N.Design Studio | Design Blog & Portfolio » Blog

Update: Notepad Theme Options

Nick La — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:19:54 +0000

Notepad 1.2 is just released (added theme options). Now you add custom favicon, exclude page(s), disable dropdown menu, edit or turn off social media buttons, and add footer tracking code via the option page. Big thanks to Jon Raasch for coding the option page. Also, all strings in the theme files are replaced with l10n (edited by Jerome Neuveglise).

More Social Media Icons

Nick La — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:21:02 +0000

I just updated the Social Media Icon Set with the following new icons: Google Buzz, Picasa, Bing, Meetup, Ebay, Feedburner, WordPress (blue version), Drupal, Gowalla, ICQ, Metacafe, Yelp, Xing, PayPal, Heart, Star, Podcast, and various color buttons. Please download the updated zip file to get the new icons.

Happy Birthday Photoshop

Nick La — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:24:04 +0000

Can you believe Photoshop is 20-year old already? To celebrate this event, please join Photoshop on Facebook and display a ‘20′ Photoshop Twitter avatar. You can also send a greeting card to Photoshop for your chance to win a copy of Photoshop.

WordPress Theme Option Coder

Nick La — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:13:19 +0000

I’m looking for a WordPress developer to code a theme option page for the Notepad theme where users can customize the social media buttons, change background color/image, and exclude page IDs in the navigation. Since the theme is released free under GPL, this is an unpaid job. However, credit links will be provided in the theme’s style.css and on my blog posts & theme page. If you are interested, please contact me.

Behind the Websites by Ricardo Gimenes

Nick La — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:00:02 +0000

Behind the Websites is a project by Ricardo Gimenes where he showcases daily illustration about his thoughts on other people’s websites in a humorous way. His work is very creative and funny. I just spent half an hour flicking through his illustrations. Check out what he drew about Web Designer Wall.

Toronto WordPress Workshop

Nick La — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:41:33 +0000

I will be hosting a WordPress workshop with Refresh Events in Toronto, March 25th 2010. The event will take place at Rich Media Institute, 156 Augusta Ave.This workshop is for web designers with CSS skills who want to learn how to convert a HTML template into a functional WordPress theme. You don’t need any PHP skills. You will learn how to create standard blog themes as well as advance themes using conditional tags, page templates, custom fields, and more. Details and registration.

Bonus: anyone who signs up for the workshop will get a $45 discount code from InMotion Hosting. You may use the coupon code in any business class shared-hosting, VPS, and dedicated server packages.

Just Released the Notepad Theme

Nick La — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:25:31 +0000

It has been a long long time since I released a WordPress Theme. Finally, I have a new release — the Notepad theme. It is inspired by the iPhone’s Notes.app. This new theme is widget compatible with threaded comments, social media buttons, and multi-level dropdown menus. It has been tested on WordPress 2.9 with Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE7+. It also includes some nice CSS3 enhancement such as rounded corners and drop shadow. Preview the theme on the demo site.

Illustrator: Christina Ung

Nick La — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:37:30 +0000

Christina Ung is an illustrator based in Thornhill, Ontario. She graduated in 2007 with a BAA Illustration degree at Sheridan College and since, have illustrated for several editorial publications and commercial clients across North America. Her works appears in group exhibitions and have achieved recognition in both Communication Arts & Applied Arts award annuals.

Released a Free Vector Social Media Icon Set

Nick La — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:28:57 +0000

I just released a free social media vector set at IconDock. It consists 48 icons of the most popular social networks plus a standard RSS and email icon. The icons are available at 16px and 32px in EPS, PNG, and GIF format. Please tweet or blog about it to share the love. Thanks!

Server Moved to InMotion Hosting

Nick La — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:13:58 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve moved my hosting to InMotion Hosting. I’m using one of their dedicated servers for all my projects and it has been very stable. They also offer a lot of affordable packages from shared hosting to VPS hosting. In term of tech support, they are the best I’ve experienced by far. Don’t you hate it when your server is down and there is noboby available to help you? If you are looking for web hosting with reasonable pricing and good services, I recommend them.

Now, if you would like to win 1-year free hosting from InMotion, enter a comment in this hosting giveaways contest before Feb 12, 2010.

