Rss Bot

Windscribe is a VPN company established in 2016 in Richmond Hill, a city in south-central York Region in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its VPN platform offers a very impressive collection of features, plus flexible pricing plans, making it one of our recommendations for the best VPN in 2019. Plans and pricing The provider’s free plan comes with a 10GB of available monthly traffic. If your requirements exceed this limit, then two paid plans are available by default - the one-month and the one-year option, at $9 (about £7) and $4.08 (about £3) per month, respectively. Windscribe also allows you to create your own plan, purchasing only the servers you want for $1 (about £0.80) a month each. The only condition is that you purchase at least two locations. Each location you select adds 10GB more to your free bandwidth. Payment options include credit cards, PayPal, gift cards, cryptocurrencies, and more. If any problems arise with the service, you’ll only have three business days to ask for a refund and only if you haven’t exceeded the 10GB traffic limit. Image credit: Windscribe Features Windscribe has servers in 110 cities across 60+ countries, but only 10 of these locations are available with the free plan. The provider’s Windows and Mac apps have a firewall, which blocks all connectivity outside of the VPN tunnel to protect you from any possible leaks. Moreover, Windscribe deems its firewall superior to a regular kill switch, which it calls a 'reactive measure' that still entails a risk of packets leaving your computer over the default gateway (your ISP). The browser extensions have a few perks of their own, such as spoofing your computer’s timezone to match the location you’re connected to via VPN. This prevents websites from finding out you’re using a VPN when they check the timezone of your computer. The extensions also feature the Split Personality option, which prevents browser fingerprinting by rotating your browser’s user agent each time you open it. The Anti-Social feature blocks all social media trackers on the websites you visit, while the Ad Blocker defeats all those pesky ads. Windscribe’s desktop clients have the unique capability to import custom OpenVPN configuration files from other providers, listing those servers next to its own. If you choose one of the paid plans, you will be able to secure up to five devices at the same time (the free plan allows only one). This number can be further increased if you enable the service on one of the routers that support it. Privacy and logging The impenetrable encryption is ensured by the use of the 256-AES algorithm, accompanied by the SHA-512 authentication. To protect your privacy, Windscribe also relies on the usual transfer protocols: IKEv2 and OpenVPN. IKEv2 is used as a default and recommended by the provider itself, ensuring the best possible performance. Windscribe has its own proprietary, fully customizable DNS-based blocker option called ROBERT, which blocks the content you choose to block, such as malware, phishing, botnets, ads, tracking domains at the DNS level and more. The no-logs policy lists the usual guarantees: not to store connection or session logs, your online activities or IP timestamps. The only information collected is for the purpose of enforcing the free plan and prevent abuses, and it includes the amount of data transferred on a monthly basis as well as when you last used the service. Although these claims aren’t easy to substantiate without an outsider audit, the company still makes an effort to prove its dedication to your privacy. Namely, every year it publishes a Transparency Report where it lists all the data requests received from the DMCA and other organization with which it could not comply because there is no data to share. That said, keep in mind that Canada, where this provider is based, is one of the Five Eyes countries (along with US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand), which share intelligence data among each other and aren’t exactly the poster children of privacy protection. Performance Windscribe provides excellent performance in terms of download speed, connection times, and stability, provided you use the default IKEv2 protocol. The results are slightly poorer with OpenVPN although not terribly inferior to IKEv2. Image credit: Windscribe Netflix One of the most sought-after features in the VPN industry is access to popular streaming services that limit their usage in certain regions due to company policies or other reasons. These include the ever-popular Netflix, whose US, UK, Japanese, and Canadian libraries can be accessed via special servers cleverly named Windflix. Unfortunately, the provider currently lacks support for unblocking BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, and some other streaming services. Torrents Most of the provider’s servers are P2P-optimized, which means that unlimited torrenting is supported. The servers that don’t support torrenting are indicated in the clients. Client setup Windscribe can be installed on Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, Linux, Amazon Fire, Windows Phone and many, many more, with clients available for the major platforms and manual installation guides for all the supported platforms. Support If the website’s large library isn’t enough to address all your concerns, then the friendly customer service agents are there for you. You can reach them through chat, email and even Reddit, although the company doesn’t have many agents at its immediate disposal so you might need to wait for a while to get a response. View the full article

