Freelance Projects, Design and Programming Tutorials
Today we have a special Quick Tip as requested by one of our readers. Learn about Adobe Illustrators Align Panel with this comprehensive guide to Illustrator’s Align panel and its functions.
Continue reading “Quick Tip: Align and Distribute in Adobe Illustrator”
Want to get into game audio? This is a must-read. West Latta continues his series on getting into the Game Audio business. Today he talks about the game industry as a business, and introduces you to the pillars of the game industry—development studios, publishers, outsourcing—explaining how this can aid in your quest for a fruitful career.
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When I first decided that I wanted a career in the game industry, my industry knowledge didn’t extend far beyond the Playstation 2 console in my living room. I knew the names of a few game developers and publishers, I knew the names of the franchises I enjoyed, and knew a few famous game designers and composers whose work I admired. I also knew that a career in the industry would require a much deeper knowledge of the inner-workings of game development and publishing, and so I set out to learn as much as I could, even the stuff that didn’t really seem ‘relevant’ to my immediate goals.
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In today’s Quick Tip, we are teaming up with our sister site Aetuts+ to learn how we can use Adobe Soundbooth to isolate the audio we want and replicate some of the functions that Trapcode Soundkeys offers. Anyone with the Adobe Master Collection or Production Premium can follow along.
File size: 56.6 MB
Each week we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.
Imagine a friend wanted to get into audio, and asked you about the best software to get started with. What advice would you give him?
Are you new to Photoshop? Have you been trying to teach yourself the basics of Photoshop but have found the amount of educational material available on the net a bit overwhelming? As the world’s #1 Photoshop site, we’ve published a lot of tutorials. So many, in fact, that we understand how overwhelming our site may be to those of you who may be brand new to Photoshop. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start working in Photoshop.
Photoshop Basix, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak includes 25 short video tutorials, around 5 – 10 minutes in length that will teach you all the fundamentals of working with Photoshop. Today’s tutorial, Part 26: The Preset Manager is a bonus tutorial in this series and will explain how to use Photoshop’s preset manager to help you manage your collection of Photoshop brushes, gradients, swatches, and more. Let’s get started!
Proposals to give the public free shares in part-nationalised banks RBS and Lloyds are backed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
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Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi accuses Nato states of murder, two days after a close aide and members of his family were killed in an air strike.
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The FDA removed silicone implants from the market from 1992-2006 over safety concerns Silicone breast implants are relatively safe despite frequent complications and a small increased risk of the disease lymphoma, US drug regulators have said.
In a new report, the Food and Drug Administration said the risks were well enough understood that prospective patients could make informed decisions.
But it found as many as one in five breast augmentation patients had the implants removed within 10 years.
The US approved the implants in 2006 after a long absence from the market.
On Wednesday, the FDA released a 63-page report on the safety of the silicone gel-filled implants that compiled studies performed by the two companies approved to manufacture the the products.
Approximately five to 10 million women across the world have breast implants, the FDA said.
In 2006, the FDA approved two brands of silicone gel implants for women over 22, Allergan’s Natrelle implants and MemoryGel implants from manufacturer Johnson and Johnson’s Mentor division.
Silicone implants had been off the market since 1992, when the FDA removed them amid concerns about implant rupture and silicone leakage.
The agency allowed saline-filled implants to remain on the market, and allowed limited distribution of silicone implants for mastectomy patients and other cases of medical necessity.
According to the new report, as many as one in five breast augmentation patients and half of breast reconstruction patients had to have the implants removed within 10 years.
Studies found no association between the silicone implants and connective tissue disease, breast cancer, or reproductive problems, the FDA reported.
But they did find a “very small” increased risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
The most frequent complications from the implants included implant rupture, wrinkling, asymmetry, scarring, pain, and infection.
The report found that the risk of those local complications increases with time.
“Breast implants are not lifetime devices,” the FDA cautioned women. “The longer you have your implants, the more likely it will be for you to have them removed.”
But the agency also found that most women who had breast implants “report high levels of satisfaction with their body image and the shape, feel and size of their implants”.
“Despite frequent local complications and adverse outcomes, the benefits and risks of breast implants are sufficiently well understood for women to make informed decisions about their use,” the FDA concluded.
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Descendant’s of Captain Scott’s doomed Antarctic expedition mark a key anniversary
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Afghan forces are due to take over all security operations by 2014 US President Barack Obama is close to a decision on the size of his planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and is expected to speak on the issue on Wednesday.
“He’s finalising his decision. He’s reviewing his options,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
The US has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Mr Obama has said troop withdrawals will start in July.
But there are deep divisions in the US over the size and speed of the pullout.
News of Mr Obama’s deliberations comes a day after departing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the US was holding “outreach” talks with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It was the first time the US had acknowledged such contact.
Mr Obama is expected to make a public speech on Afghanistan on Wednesday, unnamed senior White House officials told US media.
US military leaders are thought to favour a very gradual reduction in troops but other advisers advocate a more significant decrease in the coming months.
