Modbook Mac Tablet

"Andreas Haas, CEO of Axiotron, tells InformationWeek how the company turns the dowdy MacBook into its sexy Modbook Mac tablet, and why its not afraid of competition from a rumored Apple-made Mac tablet.

If you live all day in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or some other visual Mac app, Axiotron has its eye on you. The company makes the long-awaited Modbook Mac tablet, designed for designers, illustrators, and other visually creative professionals.

"It's for people who draw, scribble, and paint," said Axiotron CEO Andreas Haas. We sat down with Haas for a one-on-one interview recently.

The Modbook, priced starting at $2,290, was announced at Macworld 2007, a little more than a year ago, and finally started shipping Dec. 31.

Axiotron built the unit in cooperation with Apple. The Modbook is manufactured by the same companies that make Macs. Axiotron ships the manufacturers the pen displays, the manufacturers rip the displays and keyboards out of standard MacBooks, and then add the Axiotron display. The manufacturers keep the notebook displays and keyboards and use them to repair defective MacBooks -- displays and keyboards are the most common points of failure for notebook computers, Haas said.

Apple is reportedly developing its own tablet computer, but Axiotron isn't afraid of the competition, Haas said. The Apple tablet will basically be a bigger version of the iPhone or iPod Touch -- a consumer device with a 7-inch to 10-inch display, running a cut-down version of Mac OS X with little or no third-party application support, with an interface that's lacking in fine control, in part because it'll be controlled using the user's finger. "Finger painting is fun -- when you're four," Haas said." View Full Review

Optical Art With Illustrator

"Illustrator’s transform functions to create a stunning op art piece with a real sense of movement. Mark Mayers shows you how...Optical art, or op art, is a genre of visual art that makes use of optical illusions. Op art is also known as geometric abstraction and hardedge abstraction, although the preferred term for it is perceptual abstraction. The best-known method is the creation of illusions through the use of pattern or line where the viewer is given the impression of movement such as hidden images, vibration or warping. All these techniques trick the eye into seeing three dimensions even though the image hitting the retina is only two dimensional. This tutorial pays homage to the English painter Bridget Riley, who is one of the foremost proponents of op art and evolved a style in which she explored the dynamic effects of optical art". Go to tutorial page.

Scratch Brushes for Adobe Photoshop

A set 17 scratch texture brushes for Adobe Photoshop from daughterofsnape...

Might be of use if you are esigning a grungy scene or a distorted layer mask.

Download

Towers Vector Pack

This vector pack contains the shapes of the Eiffel Tower, The Tower In Pisa, Big Ben, Berlin TV-Tower, Burj al Arab in Dubai, Sears Tower, Tai Pei 101, Petronas Towers and Empire State Building. Download (eps format). Thanks to Nimpsher

Porn

Last night I came out with this composition. I used the concept of the Official NBA Logo, for the silhouette of the girls I actually used a Norp Icons 2 font available for download here. The actual silhouette shape is the letterform for number 7, and I made a few manipulations in Adobe Illustrator > Select the letterform , Type , Create Outlines. With the rounded rectangle tool I just created the background element and diagonally cuted it with the Knife Tool and used light blue and pink gradients for fill colors. Pretty easy and basic composition, but I really like the final result. I'm actually thinking of creating a poster with that logo, but we'll see. The wallpapers below are in 1024x768 px and 1280x800 px .

35+ brush sets (1400+ brushes) for GIMP

Well, browsing around digg.com I found a great link for all open-source lovers, especially GIMP users. 35 free artistic brush sets.

"GIMP is an open-source image editing program, one of the most popular image-editing programs. It is supported by a huge open-source community that is open in every aspect - development, source, sharing and participation.As is common to open-source applications, GIMP too has a huge repository of plugins, scripts, brushes and gradients (we’ve already covered Top 40 GIMP plugins). The open-source enthusiasts pour hundreds of hours into developing the application and its add-ons for no cost, and shares them generously with the community...

And what better way for me to admire GIMP than by presenting a list of some amazing, beautiful and stunning brushes? The name, link and description of each brush are given just below each illustrative image. There are also sections linking to huge GIMP collections and further resources aimed at every group from novice to expert."

VectorDesign : MacHeist 2 Bundle

Yesterday, TweakerSoft’s VectorDesign was revealed as the final app for the current MacHeist 2 Bundle. As Pixelmator is to Adobe PhotoShop, VectorDesign is to Adobe Illustrator. For those of us who want to be able to create and edit vector graphics (.svg, .eps, etc.), but don’t want to spend several hundred dollars, VectorDesign looks to fill the void.

MacHeist aims to bring the best shareware from the brightest independent Mac software developers to the masses. We’ve already highlighted the contents of the bundle, but since then all of the original apps have been unlocked - Speed Download has been included, and two games from FreeVerse have been added as well. So now VectorDesign has been included as well.

As it now stands, the bundle has a value of nearly $500 worth of quality Mac shareware for under $50. not to mention that $300,000 has been raised for charity! Read more