AndySowards.com :: Web Design, Development, Programming

60+ Epic Bruce Lee Quotes & Inspirational Art

Andy Sowards — Wed, 30 May 2012 07:33:46 +0000

Who doesn’t like martial arts, kung fu, ninjas, etc? Ain’t no one that don’t like it. Ain’t no one. Everyone remembers the thrill of seeing these things as a kid for the first time, and falling in love with the mystery and the magic that is the martial arts. If you haven’t seen these, GO WATCH THEM NOW WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR STOP READING THIS lol.

Today we have a tribute to a martial arts legend – Bruce Lee! We have rounded up some awesome artworks, photos, video, and inspirational quotes of the amazing Bruce Lee. I hope that they inspire you to be great like he was, and strive to be the best you can be in all things that you do.

Who Is Bruce Lee?

Are you kidding me? Bruce Lee was a BAMF.

Let me tell you a little about Bruce Lee. He was easily one of the best martial artists of all time. Legendary. He was the key role in so many of the best martial arts movies ever created. Here is what the good ole wiki says about our hero.

Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun-fan; 27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973) was a Chinese American Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement. He is widely considered by many commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist and pop culture icon of the 20th Century. He is often credited with changing the way Asians were presented in American films.

Without further or do, dive into these epic inspirations & enjoy!

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
― Bruce Lee

I always love how almost every fighting game has a ‘bruce lee’ character

This is an epic Statue of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
― Bruce Lee

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
― Bruce Lee

Another epic picture of the Bruce Lee Statue in Hong Kong

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
― Bruce Lee

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successfull personality and duplicate it.”
― Bruce Lee

Enter The Dragon – Movie book

This is just some awesome package design I thought I would throw in here, that commemorates the awesomeness of Bruce Lee’s movies – this one in particular, Enter the Dragon! Beautiful Illustration & design.

“As you think, so shall you become.”
― Bruce Lee

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
― Bruce Lee

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
― Bruce Lee

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
― Bruce Lee

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
― Bruce Lee

This is an amazing video illustrating his quote and actual sound-byte of him talking. So Inspirational. Be Water My Friend.

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
― Bruce Lee

“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”
― Bruce Lee

“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”
― Bruce Lee

Such an awesome old print ad with that epic bruce lee atari game!

“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”
― Bruce Lee

Truly an inspirational person. Beautiful Grave Stone. May he rest in peace.

More Bruce Lee Inspirations

Need more epic bruce lee inspirations, check this out

A Tribute to the Dragon – 35 Awesome Examples of Bruce Lee Artwork

Ok, we can’t end it without some epic fighting scenes, so enjoy this video

Best Bruce Lee Fight Scenes

So. Badass. So Epic.

What is your favorite Bruce Lee Movie? Let us know in the comments below!!

You like this? Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @andysowards and like us on facebook @andysowardsfan! We are also on that Google Plus & Pinterest thing.

If you like this, You’ll love These.

70+ Hot Examples of Best Cosplay

Andy Sowards — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:10:50 +0000

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We are Geeks. Geeks Love Cosplay. We love cosplay. You do too. Don’t lie, when you see awesome outfits you geek out on them and daydream about how fun that would be. We know you too well haha. Today we have rounded up some of the most spectacular, beautiful and the most well played cosplayer costumes. These range from just freaking badass, to epic, and then back to super sexy. A lot of these are anime and video game characters, even all the way back to the old school genesis era with a Final Fight Costume! Hope these costumes inspire you to either do something awesome with a costume at a convention, or maybe draw up a costume or something you would want to rock at halloween. Whatever it is, I hope these inspire you to be creative, and enjoy yourself!

What is Cosplay?

It is basically dressing up, as your favorite character in any type of game, anime, comic book, etc. Usually associated with going to conventions like comicon or E3 or what have you. But I know you guys want the technical definition so….

Wikipedia! Teach our Audience! Wikipedia says that cosplay is:

Cosplay (コスプレ kosupure?), short for “costume play”, is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centred around role play. A broader use of the term “cosplay” applies to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context.

Favorite sources include manga and anime, comic books, video games and films. Any entity from the real or virtual world that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Inanimate objects are given anthropomorphic forms and it is not unusual to see genders switched, with women playing male roles and vice versa. There is also a subset of cosplay culture centered around sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters that are known for their attractiveness and/or revealing (even explicit) costumes.

How To Cosplay?

