Kumail.H.T`s Blog

5 iPhone Apps for Designers

louise — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:59:20 +0000

Designers are increasingly expected to be up-to-date on new technology and graphics programs. In addition to aiding your work by providing more efficient and creative ways to design, technology can also be helpful in organizing and managing your business operations if you manage multiple clients or work as a freelance artist. The iPhone is a great tool for designers that want help in each of these areas, and there are several iPhone apps that are incredibly useful for designers. Here are five to get you started:

1. Palettes

This app allows you to create and save multiple color palettes for different projects. You can select colors from lists, images, web sites, or by entering CSS combinations. ColorExpert is another similar app that allows you to capture colors from the real world when you see them, and then save those inspirations for work later. These types of programs are incredibly helpful for planning projects and helping you remember colors when inspiration strikes. Get Palettes free or buy ColorExpert.

2. Units

For the artistically-minded, math may not always come easy. Especially for those designers working with international clients, converting units and calculating measurements can be a potential source of miscommunication if not properly addressed. But when it really matters, the Units app is a simple calculator that can save you from headaches and embarrassment. It also works with typographic points for more complicated jobs. Also check out a simple but helpful app called Ruler, which shows a picture of a ruler on your iPhone to measure things to scale. You can save your measurements and return to them later, which is great for those who struggle with organization. Buy Units or buy Ruler.

3. What the Font

This app really uses the iPhone as it is meant to be used. If you work frequently with text, you can start to develop your favorites. But this app helps you discover new designs and put a name to an image. You simply take a picture of a set of text, and the iPhone searches the Internet library to give you the name of the font family. So simple, and so useful. Get it free.

4. AIR Sharing

When you need to work and meet with clients in different locations, it can be difficult to save large files and show samples without bringing along your entire studio. The AIR Sharing app lets your use your iPhone as a wireless drive and drag files between the phone and your computer. You can view documents in common formats and view images of most files on your phone with the finder-like file browser. Clients will be impressed that you can pull up files and organize your documents from anywhere. Buy it here.

5. Credit Card Terminal

This app is purely for business purposes, but it could make the difference in securing a client and getting paid on time. Featured on many commercials, this app lets your enter credit card information and charge you clients right from your phone. It requires a monthly fee to use, which may discourage some designers with a smaller client base. But if you want to be able to accept plastic and do it quickly and securely, look no further than your iPhone. Buy it here.

Louise Baker writes about getting an online degree for Zen College Life. She most recently ranked the best nursing schools across the usa.

Creative ways to destroy your website

kumailht — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:41:34 +0000

Use those “professional” stock images

You know the ones with “business professionals” shaking hands! or the lady with the headset? don’t forget the globe for your homepage! This will really make your site POP!
This will make you and your 2 business partners who work from the coffee shop look like a real corporate company.

My advice:

Stay clear of stock websites until absolutely needed. Hire your own photographer instead, its not as expensive as you think.

Stop trying to be someone you are not! Read this article by Seth Godin to get some perspective on how small companies are actually better off than larger corporations. You should be embracing who you are instead of trying to act like someone you are not.

Don’t you DARE touch the “corporate identity”!

Even if your logo has been created by your CEO’s grandson in Wordart, don’t you dare touch the logo. If you change your logo, your customers will forget you forever! EVER!
The logo should never change!! never!! you are not a good designer if you edit your logo!!

My advice:

Logos that live forever are actually very good logos that don’t need to be changed. If you have a logo that your designer is dying to edit, you can be confident that your logo stinks more than your feet. Get a new identity!

Add everything above the fold!

No one scrolls on the internet! scrolling is so web 1.0! Nowadays everything should fit above the fold!

My advice:

Its a Myth. Here is proof

Use sliders & accordions on every page to make your website more “interactive”

Jquery is what all the cool kids on the block are smoking! Add a slider on every page! Better yet, your logo can drop into your website as if it fell from the sky!

My advice:

A slider is not the only way to display information fast. Get creative and try something new.

