Digital*Impulse

Well, it's been a while since I made a proper post. I've sat on this for all this time so I could get some good pics to go with it, especially of my car and PC, but here it is at last. :yay:

It's simply a good round-up of the happenings and events around here since I last posted.

My Civic Duties

First and foremost, I guess the most exciting news is that I bought a car. Yup, I finally got all my hard-earned pennies and cents together and dove into the world of automobile ownership.

Midway through November I had asked Gerry (my bro-in-law) to keep an eye out for me for a good deal on a decent car, since he works at a dealership and knows a great deal about cars. After a couple of decent but overpriced offerings from a couple of his sources, he came through and found a great '95 Honda Civic VTi for me at a reasonable price.

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After almost a year in development, involving much tinkering and several re-edits focused on achieving the right look and feel, I present to you my GUI Championships entrant, Reverse IconPackage. With it's decidedly future-retro look and grayscale palette, Reverse IP aims to take you back to the era of black & white visuals, and the wonders of emerging technologies of yesteryear but with a decidedly modern flair. [singlepic id=148 w=520 h= float=] Desktop "tech-noir" styling is now that much closer to achieve with this IconPackage. Read More »

So this year, like the last few years, my family is doing Secret Santas for Christmas.  As a consequence, I've been asked to provide a list of items from which the lucky person who has drawn my name out of the proverbial hat can choose from. I'm somewhat against the whole idea of having to put together a list like this for a couple of reasons; the first being that I don't believe I'm that difficult to shop for, and secondly, I believe I'm worth having someone spend the 10 minutes it would take to actually think about what I might like.  I'm not that complicated and definitely not that hard to get to know, given a little time. Yeah, I suppose that could be taken as a little cutting, but if you actually stop to think about what the whole Christmas gift-giving concept is about, you might begin to see my point. Also, before I delve into a list proper, you should know that I have no prejudice or aversion to you finding ways to save money when shopping for my gift.  Times are hard and finances are strained to the max for many people, so if you're into buying on eBay, DealsDirect, or any discount store to save a buck, by all means feel free to do so.  Don't feel as though you *have* to spend big on my account.  And hey, if you think you can make, build, or engineer a gift with your own two hands and save spending...

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So yesterday I didn't really have much to do, and I was supposed to go see my little brother, Lucas, as it was his birthday. Since I was on my own for the weekend and the bus service in this city is atrocious on weekends (it's little better on weekdays, but not by much), I decided it might be a good idea to jump on my bike and ride there. I'd been meaning to take a good long bike ride for a while now, since I've been considering starting to ride to work.  So I saw this as a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone --I get to check my overall fitness, and visit family at the same time.  :P So I checked my Giant XTC mountain bike over to make sure all was in good working order, packed some essentials (repair kit, water, energy bars, digital camera, etc.) in a backpack, donned my cleat shoes, helmet and gloves and headed out. Read More »

Ok, as promised, here's the very first tutorial for Adobe Fireworks based on the Official Digital*Impulse Desktop Wallpaper I posted up earlier. A couple of things you might want to do before you begin this tutorial:

• Find a nice, thick font you would like to use for your logo. This tutorial will work for almost any typeface you can think of but I tend to think thick fonts look better.
• Have a base colour for your project in mind before you begin.  Believe me, it makes things easier than changing your mind halfway.  I've settled on a red colour for the entire composition, so don't be put off by the blue colour that I start off with.  ;)

Final Image Preview

Here's a look at the final image we're going to create.  At the end of part 2, I'll make available a finished fully-editable copy of the Fireworks PNG file. [singlepic=134,250] Read More »