We've been busy re-skinning all the most recent RapidWeaver theme update installers for a few reasons; 1) we want them to look pretty and follow suit with the rest of our new seyDesign 2008 look, and 2) we wanted the chance to emphasize that location is so important when getting set to use one of our update installers to update your seyDoggy RapidWeaver themes.

As you will read, no doubt the next time you update a theme:

"If you have moved your RapidWeaver theme to a different location, or if you have renamed your theme, you must restore it to it's original name and location before continuing."

The new theme organization features in RapidWeaver 4.0 are a great idea, and we are happy that this is now possible, however, you must remember to move your theme back to the ~/Library/Application Support/RapidWeaver root for any of our installers to work. Since there is no other constant than this folder, it is the only path we can be 100% positive will exist when compiling our installer apps to deliver the proper patches to each of our themes.

Also remember that if you are in the habit of renaming your themes (an older practice that dates back to RapidWeaver 3.1 and earlier), you must change the name back to it's original designation before running the installer. Again, the theme name is another constant we rely on when compiling our installer apps.

Sometimes it's not the big things that make all the difference in how a company is perceived as either professional or amateur. Sometimes it's the littlest, nearly overlooked details. A perfect example of this is how a DMG is put together, or how an installer is skinned. This is how I came to find myself killing a few hours today by rebuilding all of the most recent update installers for seyDesign theme updates.

Some time ago, seyDesign.com became the first RapidWeaver theme developer to use update installers to deliver their theme updates in the form of an application that installs only the changed components as opposed to distributing the entire patched theme to end users. seyDesign.com recognized that many users, having had made many modifications to their themes, or having added bits and bobs to their themes innards, did not appreciate all of the work involved in returning their theme to their custom state. Update installers avoids many of these troubles, most of the time.

Being an early pioneer of these practices I hadn't taken a whole lot of time to learn how to make this process my own, instead, treating it as a utility, not another opportunity to spread corporate identity. Since the seyDesign 2008 relaunch, however, I knew that the time was now to make things pretty, to follow suit with the look of the site.

Next up I'll be rebuilding all of the theme DMG's to look just as good.

seyDoggy posted a photo:

I have been working for a few hours going through the fruits of a recent Turkish wedding I had the honor of shooting. What took my breath away more than any other aspect of this wedding was the beautiful, ornate dresses worn by many of the Turkish women. All of them with stunning patterns and lavish colors.

As you can see, this young beauty stood out with what I can only describe as nearly the most beautiful dress I have ever seen, second only to that of the bride.

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Sheesh! Relaunching a totally rebuilt site is never without its complications but it's the little things that get you the most. Things like having the correct path in htaccess files that allow members to actually access the member area?

Anyhow, for any one who was having difficulty getting into the members area, please try the link in your emails again. It should work now.

seyDoggy posted a photo:

I went camping at Pinehurst Lake and all I got were these stinking bug bites! LOL, man am I allergic to mosquito bites or what? And this is WITH bug spray!

Each and everyone of the bites on my feet turned into a blister, and three of them got nearly as bad as the the gruesome monster under my ankle. Thankfully I work from home so wearing shoes is not an issue.

Wow am I ever itchy though. I REALLY wish I could scratch these!

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There were a number of people trying to sign up as seyDesign members over the weekend, unfortunately the signup form was borked and most attempts failed. I am pleased to announce the form has now been fixed.

If you were one of the ones trying to sign up without success, please give it another shot now.

The new seyDesign 2008 launch has been getting a great deal of media coverage and that's fine. However, it is being reported that:

"Users are encouraged to download, modify and improve these RapidWeaver themes and share them back with seyDesign and the general public. Themes there are covered under the creative commons license."
source: MacsimumNews among others.

This simply is NOT true and is an example of poor journalism if you ask me. The ONLY themes that we encourage this behavior for, and the ONLY themes that are covered under the creative commons license, is our Open Source themes (which currently only includes the "waVy" RapidWeaver theme).

I am terribly sorry about any confusion in this matter. It is clearly a case of misread press releases and extracting the bits that sounded the coolest.