Get free or unreliable hosting

Why pay for hosting when you can get unlimited hosting for free?

My advice:

Make sure you don’t fall for the “unlimited” bullshit. If you have the slightest technical knowledge, you will instantly figure out that it is impossible to use more than a couple hundred MB of space even if you are hosting huge websites. The performance of your website depends on a lot of other factors which these free & cheap hosts do not offer.

Add all sorts of widgets to your website

You know the Facebook, twitter, Google friend connect, meebo & other widgets really help your users engage with you.

My advice:

If one or two of these widgets are used and well executed then it might actually help but most of the time these widgets are simply annoying. Dont use them!

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Do we really need a #container to center CSS layouts? I think not!

kumailht — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:11:41 +0000

From the very beginning, I was taught that a container div should be used to center layouts. Apparently, the body element can itself be used to center the layout removing the need to use an extra wrapper.

Here is how we currently center layouts:
#container { width:990px; margin:0 auto; }

but the container is not required at all so why use it? Here is how I center layouts:

body { width:990px; margin:0 auto; }

As for the Background image, you can use the “html” element for that.

Check out the working example.

There has to be a valid reason for not using the body tag. Having learnt CSS just a few months back, I am fairly new to the language and might be missing something.

What do you think? Is the #container useless?

Just ReDesigned my blog

kumailht — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:10:25 +0000

Can you spare a minute to offer some feedback? I would really appreciate it

The ultimate list of really amazing design related lists

kumailht — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:10:36 +0000

It is very common to see Top 10 this list, Top 10 that list, They all are very informative and heavy on content and give you the strongest urge to bookmark. These lists when combined form the epic bookmark so what are you waiting for, Ctrl + D to bookmark.

Next, I am planning on making a list of lists that list amazing lists confused? so am I. Well, I wont waste any more of your time, start surfing and bookmarking as this should take some time.

Typography

Free Fonts

Paid Fonts

30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Know & Should Own

Other Resources

Icons

Free Icons

Resources

Textures

Free textures

Resources

Inspiration

Other Resources

WordPress

Tips & hacks

Plugins

Themes

Other Resources

Want to customize your own theme without learning php, here is what you always wanted

Content Management Systems

Other Resources

Design Education

Amazing Ubuntu Linux themes, Icons & Walls to give your desktop a Fresh Look!

kumailht — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:39:29 +0000

I couldn’t stand using Windows 7 because of the reasons stated here (which I installed because of photoshop in the first place) any longer, I am sick of adobe for being so bloated and dumped photoshop for Inkscape and Gimp which I have come to love. Only chance I use photoshop again is if I buy a mac or if adobe provides a Linux version, until then I am a Linux Designer!

One of the biggest issues with Ubuntu on the front end is its theme, which is an easy fix. Installing a theme is as easy as changing your wallpaper in Linux, it really is!

(easy install) - This shows that you can install the theme as easily as shown below. If it doesn’t have (easy install) you might require some extra packages installed or might need some messing around and will need some experience so if you are new, make sure you get the easy install themes.

A quick intro to installing themes in Linux, It will take a minute

How to install a theme or an Icon pack

See the install button up there, just click on that > browse to your theme archive & select it > Open it > Thats it!

How to install a Login Theme

Select the Local Tab > Click “Import” > Browse to the GDM Login archive file > Select your newly imported theme and your done!

Lets start with the wallpaper packs

Themes (GTK 2.0)

Dust Theme (easy install)

Dust Sand (easy install)

T3K

Case

Murrina Studio

Flower Power

Radial

Dots – For Emerald

Icons Sets

You can install an icon set in the same way as you install a them, the only diff is that only the icon set will be installed. To use an icon set, click on ‘customize’, go to the icon tab, and select your icon pack, its will be applied immediately.

Oxygen Icon Set (easy install)

Just type “sudo apt-get install kde-icons-oxygen” in the terminal without quotes and you are done. If you dont like using the terminal, you could use the synaptic package manager (system > administration > synaptic package manager) , search for “oxygen” and mark the “kde-icons-oxygen” for installation. I bet the terminal is faster!

