this is the modern world

frosty start / Product Placement

2009-01-02T07:51:00.001-08:00

Product Placement
Originally uploaded by kirkt26

What a frosty start to the new year, althrough this didn't seem to faze our ridgeback kina as she ran riot around the hills this morning. Were did she go!

My ride

2009-01-02T07:42:00.001-08:00

My ride
Originally uploaded by kirkt26

Totally forgot about this blog after losing interest in late 2007. Found the password whilst looking for something else and throught it would be worth writing a post if only to humour myself. My new mountain bike arrived this morning. Took it for quick spin earlier and really enjoyed it, looking forward to trying my luck on the local trails over the weekend.

Drawing Manga Style

2007-11-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

I thought i'd try my hand at drawing a manga style character with Inkscape this evening. After searching google for some ideas and inspiration i was able to create a manga style face. All through i do not have a graphics tablet Inkscape's Bezier curve tool allowed me to easily create curved outlines.

Apple iPhone

2007-11-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

The iPhone is coming...
iPhone has already sold 1.4 million since it's June 29th stateside launch. Reaching the shores of the UK on November 9th the handset will retail @ 269 GBP. And only be available on the 02 network with a minimum tariff of thirty five pounds a month, and contract term of 18 months minimum.

How to get one?
The iPhone is expected to do well over the holiday period and stateside apple have already restricted sales to two per customer.
The iPhone will be available from apple's online store and retail stores along with the carphone warehouse and 02 retail stores from the 9th November with 02 keeping it's retail stores open until 10pm on the evening of the ninth.
Currently payment is restricted to credit and debit cards.

CSS DROP SHADOWS

2007-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

CSS DROP SHADOWS

Add w3c compliant drop shadows to your text and images with just a few lines of code.
Heres the link w3.org/style I found this tutorial quite help and throught i'd share it with you. By simply modding the background and margin properties you can quickly and easily create custom shadows to suit your Blog.
To gain a better in sight in to css checkout w3schools.com for free tutorials.

css borders

2007-10-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

There are various ways to create shadow effects in css. Here is a dirty and quick way to get the above effect.
Firstly add these css properties to your css style

.shadow {
border-top: solid 2px #ccc;
border-right: solid 4px #000;
border-bottom: solid 8px #666;
border-left: solid 1px #000;
}

Then apply the class to your image tag

I told you it was dirty, ok so it's not the best effect or the best way to create this type of effect. In fact this is more of a bevel effect if anything?
I imagine the best way to create a shadow effect would be to overlay "<div>tags.
I will do soon reading and post on it soon.
Photograph Taken 23-10-07 by Doug

Layout fixed for now!

2007-10-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Just finished my new layout, but was unable to edit the header div as i would like due to blogger changing the templates code.Turns out blogger have also been making changes to the way you can customise your blogs layout and it's just left me a little confused. So i off to get some sleep.

Template redesign

2007-10-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry you guys using firefox, it seems i have and issue with the blogs navigational element... how embarrassing.

Curled over corners with fireworks

2007-10-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some png source files for curled corners.

The shape is a rectangle modifyed using the subselection and freeform tools and has a gradient fill and drop shadow applied.
To download click the thumbnail then > right click > save as
on the full size image.

Switching blogger sidebar from right to left and vice versa

2007-10-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

Easily and quickly reposition your blogger sidebar element and main blog content by choosing Template > Edit html
With the text editor open scroll down until you find the styles for the sidebar-wrap which will look something like this:-

#sidebar-wrap {
width:220px;
float:left;
font-size:90%;
line-height:1.5em;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
padding-right: 10px;
padding-left: 10px;
background-color: #FFF2E6;
border: 1px dotted #cccccc;
}

now change the float property which looks like this:-

float:left;

In this instance you would change it to "float:right;" if you hit the preview button now you'll note that not much has changed if anything. This is because you also need to change the float property for main-wrap1 also.
As before locate the styles for main-wrap1 which looks something like this:-

#main-wrap1 {
width:465px;
float:right;
background:;
color:$mainTextColor;
font-size:97%;
line-height:1.5em;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
padding-top: 0px;
padding-right: 20px;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-left: 10px;
}

and edit the float property this time from float:right; to float:left;
Now press preview to see how you have reversed the orientation of your template.
Depending on which template you are using your blogs content may seem to wide or close to the edge of your page to combat this simply reduce the width of your main-wrap1 #div by 5 to 10px.
Hope this was helpful

Editing classic blogger templates continued

2007-10-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the screenshot of my progress so far, i plan to add a three column layout to the footer and tweak the fonts etc. I will post the css and images once finished.

editing classic blogger templates

2007-10-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have continued my editing of the classic blogger template "rounders two" and have made a fair bit of progress. Althrough this template is not ready to go live quite yet i was going to post a screenshot showing my progress, but... there seems to be a problem with bloggers image upload script.

HTML,CSS plus a tiny little bit of PHP

2007-10-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

HTML AND CSS WEB DESIGN my latest project is going to be the redesign and relaunch of the first website i created almost two years ago.
I've learnt a little in the last two years and this redesign will be standards compliant html and css. O.K so validation is only half the battle, it is of course true that while a page may validate correctly does not necessarily mean it will be cross browser/platform compliant. So whats a boy to do? Banging your head on your desk may seem like a good idea at the time(it won't help). Thats not everything i've learnt so far, get the latest versions of the popular browsers on your machine(IE,FireFox,Netscape and so on)for testing then visit browsershots here you can test your url in thirteen different browsers across all platforms specifying the screen size(from 640px -1600px)and other elements like javascript, flash and java.

