Have you ever received a pdf document requiring your signature? I just figured this out today but, preview actually allows you to edit a pdf document and input your personal signature. I'm glad this worked because I was tired of having to go to Kinkos and pay just to use a fax machine. Who still does that? Here are the steps.

1. Open your pdf document. The preview program should be the first thing that pops up.
2. On the upper right corner are menus. Markup menu, rotate menu, edit menu and search menu. Select Edit Menu.
3. Another set of sub menus should pop up. These are found on the left hand side right under View, Zoom and Share. There are other menus you can select but, choose SIG (stands for signature).
4. Hit the drop down menu on SIG (which should be in blue indicating it's selected).
5. Select Manage Signatures.
6. The camera should now be on waiting for you to take a photo of your signature.
7. I would suggest to quickly take a white blank paper to write your signature on and then hold it in front of the camera. It will take a photo of your signature and make sure your signature is right above the blue line on the camera view. Don't forget to have the preview button selected if, it's not already done so automatically.
8. Check the signature (right side of the screen) to see if it shows. For this part I had to click the preview button on and off in order for mine to show up.
9. Once it captures your signature select ok or accept. Your signature should now be saved.
10. Go to the page where you want your signature placed. Here, select SIG menu again and drag your signature to where you want it placed. Voíla!

I found a great tutorial from here: http://9to5mac.com/2014/02/15/how-to-use-preview-to-put-signatures-on-pdfs-pages-documents-and-mail-messages/

Recently, I was approached for a project that required a 2 min max video of myself. My initial reaction was what the ****? I hate being in front of a camera and a whole 2 min.? What would I talk about? If that wasn't bad enough, I had 1 week to compile the video. This pretty much mean, 1 day for research, 1 day for filming, 1 day for compiling and development, 1-2 days of editing. Here are my initial steps.

1.) Research (DAY 1):

It pays to use this time to look for inspirations. Find the mood that you want to depict on the video. Do you want something bold and dark with a hint of sensuality, desire or lust? Or something simple, elegant, bright and fresh? Does your video need to be professional? Your options are endless. What helped me was researching on videos that I liked and found inspiring. The videos below are some examples that gave me ideas.

Also, use this time to figure out what you want to say in the video, where to film (indoors or outdoors) or what time in the day (morning, mid-day or night). All of these will depend on the type of video you want to create.


THE VOYEUR ISSUE TRAILER - XXXX MAGAZINE, "THE UNTITLED MAGAZINE" ISSUE 3 from XXXX MAGAZINE / THE UNTITLED MAG on Vimeo.

This video is the opposite of the Moiree trailer. It's bold, avant-garde and risky. Of course, I don't suggest you trespass or do anything crazy. These are just simple suggestions of styles that may help bring out ideas that could be incorporated in a video.

WORKING CLASS TRAILER from Billy Rood on Vimeo.
WORKING CLASS TRAILER from Billy Rood on Vimeo.

What I like about this trailer is the way they capture the stress behind the scenes of Fashion Shows. Base off the sound of the music, it takes the viewer in a different direction; Basically, it is a snippet of the un-glamorous side of a Fashion Show. There's this filtered frames and busy scenes that makes the video feel rigid.

 2.) Film Shooting (DAY 2): 

At this point, I had a creative direction in mind and filmed at places that I wanted to add in my video. Definitely, use this day to shoot at as many different locations as possible, if, you require it. Also, be very selective about the angles, focus, etc. At the end of the day, you want to be able to have as many good options to choose from once you compile your video.

Luckily, my friend who helped me film had a good camera. In addition, he knew how to work with the framing, come up with ideas on angles (side views, top view, etc.) and wasn't afraid to help me make changes if something didn't look right.  Once I was in the editing stage, I had so many good selections that it was tough to choose which ones I needed to take off within the 2min. time frame.

3.) Development Stage (DAY 3): 

The nitty gritty part of creating a video is editing. For some, it's easy and fun. However, doing it for the very first time I think, is very stressful. At first, I had no idea what program to use so, I used google to find the top best video editing program and I found Keynote to be the easiest to use for this time sensitive project.

Here are the features that I found useful.

+ A music library & the ability to add your own.
+ A selection of type effects
+ Templates
+ Easy to use window panels and layers.

Once you've imported all of your videos, I found that figuring out how to start and end the videos was the toughest decision for me. To me, setting a solid mood and style in the beginning helped me transition to the next part of my video story. While some videos will start fast and quick, others will gradually begin their story line by setting music or effects. What helped me was having a creative direction from the beginning. This is also the stage where, you'll go through your selection of frames that you want to add or not in your video. As I mentioned, I had a few good frames that I could've used in my video but, sadly it didn't make sense for my creative direction.

