Photoshop heavy edition for Multimedia design

Didn't get to post much things lately due to assignments and stuff. Anyhow, the one I'm posting now is still part of my assignment as well. It's a Photoshop class though and I quite enjoyed it to be frank, here is the final outcome and to make it more epic, please use your cursor and point to the image below for even heavier Photoshop effect :D

Alarm clock for Multimedia design

My alarm clock

Digital Design Assignment (12/9/11)

These are the 3 different resolution that is taken for few web safe area when making a website. Among the web browsers used are Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari:

The web safe area for 1024x768 resolution with the specific display size from my browsers.



The web safe area for 1280x800 resolution with the specific display size from my browsers.

The web safe area for 1280x1024 resolution with the specific display size from my friend's browsers. If you notice, it's not taken from own pc as my display did not come with this resolution.

And the last thing to post tonight will be the pixel buddy assignment that I've been assigned to do. I'm still not sure who is who in the class but here is the result, hope it matches his personality...
UPDATE:
Just received my buddy icon from my classmate, thanks Choon How :D
It does look kinda like me!! (except for the white shirt, I don't do white....)
Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

10 things to describe me (Multimedia Design)

1) I'm part of the darkness when it comes to my personality. Nobody really knows my true nature and I don't show my real myself unless the person is deemed worthy to be my friend.

2) I'm like an owl due to my nocturnal status every night. Technically, I sleep only 3-4 hours per day.

3) I'm a tornado when it comes to doing my assignments. Everything is messy and hectic when I'm trying to complete it as I'm not the most diligent person around the class.

4) However, I'm like ant that works as a team when it comes to group assignment. I will not slow down other people and will try my utmost best to fulfill the assignment with my team mates.

5) I'm referred as Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde once in a while as I could almost become another different person when I'm in different mood. Positive mood will obviously makes me look like Dr. Jekyll and when I'm not in a good mood, you will see Mr Hyde in me.

6) I'm like a rubber string when I'm communicate with people. I'm flexible when I'm talking to any type of people but there is a limit of patience I can take before the rubber string snaps in me.

7) I personify myself as dog when it comes to friendship loyalty. However, the process to gain my loyalty is a painfully long process before I will even consider you as friends. Girls are exception though, I will not be loyal to any of them except for my soul mate.

8) Internet is also considered as a part of my personality due to my curios nature that wants to gather new information/resource about everything all around the world everyday.

9) I'm a mountain when it comes to stubbornness, no matter how the winds of comments howled at me, I will not retreat and will stand at my point

10) My life is as busy as a bee due to my enormous amount of workload for my assignments and company work. (I have at least 5+ different odd jobs to perform almost everyday)

See photoshop PSD thumbnail in explorer!!

Do you have a massive amount of PSD files in your pc, cluttered up so badly that you can't tell which is which until you open them up? Frustrated as you keep on opening them and still couldn't find what you want due to the random names we put for the psd files once in a while?

Here is an example of an unfortunate stacks of PSD files cluttered up and we have no idea which file is the one we want. So, is there an easier way to fix this problem? What if it's like this?

Now, wouldn't this be easier since you can see the preview of the psd file from the thumbnail itself? It saves a lot of time and it's easy to do it. If you want this for your photoshop psd files, here's how to do it:

1) Download the photoshop plugin viewer here:
It will redirect you to my secret dog photo, right click the picture and save it to your pc. Check out the preview below if you are not sure:
Once saved, the secret.jpg file will be in your pc. For my case, it will be in the desktop.
2) Cut/Copy the picture and paste it into this location:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell

If you do not have this directory, you can create a folder for this directory then, just make sure you have adobe photoshop (doesn't matter if it's CS4 or CS5). Once you are there, paste the secret.jpg image over there like the picture below:
Next, right click the image and select open with. Select winrar and you will be able to see the magic. (Note: You need to install winrar to extract the file. If you don't have, download it from here, it's free anyway...)
If your "open with" option doesn't have winrar, then you have to select "Choose default Program" and look for winrar.exe from there. Here's the location and the way to do it if you are not sure. Winrar.exe will be located here usually:

C:\Program Files\WinRAR

Let's resume the tutorial then.
Select choose default program.
Click at browse and look for winrar.exe like you see in the screenshot above. Click on the image if it's not clear. Once winrar.exe is selected, click open.
From here, your winrar.exe will be listed under your default programs. Select winrar to open the secret.jpg and make sure the option "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is untick or else all your jpg files will be opened with winrar next time. Once this part is done, select ok you will see my secret.jpg magically becomes a rar archive :D

Haha, there are actually hidden files in this picture you have downloaded. Impressive eh? Anyhow, I did this so that I do not have to upload all these files into a file sharing site and all. It's easier to keep files in blogspot itself, don't you think?

