp runs on a web server, and that you use a browser (for example Internet Explorer or Mozilla). FTP is the communication method to access files on a remote computer. You need it to access your files on the account given by your provider to host your homepage. FTP is different from HTTP in that it was made specially to transfer (big) files. If a transfer is interrupted, with FTP you can resume it where it broke off, whereas with HTTP you can not.

Oh yes, there are other alternative site like Surftp, just google it to find other sites. Personally I have only used net2ftp and it works for me, unless it doesn't do what it's supposed to do then I think I still will use that service.

You can install net2ftp in your own server, or in most cases, in your own web hosting services. This way you are not totally dependent on the site for the service, especially if you are running a business. of course it will take webspace but only download the light version from their site as most features tend to get neglected anyway.

So what can you do with it? plenty.

Navigate the FTP server
Once you have logged in, you can browse from directory to directory and see all the subdirectories and files.

Upload files
There are 3 different ways to upload files: the standard upload form, the upload-and-unzip functionality, and the Java Applet.

Download files
Click on a filename to quickly download one file.
Select multiple files and click on Download; the selected files will be downloaded in a zip archive.

Zip files
... and save the zip archive on the FTP server, or email it to someone.

Unzip files
Different formats are supported: .zip, .tar, .tgz and .gz.

Install software
Choose from a list of popular applications (PHP required on the target server).

Copy, move and delete
Directories are handled recursively, meaning that their content (subdirectories and files) will also be copied, moved or deleted.

Copy or move to a 2nd FTP server
Handy to import files to your FTP server, or to export files from your FTP server to another FTP server.

Rename and chmod
Chmod handles directories recursively.

View code with syntax highlighting
PHP functions are linked to the documentation on php.net.

Plain text editor
Edit text right from your browser; every time you save the changes the new file is transferred to the FTP server.

HTML editors
Edit HTML a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) form; there are 2 different editors to choose from (FCKEditor and TinyMCE).

Code editor
Edit HTML and PHP in an editor with syntax highlighting (CodePress).

Search for words or phrases
Filter out files based on the filename, last modification time and filesize.

Calculate size
Calculate the size of directories and files.

Domain Name dilemmas

2007-02-16T13:48:00.000+08:00

What's in a name? sometimes none, sometimes it's everything. So, have got your own domain? If you have a unique name, chances are you can wait until you are ready to make your own site before buying your own domain name. But if you have a very common name, buy it now or check it from WHOIS if it is still available.

I recently bought my own domain name - reymendoza.com - and redirected it to my blog as I still have not finished my own site. Ironic? Yes, but not unusual as most of my friends who does web design hasn't finished their own. Maybe because most designers are perfectionist and we dont want something unpolished in our own site.

But this kind of thinking is not productive. So I am promising myself that I will finish my site in a month's time. I'll be having Smart Bro wifi installed at home by next week so I dont have to rely on starbucks, seattle's best and netopia for my surfing needs. Ah yes, I'll need testimonials from my satisfied clients to boost my site :)

Go get your own web presence, buy yourself a domain. By any other measure, it's cool to have your own domain name. forget the others things I have said, hahaha!

Great Photography

2007-02-13T10:56:00.000+08:00

Just launched a new site for my photographer friend - www.rommelbundalian.com

No, do not visit the site because I promoted it, visit it only if you want to see great photography. This guy is a genius when it comes to composition. and again dont take my word for it, visit his site.

There are many categories to choose from if you want to see his work, ranging from landscape, landscape with figures, fashion, still life, people, home interiors , wildlife, digital art and digital paintings and foodshots which has not yet been included yet.

His specialty is wedding photography. He has done so many "who's who" in wedding photography. and the guy says he's a graphic artist first before he is a photographer. You can see the proof by checking out his wedding album layouts.

The design of the site, like most photographers want is based on flash galleries. I used freeware flash gallery by airtightinteractive.com - Simpleviewer andAutoviewer. the colors are mostly neutral, to make the photos stand out. because thats what photographers site should be, about photos. Not so much on the design because the goal is to present photographs, so the photos should be neatly presented.

I used Picasa to export the flash gallery, then tweaked and customized the xml part to suit my client's taste and preferences. I actually did so many designs before we got to the final design, but I was more than happy to build this project. As a amateur photographer myself, I just marvel at rommel bundalian's work. he is just so crafty, not to mention talented in his line of work, and he tries to learn everyday and by no means satisfied at the moment.

Dont take my word for it, check out one great photographer.

Blog Parteeh ‘07

2007-01-22T15:16:00.000+08:00

I believe this is a first blog party here in the Philippines. And I'm sure I dont want to miss this out!

The Blog Parteeh! 2007 is the largest blogger meet-up ever organized by bloggers for bloggers. The Steering Committee has worked so hard to organize this event and find sponsors. So, to make the process of joining the event more interesting and spicy with a bit of a buzz, scroll down and read how you can be part of this parteeh!

How to Get Invited

Since this event is for bloggers, we expect that you an active blog (you know what we mean by active). The program of the party was designed to revolve around your blog and fellow bloggers will get to check out your blogs before, during and after the event so be sure to get it all spiffy and updated.

I could rant and rant about it but you should go check out the website for more details, and oh, see ya!here's hoping you can go.

The Mother of All Freebies - OpenServing

2006-12-13T13:37:00.000+08:00

On December 11, 2006 Wikia Inc launched Openserving.com which gives away free hosting services and much more.

The service allows you to register now but you will have to wait for the customer support to notify you when your account is ready to use.

The six pillars of Wikia’s OpenServing offering are: FREE software, FREE bandwidth, FREE storage, FREE computing power, FREE content over the Internet, and GIVING AWAY 100% of the ad inventory and revenue to bloggers and website owners who partner with Wikia. By tapping Wikia’s OpenServing utility, anyone can set up and maintain their own collaborative content project for news and opinions for free.

The service is like a blog and a forum combined because you can collaborate with others on the topic of your website. This is like a yahoogroup on steroids. and combine that with free storage and you have got a winner in your hands.

There is a similar service on wetpaint.com and I've also checked it out and there seems to be a good community there and the featured websites are really helpful and interesting.

Psiphon - access blocked sites

2006-12-04T13:16:00.000+08:00

What is psiphon?

psiphon is a censorship circumvention solution that allows users to access blocked sites in countries where the Internet is censored. psiphon turns a regular home computer into a personal, encrypted server capable of retrieving and displaying web pages anywhere.

psiphon operates through networks of trust. There are psiphon providers who install and administer a psiphon server (psiphonode) in an uncensored country, and psiphon users (psiphonites) who login and access the server from a country that censors the Internet.

How does psiphon work?

psiphon acts as a "web proxy" for authenticated psiphonites, retrieving requested web pages and displaying them in a user's browser. psiphon uses a secure, encrypted connection to receive web requests from the psiphonite to the psiphonode who then transports the results back to the psiphonite. There is no connection between the psiphonite and the requested website, as psiphon transparently proxies the request through the psiphonode's computer allowing the psiphonite to browse blocked websites seamlessly.

Read more about psiphon and what it can do.

finally, PortableApps Suite 1

2006-11-21T16:33:00.000+08:00

I have been blabbering about portable apps since last year and the journey has been great. One effect that it had on me is I am now leaning on open source applications to help me 80% of the way in my web development work. It may not be a 100% because the research and development of paid software is really great.

PortableApps Suite is a collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you're ready to go.

Go Check it out! It just might change the way you work. It did, for me.

Media Convert - convert anything online

2006-10-20T16:50:00.000+08:00

Media Convert will convert any file to another format that you choose. Media-Convert is 100% free. No software is needed, and you don't have to register. You only need your favorite Internet browser. Your files are ready 7/7 days 24/24 hours.

This is a great service as you dont have to buy, install anything to your computer, just a browser and internet connection.Whatever file format you have, there's a good chance Media-Convert can convert it, including dozens of audio and video formats, a ton of common and obscure image formats, documents from Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, and others, compressed archives, and more.

One particularly neat trick it can do is convert PDF documents to Adobe Flash (SWF) movies. It can also capture web pages as images, convert Microsoft Access databases to Excel spreadsheets, and, in case you're into this sort of thing, convert text documents to morse code. Of course, it's not lightning-fast. You have to upload your file or enter the URL of a file and then wait awhile while it's converted, but far as convenience and price,(free!) now that's a good deal.

The Amazing Google Docs

2006-10-17T11:34:00.000+08:00

Amazing. This is what I can say about Google, and that should be an understatement for the rest of us. I'm writing this blog directly from Google docs which is powered by Google writely. I found it on my gmail header, the former spreadsheet link was now docs and spreadsheetlink. I just had to try it out.

Here are some features I found:

You can write documents and save it as text, rtf, html, word, open office and even pdf
It automatically saves at certain periods. (no crashes here)
You can edit the html format. for a web designer(like me) that is good :)
It produces clean and lean html, and possibly accessible documents
There are drop-down menus to format your documents, good usability techniques
You can publish your documents to your blog and it's easy as a-b-c to set it up, took me 10 seconds though

With this open source tools and the likes of open office and portable apps , who needs microsoft? Not me, definitely

Union Bank, Mozcom set Excellence Awards

2006-10-04T10:28:00.000+08:00

Entrepreneurs from top universities in the country invited to join the "First Entrepreneurial E-commerce Excellence" or E3 Award sponsored by the Union Bank of Philippines and Mozcom, an information technology provider.

This e-commerce advocacy campaign is open to all duly enrolled college or post graduate students from reputable schools. Each contestant must submit an e-commerce entry - any business project that would require an online payment or transaction component.

Business concepts developed for the competition may use commercial or open source development tool and platforms. Individuals or groups who wish to join must complete the entry from (http://www.payeasy.ph/e3.asp)together with the product / service write-ups sent to Mozcom, Inc on or before Nov. 15, 2006. A single party may submit more than one entry.

How to Charge a Client

2006-08-28T10:03:00.000+08:00

this is a re-post, the original article is here

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a bold woman approached him.

"It's you -- Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist."
So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

"It's perfect!" she gushed. "You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?"

"Five thousand dollars," the artist replied.

"B-b-but, what?" the woman sputtered. "How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!"

To which Picasso responded, "Madame, it took me my entire life."
===================================

Even Picasso struggled with the same pricing issues that you face as an IP. He understood that it's the skill, the expertise, the end result that the customer pays for, not the time it takes. But customers may need a bit of education to really understand that.

What are you worth? How much do you charge for the wonderful work that you do? How do you communicate your value to your clients? Do you quote an hourly rate, and then present a tally of hours and expenses at the end of a project? That's typical of many IPs, who find this the simplest way to charge their clients. Or do you quote an up-front, flat rate for a project? This eliminates the sphincter-tightening moment at the end of the job when you present your bill. You run the risk, however, of seriously undercharging if the project turns out to be more complicated than you thought it would be.

