Updates from Zo Nicholas RSS
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04:51:42 pm on April 4, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/my-essex/male-pheasant/.
Male Pheasant
An early morning visitor today, strutting about proudly on our garage roof and garden. We often see pheasants in the nearby fields, but today we were honoured to be visited by an adult male pheasant, latin name – Phasianus Colchicus. In the early morning sun his chestnut coloured plumage was so clearly visible together with his dark green head and red face wattling.
Phasianus colchicus
Phasianus colchicus (latin) or more commonly known as the pheasant can be found here in Essex, populating fields and hedgerows in search of seeds, roots and grubs.
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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04:51:42 pm on April 4, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/my-essex/male-pheasant/.
Male Pheasant
An early morning visitor today, strutting about proudly on our garage roof and garden. We often see pheasants in the nearby fields, but today we were honoured to be visited by an adult male pheasant, latin name – Phasianus Colchicus. In the early morning sun his chestnut coloured plumage was so clearly visible together with his dark green head and red face wattling.
Phasianus colchicus
Phasianus colchicus (latin) or more commonly known as the pheasant can be found here in Essex, populating fields and hedgerows in search of seeds, roots and grubs.
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.
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03:01:23 pm on April 3, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/zo-nicholas/mothers-day-uk/.
Mother’s Day
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers celebrating the day here in the U.K.
Have a wonderful day!
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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05:26:46 pm on April 1, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/web-design/slidedeck-for-wordpress/slidedeck-pro/.
New SlideDeck on Zo Nicholas
Following up on my previous email about a new look for ZoNicholas.com I have been working on creating a SlideDeck, a content slider, displaying images on the website instead of the Flash slider I was using before.
SlideDeck Pro
Having attended the YcademY March Seminar which focused on working with and customising the SlideDeck Pro, having gained an insight as to how to deal with the various skins etc and after some testing, I have put together a SlideDeck with a few slides; the first slide, Web Design, 2nd Kid’s Web Design and the last, Graphic Design, There are still a few minor issues that I need to resolve and I may end up completely changing the look of this jQuerycontent slider, but what you see is how it stands at the moment.
The SlideDeck plugin which intergrates into any WordPress blogging platform made life pretty simple. In the first instance, no coding is required unless there is customisation to be done. Not only does the SlideDeck display on the main web site, but when a Smart Slider is created this can be intergrated into any blog post just by copy/pasting a simple code. A very attractive marketing feature! The real beauty of this slider is, that while it draws the attention of the prospective customer to the displayed content it still maintains full search engine optimization. That is a real bonus for any business owner. The Pro version that I am using also offers Touch Support for mobile browsers, an important feature on touchscreen mobiles.
Mobile Ready Website
The whole issue of changing from a flash slider to a SlideDeck was instigated by the fact that flash is not clearly seen on smartphones. As more and more people turn to using smartphones with computing ability and connectivity such as the Apple iphone, Google Android and such like, our websites must be mobile ready: this means fast loading, with good visibility and easy navigation. The basic rule applies on mobiles, KISS! keep it simple.
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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12:45:36 am on March 29, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/my-essex/game-birds/.
The Partridge
It’s not often that I’ve seen a partridge just wandering free and in search food. Yesterday I had a nice surpise when I looked out of the window, a partridge just wandering about foraging for food. This bird is easily recognized by its red beak and red marking round the eye and its plumpness resembling a chicken, for this reason its a favourite with the game hunters and found in local butchers when in season.
We are of course more familiar with the partridge in a favourite Christmas song, “The Twelve days of Chrstmas” ….’ on the 1st Day of Christmas my true love gave to me….a Partridge in a Pear Tree.”
Photos shot with my good old Nikon P90.
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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11:17:13 pm on March 28, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/web-design/create-a-favicon-with-photoshop/.
Creating a Favicon
As I have a brand new Semiomantics X0 3.1 script installed on my personal blog I have made a decision to also alter the look of my web site. The site will no longer display the flash slider, which is not smartphone friendly, but instead will display the SlideDeck Pro which is not only clearly visible on any mobile device like an ipad or iphone but also includes touchscreen interaction, cool eh?
