Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Google Chromebooks - Will it bring a change & what's Microsoft thinking ?

June 15, Google has released the new Chromebook which is new netbook with some great-looking features, but will it be successful? Not sure right now but it seems to offer great services and after all Google has released its operating system, even if it's for the netbook, they are making progress towards the OS market and that should ring the alarms for Microsof :)

On the other hand Microsoft is investing billions to buy Skype ! :) and that can be a bad deal for them as well, because Google Talk and Video / Voice Chat in Gmail and Free Calls to USA and Canada will give them a tough time.

However, Google Chromebook looks like my Acer laptop and there are versions from Samsung as well. The Samsung version's price on Amazon is a bit higher, not sure why !




A great feature of Chromebook is it's cloud based backup, even if you loose your chromebook you have all your data / work automatically backed up and you just get a new chromebook and start from where you left. Also there are no annoying update warnings / notifications, it just updates itself to the latest version and don't bother you for it.
Let's see how it goes for Google and Microsoft has some tough time coming soon I guess..... :)

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Concept Art from Shiraz Saeed.





I had mentioned my friend Shiraz Saeed in previous posts... I had some of his work stored on my old hard drive which i restored today. Have look at his sketches.

Free Website Source - HTML, CSS, FLA and Photoshop PSD.

Hi,
Today I am sharing a project of mine with everyone out there to provide others with a learning curve as well. This is a website that I converted from Photoshop PSD to HTML. Although the site is an old project from 2005 and the layout is done in tables but I think it'll be a good help as learning wheels.

I had created roll-overs with Fireworks at that time, now you can use either CSS or Javscript roll-overs today, which are easier and more accessible.

You can download the site with source files here:

http://hotfile.com/dl/123690438/8aecb93/4dcard.com.zip.html

The zip file contains html files, source PSDs, PNGs and a Flash FLA etc. I think it'll be good help for beginners. I'll be soon sharing more projects. :) You're FREE to use any source code or files in your projects.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Quick Tip: Using Transparent PNGs For a Number of Effects

Hi.
Recently I am working on my new project for a client and the design required using a semi-transparent background for the drop down menus, from which you can see through the objects behind it. :) Since CSS prior to CSS3 doesn't offer a background color with opacity and there might be solutions which can get complex. A simple solution is to use a semi-transparent PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image as a background and set background properties like repeat and position as you need and you have a great looking drop-down menu background which is semi-transparent or with the opacity you have set.

you can either use Adobe Fireworks or Photoshop to create a PNG with opacity. I'll be postign tutorials but not sure of the timeline right now as projects have caught me up. The link to the semi-transparent drop down menu is  http://samnelson.biz/inland/

Take a look and let me know your comments.