Our latest theme, wideNas has been updated to r2 to correct a little typo in the index.html template file that was the cause of the tabs not showing up when previewed in RapidWeavers "Default" mode. The javascript responsible for making the tabs was looking for a class of "toolbar_horizontal" but the template had a class of "toolbar_horizontal " (note the space after the t and before the end quote).

We didn't catch this originally because we always develop in "Tidied" mode, as this was once the RapidWeaver default. Now that "Default" is the.. erm... default, we will have to change development kits to reflect this and hopefully avoid this needle in a haystack issues in the future.

You can get your update installer here

Did you hear that? That was the sigh of relief heard around the world. Why? Because I just launched the biggest site porting I have ever done in my career with nothing more than a few typo's to sully to good name of seyDoggy. In case you've missed the buzz, I am talking about the LONG awaited seyDesign 2008 relaunch, a rather large on-line store and resource that sells RapidWeaver themes.

On the surface it doesn't look like such a big deal right? But underneath it all is a site that consists of more than 280 pages which include product write-ups, downloads, support areas, contact forms and store pages. Nearly all of this was rebuilt from the ground up; new copy, new graphics, new style, new typography... a ton of work! But the most challenging in any site relaunch is not have any broken or orphaned links, files or downloads. So far I have only managed one broken download link. Not bad out of 280+ pages.

Now that I have this monster behind me, it's time to celebrate the Canada Day long weekend the best I know how... CAMPING! I will catch you all again on July 2. w00t!

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seyDoggy posted a photo:

It has been a very long time in the making and despite having plans of being released earlier in the spring, seyDesign 2008 is finally here, bold and beautiful and ready for action, KABLOW!

So some of the new things include a new theme, wideNas, an update to Tuo, an update to viEw, and a new Open Source theme area. Go check it out!

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In this post: The New Site   |   The New Theme: wideNas   |   Two Theme Updates   |   Free Themes

The New Site

Welcome to seyDesign 2008, our biggest and most ambitious site porting ever. We have taken every single inch of our massive website and turned it inside out, all in the name of delivering to you the most effective RapidWeaver theme store and resource possible. You'll find everything about the new site familiar, yet much more fluid. You'll no longer have to jump from page to page to find out theme features, download more styles or get the latest theme updates. Each theme page is now it's own mini site with all of your needs and wants answered on a single page.

The New Theme: wideNas

Although a new site design is always cause for celebration, there isn't really a whole lot in it for you. That's why we are proud to present our latest theme, wideNas. Inspired by our popular badNas theme for RapidWeaver, wideNas takes the tabbed theme idea out of it's little box. The wide open layout of wideNas makes it ideal for just about any style of site, from high-tech to corporate or blog to boutique.

wideNas is what we now refer to as a Pro theme (more on such distinctions at a later date) who's pro features include such things as custom headers, width control, full color control, font selection and much, much more.

Learn more about wideNas   |   Preview wideNas

Two Theme Updates

viEw r3

We are excited to tell you about two updates to two great themes. The first one I want to tell you about is viEw, one of my personal favorites. viEw r3 is now available, bringing it up to speed with RapidWeaver 4.0, adding the large preview and keywords to assist in theme browsing and searching respectively. Learn more about viEw   |   Get the update

Tuo r4

The second theme I want to tell you about is Tuo, a RapidWeaver theme that changes the face of RapidWeaver theme development everywhere back in 2006. Tuo has had another radical change, rebuilt from the ground up to optimize performance, clean up code and extend functionality well beyond previous versions. Some of the new features include enhanced color control for all aspects of the layout (including top level navigation bar and the sidebar area), width variations, font selection and more. Learn more about Tuo   |   Get the update

Free Themes

What happens when a theme gets retired? It use to go in this lonely place on my hard drive called "_discontinued" but after having recently retired another theme, waVy, I could stand the thought of this theme rotting away until file corruption finally takes it's last whispering breath away. It's a perfectly good theme, and we like it a lot (I even use it on RapidWeaved.com) but it's just not popular enough to invest anymore time into further development of it.

So here is what we've decide to do with waVy and other themes like it; we have started a new section on the site, under the THEMES category, called Open Source. There, governed by the laws of Creative Commons, users can download, use, share, post back to seyDesign.com and redistribute our open source themes, absolutely free.

