Ramin Hossaini (blog)

Stop Wordpress from adding p and br tags

2010-01-09T18:43:04Z

Even without the visual-editor, Wordpress has a habit of adding <p> and <br/> tags

Add this to your templates/pages/whatever and it should take care of the problem.

<?php remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop'); ?>

Create bevelled text

2009-12-09T16:41:30Z

I might be superfluous in my method here, but it works well for me

Add some text

Added blending-modes:

Final result

Making ‘Fairy Tales’

2009-11-18T21:11:11Z

This time round, I tried to take more screenshots

Getting the different pieces:

I had this from a trip to the Etosha National Park earlier this year:

Plus some stock-photography:

Masking and positioning

There are different ways you can get this step done. You could use the pen-tool too for example. I just chose to brush out parts I didn't need.

Preparing the background

Converted the image to black & white:

Added some clouds - just because I can

And came up with this...

Putting it together

This was the hardest step really. I try to re-draw light in the image and try to draw the attention of the viewer to certain areas of the picture

The mask resulted in some hard-edges, so I gaussian blurred it a little

Added noise:

And gave it a cyan-tint

Some magic

I used a couple of brushes to make this

The final image

And a little bit of tweaking later...

Search through files for a string (Linux)

2009-11-04T16:12:09Z

To search a directory recursively for specific text or a string, use:

find . -exec grep "string to find" '{}' \; -print

Surrealism “Propaganda”

2009-10-30T14:17:05Z

I had this idea for a couple of days and finally decided to do it yesterday. This was the process (very very roughly)

Step 1: Getting the initial photos

This is the embarassing part. You'll look silly almost no matter what - trying to get a self-portrait in a suitable position that you envision. A camera on tripod, remote control and bounce-flash later though (thanks, I like my bedsheets too):

Got some stock-photography from Pierre on DeviantArt

Step 2: Putting the 2 together

I had to give the photo a bit more room at the top, so I photoshopped some more wall there. With composites, sometimes I'll mask out the individual parts as precisely as I can initially and save the respective masks in my channels. In this case, I put them together first and then masked it all together. I think that's a mistake and I should have masked the subject first (me) then masked the television. Could have saved myself quite a bit of time afterwards.

Step 3: Magic

OK, so I skipped a lot of steps - my bad - I didn't take any screenshots. I was too busy wondering "how the hell am I going to get this to blend". I guess there's always a point in these highly-processed photos where I say "I should stop right now, this is just not working", but I keep on going because it's taken so much effort already. Eventually, there's a point where I say "oh, I might have something here". I suppose that makes it all the more rewarding in the end.

I use a lot of different filters and textures and try to burn-and-dodge a lot.

Step 4: Colouring and painting light

I hate masking and I love "painting-light" and manipulating it. I think that if I actually loved masking, I could have some really amazing work.

At this point, I also did a bit of liquifying and stretched/distorted parts of the photo.

Almost 3 hours later, this was the final shot:

Synchronize Google Calendar on iPhone

2009-10-27T22:40:41Z

Note: This should also work on the iPod Touch

iPhone OS 3.0 introduced support for CalDAV and ICS - that means it's really simple to sync with your Google Calendar:

Start by going into Settings:

Go into "Mail, Contacts, Calendars", then "Add account..."

Add a CalDAV account and fill the details:

If you check your calendar, it should sync

You can also add all your other calendars by adding a "Subscribed Calendar"

Start by going to the settings for the calendar you want to add:

Click on the "ICAL" link to get your Calendar's private address

It's usually a really long link, so start by putting it under your drafts or email it to yourself. Add another Calendar account (not a CalDAV this time, but a "subscribed Calendar" Then copy-and-paste into the Server input box specifying URL to the .ics file)

Flickr adds people-tagging, finally joins the bandwagon

2009-10-22T07:56:01Z

A feature that many in the Flickr community have been requesting for years has finally been implemented.

What?! No @ sign in front of the names??

Wordpress BlogInfo variables

2009-10-19T15:49:03Z

bloginfo('atom_url');       //ATOM feed for site
bloginfo('charset');        //The character set
bloginfo('description');    //The description of the blog
bloginfo('html_type');      //HTML version of the site
bloginfo('name');           //Title of blog
bloginfo('pingback_url');   //The pingback URL
bloginfo('rss2_url');       //The RSS URL
bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); //The URL for the template's CSS file
bloginfo('template_url');   //The URL of the template
bloginfo('url');            //The address of the blog
bloginfo('version');        //Version of the WordPress installation
bloginfo('wpurl');          //URL for WordPress installation

Google Wave adds online-status indicator

2009-10-19T14:13:15Z

This was the biggest lacking feature in Google Wave (for me) for a while. Nice to see it added!

More Twitter tools

2009-10-15T12:39:06Z

Favotter

Find out who's faved your Tweets

http://favotter.matope.com/en/

ReTweetist

Find out who's re-tweeted/RT'ed your tweets

http://www.retweetist.com

For even more tools, check out my previous post: Twitter Tools

Twitter tools