Monola Robison, a management consultant in Atlanta, Ga., has developed a set of guidelines to determine which approach is most appropriate for a project. "With pricing strategies, the determining factor is how well the outcome of the project can be defined," she says. "The less ambiguous the project, the easier it is to charge by the job. If the scope is broad and ill-defined, then a per-day rate is more appropriate."

Time is on Your Side

Charging by the hour, also known as time-and-materials billing, appeals to many IPs because it's so straightforward. You take your hourly rate, figure out how many hours you've worked, multiply the two, factor in any expenses, and send the bill off to your client. Couldn't be simpler, right?

Charging by the hour is a good option for short-term projects with specific goals.

Charging by the hour is often a good option for short-term projects with specific goals. "If a client wants to pick my brain about a very specific project, like my opinion about a marketing piece, I will arrange a one- or two-hour phone meeting and charge by the hour," Robison says.

Time-and-materials billing can also be appropriate when you're presented with a poorly defined project -- say, a new client calls and says, "Help! Come fix my company! Everything's a disaster!" While a project like this should probably send you screaming in the other direction, accepting it and charging a flat fee would be a big mistake. You simply don't know enough about the project's scope. What if you grossly underestimate the time you'll spend implementing your proposal? You'll end up being grossly underpaid, too. Hourly billing is the only way to go in this situation.

But time and materials billing can result in misunderstandings with your clients. A client might ask, "Why did it take you so long? I had no idea it was going to be so much." Or maybe he'll protest, "I know another consultant who charges $50 per hour less than you do. I'll go with her next time."

Your customers aren't trying to be difficult. They don't know better! Clients ask, "How much per hour?" assuming you and your competitors are all the same and that rates are the only way to differentiate between contractors. But all IPs aren't created equal -- there's a big difference between a management consultant with two years of experience and one with twenty years.

When you're offered a long-term project with clearly defined goals, you should charge by the project.

To answer questions about pricing, you need good sales and communications skills to demonstrate the value of your solutions and explain why you're worth your hourly rate. You also need to be prepared to justify the time you spent on the project, which means accounting for every hour you billed the client.

The Project's The Thing

Of course, charging by the hour isn't the only option -- and often, it's not the right one. When you're faced with a long-term project with clearly defined goals, charging by the project is the way to go. Gail Gudell, an independent accountant, uses this approach. "I act as Chief Financial Officer at three of my clients' companies. They are relatively small organizations, and there is no need for any of them to have a full-time CFO. I developed a specific checklist of duties, forms, and reports that I'm going to provide on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. And I am paid on a contract basis for performing these CFO functions." And this means steady income and stability for Gudell, two things that are hard to find as an IP.

Clients usually prefer to pay on a per-project basis. They're scared of giving IPs free rein and getting a nasty surprise down the line.

Alternatively, charging by the project works well when you're providing one specific service or product to your client. Take, for example, an illustrator who's been asked to draw a picture for a company's brochure. Charging by the hour doesn't make much sense here -- whether it takes him two hours or ten to complete the illustration, it will still have the same value to the company. Why should he be penalized for finishing the project quickly? He should determine what the illustration's value is and charge his client that amount.

A Client's Perspective

Clients often prefer to pay on a per-project basis. They like knowing just how much your services will cost before they sign on the dotted line. They're scared of giving you free rein -- and then getting a nasty surprise down the line.
Al Levi, owner of Oil Services, Inc., a heating company in New York, hires a lot of IPs to help him with various aspects of his business. He likes to pay them on a per-project basis and tells a story to explain why.

"I was traveling with my family in Houston, Texas -- cattle country," he recalls.
"We stopped for dinner at a steakhouse. The waitress recommended the off-the-menu special: Porterhouse steak. She eloquently described its generous portion size and melt-in-your-mouth taste. I ordered it. And the steak was perfect -- absolutely delicious! But when the bill arrived, I discovered the price of the steak: $32.00. And the salad, bread -- everything else -- was extra.

"Now, the steak was great, and $32 may be a fair price for such a nice cut of beef. But the other steaks on the menu ranged from $16 to $23. The price surprised me, and I don't like to be surprised when it comes to purchases. Let me know ahead of time, and I can say, 'Yes' or 'No, thanks.'

"That's how I feel about consulting services, too. I want to know what services will be delivered and how much it will cost before I sign on."

Determining Your Project Rate

Despite the benefits of per-project pricing, some IPs are reluctant to use it because they simply don't know how to decide upon a price. Well, here's a hint: every project-based fee is based on your hourly rate. But instead of figuring out how much time a project took you after the project has been completed, you estimate how many hours it will take you before it's even begun. To come up with a good estimate, follow these guidelines.

Assess the project. What's the problem? What is the full scope of the project? How can you measure results? How will you know when the project is finished?

Then, decide how many hours the project will take. Be realistic. No project ever goes off without a hitch. Add some hours to account for unforeseen problems. Some people even advise IPs to double their first estimate. Multiply the total number of hours by your per-hour rate. What resources will you need? Add these expenses up. Then, before you present the total price to your client, ask yourself, "Should I discount this price because it involves so many hours of solid work? Am I saving time I would otherwise spend marketing and selling another job?"

Adjust your total price according to your answers. Then, sell yourself on the price. Do you see the value in relation to the price? Can you describe the benefits of your service so that it seems like a bargain?

Present your proposal to your client. Don't offer a breakdown of time and materials. Reassure your client that you will hold to the price until the desired, measurable results are achieved, no matter what it takes. If you are efficient at what you do, and you bring the job in ahead of schedule, then you and the client both win.

Be Flexible

So should you charge by the hour or by the project? There's no one-size-fits-all answer. They're both legitimate strategies that work well in different situations. When you're presented with a new project, consider them both, figure out which is the better option, and present your decision to the client. Then it's time to get down to business and start wowing them with your work!

Just say NO! to Speculative work

2006-08-11T18:49:00.000+08:00

I've posted this in my email group but not on my blog. This is a very important foundation for a creative professional. Read on.

The NO!SPEC campaign: Serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.

Our mission: To educate the public about speculative, or 'spec' work.

Our target: Those who use creative services, as well as creative professionals (designers, photographers, illustrators, writers and those in marketing, branding and advertising).

What you can do:

1) Place a "NO!SPEC" logo on your site.

2) Sign the NO!SPEC petition.

3) Distribute the "NO!SPEC" posters.

4) Contact us with your thoughts, comments, articles and insights.

Requirements: The only requirement for participation is putting the appropriate value on your profession.

Head on to their website. It is an interesting read, I promise

The Millionaire Mind

2006-08-10T11:02:00.000+08:00

This are excerpts from a the book by Thomas Stanley "The Millionaire Mind". This show shows the insights of how millionaires in the US think and act. This book is a result of a survey of many millionaires and their similarities. Why review this book in a blog that discusses design? Well, I want to be a millionaire, that's why!And principles taught in this book are applicable to all.

Most of the people profiled in this book became economic successes in one generation. They came from economic ground zero. Most inherited no money. They never received the proceeds of an estate or income from a trust account. How did they do it? Because they are of the millionaire mind.

You may never be able to generate the sizable income that many of these millionaires have earned. You may not become a multimillionaire in a few short years. But you can still benefit from understanding how these people maintained an enjoyable lifestyle at the same time they were accumulating wealth. Only a few people, even those with high incomes, know how this can be accomplished. Those with a millionaire mind know how, and they are profiled in this book.

Similarities of the Millionaire Minds

Nearly all them are (97%) homeowners

About twelve years ago we purchased our current home for an average price of $558,718. The median price was $435,000. We have enjoyed reasonably good appreciation on our home. On the average , it is currently worth $1,381,729. The current median value is $750,000. Thus we have benefitted financially and added our net worth by the appreciation of our homes

In spite of the high value of our homes, we generally have small outstanding mortgage balances

Most of us (61%) live in the homes that are currently valued at over 1 million dollars. But only one in four (25%) paid $1 million for our current homes

One in then purchased a home in the three years that followed the stock market plunge in 1987. Many of us who did were searching for foreclosure

We live in a home that was constructed forty years ago(median year). Fully one in four (25%) of us live in homes that were built in the last ten years

The majority (53%) of our group have not moved in the past ten years. Only 2% of our group has moved two or more times during the same period

Only a minority (27%) og our group has ever had a home built for them. We of the millionaire mind believe that's its better to purchase an existing home than to get into the "building business". It is much less time consuming and probably cost less to purchase homes out of existing inventory

Who among them are likely to have homes built for them? Attorneys! We have to wonder why they are so reluctant to build

Vocations of the Millionaire Minds

One in three (32%) of us are business owners or entrepreneurs. Nearly one in five (16%)are senior corporate executives. Ten Percent (10%) of our group are attorneys, 9% are physicians . The other 1/3 of our population is composed of retirees, corporate middle managers, accountants, sales professionals or new business development officers, enginners, architects, teachers, professors and housewives

Business owners overall are the richest among the group, bur senior executives are often among the ranks of multimillionaires. They account for 16% of the millionaires but for nearly 26% of the decamillionaires, those with worth of $10 million or more

Nearly 50% of our wives do not work outside the home. Those who are employed are business owners or entrepreneurs(7%), sales professionals(5%), corporate middle managers(4%), attorneys(4%), teachers(3%), senior corporate executives(3%), and physicians(2%). About 16% of wives whowere emplyed outside the home are currently retired

About two-thirds of us who are decamillionaires report that their wives do not work outside the home. About one-half of those who do work, work part-time

Education of the Millionaire Minds

We are well educated. Fully 90% of us are college graduates. More than half (52%0) hold advanced degrees

Useful Plug-in for Bloggers (Any blogs)

2006-08-04T16:27:00.000+08:00

Performancing for Firefox (or PFF)is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox

Works with all major blog software
Easy WYSIWYG Editing
Trackback, Technorati and Del.icio.us support

Once installed, just hit F8 or click the little
pencil icon at the bottom right of your browser window to bring up the
blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger
blogs.

A word of caution, just like any blogger tool, you still have to publish your blog post in blogger manually because it has the word verification process. Just like in the youtube video uploader. Enough rant, check it out.

The Benefits of Having A Web Site

2006-08-01T15:47:00.000+08:00

Whatever your business it can benefit from having a web site. If your competitors have web sites you need one too to maintain your competitive advantage, but as well as this, your web site can benefit your organization in many other ways.

A brochure - but unlike traditional paper brochures your site is easily updated, always current and cost-effective.

