add_filter('woocommerce_add_to_cart_fragments', 'your_own_add_to_cart_fragment');

function your_own_add_to_cart_fragment( $fragments ) {
	global $woocommerce;
	ob_start();
	?>
        //Update basket counter
	<div class="basket-counter"><?php echo WC()->cart->get_cart_contents_count(); ?></div>
	<?php
	$fragments['.basket-counter'] = ob_get_clean();
	return $fragments;
}

So what’s happening here?

Woocomerce will find the Fragment node and replace it with the output buffer.

That means we can update any element using the add_to_cart button.

Yes any..

Want to replace the logo with the total amount of items in the basket? No problem

function your_own_add_to_cart_fragment( $fragments ) {
	global $woocommerce;
	ob_start();
	?>
        //Replace header logo with cart contents count
	<div class="header__logo"><?php echo WC()->cart->get_cart_contents_count(); ?></div>
	<?php
        //Element to be replaced
	$fragments['.header__logo'] = ob_get_clean();
	return $fragments;
}

To review

Get Woocommerce object

global $woocommerce;	

Start output buffer

ob_start();

New content to display on add to cart

<?php echo $my_new_content; ?>
//Remember the Fragment node is replaced so you need to wrap content in html element. 

Note: $fragment Key is used to find node to be replaced. So you could do something like:

    $fragments['.basket-counter'] = ob_get_contents();
    $fragments['.header__logo > strong, .basket-counter'] = ob_get_contents();
    

Notice I used

ob_get_contents()

instead of

ob_get_clean()

That’s really all there is to it.

The post Woocommerce mini cart ajax update appeared first on 416 Studios.

The first set of images from weeks 1 – 13 can be found here.

Week 41 – Star Trails – coming soon

Week 43 – Off-Camera Flash – coming soon

Week 46 – Noir – coming soon

Week 47 – Light Painting – coming soon

Week 48 – Double Exposure – Beach

Week 49 – Bokeh – coming soon

Week 50 – Surrealism – coming soon

Week 51 – Fashion – coming soon

Week 52 – Creative Portrait – coming soon

More images can be found here:

52 Week Photography Project – Part 1/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 2/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 3/4

The post 52 Week Photography Project – Part 4/4 appeared first on 416 Studios.

Below mixture of our “best” images, enjoy…

Some more images can be found on our 416 Studios Instagram and Coffee & Vanilla Instagram as well.

The post 500px Fujifilm Global Photo Walk – Brighton appeared first on 416 Studios.

Images from previous weeks can be found here: weeks 1 – 13 and week 14 – 26.

model: Marissa

More images can be found here:

52 Week Photography Project – Part 1/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 2/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 4/4

The post 52 Week Photography Project – Part 3/4 appeared first on 416 Studios.

The screen is 5″ –  2.5 inch (7 cm) wide and 5.5 inch (14 cm) long.

It comes in a little box, no headphones, charger or other useless gadgets. It charges through standard mini usb which is provided.

It is also sim free, unlocked and uses micro sim cards, works perfectly with GiffGaff network I’m on.

Having use much smaller HTC Desire from couple of years ago I thought it would be a bit to big but I was wrong, it fits pefectly in my hand (and I have quite small hands) and it is not heavy but at the same time it does not feel like cheap plastic phone, which it isn’t.

SPECS

• Motorola Moto G5 comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat operating system (which will be updated to the newest one as soon as you turn on the phone)
• Includes two cameras. A 2 megapixel on the front, with which we can make video calls, and one in the rear with 8MP with integrated LED Flash
• 5″ HD display with gorilla (scratch resistant) glass
• 2 front stereo speakers
• MicroSD card slot up to 32GB
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quadcore processor
• Dual SIM (it has space for another sim if you need separate business / personal phones or anohter one to call different country)
• Comes in black or white version

There is great selection of Motorola Moto G shells on the market to customise your device or you could always make your own DIY mobile phone case like I did (tutorial on our other blog).