Conclusion

All in all I would say that this was a rather action packed blog post. Look for more exciting news in the coming weeks.

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seyDoggy posted a photo:

It has been a frantic few days writing press releases, blog posts, newsletters, completing code, uploading theme updates, new themes, etc... and it looks like there might finally be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The new site have been making it's way too it's final destination for a couple of hours now. With a bit of last minute testing and such, the curtains should part on the new www.seydesign.com/ within the hour.

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This, I think, is the first time I have come across this site, though it is full of the stuff I need to know. I think I'll add this one to Google Reader. I consider myself to be quite well versed in IE bugs but there is still a ton of things that get me.

Before resorting proprietary solutions such as Adobe Flash and Microsofts Silverlight, SproutCore by Sproutit (and backed by giants such as Apple and Google) gives you a completely open source, open web standards framework for building great RIA's.

When Apple assimilates... er... I mean hires developers, you often wonder what will come of it. Will a shinning star be snuffed out, buried, forgotten or stymied? Or will great things happen, pushing the envelope that contains the Apple-sphere, making the hardware giant showcase a new facet of the... erm... once narrow minded, acutely focussed business model.

One could wonder such things when Apple hired Charles Jolley, Sproutit founder and Mailroom developer, to re-architect their .Mac side of things. We have seen new things pop up in .Mac that were surely the influence of a Charles Jolley way of thinking; the photo gallery and what-not. And then comes MobileMe, a very rich internet application that defies all that we have known about web apps; they don't have to suck. Surely this is the work of Charles Jolley. So what is to become of this seemingly fresh way of doing RIA's?

That's when Apple (and a few friends) drop SproutCore on us, an open standard platform for building web apps that look and feel like desktop apps... seriously... they do. But let me restate the cool part, open standard platform. That's right, this is not Flash or SilverLight or even Java, this is open web standards such as HTML, CSS and Javascript with a bit of Cocoa inspiration.

Finally a javascript framework that I can get behind and one that I can sit down and take a crack at, knowing that a) it's open and b) it has the support of a few heavy hitters behind it.

Since the announcement at WWDC, the air around SproutCore has been cloudy. What are the relationships between Google, Apple, Charles Jolley, Cocoa, web apps and open standards and what does it all have to do with Flash or SilverLight? This clears it up.

It has been months in the making and may be a week or two longer, but seyDesign 2008 is definitely nearing completion. All that's left to do is tie up some of the loose ends, do some browser testing, write a press release or two...

So in working on seyDesign 2008, I have been able to take a retrospective look at seyDesign, seyDoggy and where things have gone with both branches in the past 3 years. One thing has really struck me; Kitchener-Waterloo is well known for it's tech-sector (thanks in part to R.I.M and our incredible universities), Kitchener-Waterloo has a lot of web designers and web developers and Kitchener-Waterloo has a reasonably good Mac to PC ratio (enough to support both an independent reseller and a Best Buy Apple store)... So why is it then, that I remain the only RapidWeaver theme developer in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, and only one of three in all of Canada?

RapidWeaver is no flash in the pan; it's here to stay. The same is true of Macs. I would welcome the some local camaraderie in this world of RapidWeaver theme development and maybe some day it will happen. If you are a web designer, a Mac user, have heard of RapidWeaver and hail from the Kitchener-Waterloo area, why not drop me a line. There is so much to talk about

Ever want to know what app is tripping up the trash, or want to teach your kids to read and write? Want to organize your finder windows or perform SpotLight-like searches within code? Well there is an app for all of these and more at HAMSoft Engineering.

seyDoggy posted a photo:

A twitter peep of mine, and fellow Kitchener-Waterloo photographer was kind enough share her untouched photos with me. Lisa has quite the eye for composition (especially this one, WOW!). Anyhow, we got talking about photo retouching (which she had not yet had the opportunity to to this batch), and I had brought up Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3. So better than trying to explain it, I thought a nifty little demonstration would be cool.

