Google Reader Beautification: Helvetireader

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

So crisp and clean!

I have been a Google Reader for a good while now and I think it is a very fine web appli­ca­tion. It does what I expect it to do and it does it well. It is util­i­tar­ian. It is use­ful. I use it daily.

But now, I find it even more enjoy­able to use. Two grease­mon­key scripts have turned my stan­dard Reader inter­face into some­thing beau­ti­ful and even more use­able (imho).

Behold:
Hel­ve­tireader
+
Fav­i­cons for Google Reader

There are even instruc­tions for using the scripts with Fluid. If you are not famil­iar with Fluid, it is a util­ity for cre­at­ing site-specific browsers based on Safari (WebKit). Get famil­iar. You'll like it.

So go, make your Reader pret­tier (and sub­scribe to this blog's feed).

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AA meltdown

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Let this be a les­son to you. Do not store elec­tron­ics with the bat­tery inside.

My mini­disc recorder had a bat­tery leak and now it is broken.

If you plan on stor­ing some­thing for a while, remove the bat­tery before plac­ing in storage.

RTFM, my friends. RTFM. And, also, fol­low your own advice.

Tags: battery, leak, minidisc
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DJ support

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Bronta Scor­pio, from dubstepforum.com, has included my track "World­wide" in a mix!

Dub­step­fo­rum Under­ground Pro­duc­ers Mix by Bronta Scor­pio
http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=1221461&highlight=#1221461

Tags: dj mumbler
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PNG-8 with alpha transparency

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

I learned a new web trick today.

Appar­ently, Photoshop's inabil­ity to save PNG-8 with alpha trans­parency is not a lim­i­ta­tion of PNG-8 but a lim­i­ta­tion in Photoshop.

For years, I have been oper­at­ing under the assump­tion that I need to use PNG-24 to achieve trans­parency effects in my web projects. This is usu­ally a com­pro­mise in terms of file size and browser com­pat­i­bil­ity (requir­ing ie-specific hacks). But it doesn't have to be…

[Enter Fire­works]

Fire­works to the rescue:

• Open your big Photoshop-exported PNG-24 with nice alpha trans­parency in Fireworks.
• Change the file for­mat to PNG-8.
• Change the trans­parency option to "alpha transparency"
• Rebuild and export your PNG-8
• Revel in the MUCH smaller file size

Bonus points for ie6 compatibility!

Learned this from Brenelz's screen­cast which was linked on Net­Tuts

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Kings of Leon?

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Here's another band who I suc­cess­fully ignored for a long time. Now I can't get this song out of my head…

Tags: music
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