Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

YouTube, Like Napster, Fading Away, Right Before Our Eyes!

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Sad news… On March 12th 2007, Viacom (short for Video & Audio Communications) has filed a lawsuit against YouTube claiming that YouTube allowed it’s users upload and share over a 100,000 videos owned by Viacom. Viacom’s lawsuit seeks $1 BILLION in damages. The word is this whole house of cards may crash as soon as this summer and either way the lawsuit goes, YouTube will not be the same. Just like we’ve seen Napster fade away, YouTube may be facing the same fate. Sad news, YouTube has become a very important part of most people’s life. I hope Google, being the owner of YouTube can come up with something to keep YouTube unchanged but we’ll see what happens.

You can read the official court documents that have been released here: http://tcrn.ch/ab5xDi

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded & Updated

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

I finally finished reading all the stuff I had laying around like, FREE – The Future Of A Radical Price (which, I must say, every entrepreneur should read, check out my book review on it), and an issue of Web Designer and a Website Magazine.

Now that loose ends are tied I can start on this new Expanded and Updates edition of The 4-Hour Workweek. I read the first one and found it very useful, read my book review on this one too. If you haven’t read the first one, don’t bother because the second one has the same stuff in it and more, so read this one instead.

I started reading yesterday and am really enjoying it. Will tell you more about it as I read.

And yes, that is the kitchen behind me… my office is in the dining room. :)

Until next time,

~ Valik

Merry Christmas 2009!!

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all the Web Design Ideas Blog readers! Wishing you God’s blessings, health, happiness and success!

~ Valik

Dreamweaver CS4 Can’t Copy & Paste Code

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

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Do you ever feel like big companies sometimes feel like they just don’t care? It’s probably because they really don’t.

Before I spend another couple of grand on the Adobe CS4 Master Collection, I decided to order the 30-day trial version, just to put a 30-day space between me throwing thousands of dollars around. (I’m referring to my recent iMac purchase that I wrote about in the last post in case you didn’t’ read it).

Everything is working great but one thing that I find very annoying is that Dreamweaver CS4 has a problem with copying selections of code. If you go to select a part of the code in Code view it highlights the entire code and copies it instead. Nothing I do seems to help. Some sort of glitch. I thought it was just my computer or something but after Googling it I find that a lot of people are suffering the same issues. As far as I can tell this goes back all the way to March 2009. I just wonder why Adobe has not fixed it yet.

I called Adobe but they don’t want to speak with me about it because I do not have their full version of software. They sent me to fill out a support ticket on their website but on the website they only give you certain things you can submit a support ticket on, based on their record of my purchases in my account. Since I have not purchased the real version, Dreamweaver is not one of the choices available.

Soo, I am thinking, isn’t the trial version there for you  to test the software and then purchase the real thing? So if the trial version does not work – why would someone buy the full version? As a company wouldn’t they want to take care of a potential customer that is one step away from making a purchase?

I am considering buying the CS3 version of the master collection… I know it works, I’ve been using it for a couple of years with no problems.

Man, it’s not like I’m buying a popsicle, this is a 2 thousand dollar purchase, it better work.

If anyone knows about this issue and found a fix, would you please let me know in the comments? Or if you have a similar situation, leave your experiences in the comments too.

Anyways, If you’re interested in becoming a certified specialist in Microsoft MCSE 70-290 or Cisco exam 640-802 then, I’d recommend you to go for practice exams , study guides developed by ExamsExpert.

Till next time,

~ Valik

Finally… Got me my iMac!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

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Dear Readers,

I finally went out and got me my iMac on Saturday. It’s a 27-inch!

This switching over to Mac idea is so exciting to me that I even started a new blog about iMacs called iMacology.com. I posted more about my purchase there. You’ll find a lot of other iMac info there too so go check it out.

~ Valik

Bummer On My New iPhone Dream

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

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I hate it when I look forward to something and get too excited about it too soon. A few months ago I called AT&T and asked them when my contract expires with them so I can upgrademy phonw to iPhone… I thought I was told February 2010. Ever since then I’ve been secretly extremely excited about it.

Yesterday while on the phone with an AT&T rep I asked just to make sure which day in February it expires and she said “February? It’s actiually June 22nd”…… …..

…..

