Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category

Hire a professional web designer (me) to work for your web design company

It doesn’t matter if you’re among the thousands of people who read my blog every day checking for movie reviews, design resources, or simply for anything new or if you’re new around here. There is one essential thing that you need to know about me: i love my work and i do my best to be close to awesomeness.

You can find out more about me by visiting my about page.

Till last week i had been working for a company based in U.S. , but it was overtaken by  a  larger company, and the board decided that all employees abroad on a contract basis should be fired, and new people will be hired who can go in and work at the offices, for higher salaries of course (what a dumb decision). Parallel to working for the company(doing 1-3 projects/mo) i have continued my freelancing career.

The main point of what i’m saying is that i am available to be hired at a web design company. Even though i’d prefer being hired on a contract basis, you can hire me as a freelancer also.

Why should you hire me & what to expect


A great designer is hard to find. This is a fact. At this point you have the chance to hire a great designer with amazing creativity who is always thinking out of the box, and loves challenges and to take his skills to the highest levels.

Professionalism

The most important factor in any line of work. You tell me the details about the task and i get it done, and i get it done real good.

Work experience & quality assurance

With over 5 years of experience in the field of web design, knowledge of latest web 2.0 trends and over 120 satisfied customers you can be assured that the outcome of my every job is high quality.

Great Interaction

I fluently speak, and write english at an upper advanced level, this meaning that communication issues WON’T arise.

Cheaper rates

Many professionals overcharge for their work. I charge as much as i deserve for my work. After telling me the specs of a project i can instantly tell you a price quote.

Unlimited revisions*

* – Well, almost unlimited. If you need changes done I’ll get them done with pleasure, but don’t expect me to redo the whole design.

Availability

I am aware that you might have a company in Australia or U.S. and that time zones may inflict problems in your point of view, but they don’t. Every day i am available on Instant messengers and we can talk about progress i’ve made on a project and do the revisions.

Reliability

I can work on my own without the necessity of constant coordination by a project manager. I can work effective even on multiple projects and under pressure delivering quality designs.

resume-get

In my resume you will find contact data, details about me, what i’ve done since the beginning of my career, education, and of course portfolio highlights.

The size of the portfolio large because it is print quality and the background presents a small adventure of a set of characters(i’ve invested over 30 hours of work only in the background design) which i’m sure you’ll enjoy.

If you are interested in working with me you can reach me at exes.slayer@gmail.com

17 Amazing Twitter bird icon sets which you probably haven’t seen before

Taking a glimpse at the web you can easily realize that Twitter is no longer a trend, but a lifestyle. Millions around the world are talking about what they are doing in the exact minute of posting, they are sharing ideas and having conversations , just like via an instant messaging client. The best part is that anyone can join a conversation!

You can see the twitter bird icon on millions of websites, and what you can notice is that many websites use the same icons(maybe you too!) and this is the time when you can start wondering “why shouldn’t i be different?”. This is where the talented artists come in, who release amazing icons and icon packs(mostly on deviant art).

I’ve done some research and collected 17 icons & sets which will get your blog, website or forum readers look out to the tweet icon.

Amazing Twitter bird icon sets

Remember to read the licensing of every icon/icon set on the download pages!

1. Twitter Icons .PSD

Twitter_Icons__PSD_by_JuliusX

2. Free twitter bird icons

Free_twitter_bird_icons_by_Stockgraphicdesigns

3. Twitter Bird

Twitter_Bird_by_freakyframes

4. Adiumy Twitter

e3cd5b3e5bf11c10d13cedfbef227a90

5. Blue Bird Twitter Icon Pack

Blue_Bird_Twitter_Icon_Pack_by_detrans

6. Twitter Icons Pack

Twitter_Icons_Pack_by_Reawake

7. Twitter Icon BIRRRDFON

Twitter_Icon_BIRRRDFON_by_templay_team

8. Twitter Replacement

Twitter_Replacement_by_wurstgott

9. Twitter dock icons

Twitter_dock_icons_by_Cyberella74

10. Twitter Icon Pack 1

Twitter_Icon_Pack_by_Kamarashev

11. Twitter Icon Pack 2

Twitter_Icon_Pack_2_by_Kamarashev

12. Twitter Icon Pack 3

Twitter_Icon_Pack_3_by_Kamarashev

13. TwitterJoy icons

TwitterJoy_icons_by_kurumizawa

14. The GodTwitter Follow Button

The_GodTwitter_Follow_Button_by_Kamarashev

15. Twitter Icon

Twitter_Icon_by_Eduardo_Montanari

16. Twitter Space Icons

Twitter_Space_Free_Icons_by_littleboxofideas

17. IconTexto Twitter Buttons

IconTexto_Twitter_Buttons_by_IconTexto



Free twitter bird icons by ~Stockgraphicdesigns

Surrogates – A movie that will glue your eyes to the screen

Living in Romania pretty much sucks because till a  movie gets to theaters you can download it from the web in blu-ray. Anyway, i had the chance to watch Surrogates, which i was very very eager to watch since july and i have to tell you that it fulfilled my expectations!

