From Ajax to Zen - Graphics Design, 3d, Animation, Computer Graphics, Visual Effects

Zen Sarcasm

2007-09-10T13:48:00.000+00:00

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either.
Pretty much leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. If you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Never make yourself irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

5. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when
you do criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes.

9. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20 and never see him again, it was probably worth it.

12. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.

13. They all seem normal until you get to know them.

14. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half, and put
it back in your pocket.

15. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

16. Duct tape is like "The Force"; it has a light
side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

17. There are two theories about arguing with women. Neither one works.

18. Generally speaking, you're not learning much when your lips are moving.

19. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it

20. Always remember that you're unique, like everyone else.

21. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative
on the same night.

2007-08-28T14:35:00.002+00:00

Demo CSS Dropdown Menu.

Snow Patrol Arena Vienna

2006-10-16T20:31:00.000+00:00

I watched Snow Patrol playing in Vienna at the Arena last night and it was one of the best gigs I have seen in a long time.
The boys from Ireland played a great gig to a packed Arena and the atmosphere was upbeat, vibrant and cool at the same time.
A sea of hands clapping and waving in time to the funky guitar and drum beats plus a great lineup of songs kept the mood warm during the cold Austrian night.
An overall good atmosphere was punctuated by moments of magic when the music just swelled and the entire crowd sang and danced, clapped and jumped like an extension of the music flowing through the Arena.
Great, with moments of magic.
One of those gigs that taps into the soul of music and makes you realise that great music is something that speaks to people worldwide.

US to censor the Internet.

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

I saw a post recently on another law being passed in the US.
The law (HR 5319) demands that all schools, libraries and other public internet access terminals to ban access to social networking websites. This means that people won’t be able to access their LiveJournal, MySpace, Friendster, LunarStorm, PhotoBucket, AOL and hundreds of other websites and forums.
basically, anywhere where you can express an opinion.

This blatent attempt to curtail freedom of speach is hiding behind a supposed laws to combat online predators but in actual fact is simply a way of the US goverment to censor online activities and freedom of speech.
There is an online petition at www.saveyourspace.org

A bbc article can be read here Social networking sites force US ban

So the bad news is, if you own or post or read a blog, which you obviously do, this law will affect you.

Express your opinion, do you want this to happen, sign the petition, post this article on your blog, forum or anywhere else you can.
Dont let them take away freedom of speech online.

Debunking the Debunkers

2006-08-08T11:41:00.000+00:00

I saw this blog recently where they are trying to claim that shots from the Lebanon are being doctored.
I spotted however the image apparently is just shot using a different lense and from a different angle.

Good graphics design links

2006-06-26T11:15:00.000+00:00

Just thought I would post some good graphics design links and tutorials.

Adobe Links (All applications):
www.adobeevangelists.com
www.carijansen.com
www.nickhodge.com/mne.php?msid=1
www.photoshopcafe.com
www.russellbrown.com/body.html
studio.adobe.com/tips/main.jsp
www.tiemdesign.com/howto/

Photoshop:

www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1 (top pick)
www.adobeevangelists.com/photoshop/index.html (top pick)

w1.243.telia.com/~u24308054/designstudios
www.adobe.com/products/tips/photoshop.html
www.aovs02.dsl.pipex.com/
www.cyberinkdesign.com/tutor.htm

www.eyesondesign.net
gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tutorials.html
www.good-tutorials.com/
graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/
www.handson.nu/
www.mccannas.com/pshop/photosh0.htm
www.opticnurve.com/
phong.com/tutorials
www.planetphotoshop.com
www.psworkshop.net
www.stewartstudio.com/tips/phototip.htm
www.teamphotoshop.com
webdeveloper.com/html/html_table_splicing.html

Free Photoshop Goodies:
graphicssoft.about.com/library/free/bl_free.htm
graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshopdownloads/
Free Adobe Goodies:
share.studio.adobe.com (top pick)

Illustrator:

www.huntfor.com/design/tutorials/illustrator.htm
graphicssoft.about.com/cs/illustratortext/
www.illustratorworld.com/index.shtml
www.sketchpad.net/illustrator.htm

11 Minutes

2006-05-19T09:45:00.000+00:00

I just finished reading Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho.
Another great story but a lot darker than his usual work.
It is about a small town Brazilian Girl who moves to Geneva and gets sucked into the seedy underworld there.
My fave is still The Alchemist ,this was his best work I think.
Its one of those stories that gets you in a deeper place.

Mediatation

2006-05-18T22:32:00.000+00:00

I heard this and I cracked up.