Snowish (easy install)

This is a really good icon set and really goes well with the dust theme.

Micro (easy install)

I am currently using this set, its very well designed. I would recommend installing oxygen or snowish as a fallback incase it doesnt have a particular icon.

GDM Login Themes

I have explained how to install a login theme at the start of the post, be sure to check it out if you need help.

Intrepid Ibex (easy install)

eGDM (easy install)

FreeSansGrrl (easy install)

Wooden (easy install)

About Me

I am an tech enthusiast, I love Linux, Inkscape, Apple, & the Internet except a few weird stuff on there. I am also working on a few web startups so you could and should follow me on twitter and subscribe to my blog. I wont bore you, promise!

Want to create an Open Source Web based OS for Netbooks? Join Us!

kumailht — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:21:48 +0000

Xenon is a web-based “cloud” system designed to run all the programs you’d expect a computer to perform, such as wordprocessing, instant messaging, and browsing the web aimed at netbooks. Me and a friend had started this project a few months back and are now looking for more people to join the project and make this a reality.

The advantage of the system is that it can run on extremely low-end hardware, such as netbooks, tablets, PDAs, and kiosk PCs. This way, computers can become very cheap and still be able to do most tasks expected of them.

Dan Dart originally started the project, wanting to create an intuitive user interface as he noticed a need for this as netbooks are becoming more popular. The main aims of the project is to create a system that is fast and efficient, very easy to use, portable, using web standards and to make it as less resource demanding as possible.

Find out more at xenon.kumailht.com

Who do we need

We would like you to join us in our efforts to create this open source netbook operating system. Whatever your area of expertise, we would like to take you on board.

The skills that we need currently are:

Designing
Advertising
Programming for the Web (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL)
Linux low-level system development (eg creating a system from source, packaging)
Sponsors

How to apply

All you have to do to apply to join the project is to email Dan:

dandart@googlemail.com

Would you buy Photoshop if released on Linux – Cast your vote

kumailht — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:25:45 +0000

The title says it all, I would like to get an estimate of the number of users who would purchase adobe software if it were available on Linux.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I tried out Windows 7 to verify the hype surrounding it and found it very lacking when compared to Linux or OSX. The only reason I have to continue using windows is Adobe Photoshop which I dont really like to be perfectly honest. I want to find out if there are enough buyers for Adobe to consider a Linux version.

Please cast your vote *once* and post a comment if you choose other.

A Linux users review on windows 7

kumailht — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:28:36 +0000

I have been a linux user for quite some time and I loved my stay, although I needed photoshop and had to shift back to Windows (cs2 didn’t work with either crossover or wine on linux for me). Since I dont really like Xp and Vista after using Ubuntu, I decided to give Windows 7 a try.

After getting hold of the ISO I found out that my burner didn’t work, how was I supposed to know that it didnt work, I haven’t used that darn thing in a year. I needed another install method so I used a usb that was lying around. I did a little research and found out that I needed vista to make the usb bootable, so I was stuck there. I could have waited a few hours and go over to my neighbors house to do the install, but I don’t have that kind of patience. I spent around 4 hours figuring out how to make the usb bootable using the other PC which had xp installed, all of which failed.

Its really late and I am dead sleepy, but I decide to use my recovery disk to install vista and then make the bootable usb and install 7, I know that’s pathetically long and sad but I was desperately in need of photoshop and vista sucks up too much ram while xp simply sucks. An hour has passed and my recovery discs failed to work, i tried them twice.

I gave up and decided to install xp. I am now in Xp and it occurs to me that I can install 7 from the usb once the OS is running and I was right. If this would have occurred to me a little earlier, I would have saved a day of hard work. Now 7 is installing and I feel so proud of myself, it was like winning a battle.

Long story short, I installed windows 7 Sorry you had to read the long story first.

