Over on the Tuts+ Premium blog, Skellie has listed 20 Must See TED Talks for Creatives. This is one of them.

“James Cameron’s big-budget (and even bigger-grossing) films create unreal worlds all their own. In this personal talk, he reveals his childhood fascination with the fantastic — from reading science fiction to deep-sea diving — and how it ultimately drove the success of his blockbuster hits ‘Aliens,’ ‘The Terminator,’ ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar.’”

From a developer’s perspective who used to sell his stuff outside Envato, I’d like to tell you why I love Envato marketplaces, and why any Developer/Designer/Musician/Photographer, etc should respect these marketplaces as it may change the world of a talented people and gave them the complete environment they can use to release their innovation. These are top 7 things I love most about Envato.

1. No Marketing

Before I added my first item WordPress Automatic on CodeCanyon I used to market my products on a popular marketing platform which is a popular marketing forum having a section for listing special offers. You can’t imagine how hard was it for a developer to market his stuff.

Long story short, I used to search for a JV (joint venture) who would market the product for me and get his percentage, which was not below 50%. That was not only a hassle for me to find the right JV, but also he used to take the big percentage. In Envato the scenario differs. Just list your product and you are done. Pretty cool?

2. High Quality Buyers

In a developers’ life high quality buyers means low support tickets, as quality buyers already can understand what you expected they will understand from the documentation. So a developer can spend more time concentrating in developing and researching rather than spending most of time supporting people who don’t even know the different between a browser and Google.

You may see that as an exaggeration, but let me tell you a situation that I found myself in last month. I wrote some documentation for one of my products I was willing to sell on a popular marketing forum, gave it to the JV, and what? He didn’t understand it at all, although it was written in the same way I write for my CodeCanyon items.

He simply didn’t understand it, though all buyers on Envato understood the same documentation. He told me that “it should be easy, like a six year old child is reading it.” I was shocked. This guy who calls himself a marketer couldn’t understand fairly simple documentation. Perhaps his mind stopped growing since he was six, lol. .

3. Stay Motivated

Without being motivated you will never achieve. This is the power that will let you keep your hard work going and this is what Envato paid high attention to in its marketplaces.

To keep you motivated they give you as an author a cool set of shiny badges. You look at them now and then, and hope that you can increase or improve them over time.

You also have a rank over the marketplace which you look at and hope you can push further. And you also get notified every now and then when your last item was approved. This reminds you not to forget yourself and what you planned to do.

4. Get Rewarded

Everyone like to get rewarded for their hard work. Envato will feature your items from time to time if they deserve it.

5. Stay Awake

Detailed sales reports not only will let you know how you made this week and month, but give you the full picture of what progress you are making. This will keep you awake like, “Huh, I made more sales this month than the last one. I’m heading in the right direction.” Or “Oops, I didn’t achieve what I expected this month. I should concentrate more.”

6. Win-Win

Envato pays new authors 50% – and all the way up to 70% of gross sales. This is pretty fair, and is definitely cool for any author who do zero hours work in marketing.

7. Quality & Quality

You don’t like to see your quality items listed with other people’s rubbish. Envato is a quality place that keeps you proud of your work.

Conclusion

Marketing is a hassle if you don’t know how, and this is the biggest reason why you should love Envato to death.

Previously, we’ve had to force the captcha to be required for all signins due to hackers brute-forcing user accounts. This was meant to be a temporary measure but it was safer to leave it on, even though it was at the expense of legitimate users.

After listening to your feedback, we’ve decided to add a change that hides the captcha for users who have previously signed in successfully on each computer.

You will only be asked for the captcha once per username per computer.

The captcha will still show up if you enter incorrect details, if you are trying to sign into another user account on the same machine, or the same user on another machine.

This change should make it much easier to sign in until we implement a solution that will reduce captcha rage. (Don’t worry, we have been hating on it too).

Recently at Envato, we’ve been posting about various copyright and intellectual property issues.

We’ve now created a new KnowledgeBase article to help AudioJungle authors better understand what is and what is not acceptable on AudioJungle when it comes to ‘pastiche’ (imitation) recordings. You’ll find it here:

AudioJungle and Pastiche (Imitation) Tracks

AudioJungle authors, please take moment to read this article! The main points are that you are not allowed to directly copy, imitate or reproduce copyrighted audio recordings for your AudioJungle tracks. But it is permissible to incorporate general music styles into your composition.

It’s sometimes hard to know where to draw the line, so there’s more guidance in the article.

Remember, marketplace authors are always legally responsible for the content they submit to our marketplaces. Infringement of copyright may result in item disablement or in the worst case, account disablement for repeated violations of our Content Policy.

Existing AudioJungle items that don’t meet these requirements will be disabled if we become aware of them. So we ask all AudioJungle authors to review your entire portfolio and remove items that don’t meet copyright requirements.

If you have questions or comments on existing AudioJungle items (yours, or other authors’), please don’t share links here or on our forums. Instead, contact support here.

Happy composing!

