tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15640433495315802452012-02-16T19:10:41.986+08:00a weekly commentary from common man's perspective on what's hot on the digital scene.Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.comBlogger141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-43760604254597669192009-03-04T09:09:00.002+08:002009-03-04T09:12:09.098+08:00

So far 2009 has been a wicked year project-wise for me, and I guess for freelancers everywhere. I figure because of the recession more and more people are leaning towards outsourcing for competitive pricing.My site, http://www.mockup2markup.net, a PSD to CSS conversion service, has had lots of hits (not that high in conversion, though, ehehe), despite being still relatively low on the search

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-42379219090772944842009-02-28T23:56:00.000+08:002009-02-28T23:57:04.823+08:00

As a freelancer I always try to get my portfolio out to as many potential clients as possible, at the LOWEST cost possible. It used to be that investing in Google Adwords (yes, I've tried it) was THE way to get targetted traffic to your site, and consequently, to your services. Now, with the advent of social networking, reaching the potential clients is made easier than ever, provided you post

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-14767984842359456652008-10-19T19:13:00.004+08:002008-10-19T19:22:24.352+08:00

I just launched my new idea on the internet. It's a web service where I take people's web design mockups and convert them into valid CSS/XHTML pages for a fee. I call it Mockup 2 Markup.Apparently, I was not the first to think of it. Right now I'm ranking pretty low in google's page results since it's a new site, but eventually once I get my site Search Engine Optimized, I'll slowly climb to the

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-44203361589531681712008-04-11T11:37:00.002+08:002008-04-11T11:51:44.670+08:00

I just recently acquired my first laptop. It's a Toshiba Satellite M200, a basic entry-level laptop. It came with Windows Vista home Basic. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got it was to disable all of Vista's eye-candy, since they would only get in the way of any design or development work I planned on doing on the laptop (it only had 1Gig of RAM, and no dedicated Graphics Card). Next

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-45012498995278197722008-03-27T11:07:00.004+08:002008-03-27T11:41:04.930+08:00

About three months ago I shifted my focus from pure design to more of design implementation. I find it more challenging from a technical perspective to look at a flat mock-up and try to see how it will be implemented as valid CSS/XHTML.I don't know, I kind of enjoy it more than designing itself. Technical over Creative for me, I guess. I view a mock-up and place imaginary boundaries between page

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-36232766029730585042008-03-10T18:29:00.002+08:002008-03-10T18:43:33.614+08:00

If you have been wondering where I've been since my last post on this blog, worry not: SO HAVE I.I've been here, in front of my computer, busily creating designs for websites and website elements. I've also been spending time studying several web technologies, one of which is the CMS, short for Content Management System. I don't want to explain what that is, not in this post anyway, since it

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-30559798909969300512007-08-29T08:36:00.000+08:002007-08-29T11:58:14.748+08:00

I was just about to leave for work this morning when I caught a glimpse of my computer screen. My 3-year-old was busy playing his favorite game, Need For Speed: Carbon, and I noticed one amazing thing: this 3-year-old could drive! He took the turns just as I would, out-in-out, following an imaginary racing line. The thing is, he was winning races already! Excuse the exclamation marks, I'm simply

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-88724607965212461112007-08-28T09:27:00.000+08:002007-08-28T09:17:23.651+08:00

Yes, I have seen the eclipse happening tonight. Yesterday.No, I'm not clairvoyant, silly. I'm resourceful. I saw the lunar eclipse, as well as the 9/11/2007 partial solar eclipse (from the best viewing location in the world) and other future celestial phenomena using a software called Starry Night. It's a "planetarium" program that lets you see the night, or day, skies at any given instant (read:

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-15643534818466070232007-08-23T10:07:00.000+08:002007-08-23T09:58:18.305+08:00

During my severe asthma attack last weekend (yes, I'm asthmatic), I was under all kinds of medication and it kind of altered my mind for a moment (at least that's what I'd like to think, otherwise I'd have to believe that I really don't have a normal mind).It was in this altered state that a realization hit me: we should combine a touch screen film, a scanner, and a glove. Yes, a glove. The touch

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-78664867358390005552007-08-23T08:33:00.000+08:002007-08-23T08:29:37.163+08:00

I did some 3D conversions of some logos from my previous schools a while back, and I've decided to share them here, to gather some comments and see where I need to improve my work. Enjoy, and feel free to leave your critics and comments. Keep them coming!The first two are logos of Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology, and the bottom ones are of Philippine Science High

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-43615664167546563212007-08-16T14:28:00.000+08:002007-08-16T14:19:00.552+08:00

The persistent glitches on start-up should have sent warning bells ringing in my head, but that day I missed them completely. I was too preoccupied with trying to finish the project that I lost my common sense to stop, take a look around, and only move on when everything was absolutely safe. There was nothing that could distract me. Not the cold, not my aching eyes, and certainly not a few

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-24619071070948071182007-08-14T11:42:00.001+08:002007-08-14T11:47:41.119+08:00

Say goodbye to plain desktop wallpapers taken from your mobile phone. With a few steps, you can turn that dull desktop you'd like to cover up with apps into something you'd like to frame.Take a snapshot of your favorite subject or choose a photo from your huge library of cellphone/digital pictures. In my case, I chose this (not so glamorous) shot of myself to demonstrate how a dull, unattractive

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-76644100279918929242007-08-13T22:01:00.001+08:002007-08-14T07:58:50.767+08:00

The onslaught of modern cellular phone technology has brought with it a new breed of hobbyist photographers armed with nothing more than camera phones. Ever since the first camera phones came out, we've been seeing blogs and even entire web communities popping up on the internet built around photos taken using mobile phones.First generation camera phones produced pictures that were of very low

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1564043349531580245.post-41919355305697610702007-08-13T08:28:00.000+08:002007-08-13T16:11:31.314+08:00

With Apple's iPhone already out on the streets, it'll only be a matter of time before it falls in the hands of the people who will use it the most: the Filipino Rich Kid (PRK from this point on in the article).Yes, folks, you read right. If you're in the Philippines, do not expect the iPhone to show up on the hands of the business elite just yet; instead, watch for it in malls, universities, and

Thabet-Abbas C. Buriashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530982230772955164noreply@blogger.com0