Anyone can cosplay! It isn’t always as easy as it looks though, some of these costumes are really expensive, or impossible to find – a lot of them are custom made. It is well worth the effort however, when hanging out in your awesome outfit on the street or at a convention. A common myth is that cosplaying is just for anime conventions, but you can actually cosplay anyone, even your favorite band member or celebrity. It is mostly about expressing yourself, and having fun!

Anyway, Dive into the list of epic cosplay costumes!

Well That’s Just Prime.

Chewie!!!

Epic Giant Ogre is Epic!

Ryu from Street Fighter! FTW!

Sakura from Street Fighter!

Cammy from Street Fighter! hotttt

Best. Dhalsim. Ever.

Simply an amazing Costume. I want.

Hottest Costume Everrrrrr

Awesome Assassins Creed Cosplay!

Poison from Final Fight!

Now that is old school gaming hotness

Darth Mother F**Kin VADER!

MEGAMAN!!!

Naruto! Love anime

Devil May Cry! So awesome.

Always loved the DMC Sword & Jacket

Love anything Metal Gear Solid.

Acid Venus from Metal Gear Solid – this is so amazing.

Dat Gun!

Meryl from Metal Gear Solid!

Awesome Bleach Outfits in this scene!

These FireFall Costumes are Truly Epic.

Epic Suit of Armor! Want!!!

Solid Snake!

Cloud from Final Fantasy!

Love team fortress, that is an awesome soldier!

This is easily my favorite, – its a real life wearable armor suit replica of War Machine. So Epic.

Alucard! Castlevania Symphony of the Night! ERhhmmegherdddd

Zelda!!

Need More of the Best Cosplay Hotness?

Here are a few more posts with some of the most epic costumes I’ve ever seen!!

Best Cosplay Ever (This Week) – 05.21.12

The 20 Most Badass Video Game Cosplay Costumes Ever

Best Cosplay Ever (This Week) – The Avengers Edition

Are you all geeked out yet? What was your favorite costume? Which one would you like to be? Leave it in the comments below! Thanks for reading!

You like this? Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @andysowards and like us on facebook @andysowardsfan! We are also on that Google Plus & Pinterest thing.

If you like this, You’ll love These.

Invoicing & Billing Software Review – EnterYourHours.com

Andy Sowards — Mon, 28 May 2012 14:36:37 +0000

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Today we have a review of an Invoice & Billing Software app called EnterYourHours.com

There are a lot of similar apps out there so reviews like this are helpful in making a decision – since there isn’t enough time in the day to try them all before buying them – so we hope you enjoy it!

You may or may not have heard of them before, so let’s introduce you to start off

What is Enter Your Hours?

EnterYourHours.com is an hourly tracking and billing software system that allows you to track time, generate and send invoices, view reports, simplify everyday accounting, and so much more.

Ideal for law firms, marketing companies, IT consultants, industry professionals, and anyone who bills by the hour.

Why Should I Use It?

Well we will give our experience with the software down below, but here are just a few of the nice things about Enter Your Hours:

Easy to use.
Competitively priced.
30 Day free trial.
Bill fast and accurately.
Lots of invoice customization available.
Free QuickBooks integration.
Free support.
Often we’ll load existing data from a previous billing software system for free.

Getting Started

So getting started is easy, you can even sign up for a 30 day free trial and try this yourself, you don’t have to take my word for it. They have a handy documentation area for new users that give you a nice overview and some videos that really help guide you through the process of setting everything up and using the system – you can check those out here if you would like, But it is all laid out in an easy to navigate way, so it is pretty self explanatory especially if you have used a system like this before.

Adding & Managing Clients

I was able to quickly and easily add clients (which is usually the first thing I do!). Above is a quick screen of what the clients list looks like. You can of course manage the clients however you wish.

From there you can add projects to clients pretty easily – as you see in the screen above – this is what the project screen looks like. So as you see you can have a good bit of control over the client and project management.

Adding & Managing Users

If you work with a team of people, they can have accounts as well inside your system – which helps spread out the workload and gives everyone access to all of the information they need to stay on the same page.

You can keep track of your employees and what they do on projects, and even tie it into the invoicing process – makes everything easy to work with & less of a headache to manage.

Sending Invoices

The most important feature (that gets you payed!) is easy to use as well, and pretty customizable. The EnterYourHours.com System makes creating professional invoices very simple. There are two types of invoices you can send from EnterYourHours.com. The first type is a basic invoice. The basic invoice can be configured a variety of ways, but by default it breaks down your billables by hourly billing and expenses, and includes the standard total and rate information you would expect on a standard professional services invoice. The second type is what they call a bill. A bill has all the information of an invoice but includes last payment, balance forward, and total due information.