Israel-based Wix is a giant of the website builder industry, and undoubtedly one of the best web hosting services around, with over 150 million users worldwide. Despite being founded in 2006, the company hit its first million users in 2009 and today it has 2,770 employees with offices in Israel, the US, Lithuania, Germany, Brazil, Ukraine, Ireland and Canada. Unlike traditional website hosting services such as GoDaddy or InMotion, Wix is a website builder first with free web hosting thrown in as an added bonus. The decision to bundle its plans with free web hosting fits perfectly with the company’s goal to enable anyone to create a professional website quickly and easily since its customers won’t have to spend time shopping for a web host and can instead focus on building their sites. With Wix, users can build their site using the company’s drag-and-drop editor or they can even have it created automatically by using Wix Artificial Design Intelligence. So let’s take a closer look at the service’s plans, features and pricing to see if this website builder is the right fit for your website. Image credit: Wix Costs and what's covered While Wix does offer a free plan that gives you access to hundreds of templates, unlimited pages and top graded web hosting, the company’s premium plans give you even more. Wix’s premium website plans start with its Combo plan for $11 (about £9) per month, which gives you 2GB of bandwidth, 3GB of storage, the ability to connect your domain, 30 video minutes and a free domain for one year. Next up we have the ‘Unlimited’ plan which is geared towards entrepreneurs and freelancers. This plan costs $14 (about £11) per month and includes all of the features of the combo plan as well as unlimited bandwidth, 10GB of storage, one video hour, $300 (about £270) in ad vouchers, Wix’s site booster app and its form builder app. Wix’s Pro plan costs $19 (about £17) per month and includes all of the features of the Unlmited plan as well as 20GB of storage, two video hours, events calendar, professional logo and social media logo files. Finally, we have Wix’s VIP plan, which includes everything the Pro plan does, but also comes with first priority support. It is also worth noting that the company’s free and Connect Domain plans include Wix branding at the bottom of your site. However, Wix’s premium plans don’t include any branding at all. Signing up Once you’ve chosen your plan, Wix asks you to enter your email address and a password. The company then runs you through a series of questions to determine what kind of site you want to create and who your audience will be. Once you’ve completed the questionnaire, you’re then asked whether you would like Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to build your site for you or if you would prefer to create it yourself using Wix’s drag-and-drop editor. If you’re still not sure which option is the best for you, Wix does have an article in its help center titled Creating a new site: Editor vs ADI that could help point you in the right direction. Overall though, Wix’s signup and account creation process are fairly straightforward, and the option to connect your Google or Facebook account (as opposed to making an entirely new one) is a nice touch. Image credit: Wix Creating a site As we mentioned before, you can use either Wix’s regular editor or ADI to create your site. ADI lets you create a site in almost no time at all but the editor is much simpler. All you have to do is tell Wix the type of site you want to create, the features you need (selling online, taking appointments, getting subscribers, a blog etc), import some of your social media and contact details and ADI quickly creates a site to match. The regular editor takes a much more manual approach. You start with a template which you can customize by dragging and dropping the full set of Wix components onto the page or adjusting the elements you already have. This approach gives you more control over the layout of your site but there is also a significant drawback. ADI allows you to change your layout after you’ve created your site but once you have selected a template in the standard editor, you’re unable to switch it later. One of the best things about Wix is its polished user interface. All of the design elements in its editor are available via a toolbar to the left while importing media and accessing settings can be done via a toolbar at the top of the page. There are also guidelines down the center of each page to help you line up your content accordingly. Wix is a very design-focused company and you can tell that just from visiting its website. It’s great to see that this attention to detail carries over to its website builder as well. If you’re an experienced user, you’ll be right at home and if you’re a beginner, you’ll be able to pick things up rather quickly especially since help is available right from within the editor itself. Even if you’re just a beginner when it comes to website building, we still recommend using the regular editor as the learning curve is not too difficult. However, if you need to get a site up and running immediately, then ADI might be the better option. Performance When reviewing a website hosting service or even a website builder for that matter, the first thing we do is to look at the support options on hand. Thankfully Wix has a lot of built-in support. For example, left-clicking any object in the editor displays a toolbar with a help icon and a help menu is always visible in the editor’s own toolbar. If you do access help from within the editor itself, it will be displayed in a small pop-up window which is quite handy as it doesn’t take you away from the work area. However, you can also go to Wix’s Help Center via your web browser to sell all of the articles and commonly asked questions in a full browser window. Wix’s knowledgebase provides users with a number of useful articles on a variety of topics including the Wix Editor, domains, mobile, SEO, Wix Stores, ADI and more. These articles are presented well and many include animated GIFS to help illustrate interface actions for those who need extra help. Wix’s support articles are also tailored to both beginners and experienced users. If you need further help, customer support is available via a ticket system though unfortunately there is no live chat option. Telephone support is also available, but your only option is to request a call-back, which can be frustrating when you’re in the middle of troubleshooting an issue. View the full article

In the 21st century, sharing files, audio, and video is a regular part of our work and daily lives. But converting files to different formats can be a pain. To do this, you need a tool like Video Master that can easily convert media files to over 50 different formats. Video Master is super fast to use, and can convert files with just one click. With it, you can download videos from over 100 platforms, including YouTube, Dailymotion, and Vimeo. You'll also be able to record videos directly from your screen. The best cloud storage 2019 Video Master even has built-in tools that enable you to edit your own videos, enabling you to trim footage, crop videos, add subtitles, and much more. Best of all, you can get a lifetime license for the low price of just $29. Related articles: The best monitors for video editing The best video editing software in 2019 The best laptops for video editing in 2019 View the full article