First impressions

Unlike previous versions of windows or Ubuntu, 7 had a very lively start up animation and booted up pretty fast, fastest of all others in my case. The colors were very refreshing and was a welcome change when coming from Ubuntu. Major interface changes like the taskbar which shows only the icons make me wonder why it took so long to come up with that solution. I found it easier to use, more manageable and a much simpler way to manage windows.

There have already been a lot of reviews regarding new features which I will not waste your time with here, I want to address the more subtle changes that make this a great OS.

What I like about Windows 7

Updated Apps

Some of the apps have been given a visual and feature overhaul which were very welcome. The ribbon interface which has been integrated is a pleasure to use, It simplifies the interface and makes it very easy for less experienced users to use the application. Paint, Wordpad, WMP, Calculator have turned into actually usable apps.

The calculator has become much more useful and has prettier interface.

Maximizing

By dragging the window towards the top end of the screen, you can mazimize it. By dragging it down, you can minimize it. I like using this feature from time to time.

Faster

It has a faster boot time, shutdown time, login time, than vista, probably the same as xp. It doesn’t seem to slow down if you stay away from resource hungry apps. I have noticed an increase in file transfers too.

Font Management

Font management has radically improved over previous versions. You can easily install any font by right clicking and selecting install. You can show and hide fonts without deleting them, so you now see only those fonts that are needed. Each font family is grouped together, this really cleans up a lot of mess.

Taskbar

The taskbar is a great addition, it saves a lot of space & time.

PreInstalled Codecs

Windows Media Player had quite a few codecs installed which saved me quite some time, although it wont play many formats like mp4 & mkv.

What I dislike about windows 7

No wmp taskbar view

I have the habbit of watching videos while working. In xp, vista, or ubuntu, I could very easily accomplish that, in 7 I cant. This is a huge disadvantage.

Crappy font rendering

I really missed using the amazing rendering of fonts ubuntu used to provide. This is a great disadvantage, especially for a designer.

Lacking compatibility of the taskbar with firefox

The tabs in IE show up as diff windows and allows you to select any tab, the same does not work in firefox which makes this feature worthless.

SLOW SLOW SLOW

Some things like boot etc are faster but there are many other things that are really slow, like wmp, explorer, start menu, search, sidebar, image viewer. If you have a GB of ram and a dual core 2ghz proccessor, you should be able to accomplish everyday tasks . With snow leopard coming out, and ubuntu working on a faster version, 7 doesnt stand a chance – speed wise.

Too slow for Netbooks

I dont see windows 7 working well on netbooks, it is just not fast enough. I would much rather use a customized version of Ubuntu which works smootly rather than 7 with all its issues.

Hardware support

I had and have problems with my touchpad, mic, webcam, all of which were instantly supported in Ubuntu.

No built in Antivirus

Wouldnt it be crazy if your Acer laptop had a problem and you called Dell customer support, Why should I have to buy an Antivirus software from avast or symantic when the problem is with windows. If I spend my hard earned money on a copy of windows, I expect a product that works without any addons or 3rd party products.

Conclusion

Even though windows 7 is a great visual upgrade, has quite a few features, and has a lot of hype surrounding it, I am not convinced that it is any better than Ubuntu or OSX and I will be shifting back to Ubuntu as soon as possible. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, it is simply Vista service pack 3 and it does not deserve to be sold with that ridiculous price tag.

What do you think

Let me know what you think, do you think Windows 7 is a fad and overhyped, looking forward to your comments.

10 Effective ways to set your blog apart from the rest

kumailht — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:16:03 +0000

Nowadays it takes more than just hard work for a blogger to stand out from the rest. As more and more bloggers crowded the blogsphere and write about the same topic, you need to be dissimilar and set your blog apart from the rest to success. While you had probably started a blog after reading Kumail’s post “All you need to know about starting a blog”, here’s a list of 10 crucial ways to build a successful blog and stand out from the rest.

1. Choose a memorable blog name

A blog name is where the readers start to know you. It should be catchy and be able to deliver the right blog image to your readers. A memorable blog name is also easier to be promoted via word of mouth.

