eggBlog - The noble ramblings of an eggChop

ABC3D does what it says on the tin. A 3D version of the alphabet. Each page pops up a letter or two in a very ingenious way.

See the video below for the book in action. It can be bought from the publishers website @ http://us.macmillan.com/abc3d.

Good luck to anyone willing to give the Khmer alphabet a go… :S

Scottish brewery BrewDog is set to launch a beer of ‘nuclear’ proportions.

The beer, named Tactical Nuclear Penguin, weighs in at a whopping 32% alcohol content. BrewDog have stated the drink should be enjoyed in small measures and responsibly and presumably at £35 a bottle, slowly

The beer beats the last winner of the World’s Strongest Beer, Schorschbraer, which weighed in at 31%. After releasing a beer called Tokyo that was 18%, BrewDog were called irresponsible and subsequently released a low alcohol beer, Nanny State.

BrewDog have stated on their blog that they will be producing 500 330ml bottles of Tactical Nuclear Penguin. 250 of which will be available at £35 a bottle. The other 250 will be at £250 a bottle complete with a share in the company.

I am a big fan of BrewDog beers and a bottle or nine two of Punk IPA often frequents my shopping basket after a hard week at work. BrewDog beers always have great working on the side of the bottles, I like the humour that comes with a bottle, it really adds to the experience. Here is what the Nuclear Penguin bottle says:

“This is an extremely strong beer, it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.“

The first batch of limited edition bottles has already sold out, but you can get on the list for the second lot here: http://www.brewdog.com/product.php?id=46. Also, that doesn’t stop you trying any of the other beers they brew…Trashy Blonde is also great.

Mmmmm beeeeeeer

“…oh what could be better, than a nice whistle wetter…”

What is A Konami Code?

The Konami Code (or Konami Command) is essentially a cheat code that cropped up on a lot of Konami’s games. It was first used in the mid 80’s on a game called Gradius which was released on the NES.

The Konami Code is used by pausing the game and then hitting the following buttons:

You can find a full list of games that used the Konami Code here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Konami_code_games

Konami Code Sites

The list of sites that use the Konami Code can be found be cracking the code on this site: http://konamicodesites.com/. But if you’re feeling lazy and can’t be bothered, here is the list so far:

Emo-what?

Emoji are picture characters that are very popular in the Japanese mobile market. One analyst even specifically cited the lack Emoji support as one of the factors contributing to slow sales in the Japan market…crazy, but true!

Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e “picture” + moji “letter”. The characters are used much like emoticons elsewhere, but a wider range is provided, and the icons are standardised and built into the handsets.

I read a blog recently on how to get the set of Emoji icons for the iPhone for free, so I thought I would share that…

How do I get my hands on these?

Simple, just follow the instructions below. Beware though that these only work from iPhone to iPhone, so people with other handsets will not benefit from this

1. Check your iPhone has firmware 2.2 or 2.2.1
2. Download the ‘Spell Number‘ app from the App Store.
3. Launch Speel Number and enter the following code 91929394.59.
4. Close the app without doing anything else.
5. Open Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards >Japanese > Turn the Emoji “ON”
6. Now when you start writing a text message there should be a little globe there. Clicking on this globe opens up the Emoji icons.

There’s lots of icons on there (461 apparently), so enjoy!

Here are the chords for one of my favourite Kinks songs:

Am                                          C    G
There’s a crack up in the ceiling
Dm                                      F    Am
And the kitchen sink is leaking
Am                                      C   G
Out of work and got no money
Dm                                                 F   Am
A Sunday joint of bread and honey
Am                                      G F                                                               E7
What are we living for?       Two roomed apartment on the second floor?
Am                                G F                                                          E7
No money comin’ in,      the rent collector’s knockin’ trying to get in
A                                                       Dm                        E
We are strictly second class, we don’t understand
F                              E                            Am            G
Dead end! Why we should be in dead end street
F                              E                         Am          G
Dead end! People are livin’ in dead end street
F                                E                 Am           G
Dead end! I’m gonna die in dead end street
C                 F                          C                F
Dead end street (yeah!) Dead end street (yeah!)

