Thursday 25 September 2008

Deviant enough for you?

So guys, I have a Deviant Art account now with a few photographs I took a couple of years ago. I've altered them slightly (in an artistic way of course) and put them up there. Go and take a look, leave a couple of comments if you so wish to.



So go take a look if you want to.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: With You - Linkin Park

Saturday 20 September 2008

All change.

I've noticed over the past months that most of my social sites have had a revamp in their layout and design (I guess we can thank the forthcoming of Web 2.0 for this). Most of them are a lot more sleek and aesthetic than their web counterparts, but some are chunkier and quite difficult to navigate, and others have completely changed (their content mainly). Below I've took the five main social sites in that I use and criticised/praised them on their changes, shown in chronological order.

1. Myspace


So Myspace was the first of these sites to change, and this happened sometime in late 2007, early 2008. Honestly, I can't remember the old Myspace layout all that well, but I do like what's happened with it. I love how you can reorder the boxes on your main page, and minimise them too. The multiple profile skins is a nice touch as well, giving you your own identity to even your home page. I can't really see anything negative about this at the moment, they even had the choice for you to switch back to the old layout at first (which has since disappeared). But it's a decent layout, and not too hard to navigate.
SCORE: 8/10

2. Last.Fm


Last.fm followed suit in around July 2008. First off, they released the new version of the site as a beta, and only to selected users (I was one of these users). It's a good layout, but there are some down points. I'll address the positive points first though. A huge plus is the real time charts. The old charts only used to update every week, and sometimes wouldn't update until the Tuesday (even though the cutoff time was Sunday). With the real time charts it's easier to compare music with other people. It's also easier to keep track of all your play lists, etc. The negative points are the fact that there was NO option to revert back to the old layout which for some people was obviously devastating (judging by the number of groups labeled "Bring Back Old Last.fm"). Another annoying aspect was the fact that instead of the weekly charts, we now have the rolling seven-day chart. I LIKED THE WEEKLY CHART, some people can't see why, but it was just nice to see how your music taste changed from one week to the next.
SCORE: 7/10

3. Facebook


Facebook, well, they originally started the changeover sometime in May 2008, but only recently converted completely to the new version (a couple of weeks ago). There have been a LOT of complaints about this (many people's statuses have been "xxx hates the new Facebook"), although I can't see their problem. I've only encountered one dislike with it, and that's the fact that the default on a profile's wall is "all posts", it would be so much better if it was "posts by other people" (and I emailed Facebook and told them so). Overall though, it's much easier to navigate, there is no news feed now (well, there is, but it's in with the wall). A profile is much simpler now, and doesn't take as long to load because of the thousands of applications people have, these are all conveniently on the "boxes" tab. The newly added applications toolbar is a much applauded development, no matter where I am on the site now, I can with two clicks, go to any of my applications, bravo to the developers for that. Overall it's pretty streamlined, and I can't see why people are annoyed at the developers for the changeover.
SCORE: 9/10

4. Stickam


Okay, so Stickam seem to change their layout every couple of weeks, but this latest layout is just under a week old, AND I HATE IT! I can see why they replaced the previous navigation of separate sub-menus, it's easier to navigate to each part of the site from every single page now, but why did they have to change the little section with the live friends and new comments, etc. I've found that sometimes it doesn't even work, I liked knowing how many people I had live without having to click anywhere, it's now just more effort for me. It takes too long to load now, I could load Facebook around 10 times before Stickam loads, which to be honest if quite pathetic. But not to worry, they change it so much that it'll be a totally different layout in another couple of weeks, I just hope I can last that long with this layout.
SCORE: 3/10

5. Twitter


Finally, it's Twitter, who changed their layout on Thursday I believe. Overall, not much has changed. The navigation is now on the side instead of on the top, and the tweets are more spaced out, which I guess is easier for reading. It's also easier to find the @ replies (as there is a whole separate tab for them!) So even though it's only changed slightly, I'd say it's changed for the better. It now reloads the tweets without reloading the page, which is a lot faster than it was previously.
SCORE: 6/10


So, after the criticism of my most visited social sites, it's easy to see that the clear winner for me is Facebook (although millions of Internet users will disagree). Overall, the updates are well thought out, with just a few minor glitches, so I say roll on Web 2.0. You're much sleeker and nicer than the original Web.

That's enough of my ramblings now, lol.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Flux - Bloc Party

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Time for a revamp.

It's that time again. I'm part of this social community website called Stickam, and nearly every month I redo my profile. It's just something to keep myself from being bored, expressing my creativity, and giving my friends something different every once in a while.

When I usually design the graphics and everything, I usually go for something modern, minimalistic with bold colours (usually containing a lot of black).



This time though, I'm going for something slightly more subtle, more elegant but slightly grungy. I'm also going to move away from the safety of my favourite colours blue and purple, and try a daring red tinted layout.

The whole thing should be finished tomorrow night if I'm not distracted tomorrow and I'm able to actually stay focused.

I'm also considering making a couple of other layouts for my good friends on Stickam, mainly Jess and Mike though, although that may take me another week or so. But it should be good when it's all done.

That's all for now, I'll give you a post with a screenshot when I've updated it.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Granite - Pendulum [XFM Radio]

Monday 8 September 2008

Maths is your friend.

"Algebra is fun", I totally believed that statement which I've said so much since I was around 14 years old, until last night. I was happily chatting along with a few friends on stickam, when one of them decided to spring on me that he needed help with his homework. What he didn't say was that he had like 4 hours to do 100 questions, which would be easy if we were together, but it was over the internet, so with lag and getting preoccupied would take a lot longer! The trouble was, it was really simple algebra, like this:



Which is pretty simple, anyone who has any knowledge of algebra can see the answer is -1. But unfortunately, it still took ages because the person in question was not grasping the concepts so easily. I should have shown him some of the equations we were doing in my college Finance class, mainly ones like this:



Yeah, that one is complicated, that might be why I failed that particular course though, haha!

I feel like I've bored you now, so I'll leave you to it.

Ciao x.


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Can't Repeat - The Offspring

Saturday 6 September 2008

New Beginnings.

Okay, so I really suck at blogging. I do it for like a couple of weeks then give up, mainly because nothing ever interesting happens to me. And then I finally have something intersting to blog about, but because I don't want to have a two-month gap between posts, I set up a new blog (is that some sort of OCD?). So this will be blog number four I think.

So, the interesting thing this time? I got my hair cut. There is not a trace of blonde in there anymore (I don't think so anyway). I was telling my friend Mike (Kane) about getting my hair cut the other night, and he said it would be a good idea to do a before and after shot. So on the way to the barbers today (in the pouring rain I might add) I took a quick snapshot with my phone, and after having it done, took another quick snapshot. Below are the results.



I think it'll look good when I spike it properly, like when I go on a night out, or to work. I don't think she thinned it out though, so it might be a bit tought to do it.

Anyway I can't think of anything else for this post so I'll just wrap it up.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Handbags and Gladrags - Stereophonics