dots AND lines

Are you a pro-Firefox? If you are and would like to enjoy the Firefox usage benefits further, check out this link posted in Free PDF Ebooks Download forum.

Seriously, cool stuff to maximise your Firefox capabilities!

There was a time when website development for multi-version of browser can be quite a headache. As for the issue highlighted here, there seem to be mulitiple reasons to cause it. According to various forums I have been through for solution (yes, I had the same problem before), the most likely reason to cause this would have been Javascript. Some even claimed to be their CSS coding! Which I do believe to be highly unlikely.

Anyway, in case you happens to develop an HTML page with forms and with the following javascript, be careful:

<script language="Javascript"> <!– Begin function disableselect(e){ return false } function reEnable(){ return true } document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false&quot if (window.sidebar){ document.onmousedown=disableselect document.onclick=reEnable } // End –> </script>

In details, what the code does is, whenever there is a mousedown event to occur on a document for browsers that support sidebar property, the mouse event will be cancelled. Most of the time, the usage of the coding snippet is to disable users’ basic interface feature like selecting, right-clicking, etc.. However, that, in return, also causes the users to be unabled to fill in the input in forms (generally, the input looks as if locked).

Similar cases can happen to Seamonkey 1.x, NetScape 7.x and 8.x, and any other browsers that supports sidebar.

The fastest solution will be to remove the coding. In my case, only removing the particular coding works fine.

In future, if such errors may occurs again, however, 1 simple suggestion to solve such issue:
0. Stop panicking and do not look at the coding as whole problem cause!
1. Track the codings that you think are the likeliest cause
2. Start disabling the lines of code or the functions (depending on the flow of your coding) 1 by 1 (cut, or comment them)
3. Save and refresh your site
4. If the error still occurs, enable the codings again and disable the next
5. Eventually, you will come to an output where disabling that particular code/line solve your problem.

That is how I solve mine most of the time.

My Illustrator recently gave me a headache when it suddenly does not capture the fonts installed in my PC after I repair my Windows XP Pro. The fonts did appear in top menu but not in the Character pallette. It had me searching few days for solution.

And I found it. It only solves partially though because the Chinese, Japanese and Korean character type are still not in the list. But it still good enough.

Here is the solution. Go install Adobe Reader. It helps. Somehow, it will reinstall/repair some of the necessary Adobe system files into your PC and fixed it as well. I am not sure if installing other Adobe applications will do a better job, but can try.

Else, maybe just format the PC and reinstall Windows follow by Illustrator. Start clean. Haha!

Ever had this problem? You set the folder in your XP to thumbnail view but ended up having the thumbnail view but no filename beneath each file. Here’s the solution to this matter (as a matter of fact, having thumbnails without filename is not an XP bug or problem).

Change the folder view to others (aside from the thumbnail that you are having now). Click on “shift” key and without letting go, click to change the folder view to thumbnail. And there you go. The filename reappears again! Here’s the reason why.

by Sam Harrison

Having trouble coming up with your next great idea? In his new book, “IdeaSpotting,” creativity guru Sam Harrison encourages designers to quit looking inward and to explore the world around them for creative inspiration. Here, he offers 10 exercises to help you get started.

Ever encounter this problem?

You use text tool in Illustrator, select a square area for the text, type some paragraphs in it, justify and there you have, an article nicely lay out, straight at both side but with broken words with ‘-’ at the end of the line. No matter how you try to adjust the box, some words fit nicely and the other just don’t.

Here’s a tip. Whenever you get this problem, select the space right before the broken word, keep hitting spacebar until the whole broken word is pushed to next line. Keep doing this to all the broken words and you will get a nice evenly-spaced line for the whole article.

Same goes to that if you happens to align the paragraph to the right. At the end of the paragraph, some how the last word is not aligned entirely to right and has a space on its right. Like this:

This time right after the full stop, hit the spacebar once and the words will automatically aligned right.

Don’t ask why, I also dunno. Hope you understand and this helps.

For anyone who is looking for free vector images for their own designs or projects, this should be a good news.

Open Clip Art Library is a project hosted to provide such services. It contains thousands of unique vector images (SVG), all sorted into categories for convenience (when I wrote this, the site claimed to have over 6900 clips). All of them are released into the public domain and may be used as royalty-free clipart. These images can either be browsed through the web or be downloaded as a gzipped tarball (yes, the entire thing). Any image contributions and/or mirrors for download are welcome.

I have found a cool blog that actually talks about the art of animation! Managed by ASIFA-Hollywood, the blog only talks about Hollywood animations and all you need to know about it. I think that it is a resourceful site to check. They have lessons on how to draw/create a character, and lotsa other infos (can't elaborate here cuz I'm still surfing through it :)).

Anyway, here.

I had a hard time figuring which category to put this in. But thinking that this is also a post that will eventually teach you how to get news brushes for your software, guess it should be in “Tackling Things” not “Techies Territory”.

In case you are looking for any photoshop brushes plugins, here are some links that provides free downloads of them. But check on the your Photoshop version. Some plugins may not be compatible with the your version. Here:

• Artric Photoshop Brushes
• Free Photoshop Brushes from Your Guide - Photoshop Brush Set One

And here’s a link for Macs free downloads on any graphic editing software. Not just Photoshop:

• Macintosh digital video editing, desktop publishing tips from CreativeMac. Macintosh QuickTime, macintosh digital video editing, mac desktop publishing software, mac web graphics software and Macintosh audio software.

If I got further links, I will post them in the comments. So can you.

I have always been troubled by wanting to change some images into vector image. We all know that most images we saved in our harddisk are bitmap graphics. For those who are wondering what the h*ll am I talking here, check this link.

I have always been using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to design something. But problems always occur when comes to image editing. Most pictures that I got are either to low quality, small or having jagged edge. And 1 thing comes to mind is always if only this image is a vector. So, I surf around the net to seek for solutions.

I found out that Illustrator do support raster to vector conversion! But when I used it, I find the result not satisfying. Either I’m too dumb or my Illustrator is too old. Hmmm… I ended up using the function “cutout” in Photoshop to transform the image. Okay but still not good enough (the bitmap is still bitmap).

Links below taken from here.

Illustrator CS2 Tracing tutorials
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/…
http://media.studio.adobe.com/link… [movie - Control Colors with Live Trace]
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/…

My solution is here. All the while, I’m using too much Adobe to actually forget that I have Macromedia Flash. Flash uses vectors most of the time. Maybe the solution is there? And true enough, there is.

When you check on the menu on top of Flash, you’ll definitely see “File Edit etc…” Look for “Modify”, click it and “Trace Bitmap…” is there. Make sure you have selected an image before you do this.

Here’s a link that teach you what “trace bitmap” is all about.