I love it… it has everything you could want from a modern smartphone at a ridiculously low price. I’m most happy and surprised by the camera, it takes photos which I can share with my blog readers on Instagram, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter (check quality yourself) but also record videos of children and take photos good enough to print in case I don’t have my proper camera with me. You’d expect 8 GB internal memory to by reasonable for a under £150 phone, but Motorola goes much further by providing a micro SD slot for additional storage, up to 32 GB. It has enough space to install all the apps, music, and photos I needed for a long time and did I mention the price?

6 x 9 print size at 300dpi or 2000 px wide (twice average screen) for internet use at 72 dpi. This is photo taken indoors in natural light (harsh sunlight from the window through the blinds, hence the stripy shadows) unedited image, no colour correction or sharpening… it was sharp enough, even a bit too sharp to my liking.

DISCLOSURE: This post contain some affiliated links. Part of  this review can be found on Amazon website as well. We were not compensated for this post. All opinions expressed here are our own and we retained full editorial control.

The post Motorola Moto G – Mobile Phone Review appeared first on 416 Studios.

Pictured things belonged to him: silver baby cutlery set, stopwatch and couple of photographs… he would be 79 today. My grandfather was executed by communist government on the same date decades earlier…

I find photographing strangers on the street very hard… spent two days taking photos and finally went for one of the first shots.

My mother’s eye…

It would also work as example of reflections or silhouette…

Hoyas are one of my favourite plants, used to have them in our Warsaw flat ever since I was big enough to remember.  More about Hoya carnosa and other wax plants here.

… or bar weather as we say in Polish

Detail from my favourite wooden tray…

Caribbean Dollar coin

Half of the project is done… wish me luck for the other, more challenging themes to come (!)

More images can be found here:

52 Week Photography Project – Part 1/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 3/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 4/4

The post 52 Week Photography Project – Part 2/4 appeared first on 416 Studios.

It was sooo foggy and cloudy that we only managed to capture the end of the event…

The post Solar Eclipse 2015 – Brighton, UK appeared first on 416 Studios.

I will be uploading here images weekly for the next 52 weeks or less if I don’t manage to complete the challenge, wish me luck (!)

Despite the green glare on the glasses and a bit out of focus face, I’m quite happy with the final effect, especially that it took me less than 20 minutes to produce this photo. The hardest part for me was to actually sit down in front of the camera which I don’t feel comfortable with and therefore I hardly ever take photos of myself…

Taken few minutes after 9 am on the Brighton’s seafront, heading towards Marina.

Raw coffee beans on the top of jute coffee bag…

Puddle on East St, Brighton, UK.

Single water drop on the top of Purple Echeveria’s waxy leaf.

Taken in Brighton’s Lanes, it’s a fountain with a statue of boy & girl riding dolphins.

Just a little digger on Brighton (Hove actually) seafront…

My mum’s old scissors, old UNICEF stationery box as background and my granny’s old spool brought from Poland.

Taken from Shard’s Shangri-La Hotel, through the window.

It took me more than couple of minutes of wait for the gulls to appear but it was worth it… I think.

Taken in Brighton not in the Caribbean but every time I pass this place it reminds me of the time I spent working on the ships.

Photo taken in Churchill Square shopping centre in Bright in early morning hours.

The last image in this post and the most challenging so far, quarter of the 52 week challenge is done…

More images can be found here:

52 Week Photography Project – Part 2/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 3/4

52 Week Photography Project – Part 4/4

The post 52 Week Photography Project – Part 1/4 appeared first on 416 Studios.

Lego yellow cab in the “Taxi Driver” movie scene…

My daughter insisted on retaking this as we have finally found Lego gun…

Allison, The Basket Case.

Taken from the tunnel under the aquarium at SeaLife Centre, Brighton.

Vandalized phone booth…

Vandalized phone booth – close-up.

The post Taxi Driver & Other BPG Movie Projects appeared first on 416 Studios.

