As you can notice it got a whole new look, but i kept the overall brown color, and added some very very nifty features. More than 9 cool addons were created specially for this new theme and to make my life a lot easier. Don’t believe me? Check the new features:

1. Author management. Admins can choose which author’s name and description appears on the front page(bottom right corner) and the author can set his own picture, name and description.
2. Dynamic image resizing. That the small thumbs you see are automatically grabbed from the images inserted in the post and for every size a new thumb is generated.(uber sexy stuff).
3. Ad management platform. This platform contains top header ad, box ad, sidebar ads. I can choose to set an image or use code(adsense for example as an ad.
4. Sexy featured category display. You already saw this didn’t you? It’s a small custom javascript written by my colleague, mbogdan.
5. Latest releases display. The part under the menu shows the latest theme and plugin releases. A thumb of each post is displayed and if you hover it title appears “pushing” the intro title up.
6. Category order. Admins can set which categories appear on main page and in what order. They can also exclude categories from appearing on main page.
7. YouTube video display. I just have to enter the YouTube URL and the video will be replaced with the video i desire.
8. Flickr stream management tool which allows me to display my flickr stream.
9. Super cool admin panel made for the theme (<3 mbogdan).

There are other smaller addons, but there’s nothing special about them worth to point them out.

I did the design about a month ago on a friday night when inspiration hit me on the head. I gave the design to mbogdan the next day and since than till last-last sunday he’s been working a little and stalling it. But eh, we finally got it done.

As you can see in the bottom part we will create a poll plugin(which btw will be released for free), and there are still some minor changes we have to do.

The sexiest part of the whole design is the comment page. I really like how it turned out, and as you can notice i moved the comment post box above all comments and sepparated comment from trackbacks(mixed up they were annoying). To see the comments page at glance check out the Custom widgets v1.0 release post (it has lots of comments).

As usual, if you have any suggestions or feedback please post them and they WILL be considered.

I will get back to the regular-basis blogging soon, but before i do i still have otehr work to finish + exams.

We all know that CS3 was a huge resource hog, many designers hated it(just like people hate vista now), and now that Adobe came out with CS4 which doesn’t devour your system everyone seems to be in love with it.

To check if my colleague was really right about performance and resource consumption i did a small test: Before uninstalling CS2 i opened up a PSD in it and checked how much memory it eats, after which i did the same thing in CS4 and voila CS4 ate about 31MB memory less than CS2. Same PSD, different photoshop version. Check pics below(enlargeable)

During the next 30 days i’ll do some more extensive testing and work with it, after the month passes i’ll decide if i’ll permanently switch from CS2 to CS4.

This wallpaper simply blew my mind. It combines the planets +  stars with  thunders and runes of a mountain in full harmony.

Yet an other wallpaper by ‘Alyn based on the artwork The Fate of Atlantis.

This wallpaper shows the mega-developed industrial earth where the humans have gained full domination over nature.

It started with a boom, so why shouldn’t it end with one? Earth’s devastation is closer than you think.

This is a beautiful fractal wallpaper. It’s pleasant to the eyes and makes a wonderful desktop background.

I still couldn’t figure out what the wallpaper wants to show. I think it’s a flaming worm hole or something like that.

An other collision wallpaper. This time a planet is hit from an other angle by s high-power asteroid(or missile?).

In the future most probably earth will turn into a huge industrial planet where waist will be dumped everywhere killing nature.

There is a realm that supports everything & all, even the very realms that support life itself. This is the Realm Of Existence, its form full of mysteries, full of life, full of secrecy.

The true devastating power of the volcanoes is unveiled in this wallpaper. Beware, you might get drawn in.

So i’ve put myself together and after about 8-10 sessions of concepts and designing and revising the logo versions i finally settled with the one that i liked the most(hopefully i made a good choice), check below to see the difference:

The main font is one of my favorite fonts – Century Gothic and the “web design” text is using the VAG rounded font. The main word “thaslayer” and the signal type lines have a bit of bewel and emboss along with a mild gradient magic added to them. The bottom line is that there are some fonts which are really worth buying.

Getting back to Mashable’s Open Web Awards: check out how sexy my new logo looks on the Partner showcase page with a small addition, which is the URL to my blog.

I don’t judge people, but quite some of those bloggers who joined the partnership could have supplied a more “pleasant” logo considering that they will be part of a major event.

