Desktop Screen shot 5-8-2008

After using a damn lot of dark and emotive themes, I’ve just changed to a bright and cute (somewhat girly, but im not gay) theme.

Icon and wallpaper: pixelgirlpresents.com

Dock icons: various sources. modified by me

WTF is this SHIT?

Well, I’m a Vietnamese. I am, and I’m happy that the Vietnamese anime fanbase is growing at a fast rate nowadays…

But well, sometimes too fast?

When I opened up the Yahoo! VIetnam page today I was speechless

WELL BLOODY HELL! IT IS RANGE MURATA’S LAST EXILE WORK. IT IS FREELY TAKEN AS ILLUSTRATION FOR A NON-RELTAED ISSUE

<translation of the title: “The Non-Harmless Habits”, which talks about some harmful behaviours like using make-up or stuffs along that line>

Let me get this straight: I gave them a middle finger even though i was sitting inside the school computer lab. It is not about a simple image, it is about stealing, piracy. IT IS BLASPHEMY.

Yahoo! Vietnam, think again. I will do everything I can to stop this stupid idiocy. 

Thanks, for I am a Range Murata’s supporter.

The Great Windows and the Sucking Linux

Yeah! The Great Windows of mine just died yesterday and I’m currently installing back every single things I have.

I suddenly have an urge to let Tux burn all those 4 color flags…IF ONLY I have a stronger computer…

Ok, Tutorial of doing icons with transparent background will be up, like really soon.

The DIY anime icon for your desktop

Here and there people asked me about where I got all the icons used for my desktop. Most of the time, I rip them off from some random <cute> images and save them as PNG so that I can use them with Avedesk. However since I have stopped using Avedesk, the above method is unusable.

 

In this post, you will make some icon with .ico extension that can be used on your desktop without the need for Avedesk

 

What you need:

1/ Photoshop, or any image editor that you are familiar with (GIMP?)

2/ A cute image that you want to make an icon from.

3/ Internet connection.

 

Ok. first thing first, download an image you like. Most of the time I use cute/chibi images as they have this “icon” feeling to them. Just choose something you like.

For anime-related images, go to either Moe Imouto or Animepaper. They should have enough images for your lurking need.

I will go with this one for now.

Credit belongs to owner.

Open Photoshop, create a new file of about 200×200 pixel. Background change to “Transparent” and colour mode RGB 16. Save the template if you want to. Click OK

Now open your image.

Decide the part that you want to be the icon. I want Reimu’s head to be the icon for my music folder so Im going to crop her head out. Choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool and select a perfect square by holding Shift and drag.

Press Ctrl+J to move the selection to a new layer. Turn off the other layer except the one that you just cropped out.

 

Select the “Move” tool and move it to the file you created earlier.

Opps…Too big.

Choose a random Marquee Tool and right click - Free Transform. Resize it until you are satisfied.

Select File - Save for Web & Devices. Choose PNG-24 file extension and check the transparency box. Save it anywhere you like.

You should have something like this:

 

Now open either your *lovely* Firefox or your *iHATE* IE. Open this cool web site:

Converticon - convert PNG to ICO

<Of course there are other tools to do this. Just that doing this using a site is just plain cool. :3 >

 

Browse your picture and click convert. Download the .ico file (It looks too small? Never mind, just save it to your comp. Put it in one folder and start using it as you please.

 

Something like this?

Tutorial ends here.

The next tutorial is about creating non-square anime icons

How to: immitate a MacOSX desktop…(part 2)

Now, After your desktop has about only 3 ~ 5 icons left, we need some eye candies to keep them in tip-top shape.

Yesterday I found some incredible tools that will probably please your eyes while working with XP

1/ Desk Drive: I REALLY love this small app. Well, it helps XP to do what MacOSX and Linux can, which is to make a mounted volume appear on your desktop (CD, HDD, Thumbdrive, ect). After installing, put it inside your Start Up folder to make sure it starts with your windows.
Link: Desk Drive

2/ Ubericon: Yeah, it’s uber cool, i know. Ubericon adds some nice eye-candy effect when you open a folder or run a file. Pleasant on the eyes and the RAM, I conclude.
Link: UberIcon

3/ Styler: Styler changes the way your window’s standard buttons look. It also features some nice eye candies (like dropping shadows) so you don’t have to install extra softwares.
Link:
Styler

Note: To immitate a MacOS X window, you need to install the styler toolbar theme named Leopard Styler Toolbar from this site:
Markraats’ theme
(Scroll down. It’s at the end of the page. Instructions on how to install the theme is already there)

I also apply the “Hide Menubar(Explorer)” in Styler’s toolbar tab to make the theme more Apple-like
Yup. Sweet.