Attention is expected to focus on how many troops will leave Afghanistan in July, but analysts say Mr Obama’s plans for the future of the 30,000 surge forces he sent in 2009 in the country will also be closely scrutinised.
Earlier this month, Mr Gates said at Nato headquarters that “substantial progress” was being made on the ground in Afghanistan.
But he argued that “these gains could be threatened if we do not proceed with the transition to Afghan security lead in a deliberate, organised and co-ordinated manner”.
“Even as the United States begins to draw down in the next month, I assured my fellow ministers there will be no rush to the exits on our part.”
But some believe security gains mean a more rapid withdrawal of US forces is practical.
There is also growing political pressure for a significant withdrawal.
A bipartisan group of 27 US senators sent Mr Obama a letter last week pressing for a shift in strategy.
“Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops,” the senators wrote. “The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits.”
While many Afghans accept that American troops are needed to defeat the Taliban, correspondents say that they resent their presence in the country.
The war is in its 10th year, civilian casualties are at an all-time high, and correspondents say the population has grown weary of the fighting. Insurgents are to blame for most of the deaths, but killings by foreign troops generate widespread outrage.
The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.
It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.
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A look back at Sonic the Hedgehog as he turns 20
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Dentist practises drilling on virtual reality ‘patient’
To the high-pitched sound of numerous drills, students get to work removing a decayed tooth.
Their patients need not be afraid though, as these want-to-be dentists are practising on 3D virtual-reality jaws, not the real thing.
The 14 work stations lined up in a lab at Europe’s largest dental school, King’s College London, use a technology that allows the student to learn how much pressure they should use when drilling.
The device, called HapTEL (haptics in technology-enhanced learning), received the excellence in education innovation award at the Medical Futures ceremony earlier this month.
The project is a collaboration between dentists from Guy’s Hospital, technical developers from Reading University and Birmingham City University, and e-learning professionals from King’s College London.
How it works
The virtual-reality jaw opens wide for a student to develop his skills. The drill is based on haptics, a tactile feedback technology through which the user can sense touch and force in a virtual-reality environment.
The hub at the centre of the work station is based on that used in the gaming industry.
A foot pedal, recycled from an old dental chair, allows the student to operate the drill.
The work station lets the student feel the difference between drilling hard enamel and softer decayed tooth and helps them learn how much pressure is needed.
Prof Margaret Cox, who led the project, says: “When the students first learn, they lean very heavily on the drill and go straight through the tooth to the gum – which would be disastrous in a real patient. They also take ages. This allows the student to learn both skill and speed.”
The student wears glasses that produce a 3D jaw on the computer screen. Panels on the edge of the glasses, and a head tracking camera, allow the jaw image to move relative to the student’s head position, allowing them the real-world experience of examining the teeth from different angles.
Sadhvik Vijay, a second year student, says: “When you first come into dentistry everything is very alien to you, the way you position your hand, the tiny movements that you need to perform procedures – it is difficult.
“This allows you to repeat a task over and over again, it gets ingrained into your muscle memory, and improves your manual dexterity.”
Stepping up the game
“ If we wanted, when a student drilled through the gum we could have blood pouring out. But we have to focus on what the dentists want us to do first.”
Professor Margaret Cox King’s College London
Students start by learning to remove a small bit of decayed material from a single tooth. The tasks then become more complex until they are removing decayed material hidden by healthy enamel set in a whole jaw.
Once the task is finished, the student can play back a video to examine their technique and they are told how much decayed versus healthy tooth they have removed.
“It is quite exciting as the students get competitive and discuss it with each other, ‘I removed only 1% of healthy tooth, how much did you remove?’ It gets them to really think what they are aiming for,” says Prof Cox.
“If the student has difficulty they can look back at the pressure and angle they used to find out why they went wrong. The device has taught them to become more self-critical and that skill is just as important as the manipulation.”
The cost of teeth
Traditionally, students have developed their dexterity on a “phantom head”, a mannequin with plastic teeth.
Prof Cox says the advantage the hapTEL work station has over this is instant analysis and re-enactment of the task, as well as being able to practise on a tooth again and again.
One hapTEL device costs £10,000, compared with the £30,000- £40,000 price of a “phantom head” chair.
The more traditional way of learning – plastic teeth and mannequins In addition to this are the plastic teeth. Those with all the different densities required for teaching cost £16 each.
“One student can get through a plastic tooth in five minutes, which is then thrown out. It comes to hundreds of thousands of pounds, just for the teeth which we have to buy.
“With the hapTEL, students just press a button and a new tooth appears – it doesn’t cost anything more,” says Prof Cox.
From class to clinic
To become a dentist takes five years. Alongside the manipulation and clinical skills, the student learns the theory and how to communicate with a patient.
In the middle of their second year they get their “licence to cut”, where they work with real patients under the guidance and advice of a qualified dentist. Their patients are volunteers, who receive free healthcare for their bravery.
Before injecting a patient, students master the technique on rubber, dead animals and then each other.
