Little Big Tomatoes

GoogleCalculator R2

June 24th, 2009

It is a long long time since I released anything for Shuriken. This release is fixing a small bug in the Google Calculator plugin (due to layout change in the result page).

In order to install and use the new plugin please, do the following:

Shutdown Shuriken
Extract the content of GoogleCalculator to the plugin directory of Shuriken
Hint: use Shuriken >> Reveal to display the Shuriken folder when Shuriken is running.
Start Shuriken
Hit . in order to enter text mode and type something that you would like to calculate
e.g "25 USD in Eur" or "23 inch in meter"
Tab to the action pane and type calc to get "Calculate with Google" action.
Hit enter.

[download]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Announcements, Shuriken

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Windows 7 RC on my iMac

June 22nd, 2009

Finally, I had the time to install Windows 7 RC on my beloved iMac. The install went smoothly and after finishing two episodes of 24 Season 7, the Windows 7 Beta Fish was welcoming me on my desktop.

I was using Windows Vista from the early betas until just about 4 months ago. I liked many of its features such as search and aero and the new start menu, but after a while I have just realized that there is something wrong with it and I have given up. Formatted my hard disk and installed Windows XP and did use my computer that way ever since. For me, the experience was a little bit like when someone meets this really nice and nice girl and decides to live with her. First it goes really well, but after a while the realization comes, there is no love in this relationship anymore or maybe never ever has been and then moves out of the apartment.

With Windows 7 it is totally different though. There is chemistry here and it feels like we have known each other for years. It has everything that is important for you and much more… There is hope! There is love!

There are many things I like a lot in Windows 7, but one thing I like the most is its speed and smoothness. It just works. No senseless pauses sprinkled with flashy animation when copying files, no freezes. It does what it needs to do.

Things I like…

The new taskbar is really good. It resembles the dock from OS X, but I think it is a very nice improvement in Windows.

I like the themes in Windows. I was never a big fan of the plus packs in earlier versions, nor the different themes, but I love the ones that come with Windows 7. I even like them better than the themes can be found in OS X.

I also like Aero snap, the full-screen previews on the taskbar, jump list and finally the desktop gadgets are starting to be useful too. The best is to check What’s coming Windows 7.

Things I didn’t like…

My only complaint is around Apple Bootcamp. I did not have any problems with the drivers, except the speakers are not working for some reason. My headphone jack socket shines out with red light and if I plug-in headphones the audio works through the headphones, if I take it out then the no audio.
Then I tried to install Bootcamp on Windows 7, but the setup told me that it works only with Windows Vista and Windows XP. It would be nice to see an update from Apple for the drivers, but I guess this should wait until Windows 7 is released.

I think we are looking forward to a really nice next version of Windows. It is an evolutionary step, with smaller changes and little features, but I think if Windows needs to copy anything from OS X then it needs to copy these small steps…

Popularity: 2% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in General, apple, microsoft

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Team Hoyt

May 27th, 2009

We are beings capable of limitless love towards each other.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Ideas, Personal

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The Mother of All Funk Chords

March 13th, 2009

I am listening Kutiman’s music for 2 days now. This is just amazing… how good is this music mixed and mashed together from different youtube videos. Enjoy!

Go here if you want to hear more of this: KutiMan - ThruYou

Popularity: 7% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Fun, Music

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The crisis of credit visualized

February 22nd, 2009

A very good visualized explanation of the credit crisis. From CrisisOfCredit.com

Part 1.

Part 2.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in General, Ideas

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Extending Shuriken

February 8th, 2009

This is the first of a series of articles, I am planning to write explaining how to create your own modules for extending Shuriken. In this article, the hello world is implemented for Shuriken.

Shuriken is an application launcher that is trying to bring you the power and flexibility of the famous Quicksilver on OSX. It is developed in .NET and C#, but you can use any .NET language to develop your own module. All you will need is Visual Studio 2008 any Express Edition or better.

Setting up your project

The first thing is download the latest release of Shuriken from Shuriken project site on Codeplex.com and unzip it. Run it and notice that a plugin folder is created in your installation directory.

Next is to fire up Visual Studio.NET 2008 and create Class Library project.

The next is to add the Shuriken.Base.dll as a reference to your project. This dll can be found next to your Shuriken.exe and contains all the interfaces and classes that you will need to use to write your own modules.

After adding the reference your project structure should look like this.