You can also customize things such as adding your logo to the invoice

Conclusion

I was pleased with the overall functionality of the billing software – I especially liked the documentation, helped me a lot whenever I got stuck. I also like the functionality to be able to send messages to your team, and other little things that make life easier. I liked the customizable invoices – if you want to see more about those then check this page out for some examples.

Another cool thing is that if there is something missing functionality wise – that you need, they actually create custom built screens and functionality that you can discuss with them about integrating into your system – that is pretty unique.

Enter Your Hours is definitely worth a look if you are on the market for some invoicing & billing software and haven’t found the right one yet – give it a try for free and let us know what you think about it in the comments below!

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Stumble Into Increased Web Traffic With StumbleUpon

Eric Nacul — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:48:08 +0000

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What Is StumbleUpon?

With more than 20 million members, or “Stumblers” as they’re called, StumbleUpon can be a fun and addictive way to discover new and interesting content from across the Web.

But it is also a serious business tool and one of social media’s top traffic generators, ranking second only to Facebook in Statcounter’s list of referral sites, for the past year, outranking Twitter, reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube, although
the latter claimed second spot for the month of April 2012.

Getting started with StumbleUpon

Creating a free StumbleUpon account couldn’t be easier and consists primarily of selecting a username, password, and choosing at least five interests from a menu of broad categories.

Once downloaded and installed, the StumbleUpon toolbar appears at the top of your browser window with “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” icons for likes and dislikes as well as a “Stumble” button. As you browse and select items you like or dislike, you’re helping StumbleUpon refine the type of content that interests you. Those pages are also added to the database of pages that will be displayed to other Stumblers with similar interests.

When you’re ready to stumble off and explore your interests, simply press the “Stumble” button for StumbleUpon to begin displaying relevant pages based on your interests.

Putting StumbleUpon to work for you

Since StumbleUpon’s value is content driven, it stands to reason the most important aspect of increasing traffic to a particular site is for that site to have great content.

It’s just as easy to for users to hit the dislike button as the like button, and they’ll likely do that for poorly written articles and blog posts. And while sales pages or product information pages may hold some interest, unless it’s a phenomenal product or sizzling sales pitch, those pages likely won’t be much of a draw.

In general, content that does well on other social networks will do well on StumbleUpon, too, including:

Videos from Vimeo, YouTube and other networks that are informative or entertaining.
Well written tutorials that convey useful information on a particular topic.
Lists. Like the rest of the Web, lists are popular for Stumblers as well.
Infographics. Again, what is popular elsewhere is popular on StumbleUpon, too.

Add a StumbleUpon badge

Adding a StumbleUpon badge to your content is the easiest way to increase its chances to be shared. Coding for badges is available on the StumbleUpon badges page, which also includes tips for integration with WordPress, Blogger, Feedburner, TypePad, and more.

Su.pr is super for sharing

StumbleUpon makes it easy to shorten URLs and syndicate content to Facebook and Twitter with its su.pr system, either publishing it immediately or scheduling it for later. Stumblers following those links are sent to your website where they can click to give your content a thumbs up. And, their toolbar gives the option to share your content on their own Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter networks as well.

Building a base of followers

Another way of generating traffic on StumbleUpon is to build a base of followers and share content directly. To build that base, you have to find users with similar interests and follow them, with the hope they follow you in return. But if your own content is marginally interesting, they usually will.

Finding followers with similar interests is easy by visiting stumbleupon.com/discover/keyword/ and replacing “keyword” with a particular topic. The ensuing page shows users who share that interest as well as how many followers they have. Clicking on a particular Stumbler’s icon brings up their profile with a variety of information, including how many interests you and they share in common.

Complete your profile

You can facilitate followers by making sure you have a complete bio. You’ll find that information in “your settings” under the “Profile” button on StumbleUpon’s home page. Other settings under the profile button allow you to upload your photo, connect to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google accounts, edit your interests and more.

Ready, set, share

While stumbling your own content isn’t recommended, it can’t be shared with others until it is. While you could wait until another user just happens to stumble across it, you can also ask friends to stumble it for you. Or, as long as you have a second email address, you can set up a second StumbleUpon account just to stumble your primary account’s content.