Two men are talking on the street.
'And how's your son? Is he still unemployed?'
'Yes, he is. But he is meditating now.'
'Meditating? What's that?'
'I don't know, but it's better than sitting around doing nothing!'

Bush Hires Portman

2006-04-18T15:19:00.000+00:00

No not natalie portman, when I first heard it I thought there might finally be some talent in the right wing camp, but our girl natalie has more taste than that, so dubya has had to settle for one of his friends/cronies.
Portman has been appointed budget advisor but I worry about how much more damage can be done with a bigger budget.
Already Dubya has lost 2 skyscrapers, 4 airliners, part of the pentagon, the entire city of New Orleans, and it looks like Iraq could soon follow.
IF GOD REALLY IS SPEAKING TO HIM ITS OBVIOUS HE IS SAYING, TAKE A HINT, GO BACK TO TEXAS.

DJ school

2006-04-18T10:24:00.000+00:00

DJ school monday night was a blast as usual, there were over a dozen Djs there all mixing it up, more women than men, good music and and we progressed onto the main decks at the dancefloor.
The floor could have been more crowded but for a monday night it was good enough.
I need to get more records and a but more practice before I try for the Open DJ slots on tuesday and wednesday, Roland however says im a natural.
Im mainly interested in Laptop DJing or CD DJing but its good to have vynil as well.

River Cruise cancelled

2006-04-18T10:17:00.000+00:00

I was supposed to be going on a River Cruise Party on saturday Night but unfortunately it got cancelled.
A real pity because it would have been 200+ people partying on the Thames with DJs Drink and Great Scenery, I was going to bring my camera and get some shots of Canary Wharf.
There is another one later in the summer though so I guess I will just have to go on that one instead.

SEO and Search Engine Marketing

2006-03-28T20:15:00.000+00:00

I have recently decided to switch from SEO more towards Search Engine Marketing.
Although SEO is still one of the most cost effective way of getting traffic to a site the real money and fast traffic delivery is in lead generation, PPC and other forms of SEM.

Misty Morning London - Putney Bridge

2006-03-28T19:45:00.000+00:00

They say London is grey, it was this day.
A picture speaks a thousand words.
Taken from Putney Bridge.

Zen Do Kickboxing

2006-03-28T15:48:00.000+00:00

I just had a class of Zen Do Kickboxing last night.
Fun, Quite a good workout and nice to get back to the external style of martial arts, I do find that a lot of these martial art classes dont put enough emphasis on the internal arts, balancing yourself, harmonising your energy and focusing your mind, thats why Im thinking of taking up a martial arts instructor class in Zen Budo, a new martial art style good balance of internal & external.

Ryanair - Cheap & Nasty?

2006-03-25T22:55:00.000+00:00

I missed the check in for a ryanair flight by 5 minutes today, they still had 40 minutes for me to get on the plane, I had hand luggage only, but can they accomadate, no they cant, and they were far from helpfull, apparently I would have had to pay £40 extra to get on the next flight,"while the existing one was still on the ground" otherwise it would be £155 for the next plane, considering the initial ticket only cost £12 and I was only flying from London to Cork, whick is a couple of hundred miles I politely told them to stuff it and I would fly home next weekend with some other airline.

Ryanar, the Cheap and nasty airline?.
I needed to get a website template designed for monday anyway so I guess it will work out for the best, more money and my girlfriend is happy im staying home.
Not especially happy about having to go all the way to Gatwick for nothing though.
Next time I fly Aer Lingus, at least they wont screw me.

You Live You learn.
The Moral of the Story, Dont Fly Ryanair.

XP on Mac with Intel Core Duo

2006-03-23T16:30:00.000+00:00

Apparently the new Intel Core Duo based Mac laptops and desktops will be able to run windows XP with a little software modification.
Apparently Pentium powerbooks are 4 times more powerfull than existing Powerbooks, which only confirms what I always thought, macs were underpowered.
A step in the right direction for macintosh.

Now will they run XP faster than the same spec PC is the question.
Might be worth testing out.

Web 2.0, Wap, RSS and Ajax

2006-03-23T16:18:00.000+00:00

So Web 2.0 is upon us, a fancy buzzword for evolutionary technologies such as RSS, AJAX, and mobile web services, the technology is hardly as revolutionary as some of the stuff that was around when the web first started but the difference is how it is starting to be utilised, PDa/WAP and small screen browsing is looking to take of big and although the technology isnt groundbreaking, the types of platforms they will be running on should be.
Browser sniffing and PDA websites will soon become a prerequisite on all professional online businesses and the big money is going small screen.
Are you thinking small?