Your web site acts like a company brochure, but unlike a traditional company brochure your web site is always current and can be accessed 24 hours a day.

Your web site is also high quality, full color, up-to-date and interactive.

Your site can be updated quickly and regularly, keeping product offerings and prices accurate without the costs associated with updating traditional printed literature and the delays of printing, publishing and distribution. A more environmentally friendly solution than traditional paper-based literature and without the distribution costs.

Your products, services and company information can be seen worldwide 24 hours per day. Rather than having to wait for a brochure, customers can instantly access the information they want.

Increase your customer base

Your web site is accessible to hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Your products or services have a worldwide audience - something that would be hard to achieve by other methods.

In addition to this, your website allows everyone to compete on an even playing field, from tiny organizations to the largest of corporations.

Reach a new audience

Many people like to find out more about a company and their services before they contact them and a web site can give your organization the edge over a competitor who doesn't have a web site.

And many regular internet users now prefer to search for a service, product or organization on the internet rather than through a more traditional method like the Yellow Pages. If your organization is not on the internet you could be missing out.

New methods of communication

Not only can you communicate to your customers through your web site, but they can also contact you through it. Your customers will have new ways to contact you. Online e-mail facilities allow people to e-mail you easily. Online forms produce more specific communications and feedback. You can also encourage communications by setting up online quizzes, competitions and interactive questionnaires - valuable methods of collecting visitor demographics and generating leads.

Streamline your processes

Your web site can save your organization time and money. Information such as company news, announcements, new product launches, technical information and user guides can be published on the web site for viewing and download saving you printing and distribution time and money.

e-commerce functionality can be incorporated into your website allowing consumers to order their products and services online, greatly reducing administration expenses. Your e-commerce site will enable customers to order any time so extending your trading hours without the normal necessary human presence or office expenses. Receiving payments over the internet can reduce your collection costs to a fraction of the old ways of invoicing and collection.

Integrate your web site functionality with your back office processes to create a truly automated office system. For example - connect your online ordering system with your stock system so stock availability is always current, automate your technical support processes and introduce new online methods for customers to obtain technical assistance.

Improve customer service

Your customers will be able to find up-to-the-minute information on product and service ranges, availability, costs through your site - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Your customers will have new ways to contact you through electronic forms or e-mail facilities on your website.

E-commerce facilities offering online ordering can save your customers time and administration costs.

You can offer your customers a more personal online experience by creating tailored areas on your site just for use by that particular customer. These sections can have secure access.

New marketing possibilities

Being online opens a number of new advertising options for your business. The internet unites the benefits of print and television advertising (text and graphics plus moving images and sound) and eliminates the usual time and space limitations of traditional media forms.

Methods of advertising available include:

- advertising banner placement on your own site or on other sites
- promotional e-mails which can have images and links to your site, particular areas of your site or even specific products
- downloadable games and screensavers, tailor-made and branded for your business
- digital newsletters

Unlike traditional media forms, the Internet is interactive. It can be an effective, low cost one-to-one marketing tool.

You can create an image for your business with your site. No matter how small your business, with a well designed and constructed web site your business can look like a PLC on the Web.

Improved internal communications

You can have a web site purely for internal use or you can have an intranet extension of your company web site. This site can be used for internal announcements and news, communications, information database and information sharing with areas for employees to post data. Online discussion forums can improve morale and act as valuable information exchanges.

Are you a Professional Web Designer/ Developer? Prove it!

2006-07-27T15:22:00.000+08:00

This is a question that even the best web designers out there may not be able to answer. Why? Because a professional is a member of a registered professional body which has a code of ethics, and stringent conduct requirements - they can be debarred from practicing. Do we have that here? NO. Not even in other countries.

But that should not deter us from creating one and discuss the things that should be done. Molly Holzschlag has discussed this in her website and is a heated topic still. In the Philippines, the situation is the same. But when do we act? if not now, when? If not you, who?

Many professional organizations publish policy and ethics documents relating to how they as individuals treat their clients, each other, how they manage fees, and the kind of treatment their professionalism deserves in kind.

In an effort to mobilize the Web community as professionals, and what it means to be a Web professional, a code of ethics for our profession should arise out of a common group. We owe it to ourselves, each other, our clients, and the profession’s integrity and sustainability at large to begin a time of new professionalism for ourselves.

Would you like to discuss it now?

Disabled workers: The untapped work force

2006-07-27T15:01:00.000+08:00

This is a news clip from US but the concept is universal and can be adopted anywhere in the world.

Disabled workers: The untapped work force
Abridged: Philadelphia Daily News

PHILADELPHIA, PA -- Would you be surprised to learn that the broadcast color analyst for a major league baseball team is blind? Blind since birth, he's never seen a baseball game, but he knows it instinctively. His command of the stats and the players makes him one of the best!And he's not alone.

It's time to discover the benefits of hiring people with disabilities. The limits for people with disabilities are shrinking every day, and yet the need for good workers is growing. As these two facts collide, there is hope that the staggering unemployment rate for people with disabilities will finally begin to fall. The rate hovers between 65-70 percent. It's been that high for a long time, much too long!

This is insanity when you consider unemployment rates overall are near historic lows and the worker shortage is growing as baby boomers begin to retire. Society needs this largely untapped job pool. Hiring people with disabilities is not charity, it simply makes good business sense.
Enable America, a national non-profit that promotes the benefits of hiring people with disabilities, and HireAbility, a Philadelphia-based non-profit that helps people with disabilities find jobs, are working together to shatter the myth that people with disabilities are not as good as able-bodied employees.

ReadSpeaker PodCaster - Easier and Accessible alternative

2006-07-26T11:39:00.000+08:00

ReadSpeaker PodCaster is an On-Line service that makes news feeds automatically accessible to more people in a high-quality and cost-effective way.

There are thousands of companies, blogs, government bodies and other organisations trying to make their news and content accessible as a text-based RSS feed. Podcasting and “Pod radio” are technologies where the RSS feed is enriched with a link (called an enclosure) to an mp3 file. This is widely used by radio stations, national and international commercial and non-commercial broadcasting companies, on line news papers, and so on.

Producing a podcast generally requires access to a recording studio and sound technicians. The requirements are similar to what is used in a radio/recording studio. Many organisations do not have the capacity, resources or time to make their information accessible in an audio format.

With ReadSpeaker Podcaster, the process is automated through text-to-speech (TTS) technology. This means that there is no need to record and publish news items and updates.

Customers

Many types of organizations can benefit from transforming their RSS feeds into podcast feeds with ReadSpeaker Podcaster, including:

# Organisations within the public sector
# Small/medium/large companies and corporations
# Non profit organisations
# Disability organisations
# Blog owners

Increased Accessibility

ReadSpeaker Podcaster is also an excellent solution for people that have problems with reading text, for various reasons. For example, those who are visually impaired, suffer from low vision or low literacy, dyslexicsand people that, assimilate information better by having the text read. These groups in particular benefit greatly from automated systems like TTS.

More details at the ReadSpeaker website...

Google Accessible Search

2006-07-21T10:21:00.000+08:00

G oogle released a new product called Accessible Search, a “web search for the visually challenged.” Though result pages are somewhat less cluttered compared to normal Google results, the point here is not so much to create accessible results formatting, but to rank accessible results higher.

Google writes:

Google Accessible Search looks at a number of signals by examining the HTML markup found on a web page. It tends to favor pages that degrade gracefully – pages with few visual distractions and pages that are likely to render well with images turned off. Google Accessible Search is built on Google Co-op’s technology, which improves search results based on specialized interests. ...

We take into account several factors, including a given page’s simplicity, how much visual imagery it carries and whether or not it’s (sic) primary purpose is immediately viable with keyboard navigation.

Web accessibility is making your website accessible to all kind of users, disabled or not, regardless of what browser they are using.

I will emphasize that accessibility is for all, not for a select group of persons. Because if this is how it is treated then it becomes burdensome for designers/developers. Imagine designing only for a selected audience (nothing wrong with that if that is your purpose) then your site will be have limited use.

Should designers ask for a higher fee because they know accessibility? NO. But they can be given preference when a company is selecting their web designer. Remember that accessibility can directly mean higher sales because more people can access their site and there is a higher percentage of buying something if you can see/ access it (obviously!)

Having laws to make developers comply is a push approach. A pull approach means having the designers comply because there are benefits. When people know that there are business benefits because of accessibility then they will comply, with or without laws.

Related Links - Slashdot, Google Blogoscoped

Big Brother is proud!

2006-07-18T09:39:00.000+08:00

Last week, I attended my sister's graduation. She ( Desiree Mendoza) just finished her Fashion design course at the prestigious Fashion Institute of the Philippines where Renee Salud is the director. For the uninitiated, Renee Salud is a household name in the Fashion Design business (in the Philippines).

Back to my story, there was a fashion show to showcase all the works of the graduates where they imitated the "Project Runway" reality TV show. Out of 40 aspirants, they were trimmed to 25 finalists. There was the formal wear, corporate wear and the Filipinana wear competition. Winners were announced for each category.

Although she did not win in those categories, She won a special category - Best Fashion Illustrator! When these special category was announced, I immediately knew she was a finalist.She has been a perennial winner in these kind of contest, and they narrowed down the finalist to 5 and she was announced the winner, I jumped to my feet and applauded. My sister just became the best Fashion Illustrator in the fashion business!

Watch out for my sister, Desiree Mendoza, she will be a household name in the fashion business, that I have no doubt.

www.mccid.edu.ph Awarded "3rd Disabled Friendly Website"

2006-07-18T09:22:00.000+08:00

I am an advocate for Accessible ICT for PWD's (Persons with Disabilities).

In plain english, that means I try to make my web sites accessible to everyone, disabled or not, even if they are using different browsers (yes, there are other browsers other than Internet Explorer)

These are the kind of people we need to make Philippines a better place to live and having hope for a better future for our kids.

Recently, I mentioned here in my blog about the special award I got for sharing my expertise with CSS and the "impending" Disabled friendly award that DLSU Manila will get. Well, before the DLSU awarding - MCCID has already got that award, thanks to Jojo Esposa and his enviable advocacy for accessibility.

Frankly, Jojo Esposa is commendable in his efforts not only in the technical aspect but also on his dedication to help PWD's as a whole. These are the kind of people we need to make Philippines a better place to live, and having hope for a better future for our kids.

Visit the MCCID site and see for yourself.

Photoshop Seminar at UST

2006-07-10T17:52:00.000+08:00

I conducted a basic Photoshop Seminar today at the UST Main building, Data Center. There were about 18 student who are also volunteers in creating different websites for the University. It was only a half day session with a course outline which was designed for a whole day, so you can imagine the fast paced tutorials I made for those students. But they were all fast learners and got the basics right as we have a ratio of one is to one laptop for each student. And they were all very cooperative.