Once a page is stumbled, you can click on the StumbleUpon toolbar’s info button while on the page and then the Share Now button to send it and up to a 140-character message to your followers. And to make mutual followers more receptive to stumbling your content, it never hurts to send short personalized thanks when they share content with you.

StumbleUpon Paid Discovery

If after exploring and becoming familiar with StumbleUpon’s capabilities, you find you’re not getting the results you expected or any results at all or if you want to skip community building and speed up the process, the company’s Paid Discovery feature might be worth looking into.

Paid Discovery directs people interested in your topic directly to your website, with three plans available ranging from $.05 to $.25 a visitor.

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30+ Responsive Web Design Tutorials

Andy Sowards — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:06:48 +0000

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Since you guys really liked the Responsive Web Design Inspiration we showed you last week, we decided to put together some really good tutorials for making your site look great on mobile devices like those. Responsive is where it is at! Over the past year or so (and recently) we have found some really great tutorials we thought we would share with you that explain the basics, and the more advanced topics like fluid grids and css3 media queries, layouts, javascript tools, etc.

Responsive Design is not going anywhere anytime soon, so prepare yourself, and learn it! The web is heading more and more towards mobile devices as the mobile phone & app trend rise. Responsive web design basically makes your website look great for desktop users at home, and mobile users on the go – with some minor guidelines and some css3 . So I hope you enjoy these tutorials and learn something! There is even some more inspiration in these things, so dive in! Enjoy!

Responsive Web Design

This is easily the best place to start on your journey of responsive web learning – Good foundational knowledge! This article was written by Ethan Marcotte who (according to the wikipedia) coined the term Responsive Web Design (RWD) in this article way back in 2010 – and even wrote a book on the subject of responsive web design

Beginner’s Guide to Responsive Web Design

This is another really nice place to start, if you are new to the mobile arena and have no idea what ‘responsive web design’ is – then this does a great job of explaining it and telling you about stuff like fluid grids and media queries.

Responsive Design in 3 Steps

Great little tutorial that shows you 3 simple steps on how to setup your web design workflow to be responsive and mobile friendly!

5 Useful CSS Tricks for Responsive Design

A nice quick little list of some tricks you can use in your designs to make them responsive!

5 Really Useful Responsive Web Design Patterns

This is a really nice post for once you get the grasp of everything and you are building your responsive design. This post goes into an overview of common & proven patterns used in the wild – it will help you see what works and give you some ideas on how to structure your sites layout with one of these patterns or perhaps make your own!

Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How To Use It

This is another nice overview of Responsive Web Design – has very in depth examples that explain concepts and guidelines on how to pull these things off – and at the end it has some really nice responsive web examples showcased.

Create a Responsive Web Design with Media Queries

Great tutorial that really ties everything together and shows you how to build a responsive web design from scratch, beginning to end! Will really put all the pieces you’ve learned together

Responsive Web Design: Layouts and Media Queries

Good tutorial that gives you a few different types of Layouts that are typically used in responsive web design, gives you the code examples and explains how they are working and what they will look like!

Great post with an overview of another developers workflow for how he is implementing responsive web design. As I always say, it is very good to see how other people work, and adapt their methods to your own. Once you learn the basics and check out a few other peoples workflows, you have everything you need!

You like this? Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @andysowards and like us on facebook @andysowardsfan! We are also on that Google Plus & Pinterest thing.

AndySowards.com :: Web Design, Development, Programming

60+ Epic Bruce Lee Quotes & Inspirational Art

Who Is Bruce Lee?

More Bruce Lee Inspirations

If you like this, You’ll love These.

70+ Hot Examples of Best Cosplay

What is Cosplay?

How To Cosplay?

Need More of the Best Cosplay Hotness?

If you like this, You’ll love These.

Invoicing & Billing Software Review – EnterYourHours.com

What is Enter Your Hours?

Why Should I Use It?

Getting Started

Adding & Managing Clients

Adding & Managing Users

Sending Invoices

Conclusion

If you like this, You’ll love These.

Stumble Into Increased Web Traffic With StumbleUpon

What Is StumbleUpon?

Getting started with StumbleUpon

Putting StumbleUpon to work for you

Add a StumbleUpon badge

Su.pr is super for sharing

Building a base of followers

Complete your profile

Ready, set, share

StumbleUpon Paid Discovery

If you like this, You’ll love These.

30+ Responsive Web Design Tutorials

More Responsive Web Tutorials & Resources

If you like this, You’ll love These.