In web design, great user interface, or UI design, is all about helping the user to accomplish a given task as simply and efficiently as possible. While the look and feel is undeniably important, at the core of a great UI is function: in terms of navigation, it should be intuitive to the point of being invisible. As soon as a user gets lost, or can't work out where to go, the UI's not doing its job, and there are plenty of examples of painful UI fails to demonstrate what you shouldn't be doing. This list of websites and apps may have different design principles and different functions, but they have one thing in common – effective UI design that satisfies all of the above and more. Read on to find out why they're so successful. The best website builder in 2019 01. Montreux Jazz Festival Here's a fantastic way to build your own tailor-made festival programme with a few swipes There's nothing like being at a festival to get your FOMO levels through the roof; sure, you might be enjoying the act you're seeing now, but maybe there's another even better one happening elsewhere that you don't even know about. No matter how many times you comb through the long list of performers, there are bound to be a few absolute gems that you miss. But this great piece of UI design for the Montreux Jazz Festival aims to help you ensure that you get the very most out of your time there. It keeps things beautifully simple, presenting you with six binary choices that you can swipe left or right to build up an impression of your musical preference – for example, do you prefer DJs over bands? – and once you're done it'll present you with your own personalised programme based on what it thinks you'll enjoy, complete with links to buy tickets. Lizzo! How did they know? It's easy and intuitive and, while you'll doubtless want to double-check the full programme anyway to make certain that there's definitely nothing you've missed, it's a brilliant way to help you drill quickly through a lot of information to find results. 02. Tilt Brush Virtual reality is very much frontier territory as far as UI and UX is concerned. It's designers and developers having to make stuff up as they go along, with naturally mixed results. What works on a flat screen doesn't necessarily work so well in VR, and building an effective and useful VR app that you can use for hours without getting motion sickness can be quite a challenge. So it's great to see a VR product like Google's Tilt Brush – which lets you build up 3D paintings in a virtual environment – that not only works, but is so intuitive to use, and with such great results that artists are already incorporating it into their creative workflows. Head this way for some excellent pro tips on getting started with this game-changing creative app. 03. Patterning Patterning's circular, minimal approach makes it easier to roll your beats [Image: Olympia Noise Co] Olympia Noise Co's iOS drum machine, Patterning, is unlike any you've seen before, and with good reason. Rather than sequence your rhythm on a grid like every other music app, Patterning uses a circular interface for the basic business of laying out your beats, with colour coded drums so that you can easily see what's what. And beyond the basics, Patterning's smart but minimal UI makes the more complicated business of sequencing longer songs out of individual patterns a lot less challenging, enabling you to easily create variations on patterns and then fit everything together. It takes a similarly straightforward approach to making everything sound better, too; both its mixer and FX interface are thoughtfully laid out with bold visual cues that help you get the sound you want without getting bogged down among inscrutable controls. 04. MailChimp MailChimp's design is clean and flat and largely typographical [Image: MailChimp] Newsletter creation and management may not be the most exciting task in the world, but the beautifully designed, intuitive user interface design of MailChimp makes it that much more palatable. Since its recent redesign, the web UI is clean, flat and primarily typographical. When your account is first set up, the classic 'empty account' problem before your first campaign gets off the ground is balanced out by helpful, visually pleasing user guides. There's plenty of white space, and clear calls to action walk new users through every step of the process - in some cases even incorporating a subtly-animated pointer to indicate where to click. Helpful calls to action prevent you getting lost in MailChimp [Image: MailChimp] 05. Paper for iPad Paper is designed to be intuitive to use [Image: FiftyThree] A multi-award-winning app designed to help users be creative in a more intuitive, natural way, Paper lets you draw with your fingertips with a surprising level of detail - although it also works with a stylus if more precision is required. Designed exclusively for touch, Paper's UI design has no buttons or settings to worry about – just a series of specialised tools. The versatile fountain pen-style Draw tool comes free, while Sketch (soft pencil), Outline (bold marker), Write (ink pen), Color (watercolour brush) and Mixer (colour blender) come as in-app purchases. Rather than buttons, Paper has a set of specialised tools [Image: FiftyThree] 06. Things Available for both Mac and iOS, Things is a popular task management app with an award-winning design that's intuitive and easy to pick up, based around the familiar to-do list concept. As its creators Cultured Code point out, the idea is to make your life easier, after all. The slick, clean user interface design comes pre-divided into lists to help you categorise your tasks: urgent things go in 'Today', slightly less urgent can wait until 'Next', while 'Schedule' plans further ahead. Each entry captures important information in one go – title, notes and due date, as well as tags if required to help categorise everything. Best of all, the Quick Entry window is accessible from anywhere using a simple keyboard shortcut – and it's all synced automatically across desktop, iPhone and iPad. 07. Campaign Monitor: Worldview Worldview lays out complex data in an accessible way A wonderfully original idea that puts an engaging twist on email subscription data, Campaign Monitor: Worldview overlays information about individuals who are opening, clicking and sharing your communications on a Google Map in real-time for both geographical and personal insights. The landing page introduces the concept in an immediate visual way, with example pins dropping onto a world map – and the application interface itself is refreshingly clean, revolving around the map and a few basic menus for controlling settings. A great example of UI design, with simple iconography and colour coding identifying different categories of user engagement at a glance. 08. Figure Figure's designed to help you bang out tunes on the go [Image: Propellerhead] Yet another example of flat design making a potentially very complicated UI design look very clean and intuitive, Figure is a synthesiser and drum machine for iOS from Swedish developer Propellerhead, which is also behind desktop music production software Reason. You can tap the touch-screen pads, hold your finger down and scroll the rhythm wheels for a range of different sounds, or swipe across the screen to play different notes in the scale. There are also wheels to control the range of notes you have to work with, the number of notes in melodies and bass lines, and various tabs to tweak the sound in a variety of ways. 09. Kennedy Kennedy adds context to your memories [Image: Brendan Dawes] There's nothing quite like scrolling through a load of your old Twitter updates and wondering what in the hell you were thinking of when you posted that thing six months ago. Lack of context can often mean that something that made perfect sense at the time can be rendered meaningless months or years down the line. Kennedy, a diary app from the ever-excellent Brendan Dawes, is designed to add context to your memories. You can use it to create text notes of what you're up to, just like you might type into Facebook or Twitter, and maybe add photos to the notes while you're at it. The clever touch, though, is that Kennedy then adds an extra layer of context by adding your location, the date and time, the current weather conditions, a news headline and, if you're listening to music on your phone at the time, the name of the track you're listening to. Kennedy's added details make a rich alternative to dry notes [Image: Brendan Dawes] The result is that instead of a dry note that won't really mean much down the line, you capture a particular moment with fuller context, complete with plenty of prompts that can help bring back a memory in much more detail. And Dawes' clean design and smart UI keeps everything simple and good-looking. Related articles: 7 golden rules of UX 20 top UX tools and resources 5 emerging UX trends right now View the full article