I was tired after the seminar, drained, as usual in my other seminars but it was worth it. I made the feedback form online and after reading the positive remarks, I was energized again.

How to Plan Manpower on a Web Team

2006-07-04T10:58:00.000+08:00

This is a re-print. The original article is on AlistApart website. There's also a good discussion of the article in that site. I just wanted a copy in my blog so I can search for it easily when I need it. Yup, sometimes I'm not that good on bookmarks, coz there are billions of articles to read on.

************************************

It can be tricky to identify the right levels of manpower for a web team. Indeed, many organisations badly underestimate the amount of work required to keep their sites operating smoothly—they perhaps imagine that once a website is put live, it magically looks after itself. As a result, only the barest bones of proper staffing are put in place.

Fortunately, the problem of defining the number of people required on a web team is not insurmountable. A useful device for arriving at a good answer is the concept of “website scale.”

Step onto the scales

Website scale is a means of describing a site in terms of three parameters:

* size
* complexity
* level of activity

Almost any online venture can be represented in this way—from a small intranet to a massive e-commerce site. The reason website scale is so useful is that it provides a practical means for estimating the number of people needed to carry out the activities of site maintenance. This includes content publishing, feedback monitoring, technical maintenance and general quality assurance.

For example, consider the websites of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Icelandic TV channel, Ríkisútvarpið RUV. Even a cursory review will show that the BBC site is far greater in scale than that of its Icelandic equivalent.

That is, www.bbc.co.uk has more pages, uses a wider variety of more complex technologies, and receives substantially more traffic than www.ruv.is. It can therefore be concluded that a greater number of people are required to support it. The actual amount can be gauged by examining each of the elements of website scale.

Why size matters

In simple terms, the bigger a website is, the more people are needed to maintain it.

Yet, how can the “size” of a site be measured? Is it simply a total of all the megabytes of data it contains? Or, perhaps a count of the number of pages it has online?

In fact, neither of these is satisfactory. A website could contain hundreds of megabytes in just a few video files. Another might host thousands of pages, but each might consist of only a few words.

As a consequence, the best way of calculating website size is the total number of man-hours required to produce and maintain all of that site’s content. This can then be used to estimate the number of people required for support, particularly in the areas of content publishing and quality assurance.

Calculating man-hours

For instance, it may take 3 hours to create and publish a 500 word feature for an intranet; information about medical benefits, for example. This content would then be scheduled for review every six months (to ensure it remains accurate), at a cost of 30 minutes per review. Therefore, an intranet of this type requires 3.5 man-hours to produce and maintain a 500-word article.

If 100 new features of this type are planned, 350 man-hours (eight and a half weeks) are needed for production and review. Given that the average number of man-hours available per person per year is about 1,750, we can now see how staffing is calculated.

For example, the content described above could be maintained by a single person over the course of a year, with plenty of time to spare: 1,750–350 = 1,400.

Although this math is fairly straightforward, recommending precise levels of employment is more complicated because of the ways in which websites differ from one another. For example, a site that contains a lot of video or highly technical content may need far more time for production than one that holds simple generic text.

The general rule is that any site containing a lot of frequently changing features will need far more staff than one with only a few, static pages. The following table shows indicative staffing levels for the three most common grades of website size.

Figure 1. The three grades of website size
Website size	Man-hours	Staffing level
Small	1,500–4,000	About 1–2 people
Medium	4,000–10,000	About 2–4 people
Large	10,000+	From 5 people upwards

Complexity by progression

Differences in manpower can also arise as a result of the technology used to develop a site. This is because intricate websites usually require several people in the area of technical maintenance. In this way, we can say that there are three levels of site complexity.

Basic

Often referred to as “brochureware,” this is the most straightforward type of website. Such sites merely contain information in plain text (HTML/XHTML) hosted on a webserver, with perhaps a few supporting images and downloads. The uncomplicated nature of such sites means they are relatively easy to maintain. A single person with low-level skills may often be enough.

Dynamic

On a dynamic website, content is stored in a database and published according to the requirements of site visitors. Such sites are frequently used by businesses that publish large volumes of information in a standard way, e.g. news organisations. However, (within the terms of the definition used here) it should be noted that a Dynamic site does not allow transactions, i.e. there is no ability to “log on” or to “buy.”

Although the user experience of a dynamic website is similar to that of a Basic site, the technology that underlies it is much more involved. As such, a team of two or three people with good technical skills may be needed for a medium-sized entity of this type.

Transactional

A transactional website is one that uses the internet to host applications in support of business operations or revenue generation. Indeed, some of the world’s best known sites use this as a model for their operations, e.g. Dell.com.

Not all such sites are vehicles for the exchange of money. For example, many corporate intranets can be considered transactional because of the interactive features they contain: timesheets, expense submission, etc. The variety of technology used in transactional sites (application servers, security systems, etc.) means that a team of highly qualified staff is needed for support. Indeed, the largest and busiest sites often employ half a dozen or more people.

Figure 2. The three levels of website complexity
Website type	Complexity	Staffing level
Basic	Plain content (HTML/XHTML)	About 1 person
Dynamic	Dynamically generated from a database	About 2–3 people (or more on a very large or busy site)
Transactional	Fully-transactional content, e.g. e-commerce	From 3 people upwards (many more on a large or busy site)

The impact of activity

Website activity is the last and possibly most important factor for planning manpower on a web team. Busy sites inevitably have to deal with mountains of feedback, customer problems, and general issues of upkeep. As a result, complexity has a very strong influence on staffing across all areas of maintenance. It can also have the effect of rapidly multiplying the manpower estimates recommended by website size or complexity.

Two common means for measuring online activity are page impressions and the number of visitors. As a general rule, a site must receive a minimum of 1,000,000 page impressions or 100,000 visitors per month to be considered busy (although many receive far more than that).

The result of such heavy activity means a site is unlikely to function properly without a full complement of maintenance personnel. Indeed, a busy site that is also large in size and transactional in nature may need dozens of staff to keep it up and running.

Figure 3. The three levels of website activity
Level of activity	Page impressions
Quiet	0–50,000 a month
Intermediate	50,000–1,000,000 a month
Busy	1,000,000+ a month

Many managers simply don’t understand why some website require a substantial maintenance staff—and this can lead to chronic understaffing. Overcoming this attitude is among the greatest challenges to be faced by a web team; with luck, the principles outlined in this article will help.

Plaque of Appreciation from Philippine Government

2006-07-03T13:59:00.000+08:00

Last week, I attended a Post evaluation meeting regarding the recent National Webmasters’ Interface on Accessible ICT for Persons with Disabilities. The Agenda was to have more plans of action for the proposals that was made during that conference and Awarding for some individuals and websites who have complied with accessibility guidelines of the W3C.

I was surprised that the DLSU website (which I previously worked on) was one of the recipients of the Accessibility award. Surprised in the sense that I thought the site needed some more work before it gets the acessibility award. I guess it does deserve this award because we were one of the first to execute our willingness to comply not only on intentions but on actions.

The other accessibility award was given to Jojo Esposa of the MCCID, which recently has been Mr Accessibility Webmaster (at Cebu) and a member of the Guild of Accessible Website Designers, a worldwide association of professional organisations, web designers and developers working together to promote the use and preservation of accessible design standards

NCWDP, NCC & DSWD also handed out plaque of appreciation awards for me, yours truly, for delivering a talk on CSS (Cascading style Sheets) as an accessibility tool to make "disabled-friendly" websites.

If Microsoft designed the iPod

2006-06-28T14:11:00.000+08:00

My first video blog using youtube.com and wanted to test it using a video that contains humor. Hah!I still think it's hilarious not to mention realistic.

I think I will be adding CSS and Photoshop tutorials in the future. I just hope Youtube.com will be as reliable as Google in terms of service or my video blogs will go awry if Youtube goes down the tube :)

A Useful Plug-in and Web Developer Resources

2006-06-27T11:00:00.000+08:00

I'm using Mozilla Firefox because of it's extensibility. With plug-ins and/or extensions you have got more than a browser.

Recently I tried using StumbleUpon extension for Firefox and signed up for a free account while making choices on what subjects I want. I got really excited when I tried using it on the subject of Arts. It was really awesome! The quality of websites that it lets you browse are really good. In fact, I had to stop myself browsing the sites it featured because I might spend the whole day using the extension!

The next day I used it for browsing the subject of Web Development so I can use the plugin for searching ways to help me at work. And help it did. So many websites out there that can help me in my work and StumbleUpon had done the dirty work (ok, the contributors did!)

StumbleUpon helps you discover great websites.With a single click, you can find and share cool sites matched to your interests. Download it now!

More on web development, I believe I have ranted upon Mollio.org a month or two before because they are giving away css positioned web design templates and they are really good. And now I have found another resource similar to this - Ruthsarian Layouts - Check it out as they have more templates than Mollio and they have tested it in a variety of browsers and have enough documentation so you can edit the designs.

Be forewarned that you as the developer should try to make the template better by editing it and adding some enhancements. It's a mark of a good designer, take something good and make it special. That's what creativity is for.

Free CSS/HTML template roundup (found at lifehacker.com): Ruthsarian Layouts - 6 good-looking, free CSS page layout templates, complete with colors, headings, etc; Bluerobot Layout Reservoir - 2 and 3-column page skeleton CSS layouts; Glish CSS Layout techniques - Two, 3 and 4 column skeleton CSS layouts; The Layout-o-matic - enter page width, number of columns, and padding and it generates CSS and HTML skeleton layout; Little Boxes - various box layout CSS stylesheets; Open Source Web Design - various complete page templates free for use; Web Builders’ Toolkit - more links to template resources.

With CSS Multi-element Rollover Generator, you can create two distinct styles of rollover button, using CSS and just one image. The difference here is that you can optionally allow some background space above your image in which to place CSS- controlled rollover text.

Intelligent Menus - using some very simple PHP and CSS you can create intelligent menus that are easy to use and maintain

The DHTML / JavaScript Calendar

Text Generators: Randomly generated typographic filler text (16 languages), Designer's Toolbox, Lipsum, Malevole.

Quick Online Tips: Smart tips, tools, tricks, news and facts, tools and services.

StuckDomains - you’re "stuck" on figuring out the perfect address for your web site? Search for expired or dropped web site domain names by keyword.

XMLHttpRequest & Ajax Working Examples: code snippets and proof of concepts - the links should help get you started on building your own functions with XMLHttpRequest.

Five simple steps to better typography by Mark Boulton

Basics of search engine optimisation @ 456bereastreet

Web Application Form Design: "...input elements should be organized in logical groups so that your brain can process the form layout in chunks of related fields."