The movie is basically about the huge evolution humanity goes through during a very short period(17 yrs) in the future, and everyone uses & controls surrogates(robots) looking as them. The surrogates are made by VSI(visual self) and basically anyone can look how ever they want to look, so a sexy hot chick surrogate could be controlled by a fatman sitting in his chair at home. Everyone got so addicted to using surrogates, that almost the whole USA uses it, except small groups of humans(dreds) who oppose the technology.

Bruce Willis plays agent Tom Greer, who works at the feds(FBI). He and his partner, agent Peters start investigating a murder, in which two surrogates were terminated killing the hosts also. During a chase Greer wanders in the land of the dreds and by this way his surrogate is destroyed. From this point he continues the investigation “in the flesh”. He finds out that the kid that was killed in the murder was the surrogates inventor’s(Canter) son who is out for revenge.

Canter creates and uploads a virus that will destroy all surrogates including the hosts stating that they died when they started using surrogates. Greer gets to him, but before he could stop him Canter suicides. Greer logs in to a surrogate and thanks to the supervisor from VSI manages to create a buffer that will protect the hosts. He has the chance to stop the virus, but he doesnt.

The movie ends with all surrogates crashing and humans coming out from their homes.

I skipped lots of interesting parts, so i wouldn’t fully spoil the movie :)

10/17/09 – Time to get back to blogging!

Today i’ll return to blogging!

expect articles in a whole new form!

Will be back soon

…very very soon i’ll be back for good :D

T.I. Ft. Justin Timberlake – Dead And Gone [inspiration music video]

I heard this song quite a few times on the radio while @ work, or going to college or to work. The lyrics are really really catchy, but the music video is simply brilliant! I watched it like 10 times and listened to it like 50 times(today).

An other thing i like about T.I. that he doesn’t rap about crap. For example: 50 cent raps about bitchez, cocaine, guns, violence, while T.I. raps about learning from your mistakes and not doing the things you see on tv and in movies. This song is about the morale of life. (the video was made just before T.I. went to jail for 1 year and 1 day)

TS Ad Integration v2.0 – You’ve got the power!

TS Ad Integrartion v 2.0 is the latest major upgrade of slayer’s custom widgets v1.0 which was released last year in august.

What does it do?

The main purpose of this plugin is to help you monetize your blog, in a smart way i mean. Ad Integration is an all-in-one ad managing platform which lets you create, manage and assign ads to your posts and sidebar as widgets (new feature).

Just as at Custom Widgets 2.0 the management and options panels were tuned up to fit the WordPress 2.7 design, and along with the tune-up we removed useless elements which used up the space. By this way everything got more organized and cleaner.

Assign Ads as sidebar widgets

Did i mention that you can now add your ads as sidebar widgets? I think i did, but eh here’s a quick in-depth look:

After setting the ad location as Sidebar Widget the plugin will automatically create a widget which you will be able to add to your widgetized sidebar from the good old widgets page. And there you have it, you can manage the ads from your sidebar also :)

How do i use it?

After you’ve installed and activated the plugin a stand alone meu item will appear right below the main menu. This provides quick access to the Custom Widgets management section.

Main Management panel

There are 3 main segments in the management panel: The ads display box, The Options box and the Donation box.

The Ads display box will show all the Ads you’ve setup. Those ads which are written in light grey aren’t public, and those which are written in black are live and running.

The Options box is meant to give you more flexibility and it allows you to define a custom css for the ads and even add html code to appear before or after the ad. The max ad count per page defines  the maximum number of  ads that should appear in the same time on a page.(category pages, tag pages, etc).

Adding a new Ad

Things can’t get simpler than this! Adding a new ad takes just seconds(after a bit of practice of course) and you will easily realize that Ad Integration is a very powerful ad management plugin and it will save you a lot of time and earn you a lot of money(hopefully).

To distingush one ad from an other give a title to your ad(will be visible only to you via the management panel) and insert the html code. The exciting new feature in this release is thge much requested show in sidebar option which if delected will create a widget that will addable to your sidebar from the widget managemenet section.

If you choose to inser the ad into posts you can choose it’s location and it’s alignment. The final step of the new ad setup is the publish function where you can select to publish the ad or not.

Editing An Ad

You can easily edit an ad by clicking the Edit button in the right part of your ad management panel. This will take you to a page where you can edit your ad: rename it,change the code and it contains all the settings which were present on the Add new ad page + EXTRAS.

The extras consist in two handy features:

1) You can choose wether to load the ad automatically or manually. Loading the ad manually means that you will have to inser the generated code() into your post for the ad to show up.
2) By default after adding a new ad it will be automatically activated. You can deactivate it by selecting the No tickbox and saving the changes.

Download Ad Integration 2.0

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Click here to start TS Ad Integration v2.0 download

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Installation

***To upgrade from Ad Integration 1.0 to v2.0 simply overwrite the old files with the new ones.

1) Download the .zip file to your computer and log into your wordpress admin panel.

