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tips and tutorials

Drupal CCK and Views tutorial

Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

I’m currently building a site using Drupal. It’s a powerful framework, but customization is a pain in the ass.

2 of the most powerful and useful modules to customize Drupal are CCK and Views. Here’s a great video tutorial that shows how to use both modules: Drupal CCK and Views Tutorial

by Danny

php script for contact form emailer

Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

I’m building a web site that requires a simple web form to capture user’s contact info then send the info as an email to the webmaster/account executive for a follow up.

I found the following script: Basic Emailer with PHP at scriptplayground that is very straightforward and implemented it in less than 10 minutes. Very nice indeed.

If you’re looking for a more advanced script with error handling, this script will be inadequate, but it’s a good starting point.

by Danny

how to create hair in photoshop

Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

A really cool tutorial on how to create a realistic looking hair in photoshop from elfwood.com

by Danny

very cool step-by-step photo manipulation

Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

In this cool step-by-step pseudo photoshop tutorial from seb4d.com, you can see a skillful way to use photoshop to change a bright and happy house into a moody haunted house.

This tutorial explains the methods to achieve the various effects, but it’s not for a beginner because it doesn’t get into the detailed setting. Nevertheless, it’s inspiring.

by Danny

people don’t read on the web

Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am

Research from Jakob Nielsen about reading behavior of web user.

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

I knew this all along, from usability, eye tracking and my own behavior, but seeing the number is very eye-opening.

An idea for a method to test out the scannability of the content on your page is to ask a person who’s not familiar with your site to read what he sees on the page out loud as fast as he can within 5 seconds. Most web users only stay for 2-3 seconds, but we need to add the extra 2 seconds to accommodate the time needed to do the reading.

Link to article:http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html

by Danny

more list of (video) photoshop tutorials

Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

From speed painting to fashion retouching, this list covers it all (well… it’s extensive enough to keep you busy for a while at least).

Really fascinating videos to watch.

Ok ok… here’s the link: Smashing magazine’s Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials - Best Of

by Danny

photoshop retouching tutorials

Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

Ever wonder how to enhance your photos to make them look like what you see in magazines (yes, they all have been retouched)?

Here’s a great list of tutorials that you can try from photoshoptalent.com : 33 awesome body enhancement photoshop tutorials

The list covers techniques to improve various parts of the figure: hair, eyes, body, etc.

by Danny

tutorial on applying blur filter in Actionscript 3

Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 12:44 am

I just learned how to apply blur filter from with Actionscript 3 from this easy-to-follow tutorial.

by Danny