From the Blog

Nov
24

Web Generators

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am
All design takes time and practice learning the metaphorical pallet and brush for the medium. In fine art, you have charcoal, pastels, paint, and canvas. With Photoshop you have the Brush Tool, Rubber Stamp, and your Canvas. In Web Design, you have images, CSS, HTML and a variety of other languages to play with on a browser canvas. While learning the art of web design, here are a few handy tricks to pull out when you need them.

CSS Button Generator


Easily creates CSS3 buttons. They are clean, completely customizable and very pretty.

CSS Gradient Generator

Easily creates CSS3 gradients. Straight to the point. Complete with code for most browsers.

Stripe Generator

 

 This one is cool because it creates a striped pattern and saves it as an image file for you to download and use in whatever, be it CSS or a graphic in Photoshop.

No Comments | Read more
Oct
11

myfav.es

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am

Simply put, Myfav.es is a really cool bookmark-page maker. However, that doesn’t give this the justice that it deserves! I mean, look at the interface above! Clean. Simple. Elegant. And, completely customizable.

You can have as many bookmarks (faves) as you want, and link them to whatever you want. I found that the cleaner, the better.

You can choose from over 170 pre-made faves complete with beautiful icons, or add your own faves and choose from an array of other icons. Not only that, but you also get to choose how the icons look: Matte, Glossy, Floating Shadow, Floating Reflection, Drop Shadow, etc.

You can also choose how the icons are laid out (Grid, Magic Scroll, Multipage), and choose from a ton of pre-made patterns, backgrounds or colors.

You see, the whole thing can live in a cookie, so you don’t even have to register an account, or fool around with that (although, you can have an account so that the page can follow you around to different computers. Also, with an account you can get badges for Gmail and Google Reader counts! Bonus!). It acts just like a stylish bookmark bar, so if your passwords are saved in your keychain, these links will log in immediately.

The best part: It’s all free! So, you’ve got nothing to loose if you give it a try. Go to myfav.es right now!

 

 

No Comments | Read more
Oct
05

Free Illustrator T-Shirt Template

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am

After scouring the inter-webs to no avail for a good T-Shirt template, I decided to make one. All of the ones that I found before were too difficult to overlay layers quickly onto (for showing clients), were completely raster, or the looked to unrealistic and the entire vision could be lost to a client with a bad sense of future-think. After testing the fires with it, I’m gonna give it away. Hopefully you can use it to make something awesome (and send me one? Medium…).

You can download it here.

No Comments | Read more
Sep
21

Top Eight Alfred Extensions

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am

I bought Alfred’s Powerpack the other day, and so far it’s pretty awesome!

For those of you who don’t know, Alfred is a free application-launcher, file-searching beast, that is mostly keystroke driven (like Quicksilver, but still supported). The Powerpack allows you to write your own scripts (Shell, Applescript, Automator, etc.), adds iTunes and Finder integration and a ton more.

Here are a few scripts that I have found so far that I will be using.

Scripts

AppleScripts

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Comments | Read more
Sep
12

Camera Cheat Card, plus free Illustrator file

Posted by Steve at 8:00 am

We do things just a little different at Southeast Student ministry, namely in that almost all of our production is handled by the students. Junior Highers and High Schoolers They run the graphics. They run the lyrics. They run cameras, lights, the switcher, direct and even produce. All of this means that part of my team’s job is to train and raise up these students in the art of production.

While in California, I visited Discovery Church and talked with Scott Kolden, @mixerdad, and while in their kids room, I saw this gem behind the jib (yes, jib in the kids room!).

Simply genius! I loved the idea so much that I began to muse over what I would want my camera operators to see every-time they get on the stand. So, I set some rules for myself. I wanted it simple. Black and white. 3″ x 5″. Reproducible. Editable. Clear. So here is what I came up with:

Keep in mind that this is the first generation of this design and it will most definitely change, but so far I can already sense the excitement in my students! (That and the newly lowered screens!)

I’m going be doing a quick tutorial later on how I made the card, but, in the meantime, here is the Adobe Illustrator file that I created, if you want something for your own.