Subjects and Actions

There are two main concepts in Shuriken, the Subject and the Action. A Subject is normally on the first pane and this is the Notepad on the picture. The Action is the second pane on the UI and in this case the Reveal action. After pressing enter the Reveal action will show the location of the Notepad subject.

When you write modules then you most of the time creating subjects and actions. Let’s start with the action. All we need to create a new class and implement the ISubject interface from the Shuriken.Base namespace.

   1: using System;   2: using Shuriken.Base;    3:     4: namespace HelloWorldSubject   5: {   6:     public class HelloWorldSubject : Shuriken.Base.ISubject   7:     {   8:         #region ISubject Members   9:    10:         public System.Collections.Generic.List<IAction> GetListOfActions()  11:         {  12:             return new System.Collections.Generic.List<IAction>();  13:         }  14:    15:         #endregion  16:    17:         #region IObject Members  18:    19:         public string Description  20:         {  21:             get { return "First Shuriken plugin ever"; }  22:         }  23:    24:         public string Icon  25:         {  26:             get  27:             {  28:                 return string.Empty;  29:             }  30:             set  31:             {  32:                   33:             }  34:         }  35:    36:         public string Name  37:         {  38:             get { return "Hello World!"; }  39:         }  40:    41:         #endregion  42:     }  43: }

There are couple of methods you will need to implement in your class. The first is called GetListOfActions which needs to be only returning an empty list for now.

The Description property is returning a string that is going to be the description for our subject. The Name property is going to be the name of this subject and the Icon will be the icon displayed. In the code I gave Hello World as the name and left the Icon property to be and empty.

To have something meaningful happening to our subject an action is needed as well.

   1: [DefaultAction]   2: [ActionName("Say It")]   3: public class HelloWorldAction : Shuriken.Base.BaseAction   4: {   5:     public override bool CanExecuteOn(ISubject subject)   6:     {   7:         if (subject.Name.Equals("Hello World!"))   8:         {   9:             return true;   10:         }  11:    12:         return false;   13:     }  14:    15:     public override void Execute(ISubject subject)  16:     {  17:         System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Hello World!");  18:     }  19: }

The HelloWorldAction is created by either implementing the IAction interface or extending the BaseAction class. I did the later for simplicity sake. Extending the BaseAction class is simpler and can be done with attributes as well. There are two attributes used DefaultAction and ActionName.

DefaultAction will tell Shuriken that this is the default action for the a subject, meaning that this will be the first action always. ActionName will be the name of the action.

There are also two methods that we need to implement. The first method is called CanExecuteOn and it tells us, if the subject is supported by this action. The second method is called Execute and it is called when the user hits enter and the action is called.

After finishing the two class, you will need to compile the project and drop the HelloWorldSubject.dll to the plugin folder and restart Shuriken. Then invoke the UI and start typing Hello World…. after hitting enter you should end up with the Hello World! dialog box displaying.

Shuriken is an application launcher utility, that is developed by me in my free time. It is open source and free. If you would like to download Shuriken or help to develop it, please visit Shuriken on codeplex.

http://www.codeplex.com/shuriken

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Shuriken, Tutorials

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Shuriken tips #1: Locating Notepad on your computer

February 5th, 2009

This is the first article of many showing the functionality of the application launcher I am working on.

Sometimes you need to know the location of an application on the file system. Shuriken makes this easy for you to achieve really quickly. Let’s locate Notepad on your computer. All you need to do is to bring up shuriken using Ctrl-Space or the hotkey to bring up Shuriken and type Notepad, then tab to the action pane and type Reveal. Hit Enter and the location of Notepad is revealed.

and it is going to show the result the location of notepad on your computer

Shuriken is an application launcher utility, that is developed in my free time. It is open source and free. If you would like to download Shuriken or help to develop it, please visit Shuriken on codeplex.

http://www.codeplex.com/shuriken

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Shuriken, Tips'n Tricks, Tutorials

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Some ideas for modules for Shuriken

January 13th, 2009

I am putting out a list of modules, that I am planning to implement for Shuriken, the launcher. If you have a good idea that would make a good module, please either leave a comment or write me an email and I will put it on my list:

iTunes module.
This module would let the user to issue commands that would allow them to control the player, the following actions would be implemented:

Play/Pause
Next Song
Previous Song
Volume Down
Volume Up

Windows Media Player and/or Zune module.
This module could do exactly the same as the iTunes one would be. It would allow the user to control the player with the same commands. Stopping and starting songs and moving back and forward between them.