Today, despite the rain, I took part in Scott Kelby‘s Worldwide Photo Walk 2014: Brighton and had a great time – thanks Dade for organizing this (and the coffee). It was lovely meeting everyone who made it to the event, some even from as far as Venezuela And thanks to Paul for lending me his cloth to clean my dirty lens…

Below couple of images I took, more to come later…

For images from other participants click through to Brighton’s walk Flickr group, to the main group on Flickr for worldwide shots or alternatively visit #WWPW2014 dedicated Pinterest board.

Read more about Brighton’s photo walk here on Dade’s blog.

Update:

Winners of the 7th Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk 2014 has been announced here.

The post Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk 2014 – Brighton (& Hove) appeared first on 416 Studios.

Our older daughter (9 years old) is fascinated with Scratch, she likes also to add cute symbols to her messages but I don’t feel comfortable for her to surf the web to copy and paste symbols from suspicious websites full of pop ups so I thought I will collect all her favourite things here. Hopefully it will be useful for someone else as well…

Those symbols should display properly on most devices and browsers but if not you may need to update it or install some kind of extension like this Chromoji for Chrome.

Bookmark this page, we will be updating it with new symbols shortly…

weather

   ☼ ☽ ❆ ❋ ℉ ℃

astrology

☉ ☿ ☾ ♃ ♄ ♅ ♆ ♇ 

holidays

stars

✧ ★ ☆ﾐ ☆彡 * ✰ ✵ ⁂ ✪ ✯

peace & love

♡ ➳ ⓛⓞⓥⓔ ❥  ༟ ∞

floral

✿ ❀ ✾ ❁ ❊ ❦ ❧ ✽

music

♬ ♫ ♪

games

♞ ♘ ♛ ♕ ♚ ♔ ♤  ♧  ♡  ♢ 

office

☏ ✄ ✑ ✐ ✎     ✆

moods

☻ 웃 유 ت ㋛ ㋡ Ü ッ ⍨ ⍩ ⍢

swirls from foreign characters

෴ ༄ ༺ ༻

useful

# © @ £ € $ ¼ ½ ¾ ❝ ❞ ⓜ

arrows

⇚ ⇛ ➠ ➼ ➽ ➜ ➺ ➩ ➢ ↶ ↷ ↺ ↻ ⇜ ⇝

eyes

◔◔ ʘʘ •• ͼͽ ๏๏  ᵔ ᵔ  ͒  ͒ ◑◑ ◓◓ ̐  ̐

mouths & noses

.. ᴥ ︿ ᎔ ᎑ ◡ _ ‿ ︿ ˷ ˳  ̮  ␣

The post Unicode Text Symbols To Copy and Paste appeared first on 416 Studios.

Texture of the radio speaker, taken with macro lens.

The post Under The Bridge & Other Low Light Images appeared first on 416 Studios.

Click through the images to download full size.

More cover images coming up shortly… also for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

The post Flickr Cover Images – Freebies appeared first on 416 Studios.

Eboony Echeveria from my collection of succulents.

Taken in natural light, no post production except for camera spot removal and colour correction.

Taken on Bermondsey Street near London Bridge in London.

Taken on one of Brighton’s streets…

Taken in Wantage, Oxofordshire while visiting our friends Sylwia & Dan.

Taken couple of nights ago from the pier.

Cute Brighton beach lifebuoy with googly eyes…

Taken with macro lens.

Taken from Brighton Pier just before sunset.

Blossom of Crassula Marnieriana / Jade Necklace / Chinese Pagoda succulent.

The post Green, Red, Blue & Other BPG Projects appeared first on 416 Studios.

The post Postcards from Stunning Places appeared first on 416 Studios.

So Pinterest is a great way of curating things from around the web. It allows you to create virtual pin boards that you and you alone can create on whatever you love. Create a board on any topic you want and pin things from around the web that you like about that topic.

Pinterest is also a wonderful way to find inspiration, using the search tool you can easily find great examples on any topic. What I like about this is that these images are hand picked by Pinterest users, not just generated by some search engine algorithm. Looking to redo our kitchen checkout the first thing we did was search “modern kitchens” on Pinterest. Say you’re looking for somewhere wonderful to visit check “places to visit” pin those you like to your own board.