Us by Night is unique among design and creativity festivals, because it takes place in the evening: a much more civilised time to network, learn and be entertained. Taking place in Antwerp this 26-28 September, Us by Night is also a great excuse to indulge in the delights of this Flemish city, which is an intoxicating melting pot of creative practices, multicultural artists and innovative tech businesses. Not to mention the arcade, the night market, the delicious local food, and the fluorescent ping-pong! But of course, the biggest reason to head to Us by Night are the top-flight speakers, and one of the top draws this year will Gary Card. Who is Gary Card? London-based designer, illustrator, artist and sculptor Gary Card is known worldwide for his dreamlike scenes and whimsical designs for the likes of Nike, Hermès and Comme des Garçons, as well as designing album covers for Paul McCartney and costumes for Lady Gaga. Now, he's about to take over Phillips‘ London Gallery for a major private-sale exhibition, called Hysterical. For this, he's created a colourful, cartoonish wonderland as a backdrop to works by contemporary artists. We caught up with Gary to find out what makes him tick, what he'll be talking about at Us by Night, and why no one should miss it! What will your talk at Us by Night be about? Last year, Gary transformed Covent Garden’s Galeria Melissa into "Medusa’s lair" My forthcoming exhibition, Hysterical. It's by far the biggest thing I've ever worked on, getting to re-contextualise some of the work from my art heroes. I want to talk about the whole process and what brought me there. What's the inspiration behind it? I've always been interested in the concepts of high art and low art, and the space between them. What makes something high art? Many artists that I admire have explored this division through the use of cartoon imagery. Who, for example? Illustrators such as Robert Crumb and Basil Wolverton have explored this world for 40 years and are now being reassessed as serious artists worthy of their place in the canon. George Condo, Paul McCarthy, Ugo Rondinone are all artists who've inspired my work, and whom we have chosen to feature in this show. They all draw on inspiration from pop culture to explore ideas of great depth and feeling. McCarthy for me, in particular, has chosen to scratch beneath the joyful, seemingly harmless exterior of our favourite cartoon icons to reveal subjects that make his work so unsettling. Younger artists like Jordan Wolfson and Jamian Juliano-Vilani are picking up that mantle. This strange corner or contemporary art has brought me to the world of Hysterical, a cartoon fun house, which extenuates the vibrancy of our curated pieces as well as heightening their inherent menace. Set design, illustration, toy design, sculpture... you're often described as a polymath. Was that always your intention? Sculpture is just one of Gary's creative talents That word 'polymath' is so funny. It's only been batted around the last two or so years. Now everyone's a polymath! It only applies to me because I couldn't really make my mind up what I wanted to do. So I tried a bit of everything. I studied theatre design, so having a broad range of skills was very useful. You had to be be able to paint, sculpt, make costumes, act and write, sometimes even create sound and compose music. So that training definitely informed my approach to design now. It certainly helps with budgets! When I started out, I couldn't afford to get anyone to make my stuff, so I just did all myself. As I grew with the job, my teams got bigger, but I still remain as hands-on as I can, although for a lot of the team that means getting under my team's feet. Where did your love of vivid colour come from? I think it's just from a love of pop culture in general. Cartoons, MTV, comics and toys: everything I loved was a psychedelic vomit of colour and styles, oversaturated, detailed, intricate and messy. That's still a big part of my personal style, though hopefully it's far more focused these days. Very early in your career, you became the go-to for some of fashion's biggest names. Was there a "big break" that propelled you to that level? Set design for an Oxfam fashion shoot There wasn't one big break really, just a series of fractures. Probably the biggest leg up was from working with [Italian-Japanese fashion editor] Nicola Formichetti in the mid-noughties. I messaged him on MySpace and asked if he'd be interested in using any of my work in his editorials. Soon after, I was featured in almost every shoot he worked on, providing head pieces, masks, strange props and sculptures, and finally set-pieces for Japanese Vogue, Dazed and Confused and Another Magazine. From there, I started making commercial work for his clients like Uniqlo, Comm des Garcons and Lady Gaga. It all happened very organically, I was extremely lucky. If you could have a conversation with your younger self, what would you advise him? I could tell him not to stress about everything so much. But then some of that frantic nervous energy made some really great stuff, so that might not be great advice! One thing's for sure: I would tell him firmly, 'Don't get drunk the night before a job, you idiot!' I'll leave 'why' to your imagination. How do you see your career evolving in future? I'm so excited about painting now. Painting has always been part of my job – painting backdrops for editorials – but it's always been a means to an end. Now I'm finally painting for myself, as standalone pieces, with no model standing in front of it. That's genuinely thrilling to me now: it's a dream come true. So in the future, that's where I would like to see my career go, We're so excited to see you speak at Us by Night in September! Have you been to the event before? Gary's work for a Comme des Garçons shirt campaign, 2009 I have not, but my best friend Ferry Gouw spoke there last year and said it was amazing. He came home with loads of stories about how fun it was, so I was very excited when they asked me to be involved! Us By Night takes place at Antwerp, Belgium from Thu, Sep 26, 2019 – Sat, Sep 28, 2019. Don't miss out: buy your tickets now! Read more: Us by Night 2019 is set to be bigger and better than before 'I Amsterdam' sign returns with a powerful message The rebirth of the zine View the full article