One of the features when customising a website is creating a favicon which displays in a brower next to your website name. Both .jpg and .gif formats are accepted these days by most browsers however, to be visible on the IE browser you still need the .ico format.
You can create an image that you wish to display and then use a favicon generator to change the format to .ico or you can now create an image in Photoshop and there save it as .ico after having installed the neccessary plug-in. Both ways work perfectly well.
Creating a favicon image in Photoshop
I started creating my favicon image in Adobe Photoshop CS4, working on a larger canvas than neccessary, 256×256, (this way you can see better exactly what you are doing) and a larger size of the image is always useful to have. The first step was to create the background. A plain colour I prefer as in the end result any intricate background will not show successfully. The next layer was for the text/logo in this case just a simple ‘z’ in the same font as I use on my website.
You will notice that the English font use in my sites header is a thin font and when resized to 16×16, favicon size, the end result is not satisfactory. The font to be used for the purpose of a favicon must be bolder and more solid in order to be clearly visible in a browser when resized. The other font that I use on my website is Georgia, and when this was applied the end result was more pleasing and acceptable. However, still not totally the desired effect I was after.
Back to Photoshop. This time I changed the colour scheme around, light background, dark text. When resized it looks good in the browser. So now the next step is to save the resized 16×16 image as a favicon.ico which I can now do after having installed the photoshop plugin. The very last step is to save my work as a .psd for future reference.
Step 1 of the new look for zonicholas.com accomplished. Next step an apple touch icon. More to come…
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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09:29:01 pm on March 26, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/web-graphics/photo-slide/.
- Slide 1
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- Slide 2
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- Design
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Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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07:29:18 pm on February 25, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/web-graphics/photoshop/learn-photoshop-2/.
Learning Photoshop Basics
Learning Photoshop Basics is a matter of becoming more familiar and comfortable using the various tools provided by the Adobe software. The more you practice the easier it becomes.
Learning Photoshop
Learning Photoshop at YcademY is with a live tutor, so any questions can be immediately answered and problems solved.
Here are two more examples of techniques applied during the Ycademy Workshop session.
and now applied to fonts to create a new image:
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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04:25:56 pm on February 25, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/web-graphics/photoshop/learn-photoshop/.
Learning Photoshop Basics
One of those simple pleasures in life is mastering a skill well enough to be able to have some fun with it! even if the skill is learning how to use Adobe Photoshop well enough to create some fun images. Learning Photoshop Basics takes time but once mastered you can manipulate and create images for both personal and commercial purposes.
Learning Photoshop
At the YcademY daily training calls many sessions have focused on Photoshop, (one of the leading graphics editors online) learning the basics such as, using the basic editing tools to the best advantage, using colour, using layers, filters, blending etc. as well as some Photoshop tips and tricks. It’s one thing reading the manual or watching Photoshop tutorials, but there is no better way to learn than with a live tutor who can guide you and correct your mistakes.
Below are two examples of some basic techniques applied during an YcademY Photoshop Workshop session. The more you practice the easier it becomes.
and second example with a different custom shape:
For details how to join the YcademY Workshops use this contact form.
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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11:43:23 pm on February 1, 2011 |
Copyright © 2011 Zo Nicholas. Visit the original article at http://zonicholas.com/work-from-home/desktop-screensaver/.
Desktop Kingfisher Screensaver
Going through some of my old files from way back when, I came across this little fellow, the kingfisher! which I used once on my old Windows XP as a sreensaver. My Windows XP is still running on another old machine, struggling a little but still working, with the old Outlook Express (still my preferred email client).
Kingfisher Screensaver Download
The kingfisher is a lovely, animated screensaver which periodically flies across your screen, occassionally diving to catch a meal. I have reinstated this desktop scrensaver on my Windows 7 and it works perfectly. My little grandson just loves watching it and giggles with delight when it catches a fish. Great fun for children!
If you would like your own cute kingfisher just use the download button. Once downloaded unzip then run the .exe file. You will then find the kingfisher on your taskbar.Right click on the icon to find the menu with the settings.
Enjoy!
Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.