2. Good blog design and layout

Visual impressions count. Web surfers, blog readers especially, are interested in websites with good layout and design. I understand that not everyone has the artistic touch to create an award-winning blog designs; but you should at least make sure your blog is well designed and user friendly with minimal clutter.

3. Write eye catching headlines

Aside from your blog’s visual design, the headline is always the first thing that gets your readers attention. A catchy headline attracts people to read further. Study shows that 80% of blog readers stop reading after the headline. So if you wish to make your blog stands out from the rest, polish your copy writing skills and write good headlines.

4. Reveal your personality

Revealing more about yourself and getting personal with your readers are always effective to expand your blog readership. When you get personal and let your users know who you are, they get the feeling of communicating with a human rather than their computer screen. They will be more likely to listen to you and react to your posts rather than skim through them, get the info and get out. Your readers are more likely to follow your blog (as well as recommending you to their friends) when they get to know you more in person.

The personal touch goes a long way in helping your blog even if you are a high profile blog with a corporate background. You could always give them a behind the scenes overview of your blog of twitter or communicate about issues related to your blog in the forum. What ever you do, make it personal but not too personal as too loose your readers interest. Get the right balance and you will feel the difference.

5. Be consistent

Think of a blog as you would think of a magazine – will you subscribe to a magazine because it is resourceful for just one month? No! To maintain and accumulate readership, you need to write consistently. When I say consistent, I am not only talking about the no. of articles per month, I also mean the quality of the articles that you publish. You have to keep up and maintain the quality.

6. Get your own domain and hosting

I couldn’t stress enough how important it is to host your blog on its own domain and hosting. It’s difficult to create an outstanding brand image for a blog with subdomain from Blogger.com or WordPress.com. A domain will cost you 9$ a year, thats 0.75$ a month, thats 0.025$ a day, thats 0.001$ an hours, I think you get my point or do I have to go further

It cost less than $5/month nowadays to own a shared hosting account and I am sure most bloggers can afford it. In case you need advice in term of which web host to go with, read my personal hosting reviews here. The least you can do is get a domain and let it be hosted on wordpress.com

7. Don’t just be about the money

Want your blog to stand out from the crowd? Then think about your readers before money.

Too many blogs are just about the money and little care about the readers. Many bloggers pile up advertisement and dishonest product reviews in their blog before they gain sufficient readership. When you put profits before the readers – you are actually chasing the readers away. So next time when you have a decision to make, ask ‘Will this benefits my readers?’ before asking ‘Will this bring in profit for me?’.

8. Express your opinion (even if it will create fights)

Sometimes, picking up a fight can be a good strategy to stand out from the rest. Understand that it’s o-k-a-y to have a stance against the crowd when you have a different opinion. You might get attacks for being different but controversy gets people talking and that’s a good thing for your blog publicity. It is your opinion and you have every right to express it.

9. Write link baiting blogpost

A link baiting blogpost is the kind of content that attracts attention and links. Link bait can be used as a powerful viral marketing strategy and you increase your blog SEO scores when readers link to you. One simple way to write link baiting blogpost is by compiling multiple resources into condensed, cumulative articles. Think about the articles you read in digg.com front page – 150 tools for…, 56 quick tips for a better…, 89 online resources to help you…, 23 ways to …, these are the best examples of link baiting blogposts.

10. Leverage images to add value to your blog

Graphics and images, when used strategically, are your best partner in pulling readers attention. No, it doesn’t mean that you should hang up 15 flashy gif files on every single blogpost. It means that images (photos, flow charts, comics, and graphs) should be used whenever it’s related to your blog content.

As the wise said: A picture is worth a thousand words – if your idea can be presented better in form of image, why not?

This guest post is brought to you by Jerry of Web Hosting Secret Revealed. Jerry inspects and reviews web hosting services based on his own usage experience, you can read more about his work at his blog.

Want to write a Guest post on my blog? shoot me an email at kumailht@gmail.com