One of the requirements of the redesign is for the client to be able to edit the content of the site without the need for any technical skills or software. So i have created a php script that outputs to text files which are included within the pages html with php. The sites admin pages where the content is edited uses the tinymce javascript text editor.

Once i finish this project i would like to develop this script in to a full content management system that allows the user to also edit the navigation and other elements much the same as blogger does.

Shopping, Beans & software upgrades

2007-10-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

I hate the weekly shopping trip as much as the next man, the bright fluorescent supermarket lights and long queues are almost always certain to send me into a zombie like state in no time. I just about managed to stay half wake tonight as i thought about trying to emulate some food package labels with fireworks. I had recently downloaded some western style fonts from 1001
free fonts and had been eager to try them out, so i chose a well known brand of baked beans that i had remembered used a western style label on it's cans.
Thirty or forty minutes after my return from the supermarket and i had created the above png, although it is not identical to the food can i am happy that i was able to create a similarly styled object relatively easily.

I'm very keen to try out the latest incarnation of fireworks(cs3). I have always been very sceptical about software upgrades it only seems like yesterday that i starting using fw8 and wonder does the latest version have enough upgrades and new features to justify the price tag.

WEB 2.0 LOGO REFLECTION

2007-10-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

Easliy create a logo or image reflection in fireworks
once you have created your icon/logo/image and grouped its elements together (CTRL+G).
Select duplicate from the edit dropdown (CTRL+ALT+D). This automatically places a duplicate of your orginial object on to your canvas.
Ensure you have your duplicate image selected then from the main menu choose modify > transform >flip vertical as shown below.

Now you have a mirror image of you original icon
lets reduce the master opacity of the duplicated icon to further enhance the reflection effect. The control for this is located in the right hand side of the properties panel.
Once you have completed this step you may wish to reduce the height of the reflected image to suit yourself.

That's it, to keep your images editable don't forget to save a png copy.

3D text effect with fireworks mx

2007-10-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Grab the text tool from the tools panel and drag it out across your canvas then input your message or logo. This will form the 3D shadow so choose a dark colour and set the stroke colour to black (#000000)

With your shadow text already selected select edit > duplicate(CTRL+ALT+D)
This will reproduce your shadow text on top of your original text. With the duplicated text selected choose a light fill colour from the properties panel whilst leaving the stroke black(#000000).

Now simply position your duplicated text in place to create your 3D effect.Once you have chosen your preferred perspective group your logos highlight and shadow together(CTRL+G).

Have fun!

One step photo editing in fireworks

2007-10-03T04:43:00.000-07:00

Heres a one step fix for editing under or over exposed photos using fireworks.
Open the file you wish to edit with fireworks
Select the image then open the properties panel if it's not already open(ctrl+F3).
From the properties panel select the add filters icon > adjust colour and then select the curves option.

Once you have the curves window open ensure the preview check box is ticked, this will allow you to see the effects being applied to your image. Now simply place your cursor on the line in the centre of the curves grid and drag it from left to right, up or down until you are happy with your image. Then click ok to close this window.

ctrl+s to save your file.

It's that easy, did you find this tutorial helpful? Or not?

IMAGE ROUND-UP

2007-09-20T13:36:00.001-07:00

I have spent the day fruitlessly trying to round-up all my digital images only to end up flustered that i seem to have deleted some of my favorites.
When i finish this round-up I'll bung them all in a zip file for download.
Who knows someone may have a use for them.

The images are:- view from Sirhowy Tredegar, my garden, Cal, Tulip in Sophia Gardens, Roches de naye (Switzerland) and my Coronet box camera.

EDITING CLASSIC BLOGGER TEMPLATES

2007-09-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

I have started to edit the classic blogger template "Rounders 2" (the style sheet for this blog) as this will be an on going project and my first blog. I've quickly knocked out a new logo with the words beta 1.1 included, cheesey or what!
Does anyone have any tips for editing blogger style sheets?
Please Please could somebody drop by and leave some comments it's getting lonely in here.

Create a web design studio for FREE!

2007-09-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

Who needs dreamweaver and photoshop!
Create your very own web studio for free
with the best free software the net has to offer.
Firstly your gonna need a text editor, personally i prefer html kit http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ this great little editor can easily deal with your html, css, javascript and php and also has a vast catalogue of plugins available including html tidy.
For editing your css on the fly why not try the firefox plugin firebug http://www.getfirebug.com/ works straight from your browser and splits the screen between code and design view just like dreamweaver.
As for vectors checkout inkscape http://www.inkscape.org/ , and for your photo editing
look-up http://www.gimp.org/.
This is just a quick rundown of my favs hope it was helpful.
(amine face created with inkscape)

Free Web 2.0 Style badges

2007-09-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some web 2.0 badges i created using inkscape.
Here are the inkscape sources files http://www.kirkthomas.co.uk/badges.zip
please use them as you wish.

Rhodesian Ridgebacks

2007-09-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

The Rhodesian Ridgeback or African lion Hound, was not as many people have been lead to believe a lion killer. They were however used to track lions and hold them at bay until the hunters arrived. These dogs were used for the great stamina and courage they possessed.
The above photo is of my five month bitch Kina. The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a large athletic dog and my five month old pup already weighs 22kgs. Like most dogs of her age she enjoys the age old past times of digging-up flowerbeds and chewing footwear.

Firework Power

2006-11-19T05:28:00.000-08:00

Today i have been playing around with fireworks in a vain attempt to create some web 2.0 style graphics. Oh what fun i have had whilst taking inspiration from from around the web and listening to zepplin. Here is the outcome.

Having always liked those jelly style buttons that grace the interface of mac OS X, i tried to recreate these also using firework heres my attempt. Any wishing to get a web 2.0 style logo for they blog or site please contact me. I would appriecate any feedback you may have on my efforts.