I have purchased a new 15×20 green screen, new led lights and even built a turn table for $80 in supplies. http://labs.darley.com/ray/3ddemo/products-demo.html for a working example. The example was just a test for the live output.

I still need to do some major light adjustments and output to final cut but I am excited about what we can do.

One of the greatest and most powerful things about the Internet is the creative commons. Icon creators have taken the time to create some really professional icons placed them online and allows anyone to use them free of copyright restraints. There are over 200 icons that you can use because of Creative Commons. You need to make sure you read the rules so that you do not break any constraint rules.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Clear
(In other words you cannot claim them as your own)

Technorati Tags: creative commons, creative commons, free icons, icons

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.webpulse.us/booster/slideshow.swf" height="400" width="400" /]

I recently had a chance to work with the Monoslideshow flash program. It allows users to give images all sorts of transitions and menu options using a SWF file. When I first looked at this program and web site I was a little skeptical. I read the forums and also search the Internet for more uses. I noticed that the guys over at Rockettheme.com used this slideshow in a couple of themes that they created.

So I dropped the 20 dollars they were asking and tried this on my site as well as others that I work on. I must say that its a very simple program that uses and XML page to control all of the functions within the SWF file. My only big issue was getting the slideshow to work without displaying the Monoslideshow loading icon.

To remove the Monoslideshow logo you need to have Macromedia Flash and from there create your own SWF wrapper. This will allow you to create a brand free slideshow for your site. The Monoslideshow forums are somewhat helpful. However, if you read the manual that comes with the program in contains almost everything you will need to get this up and running on your web site.

Site: www.Monoslideshow.com

Technorati Tags: flash, macromedia flash, monoslideshow, rockethemes.com

Over the past two months I was using Vista RTM and Dreamweaver 8. In that time I experienced hard restarts and crash to desktops. Most of them occurred when I was trying to import my site from a backup or using javascript via the control panel.

I have searched high and low for a fix. Nothing to date has been found.

I have just coded a new database that will handle all of the downloads that our pumps use. Darley has a huge database of curves/drawings/repair manuals and a whole slew of other downloads.

One problem is that they don’t have them organized very well so its not the easiest to find a download you need for a pump. So I took several weeks and came up with a PHP/SQL backend that will look at the pump files and add/compare them. It will then take the files or downloads and add them to corresponding pump.

The result is a very easy download system just by finding the pump that you have or would like to order. Below is an example of what the dynamic download section looks like.

Link to Darley.com

I am working on getting my collection of Photoshop (PS) files that I have created over the past few years here on the web site. This is a very large collection and will take several months to complete. Here is a PSD that I designed a couple years back for a online retailer. You can create your own fire like image with a few filters that are already built into PS and some layers.

I have just completed a project for Polybilt.com of Ocala FL. The project was to create four banners that are 23 inches wide by 83 inches long for the FDIC Trade 2006 Show. The project was a taxing even on my dual core machine. The photoshop files themselves were over 1.2 gigs a piece. Just saving the document took about 10 minutes.

I created the background gradient and truck bodies in photoshop and then placed them in InDesign and added the text. This worked out really well. We could only print 19 inch proofs but they looked great on paper. However, the banners will be cloth. No way to really get a proof on that. So I am going by experience with most of this banner.

The process for the banners was extremely long. First I needed good 6+ megapixels photos of the bodies (6 total) then I had to edit the bodies. It took almost a good afternoon just to get a good working body colored red. Remember that most of the bodies were white or a shade of white. Once I had the bodies I did a test proof at full resolution and look for problems.

Next I created my main working document in photoshop. Here I added a gradient that will come in from either the right or the left. The I placed the runner text along the other side. Next I added the bodies and saves for InDesign. I then added all my text using InDesign and printed them off with Acrobat.

A few weeks later and some sleepless nights trying to figure out a good look for some of the bodies here is my finished product. The banner will be on display at the Polybilt booth in Aprils FDIC show.