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Cintiq Sleeve Problem Solved

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Made by Lollington.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I really think that all of Wacom’s products ought to come with a simple travelling sleeve of some sort. While I’m not going to be carrying my Cintiq 12WX around every day, I really wanted something to store it in (even if it’s only to keep the cat hair off of it). The problem is of course that it is a bit of a non-standard size… which got me to browsing around on Etsy.

I stumbled across Lollington’s store, saw a really cute octopi fabric* in their shop… and noticed that they also took orders for custom sleeves. Sweet! I fired them a few questions which were answered promptly, and then I placed my order.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this awesome with everyone. The quality is really nice. The sleeves are padded with high density closed-cell foam, are spill resistant… and if you custom order, you can specify the zipper placement as well as size to ensure that everything will fit snugly like it should.

Would definitely do business again. Maybe once I’m in the market for a new laptop. :)

* Designed by Heather Ross, from her Mendocino line. So cute!

Tags: cintiq 12wx, etsy, heather ross, lollington, mendicino, octopi, purchase, Wacom
Posted in Art & Design, Geeky, Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Wacom Cintiq 12WX

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

I had to. How could I not? At the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, Wacom had a booth. Now, I’d scoffed after using one of their Cintiq 21UX’s while attending school. It was too big (and had to be re-calibrated every time I wanted to use it since it was a shared device). I didn’t like the idea of being tied to a desk. I’m a sketchbook doodler, and I generally work not much larger than 11 x 17″. I want to be drawing in my lap, possibly even while sitting on the floor. I’m a little notorious for getting into strange seating positions (one of which prompted my friends to force me to watch Death Note just because of the character “L”). Anyway, while I was at the Expo, I asked one of the nice booth attendants if I could hold the Cintiq 12WX (since they only had the 21UX’s and Intuos/Bamboo models out for people to use).

She let me hold it, and I kind of fell in love. :] Now I’ve been a bit of a Wacom kid for about the last ten years or so, starting off with one of the original Graphire models (which I swear the Tupperware lady took the stylus to). I’ve been using an 6×8″ Intuos 3 for the past few years, and the Cintiq 12WX felt like a fantastic step up. I hardly noticed the size difference, and the weight of the device felt just like one of my hardcover sketchbooks.

Anyway, long story short, I used a few gift cards I’d received, payed the difference, and bought a Cintiq.

First let’s start off with the negatives:

I wish all Wacom products came with a neoprene cover or sleeve of some sort. Specially the smaller models which are often carried around (you know, the entire product line except for the UX). Where is my snazzy Wacom branded sleeve? :(
It gets a little warm down around where my hands generally end up. My Intuos 3 would also get a little warm like this in places, so it’s to be expected.
I’d read about people getting “jittery” places (specifically the corners) on their tablet display. I haven’t encountered that problem at all. I’m going to assume that it probably has/had something to either do with the drivers, or general interference. The Intuos 3 would go absolutely batty if I ever placed it on top of my laptop keyboard and tried to use it. So far so good though.
The “break out” box. It’s annoying. Specially if you want the Cintiq to be portable. It’s more portable than the UX, but only to a certain extent. Once we make a few leaps and bounds in regards to wireless technology though… Is it the future yet?
It’s expensive, and a bit overpriced (if you break it down to individual components). However, I’ve had great success with Wacom products. My original Graphire is still alive. It required a little maintenance to fix the wiring which had come loose (thanks Mike!), but otherwise it’s still kicking. If the Cintiq can hold up to similar wear and tear, then good on it. Only time will tell here, but I’d like to think that it’s a quality product.
Does anyone honestly use the stylus holder?
Shouldn’t there be a little bit more stylus calibration going on? My Nintendo DS has more calibration features.

