All Forces

A few months ago I spoke at a conference about web design. I was invited to talk about the rules of web design, a request I completely ignored when I started my part by saying there are no such things as rules of web design. What I did instead was just to pass on some tips and tools I personally use when designing. You can’t teach web design in one hour, but I covered the basics of color, typography etc. When speaking about color I talked about color harmonies and the way color makes u feel. Here are some tools I recommended to find good color combinations.

Color Match 5k Color Match
6 color palette generaor

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I got to see Star Wars Episode III today. Don’t worry, no spoilers here, I just wanted to post some pictures and say wether I liked it or not. I must say, I liked it, did not love it, but enjoyed it. To give you some perspective, it thought it was better than Episode II but it was no Empire Strikes Back. The good news is that Jar Jar has no speaking parts. Hew, I know some of you can breath now. Other than that, enjoy the pictures. The Arclight will be having full costume storm troopers, jedi nights and lightsaber fights so I know I’ll be back to bring my kids to the line.

the beauty of the multi-plex

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A ghost email address will save you from a whole lot of SPAM. If you own your own web address, whenever you get asked to give your email address, just make one up. Make sure you can receive all incoming mail to your server. If you get SPAM to a particular ghost address, filter it out and you will live a SPAM free life. Well OK, maybe just a little less SPAM than before. But at least you’ll know who the offender might be.

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Opening day for a movie in Los Angeles is one of the few times I can say “living in L.A. is the coolest thing” without anyone rebutting by bringing up earthquakes, fires, riots, gangs, actors or smog. Case in point, Start Wars Episode III. I just bought 6 tickets. Not sure who I’m going with other than my wife, but I’m sure it won’t be hard to find 4 more victims to join us.

About Melvin Rivera

What is All Forces?
All Forces is the blog of Melvin Rivera. The name All Forces came from the fact that I am a designer turned programmer( a rare species ) and I can call on an All Forces when working on a project. The left and the right side of the brain. The esthetics and the function. The beauty and the brains.

View my Portfolio site.
View my LinkedIn profile.
View my Twitter page.

Do you have a wish list?
I have an Amazon wish list for set up for when my family and friends need a little help picking out a gift for me. And just in time for my July 16th birthday!

Behind the scenes

This blog is powered by WordPress, an open source PHP/MySQL weblog. The design is loosely based on Kubrik originally by Michael Heilemann.

Plugins Used
This is a list of the plugins that power allforces.com. As you may know, the power of WordPress lies in the plugins. This list is dynamically generated by guess what, a plugin named “Plugins Used”.

The latest version of the Mac OS X known as Tiger brings Jabber support to iChat which indirectly supports other messaging protocols like MSN, ICQ, AIM and IRC.

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Sent in by my friend Jason Fields

The Tiger treasures continue to surprise us as we find out that the new iChat has a built in feature that can set the current iTunes track as your available message. Although, this feature has been available through third party applications before Tiger, Apple took it a step further by adding a Link Button next to it. Just like the one in iTunes, it takes you to the iTunes Music Store directly to the artist’s album page ready for you to “Buy”. This is a great feature that will allow people to preview what their friends are listening too and even purchasing it on the spot. Great iLfe integration, kudos for Apple. It would be great if a future version can include the icon of the album as my buddy icon as well. ;-)

Minimum requirements for 4-way video conferences

Thank you Steve for forgetting to mention the minimum requirements for iChat for 4-way video conferencing when you demoed it.

Moving big files through the internet can prove to be one of the most challenging things to do. There are issues of transfer speeds, dropped connections and file size restrictions.

What’s available right now?

1. Email - Most servers have a file size limit for attachments
2. FTP to a server - Most servers have a size limit
3. P2P - Peer to peer transfer is not a private network
4. iChat - Does not provide “Resume” in case you need to reconnect
5. FTP Sharing - Not any size restriction other that your hard drive, can support many connections

This guide will help you set up an FTP server on your Mac in less than 15 minutes using PureFTPd. We’re not setting up the FTP Sharing that comes as part of Mac OSX because that one is tied in to an OSX user. On the other hand, PureFTPd allows you to set up FTP users just for FTP access. It allows you to disconnect them, limit their bandwidth, monitor their activity etc. We are also going to set it up using no-ip.com, a service that will give u a server name in case your dynamic IP address changes.

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It was hard to part from it, but it was time to update my faithfull 22″ Cinema Display. A good monitor that looked sharp and was impressive to visitors. But, five years in computer time is an eternity. And add to that the Apple factor. Apple’s constant redesign of their hardware line that made the monitor feel like it’s 10 years old when sitting next to a new one. Out with the transparent plastic and in with the new aluminum enclosures. I sold my 22″ and upgraded to a new 20″. Did I dare to say upgrade when i bought a smaller one? I upgraded indeed. So what did I buy into other than the new hip silver look and less pixels?

• This new monitor has DVI as opposed to the ADC which makes it work really nicely with the rest of the world.
• A thiner margin around the screen makes it seem slimmer.
• It has both USB and Firewire ports right behind the screen.
• I can tow away my keyboard right underneath it.
• Has a way smaller footprint
• Has a usefull powerbrick. I nitially disliked that it had a powerbrick, but as it turns out it’s a great feature for powerbooks because it can help keep the cords in reach if it is kept up on the desk top. Check out the picture above to visualize it. I no longer need to reach down to the floor to get my monitor cables everytime I hook up the powerbook to the monitor.

I went down 2 inches because I noticed I never really used the whole screen on my 22″. Besides, I’m trying to decluter and simplify my digital lifestyle and the 20″ fits the bill.