Circles III : Gaia

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An update of my Circles 2.1 pack, expanding it to 120 icons. It is now also available in 8 different colour schemes drawn from the Gaia09 project.

As a digital musician, there is a slight focus on music software, but there are nearly 90 other icons for all major operating systems.

Cartoon fox for Firefox icon by ~Bucinhas.
Sample background image by =lassekongo83.

The full list of icons:

Creative
Acrobat - After Effects - Air - Bridge - Contribute - Corel - Design - Dreamweaver 1 - Dreamweaver 2 - Encore - Fireworks - Flash - Gimp - Illustrator - ImageReady - InDesign - Inkscape - OnLocation - Photoshop 1 - Photoshop 2 - Picasa - Premiere - Soundbooth

Music
Ableton Live - Audacity - Cubase - Foobar - FruityLoops - Garage Band - iPod - iTunes - Logic - ProTools - Real - Reason - Record - Recycle - Renoise - Sonar - Songbird - Sony SoundForge - Spotify - Torq - Traktor - VLC - Wavelab - WinAmp - Windows Media Player - Zen - Zune

Office
Access - Excel - Office - OneNote - Open Office - Outlook - Planon - PowerPoint - Project - Publisher - Word

System
Apple - Clock - Computer - Configure - Drive C - Drive D - Drive E - Drive F - Drive Z - DVD/CD Drive - Files - Games - Gnome - Mail - Movies - Music 1 - Music 2 - Photos - Recycle Bin (empty) - Recycle Bin (full) - Restart - Sleep - Start - Tools - Ubuntu - Windows

Utilities
CCleaner - CD Burner XP - DVD Shrink - Xplorer2 - FileZilla - Nero - Notepad - ObjectDock - QuickTime - RocketDock

Web
Browsers - Chrome - Digsby - Facebook - Firefox - Firefox 2 - Instant Messaging - Internet Explorer - Limewire - Opera - Pidgin - RSS - Safari - Skype - Thunderbird - TweetDeck - Twhirl - Twitter - Twitter 2 - uTorrent

Making Windows look like MacOS

One key difference between Windows and MacOS systems is the font-smothing technique used by the different operating systems. Personally, I much prefer the look of fonts on MacOS systems with the smoother lines (though Microsoft's Clear Type is arguably better on 8pt and below fonts).

A handy little plugin for Windows called GDI++ makes Windows render it's fonts with the smooth lines of MacOS. Download it, unzip it, double click on GDItray.exe and you're off!

It will take some time to get used to it (a couple of hours), but once you are used to it, you will never switch it off.

Download.

Circles 2

I've created a series of seventy one icons for your RocketDock / ObjectDock customisations. The icons come in 256 x 256 pixel PNG format. Enjoy and share!

Download

The Cheeseboard

Inspired by Per's outstanding mash-up album, I gone and done made a mix of some easy listening / exotica / cheese for you lovely peeps.

Tracklisting:
01. Ken Nordine - Yellow
02. Jerry Van Rooyen - Sax Hunt
03. Les Baxter - Sabre Dance
04. Herman Gehlen - Exposition K'71
05. Hot Butter - Skokiaan
06. Link Wray - Jack The Ripper
07. Yma Sumac - The Five Bottle Mambo
08. Celia - Fantasma-A-Go-Go
09. Mandingo - Black Rite
10. Gil Trythall - Folsom Prison Blues
11. Andre Popp - Java
12. Slava Kunst Orkestra - Lucifer In Coelis
13. The Uknown Cambodian Funk Yodeller
14. Ted Heath & His Orchestra - St.Louis Blues
15. Max Meier-Maletz - Swinging Nordwest
16. Ted Heath & His Orchestra - Get Back

download

Down Time

As some of you may have noticed, the Fwonk* website seems to be inaccessible. Last week, the website was subject to a DoS attack and the site temporarily went down.

The hosting company, SiteGround restored the website and moved the information from one machine to another. No DNS or IP information was altered during this move.

The website remains active for many, especially those accessing from home, but for whatever reason, the website remains inaccessible for many trying to access from work. Yet the site will work via a Proxy site, but not via a "porn-mode" window in Chrome.

However, and much to my surprise, the main site is partly accessible through IE8 privacy mode, and I aim to refresh much of the HTML to see if it accessible in other browsers.

