Orangutangy

2009-04-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved!!

It's official. I hate Blogger. Halfway through a re-skin I've given up and migrated to Wordpress. So, new updates are only at http://orangutangy.yukikodesign.com

Thank you and see you elsewhere!
Yukiko

P.S. If you're an avid RSS subscriber like I am, just redirect your feeds to:
http://orangutangy.yukikodesign.com/?feed=rss2

Triptych x4

2008-12-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Here's something I'm proud of: A card with 12 images on it. What does that make this? a dodecatic? whatever. Just a fun(?) exercise. I remember making things like this in school.

DVD drive not found - a solution!

2008-12-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

My Toshiba has problems. That said, every now and then it can't find it's own DVD drive. No power no detection, nothing. I'm suspecting iTunes is the culprit but who knows. In any case I found out that there's a simple solution posted around the web but I found it in a forum here.

Steps

1) Open regedit.exe (Start menu > run, type regedit, and the exe should be listed)

2) Locate the following reg file in the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\
Control\
Class\
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3) Delete the values for the Upper and Lower filters.

4) Restart

Real Estate Website Attempt #1

2008-11-24T00:41:00.000-08:00

I'm building a realtor's personal website. Since I have never worked with realty, I need to learn a few things about MLS searches. Here's a quick summary of my learnings followed by some process.

1) There are many many MLS databases. Each area/firm/agent has their own. These databases are their secretly guarded stash of people's homes and their connected agent. Agents have their own action list of homes. These can be managed by things like open realty, a myPhpAdmin but for homes...

2) Getting access to search MLS databases requires a realtor that is a member of the MLS owner group.

3) If permission is granted by the MLS Provider, one can create a query and ftp whichever listings you want to your own database. Permission may require $$.

4) Most often 3rd party companies just provide the code that figures out how to display the listing info. (A good webdev/designer should be able to do this decently)

5) Some companies offer to host the MLS info, but that just takes the place of the original MLS. Heavy lifting here depending on how many people input into the database. These services are really only useful for big agencies like Century 21 who supports hundreds of agents.

TRIED:

Installing Open Realty 2.5.5 into a test site -> success, easy
Installing Wordpress into test site -> success, easy

LEARNED:

Open Realty 2.5.5 doesn't actually querry an existing MLS but just allows realtors to input listings themselves. Not useful for me.

PLANNING TO:

Need to contact Century 21 and ask how to get MLS access. May need actual realtor to make call.

Tonight's sketch

2008-11-11T00:53:00.000-08:00

I should be asleep now but I was having too much fun sketching in photoshop... Just a reminder to everyone to have fun every now and then.

PHP register new user

2008-10-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

So I'm continuing on my user account management quest. Yesterday and today I added the ability to register as a new user. It's still very rudimentary- the registration fields are not checked for validity (so more than one user can have the same user name) but I feel great that I'm making progress. Try it out: http://yukikodesign.com/test/testbed/index.php

Next up, send an email when "forgot password" and add personal account management to change passwords and delete users if you're an admin.

PHP user login test

2008-10-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

A huge step for me in programming- I got a simple user authentication to work through php. It took some stretching and "feeling my way through the dark" but I got something that requires a login and logout and it seems to work. The SQL database stuff was a bit of a fanagle since it veered off from my book but this time I looked around and was able to "upload" my queries instead of typing them out in a command prompt. I'll work on it a bit more later but it's sleepy time.

links:
My Quick and dirty test
User: jack
Pass: toronto

Book reference: PHP Hacks- Tips & tools for Creating Dynamic Web Sites
Online Tutorial: Simple Login, Logout, and Session Handling

Writing files from Mac to NTFS hard drive

2008-09-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm at work needing to transfer files from my Mac to my NTFS hard drive. The file system normally allows the drive to be read but unable to write to. There's too many complicated tutorials/forum posts so I'm making it simple for myself and hopefully others here. 2 downloads and no funky terminal stuff.

Download MacFUSE on Google Code - Install & restart
Download the MacOSX NTFS-3G plugin - Install & restart

Now the NTFS drive should be writable.

Notes:

If you get an error like:

$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0,0)
Failed to mount...

