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We are always interested in bringing you value. Be it in the form of articles that dig deeper than elsewhere or in the form of long inspirational lists that are longer than elsewhere. Or be it in the form of a give-away like we’ll do today. Online printing company UPrinting was kind enough to offer two sets of die-cut business cards for our readers to win. Here’s what you need to know…
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So you found that new great WordPress theme and are eager to activate it. Lots of bloggers see the search for new themes as a sport. But if you are out of the niche where only you and your best friend reads your blog, spontaneous theme-switching might have become a little dangerous. What if things go wrong? What if not all sections of your blog really look as expected. Probably there are glitches in translation that are not so obvious or other problems persist. Vladimir Prelovac is here to help…
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A brand-new plugin for the ever so popular CMS WordPress enhances the workflow to a GitHub-like experience. It allows for several authors to work on the same article simultaneously. Even contributors without any rights can participate in the workflow. This could be a solution to several common problems not only editorial teams regularly face.
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It’s merely two weeks ago that Twitter announced the immediate availability of header images on profile pages, a functionality very similar to Facebook and Google+ offerings. Apply a header image and each time someone opens up your profile, be it on desktop or through mobile apps, your newly embedded image will be shown. We all know that this is not actually overwhelming but play kids as we all are, we won’t miss out on uploading our own headers, will we? You could of course unleash your creativity and build a great, earth-shaking header image for your followership or you could just download one of the nice headers they provide over at TwitrCovers.com. Actually that’s what I did…
At the time of writing, TwitrCovers.com offers around 300 different header images for pimping your profile page. The service is completely free of charge, the headers are of varying quality. I found a few dozen that fit my taste easily. Once you’ve found your new header image you download it to your local storage, the desktop in my case.
Now you open Twitter, click on the wheel icon to the upper right side of the screen and choose Edit Profile. On the left sided menu you click on Design. The Design options open to the right of the menu. You have to watch out for the section Customize Your Own. The first option you’ll see there is the possibility to change the header image. You click on Change Header, click on Choose Existing Image, which opens your file-system, where you navigate to the folder you downloaded the image to, highlight it and click Open.
The modal windows lets you fine tune the image segment shown
The chosen header will appear in a modal window, where you can further customize its look by pulling a slider that zooms into the image section displayed. This way you’re able to choose only a certain part of the uploaded image. Once zoomed you can drag the section until your desired segment is shown. Now you click on Save, but be aware that your header is not really saved by now. You have to click Save Changes on the Design tab of your profile edit page too. After that, your followers are presented with your brand-new Twitter header. Woohoo!
My new header: the result of my personalization efforts
Here are just a tiny few you might like from TwitrCovers.com’s large portfolio:
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An iPad-App by the simple name of Paper wants to transform your Apple-device into one of the oldest, but still most intuitive user interfaces there is. Thoughts, sketches, drawings, notes, whatever can be caught on a piece of paper can now be stored on your iPad, without sacrificing the ease of use of a simple blank sheet. This may not sound very spectacular, but really is a big thing, if you look deeper into it.
[This is the first article in our new series "iOS for Creative Professionals". Hope, you'll like it!]
With Paper sketching is fast and easy, just as on its wood-based role model
UI designers know it. The simpler an interface can be handled, the more intuitive it gets, the more complicated it is designwise. Hiding all the necessary background processes from user’s sight and handling all possible errors seamlessly is a tedious task for every developer. Keep in mind, what Einstein said: Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler
In my opinion, Einstein would be happy with the work of 53, a little software smithery based in New York. Paper is a sketch- and note-container, which can hold as many content as you like it to. Content in Paper is organized into books and inside these books handled pagewise. You can have an unlimited number of pages in each book. Web developers for example could organize each project in a separate book, doing the preliminary sketching and developing up to the state of a wire frame. If you’re more into movies, you could as well develop the scenes of your next blockbuster using a book inside Paper. If you’re more like an average person, you could of course just write your shopping list, Paper won’t hold it against you…
A draft of a site structure, taken from the included example pages
Paper went to the App Store at the end of March 2012 and just got a big update a few days ago. Its interface is based fully on swipe- and touch-operation. The app’s surface is not only not crowded, but astonishingly nearly completely empty. Establishing new sketchbooks is very simple. The start screen shows already stored books, which can easily be scrolled through via swipes. Tapping the plus symbol at the lower end of the app window will produce a new and empty book. Tapping on a book will open it and present its content in the form of pages. Swiping lets you scroll through the pages. Tapping the already known plus creates a new page. Tapping on the newly created page or any other page opens it. If you want to close a page or the whole book, you can easily do so by pulling thumb and forefinger together. Other apps use this gesture for zooming out.
If you’re skilled enough, you can even create drawings like the one shown above
On page level you’ll notice a toolbar at the lower end of the screen. This bar includes five different tools for writing and drawing, a rubber and a very basic colour palette with nine different hues. Swiping from the top of the app down to the bottom hides the toolbar, swiping from bottom to top brings it back into sight. Undoing is simple. You take two fingers and turn them counterclockwise. The longer you turn, the more steps are made undone. Turning clockwise again brings them back again.
Paper can be used free of charge, but has a limited tool set then. You only get one of the five pens and brushes, and can make use of the rubber. The freely available pen allows you to draw sketches. You can vary the stroke width by moving faster or slower on the surface. The faster you draw, the thicker the stroke will become. This is a little unusual at first, but can not be handled differently as the iPad is not touch-sensitive in the form of being able to react to different levels of pressure put to it. You’ll easily get used to this technique, I promise.
Other tools enable you to create pencil drawings. Another pen doesn’t vary the stroke size and can be used as a marker. There is a dedicated pen for writing and a brush, that lets you paint as if with watercolour. Each tool must be bought separately and sets you back 1,99 USD. Alternatively you should consider buying the whole package for a slightly leaner 6,99 USD.
This storyboard makes use of all the tools available
Understandably there’s some criticism to this policy. Not all clients understand why they should buy additional tools while the app is declared as free on the App Store. Probably a paid version would have been the cleaner solution. Anyway, as the whole package is nothing near of expensive and regarding the fact, that the free drawing tool is able enough for many basic needs, Paper is a must-have for every creative professional out there. As long as they use iPads of course…
Paper has me. I ditched my Moleskine in favour of the app and can hardly find any flaws or downsides. If you want to criticize on a high level, you could complain about the lack of export features, such as saving to PDF, but wait, my Moleskine didn’t have that either.
Paper can be connected to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Sharing of sketches is fast and easy that way. Moreover all content can be shared via e-mail. Since version 1.1, available from September 14th 2012, pages can be exported to the iPad’s camera roll. Saving takes place in the native resolution of the iPad running Paper.
Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook can be reached from within Paper
With version 1.1 Paper did not only get more open in ways of exporting its contents, it got provided with useful functionality around the administration of books and pages, too. Now you can duplicate books and pages or move them from one book to another. Paper is one of the few apps that supports multi-touch gestures. You need both hands to benefit from the new features. Tap a page and hold it, take your other hand and close the book, swipe through the books and tap the one, where you want to insert the page, which you are still holding tapped, into. Swipe through the pages to the place where your copied page shall appear, let it go. I’m amazed, once again…