OS X just got a new update and it looks like it fixes a lot of recent problems with the operating system, including that FileVault security issue.

This version of OS X comes with fixes to the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting, the compatibility with certain third-party USB keyboard, the ability to copy files to SMB servers, and the issue that may prevent files from being saved to a server. It also looks as if the update fixes the FileVault security issue that a previous update brought along.

Check the following links for information about the update, and the security content of the update.

The 10.7.4 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac

Source: Engadget

Being a Mac addict, working for Australian newspapers from Romania, adapting actual magazines and newspapers into templates, and getting freelance work because of his marketplace portfolio. This week we meet Catalin Daniel Ciolca (ciolca) from GraphicRiver.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do for a living?

Hi, I am a freelance Graphic Designer from Romania. (That is somewhere in Eastern Europe in case you don’t know. ) I am 44 years old, two kids and a Macintosh addict.

Not surprisingly, what I do for living is exactly what I do for Envato, meaning print-related jobs. I’m doing a monthly magazine, two weekly newspapers (both Australian, by the way) and a lot of occasional jobs also print related. And of course, I can truly say that I am doing also GraphicRiver for living.

Which marketplaces do you belong to? What types of files do you sell?

GraphicRiver. I am selling only print-related files. This is what I know, this is what I do.

How did you get started? Have you had any formal training?

My GraphicRiver start was more like a joke. I was already freelancing by the time I started. I was doing a weekly Australian newspaper since about half a year but I didn’t looked specifically for other freelancing websites. And never heard about Envato.

I found out about GraphicRiver during one summer day when I bumped into two former work colleagues and went for a beer. When they asked me what I was doing I thought I might make a strong impression on them by saying: “Well, I am a freelancer working from home with Australia.” To my surprise they were about to fell off their chairs laughing.

Finally they told me: “You know, we are doing the very same thing!” And they told me about GraphicRiver and all the stuff. I wasn’t too much impressed but I thought I might give it a try.

Went home, made a user account on GraphicRiver (and hassled a bit with the author interview), assembled quickly a 24 page magazine from one of my previous projects, submitted and… forgot about it. My wife reminded me after a few hours to check if something happened. It did. It sold twice! And I said wow! That is quite something to consider.

Regarding my training I am a Journalism University graduate but what I am doing now is the result of more than 12 years of expertise. Except for Advertising Agencies, I have worked for a lot of newspapers and magazines and with a lot of editorial teams and styles. So, yes, I had formal training. And a pretty good one.

Describe your home workspace.

As I said before, I am an Apple Macintosh addict (my wife would say fanatic). I have quite an orchard at home. In my particular field of work (newspapers and magazines) I have found working on Macs a far superior experience than with Windows (I have worked both so I know).

Of course, it is also a matter of preference but there are a lot of productivity advances that Macs have over PCs. To mention only the ability to color a file or a folder. A trivial but extremely important feature. It saves you a lot of time and effort when you color green, for instance, 55 print PDF files that were sent to the printer out of the total of 124. (I should get paid by Apple for evangelizing their stuff. ) )

Another advantage of using Macs is that I save a lot of space. I am using a 27 inch quad core iMac which is actually just the monitor and which fits neatly on my desktop. It is also an extremely powerful machine to handle all the graphic tasks. I have stuffed it with the maximum 16GB of RAM so it’s a rocket.

I am using a second monitor which again in my field is something far from a whim. It is extremely useful for instance when I am making text corrections (either via a text document or via some proofing websites, like www.proofhq.com) and I place the correction document on one monitor and the actual editable file on the main one.

On the wall you can see a small clock which is set on the Australian time zone (Brisbane time) and which is extremely useful for the newspaper deadlines. And above that is a reproduction of an Aboriginal painting which was a gift to us by my first Australian employer.

I was already connected with Australia when I started with GraphicRiver so when I found out that Envato is also Australian it was kinda weird. I thought: well maybe it’s a sign. )

My actual working space is a false divider of the living room which is my “creative temple”. Often breached with unholy insistence by my kids who like to “calculatorize”, a term they invented for staying in my chair, randomly pressing the keyboard keys and looking very important…

Describe your creative process. What steps do you normally follow to create your files?

A lot of my portfolio is comprised of former actual magazines and newspapers for which I have changed the name, fonts, texts and some of the pictures, so the creative process was done before for those.

But in general, I am looking at many magazines and newspapers and I am also buying a lot of new ones. I have also found an invaluable tool in using www.zinio.com which is a magazines and newspapers subscription service website. But since it offers the possibility to actually see the titles and more importantly what are the actual inside pages, I am constantly using it for new ideas.

And since working for GraphicRiver, I am looking everywhere for potential new ideas. For instance I used to toss away the annoying direct mail advertising that usually is cramming my mail box. Or at least I was gently offering them to my wife for potatoes peeling ) Not anymore. I am now always checking everything lands in my mailbox for potential GraphicRiver value and in general I am collecting all kinds of printed materials which normally I didn’t notice before.