I have no idea why this might account for any errors, but if anyone has any further suggestions for helping with this issue, please comment here and let me know!

Many thanks!

Fwonk* T-Shirts

There's now a range of t-shirts available with some unique Fwonk* designs - including some unique guitar effects pedals.

Check out the range here.

New Fwonk* Design

Okay, so I know I create a new flipping design for Fwonk* every 6 minutes... but this one is here to stay for some time. The horizontal scrolling thing was way too uneven and seemed to depend on viewing it on an enormous resolution. I created a new design to replace that mistake, and this is just a tweak on that design (now with a brick wall background and more info on the title page).

I expect there to be a flurry of releases on Fwonk* in the next week or two - we have music from Smoke & Mirrors, Echosonic and myself as Heskin Radiophonic.

Photoshop Tutorials

It's been a while since I blogged, but I've been busy learning Photoshop! My fellow Fwonkers have been impressed with my l33t sk1llz and asked me to do some tutorials.

You can find them here.

Bathtub IV

An amazing video from Keith Loutit. It took me some time to realise I was watching genuine time-lapse photographs done with a technique called tilt-shift.

Customising Your Desktop pt.2

I just enhanced and edited my previous post about modding your Windows Desktop, so it's now a part of the new Tutorial section of the Fwonk* Forum. Read it here.

Customising Your Desktop

Customising my desktop has become quite a geeky hobby of mine. The above image (click for full size image) is my current desktop at work. I have a similar setup at home. The task bar is on auto-hide, though I have the SlanXP2 theme installed.

Using TweakUI I have removed all of my desktop icons - I just don't like them cluttering up my screen! So the key to navigating through programmes and folders is this little box down in the bottom right. I have this sitting over the top of all my other programmes, though I can click through everything bar the icons themselves.


This is a combination of two highly useful programmes. The time, system details and transparent black background are a customised version of the Enigma theme for Rainmeter. This is a highly customisable utility that sits in your system tray and provides all manner of information you might need.

The black icons is a customised version of RocketDock. This features the Stacks Docklet, which allows grouping of icons - as seen here, I have my Microsoft Office programmes under one icon.

This is only the beginning for your 133t h4xx0r5 out there, who go into far further detail, using EmergeDesktop and LiteStep and all manner of shell custom programmes.

There are all manner of sites out there to help you get or create your own wallpapers too. Try a few of the follwing:

• deviantART
• Customize.org
• InterfaceLIFT
• Lifehacker

Get hacking!

Scintillation

This is an awesome video featuring all sorts of fancy techniques I can't even begin to describe. Enjoy.

Google Images Tip

Here's a great Google Images Search tip from Lifehacker. This will help you find images exactly the right size for your desktop, and it couldn't be simpler.

Go to Google Images and type in:

imagesize:1680x1050 city

Adjust the numbers to match your resolution, or search term from city to whatever you want, et voila! Lots of lovely wallpaper to choose from!

Heavy Metal Explained

I spotted this diagram on Music Radar. It explains everything about metal.

Frustration

I was tasked yesterday with compiling and collating Risk Assesments and create a register for which individuals and companies they have been issued to. I wondered if there was any way of doing it digitally – using databases and PDFs etc. as my office is full floor to ceiling with files already.

I asked our IT manager in the head office if there was any practical way of doing. He said "we're already looking at that", so I asked questions to see if it would fit in with our department. It would! Joy and wonderfulness!

I mentioned this to my boss today. He has previously alienated everybody in head office. His comment "I'm not interested in anything they are doing up there, get on with it". So now I am reduced to spending the rest of my life stood next to a photocopier making more bloody files, and wasting a few forests into the bargain.

Viral Video of the Week

I'm torn on the subject of posting Viral Videos. This one is a particularly entertaining video of 350 dancers taking over Liverpool Street Station in London to the bemusement of the outnumbered commuters. It's certainly a striking visual event.

My moral dilemma comes in posting this coroporate creation, in this case for T-Mobile. I don't want to be seen in endorsing any of these companies' products - not least because I'm connected to T-Mobile and it's shite.

Fwonk* Forum

After three days of trying and code mangling, I think the Fwonk* Forum is pretty much there. I need to add a Quick Reply box, but apart from that I think it's done.

Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the rest of the Fwonk* site is borked. This may take some time...