I’ve made this logo with the hope to evolve a bit thaslayer.com and make it more pleasant for you. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

• What’s good for the goose is good for the gander:

Ask around before you commit to hiring a designer. If you can’t find anyone you know to give the design firm you’re contemplating a good reference, it’s best to go with another that does come with glowing testimonials from people you trust. Believe me, when you’re shelling out good money, you need to know for sure that the end result will be satisfactory.

• The devil is in the details:

Don’t give your designer too much of a free hand in the way your site turns out, not because you don’t trust them to do a good job, but because you need to have an idea of how you expect your site to look. Provide your designer a detailed list of your expectations and desires, and have them work along those guidelines. Some ideas may be workable, others may not, so it’s likely you’ll trash a few initial designs and come up with a host of new ones along the way, finally reaching a mutually satisfactory compromise.

• There’s no such thing as a free lunch:

Your website designer is in it for the profit, and so are you. So there’s no need to feel queasy about doing the money talk. Discuss the costs upfront, especially those that cover the number of revisions, the extra tasks that may come up from time to time, and the number of days the project is expected to take for completion.

• A watched pot does boil here:

If you expect to be taken seriously, you need to play an important role as the design unfolds and not be a mere spectator who strolls in at the end of the game. Stay on top of things and see how your website is coming along. If there are any changes, make sure you point them out before too much work has been done and time wasted. This will save you both in terms of time and money.

• Know your onions:

If you’re totally ignorant about web design and its aspects, it’s going to be an uphill climb translating your ideas into reality. You don’t have to be an expert (if you are, then you save yourself a pile of money), but it helps to know the rudimentary details of what goes into making a good web page. Only then can you provide insightful feedback and help your designer do things the way you want them to be done, using methods that are possible.

By-line:

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of web design degrees. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

Ever since i was a little boy i liked Max Payne. My favorite game was Max Payne, my idol was Max Payne. I wanted to be this Video Game person. A few year later, when i heard that Take two announced Max Payne 2, i was shocked, but happy in the same time. My favorite game had now a continue! I got Max Payne 2 for a friend who had internet. In those days i only had dial-up, and it was pretty hard hard and expensive to download a full game. Anyway… i loved Max Payne 2. It was awesome! It had everything you’ll ever want from a video game.

A few month ago i read in a IT magazine a article: “Take two announced Max Payne 3″.  I shouted out loud: “YES! Max Payne 3 is coming!”, My brother looked at me saying “WTF?!” lol. Unfortunately, Max Payne 3 will appear in 2009 . But, until then, Max Payne the movie will be in cinemas from 17 October 2008 (USA). Oh, i can’t wait! here’s the movie trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JboQmDIdKWs (from the trailer, the movie looks exactly like the game , you can see the same dark and cold alleys, the same winter nights, the same action and adrenaline)

Some of you may have already found out, but for those who didn’t, deviantART has reached version 6.

Their layout is improved: a new front page design with quick-loading thumbnails and an effective search, the new footer with polls and news, a new site navigation (in my opinion this is their big improvement) and a new message center (but some of you may notice a delay in appearance).

Something that I don’t like: their banner rotating system! Even if you don’t browse the website, it keeps loading on the same page different ads. I find it really unnecesarry. And also, I don’t like the ads that appear while surfing their website.

Although they have a great community there, the administrators are a little bit greedy by placing full page ads while browsing the website. But all in all, they made an improvement to the website and they won’t stop here.

Read more here.

As i said in a previous post i started my designer career as a GFX artist, i got 50-100 outwar points for an animated profile picture back then(my outwar name was SoulC4tch3r), so i wrote a tutorial of how to make animated rain.

Step 1:
Grab any picture, and resize/crop it to fit your needs. I resized and cropped this robot wallpaper to look good as a 250x250px outwar profile picture.

Step 2:
open up the image in photoshop, when done press: CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a new layer, after this press SHIFT+F5 to fill the layer with black color( belnding mode: normal ; opacity 100%)

Step 3:
Here comes the little harder part . Go to Filter menu->Noise->Add noise; there set amount between 80->87%; distribution-> gaussian; enable Monochromatic mode.

Step 4:
After you are done go to Filter->Blur->Motion blur; there you can adjust the rain’s lenght. The bigger the value the bigger the rain strokes will be. Remember to set the angle in values between +/-28 and +/-50(depending on the desired alignment of the rain)

Step 5:
Now go to layers box and set overlay mode to your rain effect layer. To adjust it a little you can use Soft Light.

Step 6:

at step 6 repeat all the steps from step 2 to step 5, the only thing you need to change is the angle at motion blur, for example if you selected -31 as i did select -33 now.