We work with Photoshop and so we curate this board with techniques, tutorials etc, because pins link back to the source we can always go back and read the article when the time permits. Absolutely the best way to bookmark web pages especially with visual cues.

Not only Pinterest is fun with loads of eye-candy and visual inspiration, it’s a very useful scrap booking tool so follow us over there or if you don’t have an account yet, follow this link to register and start pinning!

Couple of days ago interior designer Sam of Design Lovers was writing about Pinterest on her blog. Next up on the Pin it Forward UK journey, is Laura at Shedraws who is graphic designer & enthusiast for independent design – check out her boards at http://pinterest.com/shedraws.

Happy Pinning!

DISCLOSURE: We were asked by Pinterest to take part in Pink It Forward UK campaign but we were not financially compensated for this post. All opinions are our own.

The post Pin It Forward UK – How Pinteresting! appeared first on 416 Studios.

Demo Map

The first thing we need to do is include the googlemap api in your web page.

Why sensor=false? This is set to true if we’re using some sort of location sensor device like a gps or a we’re using the W3C Geolocation API in a browser that supports it. In this case we don’t need Geolocation so sensor is set to false.

Of course we need to define an area on the page where the map is to be displayed. We will use a div called map_canvas that measures 500×800 pixels.

Now we need a the function to initialize the map. So here’s the code, we’ll go through it step by step

function initialize() {
        var myOptions = {
            center: new google.maps.LatLng(51.529198,-0.15451),
            zoom: 13,
            mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
        };

        var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map_canvas'), myOptions);

        var myPoints = [
            ["The London Library", "The London Library is the world's largest independent lending library, and one of the UK's leading literary institutions.", "51.507354", "-0.136607"],
            ["Covent Garden", "A former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site", "51.511954", "-0.122793"],
            ["The British Library", " The national library of the United Kingdom.", "51.528891", "-0.127476"],
            ["Swiss Cottage Library", "The Swiss Cottage Central Library is the central library of  the London Borough of Camden, and is housed in an architectural landmark building designed by Sir Basil Spence.", "51.542111", "-0.173026"],
            ["Regent's Park Library", "This library has recently been closed due to savage cuts in the council's budget.", "51.528444","-0.143131"]
        ];       

        function setMarkers() {            

                var lat = myPoints[i][2];
                var lng = myPoints[i][3];
                var latlngset;
                latlngset = new google.maps.LatLng(lat, lng);
                var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
                    map: map,
                    icon: 'pin.png',
                    position: latlngset
                });
                return marker;

        }
        // Set all markers in the myPoints variable

        for (i = 0; i <= myPoints.length - 1; i++) {                
            setMarkers();
        }

    }

Map Options

First we create an object to hold the map properties.

var myOptions = {
            center: new google.maps.LatLng(51.529198,-0.15451),
            zoom: 13,
            mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
        };

center

The initial Map center

zoom

The initial Map zoom level.

mapTypeId

The initial Map mapTypeId; Options include(HYBRID, ROADMAP, SATELLITE, TERRAIN)

Then comes a function to create a map object.

var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map_canvas'), myOptions);

At this point if initialize() is called a map centered at LatLng(51.529198, -0.15451) will be displayed in the map_canvas div. Now all we need to do is add some markers.

Let’s create an array with the data needed for each marker. What we really need is the cordinates for each marker, but I’m going to include some extra information that I may need to use at some point in the future.

var myPoints = [
            ["The London Library", "The London Library is the world's largest independent lending library, and one of the UK's leading literary institutions.", "51.507354", "-0.136607"],
            ["Covent Garden", "A former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site", "51.511954", "-0.122793"],
            ["The British Library", " The national library of the United Kingdom.", "51.528891", "-0.127476"],
            ["Swiss Cottage Library", "The Swiss Cottage Central Library is the central library of  the London Borough of Camden, and is housed in an architectural landmark building designed by Sir Basil Spence.", "51.542111", "-0.173026"],
            ["Regent's Park Library", "This library has recently been closed due to savage cuts in the council's budget.", "51.528444","-0.143131"]
        ];

