Illustrator Plug-ins
February 20, 2007
Some pretty awesome practical and useful plugins for Illustrator from Graffix. Check them out.
Plugins
Concatenate
Nudge Palette
Square-Up
Select
Alien Palette
Cutting Tools
Trackplan Tools
Proof Block
Isometric Line Tool
Arrowheads
Customizing the menu tree component in flash
February 20, 2007
If you like to customize (skinning) the look of your menu tree component in flash please take a look at the following examples of the properties you can change.
public var myTree:Tree;
myTree.setStyle(”fontSize”, “10″);
myTree.setStyle(”fontFamily”, “Verdana”);
myTree.setStyle(”backgroundColor”, “0xEBEBEB”);
myTree.setStyle(”borderStyle”, “none”);
myTree.setStyle(”color”, “0×666666″);
myTree.setStyle(”rollOverColor”, “0xE3E3E3″);
myTree.setStyle(”selectionColor”, “0xE3E3E3″);
myTree.setStyle(”textRollOverColor”, “0×666666″);
myTree.setStyle(”textSelectedColor”, “0×666666″);
If you want to customize the icons in your tree component you can by creating your own icon. Convert your icon to a movie clip symbol and it’s important that you give it a unique Linkage Identifier name. You can do this by clicking on the Advanced button in the Symbol Properties box. If you don’t you will not be able to customize the look of your icons. These are the 5 icons you can customize.
myTree.setStyle(”defaultLeafIcon”, “LinkageIdentiferName”);
myTree.setStyle(”folderClosedIcon”, “LinkageIdentiferName”);
myTree.setStyle(”folderOpenIcon”, “LinkageIdentiferName”);
myTree.setStyle(”disclosureOpenIcon”, “LinkageIdentiferName”);
myTree.setStyle(”disclosureClosedIcon”, “LinkageIdentiferName”);
For more infomation on customizing the tree component in flash click here.
iStockphoto.com
February 19, 2007
Check out and please buy my first two istockphoto.com contributions. More to come!
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=2875711
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=2875668
CSS Speech Bubbles
February 11, 2007
My friend Eric sent me this great link for creating CSS speech bubbles with rounded corners and all!
Creating seamless patterns in Adobe Illustrator
February 4, 2007
Last night I found this great PDF on how to create seamless patterns in Illustrator.
Click here to download the PDF instructions
And stay tune for my RetroPattern Series coming to istockphoto.com soon.
Creating a simple rotating text banner in flash
February 2, 2007
I needed to create a simple banner for a client where text would fade in and slide in from the left. So here’s a simple way to rotate text in a textfield. Now it’s easy to update text later down the road and you don’t have to manually tween every text box. I’ve added a nice fade in and slide transition to make it more pretty.
On your timeline window be sure to create a movieclip called “mc_instancename“. In the movieclip “mc_instancename” create a textbox called “txt_instancename”. Adjust the x and y coordinates and alpha amounts yourself in the tween class. Please note that this does not loop. But you can easily adjust the code to have it loop.
function tweenText() {
new mx.transitions.Tween(mc_instancename, “_alpha”, mx.transitions.easing.Regular.easeOut, 0, 100, 2, true);
new mx.transitions.Tween(mc_instancename, “_x”, mx.transitions.easing.Regular.easeOut, 533, 276, 1, true);
}
var intervalId:Number;
var count:Number = 0;
var maxCount:Number = 6;
var duration:Number = 5000;
var rotatingtext:Array = new Array();
rotatingtext[0] = “Place text here”;
rotatingtext[1] = “Place text here“;
rotatingtext[2] = “Place text here“;
rotatingtext[3] = “Place text here”;
rotatingtext[4] = “Place text here“;
rotatingtext[5] = “Place text here“;
rotatingtext[6] = “Place text here“;
function rotateText(param:String) {
tweenText();
mc_instancename.txt_instancename.htmlText = param;
clearInterval(intervalId);
if (count<maxCount) {count++;
intervalId = setInterval(this, “rotateText“, duration, rotatingtext[[count]);} else if (count=maxCount) {
clearInterval(intervalId);
}
}
if (intervalId != null) {
clearInterval(intervalId);
}
intervalId = setInterval(this, “rotateText“, 0, rotatingtext[count]);
Adobe’s Apollo
February 2, 2007
Mike sent me this sexy Overview on Adobe’s Apollo. Apollo will aparently let you create desktop applications using Flash, Flex, Actionscript, HTML, and more. Looks very cool.
Pan’s Labyrinth
February 2, 2007
A couple of weekends ago I went and saw Pan’s Labyrinth with a couple of friends. I wasn’t kind sure what I was getting myself into when I walked in to the theatre. I had seen the trailer and assumed it was a light fantasy type movie. You know light and not very intense. Was I ever wrong and I think a few people in the theatre were a little surprised as well.
From imdb.com:
“”Pan’s Labyrinth” is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother’s new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco’s victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.”
First I will admit that I’m a little squeamish when watching certain movies but I noticed some big tough guys in the theater squirm in their seats too. 
Why? This movie is pretty violent and gory. I found it a little too gory a little too much of the time and I found myself closing my eyes for about a third of the movie. Of course closing my eyes didn’t help much because the sound, believe or not, was really awesome. So even though I couldn’t see anything, listening to some guy getting his face bashed in with a broken bottle over and over and over again made me squirm even more in my seat. Yes, I must of looked silly sitting in my seat in an almost fetal position with my hands over my ears and my eyes shut, but I was not the only one.
There were numerous times where I felt like I really needed to walk out of the theatre, take a break, maybe order a alcoholic drink or two, sit down for a bit, and then after all that then go back in to subject myself to more.
Overall I thought the story was really beautiful, the shots were breathtaking and the sound was incredible, but I found the amount of violence and goriness overkill at some certain points and overshadowed the story at times and I felt the story dragged on a little near the end. Will I buy this movie on DVD? No. Will I watch this movie ever again? No. Did I leave the theatre asking myself “What the hell did I just watch?” Yes.
The USB Warmer Mouse II
February 1, 2007
If you work in an cold office, like me, then you definately need one of these. The USB Warmer Mouse II! Keeps your hand warm while your hard at work!
The Queen
January 30, 2007
I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while now given my interest in the royal family. Yes I am a sucker for the royals ever since I was little. I had some problems getting any of my friends to see it with me and even my mother was like “Oh Suzan, I can’t watch that movie. It will only make me upset that I’m no longer living in London thanks to your bastard father moving us to Canada.” Sigh.
So I finally managed to see The Queen. I really thought it was going to be a very dry and serious film/documentary about the royals relationship with Diana and the days following her death.
But I found the movie really brings out the dysfunctional relationships in the royal family in a rather amusing and comical way which was good. The movie I think takes a look at Family vs. Procedures & Protocoles. Helen Mirren is really quite good and really humanmizes the role of Queen Elizabeth.
However I don’t think it’s going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Maybe Best Actress.
Next week I’m going to see The Last Ling of Scotland. I’ve been dying to see this movie based on the 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