There are several reasons why you might want to make your workspace more Instagram-friendly. Perhaps you want to foster the idea that you spend all day being creative in a studio that's beautiful enough to send all your followers into fits of envy. Maybe you hope that anyone that drops by will take a sneaky selfie, and post it on Insta to give you some free publicity. Or, it could be that the photos you usually take look a little dull and 'office-y', and you want to mix things up. Whatever the reason, the good news is that it isn't that hard to carve out some Insta-worthy spaces in your studio. Here are 7 easy ways in which you can do just that, plus a couple of emergency drastic measures if it all goes wrong. For more Insta tips and tricks, don't miss our posts on how to change the font in your Instagram bio and how to hack Instagram algorithm. 01. Get a background wall One easy way to ensure you've got the perfect Insta-spot in your studio is to create a background, or accent, wall where you can snap photos. A popular background wall is made up of gold or silver streamers, but you can also customise yours to your studio. That might mean painting your studio name across the wall, or using the colours in your logo, or your logo itself, to create a block print. And if you're feeling really adventurous, you could even paint a mural. You could also experiment with adding a bold wallpaper design to your studio. This can add a splash of colour to an otherwise neutral scheme, and if you're only buying a small amount of wallpaper, should also be relatively cheap. 02. Buy some houseplants How could an Insta guide not mention the joy of houseplants? Adding some green into your studio will not only be good for your wellbeing, but can provide a good background for Insta snaps too. Make sure you take proper care of your plants though, a wilting, yellow plant is unlikely to prove popular, however many filters you apply to it. Not sure which plants to go for? See our guide to plants to improve studio life. 03. Hang some prints Every self-respecting studio should have some prints on its walls. Create a gallery wall for the ultimate background or dot these around your studio. As Hey Studio shows, if you haven't got any wall space, you can always add prints to your bookcases. Which leads us on to our next point... 04. Fill your bookshelves Apart from being, of course, great resources, books can add colour and texture to your studio. You can also rearrange them in different ways – by colour or height order, for example – to switch things up. A pile of books in the background can add something extra to an Insta shot, and bookcases themselves are often photogenic, just make sure you get some decent shelves. For ideas of books to buy, see our post on the best graphic design books. 05. Think about lighting Although you can sometimes fix poorly lit photos in Instagram or through other photo editing tools (see our favourite photo apps), your photos will look better if you get the lighting right when you take them. Experiment with different types of lighting in your studio, and consider lighting when making your background wall (and of course, when deciding where to place your house plants). 06. Consider your surfaces As well as having a background wall to photograph against, you may also want to think about having some photogenic surfaces dotted around. This could be as simple as a nice tablecloth, a pleasing wooden desk or table (see our best desks roundup) or if you've got the budget to really renovate, even some patterned tiles on the floor. 07. Coordinate your outfits This one's an easy win. You don't have to change anything in your studio, just wear some stripes and watch the likes roll in! 08. And if all else fails... If it all goes wrong, and you run out of energy, budget or iCloud storage space (we can't actually help you with that, you'll have to upgrade or delete something), you could try the following, slightly more drastic ideas: Get a studio pet. (Although remember that a pet is for life, not just for Instagram, or National Pet Day.) Or even a studio baby. (Although remember that a baby is also for life, not just for Instagram.) Read more: 9 agencies to follow on Instagram A designer's guide to Instagram Stories Meet some of the best studio pets in the business View the full article

GE Healthcare said an attacker could modify gas composition parameters within the devices' respirator function. View the full article

It's not abnormal to see some incredible early Prime day deals in the run up to the big event. But Walmart is currently pulling out all the stops with this incredible Dell Inspiron 15 5000 offer, which takes the word bargain to a whole new level. Originally priced at $499, Walmart has dropped the cost to just $329.99, knocking a huge $169 off the retail price. Windows 10, a Core i7 processor and built-in AMD graphics make the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 a powerful all-rounder. The 15-inch screen's resolution leaves a little to be desired, but when you take in to account the price point, this laptop is still excellent value for money. If you're after a portable and powerful notebook that won't break the bank, the Inspiron 15 5000 is seriously worth considering. Not in the US? Here are the best Dell Inspiron 15 5000 prices in your area: Read more: The best laptops for graphic design in 2019 The best digital art software in 2019 The best laptop bags for 2019 View the full article