4.) Editing (Day 4&5):
After you've compiled your video. Sleep on it and come back the next day with fresh eyes. This always helps me get a better view of anything I design, provided that I have enough time to do so. At this stage, I usually will replay the video multiple times and fix everything. I check for sounds that are uneven, transitions that are not as smooth, again add and get rid of frames that I don't need or change music for something that fits best to my overall concept. At the end of the day, I will send out my compiled video to as many of my friends as possible who will give me truthful feedback. By doing this, it confirms to me what really needs changed.

To upload my videos, I normally use YouTube but, you can use others (i.e. Vimeo). In YouTube I send the link of my video to my friends; this way, they can easily view it via phone, email, facebook and/or in different browsers. After the feedback, I make the necessary changes and then, re-save for final output base off of the required way the video is suppose to be saved as. Did that make sense? Just make sure you save all your files the way the company or person who, you're creating the video for wants it saved out....whether it's in .mov (file extension), 100K (file size), etc.

You're probably beyond stressed at this point but, pat yourself in the back! Now go out and have fun!

Good morning friends! Congratulations for getting through #Monday. Let's see what #Tuesday has in store! pic.twitter.com/nNTLPjnMfg
— The Muse (@dailymuse) October 28, 2014

This quote was a little experiment of mine. I wanted to see how much of the embed tweets shows on the blogger platform. If you are a blogger user, then, you probably understand that the blogger platform has its limitations. Surprisingly, the tweet visually shows the embedded on a post well.

What the blogger platform doesn't show is the entire block of the tweet comment when you carry over the code into the new post. For example, you select a new post. Then copy and paste the embed tweet from the post on Twitter to your new post on blogger. The platform, in my experience, doesn't show the completed view unless you hit the update button. Tricky! I hate publishing something that isn't complete or to my standard. Anyway, you can mess with the code. I added the width on my own but, you can find more information here https://dev.twitter.com/web/embedded-tweets

http://css-tricks.com/the-css-box-model/

The CSS Box Model


The Default Width of Block Level Boxes

In blogger go to:

1. Layout > Add a gadget called "Label" > Save.
2. Go to Posts > select which posts will go to the tag category you like.
3. Don't forget to save!

http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44498&topic=12513&ctx=topic

http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50644&topic=12513&ctx=topic

InDesign Secrets | by David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion

View this entire InDesign Secrets course and more in the lynda.com Online Training Library®.

HTML5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSJd_0BkF0

The HTML/CSS:
1. Go to the API page: http://www.streampad.com/embed-api
2. Use this script: http://o.aolcdn.com/os_merge/?file=/streampad/sp-player.js&file=/streampad/sp-player-blogger.js&expsec=86400&ver=9&trackcolor=ffffff&bgcolor=000000” 3. Add CSS: see UNDER OPTIONS > http://www.streampad.com/embed-api

Great read in preparing your PSD files before they're coded.

1. Pixel Perfect is necessary:
"What you see is what you get". The PSD files you send to your developers, is what the developers will exactly interpret...meaning, make sure that every pixel, font or color better be what you want to use as intended. Here's more detail below:

The theory behind creating “pixel perfect” comps can be stated like this: To us coders, what we see is what you get! Most coders won’t interpret your designs for you. If you hand over a design comp with mis-matching margins, padding, font sizes, colors, etc., most developers will code it exactly as we see it – including the errors! This can mean lots of frustration and wasted time (and money) making revisions; so save yourself a headache and send out pixel-perfect comps if you want pixel-perfect coding.

Prior to sending your design to the coding phase, take an hour or two to review it with a fine toothed comb

The workflow solution here is simple – Prior to sending your design to the coding phase, take an hour or two to review it with a fine toothed comb. You don’t necessarily need to document your entire design (although some developers will require this), but taking care to make sure the following elements are exactly how you want them is crucial:

• Margins: All margins between elements should more or less match up. If you intend all margins to be 25px, make sure that they are exactly 25px inside the design.
• Padding: This is the same rule as with margins: make sure the padding inside elements is consistent with your intentions.
• Font usage: Make sure that every time you use a font in the design, it’s exactly what you want to be coded – if you want “all paragraph text to be 10px Arial with 18pt line height”, make sure that each paragraph in the design is set in this exact way.
• Colors: If you have an exact color in mind, whether it’s for a font, background, or anything else, make sure you use the exact hexadecimal value that you want used in coding.

• Dropdown Menus
• Link/Button Hover States
• Image Sliders
• Lightboxes
• Tooltips
• Form Elements