Typographie für Webautoren - Christoph Paper

ColorCombos & Web Color Gallery: Combo Tester and Web Color Gallery allow web developers to see how different color combinations work together on the screen.

Conversion from Pantone to RGB and Hex HTML: Metallic Colours, Pastel Colours, 2x Colours, Skin Tones

Unsafe Colormatch enables you to create 24-bit color schemes online - beyond the so-called safe palette. (IE 5.5 or higher)

Color Vision: 1 in 12 people have some sort of color deficiency. When you're designing for the web, this means that 1 in 12 people might not be able to see your site. That's alot of people. This tool helps you simulate the appearance of our site's colors for people with different color visions.

Chromatic Wheel: 12 color chromatic wheel similar to the theoretical chromatic circle. Find and simulate the harmony of your web interface.

Behr | Color Smart

Dulux paint colour range & advice about choosing paint colours

Color palettes and color schemes at Sherwin-Williams

Colr.org - "a site for playing with colors" contains 19655 colors and 6387 schemes.

RedAlt v1.0 - there is a form at the bottom of this page that lets you choose any URL you want to extract colors from. The colors you see are from the site that referred you to this page.

efg's Palettes and Colors Lab Reports

Design and Colour Utilities: CSS Border Test, Colourway, Colourband, Colourband Text, Colour Increments, Internet Explorer Scrollbars, RGB Converter, DOCTYPEs

Patterns: Kaliber10000 | Patterns, Squidfingers | Patterns, Pattern-Bomb, The Inspiration Gallery.

DesignInFlight

All You Need For Accessibility - Tutorials, Tools, Books, Validators, etc: part 1, part 2

Usability Inside

99 Free SEO Tools

Page Rank Update List History - PageRank - PR

NicheBot - Keyword Database (Wordtracker keywords): NicheBot.com combines the Overture keyword selector tool with tools for Keyword Analysis, Keyword Thesaurus, Keyword Lateralus (for lateral thinking ideas for keywords) and even a tool to check keywords and site rankings according to Google. (via www.yellow-llama.com/blog/)

icon interactive Link Popularity Tool is an all in one tool to check the number of pages that link to you in AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Google, HotBot, MSN Search, and Yahoo!, as well as check for your site's presence in DMOZ and Zeal.

SearchBliss: Link Popularity Check, SE Saturation-Index Check, Keyword Verification Check, Meta Tags Optimization, SEO - Optimization Articles, Unbranded SEO Tools

SiteOMetrics: Link Popularity, SE Saturation, Keyword Position / SERP, Google PageRank, Bulk Google PageRank, Google PageRank: Indexed Pages, Alexa Rank, Bulk Alexa Rank

@-web - Suchmaschinen aktuell: an overview of German, European and international search engines, search engines news etc.

DesignLinks.org: Designlinks - German Link Ressource; das deutsche Design & Web design Verzeichnis.

Web design Resources: a directory includes 1616 sites in categories Web design, Flash, Tools online, Media, Editor web, Developers etc.

This list of bookmarks will lead you down the yellow brick road of standards-based web design.

Worry free living

2006-06-23T11:04:00.000+08:00

As I attended the Sunday service at Alabang New Life Ministry last sunday, We were in for a big surprise (and miracle, if I may say so). The guest speaker/pastor was Ray-An Fuentes, the famous singer way back in the 1980's. He has been spreading God's word in Canada and other countries for 18 years.

How is this topic related to design? Well all aspects of your life will improve when you hear him speak, not just your design sense,guaranteed

His topic was "Keys for a worry free living". He quoted the scripture from Matthew 6:19 -34. And explain it, he did. And more. This was the best explanation of those verses I have ever heard, and I have read these verses more than once.
After the service, I approached him and thanked him, and adding that if ever he needs some help in building or maintaining his website, just give me a call or an email. If some of you who are reading this blog needs help in your church's website, email me at reymendoza@gmail.com All my services for the Lord is free, to help spread the good news.

And for the last 5 days I have never felt so peaceful in the long run, Ray-An has definitely done God's work through him. God Bless Ray-An.

here is Matthew 6:19-34

6:19 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;
6:20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume,and where thieves don’t break through and steal;
6:21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
6:22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.
6:23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
6:24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
6:25 Therefore, I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
6:26 See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you much more value than they?
6:27 “Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?
6:28 Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin,
6:29 yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.
6:30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?
6:31 “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’
6:32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all thesethings.
6:33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
6:34 Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.

Keep that video!

2006-06-23T11:02:00.000+08:00

Ever liked a video in youtube? Well, most of us do. And we want to keep some of them to show it to our friends (think cool factor).

I have and mp4 player and recently I discovered how to keep those flv video format from you tube and transfer it to my portable video player to watch during my daily commute. Here's how;

Go to youtube.com and search for your video, get the (url)link of that page

Go to http://keepvid.com - read the instructions there and download that video

Download the free encoder (and flv player, if you want)to convert your video in the format that your player can read at rivavx.com

There are other ways to do it, but by far, this is the easiest way for me, no mess, no fuss. Enjoy your video!

Recap - National Webmasters’ Interface on Accessible ICT for Persons with Disabilities

2006-06-01T11:50:00.000+08:00

This is the summary of the National Webmasters’ Interface on Accessible ICT for Persons with Disabilities, a conference I attended last May 15-18 at Mango Park Hotel, Cebu City. The recap is written by Ms. Nelia De Jesus, Chief, Technical Cooperation Center of NCWDP or National Council for the welfare of disabled persons.

National Webmasters’ Interface on Accessible ICT for Persons with Disabilities “Empowering Persons with Disabilities through ICT” Mango Park Hotel, Cebu City May 15-18, 2006

The impact of the three Workshops (Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) jointly launched by DSWD, NCWDP and CICT greatly inspired participating agencies to come up with “disabled-friendly” websites as a tool to generate IT-related work opportunities with and for persons with disabilities.

The increasing IT-related jobs brought in by western countries’ outsourcing trends have opened up opportunities for many Filipinos, those with disabilities included. Medical transcriptions, call centers, data conversion and others continue to boom and the disability sector wants a part of the actions.

To adequately equip the sector, the government aims to make all its programs open to them through full web accessibility and usability supported by all members.

The National Webmasters’ Interface Workshop on Accessible ICT for PWDs held on May 16-18, 2006 at Mango Park Hotel, Cebu City was participated in by 60 webmasters and advocates from Government Organizations, Non-governmental organizations, academe and organizations of persons with disabilities from the three cluster groups (Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) with the theme “Empowering Persons with Disabilities through ICT”. It aims to facilitate sharing of experiences and contributions of participants in promoting accessible ICT for PWDs and assess the impact of the Luzon Visayas and Mindanao Workshop, formulate national standards, guidelines and policies on website accessibility among others. No less than Mr. Leo N. Valdes has given this project his full technical support as the main person.

Prior to Day 1, Mr. Leo N. Valdes, Managing Director of Vision Office, Canada gave the group a crash course on HTML. He also shared with them some basic skills/techniques on how to develop accessible ICT for the PWD sector. Expectation setting followed the HTML crash course. The participants expectations were summarized as follows: come up with a dynamic network of accessible ICT for all, new techniques on website accessibility and technology transfer to their respective agencies. The workshop objectives and mechanics were presented and were found to be meeting the expectations of the participants. To draw positive working relationship among participants, they went through a familiarization activity using the sign language.

For Day 1, the workshop was officially opened through a prayer VTR in sign language entitled “The Warrior is a Child” led by Mr. Ervin R. Reyes, a hearing impaired person from the Manila Christian Computer Institute for the Deaf (MCCID). Representatives delivered opening messages from the Regional Committee for the Welfare of Disabled Persons (RCWDP), National Computer Center-Communication on Information and Communications Technology (NCC-CICT) and the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons (NCWDP). Executive Director Catalina L. Fermin shared the message of Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral, which recognized the computer technology as an opportunity for better employment of persons with disabilities. Likewise, Director Fermin challenged all the participants to take effective steps to develop accessible ICT for PWDs. In behalf of Mayor Tommy Osmeña, Mr. Conrado Ordesta III welcomed all the participants in Cebu City and expressed his gratefulness to the organizers in choosing Cebu as the venue of the activity. Further, Ms. Belen Yntig represented Regional Director Ernesto Beltran of Technical, Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and Chairperson of the Regional Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons (RCWDP). Mr. Beltran sent his message of assurance that TESDA Field Office VII would continuously support all the undertakings towards the attainment of the workshop goals and would remain a strong partner of the RCWDP.

APCD Project Director Ms. Kannita Kamolwat shared with the participants their heartfelt thanks to the organizers for inviting them to the workshop. She assured everybody that their organization will join hands with the organizers in this endeavor by sending expert resource persons in the persons of Mr. Hisao Chiba and Mr. Raksak Chairanjuansakun to future activities of the group.

In the plenary Mr, Chiba and Mr. Raksak of APCD discussed the current web accessibility situation in the Asia and the Pacific. They also answered questions on strategies and support being undertaken in Thailand in the field of education and accessible environment. On the issue of the effectiveness of push (legislation) and pull (incentives) strategies, they both agreed that the approach varies from one country to another considering cultural and economic differences.

In the afternoon, Mr. Rey Mendoza, of the University of Sto. Tomas discussed some tips and techniques using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) followed by presentation of Mr. Chiba and Mr. Raksak about the benefits and advantages of Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) in creating Digital Talking Books. Lastly, Ms. Grace Amberong also shared to the body that her group developed an accessible Content Management System based on the Manila ICT design recommendations which can be used by anyone in developing an accessible website.

Day 02 started with a prayer by Ms. Mila Maquiling and recapitulation by Mr. Ariel Nengasca of Day 1 activities. Formal Working Group Discussion started with the break-up of the participants into two groups to discuss:

Philippine Accessible Design Recommendations and

Promoting Accessibility to GOs, NGOs, Educational Institutions and Business.

In the afternoon, each group selected a leader to present discussion outcomes. For Group 1 (Philippine Accessible Design Recommendations) it made a rough draft of proposed coding standards considering various standards such that of the National Computer Center and the UN-ASPA to be reviewed by a Technical Working Group composed of ICT experts to be identified by the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons.

On the other hand, Group 2 presented the advantages and benefits of an accessible website such as cleaner codes result to lesser utilization of bandwidth which translates to savings and an accessible website attracts high traffic and wider audience that would eventually results to sales increase. They also made some recommendations on how to promote accessible ICT in the country. They are the following:

The need for legislation (push approach), to ensure compliance to the set guidelines or standards

Provision of incentives (pull approach) to complying agencies

Design a seal of accessibility that could be downloaded and attached to the website

Integrate ICT accessibility in the IT curriculum from primary to tertiary education

Form a network/ association of web developers committed to website accessibility to serve as an advocacy group

Require bidders of government transactions to secure an accessibility certification from the CICT-NCC

Conduct a summit of ICT Champions to look into accessible ICT.