2) In your admin panel head over to the plugins section and select the Add new segment. Browse to the custom widgets.zip file and click the Install button. WordPress will unzip the plugin and install it for you after which press the Activate Plugin button.

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We work our asses off to release new plugins and themes for free. Working for free isn’t very motivating as you might know. If you wish to make a small contribution(you will be redirected to a paypal secure page) feel free to use the widget below.Once the donation meter fills up we will release a new theme and a new exciting plugin!

5 Great icon sets for web design

I browsed the web and did lots of lookups till i managed to gather these 6 icon packs(some of them you most probably haven’t seen). They are all awsome icon packs and perfect for personal projects. Remember that all icon set preview are linked to the author’s websites.

1) Monofactor Vector Icon Pack 1

As the title says these icons come in .Ai format(Adobe illustrator), the author recommends you open the pack with Illustrator above v8.0(CS). These icons are free to use on personal projects. If you wish to use them on commercial projects(from where you earn money) you need to purchase the commercial license which costs $50.

2) Pixelresort Pixelicious Icon Pack

Its pretty useless for me to write a description of the pack, because the author has already written one which contains all the essence:

“150 pixelcrafted icons mainly intended for developers. These have been a few months in the making, so enjoy them and put them to good use. The Icons are free for personal use or non profit organisations.”

3) Function Icon Set

The guys behind Wefunction.com really put lots of hard work in creating the icon pack. The pack contains 128  high quality 48x48px icons. This is their first icon pack and i must say it turned out wicked! The pack also contains social media icons. All icons have a sleek glossy look which you will definitely love. You have the right to use the icons anywhere.

4) On-Stage Vector PSD Icon Set

The pack contains 49 vector icons accompanied by their PSD forms. You may use the icons anywhere for free, but you may not redistribute or sell them w/o smashing magazine and the author’s permission! The icons were made by deziner folio(you know him form his famous wp themes) and the icon’s quality isn’t below his wp theme’s quality!

5) Aquaticus.Social

Social.me is an icon set consisting of 30 individual icons of the popular social networks/Web 2.0 sites out there Mmmm yummy! Thgese awsome icons will get you more thumbs up and traffic. The pack contains the sharing icons in 4 different sizes(size DOES matter). They were released under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported which means you can share the icons but you may not alter their original form.

5 Awesome fresh free wordpress themes

Nowadays its getting harder and harder to find some decent free themes, but luckaly there are still some designers which release free high-quality themes. After 1 hours of research i gathered 5 awsome themes which were recently released.

Comfy News theme arrives from the creator of Guzel Magazine theme, Gabfire. As usual the theme design is extraordinary and makes some premium theme designers feel ashamed.

“Comfy comes with many features, some of them are basic magazine features such as dropdown navigation, feedburner subscription, advertisement spots, featured entries, ajax tabs, widget-ready, gravatars built-in, and more. [...] utilized jQuery to make the widgets fully controllable, you can minimize, maximize, or close any widget from homepage.

As the author states the theme has some awsome features and its definitely worth checking out.

Theme Name: Comfy News theme
Theme Demo: Testrun Comfy
Theme Release Post: Comfy WordPress News Theme is released

Compositio was designed by Elena of Design Disease and as usual released by smashing magazine . Its a cool theme but a bit too clean, lets be serious now, besides the comment section and box there’s nothing special in it. It has the same old structure as the other free design disease themes do.

Theme Name: Compositio
Theme Demo: Testrun Compositio
Theme Release Post: Compositio: Clean, Beautiful and Free WordPress Theme

The Emplode wordpress theme is based on the Emplode website template by the same author. It was a good move to release it for the wordpress platform also. There aren’t many special features i could mention besides the clean look of the theme and how appealing it is.

Theme Name: Emplode
Theme Demo: Testrun Emplode
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Emplode

I can watch movies(long name) theme was made by ACosmin who’s themes were featured quite a few times in my theme relases. It’s a cool theme but still i have a hard time deciding if it’s a retro or a 3d theme. It has a more out-of the ordinary look, and i’m sure many of you will find it appealing.

Theme Name: I can watch movies
Theme Demo: Testrun I can watch movies
Theme Release Post: Free wordpress theme – I can watch movies

Magasin Tres is an awsome magaizne theme. It would have been even more awsome if it’s width would have been 90% fluid, but eh, the fixed version looks good also. Its main features are: Featured Post, Feedburner Email Subscription, Twitter Account integration, Flirck Thumbnails, Automatic Thumbnail Resizer, Adsense ready with advertising blocks easily customizible via an Option Page.

Theme Name: Magasin Tres
Theme Demo: Testrun Magasin Tres
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Magasin Tres

That’s it for this week. See you in next week’s post.

Photoshop CS4 more powerful and lightewighter than CS2

Okay, now this is unbelievable, BETng4U installed Photoshop CS4 and on the other day he was telling me about how better CS 4 runs on his system(he has a PC similar to mine). Yesterday night i removed CS2, and installed CS4(trial version), and i have to say that it’s tempting me to buy CS4 and let CS2 go.

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.