4/ Icons: Use IconTweaker to install this package at
Anoos’ icon pack
All credits go to Anoos.

5/ Visual Style: Install this theme from Neodesktop
Neodesktop’s visual style
Yup, all credits go to him.her also.

6/ FindeXer: This software will give you the finder’s default directory bar. Download the newest version (1.0.3) at FinderXer

And go through all the steps required here:
Markraats’ FinderXer tutorial

Credits go to Markraats.

Ah well, how does your desktop look now?
And for the wallpaper, Google for some walls that fit your needs. Won’t be difficult to find, though.

(To be continued)

Apologize

Sorry, my ‘weekend’ seems a bit long. :/ the fact is at that time, my internet connection was screwed up for days. After that period, tons of things bombarded my schedule and I found no time to even touch my computer….

These days are a bit easier for me. I will try to use all my free time to write guides (if they are read at all!). But since I’m easily discouraged, please comment every now and then so that I KNOW people are reading my blog. That will keep me going. Thanks

How to: immitate a MacOSX desktop…(part 1)

…while still keep the functionality of XP and keep your oldie computer blazing fast with all those eye-candies running. Now THAT’s a task.

Well, some of you guys can just download Flyakite OSX transformation pack or the Inspirat pack and be done with it. Let me tell you this, if you comp is old like mine (about 2~3 years old) and you need to run some RAM-consuming applications (i.e. Photoshop), installing that kind of packs will just kill your comp faster. And let’s face it, not all about MacOSX is nice: Finder sucks, Image Preview is a pain, ect.

Therefore, this tutorial is to help you creating a desktop that LOOKS A LOT like MacOSX while still save your bits of RAM and keep all those thing you known and love in XP

Things that we will need:
1/ A nice wallpaper. Yeah.
2/ a XP visual style. Don’t touch Window Blinds, seriously.
3/ Styler (for some miscellaneous effects)
4/ Ubericon (well you don’t actually need this…but it’s fun to use)
5/ ObjectDock (free version)
6/ Tuneup Utilities 2008 (trial version will do the job fine)
and a little bit of Photoshop skills….

Things that we DON’T NEED.
1/ Widget, especially Yahoo Widgets. If you are too lazy to check the weather then it’s more efficient to ask your mother than to install widget programs.
2/ Those 3D flip or Expose softwares. They are very RAM consuming.
3/ Apple softwares that can only work well in Leopard, like Safari or Itunes or Finder.
4/ The MacOSX’s finder bar. Softwares that create a similar bar do not work properly, so don’t bother trying (I tried all of them, boo!)

The end product looks like this (my current desktop, haha!)

Ok, Let us start, bit by bit.

1/ Clean that messy desktop of yours.

This step is vital. Since we don’t use 3rd party softwares to make nice icons (like Avedesk) to save RAM, you need a presentable desktop. Delete all those shortcuts to your softwares and keep those directorial shortcuts. I work a lot with Photoshop, so I have about 3 folder shortcuts on my desktop, 1 is of my hard-disk, 1 is ‘My Documents’ and 1 is ‘My Images’. Don’t keep more than 3 shortcuts if possible.
Hint: Change the desktop icon size to make them a bit nicer. Steps:
1. Right Click Desktop —> “Properties”
2. In the Properties Window —> “Appearance” tab
3. In the Appearance Window —> “Advanced”
4. In the Advanced Appearance Window —> “Item:” from the drop down list and choose “Icon”. The default icon size is 32×32, change it to 48×48.

(To be continued)

Some forewords….

This blog is dedicated to designing, be it desktop design, photoshop or whatever.

I used to own aoisora.co.nr and it was quite ok. However, after getting a good amount of blog hits, I kept telling myself “Something must change”. Aoisora.co.nr was a mess, and since I was kinda interested in making a graphic blog, here it is: ASdesign.

This blog’s temporary focus for now is desktop art since I believe some readers of dannychoo.com come here just for it.
I promise I will finish a tutorial this weekend. Remember to bookmark this page and revisit it soon

Thanks.