After media scrutiny, the collaboration service has decided to address the zero-day after initially dismissing its severity. View the full article

The best ereaders give you access to a whole library of books, from your pocket. While it is unlikely ereaders will ever replace the traditional printed book, they are a fantastic innovation for those who don't have space to store all the books they want to read, or are are often travelling. An ereader will also enable you to download books directly to the device from the comfort of your own home, rather than trawling bookshops for sometimes expensive books. The books every graphic designer should read The ereader market is dominated by Amazon's Kindles at the moment, and the Amazon bookstore certainly offers the widest range of ebooks. However, of the relatively few other ebook manufacturers out there, Kobo is also worth a look. If it is a Kindle you're after, we're likely to see some discounts over Amazon Prime Day (15-16 July). Our tool will pull in the cheapest prices below, or check out our Prime Day deals roundup for discounts on more creative gear. First, let's get started with our pick of the best ereaders right now... If you’re happy to spend a bit extra, almost everything is slightly improved on the Kindle Paperwhite when you’re comparing it to the standard Kindle. It has a far better display with a higher resolution and a stronger backlight, plus it comes with an improved screen tech that makes it easier to read in direct sunlight. The design feels more premium in the hand – although it isn’t the most high-end device on this list – and you’ve got direct access to Amazon’s book store that allows you to use services like Kindle Unlimited or get cheaper titles during Amazon’s regular book sales. Overall, the Kindle Paperwhite is one of the best ereaders money can buy – it’s well worth the extra money in terms of the extra features you get over the standard Kindle. The cheapest ereader, Amazon's Kindle is one of the best that money can buy if you’re looking for an affordable option. This latest version of the standard Kindle was released early in 2019, and it’s the first of the basic Amazon ereaders to include a backlight to let you read in the dark. If you’re looking to read books with illustrations, you may not be happy with the resolution here on the Kindle as it’s substantially lower than the rest of the ereaders on this list (the Kindle offers 167ppi, while its competitors all pack in 300ppi). It also has a slim and lightweight design. This ereader offers the least storage of all the devices on this list – just 4GB. However, for ebooks this is absolutely plenty; you'll be able to store hundreds of ebooks with no trouble. However, if you're a big audiobook fan, you'll want to stump up for something with more space – 4GB will hold maybe 10 audiobooks max. The Kindle doesn’t feel as premium as Amazon’s other ereaders, but if the cost of your device is the most important consideration then you’ll want to consider picking up this Kindle as your way to read ebooks on the move. The Kobo Clara HD is very similar to the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, but you won’t have access to Amazon’s book store. Instead it uses the Kobo Store, which you will want to take a look at before you buy one of these, as it can be a bit more limited in book choices. If the store includes the books you want, it’s well worth getting this Kobo as it features a great looking design alongside a beautiful 6-inch HD display with the same resolution as the Paperwhite. The display is particularly good in low light, making this a great choice if you like reading before bed. Everything else is remarkably similar to the Paperwhite. If you’re looking for a device that isn’t made by Amazon, we recommend this Kobo as it’s one of the cheapest from one of the few alternative ereader manufacturers out there. The Kindle Oasis is the most expensive ereader in Amazon’s range, and it's also its most high-tech and beautifully designed device. It features a similar screen tech to the Paperwhite, but it’s slightly larger meaning you have more space on the page, plus it has better backlighting tech too. You may want to opt for the 32GB of storage variant here if you’re planning to download and play audiobooks over Bluetooth headphones or a speaker (there's no headphone jack). That’s an option on all of Amazon’s Kindle products, but the 32GB Oasis will give you lots of space to fill with Audible titles. The undeniable highlight of the Oasis is its design. It’s ergonomically more comfortable than a lot of the other devices in this list which makes it easier to read for long periods of time. Just note you’ll have to spend quite a bit to be able to get it. Arguably the most unique device on this list is the Kobo Forma, but it’s also the most expensive. With a huge 8-inch display, you’ve got a lot of screen to use when reading your ebooks and it features a 300ppi resolution so those books will be clear and easy to read. The extra screen doesn’t make this a heavy ereader either – it weighs in at just 197g. It’s a premium design overall, but it’s worth noting that Kobo’s store can be a little limited in its book selection so be sure to have a look to ensure you want to opt for Kobo’s alternative to Amazon. Overall, if you’re looking for one of the very best ereaders that money can buy you should opt for the Kobo Forma. However, note that high price, and the smaller book range, before you make your final decision. Read more: The best drawing books Free fonts for designers The best wireless headphones in 2019 View the full article

