I’m Jacob Thomas

I am a windows application programmer…i don’t know whether i can boast about it anymore? The first few years of my programming life were concentrated around visual basic and windows application development. Back then i didn’t have an internet connection(, probably one of the bigger reasons why i evolved away from being one). I created a few applications based on some loose codes from planetsourcecode.com. I really enjoyed it! Every bit of code. I was very inquisitive of the how the softwares were made and that led me into a very simple but exciting world of VB. (I was 14 back then.)

Once i got older (and when i got an internet connection) , i did sense a migration into a much more wider, more reachable platform..the web itself. I was truly inspired by lots of wonderful websites from various design showcases including webcreme, cssremix, cssmania etc. Soon i was exercising my artistic talents and was frantically trying to learn the skills of many accomplished designers. (I used to go ‘wowwwwww.’ seeing some of the websites created by avalonstar.) My entry into professional web development was marked by the founding of Opdyne; a group of young developers, designers, and programmers.

Opdyne has now evolved into a professional firm offering many design solutions with decent quality.(We won’t blab about exquisite designs now as we are still learning.) Now that i look back i find it very difficult to understand whether i would have become an accomplished developer. A few applications like a hapless media player(Neu + Media Player), a CD/DVD indexing software(Thikset) are not enough to make one an expert in that field. Another of my ventures in application development was a CD presentation maker for an event including features like video encryption, authentication module , a fully featured media player , a scriptable interface with advanced skinning options(XTOOP CD).

Just because i am spending all my energy in web development these days doesn’t mean i am done with my old passion. I hope i will be able to complete , many of what i still want to achieve in that field.Presently there are lots of things to finish in Opdyne with release of LF and many other projects slated on immediate dates. Later!

It was my first independent wordpress theme,V2 of ‘the upward autodidact‘. Since i have my new theme it would be unfair if i did not release this theme as a public release instead of leaving to rust in any folder.

Here i present my first wordpress theme blog release.’Orangee‘.

It presents a notebook interface for the posts,pretty simple and yes..a typical wordpress site.

Download and Enjoy .

At one glance , an innocuous word, ‘inspiration’ may seem to be related to the great paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci produced due the influence of Verrocchio, his teacher. Inspiration is usually associated with art and design.

In olden days, inspiration was thought to of a divine nature. The people believed it to be a gift of god. As time traveled across centuries of development, renaissance and revolution this inspiration found new meanings. Nowadays it is concerned with education,personality, paintings (abstract art too) and websites . Inspiration has found new galleries to showcase themselves in different mediums. They are umpteen inspirational personalities, masterpieces, materials and products available now(which makes me think that there is hardly anything divine in it anymore.)

I would like to center this post around ‘web inspiration’ a rather new term which has many possibilities of advancements and ramifications in different directions (and the way it gets corrupted by rippers and plagiarists). Before we get into this topic let me show you one of my works. A simple cover i did for my college magazine and the art that inspired me to do it(the one on the left is mine).

Well as you can see the better one is the original found from here .

First Question!.Is my art a rip of the other? The fact that I’m calling the other one ‘an original’ is itself an assertion of the fact that i borrowed a lot of ideas from ‘the time‘ by Nazan Dedeoglu. Borrowed? uh oh! I don’t know Nazan. Borrowing without his consent is stealing right? Assuming the above case to be true i rephrase my statement. I stole his art!. But then in my defense i have a sweet word which is manipulated by every known ripper artist in the world(i’m not one,in any way).

Inspiration .

Boy!Haven’t we always wondered what the difference between the words Inspiration and a Rip means.

Many websites have been on the lookout for Web rip off! On such site is pirated-sites.com.(check out their more believable Flickr account with screen shots) Obviously the hapless culprits tried to model upon the the original site,(starting from pure inspiration), slowly accumulating a lot of the parent website features and finally transforming into a truly fascinating rip of the former. Most of the websites under attack are from people in the same circle of involvement, say Web design studios. The best part is the style how the original creators write about their ripper counterparts! They go commenting from ’shameless f**king @#$%@’ to ‘nice try buddy,better luck next time. While most of the counterfeits are dismissed off with a ‘disgraceful act’ tag, the clicks to the uri keep increasing dramatically, (increasing the link popularity dumbo!). The ripped sites are usually replaced with more impressive original creations in very short time.

Inspiration usually is accepted if it is about using the styles of the original artist in a different way with his/her flavor mixed in it to produce an completely different art.Whoosh!Thats all i can squeeze out of me. Besides it all depends on what the original artist thinks about his alleged rip off art.

FOOTNOTES:

1)My art was not used in any profitable venture or my college magazine( ,they rejected it because it was too complex a concept of time!) or was not sold to any enterprising group. Besides i still think it is an inspired art. Oops there we go again!…

Welcome to ‘The Upward Autodidact‘ with a new style, renewed vigor and … and err.. well..

Thats it.

Version 3 of my blog.

I have  been long thinking of a redesign for this blog which is going to complete its maiden year in service coming August. Apart from a brief dormant period, I have tried my best to keep it alive. Version 3 features a distinct wordpress blog with orange-yellow hues blended to present a soothing portal. (Can’t you see it?). I have borrowed a lot of style classes from the Halcyon theme of Opdyne including the huge meta section. It is a unique presentation of the common ’sidebar section’ of wordpress blogs. I liked it very much so i decided to add it my personal blog.

Previous Concepts

I did work on certain other themes too.