You need to plug in the drive into a windows pc and then "Safely remove hardware" by right-clicking on the lower right-hand green arrow that says "Safely remove hardware". There's other ways, but this is the easiest I've seen.

Most helpful forum link by jo7ker on Sat, Mar 3 2007 at 9:12AM PST

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070220150856279

Before and After?

2008-08-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how this happened. Somhow the png got really messed up...

Reflections- Before & After

2008-08-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Before

After

Tutorial: How to copy file path in Mac OSX

2008-07-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

So you can't cut/paste file paths easily in Mac OSX. No keyboard shortcuts and even "get info" doesn't give a selectable pathname. Yes, you can see the path, but you can't get it onto the clipboard. Hmm.. after trolling a bit of the internet, I found that there's some freeware and some methodologies- drag into terminal or into textWrangler... They all sounded a bit involved when speed and simplicity is the issue. My method of choice came from Camarena in a forum link: Create a simple apple script, turn it into an .app and then drag that app into any finder bar so it appears as an icon. So here's the step by step.

Create the App:

Open the applescript editor, create a new script
Applications > Applescript > Script Editor
Paste the following:
tell application "Finder"
set sel to the selection as text
set the clipboard to POSIX path of sel
end tell
Save as an File Format > Application
Drag the .app file into any finder window's toolbar to add the shortcut

To use:

Select the file you want to copy the path
Click the scipt shortcut icon you just created
Now it's on your clipboard, so you can paste the filepath!

New sketch- Ironman!

2008-05-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Saw the movie- I thought it was really good and decided to spend a bit of my free time sketching. Is it me or does iron man's mask thing make it look like he's frowning all the time?

Make Flash stage transparent

2008-05-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here's a quick tip on how to make your stage transparent in flash.

Go to publish settings: File > Publish Settings or Shift + F12
In the HTML Tab, Find the Window Mode setting and select Transparent Windowless from the drop down menu.

Source: Adobe's tech help site

Two Images I whipped up last night

2008-05-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

Something I've just started

2008-04-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

A logo for a new project- kinda like my last Baseball field diagram. Apart from the color irregularities, I like this logo design I whipped up.

Sometimes I just hate the internet

2008-04-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

It's hard to work on the computer with a solid connection to the internet because of the distractions it allows. Blah. Once I start working, then I usually am okay and focussed, but getting to that point has been really hard for me as of late.

Website is up

2008-04-25T02:24:00.000-07:00

My website ( http://YukikoDesign.com ) is finally up- Improvements can always be made, but it's up. I'm pretty happy at it's basic functionality.

What I like:

the videos walking through the websites and the interactive piece
the slide-y feel going between... well, slides
the transparent bg's of the pieces

What I don't like:

the load time
the clunky back end. Need to recode at some point....
the links out. I gotta learn to make a decent, simple link in flash. (Why is it so hard??)
the lack of an extras page!!

Comments?

Screencasting - video screen capturing

2008-04-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been on the lookout for a good (and cheap) method of capturing video of my computer screen for displaying websites offline etc. After doing some research and trying out a few pieces of software, I found CamStudio to be sufficient for my needs. It creates .avi files that can easily be imported into flash or .swf files. The interface is a bit clunky but at the same time pretty simple. Best part is that it's free. It's pc only but if I were on my mac, I'd probably download the free trial of SnapzProX.

I tried Wink but it didn't work for my needs. It takes a series of stills but the outcome is too slow to make a smooth movie. I hope this helps.

Rotate Dynamic TextField in Actionscript 3

2008-03-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

This is a tutorial on how to rotate textFields in Actionscript 3 (AS3)

1) First you must embed the Font. Go to the Library pallete. Right-click and select "New Font..."

2) In the new "Font Symbol Properties" dialog box, select the font you want to embed. I'm using Allstar for this example. Also type in a name to call the font within the Library. Click "OK" to close the box.

3) Back in the Library, you can see the font you just embedded, but you now need to change the linkage properties. Right click on the font symbol and select "Linkage..."

4) In the Linkage Properties dialog box, check the checkbox "Export for ActionScript". Then enter the class name that you will reference in the ActionScript. Click Ok to close the dialog.