Organize a team of webmasters from the Luzon Visayas and Mindanao Workshops to serve as Resource Persons and trainers of web accessibility.

In the afternoon, Ms. Mercy Nicolas of the National Computer Center presented to the group the APEC Digital Opportunity Center Project and encouraged everyone to join it. After which, participants and organizers went to a field visit to Nova Foundation’s data conversion project in partnership with Ynfinite-Datacon. Participants interviewed 8 deaf encoders regarding their job and corporate experiences in the company, then the group proceeded to MICS department of the Cebu Mayor’s Office where they were oriented on their facilities and on how supportive the Mayor to other disability programs.

After dinner, participants had their socialization and team building activities where everyone participated actively and had fun bonding.

The third and last day was opened by a prayer from the representative of the host team followed by recapitulation of the 2nd day. Then, Mr. Noli Agcaoili, President of the Nova Foundation shared their Foundation’s projects and services in providing employment opportunities for Persons With Disabilities and encouraged everyone to study medical transcription, which is very much in demand nowadays. Right after the open forum, selected participants shared with the group what they have learned about the workshop and how they can help promote accessible ICT for PWDs.

APCD Team composed of Ms. Kamolwat together with Mr. Chiba and Mr. Raksak thanked the organizers of the workshop and expressed their appreciation of the government’s nationwide efforts to push for accessible ICT. They have learned a lot from the resource persons and experiences of the participants and they look forward to the success of its implementation. Participants also thanked everyone for the new techniques and situationers from Mr. Valdes and organizers, respectively.

During the closing ceremony, Mr. Valdez thanked all the stakeholders, participants and partners who attended the workshop and gave two phrases to be remembered by all. First is that “attitude” is the real disability and “Its not what life deals to you but its how you deal with life.” On the other hand, Director Romo of the DSWD – Field Office VII also thanked also all the participants especially the global expertise of the resource person. He also discussed the various projects of the Department supportive of Persons With Disabilities and committed to propose to include ADVOCACY on Accessible ICT in the agenda of the next meeting of the Interregional Committee on Social Development in Region VII. Lastly, Director Alicia S. Bonoan of the Social Technology Bureau expressed her gratitude to all the participants of the workshop. On behalf of DSWD, she was very happy with the outcomes of the activity. She was very pleased to tell the group that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would never stop its commitment to help bolster economic independence of the disadvantaged sector of our society, especially Persons With Disabilities. She committed that the DSWD will always be a partner in promoting accessible ICT for PWDs, which is considered one of their human rights.

Web Design Helpers

2006-05-31T16:56:00.000+08:00

Yup, you can do web development on a shoe string, but of course not without it's downside, which is of course a little harder to do.

It's a good thing there are some "web design helpers" out there which makes our life a little easier.

Gliffy - Need to draw a diagram or a sitemap? Do you use Visio? Gliffy is a suite of online applications designed to replace expensive and difficult to maintain desktop software. Since Gliffy applications work in any web browser, sharing your work is made simple.

With Gliffy, you can do:

Website layouts/wireframes

Flow Charts

Floor Plan

Class Diagrams

Network Diagrams

Database schemas

Website layouts/wireframes

Workflow documents

Seating Charts

And more... just use your imagination!

Icons, don't you just love them? FamFAmFAm is giving away free icons and for a web designer , this is a welcome development. The icons are very useful. Not to mention very beautiful.

Awakened, Again.

2006-05-23T14:07:00.000+08:00

Attending the "National Webmasters Interface on Accessible ICT" rekindled my soft spot for People with Disabilities (PWD's). The first time I attended the Accessible ICT Training on 2004, was an eye opener. This follow up workshop rekindled my ongoing drive to make my web designs accessible to PWD's

This time around, the government and academe webmasters made a plan on how to tackle the problem on the national level. There were 2 teams, one on defining the minimum technical standards and two, a team which will promote the cause on a national level. Team one, which defines the minimum standards, was formed even if there has been a standard set by W3C because based upon the experience of developed countries, the minimum standards is hard to implement, especially on the economic scale. Discussions arised upon why standards should be lowered or not but eventually boiled down to the capacity of the implementing country/region.

I wanted to promote accessibility on the national level, that's why I joined Team number two. Again, plans were made and here was the output:

Group 2: Promoting Accessibility to GOs, NGOs, Educational Institutions and Businesses

How do we convince GOs, NGOs, Educational institutions and Businesses of the value of making their website accessible?
• Business Benefits -
There would be an increase in customer base and a wider audience o Clean codes, less download time and more usable website, which means lesser costs for bandwidth o High ranking google search, businesses are easier to find

Should we use push (legislation) or pull (incentive) strategies to promote accessibility?

Strategies in promoting accessibility will be different for GOs and private sector.
- For GOs, push (legislation) strategy is recommended. There should be a stronger law for disable persons which will include the ICT (BP 344 does not include ICT). But since passing a law in our country will take a time, an Executive Order may be issued first by the President to compel GOs to implement web accessibility in all government agencies.
- For private sector, the pull (incentive) strategy is more appropriate in promoting accessibility. The following are being suggested:
- There should be an award-giving body to give recognition and other incentives to websites that comply with web accessibility.
- A seal of accessibility may be given to all pwd-friendly websites.
- Only those web developers who are TESDA certified for web accessibility will be able to participate in government biddings of all ICT related projects.

How do we educate current and future webmasters and practitioners on the technical aspect and benefits of accessible design?

Form an association of web developers who will be willing to do training of other web developer on web accessibility.

Integrate ICT accessibility in school curriculum and in all trainings being conducted by different government agencies and private sector.

Hold a summit for all ICT champions, organizations, etc. in order to make them aware of the importance of web accessibility as well as its benefits.

Use the tri-media technology. Flyers and brochures may be given to the public to make them more informed about web accessibility. Similarly, radio, television, and the internet are effective tools that may be used in disseminating information.

Sadly, it was overlooked to have a plan of action in implementing this output from the two groups. But that wont be a problem, we, the participants will be the one to plan the course of action, and hopefully the Philippine government will support us through the DSWD and NCWDP.

The CSS Song

2006-05-15T13:46:00.000+08:00

In a different approach in promoting CSS and Web Standards, a css song has been made.

Well, it's not an award winning song and the vocals at the start is a little bit hard to comprehend, but reading the lyrics while listening to it made it easy to understand (now, that is usability!)

I'm attending a conference on Accessibilty for PWD's (Person's with Disabilities) tommorrow and maybe we can do something similar. I'm not sure though if the hearing impaired will go with that idea though.

Enough rant, listen to the CSS Song! by the way below is the lyrics just to tease you. The lyrics are also shown in the CSS Song webpage, so you shouldn't have any problem understanding the song.

Complete Lyrics of Hands to Boag

The supervisor rants. He says “This website’s pants! I want my clicks improved by Friday!”

I hit the URL. It’s like the bowels of hell. God give me strength. It’s just not my day.

So raise your hands to Boag and pray that we can fix this website today.

Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards.

The source code makes me weep. There’s tables fifteen-deep. In Netscape 6 it looks like garbage.

The METAs say this turd was made with MS Word. With every click I find new carnage.

So raise your hands to Boag and pray that we can fix this website today.

Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards.

Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards.

I guess I’ll have to start from scratch - then I can kiss this piece of trash goodbye…

Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards.

Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards.

I guess I'll have to start from scratch - then I can kiss this piece of trash goodbye...

ohhh…

Photoshop Podcasts

2006-05-05T10:45:00.000+08:00

To say that I love photoshop is an understatement. I think I can grow old with this software as it lets me express my ideas in infinite ways.

Well before anyone can begin expressing his or her ideas, you have got to learn how to use it. And in this point of time, there are new ways to learn photoshop.

Enter Video podcasts. These are free video broadcasts from experts that teaches photoshop. What better way to teach photoshop than videos. These are softwares that tackes visual effects so you have to teach them visually.

These are some of the podcasts that are available:

Podcast News - Latest Podcasting News & iTunes Updates

All About Podcasts - Introduction To Podcasting

Photoshop TV - Featuring "The Photoshop Guys"

Photoshop Podcast From Russell Brown

Photoshop Radio - Photoshop Podcast From NAPP

Attention Photoshoppers! - Photoshop Podcast With David Biedny

Media Artists Secrets - Pro Designer Podcast With Franklin McMahon

Inside Mac Radio - Industry News Podcast

Secrets Of Podcasting - Podcast Book (with sample chapter)

Want more?

Yahoo! has launched a new directory for podcasts. Yahoo! Podcasts indexes podcast series and individual shows from across the Web, complete with detailed search results, most popular and highest rated lists, editorial picks, and a full collection of tools you can use. The tools include ratings, reviews, and the ability to tag audio content, or view the tags that other people add.

Google launches Free 3D modelling tool

2006-05-02T10:33:00.000+08:00

Google SketchUp gives you the power to create 3D objects

I have been waiting for months since Google acquired this company. I know that they will be releasing this as a freeware soon. That soon is now, check it out! There are also available video tutorials from the website so you can get going fast. Really easy to use.

Google has released yet another beta software package: SketchUp. SketchUp is an application that allows you to create your own 3D objects, color and texture your designs, use real-time shadowing effects and grab from a large library of pre-configured objects to add to your design. And as is always the case with most of Google's software, it is completely free. There is also a commercial version called SketchUp Pro 5 which has a host of additional features, but you may want to take a stab at the free version first to see if it's suitable for your needs. From Google:

Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program whose few simple tools enable you to create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects – even space ships. You can add details, textures and glass to your models, design with dimensional accuracy, and place your finished models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. Google SketchUp (free) is a great way to discover if 3D modeling is right for you.

SketchUp (free ) includes these tools:

* Drawing and modifying geometry: Polygon, FollowMe, Offset, and Intersect with Model.
* Construction: Dimension, Tape Measure, Protractor, Section Slice, Layers, Area & Length Calculation

Using SketchUp (free ), you can:

* Draw, modify, measure, rotate, and scale geometry.
* Place section slices to view and work on model interiors.
* Add pre-made textures to your models, or create new ones.
* Add pre-made components like trees, cars, doors and windows, and people to your models, or create new components.
* Soften and smooth faces.
* Cast real-time shadows for any location on earth.
* Simulate movie camera placements.
* Perform walk-throughs.
* Create presentation tours.
* Import 2D images (.jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, .bmp) and 3D models (.3ds, .dem, .ddf, .dwg, .dxf, .skp).
* Export your models to Google Earth.
* Export 2D images of your models (.jpg, .bmp, .png, .tif).
* Print your models.
* Create add-on programs using the Ruby programming language.