We can now write a function to add a marker…

function setMarkers() {            

                var lat = myPoints[i][2];
                var lng = myPoints[i][3];
                var latlngset = new google.maps.LatLng(lat, lng);
                var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
                    map: map,
                    icon: 'pin.png',
                    position: latlngset
                });
                return marker;                         
        }

Here again the important bit is the position of the markers and the map that we are targeting. So we take the latitude and longtude from each object in myPoints to use as a new google.maps.LatLng class. Notice I used a custom icon, if this is left out then the default google marker icon will be used.

Here is a list of Google map marker options

The function creates a single marker, therefore we need to go through over the myPoints array and set a marker for each object.

for (i = 0; i <= myPoints.length - 1; i++) {                
            setMarkers();
          }

Once that’s done, we can call the initialize() function however we deem, in this case we will use:
google.maps.event.addDomListener(window, 'load', initialize);

In future posts we will look at:

Adding infowindow to google map markers

Customizing infowindows

The post Google Map with Multiple Markers appeared first on 416 Studios.

If you search for “PressReader” in Google the description given with the main result is: PressReader brings over 2100 full content newspapers from 95 countries to the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, smartphones, eReaders, PCs and Macs.

Bold claim and one which by and large holds true.

PressReader brings you digital duplicates of all these papers—ads and all—in a beautiful app interface. However the first question that comes to mind is why would I pay $29.99 a month for content which is almost all freely available online?

2300 newspapers is a lot of information at your fingertips, although my initial concern that most of these papers are available online it’s nice having them all in only place available for your perusal.

It must be said that there are some major papers that are not available on PressReader. Some are papers that are behind their own pay wall and are understandably not on board with PressReader, and others may have their own reasons but considering the subscription fee again it begs the question…

Back to the interface… PressReader is lovely to use, the papers a basically digitally rendered replicas of the real thing. Much nicer to read than digital type, however there are the obvious drawbacks.

Flicking through the pages of your paper is straightforward and smooth but reading an article on a smartphone can involve a fair amount of back an forth due to the column design of newspapers. In this regard PressReader is much more suited to the larger sized tablet devices.

Smartphone users need not worry though, with PressReader’s text-view or text-flow—a long press on the article to select the text-flow option— the article will be presented in a more friendly single column view for smaller screens.

Finding a paper of your choice is a breeze, papers are listed by country, language, your own favourites or you could search by name. once you’ve found the paper you want you could download a single edition or set PressReader to download the latest paper once available. Perfect for your daily commute, you’ll never miss another edition of your favourite newspaper—providing said paper is available on PressReader.

So back to the $29.99 question, if you are going to use PressReader on a daily basis then $29.99 is a bargain considering the quality of the app, especially if you are using it on a tablet. For the non regular newspaper consumer 99¢ per download is a fair price.

Given my initial reservations about PressReader, I have to say that I’ve been won over by the brilliance of this app. If I were a regular paper buyer I would have to hesitation switching over to the digital joy that is PressReader.

With thanks to Caleb & PressReader for complementary PressReader account.

The first image courtesy of PressReader.

The post PressReader App Review appeared first on 416 Studios.

Google image search is available for quite a while now yet not everyone knows about it. Today I spoke to my sister  who had no idea something like this even existed and she is a photographer using computer and internet on daily basis… so I decided to write this short article to show how does it work.

• First of  Google image search is very useful tool to find source of the images found accidentally on the net: wrongly linked images on Pinterest or Tumblr for instance.
• It can be used to search for similar images either for ideas or fun purposes.
• You can also track who is using your images this way… be aware that you may be shocked how many people is using copyrighted images without permission.

Ok, so lets see how does it work.

Open Google -> Images in one tab, then open website with image of interest in second tab and simply drag the picture into the Google search box.