So I took one of Lisa's pretty little roses (as seen untouched here) and performed a few of Scott's steps just to make it pop a little and bring it to life. Now this is only from a screen shot of the image in her photostream so there weren't as many dynamics to work with as there would have been with the original image but I think the point is well illustrated. This took me all of 5 minutes which shows just how powerful these techniques are. For more on Scott Kelby's system, click here.

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Sony has just announced their “flagship flash unit” the HLV-F58AM. You can’t buy yet, but it will be on dealer shelves in September.

We knew it was coming, but details were rather sparse. Now we know the new flash unit will have a guide number of 58 (when the head is zoomed out to 105mm).

Speaking of the zoom flash head, the new flash knows whether it is illuminating a full frame sensor (think Alpha A900) or a APS-C size sensor and will zoom accordingly.

The big display on the back looks easy to read, and there is a mini joy stick controller to change settings. Naturally it offers TTL, HSS and ADI, as well as manual settings. Sony says the High Speed Sync on the HLV-F58AM can use shutter speed os /500 to 1/4000 second.

The HLV-F58AM features Sony’s new quick shift bounce feature, which allows the entire body of the flash to orbit like a fan to the left and right, in addition to the usual bounce and swivel capabilities.

The flash also includes a modeling light and a stroboscopic setting that will fire multiple times during an exposure, creating an in-camera multiple exposure of moving subjects.

Sony also claims the new unit will recharge 55% more quickly than the older HLV-F56AM. There is also a claim that the electronic whine has been done away with. Sony apparently thinks that is a good thing, but I always relied on that high-pitched whine to know my flash was charging properly. I guess I will get used to it, but to me, that whine was a feature, not a bug!

Like all Sony flashes the HLV-F58AM supports wireless flash — and apparently it can serve as a controller as well as a slave. (More on that next time.)

Finally, Sony has also announced the price. Earlier this week I brought you news that the price of the older HLV-F36AM flash unit dropped to $199. Sony gives and takes it seems. The new flagship flash will be priced at $500 — not outrageous for a flash with all these capabilities — but much higher than the HLV-F56AM.

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Canadians have long been afraid that once the iPhone officially launches there, Rogers might try to bend them over and... well, you know. The company has made comments recently, however, indicating that it is reconsidering its pricing structure and wants to help "drive the adoption of mobile broadband."

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Today, Sony announced their new flagship flash for the alpha DSLR lineup. Sony had previously alluded to the coming of this flash, when discussing their flagship A900 DSLR. For details on the new F58AM speedlight, see the press release below.

PRESS RELEASE:

SAN DIEGO, Jun. 19, 2008 - Sony is expanding its a (alpha) system of accessories to include the new HVL-F58AM flash unit with exceptional features for versatile and flexible external lighting control.

Quick Shift Bounce and Expanded Versatility

This new flash features a new and innovative Quick Shift Bounce system. It offers more creative ways to achieve lighting, flash and bounce angles you may not have been able to experience before.

The flash head can pivot 90 degrees left and right on a horizontal axis in addition to the conventional up and down vertical adjustment. With this system, the camera and flash unit can keep the same orientation regardless of portrait or landscape shooting. This gives a higher degree of flexibility when arranging the direction of light.

For example, you can take full advantage of the flash unit’s built-in bounce card even during portrait shots since the flash head can maintain the same orientation as it would in the landscape position.

Enhanced Operability and Ease-of-Use

A powerful performer, the HVL-F58AM flash unit features a maximum guide number of 58 at 105mm and ISO 100. It recycles (or recharges) in as little as five seconds, approximately 55% faster than the predecessor HVL-F56AM model, so you are ready to capture the next shot. And because it features a quiet recycle charge, there’s no whine to distract you from your subject.

It also has a large, easy-to-read LCD screen that is about 13% larger than its predecessor’s. Its intuitive control layout makes it easy to control flash functions and configure the settings based on your shooting needs.

Wireless Auto Flash Control

This new flash has wireless auto flash control so you can remove the flash unit from the camera and easily light subjects from different angles. Photographers can create soft shadows to add depth to their images and avoid the strong shadows and hot spots that can occur with front lighting. The HVL-F58AM flash unit can also control the ratio of lighting from several off-camera flash units.