5) Now in the Actions pallete, enter in the following text to create the textField and display it on the stage.

Things I like but have no use for...

2008-03-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

Add another to the list... A nice texture from different opacities and a gradient.

Sketches and screencap

2008-03-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to do some more sketches since I've gotten my tablet pc back. I wanted to do a loose, color intensive piece with no worrying about proportion and line quality.

In other news, I've been looking around for some sort of screen capture software that I can use to capture video to display website navigation examples. I've downloaded and tried "Wink" for windows, but am not really happy with the results. It's a bit on the choppy side and I believe it's meant for more narration over isolated screen caps.

Wheels turning but not catching

2008-03-06T01:11:00.000-08:00

I need to get off my but and do stuff. I need to be less worried about what people think of my work and just get pieces done. I feel no confidence in my writing or designing without a classroom. I fear competition rather than savoring it as I used to. Things that I think are nearing completion are being put aside and then revamped entirely. This used to be a good thing- a way to get new and fresh ideas, but right now it seems like it's gotten me nowhere. I've applied to 2 design jobs since this whole unemployed business started. Two. How pathetic. I need discipline. I need someone to say, "Stop right here. It's good enough. Move on."

Status Update:

Business cards- Design done, being reprinted by overnight prints.

Resume - latest iteration shown.

Website - Portal, portfolio splash, and 1 inner page complete. 7 inner pages, resume page and extras page still to do.

Moving Firefox and Thunderbird between computers

2008-03-03T11:57:00.001-08:00

This will copy all of the bookmarks, emails, email filters, settings, etc. for Firefox and Thunderbird. Locate, copy and overwrite the application folders for Firefox and Thunderbird:

Mac:

[user home] /library/Thunderbird

[user home]/library/Application Support/Firefox

PC:

[user home ] /AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird

[ user home] /AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox

Note:

For PC, AppData folder is a hidden or system folder so it will be hidden by default.

My Toshiba is back!

2008-02-23T19:21:00.001-08:00

After about 1 month in repair, my Toshiba Portege m400 is finally back in my possession and I will never buy another Toshiba laptop again. What caused this long change of heart? Read on:

1) My laptop had problems freezing sporadically and at random times such as checking email or just browsing files. I call the tech line and they tell me to bring it into an authorized repair shop.

2) The shop takes 2 weeks to repair my computer. Very long time. I go to the shop to pick it up, but it freezes as Justin and I get to the parking lot. I take it back.

3) I get a call telling me that the repair shop needs a part to test that is back-ordered for another 2 weeks. Great. They don't even know if it will fix the problem.

4) I find a "HotSwap" clause in my warranty that allows me to exchange my inoperable computer for a refurbished one. Great! I (get justin to) call Toshiba, but they put him on hold for a Case Manager. After 30 minutes, the call gets cut off. Repeat 2 times. No warranty for me.

5) The repair shop calls back a week later after getting the part in early. I finally pick up my unit. Final diagnosis: My laptop's power adapter was bad so it fried my motherboard.

All in all I'm pissed at toshiba's customer support- or lack thereof. My $200 warranty was useless because I was unable to contact someone that can authorize its use.

Language and mail

2008-02-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

For some reason my Yahoo mail account decided that it was spanish today. Yo hablo español? no.

Website preview

2008-01-29T00:00:00.001-08:00

I think I finally have a site design that I can live with. I tried to go for a clean look with a bit of texture. Other influences include apple's reflections and adobe lightroom's overlay style panels. I really wanted to include a large teaser image from my portfolio, but I couldn't make it work without being distracting. The second pic is the previous draft. (Yes, I see the spelling error)

No schedule

2008-01-18T02:04:00.000-08:00

So now that I'm officially and actually done with school and vacation I find it hard to sit down and work. I've come to the conclusion that I need a rigid schedule. I need to enforce a time for eating, sleeping and working at the very least.

I have learned about some of my bad-habits concerning work. I tend to work very intensely at something until I'm too tired to continue. However, I keep pushing myself until I become frustrated and then cranky because I'm not making headway. My goal is to stop myself before that point- take a break before I burn out.

