It’s been a while, but I found some free time this weekend to do a quick post. And thought I would turn my attention to posting some free alternative software to 2D and 3D program’s such as: SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, VectorWorks etc.

1. Google Sketchup

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, share and present 3D models. Whether you want to design redecorate your living room, invent a new piece of furniture, model your city for Google Earth. There’s no limit to what you can create with SketchUp. And when you’re done, you can export an image, make a movie or print out a view of what you made. I’ve used Google Sketchup several times for quick and simple modeling and have found it a very nice piece of kit. I think it’s strength lies with creating quick models, that don’t necessarily have to be inch perfect.

2. Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. Blender’s features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, animating, rendering, video editing and compositing. I’ve only used Blender on a handful of times a few years back when I didn’t have 3D Studio Max at hand. There are plenty of features to produce realistic renders. Awesome for something that’s free.

3. DraftSight

DraftSight lets professional CAD users, students and educators create, edit and view DWG files. I haven’t personally used DraftSight, it was recently suggested to me by a friend of mine in Finland, but he was extremely impressed with it’s 2D capabilities, rating it very similar to AutoCAD.

4. eDrawing Viewer

The eDrawings Viewer is intended primarily for people who do not use CAD software and thus do not need to publish eDrawings files themselves. eDrawings Viewer allows convenient viewing of supported AutoCAD® DWG and DXF files and native SolidWorks® parts, assemblies, and drawings. This one is a bit different, as the name suggests, it’s more of a viewing tool, I have found it excellent at opening nearly all types of 2D  and 3D files I have been sent by clients. It does allow for simple editing, but it’s strengths lie in viewing and converting.

Well they are the main ones I have either used, or am aware of. Do you guys know of any other free ones worth a shout? Let me know below.

I was asked by a local design company to help them produce some Christmas mugs,  literature and gazebo artwork for a local Christmas Market.

A recent business card design I designed and printed for a local client.

I also did their website http://horsemanureremoval.co.uk the website was designed on a low budget in mind, hence it’s simplicity. But I think we achieved what we wanted from the project. And above all,  my client had recieved his first enquiry within 2 days of the site going live!! So we can’t complain about that.

I just found out that back in February my design portfolio website was listed on www.webrisorsa.info under the page title of: 30 Stunning Creative Portfolio Designs. I came in at number 30 (last place) but he didnt list the websites in order of awesomeness, well thats what I tell myself anyway… But whatever the case it’s always nice to be recognized for something you have achieved by your fellow designers, as it means that I must be doing something right right?

Have you ever found yourself rushing a file for the printer but your client hasn’t specified a spot color for their design? Finding a spot color equivalent to CMYK can be difficult. What your client sees is often different to what you see. Here’s a quick way to find the Pantone© equivalent for a CMYK process color without the use of a color book. This tip is perfect for designers who need to use professional offset printing.

Missing icons on the main toolbar?! This is a really annoying bug that I often come across with 3D Studio Max.

Use the following steps to get them back:
- Select menu [Customize][Costume UI and Default Switcher...]
- Select “Max”, “Default UI”, click [Set] button.
- Restart the application.

Article taken from: Mashable Facebook is partnering with online music and video companies for the launch of a new feature that will integrate outside media into profile pages, according to a new report.

The new feature will take the shape of a widget or tab on the user’s profile page, according to The New York Times. It will display the songs a user listens to the most and provide a method for friends to listen to and share those songs. Facebook will do the same thing for video and television content.

The social network has reportedly been talking to various media companies about integrating their content to Facebook’s new feature, including Spotify. Earlier this week, rumors about a potential Spotify and Facebook partnership made the rounds. The rumors made it seem like Facebook had chosen Spotify to power a Facebook music service. NYT reports however that Facebook doesn’t want to tie itself to just one music service, but instead wants multiple partners for its media platform.

Imagine if you could see what your friends were watching on Netflix or listening to on Pandora from their Facebook pages. Now imagine if you could also see their recommendations and access their content with a single click. It could turn Facebook into the web’s central hub for multimedia content. Media content and recommendations could give Facebook a new engagement layer that would compel its users to stay on the site for longer.