The first one was inspired from a screenshot i had in a folder called ‘Web Inspiration’. A unique block like theme with shredded down elements. I tried to model on that but in the end it turned out weird.

And yes the lunacy in a different color.

Deperate and tired the autodidact searched for more inspiration. Clicks after Clicks…after lots of CRT radiation and sleepless nights(I’m exaggerating here!). I messaged my friend Dio about my tale. He emphasized on simple, readable and usable design. Replenished with some good advice, I made another one.

but then it felt too simple. I promised this theme i would return back someday and made the theme what you see now.

The first comment on it was that it looked ‘gay’ ish (The wildest sense of the word) .maybe.. but then i love this theme. Its quite a feat for me.

This time i stumbled and fell.

The last time i saw the periodic table on the blackboard it wasn’t like this.

Cool,intelligent..yes,i am more concerned how the dude arranged those blocks in a web page.Impressive!

I sure would like to buy a poster of this and make my chemistry teacher scratch his head.

Vestec CMS still needs a good logo.A very immature developer,myself, had been experimenting on different kinds of styles and shapes.This one came out very well

But the problem is it turned out to be quite similar to the ‘famous’ blogging software,Wordpress.Now that may lead to some concerns.

But still i thought the logo was worth displaying.

Here is another of my creations!A very warm,welcoming blog design!I don’t know about the back end coding,but maybe i will release this as a wordpress theme later.

Well another of my accidental discoveries…or should i call it an invention?

Whatever be it,i’m going to show you how to make denim/jeans material with photoshop 7.

Step 1:Create a blank document with any dimensions and fill it with #2E3233 color.(Layer>>New Fill Layer>>Solid Color).

Step 2:Make a new brush using with the image given below.

Copy the image to a new PSD and select it.Then(Edit>>Define Pattern).Name it Stripes
Step 3:Create a new pattern layer.(Layer>>New Fill Layer>>Pattern) using the pattern we have just created ,”Stripes”;Scale:19%

Step 4:With this new pattern layer,selected open its blending properties.

Apply,”Dissolve” to the General Blending with opacity 100%

That’s it.!your own denim material.Apply it anywhere.

Now that the internet is on a turbulent ramification in all directions,many old concepts are being reiterated on the basis of developing technology.One such concept is Desktop.Yes desktop..the place where you have your ‘My computer’,'Recycle Bin’ and many more of your tools you need to survive in this advanced period of time.What about this desktop?You may ask..Nothing has really happened to it nor am i going to critique some new widgets or applications.The concept of desktop has been refurnished to an online adaptation.Online Desktops..Webtops.David Bouley explains it well in the home page of EyeOS.

Imagine being able to sit down at any ordinary computer in an Internet cafe or public library, start up the resident web browser and access your personal desktop - along with your applications, messages, and information - with a click of your mouse button. Then, when you’re done, you simply close the web browser to have all of the documents you’ve just worked on safely stored on your remote server, leaving nothing on the computer you’ve just been working on. This is the goal of the mobile desktop and operating system called eyeOS.

EyeOS is one such website described as “the Open Source Web Operating System.”..Open source hmm..Absolutely a FREE zone,Guys!!.You can check its live demo here .

The term ‘webtop’ is said to be coined in 1996 and is also known as ‘network oriented desktop’.The topic being new to me lead me to an unexpected array of vast web based applications.To name a random one.Writely,The Web Word Processor,which though is related only to documents is impressive.What sucked me into this was when a friend suggested to me about ‘Desktop two‘.A site which offers the users the look and feel of a desktop.So does eyeOS post an impressive version of a webtop tagged under freeware.Desktop two offers upto 1GB in the free account.

The features include

• Address Book
• Blog
• E-Mail
• Global Settings
• Hard Drive
• IM
• Programs
• Mp3 player
• Office suite

That’s a lot right.Wait till you hear the rest.The latest entity in web development,Ajax,creates a new class of such webtops know as online Ajax desktops.You should have come across small sites that allow you to tag,bookmark and arrange your contacts,favourites etc right?.But you always found it to be hard organising all these information.That’s when such webtops come in handy.
Dion Hinchcliffe classifies the features of Ajax Desktops as

1. One Stop - Centralized online consumption of content and services
2. Accessible Anywhere - Roaming accessibility from anywhere with Web connectivity
3. All Your Data - Easy integration of most existing information sources including e-mail, calendars, bookmarks, news, blogs,pictures, etc.
4. Engaging, Fun, Fast - Rich, interactive experiences that match native software
5. A Platform that Grows And Evolves - Open platform for in-browser third-party software add-ons (Live.com’s Gadgets and Pageflakes’ Community Flakes)
6. Real Software Not Just Data - Increasing integration with Web 2.0 software applications like word processors, messaging, and wikis, plus rich Javascript widgets
7. Intelligent Consumption - Ad-hoc, decentralized, user guided content filtering and mashup creation.

Protopage,PageFlakes,Netvibes,Live are some of the more popular webtops available.Cosmopod,Goowy are also variations that are worth checking.

Java Comes up with a site called java desktop community to promote its GUI support.Sun Microsystems introduced the Java Web Start framework e in 2001. It provides the most essential feature for a Webtop.JNLP is the protocol Web Start uses for this purpose.Anyway,The concept of desktops has definitely evolved.Whether my computer will be running on a pure web based operating

system ..hmm..A probable development in the coming years.Maybe..As all speculations regarding the future ends,I too rely on Mr Time to tell me the future.I leave with some screenshots from desktoptwo.com