 

1 Comment | Read more
Jul
08

Friday Pick: Dropbox

Posted by Steve at 8:51 am

When I first heard about Dropbox a few years ago, I didn’t understand the need. I guess I thought that it was an FTP server for people who didn’t have or know how to use an FTP server to share files. Like yousendit. Boy, was I wrong.

Dropbox is a cloud system that is linked to a folder on every computer that it is installed on with the correct credentials. From then on, as long as there is an internet connection, the files in one folder will constantly match the files in the other folders. Simple. Real simple.

Not only are you able to seamlessly share files between your computers (i.e. your work computer and home computer), but you can also access these files from the website on any computer. Not only that, but you can easily create public links to files to share, giving the other user only access to only that file.

Finally, and this is probably my favorite feature, is sharing. Within your Dropbox, you can share folders with people on a regular basis. For example, my buddy Dave and I are sharing a folder for Digital Stache. Anytime one of us makes a change to any of the files in that folder, not only is it saved on our own computer, but it is downloaded to the others (with a little Growl notification) and backed up on Dropbox’s server. It’s like Apple’s Time Machine, but better in a lot of ways.

With the free Dropbox account you get 2gb for free (if you need a referral, please click here) or 50gb for $99/year or 100gb for $199/year.

Rating: ★★★★★

No Comments | Read more
Jul
01

Friday Pick: Evernote

Posted by Steve at 8:00 am

This week’s pick is an oldie but a goodie. Evernote is a great application for taking simple notes (some, but not a ton of rich text editing), and storing those notes in a cloud location for a long period of time (as the name implies, forever!).
The fantastic thing about Evernote is it’s search. Do you remember back in high school when you had a five-subject notebook? Think of Evernote as a infinity-subject notebook, but with global searching! Yeah! Now throw in cloud storage with local downloading, iOS, Mac, PC and web apps and an open API for tons of developers to make their own plugins for and you have the gist. Pretty cool, huh?
Now I know what you’re thinking… “I already use Microsoft Word, and…” I’m going to go ahead and stop you at Word! One of the guys that I get to work with used Word for YEARS for his sermons. When he would get asked about speaking last minute he would have to try to remember when he preached a sermon similar to the topic, or scour through new books, or try to remember everything he could about the subject. But since discovering Evernote, when he gets asked to preach on ‘grace’ he simply goes to his computer and searches Evernote for the word grace and can see past sermons, his thoughts and revelations on books and scripture, quotes, and stories which are all organized by subject already waiting for him. He has even scanned and OCRed pages from his favorite books!
Evernote is absolutely free with a few limitations (like file size, file type, etc), or $5/mo or $45/yr for premium which uncaps most things and enables note sharing, and text recognition in images (seriously, I don’t understand how this technology works!). Also, feel free to give them a call or an email if you are interested in team or non-profit discounts.

You can check out Evernote here, and download the iOS apps here for free.

Rating: ★★★★☆

No Comments | Read more
Jun
24

Friday Pick: Wunderlist

Posted by Steve at 8:00 am

I discovered this gem in the “Recently Added” section of the iPhone App store last December. I didn’t think much of it because my team and I were trying out Things, a very popular and very pretty todo manager. What we were (still are) looking for is an easy, pretty todo manager, but we wanted device syncing and sharing, all for a low, low price. Things has been promising these things for a while, and while I’m sure that they will be awesome whenever they do come out, we want something now. Thus, late one night, I gave Wunderlist a whirl.

Wunderlist is easy. It doesn’t have very many options at all. But that is where it may be a little deceiving. Wunderlist automatically cloud syncs after every change, which means that instantaneous access from multiple devices is there. And speaking of devices, the 6wunderkinder team from Berlin has made iPhone/iPod, iPad, Mac, Windows, and Android versions of their popular Wunderlist app, as well as a web version that can be access from anything else. It also shares between other Wunderlist users, so my team and I can have lists that we tackle together. And all of this for the low price of absolutely free! You can’t really beat that!

While there are a few features that we would still like to see (delegation, repeating tasks, more robust note system), they are updating the app often, and some may be included eventually, however they are currently working on their flagship application called “Wunderkit”. Wunderkit will be a paid application (most likely subscription-based), but has been rumored to be more along the lines of team/project management and collaboration. Wunderlist is just there to whet your whistle.

You can download Wunderlist here.

Rating: ★★★★☆

No Comments | Read more