Fwonk* Website

My main Fwonk* site is back online, having transferred hosts (still having teething troubles with this and that, though). And now we feature a swanky new phpBB3 forum - actually a port of the old Blinding Flesh of Genius forum. But we're looking for new blood, to go with the new design.

So come on in and join the fun!

133t H4x0r5

I'm sure this hack is a fake. But it's funny.

Frustration

Arrrrggghhh. I've been up to my ears in woes and tribulations trying to sort out websites. This is not an easy task. The main Fwonk site is swapping hosts, and it's not been the easy transition advertised. Hopefully it'll be sorted soon...

We might get chance to watch the Watchmen!

Empire magazine is reporting that the legal case between Fox and Warners is coming close to a settlement, meaning that we might actually be allowed to watch the Watchmen film after all.

While this news is hardly surprising, it does give me a blatant excuse for watching the trailer again. And should the movie suck, go out and read the book!

Would you stick your 'chap' in here?

For reasons best known to themselves, a crack group of science and robotics geeks (who probably still live with their mothers) have created this, above. It, believe it or not, is a robotic vagina. According to io9:

[It] is a variable speed, textured delight - it even delivers "throbs" at appropriate moments. And it's programmed to respond to input from porn movies. So plug this baby into your computer, fire up your favorite vid, and the Real Touch will match the speed and intensity of the action on screen.

To me, it looks like some kind of gardening tool, probably for massaging lawns or something. Or an electric clothes mangle. And the 'digital interactivity' now makes it the single saddest, most pathetic invention in the history of mankind.

Kris Kuksi

A friend pointed my to the work of the artist Kris Kuksi, on DeviantArt. Be sure to check out his website, because this artwork (particularly the sculpture) is outstandingly good. The detail is overwhelming.

Død Snø

Død Snø (or Dead Snow) is a new film from Norway. It has Zombies in it. It has Nazis in it. It has Nazi Zombies in it. What more could you possibly want from a film?

For a more explicit (i.e. not safe for work) clip from the film, head on over to io9.

Desktop Customisation

Believe it or not, but the above is my desktop at work (click for a larger image). Gone is pretty much everything, with the exception of ObjectDock. I created a set of icon buttons using Inkscape, got rid of everything from the desktop (including wallpaper!) I just really prefer a clean, clutter free work environment.

Here's a close up on the dock:
Many of the buttons are for work specific software, but it is easily customisable for other uses. You can download a RAR file with the icons, fonts and original Inkscape file here.

Narcosis: Best Served Cold

Would you Adam and Eve it? My old band, Narcosis have a retrospective CD out on Earache Records. And this CD goes back so far, it features some of my earliest (and weakest) sampling efforts and (on the charming ditty Chain Gang) my vocals debut as deep-throat grunter.

And they haven't even sent me a free copy, the freeloading bastards.

Insomnia

The last few nights, I've been wiped out with a sheer lack of sleep. This coincided with my return to work (and stopping drinking booze during the week). Sunday night I had zero sleep at all, Monday, despite being exhausted I got four hours max, and last night was around two hours. I'm exhausted and don't know why my brain switches on to "ramble on at random" mode as soon as I get into bed. It can't be stress at work - I have a relatively stress free job. It almost feels like indigestion affecting my brain.

Who knows? I just hope I sleep tonight.

Doctor Who?

So then. The new and eleventh Doctor Who, Matt Smith.

Is he too young for the part? I don't think so - I think he could carry the character of a 900+ year old war veteran coupled with an enthusiasm of a small child of Christmas morning. I think there is something gawkish and odd about his look that suits the character of the Doctor.

But a rant on io9 made me think of all the things the Doctor could be. I've been calling for a different type of Doctor for ages: it's all very exciting having a white, male science geek in the role, but how about envisioning a female Doctor, who spends more time healing than babbling pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo? Or a Doctor from an ethnic minority? If they can vote for a black man to become President in America, for goodness' sake, surely we could expect to see a black man (or woman) save the Universe from Daleks without British families switching off in disgust?

Oh, and io9 are certainly right about one thing. Get yourself a haircut you scruffy young-feller-me-lad!

Things to make you squirm uncontrollably.

It is safe for work. Just.

The latest gizmo from Apple

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Rocket Dock is Dead!

Long live Object Dock!