If you thought the KFC bucket had one use and one use only, you were wrong. Because now, the KFC bucket-hat is here. That's right, you can now be the proud owner of a hat that looks like a KFC bucket. Or a KFC bucket that looks like a hat (or maybe even a multi-purpose bucket-hat... more on that later). The bonkers project, for KFC Russia, is the result of a collaboration between W+K Amsterdam and Russian streetwear label Mam Cupy. It shows both KFC and Mam Cupy logos flipped upside down while in hat form – though they're the right way up when the item's used as a bucket (read more about making a statement with your logo in our guide to logo design). KFC has form when it comes to pulling off unexpected marketing campaigns – its FCK apology ad by Mother London picked up a D&AD Yellow Pencil – but is this new campaign genius or madness? The bucket-hat is part of a wider branding campaign for KFC Russia by W+K and is accompanied by this glorious video: 'Is it a hat? Or a bucket? But if it's a hat, how can it be a bucket? I don't know, but I like it,' says the video, while sultry models pose with the hat. It's worth noting that none of these models look like they have fried chicken grease running down their faces, so we can assume that they are sticking to the hat function. “For years we looked at a KFC bucket and wondered whether it would make a good hat… now we know," said W+K Amsterdam copywriter Dasha Ovechkina and creative director Cal Al-Jorani in a statement. We can imagine England football fans enjoying the bucket-hat We're not entirely sure that the world needed to find out to be honest, but this is an imaginative, if somewhat ridiculous piece of branding from W+K Amsterdam. The pros of the bucket-hat? Well you certainly wouldn't lose it in a crowd. And if you did happen to get hungry while in said crowd, and had some food to put in your hat, you'd be laughing. Though if you wanted to put your hat on again, you'd probably discover the downside of this particular tie-in. Even after watching the video, we still have a few questions. First of all, was this just one of those throwaway ideas someone suggested in a meeting that went a little too far? Was it born out of someone saying the phrase 'I'll eat my hat'? And perhaps most importantly, will KFC Russia be serving directly into the hat-bucket? Answers on a hat-shaped postcard please. You can buy the KFC bucket-hat from Mam Cupy for 18,00 ruples (approx $28/£23) here, although navigating the website may prove tricky if you don't speak Russian. Read more: I Amsterdam returns with a powerful message The good, the bad and the WTF of brand apologies Is Desigual's new logo a step forwards? View the full article

Researchers say malware infects phones in order to sneak ads on devices for profit. View the full article

In a world-first, Amazon has partnered with the UK's health service, the NHS. From this week, its voice-controlled device, Alexa, will give out health advice, and answer common questions such as 'Alexa, how do I treat a migraine?' and 'Alexa, what are the symptoms of chickenpox?' In response to health-related queries, Alexa will now search the NHS Choices website for health information (and there you were thinking Amazon was all about Prime Day deals). The aim is to ease pressure on the NHS and help those who can't easily access information on the internet – such as the elderly or blind people. Will this partnership with Amazon really end up easing pressure on the health service, or will it lead to data protection issues and misdiagnoses? As we've previously explored, the use of voice interfaces is one of the fastest growing web design trends in recent years, but so far the news has been met with concerns over the appropriateness of using Alexa to deliver this kind of important and sensitive information. Will this partnership with Amazon really end up easing pressure on the health service, or will it lead to data protection issues and misdiagnoses? The health secretary, Matt Hancock, was optimistic about the partnership: “Technology like this is a great example of how people can access reliable, world-leading NHS advice from the comfort of their home, reducing the pressure on our hardworking GPs and pharmacists,” he said. Of course, users wouldn't normally be able to access Alexa if they didn't already have an Amazon device such as Amazon Echo (see our guide to Amazon devices), but The Department of Health has said that access will be given through a free app. On Twitter, the reaction was mixed (okay, we mean negative), with users citing all sorts of concerns, including the functionality of Alexa, data protection worries – no doubt referencing this year's news that Amazon employees listen to recordings in order to develop new services – and questioning the government's priorities. Others joked about the potential implications of people relying on Alexa for health advice. The deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, spoke about the dangers of mixing NHS data with big tech companies. While others pointed out that Alexa dealing with queries isn't much different to typing them into Google. According to the BBC, talks are also underway to set up similar partnerships with other companies, such as Microsoft. Which shows that yet again, Amazon is leading the way. Whether or not it will be able to really help those with minor health complaints remains to be seen. Read more: Web components: the ultimate guide The hottest web design trends of 2019 Build a voice controlled AI View the full article

The giant red and white letters of the 'I amsterdam' sign were a popular tourist destination in the Dutch capital, but they were controversially removed by disgruntled city officials in December 2018. However, the sign recently returned with a new message to help save something else that's vanishing, the Amazon rainforest. If you visited Amsterdam before the removal of I amsterdam, you probably snapped a photo with the distinctive letters that were installed in front of the Rijksmuseum. The sign had become such a go-to selfie spot that selfie numbers probably rivalled those outside some of the world's famous buildings. It's no surprise then that once I amsterdan was removed, people couldn't help but feel that something was missing. And it's this sense of loss that the new sign, 'I amazonia' taps into. Created by Belgium advertising agency Duval Guillaume for environmental non-profit Greenpeace, 'I amazonia' raises awareness about the deforestation that's devastating the Amazon rainforest. See the full extent of the situation, which Greenpeace describes as the "rampant exploitation by industrial agriculture" in the video below. In a blog post, Greenpeace explains why the sign was the perfect means to shine a light on the situation, beyond just tapping into people's affection for the old letters. "With the inclusive 'I am', the message is also one of profound appreciation and respect for the Indigenous People and traditional communities who have not only been guardians of the Amazon for centuries, but depend on the forest for survival," it says. "If the millions of people who took selfies with the 'Iamsterdam' sign would also take a stand for the most important landmark in Brazil and the lungs of the planet, and show their solidarity and support with the people and the forest in the Amazon, we could all make giant steps towards protecting one of our planet’s last climate solutions," the non-profit adds. Want to do your bit to help? There's a petition you can sign here, which will tell the Brazilian government to save the Amazon Rainforest and protect the lands of Indigenous and traditional communities. Related articles: Street art: 45 incredible examples to inspire you 15 influential art and design movements you should know Iceland ad banned due to political message View the full article