And here we go, you can see some Pinterest links and then actual website where my lampshade come from, also similar (colour wise) images. Still, pretty amazing I would say.

Ok, lets try again with another image…

Some search results can be quite funny, like this one with our hamster’s look alikes! (!)

You can also drag images from your desktop or any other folder on your computer. Let see who do I look like?

This did not go so well… I will have to try again once Google will work a bit more on face recognition feature.

The post Google Image Search appeared first on 416 Studios.

If you’ve ever come across the dreaded “this content is not available in your location” message then UnoTelly may be just the ticket for you.

You could set up a VPN or use a Proxy Server, so why would you want to use a pay service at $4.99/$7.99 per month?

Ease of setup/use and speed.

Not only UnoDNS is easy to set up on you PC or laptop, but you can just as easily use it on a long list of internet enabled devices as long as you can change the primary DNS on the device then UnoDNS should work. For my part I’ve used it on Windows, Linux (Ubuntu) and Playstation.

When you use a proxy server you’re bandwidth/speed is usually less/slower than usual, UnoDNS claims there is Zero speed loss with their service, and in the time I’ve used it there have been no reason to doubt that claim.

I’ve even tried BBC iPlayer in HD and there’s no difference compared to directly accessing iPlayer. Streaming was smooth and sharp.

UnoDNS is not a catch all that makes “all” websites think you’re from a different region.
UnoDNS still allows you to access sites in your region, smart enough to switch on its services only when needed. There are also option to chose regions by website, so if Hulu will think you’re from the US whilst BBC iplayer considers you from GB, pretty cool if you ask me.

Now everything is not as rosy as it seems. First off my main operating system is Ubuntu, precise pangolin to be, erm, precise. The instructions to change your DNS on that system is out of date.

As with everything Linux there are a few different ways to do things, but editing resolv.conf  on 12.04 is way off the mark. You could edit dhclient.conf but I got errors, with UnoTelly intermittently asking me to update my IP address when I have just done so. The simplest more reliable way to change your DNS was to edit network connection using the gui. Once that’s done UnoTelly is a breeze.

So if you are an Englishman in New York or an American in Paris, UnoTelly may be the best way to access your favourite telly.

With thanks to Nick & UnoTelly for complementary UnoDNS account.

The post UnoDNS from UnoTelly – Review appeared first on 416 Studios.

A quick search of Google yielded quite a few interesting results. The old way of using resolv.conf was the top matches suffice to say editing resolv.conf won’t work,and neither is creating /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/tail entries.

Editing dhclient.conf secodes to work but it was unreliable with UnoTelly. Another option is adding lines to /etc/network/interfaces, or using dmasq, all of these options scary to most computer users.

So how do we change the DNS without touching the command line or installing another app?

Click on the network connection applet in unity’s panel.

Next click on edit connections.

Now select your connection and click edit.

Select the IPv4 Setting tab and on the “method” dropdown select Automatic (DHCP) addresses only. In the DNS servers area type in the address of the DNS server or servers (comma separated). Click on save and don’t forget to RESTART for the changes to take effect.

See easy as that no need to use the command line.

The post How to change your DNS on Ubuntu 12.04 (precise pangolin) appeared first on 416 Studios.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) was founded in 1906 and is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. They are World’s leading organization creating International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies, electrotechnology in short. Millions of devices depend on IEC standards to perform, fit and work safely together.

I spoke to IEC’s Head of Communications and  IEC e-tech magazine Editor in Chief: Gabriela Ehrlich while she was visiting London couple of weeks ago. I was shocked to learn that there are standards for things I did not have idea about and how many of every day items rely on IEC standards, amazing!