“WHAT???” that’s me screaming in my head as my bubble of excitement bursts. Another seven months to wait. I’m goin to go and play with my Razor V3 and try to pretend to enjoy it…

Till next time dudes & dudets.

~ Valik

The Mind Mapping Street: A Copy Cat Solution?

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

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by Giancarlo Gallegos

One of the most difficult task that we face as designers is to be able to generate ideas. Just look around in the internet, the streets, magazines and you will find many design or logos looking very much similar but not quite. Often, I ask myself how much original content is out there? How do I create an original idea? Or, is it possible to create an original idea?

If you are like me, the answer was staring at my face the whole time. I have been using it but did not know what it really is. It is called Mind Mapping. To my surprise, it has been with us for the past four decades. What is mind mapping?

Mind mapping is a graphical way of presenting ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps us structure, analyze, synthesize, recall information and, more so, generate new ideas. (more…)

Ads on Facebook Featuring YOU, Without You Knowing It…

Monday, July 27th, 2009

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So I got a message on Facebook that made me a bit upset. Here is what  I posted on impulse:

WHAT?? Facebook snuck this in while most of us were just commenting on friend’s status(es) and pictures. The new Facebook ads now incorporate YOUR photos into the ads when they show on your friends’ Facebook pages. So your friends will think this is not an add, but something you posted. If this is not the most horrible case of SPAM, I don’t know what is. I guess the fact that they allow you to turn your photos off for this evil project but still if you do not know this is happening, having an option to turn it off, deep in your settings pages does not really help with this deceiving monetizing scheme.

I was really upsset when I found out about this. And Facebook of all places? That is too weird to beleive.

Ok, here is how you turn it off in your Facebook account:

  1. Log in to Facebook
  2. On the top right (in the blue bar) roll over “settings”
  3. The fly out menu, click “privacy settings”
  4. Click, “News Feed And Wall”
  5. Click the “Facebook Ads” tab
  6. There is a drop down menu next to “Appearance in Facebook Ads” -click “no one

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UPDATED!!

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Then thanks to Anon’s comment below this turns out to be untrue so I wanted to appologise and provide the information that explains Facebook’s policy.

Debunking Rumors about Advertising and Photos

Please read this over to understand what’s going on so you don’t go off and continue spreading a crazy rumor like I did.

Sorry about that again.

Do You Have The Technology To Be A Real Web Designer?

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

I mean, do you have the Hardware and Software to do the job right? It’s not just about Photoshop and Dreamweaver anymore, these days you need to have a fleet of computers with various operating systems and browser versions installed to make sure the website you just got done designing and programming does not win the #1 spot on the WebsitesThatSuck.com website.

With the new version 8 of the Internet Explorer out, now we have three IE-if-statements to include in head section of the pages. One more to worry about. That’s in addition to the two or more FireFox versions, Chrome, Opera, Safari and others. Seriously, if you are not a fairly large company, you might not even be able to afford so many computers to run these various versions of browsers and then different variations of OS/Browser combinations because they do behave differently, on Windows XP and Windows Vista for instance, IE 7 will sometimes need a kick in the pants.

Of course you have the choice to have the hard drive partitioned with various installations on the same computer but it is still more hassle that it should really be. Only if the companies would adhere to the standards, we would be happy campers and then everyone would become web designers and we’d have a different problem then.

That’s my rant for today. Please feel free to express your frustration in the comments. This will be the webdesigners’ therapy page. ;)

Been a Busy Week

Friday, June 26th, 2009

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Hey guys and girls, I am sorry for neglecting the blog this week. It’s been super busy with more and more web design jobs coming in. Hopefully I will get some time next week to post some updates.

Lately, I’ve been working on a lot of custom WordPress themes, I find them a lot of fun actually. The more I try to challenge my knowledge of WordPress the more I find out I can do with it. It ‘s an amazing piece of software. Almost anything is possible with this thing, you can make it do so many things using the hooks that are built into WordPress, you just need to tap into them to take control of it. See, there I go, way too exciting. lol, I know I’m such a nerd, someone already told me that. :)

I’ve also been working on a premium WordPress Super Theme that I will be releasing for sale soon. It will beat the socks of any other theme that is available out there. It’s super easy to use and has lots of extra options that you don’t get in a regular “premium” theme. I’ll keep you updated on this as I get ready to launch it.

Until next time,

~Valiik.