Facebook wants to become the operating system of the web. That much was clear when it acquired web operating system Parakey in 2007. In order to be the web’s central dashboard though, it needs to have access to the music, movies, TV shows and books of its users. This new feature seems designed to do exactly that. We’ll let you know if we hear more about this Facebook feature.

The hot topic recently has been about the recession and its continued impact on the freelance job market. Only last week we revealed the results from a survey carried out by CIPD and now more research from PeoplePerHour.com has confirmed the same.

As Europe’s largest online business marketplace, PeoplePerHour.com has a network of over 120,000 freelancers who use the site to browse over 70,000 jobs. Their research has revealed that the huge government cuts which resulted in a whopping 132,000 job losses in 2010, have created more job opportunities for freelancers in the public sector. Digital projects have been making up a significant portion of the work being outsourced, with the overall number of digital job postings on the site increasing by a whopping 315 per cent over the last 12 months.

Where private sector companies have been utilising the talents and services of freelancers in place of more costly employees throughout this period of recession, it has only been recently that the public sector has realised the benefits of using freelancers and have started to openly embrace the self-employed.

With more government cuts ahead and the prospect of more employees turning to self employment, surely it can only result in an over-crowded market with increased competition for established freelancers. What are your thoughts?

Article taken from: freelanceadvisor.co.uk

Interesting article I found at Mashable. If you’re a small business owner, your website is the central hub of your company, and it’s a pivotal part of your marketing and branding.

Potential customers visit your site specifically for its content, meaning its appearance and usability are critical to its success and how those users view your company. However, getting your web design wrong can have a negative impact on your business.

Here are 5 common web design mistakes you must avoid to create a great user experience and grow your bottom line.

1. Poor Navigation

Many small businesses fail to make navigation a priority, but without careful attention to how people navigate your site, you could unintentionally be creating a frustrating experience for any potential visitor. People visit your site for specific information, and if they cannot find it they will quickly go elsewhere, leaving with the impression that your business is disorganized in more than just its website.

A good navigation structure should be seamless and will keep visitors on your site longer, which means potentially more readers, subscribers, sales or leads — whichever is your primary objective.

Website navigation affects both usability and accessibility, so it’s important to make it a primary concern. Most websites and blogs use common navigational techniques that are expected by the average visitor. The pages and sections of the site should be easy and logical for visitors to maneuver. Don’t make your visitors think about how to navigate your site; it should be effortless and natural.

There are several principles you can follow to create an effective navigation structure:

• Use icons to aid navigation. They’re both visually appealing and easy to use and understand.
• Create logical groups of related links, with the most important links on the top-level navigation bar and functional (dashboard, account, settings, etc.) and legal (copyright, privacy, terms) located elsewhere.
• Provide location information so users know where they are on any given page and how to proceed to another area of the website. This can be achieved by using Breadcrumb navigation.

2. No Clear Calls To Action

The fundamental error of many small business websites is the lack of a clear call to action. We’ve all seen bland small-business brochure websites with nothing but endless descriptive paragraphs. If you aren’t leading users to commit to an action (buy a product, contact you or subscribe, for example), then you are losing them.

Driving traffic to your website is important, but that traffic is useless if your primary call to action is a plain “click here” link buried in a sea of text. Call-to-action buttons are a great way to grab the user’s attention, and these buttons can be the key to higher conversions. Investing time and consideration into creating successful calls to action can help guide users and address their needs while achieving your own business goals.

It’s important to keep the following best practices in mind when creating an optimal call to action:

• The design of a call to action can be broken down into 4 simple elements — size, shape, color, and position. Each plays a vital part in determining how effective the call to action is in directing the user.
• Don’t make your users work or think, or they’ll leave. It’s not that they aren’t smart, it’s that they want access to information quickly without spending unnecessary time searching for it.
• Don’t overdo it with multiple, competing calls to action on every page. Decide what your primary target is and then define a clear objective per page. Your content should have answered, “What’s in it for me?” and your call to action should now answer, “What do I do now?”

