Archive for September, 2009

Anime Bead Tutorial in Adobe Photoshop

September 18th, 2009

Step 1

Create a new document

Create some text. (I used Planet Kosmos at 50 points)

Ctrl/Cmd+Click on the texts’ layer thumbnail to load the selection

Select>Modify>Expand

Enter 5 pixels and click ok

Step 2

The selection should now look like this

Step 3

With the selection still active create a new layer and name it beads

Step 4

Go to the Paths Palette

Click the top right arrow and choose “Make Work Path” from the fly out menu

Enter a setting of 0.5 (The minimum allowed)

Click ok

We have now made a path out of the selection

Step 5

Prepare the brush…

Choose White as your foreground color

Select the Brush tool from the Toolbox

Open the brushes palette

Turn off all the boxes on the left

Choose a 10 Pixel hard brush

Set the spacing to 105% (This will make a dotted line)

Step 6

Click on the Stroke path button as shown

The path will now be stroked with white dots.

Click in the blank area of the paths palette (Below the work path) to turn off the path

Step 7

Go back to the layers palette

You should now have something like this

Step 8

Click the little “f” at the bottom of the layers palette to add a layer style

Choose bevel and emboss and use the settings shown

Step 9

Choose inner shadow and use the shown settings

Click Ok to apply the style.

Step 10

At this point we have a problem. The text is a bit small for the beads (There is a gap showing)

Increase the size of the text to compensate, the edge of the text should line up with the beads

Step 11

Add a layer style to the text. Apply a default drop shadow and a Bevel as shown

Step 12

In this variation, I repeated the step and expanded by 10 pixels to create a second ring of beads. I also enhanced it a bit with some sparkles.

Bevelled Outlinel Tutorial in Adobe Photoshop

September 18th, 2009

In this Photoshop Tutorial we will be creating a double bevelled outline.

Step 1

Start with your shape on a new layer. Try experimenting with a shape of your own.

I drew this with the polygon lasso tool an filled it with green.

Step 2

Make a selection around your object. Ctrl/Cmd+Click on the layer Thumbnail.

Step 3

select>modify>contract.

I chose 10 pixels

Step 4

Your selection is now contracted.

Step 5

Now to make the groove.

Select>modify>Border
I chose 5 pixels

Step 6

You should see the double selection now.

Step 7

Press the delete/backspace key to erase the object on the selection.

Deselect

Step 8

Now to add the bevel:

Add the layer styles (press the little f on the bottom of the layers palette.)

Choose the inner bevel option

*Optional: add a drop shadow too.

Step 9

And the shape is now bevelled!

If you want you can add some text, select it, switch to the object layer and hit del/backspace to chisel out some text.

Gallery2 Introduction

September 18th, 2009

Gallery2 gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether you’re running a small personal site or a large community site.

Gallery2′s main strength is its extensibility; the base package contains all the features required for a basic gallery (and more advanced ones too), but if you want more features, it is easily extended through extra modules available through the Gallery2 website.

If you want to customise the theme, it is easy to do so; alternatively, a large amount of themes exist which you can upload to your website.

Features

  • Easy to create Photo Albums
  • Easy ways to add Photos, e.g. with Drag and Drop Tools
  • Photo and Album Administration and Editing
  • Auto-Generation of Thumbnails and Resized Images
  • Handles Many Image Formats
  • Easy Installation and Upgrades
  • 100% Multi-User Ready
  • User and Group Management
  • Themeable – Change the Look and Feel by Switching Themes. Code and Presentation are Separated.
  • Comprehensive Permission Management (Album and Item Level)
  • Extensible – Add / remove Features by Installing ‘modules’ and Change the Look by Switching ‘themes’
  • Over 25 Integrations into CMS, Portal, Forum, Blog Software and other Systems
  • Internationalized – Over 20 Mostly Complete Translations (and Many More Less Complete Translations)
  • Community Building Features (User-Albums, Comments, User Self-Registration, …)
  • Scalable – Manage Over a Million Items and Thousands of Users
  • Image Firewall (Downloads are Protected Through Application-Level Permissions)
  • Secure – Gallery has been audited by several core developers and by paid professionals for application security
  • Portable – Gallery runs on any webserver with PHP 4 or PHP 5 and with a wide variety of database servers
  • Multimedia Ready – Watch Streaming Videos, Listen to Music, …
  • Unlimited Number of Sub-Album Levels