Daily Drop Cap

Nick La — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:22:55 +0000

The Daily Drop Cap is an ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day she will post a decorative initial cap which you can use for your blog posts. Below are some of her designs. Follow her site for more.

Article: Web Design Trends (Predictions) in 2010

Nick La — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:47:13 +0000

Read my new article about Web Design Trends (Predictions) in 2010. It covers design trends with sample sites in both design and technology perspective. It looks like CSS3 is going to be in this year. Read on to find out why.

DIY: Lego Router

Nick La — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:55:42 +0000

Watch how Luke Anderson converted his Linksys wireless router into a Lego router. If you would like to build one yourself, download his detail documentations.

iPhone App: Lego Photo

Nick La — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:54:18 +0000

To all Lego and iPhone fans: Lego just released a free app that lets you generate Lego brick mosaic images from any photo. The app is fun and easy to use. Tab to select a photo from your photo library or take a new photo with the camera. Then you can tab again to generate a different color theme. Visit the site at legoclick.com or download directly from iTunes.

Article Link: Process of Redesigning N.Design

Nick La — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:31:32 +0000

The Process of Redesigning N.Design (article) is finally published on Web Designer Wall. It explains every detail about the redesign as well as shows you the process images. I’ve also talked about how other web sites inspired me. Read the article now to find out how I recycled my old illustrations and created something new.

Site: Art in My Coffee

Nick La — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:17:20 +0000

Art in My Coffee is a site by Jina Bolton and Meagan Fisher where they showcase coffee art from around the world.

WordPress Short URL for Twitter

Nick La — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:21:31 +0000

You may have noticed that Twitter no longer automatically shorten URLs in the tweets. The great thing is now you can promote your own domain in the tweets. If you are using WordPress, you can take advantage of the default permalink structure to shorten URLs. Instead of posting the "pretty" URL, you can shorten it by removing the "www." and using the post ID in the URL (e.g. "?p=1204").

Advantages of Using Your Own Domain URLs:

Promote your site (branding): when people retweet, your domain will fly around.
More meaningful: readers at least know the link goes to your site. Shorten URL (e.g. bit.ly/buSzh) is meaningless because readers don’t know where the link is directing to.
Build trust & increase click rate: people tend to click on the links that they trust rather than unknown URLs (ie. bit.ly/buSzh might be a spam link).

How to Find Post ID?

Go to Admin > Edit Posts, hover over the post link, look at the status bar, the number at the end of the URL is the post ID.
When you are editing or previewing a post, the number in the URL (on the adddress bar) is the post ID.

Parrot AR.Drone: iPhone-Controlled Helicopter

Nick La — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:19:51 +0000

Wow! It is a helicopter that connects via WiFi and uses your iPhone’s display as controller. It has built-in cameras and ultrasound sensors that lets you take full control of the helicopter. You can even play reality games with it. Visit ardrone.parrot.com for more videos and info.

Creative: McDonald’s Steaming Bus Shelter Ad

Nick La — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:42:41 +0000

A steam machine was built inside the bus shelter and periodic bursts revealed a message “Your Free Coffee is Ready”. Creative!

Layers App Giveaways

Nick La — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:52:52 +0000

Layers is a Mac software that allows you to capture everything on your screen (such as cursor, application windows, palettes, menus, dock, desktop icons, etc.) as a layered Photoshop file. This tool is extemely useful for creating tutorial screen captures. I have 5 licenses to giveaway. Enter a comment in this post before Jan 3^rd, 2010 for your chance to win one free license. For more details about the app, visit LayersApp.com. Follow @layersapp on Twitter for updates.

Update: The winner are: 22, 51, and 86.

Everything (menus, windows, icons, etc.) is organized in layers & groups.

About Layers App

The app is very easy to use. Just press the shortcut key Control + Shift + S (default shortcut) and a PSD file will generate in the Desktop > Layers folder (default location). Of course you can change the shortcuts and capture folder in the application’s Preferences. In the PSD file, everything is organized nicely in separate layers and groups: menus, windows, palettes, dock, desktop, and file icons.

License Giveaways (5 copies)

Write a comment related to the Layers in this post.
One entry per person. Duplicate comments will be voided.
Winners will be contacted by email.

Comment entries will be accepted until Jan 3, 2010. Then five winning number will be generated randomly from the comment list. Each winner will get one license of Layers app.