I also have learned the value of having friends. I think at one point I isolated myself for too long thinking I needed to focus on work when I really just needed to socialize I hate to say it, but I was so happy to see and talk to someone other than Justin and my parents! Ah, such is life.

quote again

2008-01-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

"You need to know the rules in order to break them."
-Peter Girardi
From Aquent's "Design Thinking Out Loud- What I didn't learn in School"

A good design quote.

2007-11-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

"Don't try to be original- try to be good."
-Paul Rand

How to tar files

2007-11-26T09:33:00.001-08:00

tar -cf ILoveHomework.tar Homework3

Comments:

* The c tells tar to create a new tar file
* The f tells tar to name it ILoveHomework.tar
* You have to supply the .tar extension in the command.

This command creates a new file in the parent directory named ILoveHomework.tar (of course, you may call it anything you wish). When this file is untarred, the Homework3 directory and its contents are automatically recreated.

Taken from somewhere...

Disk Quota Exceeded - solution!

2007-11-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

So I couldn't figure out why I kept going over the disk quota at the CS computers. I had about 300mb of storage and no matter what programs I removed, I couldn't seem to stay under the quota. In fact, I removed everything and still I was taking up 297/300 mb. So what was taking up space? something called ./ccache . It's a program to help speed up compilation of programs. This is good except the space limits were not set to be helpful. So here's some important commands:

Disk Usage of all files:
$du -ah

Summary of disk usage
$du -sh

Ccache
set max size to 100mb
$ccache -M 100M

clear ccache
$ccache -C

clean up ccache
$ccache -c

Unix command to find kernel

2007-11-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

To find the kernel version type into the command prompt:
uname -r

If having problems compiling previously working code, maybe the computer I'm working on is an x86 computer. (like pc 31) Best to switch computers to a regular format. (like pc 1, 10)

learned about rwho, who, write

2007-11-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

After SSH-ing into the campus computers, can look at other users on the system
ssh username@pc10.cs.ucdavis.edu
rwho
// lists all users on the csif machines

who pc 9
// lists all users on pc 9

who
// lists all users on current pc

write person
// must ssh to same computer as person, then writes stuff to their cmd prompt.

IE Hate. PNG's don't display.

2007-10-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

IE can't deal with PNG's. It makes them opaque- kinda defeats the purpose...
Here's a solution to fix png display in IE. It makes directX display pngs instead of IE.
Code that works

C++ Parsing, feeding a textfile to a program

2007-10-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

To automatically fill in input to a program that promts using cin>>, use this from the command prompt:
$programName < commands.txt

Including files correctly
main file:
> #include "functions.h"

functions.h:
> #include
> using namespace std;
> function or class prototype non–void eg: int foo(string);

funtions.cpp:
> #include "functions.h"
> function definition eg: int foo(string mystring){ }

makefile
> g++ -c main.cpp functions.cpp;
> g++ -Wall main.o functions.o -o programname

Toshiba m400 loses pen function - solution

2007-10-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

So I installed the new wacom vista driver for my toshiba m400, and all was happy. Then when I put my computer to sleep or hibernate, my newly gained pressure sensitivity dropped. In fact, the computer wouldn't even recognize the pen at all. I've found 2 solutions, the second one being better:

1) Reinstall the wacom driver. It sucks because then you have to restart AND the problem occurs again once the computer goes to sleep.

2) Remove the preference file. Start menu > All Programs >Tablet > Tablet Preference File Utility
Click on "Remove My Preference File" and all will be good again, no restart required!

How to use unix on windows

2007-10-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

For my UC Davis ECS courses, I needed to login to the cs computers remotely from my vista pc. I keep forgetting so here's some basic steps:
1) install Cygwin to get a basic unix terminal-like environment
2) type "startx" to start an x terminal window
3) ssh into the cs computers by filling in []: "ssh -XY [username]@pc[12].cs.ucdavis.edu
you can check which computers are free at: http://csifdocs.cs.ucdavis.edu/tiki-view_articles.php
4) now the regular files & directories should be visible.