The next thing you will need to do is to drag and drop the files into the folder where you secret.jpg file is located. I can assure you with my life that the files are clean and not infected in any kind of way. Cross my heart...
Once that is done, run the adobe.reg and click yes once the pop-up asks you for permission. Click yes and there you go, it's all done!! You may remove the secret.jpg, readme.txt and adobe.reg file once you are done. However, do not remove psicon.dll or you will lose the psd thumbnail preview option. Check with your photoshop file to confirm if it works or not. If it's still not showing, then give your pc a restart and it should be there. Hope you like my tutorial and see you guys again soon. If you want to know how to hide the files into an image, drop me a comment and I will explain in details on how to do it. Thank you for reading!

(Note: I am not responsible for any of your pc problem IF this ever blows up your pc though I can 99% guarantee you nothing is going to happen) And lastly, here is the secret picture once more, I can help it but lol at the dog...
Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

Top 5 ways to prevent spam in your e-mail

Today I'm going to teach most of you on some important aspect about preventing spam in your mailbox. As you all know, message spams are a total waste of time and they always get more and more once they get hold to your e-mail. I will tell you the top 5 rules that you should never do when you are online at home/school or work.

1) Always keep your e-mail name as long/complicated as possible. This is because spammer has automated e-mail name generator which will send random e-mails spams to users starting with:
a@hotmail.com
b@hotmail.com
And so on...
It will not take them long to accidentally generate your e-mail address if yours is something like ash@hotmail.com

2) When you subscribe to any site(I don't really care if it's porn site or what-so-ever), I'm pretty sure they will send you e-mail verifications right? Sometimes, even when you did not subscribe to that site and they kept on spamming your mailbox, IGNORE them and NEVER click the "unsubscribe from this mailing list". By clicking on the unsubscribe button, you are acknowledging the spammers that your e-mail address is indeed real and this could open the floodgates to even more non-stop spamming.

3) Never post your e-mail in any website. Spammers have spiders which is crawling all over the web to look for the @ symbol, which is always (mostly) e-mail address. If you must really tell someone your e-mail address in the public, try to put it like this instead " Ash at hotmail.com". By doing this, you are safe from the spiders <--- not the real kind of spiders!

4) If you really need to register to a website, try using a temporary e-mail instead. These are e-mails that are generated for you so you can use these e-mails to register to any site you like without compromising your security. These famous temporary e-mails are:
http://www.guerrillamail.com/
http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html
http://www.mailinator.com/
http://www.mailexpire.com/
By using these website, you will never have to reveal your real e-mails anymore when registering to a new site :)

5) Always filter your messages by always reporting all the spam messages. Once clicked report, all similar associated spam message will be listed under spam (depending on the security settings of the e-mail that you've registered to...)

BONUS TIPS:
Sell your pc and live in a deserted island for the rest of your life. That is probably the only way avoid spams 100% :)

Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

Why do people go for piracy?

Piracy is something common in everyday live and whether you like it or not, we are all definitely pirated users in one way or another. So, the main question is, why is the usage of pirated software (especially) is widely used? Why do we still use pirated software when we know it's a crime and against the law? There are a lot of answers to this million dollar question and I have compiled most of them in this thread right now. And I hope forumers can participate in this thread as well by telling me which category are you on so we can do some research and maybe even get the company to realize what is needed to get us buy the original software. Here is a set of reason why we are getting pirated software.

1) Price
Yes, this is a common problem for everyone as the price of an original software is usually expensive. Sometimes, it can go from RM50 to even RM10,000 just for a single piece of original software, don't you think that it's ridiculous? I'm sure we all have economic problems of our own and certainly would not want to add burden in our monthly expenses by buying original software and so in the end, everyone looks at the pirated version. The pirated software, ranging from mostly free to only a couple of bucks, is something that everyone smiles when getting it. Due to the low cost of the pirated software, most of us don't even bother to look at the original software anymore and the money we saved can be used on far more important things in our life.