CSS Naked Day

2006-04-20T14:44:00.000+08:00

There was a call for designers earlier this month (April) to have their websites stripped of their CSS for a day. This was called the CSS Naked Day on April 5, 2006. The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple.

Plain, yes. Simple? Definitely NO. There are certain considerations for the owners of the website that is just too much to ignore to participate in this endeavor. While we Web Designers are all for web standards because of its benefits both to us the designer and to the client, there is a difference between promoting standards and stuffing it down the throat of everybody.

First, what will happen to the users when they get to their site and they have to navigate differently from they have been accustomed to? That's is a big usability issue!Now, you are promoting web standards and yet you are deliberately short handed on the usability issues. That's not really ideal, is it?

Second, will the clients receive business benefits from this? Probably not, in fact it will stop online sales dead in its tracks because potential buyers will be annoyed by this kind of presentation specially if they have visited the site before. Imagine amazon.com having problems with their customers because their buying habits are changed. Not good, not good. And that frustration may last longer for a day because of the experience. Not good.

I work for a University, if that falls on the online enrollment period, which it did, imagine having students not enrolling because they may have the impression that the site is not working well.

I could go on and on, but my main point is that web standards are for everybody's benefits, but the technical side is for us developers and the business benefits are for the clients, let us not deprive those benefits to the clients for a day, not even for a second.

Problem Solving by Kids

2006-04-03T16:40:00.000+08:00

Last Friday March 31, was my last day as the Senior Web Designer at DLSU Manila. It was also our Summer outing at the Subic Freeport. We went swimming in the morning and went to see Zoobic (Zoo at Subic) where we watched and interacted with a lot of tigers. Interestingly enough, I am moving today to UST, my alma mater, the home of the Growling Tigers.

My post is about my interaction with a kid when I was swimming. Yan-yan, who is the daughter of my officemate, asked me if I knew the names of the mountain surrounding the Subic Freeport. I told her no, obviously because I do not know, but what struck me was her response "Well, would you know someone who knows the name of those mountains?"

I really never taught about it until the weekend that these kids are somehow are role model for us adults in terms of problem solving. One is persistence. As they say nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more ... world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent ...

Another lesson I remembered is that when you think that you have run out of resources, well you haven't! You just have to regroup, think and eventually you will come up with another idea or a resource.

Lightbox JS v2

2006-03-30T15:05:00.000+08:00

Overview

Lightbox JS is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It's a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers. And honestly, this rivals flash presentations as it has its own "cool" transitions. And it's compatible with modern browsers as well as backward compatible. What more can you ask for?

Just yesterday I made a flash album by using Picasa and and exported it into a webpage by using SimpleViewer and it was really a professional way of presenting photos. One caveat though is that many of those who want a copy of the pictures emails me that they cannot save the pictures because it is emmbedded in Flash.

Yeah, I know that it is there in the cache. And the SWF only interacts with the XML to call the JPG pics. (did that make you dizzy?) But not all users are as tech savvy as you. So providing them an album that they can right click and save to their hard drive is much better. That's a usability principle right there. If your users can not understand it, it is probably too complicated for the average users.

What's New in Version 2.0

* Image Sets: group related images and navigate through them with ease
* Visual Effects: fancy pants transitions
* Backwards Compatibility: yes!

See Lightbox in action

Online Project Management

2006-03-24T14:10:00.000+08:00

From 37signals.com, a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based software products possible with the least number of features necessary, comes Basecamp - an online project management tool. All you need is a modern browser (Firefox, IE6, etc)and an internet connection. What is amazing is it was hailed by a former executive of Microsoft Project. It must be good.

Basecamp turns project management and collaboration on its head. Instead of Gantt charts, fancy graphs, and stats-heavy spreadsheets, Basecamp offers message boards, to-do lists, simple scheduling, collaborative writing, and file sharing. Tens of thousands agree it's a better way. Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com said “Basecamp represents the future of software on the Web.”

And getting an account is a breeze. I know these guys are also usability experts so you would really expect an easy to use and an intuitive UI (user interface) for their products.

Go ahead, get a free or paid account, you should try it.

Writely So

2006-03-22T17:25:00.000+08:00

I found this great resource recently bought by Google and as a web designer my immediate idea was to use it as a form of CMS tool online, for other web contributors to use it as a tool and they dont need anything but a browser and internet connection

What does Writely do?

Writely allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish and blog them online.

What exactly can I do with it?

You can:

* Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
* Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
* Invite others to share your documents (by e-mail address).
* Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
* View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.
* Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
* Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF*, HTML or zip.
* Post your documents to your blog.

How much does Writely cost?

During the beta period, Writely is free.

What will it cost in the future?

Our hope is to have the basic service be free, with some extra features requiring a reasonable subscription fee*. We will also be charging license fees to corporations and partners.

http://www2.writely.com/info/WritelyOverflowWelcome.htm

Free Web & Graphic Design Tools

2006-03-14T11:07:00.000+08:00

Yes you can do web and graphic design, virtually free. But not without it’s learning curve and headaches. In my experience, it is more practical to combine freeware and licensed tools (who can beat Photoshop & Dreamweaver?)

Below are some of the freeware tools you can use, not only for web design but graphic design as well. These stuff are recommended by fellow web designers around the world and truly are marvelous. Enough rant, read on and learn!

Color my world

Color Schemer Online provides a simple interface that lets you select a color and instantly see 15 other harmonious colors.

Color Scheme Generator 2 takes a more scientific and complex approach; it includes tools for viewing monochromatic, contrasting, and analogic color schemes. It helps you create balanced colour schemes and see what they look like to people with various colour vision deficiencies.

Inexpensive or free images

A picture may be worth a thousand words. But to a designer, free photos may save a thousand bucks. Stock photography can be expensive—it’s not uncommon to have to pay a few hundred dollars per image, and that can quickly erode a design budget. Few clients want to budget for those things.

Fortunately, there are plenty of online sources for low-cost or free imagery.

MorgueFile, for example, organizes its collection of free high-resolution photos into simple categories such as Animal, Objects, People, and Still Life

Stock.Xchng has a massive selection: more than 150,000 photos. iStockPhoto isn’t free, but each image costs just $1 to $3, and the quality of the photos is better than what you’ll find at most free sites. And you can search the Web with YotoPhoto, a search engine that scours the Web for free images.

What’s your browser?

Most web designers think that they have to design for IE (Internet Explorer) and hack their way to make it work in others browsers.

Sorry folks, that is not the way it’s supposed to be.

This is how it should be. Design your website and make sure it works in browsers that support web standards like Firefox, (and personally I like Opera but not too many uses this at this time). When it is working in a web standard browser, then you hack your way in making it work in IE. That way, you ensure that your work will work in any browser.

MeasureIt, a Firefox extension by Kevin Freitas, is a simple tool that can help refine your design process. While viewing a page in Firefox, you drag a rectangle across the page—over a graphic, for example. A shaded box appears giving you pixel values for the width and height. It’s a helpful diagnostic tool, perfect for making sure your designs add up.

It’s your online measuring tape - CSS gives Web designers the power to accurately control their page layouts. With pixel-accurate placement, you can dictate where a banner, sidebar, or graphic should be placed on a page.

Web Developer Toolbar - An essential extension for any web developer/designer as it provides a raft of incredibly useful features all under one roof. You will wonder how you ever managed without it! The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

You can turn off JavaScript to see how a page works without it; add a graphic outline around all block-level elements to quickly identify layout elements on a page; display the size (in pixels) of any block or image on the page; view any cookies currently set for the current Web site; make sure all the links on a current page work; validate HTML and CSS; and plenty more. Web Developer belongs in every Web designer’s toolbox.

Web photo album

JAlbum -this gallery software makes web albums of your digital images. JAlbum aims to be the easiest to use and most powerful tool in this category - and free! My favorite skin for this tool is the banana album.

With JAlbum, no extra software is needed to view the albums, -just your web browser. Unlike "server side" album scripts, JAlbum albums can be served from a plain web server without scripting support. You can also share your albums on CD-ROM.

AutoViewer is yet another Flash image viewing application. AutoViewer is designed to display a linear sequence of images and captions, and also includes an auto-play feature (hence the name). It’s free to use - download and see instructions on how to use.

PostcardViewer is a free Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface.

SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewing application. It can be used for a more formal approach like weddings or corporate images.

And more...

Of course there are more, but that will be in my next post so that you won’t have to read long text. And you won’t be bored.

Cryptainer LE - Free 128bit Encryption Software - Secure your data and ensure absolute privacy with this powerful encryption software. It 's powerful 128 bit encryption, creates multiple 10 Mb encrypted containers (drives) on your hard disk. These encrypted vaults can be loaded and unloaded on need. You can view, modify and hide all types of file with a single password.

Good to Great [Inspirational]

2006-03-01T09:30:00.000+08:00

"Good to Great" is a book by Jim Collins. It is a research, based on companies that performed well above expectations and foresight. This book outlines the things that these companies did well and their similarities.

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great, Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets.

Collins maps out three stages, each with two key concepts. These six concepts are the heart of Good To Great and he devotes a chapter to explaining each of them.

* Level 5 Leadership
* First Who... Then What
* Confront the Brutal Facts
* The Hedgehog Concept
* A Culture of Discipline
* Technology Accelerators

But the one of the things I remember is the Stockdale Paradox which states...

You got to have unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties but at the same time you got to have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.

Read the book. This is one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read.

Vine Type CMS - free, secure and world class

2006-02-28T16:15:00.000+08:00

Vine type CMS
· Lets you create and manage an internet website
· Free for non profit use
· . NET-based web content management
· Secure, world class
· Customizable
· Generates web standards code
· Built in search and site map generator

Vine Type
Vine Branches, the makers of Vine Type is pleased to announce the release to the general public Vine Type Personal - Version 0.98. Explore the ease of use and powerful features that Vine Type provides, then visit the Download Area to get started toward "Content Management with Standards in Mind."

What is Vine Type?
Vine Type is software that lets you create and manage an internet website. Vine Type gives you the ability to add, delete, and edit any number of web pages -- without the overhead and hassle of database or scripting language installation.

And as you add and delete articles and sections, Vine Type adjusts the navigation links automatically. Integrated features such as RSS allows your website visitors to keep track of changes when you make them. Built-in Search and Site Map generation gives your visitors more ways to find what they are looking for.

And since Vine Type was built ...with Standards in Mind, your website will consistently generate W3C valid XHTML web pages. (W3C is the World Wide Web [internet standards] Commision.)