What is your advice to other authors regarding how to create a successful portfolio?

There is a great amount of relativity regarding what is to be considered a successful portfolio. For instance, in terms of sale, my portfolio generates a modest, more or less constant income, below $1000/month (with which I am extremely happy, by the way).

But apart from sales it generates something which I think is more valuable. And this is a constant flow of mails from potential customers saying: “Hey, I have seen your GR portfolio and liked it. Would you do this or that for me?” I have even received one offer to submit all my stuff to another author for $3,000. )) Kindly declined.

My second weekly Australian newspaper was acquired especially due to my GraphicRiver portfolio. So, from this perspective I can say that my portfolio is a successful one.

I always thought that giving advice to others regarding anything is a subtle form of infatuation which puts you in a position of a guru that has reached illumination and decides to share with the other poor mortals the keys of success. Which, of course is not the case. But since the question specifically request for advice, I can only try to advice others authors towards having a successful approval of items.

And my suggestion is simple: Be always true to yourself! If you upload something that your are absolutely convinced is quality stuff then there are greater chances for approval. I have tried this myself on GraphicRiver. Whenever I have uploaded something I wasn’t 100% sure I liked it myself in the first place, it was rejected with the classic message: “Your file doesn’t meet our quality guidelines, etc, etc…” So be the first to like and appreciate what you are submitting.

What do you do to market your files?

I don’t do much actually. I tweet and like the new items on Facebook and also have direct links to some of my items as well as to the whole Envato website my portfolio website. Oh, and trying to publish this interview. )

What are your three favorite files, and why do you like them?

Celebrity Magazine Bundle

I like this because it’s a complete bundle with my Celebrity Magazines series which are by far the most complex layouts I have on Envato. It also happens to be the most expensive item on GraphicRiver (yet).

Elegant Trifold Menu Pack

I like particularly this restaurant menu because it turned out to be an elegant and graphically catchy file without using any picture at all.

16 Pages Weekly Newspaper

And finally this is my best selling item. Ironically this is also my very first submission although because it was soft rejected several times (I didn’t figured it properly all the technical nitty-gritty submission details) it actually appears as my fourth item.

Apart from yourself, who is your favorite marketplace author, and why do you like them?

To be perfectly honest, I neither know much about the other authors nor browse their files and portfolios. I don’t want to seem contemptuous or superior. The simple truth is that I have very little spare time and when I am working for GraphicRiver I prefer to make a new template of my own rather than browsing others’ work. Well, it turned out also to be a perfect way of being not complexed by other authors which are more talented then me. )

This doesn’t mean I don’t look at all at other works on GraphicRiver. For instance, I am always impressed (and confess that this is something I never can do) by the flyers of sevenstyles. The level of complexity just blows me away. No wonder he’s first.

What do you do in your spare time?

A new GraphicRiver template of course.

For just $20, you get an awesome selection of premium audio and visual production elements, worth up to $500.

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Why is Envato a great place to work? I’ll tell you. It’s flexible!

This morning I was able to drive my son to a job interview in Brisbane. While he’s being grilled, I can get some work done. I’m sitting at a McDonalds playground sipping a frappe and getting some work done with free wifi, watching my youngest son climb on the play equipment. In a couple of hours (maybe sooner) I’ll get a message that the interview is over (phew!), and I’ll drive us all home. Try that with a normal job!

I first thought about working from home just over three years ago, after my youngest son was born. Not long afterwards I landed a small writing job with the AudioJungle blog, and six months later I had a full time job. I have to say that working for Envato has worked out perfectly for me.

But I also have to say that too much flexibility isn’t always a good thing. Days like today generally start early, and finish very late. The more you try to squeeze into a day, the longer they last! I generally try to make my days more structured, but it’s great knowing the flexibility is there when I need it.

If you’re on the team and would like to let the world know why Envato is a great place to work, drop me a line, or use this submission form. And include a photo if you can!

If you feel like you are lagging behind, here’s a great tip from Milton Berle, a famous actor and comedian who worked in early Hollywood.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

Opportunity is a product of how much effort you make. Think positive, lift your chin high and make your own opportunities happen!

This is the classy new workspace of VideoHive author Darkpulse. You can almost tell that Sebastian lives in France by looking at the room he works in. The textured wallpaper, chic poster, and chrome lamp work together with panache.

His new setup is impressive:

• i7 3930K
• NVidia Quadro 4000
• 16 GB RAM
• SSD Disk
• DELL U2711

From this angle you can see that his workspace is larger than it first looks. He has a MacBook Pro on one side of his corner desk, and a nice monitor speaker on the other. This angle also shows more clearly the texture in the wallpaper.

What do you think of Sebastian’s workspace? Let us know in the comments.

Would you like your workspace featured on Envato Notes? Upload your photo to somewhere on the Web and let us know about it on our Write a Post page. Or upload it to Flickr and tag it with #envatonotesworkspaces. Either way, add an interesting description. Each week we’ll choose and publish a new photo.