February 23rd, 2009

It Will Soon Be Time For…

Another redesign! Wait, wait, it’s not what you think. Well, actually, I guess it is.

Those of you who somewhat know me know that it is a tradition for my blogs to be redesigned at least once before they actually start getting somewhere. No, this is not something I do on purpose - you see, what happens is that the first layout I come up with is invariably below par, a hurried product from a busy schedule. Usually, I keep such a layout for a while, but then begin to get displeased with all its cheapness.

When this happens, the frequency of my posts drops ridiculously (as you can see, we are at that point now), and I begin to work on a second - better - layout. It turns out better because I am not in a hurry, since there is already a custom layout in place for you to see, and because I usually do this when I have a break from college.

In a nutshell, what I want to tell you is that you should expect an awesome layout to be up here soon. In exchange for feasting your eyes, I ask only for patience - I will not be posting very often, if at all. However, with the new layout in place, I promise I will post every single day.


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February 1st, 2009

Pixel Art is Awesome

The term Pixel Art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal in 1982. It is a form of digital art where images are edited on a pixel to pixel basis. Unlike other forms of art, there is no emphasis on dithering or hiding the individual pixels from the viewer.

Here’s a collection some of my favorite isometric pixel dioramas, with links to the originals where applicable.

Internet Giants in Pixel FormInternet Giants in Pixel Form

Beautiful Amusement ParkBeautiful Amusement Park

Seashore CitySeashore City

A Pixelized New YorkA Pixelized New York

London, The Pixel CityLondon, The Pixel City

I will add more later if I can, hopefully you will appreciate these as much as I do. Unfortunately, I don’t know the artists for any of these, so please inform me if you happen to know. I would very much like to credit them. Edit: Thanks to ginkoQ and Elliot, I now know that these are the works of eboy. Check them out, they’re very good at this, as you can see.


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January 31st, 2009

Quick Update for Lack of Time

Just wanted to let the few people who read this blog know that I’ll be back and posting soon enough. Right now I’ve got quite a lot of things to take care of, hopefully I’ll be done by next week. Looks like this is going to be one hectic weekend. X|

Also, I might actually start using Twitter, although I doubt I’ll use it much if at all. Never really got the point of micro-blogging, probably because I blog for the sake of writing and sharing my thoughts rather than keeping stalkers updated on where I am and what I’m doing every minute of the day.

Apparently today is McDonald’s birthday. Here’s to those unhealthy fries and delicious burgers.

Might as well mention that I forgot to post on Republic Day…well, sorry.


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January 29th, 2009

Thank a Plugin Developer Day

Today, as you may or may not have known has been declared “Thank a Plugin Developer” day by Matt of WordPress.org. This is because the plugin directory has crossed 4000 submissions today, with the average blog employing - I’m trusting his statistics - about five plugins.

Celebration invloves hunting down the authors of your favorite plugins and thanking them in an appropriate manner - gold or gratitude. While I probably won’t be getting any thanks from the few dozen users of my StumbleUpon plugin, I plan on thanking a few people who’ve played a key role in the functionality of thousands of blogs, behind the scenes.

Hopefully others will catch on and spend a few minutes spreading the love for those who work so hard for the benefit of all of the WordPress community. Speaking of which, I hardly have much time what with schoolwork, trying to find a co-op and paying taxes on some money I earned but never received.


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January 23rd, 2009

Fixing Popularity Contest for WP 2.7

Popularity Contest by Alex King is a fairly popular WordPress plugin. However, support by the original author was discontinued as of WordPress version 2.5 and above.

Then came along WordPress Guy, who not only released a version of the plugin that works, but also told users what he did to fix the original. A few other people have also done the same thing, but the bottom line is that there is a way to get the plugin to work for WP 2.5+.

However, even after installing that version of the plugin, WP 2.7 users have complained of the fact that the akpc_most_popular_in_cat function doesn’t work as it is supposed to - it simply shows (none) when passed any category other than the first. I have been able to resolve this issue by slightly modifying one line of the code, namely change:


/* At about line 1435 on WP guy’s version */
WHERE tt.term_id = '".intval($cat_ID)."'