Coppermine Gallery Introduction

September 18th, 2009

Coppermine Photo Gallery is an advanced, user-friendly, picture gallery script with built-in support for other multi-media/data files, and has one of the largest featuresets available.

Because if its ease of use, it is one of the most popular gallery scripts on the internet, with thousands of users.

Features

  • arrangement of pictures in categories and albums
  • picture information stored in database
  • users can upload pictures with web interface of ftp (and admin can batch-add to database)
  • full multimedia support
  • creation of thumbnails and intermediate size pics
  • search feature
  • last added
  • random picture
  • user management (private galleries, groups)
  • integration of user management with various bbs (like phpBB, YaBB SE, SMF, Invisionboard, vbulletin)
  • caption, title, description and user defined fields for each picture (searchable)
  • multi-lingual
  • user comments
  • e-card feature
  • slideshow viewer
  • all features customizable with web interface
  • template system
  • user membership in multiple groups
  • upload approval notice for admin
  • image rotation
  • multi-pic upload

Installing Gallery2 in Fantastico

September 18th, 2009

Gallery2 is a powerful and flexible image gallery, with a number of useful features and attractive themes. Additionally, installing it is a matter of a few clicks thanks to the easy to use Fantastico control panel, included with all of our Linux hosting plans.

First of all, login to your cpanel at

http://www.yourdomain.com.au/cpanel

You will be presented with the default cpanel screen. Scroll down until you see the Fantastico link.

Click on it, and you will be taken to the Fantastico panel. Scroll down to the “Image Galleries” section, and click on the “Gallery” link.

You will now be shown a description of the script and a list of existing installations. To start a new installation, click on “New Installation”.

You will now be presented with this form:

Fill the form out like this:

  • Install on domain: Select the domain you want to install the script to.
  • Install in directory: You can specify here which directory you want to install it to. For example, if you type /gallery, the script will be installed at www.yourdomain.com.au/gallery. You can leave it blank to install it directly in the root of your domain, so the gallery would be displayed at www.yourdomain.com.au.
  • Admin user and password: Specify here the login details for the script.
  • Admin full name: Your full name. You can leave this blank if you want.
  • Admin email: Your email address. It is important that this is an active email address.
  • Preferred language: The language you want the script to use.

Once you have double checked the form details, click on “Install Gallery”. You will be shown a screen confirming that a database has been created and the address of the script. Click on “Finish installation”. You will be presented with this screen:

Congratulations, Gallery2 is installed! Your new gallery will look like this:

Gallery2 easy image upload

September 18th, 2009

Gallery2 is a very powerful and configurable image gallery script. One of its most useful features is the variety of methods you can use to create albums and upload images, one of them being through Windows Explorer, allowing you to select images through the file manager and upload them directly. This tutorial will guide you through setting up this feature.

Login to your Gallery2 installation, and click on “Add Items” on the left. You will now be presented with the Add Item page, which contains a number of tabs. Click on the “Windows XP” tab.

Click on the ” Download [install_registry.reg]” link on the following page, and when the download is finished, double click on the file. You will get a popup prompt asking you if you want to add the information in the file to the registry; click on Yes.

Now browse to a folder with pictures which you want to upload.

Under the “File and Folder Tasks” header on the left, you will see a “Publish this folder to the Web” link. Click on it. You will now be presented with the Web Publishing Wizard. Click on Next. You will now be shown a list of the images in the folder.

Here, tick all the images you want to upload to your Gallery2 installation. Then click on Next. You will now be shown a service providers list.