2) Availability
This may sound simple but it's a major problem as well in everywhere. For example, compare with the shops that sells pirated and original software, which is more? If you ask me to give out the ratio, I would say that pirated software shops would win by the ratio of 10:1. That is the sad truth and to add salt into the wound, there are some original software that never got into some certain country due to region problems. Sure, you can pay online and download from the internet but wouldn't that take time to download from the internet, especially when you really need it? Or would you rather go to a shop and buy it for a RM15 and move on with our life? Sometimes, it's the availability problem that forces people to go for piracy.

3) DRM (Digital Right Management)
Another big reason why would people go for piracy. Basically, DRM is a anti-piracy method developed by companies to prevent people from using cracks and reverse engineer the software. Yes, this seems to be one of those perfect methods as users will need to insert the game disc while playing the game or go connected with the server the whole time while using their software but doesn't this seems a little unfair to some of us? The reason people do not like DRM is because some people do not have internet in their home in the fist place. If there is no internet, then we can't use the software then? What about people that doesn't get to connect to the server due to their college campus blocking them with firewall? Or the worst case scenario, what if the software's server went down and everyone around the globe can't connect to it? These things has to be taken into consideration in my opinion and it's proven to be too much of a hassle for most users. But even with all these DRM going on for new software, the cracking team still got to bypass it which proves DRM is a waste of time in the first place.

4) Long and tedious process to perform before you can eventually get to use it
As you can see above, this is the comparison between a pirated and original movie. I know it is overdone but the fact still remains that we need to see those disclaimer craps from the companies when we actually bought the original product... (Do you see the irony in it?)

As this one is regarding about Windows issue and original software. They tend to link each other up and often screws up in one way or another. Yes, this happens a lot to everyone and it could take hours before you can even run it properly. And I happen to seen this in real life as well, my friend bought an Adobe Master Collection CS4 Student Edition for RM399 and tried to install it. The moment we open the cover, there is a note written "STOP, before you can install, you will need to register to Adobe.com to get your student license key!" My friend was like "Ok, how hard can this be..."

1 hour later,
After finding all over the package and website, we finally found the stupid website that allows us to register for student key. After we are about to finish keying in the details, the last thing in the form was "To prove that all these information you gave us was real, please provide us a prove from your respected college stating that you are a student there and send to us" We looked at that and then looked at the clock 10:30pm, it means we can only resume this registration tomorrow then, what a waste of time! Luckily Adobe still allowed the installation without the key and we get to use it as trial version. But the process of getting the letter from our college took us another 2-3 days, IF there were no trial versions available for Adobe, I swear I would have crack the software myself and screw the license key. But the moral of the story was, IT's FREAKING LONG AND TEDIOUS PROCESS TO GET YOURSELF A LEGITIMATE SOFTWARE!!

5) Installs weird stuff into our computer
If you realize, the moment you install an original software, they will have additional (hidden) software installed into your computer that works like a DRM as well. Some of them might be harmless but some could be fatal to our computer. As proven by people all over the world, one of the biggest company called SecuROM was used in mostly new games. Usually it's installed without the users knowledge and acts as a anti-piracy protection. What the users do not know is that it can also cripple a user's pc without any warning and when I mean cripple, it means damages the hardware and OS. Another software that is commonly used will be called Starforce which has been told over and over again by people around the world how this software protection tool killed their pc. It was so bad until to the point where the company themselves offer publishers to release patches that remove the copy protection just to make the gameplay more comfortable to the customer. And if you think it's a small problem, then you are dead wrong. Some software (Rockstar's GTA 4) went even more bizzare that they require users to download it themselves (with the file setup size is 211.78mb) before the game can work but after numerous complains from angry users, they decide not to let RGSC (Rockstar Social Gaming Club) a compulsory thing to install/run when starting up GTA 4.

In conclusion, these are some of the reasons I found out that makes people chooses piracy over Original software and to be honest, the reason I took piracy sometimes was because of #2, 3, 4 and 5 while the price doesn't really bother me much. If you have more opinion about the reasons why people prefers piracy do share with me.

Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

(Gmod) Gordon Freeman vs Dragon

I had been testing out with Gmod (Garry's Mod) lately and with some models and skins, I get to put an epic scene where Gordon Freeman battles out with a Dragon to save Alyx Vance. Please have a look and do give me a comment about the screenshots I took, it will help me to improve the character's modeling and positioning in order to add more realism to the scene :)




All the images are created and made by me. However, the Dragon model belongs to the maker that created it (Which I forgot who made it in the first place...) My bad...

Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

My new badass CPU

It's been a while since I've had any new hardware for my laptop and therefore I've decided to get myself some new rig to pimp myself up. So after some careful planning and extremely tight budgeting, I've finally managed to get myself a hardcore CPU that works wonderfully well on gaming and graphic design at the same time. The total cost for building up this CPU was RM2,600 (or $860.02 to be exact. Click here for the currency exchange rate) and every component was bought at the best price. It took me 4-5 hours to get everything together into pieces and here is the outcome of my new CPU:
A fancy Cooler Master Scout Casing with the some of the most badass hardware all rigged into one awesome square box. And here is the front/top view
Comes with red neon light from the inside with a total whooping 10 usb slots to be plugged in (4 at the front, 4 at the back with another 2 usb3.0 at the back) also comes with esata reader, audio jacks at the front and a button to turn on/off the red neon light.

The back view of this baby... The motherboard comes from Gigabtye H67MA-UD2H-B3 and it comes with a built in graphic card and 7.1 built-in surround studio sound card. So, what's the hardware that is packed in this casing? Here you go:

Asus ENGTX460 GC (DDR5 with 1GB video memory)
ME2 550 watt power supply
Intel I7 2600k processor
4GB DDR3 ram
1 TB 7200k rpm hard drive

I guess that's all that I have to say about my new hardware for now but before I conclude, I really want to thank all my amigos and brothers from Palmville that had helped me out in sorting out the list, carrying the hardware, giving me some tips/advise/precautions about almost everything. I really couldn't have done it if you guys are not there to help me. Thanks again to Raymond, Gian, Kiro, Fauzi and Phoenix.

Signing off

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune

Facebook Spambots in your chat

Lately, there has been a lot of people that got into trouble with the facebook spambots where you will see your friends sending the following messages to you: (DO NOT OPEN THE LINK BELOW THAT I'M SHOWING YOU GUYS, IT'S JUST FOR SAMPLE PURPOSES AND IT STILL WORKS FOR SPAMBOT TO INVADE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT!)

OMG: This girl killed Herself after her father posted this message on her wall: bit.ly/hiht3w

Haha, I am going to look like a Sharpie in 20 years! See what you will of look like here: bit.ly/ek8UcF
hey, i just made a photoshop of you, check it out :P: bit.ly/fInyHj

Or you will see something like this in your chat section of your facebook...

Obviously, this is a spam message that is being circulated around Facebook and no, it's not a VIRUS. If you are to see this message, just ignore it and tell them to refer to my blog in order to remove this problem. Anyhow, if you are the one that is sending this messages to your own friends, follow this procedure of mine and the problem will be solved in a minute, or so...

Step 1:
Go into offline mode for your chat. This is to stop the spamming from starting temporarily while you proceed to remove the spambot. Not really necessary but I feel it's needed to just in case.

Step 2:
Go to your accounts settings (on the top right of your facebook) and select privacy settings
Step 3:
Select edit your settings on the "apps and website". Refer to the screenshot below

Step 4:
Click on edit settings on the "apps you use"
Step 5:
Click remove app on logalysi.co.cc

And there you go, the spambot will not have access on your chat anymore. Please take note that logalysi.co.cc could be only one of the spambots as there are tonnes of them everyday. I would recommend you to remove those recently allowed apps that you have "unknowingly" agree to allow them to access to your facebook profile. The web above will most probably be used to spam this message:

hey, i just made a photoshop of you, check it out :P: bit.ly/fInyHj

For the rest, I'm not sure it will be registered under which application name in Facebook but if the apps has the setting to access your facebook chat, most probably it's the spambot. Or if you really have no idea which one is the spambot, my last solution (not recommended) will be removing all the apps that you have allowed for you accounts all these years. You will not lose anything by doing so but you will need to allow access again the next time you want to use your Facebook applications again such as Farmville and etc etc.

Signing off,

Bluedrake a.k.a. Shippoukitsune