http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:thespook&section=today deviantART RSS for by:thespook en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:46:57 PDT deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-lg.png http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25872871/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25872871/ Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:45:53 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25825509/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25825509/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:48:19 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25190917/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25190917/ Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:30:16 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25134664/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25134664/ Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:44:18 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25065979/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25065979/ Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:47:28 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25023584/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/25023584/ Fri, 29 May 2009 21:37:38 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24922482/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24922482/ Sun, 24 May 2009 10:53:17 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24900074/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24900074/ Sat, 23 May 2009 00:44:22 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24851989/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24851989/ Wed, 20 May 2009 06:55:05 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24780774/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24780774/ Sat, 16 May 2009 04:06:44 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24747351/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24747351/ Thu, 14 May 2009 00:48:30 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24655705/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24655705/ Fri, 08 May 2009 17:24:42 PDT Stylish skins => User stylesStraight after I published my original journal questioning the name change from deviantART.com skins to Stylish skins I shot off a note to ^2dazed and $Moonbeam13, and found out why the gallery was renamed. It was so obvious I felt stupid for not thinking of it - the newly created deviantART Skins > Journal category was an aweful lot like deviantART.com skins, so to save confusion it had to be changed. Fair enough We've agreed upon calling it User Styles instead of Stylish skins though. I'm sure you'll agree that's even more appropriate than deviantART.com skins, as they're not always skins in the traditional sense. ]]> `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24607678/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24607678/ Tue, 05 May 2009 18:58:54 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24584668/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24584668/ Mon, 04 May 2009 13:57:17 PDT deviantart skins > journal you'll see the install buttons below the preview images, and the EULA that pops up when you add a skin. The EULA, while written in clumsy legalese, is nothing scary; it's basically laying out what has been an unspoken agreement anyhow. The only point that I think needs revising is point 5 - You may not grant permission to any other person to use the Skin Content, even as modified, nor may you export the Skin Content when used under this Agreement in any fashion to any other locations on the World Wide Web unless the Skin Content is served by equipment under the control of deviantART.See, unless just throws a spanner in the works right there. Is that saying, seriously, that if the Skin Content is served by dA's servers, people can give permission for other people to use our skins? ...So, hotlinking is okay? I'm not trying to get people all worked up and drama, as it's quite obvious what they're shooting for, but yeah, just needs some clarification. In your new journal page you'll see the new interface. There's a button to open a skin selection window, and if you open the options tab you'll find the header/css/footer fields (not sure why it's not header/footer/css, or css/header/footer) and the option to save the current skin. This is neat, as you can use it to switch between commonly used journal skins - something I do often. I can't seem to submit to the new dA Related > deviantart skins > journal category, as it keep throwing up a 'cannot parse file' error. I think it's a permissions thing though, it'll probably start working when they start beta testing this (if they do.)update: IT'S ALIVE! I wasn't using the correct format (check the comments below for the beta testers forum links) - I wouldn't install it yet though. While dA successfully detected and stored the images linked to in the CSS, the image of the picture is actually an img tag in the footer. This means while all the other images are now stored by dA, that image is still linked to my server, so I need to update my code first. updatery: I've taken it down while I work on modifying it slightly to work better with the new system. updatereded: resubmitted it as a new deviation, with fixed HTML/CSS - go geddit!The re-branding of 'deviantART.com skins' => 'Stylish Skins' One thing that's really annoyed me though is their re-branding of the site skins to Stylish skins. I know practically everyone that uses the site skins applies them with Stylish in Firefox, but they don't have to. IE can use user stylesheets! Opera can too, even Safari. These things we make, these user styles, they aren't written FOR Stylish, it's just CSS, Stylish is just the most popular way of applying them. The gallery description even makes it sound like Stylish is the only way to use them - "Skins that will modify the appearance of the deviantART.com website using the Stylish plugin" Back when the deviantART.com Skins category was created, you wanna know what it almost was instead? It was almost going to be under Application Skins for deviantSkin, `bluespeed9's Firefox extension I argued the same thing back then, as I do now for Stylish: I didn't start writing user styles for deviantSkin, it's just CSS, there's many different ways to install them on many different browsers. They're independent from the applications that might use them. And as we've seen now with deviantSkin, something else has come along that does it better and has become more popular. What's going to happen in the future, if Firefox makes user styles part of the interface by default, as the other browsers do? Don't get me wrong, I love Stylish. But it's a dumb move. ]]> `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24508257/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24508257/ Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:02:37 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24489837/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24489837/ Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:27:06 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24455509/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24455509/ Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:50:45 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24420849/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24420849/ Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:08:33 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24390303/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24390303/ Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:08:46 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24359759/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24359759/ Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:38:08 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24353936/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24353936/ Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:50:51 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24352180/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24352180/ Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:12:45 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24316652/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24316652/ Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:40:00 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24298326/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24298326/ Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:55:49 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24228685/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24228685/ Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:39:23 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24218685/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24218685/ Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:22:44 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24169360/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24169360/ Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:02:06 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24105050/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24105050/ Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:28:20 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24065142/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24065142/ Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:48:59 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24051700/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24051700/ Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:27:58 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24017237/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/24017237/ Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:21:08 PDT sup,.mcb-body>sup{font-size:inherit!important;line-height:inherit!important}.ccomment .text-ii>sup:after,.mcb-body>sup:after{content:"";font-size:9px;opacity:.5}.ccomment .text-ii>sub,.mcb-body>sub{font-size:13px;line-height:15px}.ccomment .text-ii>sub:after,.mcb-body>sub:after{content:"";font-size:9px;opacity:.5}It wont work in every situation, ie if people use the tags for good rather than