This reminded me that I really need to start publishing again and re-do the old design of the website. But I’m currently with my research so this will have to wait a bit till I have my normal life back, so to say. Anyway, I’ve not abandoned Paintbits at all, but like my last post said, the will to write it’s a bit off due to recent events (I lost my mother).

Next year’s resolution will be to redo Paintbits and become active on it again.

Anyway, a nice Christmas for all and a new year’s eve.

Cya soon.

Nuno.

Cya soon!

There is another website I’ve been using for some time now and since I saw it mentioned in the Smashing Magazine newsletter I remembered to share it here also. Subtle Patterns is a website that contains a small collection of patterns, all of high quality.

Link: Subtle Patterns

Wallpapers

Spring Wallpaper

Depth

Wave

The author of Spring has other really good wallpapers illustrating the rest of the year seasons.

What would be truly awesome is the release of a tutorial explaining how to make such wallpapers in Photoshop. But in the mean time we can all download the wallpaper and enjoy the graphics.

Download Plataform Wallpaper

Long go the time where WinZip and WinRAR were almost the only options as extract managers for our operating systems. Nowadays there are a plethora of other options, many free to use, at least non-commercially. One of my favourites compressors / extractors is 7-Zip, the reasons being it’s free and open source under the GNU LGPL license (can be used for commercial use) and the compression ratio of the 7z format is higher than zip for example.

The only thing I don’t like about 7-Zip is that it lacks a bit of eye appeal. It surely doesn’t matter at the end of the day if it gets the job done, but in our endless search to make our desktop look better and more appealing 7-Zip app could do with a little tweaking. This is were 7-Zip Theme Manager comes along to save the day app.

The application is very simple and easy to use. Extract the contents of the compressed file and run 7zTM.exe. You will get the theme manager like the one in the picture below. There are several themes to choose from. You can also change the file type association icons.

I’m using the Buff icon theme, suits my theme style!

7-Zip Theme Manager

Website: 7-Zip Theme Manager

This isn’t exactly news… but I’ve seen some people using this widget on several screenshots and decided to share the source, I’m talking about HTC Home. HTC home is a widget for windows that resembles the HTC Android Sense home screen, specifically the integrated clock and weather widgets.

I own an HTC and I like Sense a lot (some people don’t, but hey, not everyone has to like fish, right?), but for the my desktop, personally I think it’s an overkill and it doesn’t fit that well into the windows theme. But if you are into this sort of widgets (I don’t even use the windows default ones, too much clutter to the desktop, I like to keep it clean) now you know how to get it.

Source: Lifehacker

Download: HTC Home

Zhe Wallpaperz

lemon paper

Winter Frost

Back Home

Up And Over

Deep Blue

Rokeh

Afternoon

Fracture

Eleven’O'Four

FONTASTIC

PS I ended up by putting 10 and not 8…

Webdesign Tuts+ has a nice article regarding SXSW and the subject Is WordPress Killing Web Design? What’s your thoughts on the subject? I’ve done my fair share part of WordPress designs and I do understand the question and it’s quite pertinent but I don’t agree with it. I don’t consider myself a designer, just a coder who likes design and beautiful things (who doesn’t?) but I do think the tools don’t make the artist and at the bottom line WordPress is just a tool to simplify the implementation of dynamic website (is there still static html webpages in the 21st century?).

Wordpress is not a true CMS but it’s a powerful framework that can be moulded into one. The WordPress background is from a blog engine and therefor is it’s more often used. The “blog design” works, blogs are popular these days and most of them don’t want to break the mould that works. People are used to this kind of navigation. But this doesn’t mean that if you want to design something more unique using WordPress that you can’t reach that goal. You can, WordPress doesn’t limit you in any ways, only your imagination does.

Link: SXSW 2010 Video: Is WordPress Killing Web Design?
Source: SXSWi 2010: Is WordPress Killing Web Design?

So my answer is no, but I do understand the pertinence of the question.

Perfecthue is one of those websites that the first time we see it instantly becomes part of our favourite bookmarks. I’ve posted and featured more than one work from Perfecthue Wallpaper Gallery but had never directly featured the website.

Go to their gallery and check some of the wallpapers, really great work on most of them. The style of the wallpapers totally fits my personal taste, minimalistic abstract high quality wallpapers, perfect for my big screen.

PS – I know It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, the truth is there is much on my “To Do Stack” so had to postpone some stuff, including Paintbits, I’m returning to posting, not as often as before but always that I find something worth to share, being a wallpaper or a link. In the mean time, have fun and keep coming back for news.

Link: PerfectHue