New Nikon F55 Camera, Digital V SLR Photography

2006-03-23T16:06:00.000+00:00

I got a nice new Nikon F55 camera to do some photography.
Plus a nice Film Scanner from Ebay and, Tripod, etc
Now all I need is to travel the world and take some good shots.
I still prefer standard SLR cameras, mainly because they are about 1/4 the price of digital, higher quality , better colour depth with slide film and dont require a constant stream of batteries.
Digital is nice for convenience though, I have taken some nice shots on my phone.
Will have to start putting together a gallery of my photos soon.

Strange Chances

2006-03-18T22:55:00.000+00:00

I had another funny occurance on friday night.
I was out on the piss in London for patricks day, my girlfriend had headed home early because she was working and after fighting off some horny chavettes about an hour later I decided to head home, I leave the bar and instead of leaving the bar I feel a pull towards the tube station, so of I go, I stop to get a ticket and help the guy in front of me use the ticket machine, just as soon as I have finished a girl walks up to me and asks me do I want a free tube ticket as she dosnt need it any more, so I get a free ticket home.
Then as a bonus I get on the tube and these austrailian girls decide to give me a free magners t shirt.
This sort of thing actually happens a lot to me, the weirdest was about 6 months ago I was looking for a new appartment & girlfriend and I took up a Korean Ki Gong/Dhan yoga class, I wanted to find a girl I could talk to about energy martial arts classes and the first appartment I look at there is a cute korean girl living there, we hit it off, I mention a book to her called the celestine prophecy, the 1st part of which talks about chances & strange occurances, she says she hasnt read it, but I check her bookshelf and there is a book with a blank white cover sitting there.
I open it up and sure enough its the celestine prophecy. she cant believe it.
I move in and we got together the next night.

There have been a lot more like that but I just felt like sharing a couple.

The death of .NET

2006-03-16T23:59:00.000+00:00

Just got a new short term contract today, 7 weeks to create a web based aplication.
They hired me in because they had used .NET before and were unhappy with the development time it took to create an aplication.

I have worked with .NET people before but for all the talk about how it makes it easier to create .NET apps I have seen so many projects fall well behind scope.
It also seems very top heavy to me and I hate the code it generates.
It has some uses yes, but its not the do all aplication microsoft wants to make people believe it is.

Personally I prefer regular ASP, or even better, PHP.
Is the industry catching on.
I wonder?

Flash Back

2006-03-15T19:36:00.000+00:00

Its been 5 years since I started using flash, "flash 5" to be precise, I remember sitting down for 2 days to learn it, 48 hours and 28KB later I had a fully funcional and very flash CV,(pardon the pun) complete with preloader, menu, tweening effects, etc.

Looking back I learned more in that 48 hours than I have in the 5 years since then, (with regards to flash that is) and looking at the new versions of flash I cant really see any groundbreaking changes, did macromedia just stop trying and will adobe bring anything new to flash since the takeover.

I think its a really great programme and the best, if not the only good aplication macromedia came out with, can adobe do any better, I doubt it, I think macromedia took it as far as it could be taken.

A flash in the pan, or will things continue to improve.
Only time will tell.

Words of Wisdom.

2006-03-14T23:38:00.000+00:00

"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."

Live the life you want to lead, do not try, do or do not, if you believe you will succeed, you probably will, if you accept the posibility of failure, you probably will.

All the things you have around you reflect on you, the best way to get the things you want is to be the person you want to be and your reflection will change.

At a quantum level, everything is connected.

Ajax Programming, Starting Something New

2006-03-14T21:26:00.000+00:00

Time for something new, time for another change on the wheel of life.
I started learning Ajax today and started my blog as well.
Simple to learn and powerfull, it looks like being the next big thing.

I found some links, by no means a full list, but a good place to start off.

building forms with ajax validation

simple ajax toolkit

time management app

scriptalicious full of nifty Ajax scripts

jspan - maps php to js

To new beginnings
Mike D

Bhudist Jokes - Spiritual Humour

2006-03-14T21:19:00.000+00:00

Why don't Buddhists vacuum in the corners?
Because they have no attachements.

What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
Make me one with everything.

How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?
Tree falling in the forest.

What happens when a Buddhist becomes totally absorbed with the computer he's working with?
He enters Nerdvana.

A student goes to the Zen Master:
"Master, what happens when you die?"
Master: "I do not know."
Student: "But you are a Zen Master!"
Master "Yes, but I am not a dead Zen Master."