Prof Cox would like to see the work stations help develop this skill.
She says: “It would mean more work to the haptic device to produce the tensions experienced when you put a needle in and when you pull it out – to which the skin still hangs on.”
She adds: “We would also like to use it for simulating crown preparations. This would require the feel of a different drill head.
“If we wanted, when a student drilled through the gum we could have blood pouring out. But we have to focus on what the dentists want us to do first.”
Currently the work station is a development system, with each unit having to be made and calibrated individually.
During lab time technicians are available to help with software glitches.
It is hoped that eventually it will become a plug-and-play system allowing students to practise in the library or for dentists to brush up on their skills at home.
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Are Australians prepared for a closer cultural relationship?
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There is evidence the children were thrown down the well after the adults The remains of 17 bodies found at the bottom of a medieval well in England could have been victims of persecution, new evidence has suggested.
The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation.
The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe.
They were discovered in 2004 during an excavation of a site in the centre of Norwich, ahead of construction of the Chapelfield Shopping Centre. The remains were put into storage and have only recently been the subject of investigation.
Seven skeletons were successfully tested and five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family.
DNA expert Dr Ian Barnes, who carried out the tests, said: “This is a really unusual situation for us. This is a unique set of data that we have been able to get for these individuals.
“I am not aware that this has been done before – that we have been able to pin them down to this level of specificity of the ethnic group that they seem to come from.”
The team has been led by forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, of the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anthropology and Human Identification.
History Cold Case: The Bodies in the Well will be on BBC Two at 2100 BST on Thursday 23 June 2011Professor Sue Black, Dr Xanthe Mallett and Professor Caroline Wilkinson will delve deeper into the mystery and attempt to recreate the faces of those found in the wellRead more about the programme Catch up on BBC iPlayer
Professor Black, who went to the Balkans following the Kosovo war – where her job was to piece together the bodies of massacred Kosovan Albanians – said this discovery had changed the direction of the whole investigation.
Regarding the nature of the discovery, Professor Black said: “We are possibly talking about persecution. We are possibly talking about ethnic cleansing and this all brings to mind the scenario that we dealt with during the the Balkan War crimes.”
Eleven of the 17 skeletons were those of children aged between two and 15. The remaining six were adult men and women.
“In terms of the brutality of the ethnic cleansing, it was thought women and children quite frankly weren’t worth wasting the bullets on,” added Professor Black.
“Pregnant women were bayoneted because that way you got rid of a woman because that wasn’t important and you got rid of the next generation because you didn’t want them to survive. So I know what sort of pattern I am looking for.”
Pictures taken at the time of excavation suggested the bodies were thrown down the well together, head first.
1066: The Norman Conquests open the way to Jewish immigation. The monarchy needs to borrow money and Christians are forbidden to lend money at interest. London, Lincoln and York become centres for substantial Jewish populations.
1100s: Resentment against the Jewish community grows over their perceived wealth and belief they killed Jesus. The “blood libels” – Jews are accused of the ritual murder of Christian children.
1190: Many Jewish people massacred in York. In Norwich they flee to the city’s castle for refuge. Those who stay in their homes are butchered.
1230s: Executions in Norwich after an allegation a Christian child was kidnapped.
1239: Edward I comes to the throne and enforces extra taxes on the Jewish community.
1290: Edward I expels the Jews en masse after devising a new form of royal financing using Christian knights to fill the coffers.
A close examination of the adult bones showed fractures caused by the impact of hitting the bottom of the well. But the same damage was not seen on the children’s bones, suggesting they were thrown in after the adults who cushioned the fall of their bodies.
The team had earlier considered the possibility of death by disease but the bone examination also showed no evidence of diseases such as leprosy or tuberculosis.
Giles Emery, the archaeologist who led the original excavation, said at first he thought it might have been a plague burial, but carbon dating had shown that to be impossible as the plague came much later.
And historians pointed out that even during times of plague when mass graves were used, bodies were buried in an ordered way with respect and religious rites.
Norwich had been home to a thriving Jewish community since 1135 and many lived near the well site.
Sophie Cabot, an archaeologist and expert on Norwich’s Jewish history, said the Jewish people had been invited to England by the King to lend money because at the time, the Christian interpretation of the bible did not allow Christians to lend money and charge interest. It was regarded as a sin.
So cash finance for big projects came from the Jewish community and some became very wealthy – which in turn, caused friction.
“There is a resentment of the fact that Jews are making money… and they are doing it in a way that doesn’t involve physical labour, things that are necessarily recognised as work… like people feel about bankers now,” said Ms Cabot.
The findings of the investigation represented a sad day for Norwich.
Ms Cabot added: “It changes the story of what we know about the community. We don’t know everything about the community but what we do know is changed by this.”
History Cold Case: The Bodies in a Wellwill be on BBC Two at 2100 BST on Thursday 23 June 2011 and afterwards in the UK onBBC iPlayer.
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Indian airline IndiGo buys the largest number of aircraft bought in a single order – 180 planes from Airbus.
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