Psyked*

it’s easy once you know how.

RSS. Bling or no Bling?

Posted by James - 28/05/07 at 05:05:23 pm

Times move fast on the web. RSS has been mainstream for quite a while. So long, in fact, that RSS readers are now built into the two major windows browsers, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. It’s been inbuilt for longer on the Mac, I hear.
So, in our busy little ‘Web 2.0′ designs, why does the staple ingredient of Blogs and Community websites need to be emblazoned in the design? I mean, what’s the point?

Continue reading RSS. Bling or no Bling?…

Flash Video - the Solution?

Posted by James - 28/05/07 at 04:05:31 pm

Working with a lot of Flash video (.flv) I’m acutely aware of the lack in decent, standalone FLV Players. Sure, there’s a few out there, but not many that are decent. I have used FLV Player 1.3.3, but it’s not up to much when you’re trying to preview or edit files. Adobe’s own Flash Video Encoder is worse than id’ve thought it would be. You can only encode once, and you can’t decode, edit or view the files afterwards. We have been promised the arrival of the Adobe Media Player, but that’s no comfort until it actually materializes.
Continue reading Flash Video - the Solution?…

Kuler Desktop released!

Posted by James - 28/05/07 at 02:05:54 pm

I noticed today that Kuler Desktop has arrived. Kuler, as I’ve mentioned before, is an awesome tool, and one which I first found out about through my research into Apollo. Kuler was always designed to be one of the first Apollo aps, a community colour-scheme orientated plugin for CS3. It was released early in Flex, probably to build up a following, with the promised that the Apollo one was on its’ way. And now it’s here. You can download the .air file from Kuler’s subdomain.

Tom Stockley

Posted by James - 28/05/07 at 12:05:50 pm

Tom Stockley was one half of the duo responsible for the branding of the 2006 Pittville Degree Show (Shine!) for which I created the website, following their theme. He studied BA (Hons) Graphic Design, and now seems to be working for a company called Genie.

Figuring out Wordpress

Posted by James - 26/05/07 at 12:05:01 pm

Wordpress is very flexible, as I’m sure you’d guess. But how exactly can you get the best of it, from a coding point-of-view?

The danger with Wordpress, of course, is that’d you’d just create yet-another Wordpress Blog. Default settings, popular plugins, familiar layout. Undoubtably they all have their merits, but you’d be nievé to think there wasn’t room for improvement. So, here’s me, trying to improve on the Wordpress standards. A little more thought into the information given on a per-page basis, for example. Or different layouts, that sort of thing.
Continue reading Figuring out Wordpress…

Pav’s Portfolio

Posted by James - 22/05/07 at 08:05:56 pm

Pav (Pawanjot Multani) has got her portfolio set up with www.finalcrit.com. You can access it through this link. We’ve been fond of Pav’s illustration style for a while, and its nice to see it online in a snazzy format. Last I heard she was working part-time with Maverick TV and as a Researcher for somethingorother.

BigKid London

Posted by James - 20/05/07 at 05:05:44 pm

www.bigkidlondon.com is where Gary Brown is now working. He’s from Uni too. He’s reportedly loving it, and specialises as their flash guy. Been with them 3 months now, so I hear. Used to have his own portfolio site, but that’s now offline until further notice.