Small Yet Powerful
Vine Type is quite possibly the easiest-to-install, easiest-to-manage, most-user-friendly, most-customizable, most-secure web-standards-compliant Microsoft web server content management system on the planet.

That's a lot of superlatives to claim. Each one of those claims, however, is backed by concrete examples and explanations. There are plenty of content management systems out there. Vine Type does not claim to meet the needs of every sized company or web development project.

For the small-to-medium sized site seeking a standards-based .NET solution, however, Vine Type shines. No other .NET-based web content management system combines ease of installation and maintenance in an internet compliant package as well as Vine Type.

Customizable
Vine Type provides a customizable framework that allows you to wrap just about any look-and-feel around the core Vine Type engine. Vine Type relies heavily on Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) technology -- a technology specifically created to allow skinning websites with different looks.

That's a big reason why web designers appreciate Vine Type. It provides the base engine to add, delete, and edit content, manage menus and navigation, and allows the designer plenty of freedom to customize the website.

Secure
There's no worry of security lapses from breaches in scripting languages or database intrusion, making Vine Type more secure than any other mainstream content management system available. Vine Type removes the worry and obligation to constantly monitor for reports of security breaches. And if there's nothing to install there's no security patches either. Your site's security is as safe as your password - so make it a good one.

World Class
Vine Type's framework accomodates over 100 languages and cultures, persons with special needs, and international internet standards. It is one of a few, or perhaps the only, .NET Framework content management solution that consistently serves up the most recent W3C-recommended XHTML-compliant web pages.

Free
That always sounds good doesn't it? You can download a copy of Vine Type Personal Edition for personal or non-profit use for free. Experience the full range of features that Vine Type offers.

For those wanting to use Vine Type for commercial purposes, there is Vine Type Pro Edition.

Photoshop Actions

2006-02-16T14:00:00.000+08:00

Recently a friend of mine was having problems on photoshop actions.

Question:

I’m trying to use File > Automate > Batch to convert a folder of images from .psd to .jpg format. No matter what I try a dialog box is displayed for each image asking me to specify .jpg characteristics. How can I suppress the dialog to make the process automatic?

Answer

According to Adobe support, “By default, Photoshop doesn't maintain the compression settings recorded in an action if the action is run with the Batch command on unsaved JPEG files. Instead, Photoshop prompts you to enter the compression/quality settings so that you can specify different compression levels for each new file.”

As unintuitive as it sounds, here’s the workaround:

When you record the action be sure it includes a File > Save As… command in which the .jpg settings are specified. Don’t worry about having to provide a folder and file name before clicking OK. These will be overridden in the File > Automate > Batch dialog.

Visit allgraphicdesign.com for more tips

Create a Dreamy, Glamour Effect

2006-02-02T16:11:00.001+08:00

This is a Photoshop tutorial on creating dreamy, glamour effects on ordinary photos. It smoothens skins and can reduce aging lines. Click on picture to view full size image. The smaller photo doesn't do justice to the screen captures.

We will achieve this

1. Open your Photo and duplicate the background layer twice (Control + J)

2. Name the layers Darken and Lighten. (Double click on the layer name)

Click picture to view full size

3. Choose the Lighten layer. Choose Filter > Blur >Gaussian Blur with radius of 30 pixels and set the layer opacity to 60%. Change blending mode from Normal to lighten.

(pixel radius may vary. 30-35 pixels is a good start for hi-res photos)

4. Choose the Darken layer. Choose Filter > Blur >Gaussian Blur with radius of 25 pixels and set the layer opacity to 40%. Change blending mode from Normal to darken.

(you may choose to disable visibility of other layers to see the effect)

5. Click the Darken layer. Shift + click the Lighten Layer. Right click on the layers and Choose Merge Layers.

6. Name the (merged) layer Dreamy. Add a Layer Mask ( choose Layer > Layer Mask > reveal all)

(Reduce layer opacity if desired)

7. Choose a small brush with soft edges and reduce brush opacity to 50%

8. Make the foreground color black. Click the Layer Mask

9. Brush along the lips, eyes, eyebrows, edges of nose and ears to reveal details from the background layer. The viewers eye gravitate towards the sharper details, this is a basic technique for good portraits.

10. Paint back with white if you make any (brushing) mistakes.

11. Flatten the image (Choose Layer > Flatten image)

12. Save as another file. It is a good practice to keep the original file for future reference.

Take advantage of your 1 GB (or more) of RAM

2006-02-01T11:25:00.000+08:00

How do I take advantage of my 1 GB (or more) of RAM?

One of the ways to speed up Photoshop so you're taking better advantage of all your RAM is to enable a plug-in called Bigger Tiles. To do this, quit Photoshop CS2, and then find the ~Bigger Tiles file inside the Photoshop CS2 application folder (Photo-shop CS2>Plug-Ins>Adobe Photoshop Only>Extensions>Bigger Tiles). Rename the file, removing the tilde (~) from the file name, and then restart Photoshop.

Photoshop CS2 states (in its system requirements) that it can run on 256 memory but is really very slow even on 512mb. I do have 1gb of memory and I'm not even satisfied with the speed of it's performance. Good to have this tips at our side :)

Whohooooo! Pacquiao is the (pac) Man!

2006-01-27T15:04:00.000+08:00

Rematch. Revenge. How sweet it is!

If you have been living in the cave and you dont know yet, Manny Pacquiao KO'd Eric Morales in the Jan 21, 2006 fight and we Filipinos can't get enough of our boxing icon and national treasure.

This is my tribute to Manny Pacquiao, free wallpapers. The first one is a Photomosaic, hundreds of photos make up a larger image of Manny

click on picture to download the wallpaper (or right click and save as)470kb

click on picture to download the 8x10 inch poster(or right click and save as)2mb

The second one is a Watercolor version of Manny Pacquiao and colors of Philippine flag behind him

click on picture to download (or right click and save as)324kb

Bookmark the site as I will add some more next week

What Is Graphic Design?

2006-01-26T10:18:00.000+08:00

Graphic design is a business that often involves activities and results whose effectiveness can’t easily be quantified and measured. Yet, in today’s economy, every client must look for ways to economize.

A graphic designers job is to design art and layouts for visual presentations. They use a variety of print, electronic and film media to meet their clients' needs. Most use computer software to generate new images.

Job duties include designing promotional displays and marketing brochures for products and services, developing distinctive logos for products and businesses, and creating visual designs for annual reports and other corporate literature. Additionally, graphic designers may develop the overall layout and design of magazines, newspapers, journals, corporate reports and other publications.

Graphic design is often associated with images. Billboards and magazine ads show us that designers can speak volumes without using the written word. And yet, graphic design is not just about creating powerful picturesthat's what artists, photographers, and illustrators do. It's about communication. In fact, "visual communication" is the most accurate way to describe the purpose of graphic design.

Clients and employers approach the designer with some information that must be communicated to a wide audience. The designer's mission (should he or she choose to accept it) is to bring order and clarity to this information so that others may understand it. You might think of a designer as a special kind of translator who turns dreary old words into an inviting, accessible visual message.

In today's vast information jungle, this is no small challenge. Amid the neon blaze of Times Square or downtown Tokyo, or in the luxurious, glossy expanse of a fashion magazine, simply organizing information is no longer enough. Designers must discover clever metaphors and creative solutions to make their work stand out and grab the attention they are asked to grab.

Web Design Contract Essentials Checklist

2006-01-20T16:22:00.000+08:00

Here's a quick list to use as a checklist against your existing contract:

1. Scope of Work and Scope Creep
Manage scope creep by specifying exactly what is and is not included so you can charge for the additional work, if appropriate.

2. Client Amends and Revisions
Be sure to specify the number of design comps you'll present and to limit the number of revisions you'll allow, or be faced with changes ad infinitum.

3. Dealing With Client Delays
Waiting for a client to provide content can be one of the most frustrating parts of any project. Be sure your contract addresses the issue of what will happen if the client delays, for any reason.

4. Who Owns the Website You've Built?
Whether or not to transfer copyright to the client is probably the most controversial subject among Web professionals. Whatever you decide, be sure you understand how the copyright laws work in the country in which you're doing business.

5. Legal Boilerplate Clauses
Boilerplate clauses such as Limitation of Liability and Choice of Law give you the opportunity to limit the amount of risk and liability you'll incur in the event that you're accused of breach of contract. Failure to include these can result in lawsuits over consequential damages and traveling to other States, Provinces or countries to defend yourself in court.

6. Milestones and Project Completion
Having clearly defined and agreed upon milestones, with "sign offs" on each phase, will prevent the client from requesting changes to a previously approved phase -- or at least from expecting that you should do it for free.

7. Client and/or Third Party Page Modifications
Be sure your contract states that you are not responsible to repair any damage done to the site by the client or any other party if they attempt to modify it (at least, not for free).

8. Maintenance and Technical Support
Unless you enjoyed repeated calls from clients who've lost their email passwords (again), make sure that the issue of Maintenance and Technical Support is clearly addressed in your contract.

9. Payment Terms
You don't want to be ambiguous about when and how often you'll get paid. A percentage up front and the remainder on or near completion date are standard practices.

Interested? read the full article at SitePoint.

Internet users quick to judge

2006-01-17T09:46:00.000+08:00

By Judy Skatssoon for Science Online

Internet users can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.

Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.

When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the participants' ratings were consistent.

"Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression," the Canadians report in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology.

Associate Professor of psychology Bill von Hippel, from the University of New South Wales, says it takes about 50 milliseconds to read one word, making this a "stunningly remarkable" timeframe in which to process the complex stimuli on a website.

"It's quite remarkable that people do it that fast and that it holds up in their later judgement," he said.

"This may be because we have an affective or emotional system that [works] independently of our cognitive system."

He says that in evolutionary terms, this ability helped us respond rapidly to dangerous situations.
Halo effect

Professor von Hippel says the study also reflects the so-called halo effect, where an initial bias towards something drives subsequent judgements.

"This suggests that we make very quick judgements based on some sort of emotional reaction and our more considered judgements still reflect that first impression," he said.

Australian researcher Sue Burgess, who evaluates website useability and is a senior lecturer in information management at the University of Technology Sydney, says the finding comes as bad news to anyone hoping to convey information.

"There's no doubt that people do respond very quickly to websites and decide very quickly whether to stay on them," she said.

She says the appeal of a website is usually tied to colour, movement and interactivity, with the way the information is structured coming second.

Ms Burgess says it is unclear whether the Internet is changing our ability to concentrate for long periods or if we are adapting to the medium.

"There's so much information and ... there's always going to be a lot of clicking around just to see what's there," she said

source:http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1548520.htm