Click on your Gallery2 installation, and then click Next. You will now be presented with the stanard Gallery2 login page. Log in, and you can now select which album to upload the images to (or, create a new album). Once you have selected the album or created a new one, you will be shown a few options regarding picture size and other settings. Set these to your liking, and click Next.

Your files will now be uploaded to your Gallery2. When it has finished, you will be given the link to the album.

Congratulations, you have finished uploading an album to Gallery2!

Installing Coppermine gallery themes

September 18th, 2009

Coppermine is a powerful, highly customisable photo gallery script which can easily be installed by using Fantastico in your control panel.

Coppermine comes with a number of themes already installed, but for users wanting more variety without needing the spend the time making a theme yourself, a number of other themes exist which you can install relatively easily…

Follow these steps to install new themes.

1. Browse to this website:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=89658&package_id=98541

This website displays a list of themes. Download one of them by clicking on it. (Note: This is only one of many websites that offer free Coppermine themes; a simple google search will bring up many more)

2. Once the file has downloaded (it should be a zip archive), open it and extract the folder inside to your computer.

3. Connect to your website via FTP and browse to your Coppermine folder. There should be a “themes” folder here. Upload the folder on your computer into the themes directory.

4. Once the upload has finished, go to your Coppermine gallery in your web browser. The theme should have been detected automatically. To select it, go to the Config section > Theme settings, and select it from the drop down list.

Fantastico – Automated Script Installer

September 17th, 2009
Fantastico De Luxe is an add-on for cPanel which allows you to quickly and easily install free scripts and third party applications on your website with the click of a button or two. This saves you the trouble of finding and downloading the applications yourself, then uploading and installing them on your site and manually changing settings or creating any required databases.

Fantastico Deluxe is the easiest way to deploy and install a range of powerful website scripts for use with your VERSION-NEXT Hosting package.

Easily install the webs most popular scripts and get more functionality out of your website today with an VERSION-NEXT Hosting plan. Click the order button below and follow our signup page!

Support for Applications is not provided, all bugs, technical support, and issues for this product can be handled via the developers site and resources: http://www.netenberg.com/forum/

cPanel Fantastico De Luxe main features
cPanel Fantastico De Luxe is the leading autoinstaller for cPanel Dedicated Servers. It integrates with your cPanel Dedicated Servers and gives you and your web-hosting customers the ability to install multiple instances (*) of any of these scripts:
- in add-on domains
- in sub domains
- in top level directories (root of main domain and/or any add-on domain/sub domain)

Additional cPanel Fantastico features in the Admin Panel
- Set default language
- Email notifications to admin for installations/removals
- “Feature-Sets” so different users, hosting-plans, resellers, get different combinations of available applications.
- Report/Fix common problems
- Display newest version available and display a warning when your version is not the newest
- Display news pulled from http://netenberg.com/ informing you for security issues, technical updates etc

Additional cPanel Fantastico features in the User Pages
- Select language
- Email notifications to user for installations/removals
- Display a warning when logged in using root or reseller password. You can’t proceed to install in these cases.

Included cPanel Fantastico Scripts

Blogs:
b2evolution
Nucleus
pMachine Free
WordPress

Portals/CMS:

Drupal
Geeklog
JOOMLA
Mambo Open Source
PHP-Nuke
phpWCMS
phpWebSite
Post-Nuke
Siteframe
Typo3
Xoops

Customer Support:

Crafty Syntax Live Help
Help Center Live
osTicket
PHP Support Tickets
Support Logic Helpdesk
Support Services Manager

E-Commerce:
CubeCart
OS Commerce
Zen Cart

FAQ:

FAQMasterFlex

Guestbooks:

ViPER Guestbook

Image Galleries:

4images Gallery
Coppermine Photo Gallery
Gallery

Mailing List:
PHPlist

Polls and Surveys:
Advanced Poll
phpESP
PHPSurveyor

Project Management:

PHProjekt
dotProject

phpBB3 Forum Hosting: Introduction

September 17th, 2009

phpBB3 is the latest update to the phpBB series, incorporating a plethora of new features, speed, stability and security improvements, and is much easier to use than its predecessor, phpBB2.