Now for the positives:

Whoa! I’m drawing on the monitor! I’ve worked on tablet PCs before, but this was a slice of awesome. Just for the “cool factor” alone and the pressure sensitivity of a real tablet, I think it’s worth it. (It’s sort of reminds me of scribbling on a wall… it feels wrong, but so right.)
If you’ve used the Intuos series, the “transition or learning period” is pretty much non-existent. At least it was for me. You don’t have to re-learn how to draw (you already know how! Right?). The buttons can be mapped to whatever you desire, and then you just pick it up and go. No more blind contour drawing! You work directly on the monitor and make things appear. This alone was worth worlds to me. I can actually zoom out on my drawing and still retain precision. I’d had extreme difficulty doing this with my other tablets.
Lack of friction. Blah blah… it seems to me like the people who always complain about the lack of friction are those who have never used tablets before. Yes, there’s not much friction. I like it though. It feels exactly like any of Wacom’s other tablets.
I actually kind of like the stylus that it comes with. Somehow this time around the grip doesn’t “feel” as awkward to me. I have fairly small hands and some of the previous (freaking fat and chunky phallic) styluses just didn’t feel right. Yes. That is what she said.
No eraser bits! Hmm… yet I still go through the motion of physically wiping them away whenever I erase something.
I can turn it around in my lap to get at angles that I would usually have to rotate my canvas to get at. This is going to make digital inking a breeze.
The colours! I haven’t even gotten around to calibrating the colours on the display, but they look pretty close while using Adobe Photoshop just out of the box. We’ll see shortly how it compares to my 100% colour calibrated laptop.

The final verdict:

If you’re a digital painter or artist, I’d say get it. I don’t know why I waited so long (Oh wait, I do. I was a poor student). If you’ve never owned a tablet before or are just taking your first baby steps into the realm of digital art… then forget it. (Unless you happen to have some money to burn.) It does take a little bit to get used to the friction-less surface of any tablet, and often people find it so awkward to work with that they don’t take the time to condition their drawing habits.

I really, really like the Cintiq though. I think I’ll have to name it.

Tags: 12WX, Art & Design, Cintiq, drawing, illustration, review, tablet, Wacom
Posted in Art & Design, Geeky, Reviews | No Comments »

Dropbox

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Dropbox is something that I’ve been sharing with my friends over the past… quite some time. While the technology that it employs isn’t new – the synchronization and sharing of data – their execution is flawless. At least, I haven’t found any flaws yet… well, flaws that aren’t in direct relation to my connectivity speed at the time. ;]

Dropbox allows you to synchronize files across multiple machines. The main draw that I’ve had with this software is that it is cross-platform compatible. You can set it up on your Linux, Mac, or Windows computers (and iPhone… still waiting on Android and other mobile releases *peer pressure* now also available in the Android Market), and it’ll sync your data across them all flawlessly. Never have to rely on a USB drive again (but keep them around because they can do cool things on their own)!

Have a look at the full list of features.

Here are just some of the things that I’ve used Dropbox for so far:

NaNoWriMo
For the entire month of November, I used Dropbox to synchronize my novel across the various machines that I was using. It hurts to loose a large chunk of writing. It also hurts to forget something you were working on on a USB drive, or even worse, suffer from some sort of computer malfunction that results in data loss. Rejoice in knowing that if you religiously save your work, it’ll be auto-magically backed up elsewhere for you should you need to access it.
Invoices & Time Sheets
I keep copies of all my invoices and time sheets, neatly organized by year and company.
Specific Program Settings
Sometimes it’s something as simple as a collection of Adobe Photoshop brushes or a Firefox profile (although Weave is looking promising). Other times it’s game saves or gedit plugins. Anything program-specific that I don’t want to lose, I put it in Dropbox.
Typography
There are a few fonts that I can’t live without.
School Projects
Okay, I’m done school… but damn, this could have saved me a few times. Upload your essays and print them from school (why waste your own ink?). Need to make a midnight run to a 24/7 printing company? Dropbox would have been nice then too. Of course, due to the time sensitive nature of some school projects… your data access is about as trustworthy as your school’s internet connection. If it sucks (like it did at ACAD), you might just be better off using a USB drive.
Passwords
Wait, what? Yes, you can do this too. The servers that Dropbox uses are encrypted (AES-256) and inaccessible without your password, so that your sensitive data is safe. I use KeePass Password Safe (another nice cross-operating system application), to manage my passwords. It creates an encrypted password database file that can easily be stored and shared by Dropbox. It’s really useful if you’re like me and create a new randomized password for each site you sign up with.