The IEC promotes world trade and economic growth and encourages the development of products, systems and services that are safe, efficient and environmentally friendly.  Their role is to help experts from countries all over the World to reach agreement and to prepare the rules, specifications and terminology that allow manufacturers to build devices that work together, safely and as expected. This way companies don’t have to test the same product for each country so if they spend less for testing, the product can be cheaper, more affordable and less waste is produced on the way…

IEC standards are named with letters and numbers such as IEC 60417 ( standard for graphical symbols for use on equipment). The IEC cooperates with other organizations like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and many more. Standards developed together with ISO will be named for instance as ISO/IEC 26300 (Open Document format for office applications). In UK IEC standards are named with EN instead of IEC, so the mentioned above standard would be EN 60417.

You will be surprised how many home appliances, every day gadgets and big projects is dependent on standards. Little things like plugs or colour management on your computer uses IEC standards. There are standards normalizing how safe the oven glass should be so the child or older person would not burn their hand on the surface, they are standards for vacuum cleaners, phones, toys and everything around us, below couple of examples to show you how important standards are in our life:

• Joint Photographic Experts Group – file .jpeg format
• plus and minus graphics on batteries
• Universal Character Set (USC / Unicode)
• Open Document format for office applications
• wiring colours
• safety of electrical household appliances
• graphical symbols for use on equipment
• VHS/S-VHS video tape cassette system
• compact disk digital audio system
• plugs and socket-outlets for household
• switches for home appliances
• colour measurement in multimedia systems

Even when saving files in sRGB we are using one of IEC standards.

I wish that companies and manufacturers would try to keep everything up to international standards to save not only money testing stuff, produce less rubbish, keep our houses less clattered and safer. Why can’t we just have one standard phone charger instead of having different one for each phone model? Why there can’t be one raw camera file format instead of all those NEFs, ORFs,  CRWs, DCRs, SRFs etc., each one requiring different software to open it. Life would be so much easier (!)

What can we, little people, do is to stop buying merchandise that does not keep the standards.

If you are interested or feel inspired you can read more about IEC on their Newslog.

Below image has been taken on Seven Sisters Road in London.

Most of the images are courtesy of IEC, downloadable posters can be found here.

You can read this article also on our other blog.

The post What Do You Know About IEC Standards? appeared first on 416 Studios.

Have you heard about this new GetTaxi app yet?

It’s a free app enabling you to call—shouldn’t say call, more like order—a Cab to your location or a location where you will be.

Using your phone’s location service it will suggest addresses or landmarks as you pickup location. Once you’ve chosen a location for pickup the app gives you a very accurate pick up time and show the locations of you incoming cab on the mini map.

Get Taxi also displays the name and photo of your driver in addition to the cab registration number, so no there should be little problems in identifying your Cab. The driver can see customer name and picture as well (if added to your profile) and during the whole process of awaiting the cab you can see in real time the progress on the map.

For me, who hates talking on the phone and explaining where to pick me up from, this app is just perfect (!) One time you can as well enter destination address (“details” section) so you won’t have to do any explaining inside the taxi, just enjoy the ride.

It is very convenient especially when you don’t really know exact address of the place you are in, great for tourist visiting London, too. I tested it several times to be picked up from the pub in the middle of London and every time “locate” was working perfectly giving me name of the place as one of the first options. It works also on the street as long as you have some recognizable building near by. Useful when you have hands full of shopping bags.

When ordering you can choose to pay by Card or Cash, this include coupon credit you can add to your phone. If you paying by card you will be prompted to enter you card details and at the end of the ride you will get pop-up window on your phone asking to accept the transaction, that’s it.

What I like is that you can rate your driver when you have reached your destination already, collect taxi miles or earn points by inviting friends. Besides that I was very impressed with their Twitter customer service when I got reply to my question within seconds.

The GetTaxi app is available in UK for Android, Blackberry and iPhone.

The downsides are that the service does not cover all London I tried pre ordering a Taxi from Archway and was informed that the service is not available in that area.

For info on all available locations and platforms visit their website.

I would also expect that if you enter pick up and destination addresses you should be able to get, at least approximate price in advance, before you order, just in case you don’t have enough money on you.

But still I love this app and I would recommend to anyone living in or visiting London or any other city where GetTaxi service is available.

With thanks to Rebecca & GetTaxi UK for complementary taxi credit for the purpose of this review.