To the following line of code:


WHERE tt.term_taxonomy_id = '$cat_ID'

And finally remove the following line:


/* At about line 1439 in WP guy’s version */
AND post_date < NOW()

Of course, if you’re feeling lazy, you could just download the modified plugin here.

There you go, that should fix the most popular in category display function as well as a couple of other issues. In case this doesn’t help, use the comment section to complain - maybe I’ll get around to fixing your problem.

Otherwise, enjoy your now working plugin!


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January 20th, 2009

CSS Tutorial: Hover Selectors

Hey there, and welcome to Argee’s first tutorial! This one is pretty simple, we will just be walking through the nuances of the :hover selector in CSS.

This selector,like most styles, can be applied to absolutely any HTML element in your web page to create a rollover effect. A lot of people still use javascript to do this, which works but is deprecated. In other words, this is the ninja way to do things. :twisted:

1. Applying hover to a link element

Say that you have the following element in your web page, just a basic link with the id ‘my-link’.


<a id="my-link">Hi, I am a link!</a>

The id tag lets us apply a style specifically to this element - a web page may only have one instance of a given id, which means you can’t give the id of ‘my-link’ to any more elements on your page. Let the following be the link you wish to apply styling to:


<a id="my-link">Hi, I am a link!</a>

Now, to apply the actual hover effect, you would put the following code in your CSS - which should preferably be an external stylesheet.


/* Style when no hover */
#my-link {
color: #ccc;
text-decoration: none;
}

/* Style when mouse-overed */
#my-link:hover {
color: #000;
text-decoration: underline;
}

This will give you a basic text link that changes color and is underlined upon mouse over. Not good enough for you? Well, read on over to the next section…

2. Applying hover to a div element

What’s great about cascading style is it’s versatility - it can be applied to any kind of element to change it’s appearance in various ways. Let the following be the div element that you wish to apply styling to:


<div id="my-div">Hi, I am a div!</div>

I will give you a basic example, keep in mind that which styles you apply is totally up to you.


/* Style when no hover */
#my-div {
color: #ccc;
background-color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
font-family: Georigia, serif;
padding: 5px;
}

/* Style when mouse-overed */
#my-div:hover {
color: #000;
background-color:#ddd;
text-decoration: underline;
border: 1px solid #000;
}

This should give you a div element that changes in appearance when hovered over. Of course, these are only example styles - you may choose to apply a different, better styling to your elements.

Note that while we only experimented with <a> and <div> tags here, the hover selector can be used for styling any HTML tags.

Well, that was all. Not too tough, was it? Hope you enjoy your new-found skills!


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January 16th, 2009

New Design Coming Soon…

Since I hadn’t posted in a couple days (and haven’t really posted anything of substance yet), I decided to take some time out for a couple of announcements.

First off, the new design for Argee.org will be up over the weekend - with any luck you won’t find it to be uglier than this one. I’ve spent quite a lot of time with this design, and while I will never be happy with anything I make due to being such a perfectionist, I’ve made sure that it looks better than any of my previous designs.

Secondly, expect a couple of tutorials in the next week, along with a few blog posts. The main reason I haven’t been posting is that I’ve been busy with homework and tests - while these will continue through the next week and beyond, I will probably be able to squeeze out just enough time out of my schedule to give you some quality content.

In other news, Rochester is as snowy as ever and the temperature continues to drop. Indoor life hasn’t been affected much, but those of us who have to leave the building do so with courage, for we have to face the ever stronger winds and slippery slush. At least my classes this quarter aren’t particularly difficult.

C’ya later,
RG


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January 11th, 2009

Welcome to Argee!

First post for this blog, eh? I wonder how I should begin…

Oh, I guess I already started, nevermind then - let’s get this show on the road.

First off, I would like to welcome you to Argee.org, my fresh out of the box personal website. I gave the bubble wrap to feedburner, but I was using the box to hide under until today. I request that you do not get used to this layout, as it will be changing very soon - I just figured there was no point to holding back content while I worked on the new design, since I believe (or hope) you guys care more about the content.

So, what is this website really about? I would like to say that’s it’s about me, but that wouldn’t be a fair description. Truth is, I would rather let the content speak for itself, as and when it comes. All you need to know is that this the place you should come to for some of your photoshop and CSS learning needs.

Of course, there’s also the blog for stalker-types.

Adios for now,
RG


 
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