Step 7:
now press CTRL+SHIFT+M to transfer the image in Imageready so you can do the animation part also. You can do it in photoshop also by opening the animation box)

Step 8:
Open up the animation box : Window -> Animation
a small box should appear. Now click on the button that is circled once and duplicate the frame

Step 9:
Now that you have 2 frames associate one frame with 1 layer and other with 2nd layer(see bellow)

Step 10:
If you made it to this step congratulations! You should now have a picture with rain on it. Make sure to save the file in a .gif format with no dither.

Result:

Of course you can vary the effects and add extras to them like lightning, brightness modification, clearing th rain from the character’s body. Don’t be scared! Photoshop is your friend!

If you got scammed i’m sorry to hear that. If not trust me you don’t want to get into a situation like that! Especially if we are talking about amounts above 50$.

Recently my friend Ben got scammed because he did the stupid mistake of sending the PSD file before getting paid. He never heard of the buyer since then.
To avoid being a situation like the one mentioned above and to smoothly sell your designs you need to follow some really simple steps and make them as rules and follow them(like in Transporter movie,really) :

1 – Never change the deal - For example if someone hires you to design him a directory and when your half way trough he tells you to design a forum instead either tell him to go find someone else or tell him how much extra it will cost

2 – Provide portfolio - When applying for a job(if the customer doesn’t contact you) make sure you provide a link to your portfolio and references. It can really affect a potential customer’s decision after seeing some of your previous work.

3 – Ask the customer as much details as possible - I usually ask about the niche of the site, the desired color combination, the structure of the theme and ad optimization. In this part of the chat make suggestions regarding the informations you asked and always sustain it!(for example: “it would look better if you would place a 468×60 ad in the right corner of the header because the CTR would be bigger and you would fill in a potential empty space”)

4 – ALWAYS watermark the preview you send the customer - Photoshop saves the previews in a high quality format which can be sliced up just like a PSD file and coded. Make sure the watermark’s opacity is 10-25% and appears in a way that the design is clearly visible but the watermark is visible also.

5 – Interact with the customer as often as you can - If it’s possible to chat with him using an IM client than ask him feedback every time you make a more important modification. If your talking via email than email him the watermarked design for revisions(it would suck to make the complete design and in the end not get paid because the customer doesn’t like it)

6 – Set the price before everything - You set the price before you start designing. That price doesn’t change no matter what. If the customer is satisfied with the theme he has to pay the set price. I heard that some designers ask more $ once the design is finished. If the customer really needs the design he will pay the extra fee, but trust me he will never hire you again.

7 – Respect the time frame - If you tell the customer the design will be finished within 48 hours including revisions than respect it! Providing the design at time may be vital to the customer, and if he sees that you passed it he will start getting grumpy and he will have an other reason not to choose you next time.

8 – Keep it original - DO NOT USE ELEMENTS FROM OTHER THEMES!(Except icons and text). Yesterday a guy told me that he downloaded all the template monster collection from a warez forum so he can get inspired from them. If you do this than the design won’t be unique.

9 – Check for Bugs - Check and recheck every bit of your theme for bugs. Even small bugs cna ruin a great design

10 – Most important one - NEVER and when i say never i mean NEVER send the design before receiving the payment! This is the easiest and most common way designers are scammed! Tell the customer to send the money to your paypal/moneybookers id and only after receiving the money send him the design.

Also remember to provide support for your designs. This means that if the customer will require in the future some minor modifications do it without asking any compensation(money). This doesn’t apply at major modifications. If you respect the customer he will respect you.

I really hope this guide is useful to you and will help you decrease the chances (%) of getting scammed to a value below 10%.

As you can see the design is a dark design, more pleasant to the eye than the white in my opinion. Dark colors always calm my eyes and i like viewing darker colored websites. The themes is as unique as it can get, it will have lots of cool features and more tutorials!

Yes its true that it will be more pleasant to the eyes and you, the visitor will probably enjoy it more than the current theme, but you have no idea how many headaches it will cause me because the background isn’t white. This means that i have to edit all the images in my posts and give them transparent backgrounds(so i don’t have to do this again if i will have an other colored theme) but heck, it’s worth it.

A problem which is still unsolved is the AD placement(extra money is better than no money), but i’ll figure it out eventually.

Unfortunately i can’t release the theme as a free theme because i want my blog to have a unique design for a while. When i’l get bored of it i will release it as a free theme and design myself a new theme so sooner or later you will get to use it .

So, if your not a regular reader make sure to check back next week to see the new design