New Apple Bluetooth Keyboard

2007-10-08T18:42:00.001-07:00

Yay!! It's finally here. I just received my new apple bluetooth keybard. It's very slim and light. It takes 3 AA batteries and cost me $80 with free shipping. I love it, though I'll have to get used to the button placement again. I think my toshiba's keyboard is funny with the ~ button next to the space bar. It's nice to be back on an apple keyboard.

Wacom Pressure sensitive Drivers for Tablet PC

2007-09-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

I finally got a driver for my toshiba tablet pc. I can't believe I didn't know this existed! Now I can use the photoshop brushes effectively without sinking thousands on a cintiq display. Here's the link (just in case): http://www.wacom.com/tabletpc.

no love for blogger

2007-09-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

by the way, trying to show html coding in blogger sucks.

Php and html minitips

2007-09-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Set your site's base (all links will think of it as the site root)

yukiko/pages/news/IGotAJob.html

<head>

Dump another html file into the current php file:

<?php include "header.html"; ?>
Good site setup (for me at least):

pages/

header.html
footer.html
page1.php

css/

header.css
footer.css
style.css
index.css
page1.css

images/
index.php

CSS workaround for Safari dispaying Helvetica fractions

2007-07-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

A note to whomever (probably myself):

When trying to specify Helvetica as a font-family in CSS, make sure that you use the full "Helvetica Plain" tag in quotes. Otherwise, safari, (I'm testing on v2.0.4) will default to Helvetica Fractions. It will look like:

Dynamic Painting, Folding

2007-02-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

I found this group of artists, Random International that created a paint roller so you can literally print on the wall. Check out the video:
Pixelroller

They also sell instant labeling tape that you just blacken out parts you don't need to write messages. Not as cool as the pixel roller but it's still afun idea.

Unrelated, but interesting on a technical level, this program folds a letter on screen depending on the position of your mouse.

Back to the Drawing board

2007-02-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a t-shirt design that was scrapped this morning.

Apparently I went too 70's on them. Personally, I liked it a lot- 70's? Groovy! I had worked a long time on the lettering so it'd be kind of readable but still very much shapes. They didn't like it. Gah. Apparently they wanted more retro.... less graphic... more clip art. My new directive simply states: Peace (underneath a peace sign), Love (under a heart), Printing (under a copy machine) How boring.

Japanese Mouse Switcheroo

2007-02-12T23:48:00.000-08:00

While surfing some of my webcomics, I found a link to a Japanese web award page ( I think ). What was cool about it was the use of flash to change to mouse pointer into well... a huge foam pointer/float carried around by a bunch of guys. It's hilarious and worth a minute to look:
http://www.1-click.jp/

DES 154 PSA- Water is:

2007-02-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

This assignment we had to create a set of posters for student nutrition and health. I chose to advertise water as being a better choice over soda. My intended to create a series of situations where soda was obviously a bad drink choice. I chose to make them illustrations rather than photos to exaggeurate the emotions of the characters...

W+K on Apple's site

2007-01-05T15:59:00.000-08:00

I just was surfing apple's website and came across some people I know. In Tokyo, one of our guest lecturers was Eric Cruz from W+K Tokyo Lab Studio. www.wktokyolab.com

Here's the link to apple's short ad about them.
http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/wk/

"W+K Tokyo Lab is a new music label concept launched by Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo in 2003. Our mission is to bring new experiences that can only be created in Tokyo through a unique global mix of music, visuals, and other forms of creative expression through a DVD and CD. Tokyo attracts some of the world’s most innovative creative collaborators. We are passionate about the development of new ideas with our creators and connecting them to a new audience. Simply put, it is about good music, fresh visuals, and new concepts of creative expression."

Lomography

2006-12-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

I just rediscovered lomography- using wierd lenses and flashes to create cool photos. I'm going to buy a fisheye camera and a disposable lomolito red color flash camera for my cousins. They're really expensive cameras, but I think the whole movement and overall effects are quite cool. Very underground.

I first encountered the cameras in Japan. The Roppongi Hills Art and design museum shop had them on display and Ashley bought the Oktomat. It takes eight pictures in sequence so she had us jumping around for a while. I like the color flash cameras since they give cool lighting effects- the background is a different color than the foreground.

testing 2!

2006-12-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

orangutangy test 2: a design book for myself.