Am                                 C      G
On a cold and frosty morning
Dm                                              F      Am
Wipe my eyes and stop me yawning
Am                                       C    G
And my feet are nearly frozen
Dm                                            F        Am
Boil the tea and put some toast on
Am                                    G F                                                               E7
What are we livin’ for?      Two roomed apartment on the second floor?
Am                                      G F                                                            E7
No chance to emigrate,      I’m deep in debt and now it’s much too late
A                                                                  Dm                  E
We both have to work so hard, we can’t get the chance
F                  E                           Am           G
Dead end! People live on dead end street
F                  E                                     Am           G
Dead end! People are dyin’ on dead end street
F                  E                                Am           G
Dead end! I’m gonna die on dead end street
C                 F                         C                 F
Dead end street (yeah!) Dead end street (yeah!)

Dead end! People live on dead end street
Dead end! People are dyin’ on dead end street
Dead end! I’m gonna die on dead end street
Dead end street (yeah!) Dead end street (yeah!)
Dead end street (yeah!) Head to my feet (yeah!)
Dead end street …

I was using Dreamweaver today as I do every day and after going through adding lots of paragraph tags manually I figured there should be a shortcut to enclose text in a <p> tag. I knew of quite a few already such as Ctrl + B to put content in a <strong> tag and Ctrl + G to go to a line you want.

After a quick Google, I found a list of many Dreamweaver shortcuts. Lucky for me there was one for enclosing text in a paragraph (Ctrl + Shift + P).

Below is the complete list I found:

jGrowl is a nifty little jQuery library that creates unobtrusive messages in the browser. It works in a similar way to Growl on Mac OS X.
It enables you to create great looking notifications from your website without it getting in the way. There are different styled examples including the iPhone notifications design. You can set the time delay on the notification staying on the screen or if you want it to stay. The position of the notification can also be set and an animation when loading in the notification.

How to initiate jGrowl

Starting using jGrowl is pretty straight forward, simply include the js files and then call jGrowl as you would any jQuery class you have plugged in. The most simple example of how to do this is:

$.jGrowl("Hello world!");

Further resources

More comprehensive information on how to use and extend jGrowl can be found at Stan Lemon’s project site (http://stanlemon.net/projects/jgrowl.html).

• Download jGrowl 1.1.2
• jGrowl’s jQuery Plugin Page
• Example Usage and Samples

jGrowl Options:

I have included the options for use with jGrowl below, but these can also be found on the plugin site.

Kuler is a new piece of software from Adobe. It allows you to create colour themes or view ones that have already been created by the Kuler community.

It is free to use online and can also be integrated into your usual Adobe design software (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Firework and Flash). Kuler is also available for download as a desktop application and runs using Adobe Air.

It’s a great way for people who aren’t as design oriented like myself to get a great looking colour scheme going. Once you have created your theme, you can save it for later use.

How does it work?

It works around a five colour theme where there is a base colour and four related colours. nce you have selected the base colour, you can choose how the other four are picked from the six ‘colour harmony rules’. You can also select custome colours where you just drag the pins around the colourwheel youself.
You can re-order the colours by dragging them around in a shuffling kind of way. There is also the option to select the hex values of the colours so you can use them in other programs etc. Or you can paste hex values in yourself and create a theme from one of those.
Basically any way you can think of creating a theme of colours, Adobe have thought of it in Kuler. There’s sliders, RGB values, hex values, CMYK and more. It’s all there.
Once you’ve created the theme, you can save it for later or publish it for everyone in the community to see.

Them’s the rules…

Adobe Kuler uses 6 colour rules that are taken from colour theory, these are: Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, and Shades. Selecting your base colour and then clicking one of these rules quickly creates a complimentary theme of some variety.

Creating themes from images

Kuler allows you to upload images or even select images from Flickr to create themes. Here you can create them using ‘Moods’. The Moods available for use are: Colorful, Bright, Muted, Deep, Dark, and Custom. These pick colours from the image that you have selected or uploaded.

Community Service

Adobe seem to be creating a great community here whereby you can login with your Adobe ID, share your themes, download themes, comment on themes, rate other peoples themes and search the masses of themes already on there.

Adobe Kuler can be found here: http://kuler.adobe.com/