avalonstar:distortion

Disclamer: I’m certainly not a Subversion buff/expert, so there could be much better ways of handling this beast than mine. Also, this will go into depth of how I set up Subversion to manage the upcoming versions of all my sites. So obviously, it’ll focus on setting up Subversion in for the new (gs) server series from Media Temple.

So you’ve read all the introductions. Why Subversion is good and why you should use it. You’ve probably read the manual from front to back as well. You can svn update like a fox. But ...

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8:39 PM

I tried mobile blogging this, but unfortunately my lovely Samsung A900 doesn’t like blogging. I’m unfortunately stuck in Corpus Christi at the moment, on what was supposed to be an hour trip to Houston. From the looks of it, we weren’t able to get to Houston because of a raging storm. Actually, the passenger next to me lives 5 miles from George Bush International, and his wife had a different opinion on the weather, or lack of opinion when he called her. However, I know I did see something out my window - well ...

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Dead Happy. Dead Tired. Dead… something else that I forgot.

(I’m writing this on 5 Coronas and 1 Heineken, so forgive me.)

This conference has been unnecessarily grateful and unnecessarily nice with rooms that have been unnecessarily big. All in all, at the end of day 1, I admit that I’ve been a bit spoiled for my first speaking engagement. Not just me, but all of the speakers have been treated extremely well. Sort of sets the tone, I guess. ;)

Just to summarize, the Jam Session has been an awesome, intimate event and has allowed me to ...

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So my Dad and I were talking at WalMart the other night:

Dad: So how do you like your new job? Me: It’s great Dad, it’s really fun. Dad: So what does your company do again?

* Insert semi-blank look.

Me: You know that thing that Steffi uses called LiveJournal? Dad: Yeah. Me: Well, the company makes a competitive product, which is WordPress.

* Insert nervous smile.

Dad: Oh okay.

Ever experience this? Well, I’m sure in one way or another, a family member (whom isn’t very fluent in our industry) has asked you the question of ...

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(or _The Making of bryanveloso.com_)

“Boxes. Yeah, I’ll do boxes,” I said to myself yesterday. About fifteen minutes later, I had finished. Well, let me give you some background first. A lot of you know that I finally acquired my name after almost having it slip away from me at the hands of domain squatters. Needless to say, I was freakishly excited when I got it. However, all of that freakish excitement faded away after I sat down to think about what I’d do with it. So I thought, well, what do other people do ...

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When it comes to me and Photoshop, I won’t mind documents with loads of extra layers - as long as I have complete control of them. I pretty much take non-destructive editing to the max on whatever project I’m working on. File sizes? Screw ‘em. So it seems like one of the most requested tutorials is how to create rounded corners quickly and easily. Anyway, there are many ways to make rounded corners, this is just one (non-destructive) way to do it.

Because I’m too lazy to type the steps out, you can download the screencast of ...

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SXSW in March was my first web conference, ever. So for those of you who have been, you could see my expectations coming into my second conference experience with the smaller WebVisions event - which was proudly curated by Brad Smith of Hot Pepper Studios with the help of tens of others. The short of it is, even with some mix-ups, it definitely rivaled SXSW as one of my favorites (doesn’t say much). The long story will follow.

Day 0

It seems like every time I take Southwest to go anywhere, I’m always racing against time in order ...

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About a month ago, after the Facebook fiasco, I said that I had a few things up my sleeve. Well, this is one of them. Actually, it was the only thing I managed to finish by my self-imposed July 1st deadline. So, Revyver (re•vy•ver) is the name of my new company — but it’s not just a design company, nor will it be just a design company.

Revyver stands for many things as it is derived from the word “revive”. The revival of my entrepreneurial spirit (caused by the events of late) and the will to revive ...

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Archive.org did something right for once. It kept images of logos I did from Version 12 (ChaoticSoul) of Avalonstar, so I decided the world see something that I used to be able to do. Back in 2002, I was really big on making logos, so much so that I made 5 of those that you’ll see below in one day. (Man, I miss those days when inspiration really ran free.) I believed the streak came to an end when I finally decided on using the Phoenix logo for Avalonstar. Ever since then, I haven’t designed any ...

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Since Friday, June 2nd, I’ve been working on an awesome project with the great team at Flock. What started as a trip to go visit my good friend Will Pate turned into the opportunity of a lifetime. I had the chance to take a creative role in how Flock, who are trying to revolutionize the way youth browse the web, presented themselves. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity. However, it wasn’t all sweet. By taking the project of providing them with an effective redesign to accompany their new beta product, I threw a gigantic rock ...

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As I begin writing I can remember sitting in my “Career Capstone” class at Johnson & Wales about 13 months prior to today. Ahhh.. dreadful, boring memories.