Date and Time module.
This module would let the user to bring up the current date and time on the computer as its default action and it would also act as a world clock making really easy to get the time and date in any city in the world.

Google Calc module.
This module would allow the user to enter queries against the Google Calculator from Shuriken. The results would be displayed by the app somehow, so no need to open up a browser window.

What other kind of modules would make sense?

Popularity: 17% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Ideas, Shuriken

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Some very nice icon tutorials

January 11th, 2009

I am trying to learn how to make some vector art stuff and icons on my own. I am always on the look for nice tutorials. The icons I like the most are stylized illustrations of different things that we use everyday such as a compass or pencil. I though I would list my favorites:

Design a Detailed Compass Icon in Photoshop

Design a Detailed Compass Icon in Photoshop

Very nice compass icon done in Photoshop. I like it, because of the metal part and the reflections on the compass glass and body and the attention to details.

Another drawing tutorial for icon lovers in which we’ll be illustrating a metallic compass. We’ll be controlling shadow and reflection to add realism to the illustration. As with any icon design, it’s a combination of the overall design and subtle details that gives quality results.

Create a Custom Mac OSX Style Ring Binder Address Book Icon

Mac OS like address book, again lot of attention to the details.

Today I’ll show you how to create an Address Book replacement icon for Mac OSX. When you are a beginner, it’s better to start with designing replacement icons to get some practice. Let’s get started with personalizing the icons in our workspaces.

Design a Shiny Photorealistic Apple Remote

Design a Shiny Photorealistic Apple Remote

Apple has so many beautiful products. Their product designs consistently attain a sought-after status, which distinguishes them as an innovative company. In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to make a shiny new apple remote.

Some extra string comes here and so the layout will be much better …..

Create a Shiny Lock Icon Design

Create a Shiny Lock Icon Design

The gloss and reflection is very nicely done on this lock icon.

A popular icon that you can find on the internet is the lock icon. It is widely used to identify secure Web pages.

It often indicates password fields for secure files. Wherever you wish to place a lock icon, this tutorial will show you how to create an attractive one for you to use.

How to Create a Super Shiny Pencil Icon

How to Create a Super Shiny Pencil Icon

This is another cool looking icon, my only complaint with this is that the top part of the pencil does not look like an actual eraser, but I guess this can be fixed by changing the color and removing the reflection.

The Pencil is one of the visual metaphors most used to express creativity. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw a pencil icon. We’ll have a look at gradients, selection tools, and basic transform operations. Let’s have some fun with this.

How to Make a Bangin’ Woofer Embedded in Wood

How to Make a Bangin’ Woofer Embedded in Wood

In this tutorial, we’ll illustrate a woofer and make a simple wood texture for the background. We’ll place the speaker so that it appears to be inside the wood texture. Also, we’ll create screws that appear to hold it in place. Put some good music on and lets get working!

Illustrating a Cool Glass of Beer

In this tutorial, we’re going to draw a beer glass with some beer in it. We’ll create the shiny curly glass with reflection, put some beer in it, add some bubbles, and finally we’ll make the shadow and the reflections. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll have some fun and learn some cool techniques too.

I try to collect more of these tutorials in the future and post them as I have them. If you know some, please share with me….

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Design, Ideas, Tutorials

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Shuriken R6 released

January 7th, 2009

Shuriken R6 is out. The changes are:

Added Action as an extension point. Still need some polish though.
Added new Actions for Shuriken, namely: Settings, About, Exit
Settings is for displaying the setting dialog, and About is for displaying the about window.
Exit quits the application.

All comments and feedback are welcome. Enjoy!

Popularity: 20% [?]

Posted by gyurisc Filed in Announcements, QiiNinja, Shuriken

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Little Big Tomatoes

GoogleCalculator R2

June 24th, 2009

Windows 7 RC on my iMac

June 22nd, 2009

Team Hoyt

May 27th, 2009

The Mother of All Funk Chords

March 13th, 2009

The crisis of credit visualized

February 22nd, 2009

Extending Shuriken

February 8th, 2009

Setting up your project

Subjects and Actions

Shuriken tips #1: Locating Notepad on your computer

February 5th, 2009

Some ideas for modules for Shuriken

January 13th, 2009

Some very nice icon tutorials

January 11th, 2009

Shuriken R6 released

January 7th, 2009

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