The post GetTaxi App – Review appeared first on 416 Studios.

With this tutorial you can create amazing, bright eyes within minutes.

First retouch, adjust levels and do all necessary colour corrections on your image.

With a Lasso Tool  (L) select the eyes (hold Shift key to add to selection). Hit Ctrl+J to copy selection to a new layer. You can copy the whole layer instead of selecting eyes but applying the filter to the large area like this may take a while on slower computers.

Use Smart Sharpen filter on the eyes, the choice of right settings will depend on the size of your file.

Add a layer mask to the sharpened layer, then using a white soft brush on 50% bring back paint only iris’ and pupils to expose the sharpened eyes. Reduce opacity of the layer if it is obviously too sharp.

Using levels brighten the whole picture and then copy mask from previous layer to select only eyes by holding Alt while dragging the sharpened mask (“layer 1” in the pic) onto the “levels 2” layer.

With a Colour Balance set desired eye colour, keep “Preserve Luminosity” ticked, again use copy of previously created mask to select eyes only.

Reduce opacity of the colour layer to make the eyes look more natural. Optionally go back to the other masked layers to find the best balance playing with opacity.

And voilà, the image is ready.

The post Eye Sharpening – Photoshop Tutorial appeared first on 416 Studios.

First lets set up the html buttons. I plan to have 4 versions, the normal state, one with an arrow indicating a dropdown/sub menu another with css3 animation on hove and lastly a coloured version just for fun.

Regular 
Dropdown 
Animated  
Colored

I’ve added the extra class for the differing versions. Let’s now look at the css.

The initial state as follows:

.button {
 border: 1px solid #DDD;
 border-radius: 3px;
 text-shadow: 0 1px 1px white;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #fff;
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #fff;
 box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #fff;
 font: bold 11px arial;
 padding: 6px 10px;
 white-space: nowrap;
 vertical-align: middle;
 color: #666;
 background: transparent;
 cursor: pointer;
 margin-bottop:10px;
}

Nothing special here. A solid 1 pixel border with a white drop-shadow to mimic a recessed state. Next we add the hover state…

.button:hover, .button:focus {
border-color: #999;
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, white, #E0E0E0);
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, white, #E0E0E0);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, white, #E0E0E0);
background: -o-linear-gradient(top, white, #E0E0E0);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.25), inset 0 0 3px #fff;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.25), inset 0 0 3px #fff;
box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.25), inset 0 0 3px #fff;
}

And a last bit for the active state.

.button:active {
border: 1px solid #AAA;
border-bottom-color: #CCC;
border-top-color: #999;
-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 2px #aaa;
-moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 2px #aaa;
box-shadow: inset 0 1px 2px #aaa;
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #E6E6E6);
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #E6E6E6);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #E6E6E6);
background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #E6E6E6);
}

That’s it for the youtube buttons. If you want a bit of css3 animated goodness add this bit…

.animated {
-webkit-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-moz-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-ms-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
-o-transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out;
}

And finally make it coloured with this snippet.

.color, .color:hover {background:#E9BB8F;}

.color:hover{
background-image: linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(201,161,127) 0%, rgb(233,187,143) 50%);
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(201,161,127) 0%, rgb(233,187,143) 50%);
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(201,161,127) 0%, rgb(233,187,143) 50%);
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(201,161,127) 0%, rgb(233,187,143) 50%);
background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(201,161,127) 0%, rgb(233,187,143) 50%);}

For the dropdown arrow we’re going to use the what I like to call the zero size transparent border technique, like so.

.parent:after {
content: "";
display: inline-block;
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-top: 4px solid #999;
border-left: 4px solid transparent;
border-right: 4px solid transparent;
margin: 0 0 0 4px;
position: relative;
top: -1px;
}
.parent:hover:after {
border-top-color: black;
}

There you have it, css only youtube style buttons. Play around with the code in the fiddle below, remember with great power comes great responsibility.

The post Youtube Style Animated Buttons appeared first on 416 Studios.