For those of you who don’t know what a capstone class is; it is the additional cherry on top of the cake that college shoved down your mouth for the past four years. It’s supposed to be the culmination of everything you’ve learned, and in this particular case, it served the purpose of getting you ready for your career. Now, one concept that was constantly shoved into our brains was ...

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In the past three months, I’ve had to migrate through three systems, a PowerBook, MacBook Pro and my new mini Mac. Now if you’re a customization whore like myself, you like (for example) all your icons and wallpaper the way you like them. Unfortunately, circumstances arose that didn’t allow me to transfer all of my settings during all three cases. Long story short, I’ve frankly lost my love for the Aqua icons in lieu of Sascha’s MINIUM° icon set.

Apple Mail happens to be one of my most used programs. It’s no surprise ...

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I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, and it’s sort of a weird situation that’s causing me to write this.

Let me start off by saying that one of my good friends from Rhode Island was recently “dooced” (if I may use the word), before she even began her summer internship. I’m left with this feeling of anger after reading her thoughts about it, but yet, it’s an o-so-familiar story that so many people have been through. We’ve been told about this over and over again to not post personal ...

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Although I was really trying to keep myself from doing meme’s, the one that Jeff Croft (but apparently Dan Rubin beat him to it) tagged me with provided me with a bit of a challenge. For one, it has been a while since I’ve thought so far back, and two, doing so would offer me some time to reminisce. However, unlike Jeff’s answers, I’ll be presenting mine backwards, as I’m sure you’d like to discover more about the 13-year-old Bryan than the 22-year-old Bryan.

Where was I ten years ago?

Ten years ago ...

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As sort of a sequel to my “Rules for Instant Messaging” comes the next most likely candidate, commenting. It’s interesting because the comment in our world is like gold in any other. A person’s opinion is invaluable, but as with gold, there are some that are the genuine artifact and others that are as valuable as pyrite.

But if I did have to make only one rule for commenting, it’d be this. (And I have Mr. Snook here to agree with me.)

1. Commenting’s fun! If you’re not doing it yet, do it already! Contribute ...

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It’s about 7:30 PM, and I can finally say that I feel relaxed for the first time today, first time this week for that matter. I have the windows open and can hear the cars fly by. It’s a feeling I don’t get too often while I’m alone.

Usually my relaxing moments come when Jen’s with me and we’re watching an episode of Lost or playing a board game. But since she’s at school for another two hours, I can only fend for myself.

I had a hard time working today ...

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For years I’ve kept my screen name in the open as I’ve been willing to help people when they were in need of some attentionadvice. But years of instant messaging can take a toll as such, I’ve developed a few pet peeves. So to warn you before you incur the wrath of: o_O, here are a few “rules” to keep in mind. Granted, rules are meant to be broken and I find myself breaking some myself at times. But calling them guidelines just doesn’t do them enough justice.

• Never, ever, start a conversation with ...

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Bryan: o_o; Christ. Paul: Did veloso drink again? Bryan: I just standardized the markup in all 199 posts. o_o; It took a day. But hey! It’s done! Paul: Whoa. That sounds really geeky.

Now before you go around saying that I know how to waste my time, let me tell you that this was a very important step, as the Aries Project beings today.

It may seem like a stupid thing to do. But take it from me; you don’t want to be going back to posts you don’t necessarily care about, stripping unwanted and unused ...

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So remember that book I’d never write? Looks like we were all wrong, even me. I was wrong. I wrote a book! So let me give you the synopsis (and background story) of the new book by Bryan Veloso, “CSS by Kittens”.

The idea for this book came to me when used my smallest kitten, Naida, as a stand for my PowerBook. Then I thought to myself, what would it be like if one of my kittens designed a website using CSS? Now come on, they’re my cats, so they better know their CSS. So I sat ...

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…although I wish it was. Or do I?

Maybe not. It’s not the old “hi my name is Bryan and this is what I did today” sort of thing. Actually, I would have loved to just sit down and write about how I’m in Minnesota in twelve-degree weather. But, it’s not that simple anymore. I can’t just sit down for a few minutes and just pump out a post, not that I’d want to. I have to think about what I want to say, how I’m going to say it, if it’s ...

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Bryan: So I saw this next piece of domination software that Google released yesterday. “Pack of bovine with mad cow disease” I think it’s called.

* In comes Paul Stamatiou. Since he was the first guy to comment on the last play, he’s been cast in this one. The following lines aren’t by him and probably contains things he’d never say.

Paul: Pack of rabid mice is more like it. Look at the website.

* Paul then hands Bryan a sheet of paper.

Bryan: Look at this. Essential, Simple, Customizable and Up to Date. Up to date ...

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