Tags: android, backups, cross-platform, data loss, Dropbox, file sharing, Linux, Mac OS, mobile, NaNoWriMo, synchronization, Windows
Posted in Geeky, Reviews | No Comments »

Moogle & Brimwylf

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Meet Moogle! Aron and I ended up adopting a cat from the City of Calgary Animal & Bylaw Services folks. We’ve had her for approximately a month now, and she’s been fitting into the household perfectly. The first night we had her, she woke me up at 3 AM because she was hungry (I’d only given her a little bit to eat because I was unsure as to how much she had eaten at the shelter). Now she only insists on waking us up to cuddle after our morning alarms have gone off.

Moogle is a two year old grey and white tabby, born sometime in December of 2007. She is also adorable. If you have me on Facebook, you’ve already seen photographs of her. I’d forgotten just how much I missed having something warm and fuzzy lurking around inside of the house. Every day after work she’s waiting at the door to greet us (loudly) when we get home. :)

Yet another new addition to the apartment is Brimwylf. Brimwylf is the name that I decided to give to my new desktop. It’s also one of many names that is given to Grendel’s mother in the epic poem Beowulf. I found it fitting because it’s quite the beast. Aron and I spent Friday night building it, and so far I’m really happy with it. It makes playing games… well, amazing. I was long, long overdue for a new computer. My laptop lasted me a whole five years. It’s going to be retired and re-formatted to run flavours of linux only.

Here are my new system specs:

New computer guts!

Brimwylf

Motherboard: Asus P6T SE X58
Processor: Intel Core i7 920
Video: Nvidia eVGA e-GeForce GTX285
6 GB RAM (Kingston)
2 x 500 GB hard drives (Seagate)
Antec Performance One P183 ATX Case (Sweet case that has lots of room for expansion!)
OS: Dual-booting Windows 7 & Ubuntu

I also picked up a Logitech Illuminated Keyboard, which is pretty awesome in regards to keyboards that actually “feel” like a laptop keyboard. Plus it glows in the dark (very Mac/Apple-esque actually) for all that late night typing. Everything is so shiny and new! I’m absolutely loving it so far. Also… rather surprised that Windows 7 doesn’t really suck. I think I may finally be 100% finished with Windows XP. Of course, it can’t replace my Ubuntu development environment.

As far as other computer-related things go, shriker.ca is now being hosted on a dedicated server (Yes! It’s a dream come true!). I’m slowly in the process of moving all of my sites and hosted sites over to this new server. So if you experience temporary downtime, or a site of mine goes missing for a bit – that’s why. All of my domains/subdomains have to propagate to the new server. Goodbye shared hosting! You sucked. :)

Tags: adoption, Antec, Asus, Brimwylf, Intel Core i7 920, Logitech, Moogle, Nvidia, Seagate, Ubuntu, Windows 7
Posted in Geeky, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

2010: I wuv you, Panda.

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Hello 2010, and welcome! Like many others I’m feeling rather obligated at the moment to write up my own rendition of 2009: A Year in Review, or even A Decade in Review. So much has happened really. I blitzed through high school, then post-secondary education, and now here I am.

Graduation

I graduated from my four year program with a Bachelor of Design degree. The four year long process was both exhilarating and draining. Truth be told, I felt a little bit like an impostor while attending ACAD. Why? Well I’ve always been a person with varied interests (Biology, History and English to name my top three subjects with a smattering of computer programming). As such, I had never really dedicated myself to art. In fact, when I graduated from high school I didn’t even know that there was even such thing as a Bachelor of Design. I was oblivious and misinformed. Coming out of high school I thought that if I wanted to pursue any sort of career in the Arts field, that it would have to be Fine Arts (and of course everyone has heard of that tired starving artist line). Imagine my surprise when I found out about the Visual Communications Design program. It was pretty much everything that I imagined it to be. I only felt a little awkward when people would be going on about their favourite artists and idols… and I would have no idea who they were. I’ve never really idolized anything.