evil, well, the CSS above can't tell the difference, but it does add a little note to let you know when small text has been undone. I was thinking of making it revert to small when the comment area is hovered over, but... I hate when stuff jiggles around. I wrote this for myself, if you want, go and use it, but I'm not going to maintain it. ]]> `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23978126/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23978126/ Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:16:29 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23960371/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23960371/ Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:33:56 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23892274/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23892274/ Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:27:01 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23888897/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23888897/ Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:32:45 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23838316/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23838316/ Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:58:04 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23820807/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23820807/ Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:02:33 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23784181/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23784181/ Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:22:48 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23772548/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23772548/ Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:33:09 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23722854/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23722854/ Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:26:52 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23622096/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23622096/ Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:01:30 PDT `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23521306/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23521306/ Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:37:11 PST Suggestions > Categories - and what at first was going to be my comment became so long I decided to finally post my thoughts on this topic as a journal. How long? Well, check the time I posted this journal, and compare it to the time I posted the comment in their journal. Right, so, the topic being, dA's Category system. Or specifically, in this case, how I think dA's Category system has outlived it's usefulness and needs to be replaced with a tagging system. I'm full-on serious about this; I hate the category system.oh. and just a reminder. since past journals have taught me so, a disclaimer. I've been using deviantart since august 2001. I'm not some random disgruntled newb. My voice may come across as sarcastic and abrasive. It is. It's an indication that I'm passionate about what I'm writing about. I prefer to show, rather than tell, who I am, and what sort of character I have. But, if you just tuned in, a single random journal is not a fair exhibit to judge me by. So. Feel free to talk about the ideas I express here. But don't judge me until you know me better. Or all hope is lost. I would have put this at the end, but by this point, there's already a higher word count than people are used to reading in the journals on dA When dA was young, and small, it had but a handful of categories - none of them with any sub categories. As time went on, and the work being submitted was more varied and of a greater number, they added sub categories to cater for the different types of work and for ease of browsing. Up till a point, all is well and good.But as time goes on, the category system will prove to be the problem itself, not what categories there are. GMs have to be on their toes, constantly assessing their galleries to tell when new categories are needed. Too many categories makes a mess, but not enough makes an equal mess. Even worse, getting new categories put in is like pulling teeth sometimes. When I was GD of Resources, along with `bleedsopretty, we spent some serious time working on a comprehensive overhaul of the Resources gallery. So far, only Tutorials has seen the update it so sorely needed - and that was years ago now. Meanwhile, deviants are forced to put their work into categories that don't suit them properly. I remember back in the day, before there was a place for Photoshop brushes, we stuck them in the Textures gallery. Today, we're essentially still doing the same thing, only we have a wider selection of wrong categories to choose from (though Photoshop Brushes is still lacking sub categories, years later.)And I'm still waiting to see Resources get the overhaul it needs. Wait, that's - 'Resources and Stock Images' - now. Woohoo for that line-breaking clari-fucking-cation. Anyhow. My point is, categories that need to exist, don't, and categories that don't need to exist, do. And the process for rectifying either, is ridiculous. So. My suggested solution, is... drum roll please... TAGS. OMFG how happy I would be if dA dropped this arcane, cumbersome, category system, and replaced it with a tagging system.TAGS kick some serious ass. Instead of waiting for the bureaucracy to sort it's shit out, people could just choose, for instance, to submit a cosplay photo and tag it with 'cosplay photo comicon09 zelda videogame fanart'. That way, people who look up the fanart tag will see it, people who look up the cosplay tag will see it... and people who look up VIDEOGAME COSPLAY will find it. It's like freakin magic, and could not be done with categories, EVAR. Search lets me kinda pretend dA has tagging, but so long as keywords are this apparently pointless field on the submission form, it's not going to work the same as a full on tagging system, supported by dA's interface.With tags, the category structure evolves on it's own, and makes for a very organic browsing experience. Now. If your response is that the Category System is perfect: you're an idiot. If your response is that tagging is stupid, and wouldn't work: you're an idiot. It works just fine, wait, MOAR than just fine: AWESOMELY, on sites like flickr and delicious. If you ask what will happen to dA's sacred whatever-million deviations that have been submitted: good question. I'd suggest they be auto-tagged with their current category structure Resources>Textures>Misc would become 'resource texture'. Find me a better solution. Some categories, like 'urban & rural' might cause problems, but a solution can be found - this single problem on it's own doesn't justify abandoning tags altogether. Maybe the use the url part for 'urban and rural', 'civilization'? Not the best word, I admit. If you ask, what will happen... ]]> `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23519668/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23519668/ Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:54:55 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23170047/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23170047/ Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:06:56 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23114611/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23114611/ Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:51:41 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23074629/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23074629/ Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:43:59 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23053556/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/23053556/ Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:29:47 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22995571/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22995571/ Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:02:00 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22992351/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22992351/ Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:30:54 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22893951/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22893951/ Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:12:43 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22892453/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22892453/ Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:07:15 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22871116/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22871116/ Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:31:02 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22800452/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22800452/ Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:28:18 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22785292/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22785292/ Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:35:09 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22633953/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22633953/ Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:16:46 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22612534/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22612534/ Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:00:32 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22498692/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22498692/ Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:04:48 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22035843/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/22035843/ Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:26:50 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/21916775/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/21916775/ Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:08:12 PST `thespook http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/21673898/ http://thespook.deviantart.com/journal/21673898/ Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:13:51 PST `thespook