BRUSCA

Hints and tips on Designing for Web 2.0 Websites

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Design, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash

A Web 2.0 site is supposed to charm its visitors with its simplicity and ease of use. So, if you’re designing a Web 2.0 site, remember it has to be very interactive and user friendly.

Read on at HubPages

Fixing Panoramic Images with Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware in 5 Minutes

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Design, Nikon D90, Panorama, Photography

The new Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill is a masterpiece. If you are in any kind of design or photography field it is my humble opinion that you should upgrade just for that alone.

Visit my HUB for the full article.

A New Twend

Posted by Brusca under Animation, Design, Entertainment, Film making, Internet TV, Nikon D90, Portfolio, Social Networking, TwendyTV, Video, flickr

You have to love the freedom of creating on the interwebs people. From interviewing successful business owners to animating lego or geeks talking about… what geeks talk about. I give you TwendyTV. I with the help of some pretty amazing friends hope to grow TwendyTV into a hip little internet TV network of shows that will one day also integrate into the TV network as seamlessly as switching between cable TV channels. So look out ABC’s of the world, look out NBC, CBS and all the big boys… ha ha… baby steps, ease up Bruce.

Why Twendy?
When I was traveling around Tanzania in June 2009 there was one Swahili word that really stood out, Twende (Let’s Go). After arriving back I felt inspired to start working on an idea for a travel blog called Twende, but this soon turned into grander ideas of creating multiple shows and an internet TV network. One thing lead to another, a tweak of the word to accommodate a grander theme and voila, TwendyTV. If anything it’s a bit of a play on the word Trendy, but the W I feel also gives it a slight TWITTER slang. I have felt for a long time that TV networks and internet content will eventually merge into a seamless experience, so why not start something now before it the BIG BANG happens. What I also love about this project is that there are no boundaries, no limits, this is completely open to the world. Hopefully our regular TV shows will end up the same way, being released to the world instead of restricted to one country then filtering out in time to other countries. Fat chance of that happening right now, but you never know.

www.twendy.tv

TwendyTV Channels
Initially we were to launch with 4 shows, but could only manage 3 to start on the current time restraints. We are currently working on the before mentioned travel show and also a conservation style show called Evergreen.

Current Channels

• Twendy Town
• Twendy Business
• The Geek That Was

Most Popular Episodes

• Brad Sugars of Action Coach
• Hamish Edwards of Xero
• Zombie Apocalypse
• LOST in Twendy Town

While we have launched and everything is GO, there is still plenty of work and progress to be made. I do hope you enjoy what we have to offer and there is plenty more to come. We also have some behind the scenes photos and footage, enjoy! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and or facebook.

HTML5 Video Playback…

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Apple, Design, Dreamweaver, Flash, Video, iPhone

I just finished up watching the latest Diggnation and was quite surprised to hear Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose claim there was no reason to use the flash video playback anymore. As you can imagine I was astounded at this notion. Video playback through the Flash player on the web has been a major part of my focus for more than 5 years now and the next best options are not even close.

I for one have not yet delved into building HTML5 pages yet, so I thought I would do a quick test. As a quick test I spent 5 minutes adding a video tag to an HTML page and linked a video to it, excellent! Fast and easy, what everybody likes. So I tested this on Safari first, knowing this browser seems to support HTML5 the best, and no worries there. Next Firefox 3.6, see the resulting screen shot below. Turns out FF supports the video tag but not the H.264 codec. So because of this you cannot use alternative content, like say the flash plugin just in case your browser does not support that specific tag. You just get a big grey box. Check out how the video presents in your browser http://www.brucelevick.com/html5.html.

So without even getting to the most commonly used browser on the market there is already a big issue of the different codecs supported in different browsers (Flash plays the same codecs no matter what the  browser), with no control that I can see if one of these codecs is not supported. As for IE, the most commonly used browser, no support whatsoever for the video tag. Yes I certainly should ditch my Flash video playback (sarcasm if you didn’t pick up on it.) . I will say one thing that at least with browsers that have no support you can implement alternative content. Until IE supports some other codec the others don’t, then HTML5 video playback is going to be a nightmare to manage.

Check out how your browser measures up. http://html5test.com/

Also check out the “limited” attributes the HTML5 video tag has. http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_video.asp. Don’t even get me started on the comparisons to the Flash video functions.

Sorry for the rant, I just find this very frustrating to hear industry geeks make ridiculously uninformed statements, and that the (video playback) wheel is being reinvented so to speak. Lets not go back 10 years and go through that same teeth pulling revolution we went through 10 years ago. I can’t go through that client heartache implementing elements working on one browser and not the other, not again. HTML5 video playback… not for a while.

Get your fill on the Desktop

Posted by Brusca under Design, Nikon D90, Photography, flickr

I have converted a few of my favourite photos into desktops. I’ll throw a few more out there when I get the chance. Here a three very different subjects for you to choose from. Camera of choice is the Nikon D90, Enjoy!

Andy Art Revisited

Posted by Brusca under Animation, Design

So back in April I posted Blast from the past, which was a post in regards to Andy Evans, who provided the web world with a plethora of FREE animations, icons and tutorials in the 90′s way before it was cool to do so on his website called Andyart.com (Andy’s Art Attack, now Scream Design). In that post I mentioned I had purchase a disc from his website. Well on that disc is a complete copy of his website, well almost complete, it is missing the portfolio which he explained why in that section. I got some good feedback on that previous post so I decided to upload a copy of the site for everyone who knew Andy or anyone interested in Web Design and Web Development in general to travel back in time and take a look at the old site.

Now before you all jump on me for posting this, I have made some serious attempts to track Andy down to gain permission to post this, but with no luck. So Andy if you happen to stumble upon this post and you’re not happy about it, get in touch and I will gladly take it down. If you like the post get in touch anyway, would love to catch up. Here is the website.

Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/brusca

Trade Secret Cards

Posted by Brusca under Design, Nikon D90, Photography

A few weeks back I read a blog entry from Chase Jarvis, about new business size cards for sale. But not any old cards, they are Trade Secret cards. One side shows a photo and the backside of the card explains how the shot was made. Turns out Chase is giving all the profits they make back into the photographic community. Pretty awesome I thought. So I didn’t hesitate, these cards are gold and I even picked up a similar pack from Strobist.

Chase Jarvis Trade Secret Cards

Strobist Trade Secret Cards

Recent Projects

Posted by Brusca under Design, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photography, Tanzania, Video

Currently I am continuing to develop the Australia Zoo TV project. This is a very exciting project and has a lot of potential to do well and delivers some great video content, spreading the message of Conservation. www.australiazoo.tv. Developing the website, filming the Rescue Unit, editing and producing the episodes has been a huge challenge, but one I have fully enjoyed.

Carpet Python

Another recent project is for a very good cause. Humanidee (www.humanidee.org). I met Dee through the fodder of Twitter after my trip to Tanzania. Dee has set up Humanidee to help people in need all over the world. Currently Dee is in Tanzania volunteering and helping out The Tanzania Albino Centre in Arusha.

Humanidee.org