Still, I had a fine time while I was there and I met some really fantastic people (and it is only they who can really related to my pain/pleasure of school). The only thing I think that really could have benefited the course more would have been some more business oriented programs that circulated around marketing yourself. Creating a portfolio and a resume/CV really wasn’t enough. I’m grateful however to the teachers that answered all of my questions about the business aspect of things. It’s amazing how much stuff is overlooked, and it really comes to no surprise that so many students each year are taken advantage of. It’s not their fault – they just don’t know any better.

Family

What can I say? My family has alway been fantastic. Thanks for supporting me while I was in school, and really, thanks for everything. I wouldn’t be the kind of person that I am now if it wasn’t for them. My siblings better be coming out to visit me this summer! Do you hear me Jamie and Steve? I’ll get the two of you here if I have to drag you across the country myself. It was really fun seeing everyone at Christmas. Here’s to random car dancing and loud music. ^_^

Moving

I’m a hard person to keep track of. I have moved every year for the past five years. Good news is that my android phone has GPS and my phone number has only changed once over the past ten years.

Heartbreak

I’ve had my heart broken not once, not twice, but four times. The last time it happened I think something inside of me snapped. I didn’t get angry. I was upset, sure. Of course, when you’ve invested in someone for two and a half years you’re not really expecting them to turn on you randomly one day and plainly state that they’re not “in love” with you anymore. You can’t really plan for these things though. What really struck me were a selection of his words. He said that he pitied me. Brother, I’m the last person in the world that needs your pity. I have always been my own person with my own ambitions and goals. It takes a really self-righteous and selfish guy not to see that. In the end though, none of it was my fault and he was the one making the mistake. I mean, who in their right mind would throw away a girl like me? :)

It’s all good though. I wish I could explain it exactly, but ever since that day I’ve felt invincible. No person, and specially no dude, is going to stand in my way. Sucks to your ass-mar. I’m not the one that fucked up.

Music and Entertainment

I finally got around to seeing Edmonton. The red (Sky Screamer) and purple (Nessie’s Revenge) water slides at the West Edmonton Mall are scary. Mostly because they hurt. The red one was almost a straight vertical drop that resulted in a painful wedgie and the purple one threw me up and then slammed me down so hard multiple times that it felt like I was being slapped (it is very aptly named). I couldn’t really breathe all that well after doing the two of those. I sort of regret doing them first because they made the rest of the water park seem like nothing in comparison.

Aside from that, just this past year alone I’ve really upped my entertainment intake. I guess this is the sort of thing that happens when you stop being a student and actually become a consumer. I went to the Calgary Stampede for the first time, saw Evil Dead: The Musical (so much blood and awesome), went to see DragonForce in concert, saw the Blue Man Group, went to Video Games Live (sweeeeet!), attended the Lindy Hop Exchange in Calgary and saw the Polyjesters, and then some!

I’ve also been playing a few more video games as of late. My Steam ID and PSN ID are both “Jaceen”. Feel free to add me.

Aron

He gets his own heading because he’s awesome like that. The title of this post is dedicated to him too. Bwa… hahaha… ha ha… yarr…

Business

I started my own business! It’s not too much of a surprise since this sort of thing runs in my family. Well, one side of my family anyway. I’m working as a media and design consultant with an emphasis on web development, interactive design, and improving user experience. I’ve you’re looking to hire me though, I’m solidly booked until at least June 2010. My large projects have been keeping me busy (and happily fed! No starving here). I still haven’t decided on an official name for my company yet though. I’m sure once I do though, it’ll be great.

Kitty!

I’m looking into adopting/buying a cat. So if you know of a particular fuzz-butt that is in need of a home where he/she will be pampered all 12-25 years of its life until death, let me know!

Here’s looking forward to 2010 being even better than 2009. So far, so good (albeit a little on the sleep deprived side… my brain nearly exploded yesterday).

Screw new year resolutions. Just focus on being as bloody awesome as you can.

Tags: 2010, ACAD, aron, awesomeness, business, cat, edmonton, Games, graduation, kitty, music, new years, psn, review, steam
Posted in Art & Design, Geeky, Miscellaneous | No Comments »