Millions of people use phpBB on a daily basis, making it the most widely used opensource bulletin board system in the world. Whether you want to stay in touch with a small group of friends or are looking to set up a large multi-category board for a corporate website, phpBB has the features you need built in.

phpBB3 is a widely supported and highly customizable online bulletin board script, perfect for building an online community with your VERSION NEXT Hosting.

To begin building your phpBB online forum community today with an VERSION NEXT Hosting plan, click the order button below and follow our signup page!


Newer users will appreciate phpBB’s extensive administration panel, the most intricate features without having to edit code directly, while advanced users will value the ease with which phpBB can be integrated into existing systems.

phpBB3 introduces a huge range of new features to the phpBB series, including:

  • Password protected forums
  • Forum specific styles
  • Redirect forums
  • Subforums
  • Forum rules
  • An improved moderation control panel
  • An enhanced administration panel
  • Improved style/theme system
  • Easy to use extensions
  • Revamped default style
  • Advanced caching features
  • Advanced spam prevention features

And many more. It has also been brought up to date with the latest web standards, and is both faster and more secure. In total, phpBB3 adds 130 new features and many other improvements under the hood.

Below you can find a visual comparison of the default old phpBB2 and the new much improved phpBB3 installations.

phpBB2 frontend versus phpBB3:
.sig_cont {width:230px;height:82px;}

phpBB2 Administration versus phpBB3 Administration Panel:
.sig_cont {width:230px;height:82px;}

Dreamweaver – Web Development Tool

September 17th, 2009
Dreamweaver is a web development tool, created by Macromedia (now Adobe Systems), which is currently in version 8. Initial versions of the application served as simple WYSIWYG HTML editors but more recent versions have incorporated notable support for many other web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting frameworks. Dreamweaver has enjoyed widespread success since the late 1990s and currently holds approximately 80% of the HTML editor market.

Adobe Creative Suite and DreamWeaver are the perfect web design tools to build your new website with your VERSION-NEXT Hosting.

Get your Adobe DreamWeaver designed website up and running today with an VERSION-NEXT Hosting plan. Click the order button below and follow our signup page!

The software is available for both the Mac and Windows platforms, but can also be run on Unix-like platforms through the use of emulation software such as Wine.

As a WYSIWYG editor, Dreamweaver can hide the details of pages’ HTML code from the user, making it possible for non-experts to easily create web pages and sites. Some web developers criticize this approach as producing HTML pages that are much larger than they should be, which can cause web browsers to perform poorly. This can be particularly true because the application makes it very easy to create table-based layouts. In addition, some web site developers have criticized Dreamweaver in the past for producing code that often does not comply with W3C standards. However, Macromedia has increased the support for CSS and other ways to layout a page without tables in later versions of the application.

Dreamweaver allows you to pick most browsers installed on your computer to preview websites. It also has some site management tools geared towards novices, such as the ability to find and replace lines of text or code by whatever parameters you specify, up to the entire site. The behaviors panel also allows creation of basic JavaScript without any coding knowledge.

With the advent of version MX, Macromedia incorporated dynamic content creation tools into Dreamweaver. In the spirit of HTML WYSIWYG tools, it allows users to connect to databases (such as MySQL and Microsoft Access) to filter and display content using scripting technologies such as Active Server Pages(ASP), ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages(JSP), PHP, and more without any previous programming experience.

A highly regarded aspect of Dreamweaver is its extensible architecture. “Extensions”, as they are known, are small programs, which any web developer can write (usually in HTML and Javascript) and anyone can download and install, which provide added functionality to the software. Dreamweaver is supported by a large community of extension developers who make extensions available (both commercial and free) for most web development tasks from simple rollover effects to full featured shopping carts.

PHP Freelancer