Up to three groups of flashes can be set up for optimal, complete control of lighting via a wireless connection. Flash output ratios can be adjusted automatically without having to do tedious exposure calculations. Additionally, you can fire a modeling flash to preview flash effects before taking the picture. Even with multiple units, the modeling flash fires according to the flash ratio you have set.

Advanced Features for Optimal DSLR Performance

One of the flash’s most advanced features is its sophisticated zoom control that automatically optimizes illumination angles that are suitable for either APS-C size or 35mm full frame sensors. This control reduces light “fall-off” at the periphery of images.

It also has an advanced white balance compensation system that gathers color temperature information, complimenting the white balance information reading of the camera. This achieves more accurate results when the main unit is in auto white balance mode.

Other features include: high-speed synchronization at shutter speeds of up to 1/4000 of a second, ADI flash metering, manual flash and zoom (six levels), multiple-flash, and a supplied mini-stand for greater wireless freedom.

Price and Availability

The HVL-F58AM flash unit will ship in September for about $500 at sonystyle.com, Sony Style® retail stores (www.sonystyle.com/retail), military base exchanges, and authorized dealers nationwide. Pre-orders begin online on Jun. 20 at www.sonystyle.com.

Sponsor: Customize everything on Smugmug, from changing colors to setting your own prices!

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Have you ever tried to empty the Trash on your Mac only to receive a dreaded message that said the trash couldn't be emptied because a file was in use? Well, "What's Keeping Me" hopes to solve this problem with it's advanced trash-error detection technology (we kid, it's really just magic).

If you encounter the message that the trash cannot be emptied, just click on What's Keeping Me to see what application or process is keeping the trash from being emptied. You can have What's Keeping Me quit the application or if need be kill (force-quit) the application.

You can download What's Keeping Me from HAMSoft Engineering; this application is freeware, however, donations are accepted.

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The crazy kids at Realmac Software has started a blog recently that highlights the the development side of the web, a welcom addition to www.realmacsoftware.com. Thier latest post "From Pixels to Print" takes a good look at print style sheets.

seyDoggy posted a photo:

It's one of those less-than-sexy jobs you often forget about; emptying the trash. Heck, some of us even use the trash as another place to sort and store things, like a, "I'm not quite done with you" bin.

This morning was my time to do this, empty the trash, and it seems that it has been awhile. By the time I was done writing this post, OS X had been chugging away at deleting the 3000+ files for 13 minutes and was only a 1/4 of the way done.

So maybe I ought to make this a daily task.

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seyDoggy posted a photo:

I spied this one off of the admartinator's flickr feed, "Wordle - Beautiful Word, a site that will take a bunch of words (or del.icio.us tags in my case) and turn them into a really cool word cloud. As you can see my del.icio.us tags are heavy on web design, RapidWeaver, mac and Apple. What else would you expect?

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seyDoggy posted a photo:

So uhh... yeah. I liked the last batch but there were a few things on the text side I didn't like and then I felt that the old ones didn't pop enough. Seeing as I now knew the exact dimensions I had to work with I set out to make a new batch. Yeah, a little more traditional, I know, but it's an awkward format to work with.

The next batch will be unique, I promise.

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I am a total Quicksilver nerd, so when this thread came up on the Blacktree: Quicksilver forum I got totally stoked! I've put a number of them into effect already and loving every minute of it. If you are a Quicksilver nerd like me, this is for you.

seyDoggy posted a photo:

Here is my oldest child, back in town for the summer, enjoying summer vacation the only way a kid should; kicking it in the shade with a cool drink, doing nothing particularly important but being totally absorbed in it all the same. I must admit a bit of jealousy as I sit indoors doing the things that grow-ups do for all but a few short weeks in the summer; work.

I raise a cheer to the boy doing his summer best to forget all that is wintery and for shaking every ounce of responsibility from his very being. I live vicariously through you.

Given that it has been a month and a half since I’ve written to this blog, I feel compelled to tell you why it has been so long. I, Adam Merrifield, mild mannered web designer by day, and… er… mild manned web designer by night, have been so swamped with work that contributing to this [...]