3. Color & Contrast

Color and contrast aren’t usually high up on the list of priorities for a small business owner when it comes to creating a website. But it should be, because if your website text does not have sufficient contrast compared to its background, people will have difficulty reading your content, especially people with poor vision or color-blindness.

Aside from plain readability, color and contrast are important because they can be used to create visual interest and direct the attention of the user. It can equally be effective in organizing and defining the flow and hierarchy of a page, and it’s therefore an essential principle to pay attention to during the design process. Here are some tips:

• Using a free a Color Contrast tool (which conforms to accepted standards) you can easily check to see how the contrast on your website measures up.
• Research how major sites use color and contrast to improve readability and highlight specific sections, and use this knowledge to experiment with color schemes.
• One of best ways to enhance contrast is by creating size differences between elements, making some things appear larger than others. This works especially well within a minimal color scheme, and it means you don’t have to necessarily rely on color.

4. Content, Content, Content

People visit your website for its content, and how that is structured is a huge factor in its success or failure. Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of small businesses get so caught up in overloading the user with information that they overlook how that information is presented.

Most people do not read unless it’s absolutely necessary, and they prefer to scan through information quickly to get to the points of interest. This is why it’s so important to establish a strong visual content hierarchy so users can quickly scan your site and sifting through relevant information. A logical content hierarchy also acts as a guide through each page and creates a more enjoyable user experience.

So when focusing on your content, it’s best to keep in mind these three tips:

• White space is possibly the most important factor to consider. It will allow the user to focus on the meaningful content within each section.
• Break up lengthy pieces of information into digestible blocks of text, utilizing headings, sub-headings, bullets, blockquotes and paragraphs.
• Readable content is important, so use a good line height that is large enough to make content scannable. Margins and letter spacing also need to be taken into consideration.

When talking about content, spelling and grammar cannot be underestimated.

5. Clutter

We all know at least one small business website that seems to include everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. Many small business owners tend to cram as much as they can onto a single page — the end result is a busy, cluttered and unreadable page.

The more extraneous items there are on a web page, the more unprofessional it looks, and it becomes overwhelming, confusing and distracting for the user. A cluttered website will also affect traffic because visitors won’t return if they can’t understand or follow the content, which leads to low traffic, a high bounce rate and possibly a poor Page Rank.

Clutter also applies to images. Too many can be a huge distraction and just plain annoying. Images should be used to illustrate, capture attention and guide the user where required.

Follow these guidelines for a more streamlined visitor experience:

• Challenge every item on each page and ask, “Does it really need to be there? Does it serve a specific purpose? Can I live without it?”
• The key is to aid the visitor in finding the information they’re looking for, so make sure to differentiate between areas of content, advertisements and promotions.
• Prioritize your content and decide what is the most important to your visitor and potential customer — and sell it well.

Even the greatest content can become lost in a mess of words and graphics, so de-cluttering is essential.

These are just five web design mistakes that many small businesses make. What other mistakes have you noticed on small business websites?

Insider claims Apple is planning to take on Motorola.

The Apple rumour mill certainly enjoys the odd curveball. And none are more odd than the latest morsel surrounding the forthcoming iPhone 5. The next-gen phone is apparently getting a dedicated laptop dock, with Apple looking to take on the sleek Motorola Atrix at its own game.

According to some of ITProPortal’s “intelligence”, the laptop dock will let users slip the iPhone into a slot where a trackpad would normally sit. The iPhone would then be used as a mouse, with the dock running the cell’s iOS software and using its web connection.

The insider even reckons this new iPhone laptop dock will have a Retina Display. Apparently, the iPhone 4 will not play nice, but the next generation iPod touch and the iPhone 5 will.

While an iPhone laptop dock might seem extreme, the idea isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. The Motorola Atrix has proved that a phone can be used as a central computing hub, although surely such an effort from Apple would compromise the iPad.

[source]