Digital Illusions

What the Blue?

2010-12-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

"Is it just me, or have you noticed it too? Really, I ask, what the blue?!"

It seems every major site I can think of, has decided blue is the new color to use. Just to name a few; Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Amazon, Twitter, PhotoBucket, and that's only the start, a very small start... I understand blue is cool, but really, why do so many websites decide they need to use it? No... I'm not designing a website that uses blue... that's insane...

So, trying to understand all this craze, I googled, "emotions blue." (that's called refined googling my friend!) It seems blue is calming? Hmm... calming, really... then why don't girls ever seem to be calm on Facebook... Jokes aside, I guess I could understand why you would want your site to be calming; people will stay on longer, chill, you know, all that stuff websites want you to do.

After doing a little more searching, I discovered that nobody else seems to care about this... So yeah, my searching was in vain. I'll leave you with this, if you want to make a hit website, you may want to try blue out; after all, it's being used very successfully elsewhere; however, it may be that if you chose a different color, people will find it refreshing, and you'll be setting the new trend. What do you think? Why is blue used so often?

Facebook Chat Pulls a Fast One

2010-10-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

There's always things in your life that you depend on greatly. Be it your morning coffee, talking to your best friend, or your daily fix of World of Warcraft. Well, for me, I very much reply on Facebook... No, I'm not addicted, why would you think that... Ok, maybe... a little, but that's beside the point. Myself, not having a cellphone, car, or even going to school, FB is one of the few ways I can keep in contact with my friends. For me personally, I found FB chat is extremely helpful. However, like all things that we deem important, FB, and FB chat more specifically, has failed myself and others; taking our once calm and complete lives, and throwing them into complete chaos... kinda.

If you're like me, you've noticed that the last couple of day FB chat has been acting screwy. For a while there, it wasn't even showing up. That was to say the least, very annoying, but I understood that sometimes things need to come down so maintenance can be done on them; therefore, there were no complaints from me. After all, I figured they were just making it better... right?

So, the next day I log onto FB, everything looks good... at first. My chats back up, I can see my friends online, it all good. There was no one to chat with at the moment, so I didn't notice any problems, life was good. Later that day, someone I want to talk to logs on. Yes! My life has purpose for the next ten minutes...

Anyway, I open up that chat window and notice somethings different. Wait, it's wider? Ok, whatever, it was fine the way it was, but I can live with that. I send the classic, "sup?" and now I notice a problem. Why exactly is my name replaced with my picture? I mean, yeah, it's a nice picture, but I'm not that conceded. The whole, "update," was starting to bother me now, but it was usable, so I lived with it.

Now, there was something that had been bothering me all day. I had a friend, one that I happened to want to talk to, that was posting things on FB, yet I couldn't see him online. I figured, this is some sort of fluke, it will be fixed by tomorrow. Well, it's tomorrow, and it's not fixed. This is annoying to say the least, but there's nothing I can do... except blog about it I suppose!

Of course, once I realized there was some major problem going on, I started researching it. Turns out, some features I didn't even notice disappeared. This didn't bother me, because I rarely to never use them, but it has bothered quite a large amount of people.

For example, there is no longer a Clear Chat History button. Many people that are extremely upset about this and refuse to even use FB until it is fixed. I can see why some people would do this. Some things people just don't want others to see, and they should be able to remove them if they desire to do so. I even read claims that it was against Canadian law, because FB does not let you remove the messages and does not tell you how long they will stay.

Many people are also complaining about the time stamps no longer being there. However, in FB's defense, they are still there, you just have to hover over the right side of the chat window to show them. However, this is kinda a useless feature, and makes it take longer than needed to see which time the last message was. The only possible purpose is to try to make it seem more, "Web 2.0," which frankly, most people don't want; just look at MySpace.

So, my opinion on this whole thing? Facebook needs to take a serious look at what their users want. Half of their recent updates have been hated by a huge portion of the FB community; that's no way to run a business; maybe a dictatorship, but last time I checked, when you run a business like a dictatorship, you tend to lose customers... They also need to make sure their, "updates," don't have major flaws in them. If somethings a bit off, ok, whatever. If I can't see my friend, that's a problem, and the update should never have even been released.

Basically, put our stuff back Facebook! If you think something needs to be changed, just ask us, we will more than gladly tell you what we want, and please, don't release buggy updates, it just ticks us off...

Do you agree or disagree with me? What do you think Facebook should do? Tell me below!

A Little About Myself

2010-10-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is just stolen from the About Me page, but I figured it should be posted because it's interesting information... or at least I think so.

Ok, so I started getting into computer about nine years ago. I started with programming in a language called DarkBasic, a Basic language developed by The Game Creators. At the time I was very young, so of course my main goal was, "to make a super awesome game that pwns any other game in the entire universe!!!1!1" Needless to say, I didn't exactly reach that goal; in fact, I didn't even complete my first project until about 4 years later, and it was a very simple project at that. However, during that 4 years, I learned a heck of a lot about computers and the different things you could do on them.

Now, step forward about another year, I start taking programming courses in college, even though I was just entering high school. Not to brag, but I pretty much blew through any, and all the programming courses I took. Basically, programming came pretty naturally to me. Not to say I didn't learn anything though. I learned a lot of good practices and habits, and really, "honed," my programming logic.

At this point I also start doing graphic design for my church. This really took the graphics design skills that I had(almost none) to a whole new level. I learned so much, not only about how to make certain things, but overall, what looked good, and what did not.

There's a lot of stuff in between that I can't remember at this point, but basically I also got into 3D graphic design, music creation, ect. There's a list, I'm sure it will all be in my future post, so wait for 'em!

Now for the present. I continue to do graphic design for my church, and have even considered starting my own graphic design company. I continue to program software, and am even still try to make that game... kinda. I also may get a job designing websites, which would finally turn this 9+ years of a hobby, into something that could produce some real income.

That's about as much as I'm going to tell you. If you want to know thing like my preferred cola, my favorite book, and what type of clothes I wear, then you're probably a creep... you might want to get that checked out. Nevertheless, you may find out the answers to those, and other questions in the future; it just depends on if I feel like telling you!

Hello Illusions!

2010-10-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I've decided to start a blog about everything I encounter in the digital world. Being that I experiment in almost all areas of computers, this blog will most likely be all over the map; however, that just makes it more fun to read!

Now, everyone knows a good name has meaning behind it, as does the name of my blog. The name is Digital Illusions. Why? Because if you think about it, everything you encounter on the computer... is fake. None of it is actually real, it's just an image produced by your monitor; an illusion, so to speak. Now, don't think to hard about this, or you may decide it is not worth spending time reading something that doesn't exist... and well, it's no fun writing to yourself.

You should really keep reading, the fun has just begun!