With web components, developers now have the ability to create their own HTML elements. In this ultimate guide, you'll learn everything you need to know. On this page, we'll cover what exactly web components are, the benefits of using them, and the elements that make them up. Then you'll learn how to build your own components in two short tutorials – on page 2 you'll learn how to building a component with the HTML templates and shadowDOM APIs, and on page 3 you'll got one step further and learn how to build a customised, built-in element. Finally on page 4 you'll find some frameworks and tools to get you started, and examples of existing elements to try to today. While you're here, you might also want to take a look at our guide to the top HTML APIs, and how to use them. The best web hosting services in 2019 What are web components? Developers love components. They are a great way to define blocks of code that can be dropped in and reused anywhere they are required. Over the years, there have been a few attempts to convey this idea on the web, with varying degrees of success. Mozilla's XML Binding Language and Microsoft's HTML Component specifications date back all the way to Internet Explorer 5 almost 20 years ago. Unfortunately, both attempts proved unwieldy, failed to gain traction in other browsers, and ultimately were removed. While they may not be around today, their concepts formed the basis of the modern approaches in use. JavaScript frameworks such as React, Vue or Angular follow a similar approach. One of the main reasons for their success is the ability to contain common logic in an easily shareable pattern in one form or another. While these frameworks can improve the developer experience, they do so at a cost. Language features such as JSX need to be compiled, and many frameworks rely on a runtime to manage all of their abstractions. Wouldn't it be easier if there was a way to get the benefit without all that heavy weight? Web components allow us to do just that. The 4 pillars of web components The concept of a web component consists of three APIs – Custom elements, HTML templates and the shadow DOM – with JavaScript modules gluing them together. By combining the benefits that these technologies provide, it's possible to start building custom HTML elements that look and behave just like their native counterparts. Using a web component is much like using any other existing HTML element. They can be configured using attributes, queried for using JavaScript, and even styled through CSS. As long as the browser knows they exist, they are treated no differently. This also allows web components to play well with other frameworks and libraries. By using the same communication mechanisms as any other element, they can be used alongside any framework that exists today or in the future. Most importantly of all, these are all built upon web standards. The web is built on a concept of backwards compatibility, and by building a web component today, it will carry on working for years to come. But before going any further, we should take a look at what makes up these specifications, and how you can get creating and using one today. There are four main elements that make up web components 01. Custom Elements Key features: Define an element's behaviour React to attribute changes Augment existing elements When you hear people talk about 'web components,' quite often they are referring to the workings underneath – the custom elements API. With this API, it is possible to create classes that power the inner workings of an element. They detail exactly what to do when an element is added, updated or removed. Each custom element has a similar structure. They extend an existing HTMLElement class, which provides the groundwork for how an element should behave. Inside, there are a few methods called reactions that are called in response to something about that element changing. For example, connectedCallback will be called when the new element appears on screen. These work similarly to the lifecycle methods found in most JavaScript frameworks. Updating the attributes on an element can change how it behaves. When an update happens, the attributeChangedCallback reaction will fire, which details the change. This will only happen for an attribute that is defined inside the observedAttributes array. An element needs to be defined before the browser can do anything with it. The define method here takes two arguments – the tag name, and the class it should use. All tag names must contain a - character to avoid any clashes with any future native elements. The element can then be written anywhere in the page as a regular HTML tag. Once a browser has an element defined, it then finds any of these matching tags and links up their behaviour to the class in a process known as 'upgrading'. There are two types of custom element – 'autonomous' or 'customised built-in'. Autonomous custom elements, which have been covered up until now, are not related to any existing element. Much like a <div> or <span> they do not provide any meaning to their content. A customised built-in element – as the name implies – can enhance an existing element with new functionality. They maintain that element's normal semantic behaviours, while also being open to change. If an <input> element was customised, for example, it would still be picked up and submitted as part of a form. The class of customised built-in component extends the class of the element it is customising. The definition also needs to define the tag of that element through its third argument. They are also used slightly differently. Instead of a new tag, they extend the existing tag by using the is attribute. The browser can read this, and upgrade them in the same way as it can an autonomous component. While most browsers support autonomous custom elements, Only Chrome and Firefox support customised built-in elements. If used in a browser that does not support them, they will fall back to the regular versions of the elements they customise, which can make them safe to use. 02. HTML Templates Create ready-made structures Inert until called upon Contains HTML, CSS and JS Historically, browser-based templating involved stitching strings together in JavaScript, or using a library like Handlebars to parse a block special markup. More recently, the HTML templates specification defined the <template> tag, which can contain anything likely to be reused. On its own, it has no appearance and remains inert, meaning nothing inside is parsed or executed until told to, including requests for external media such as images or video. JavaScript cannot query the contents either, as browsers will only see it as an empty element. A regular query will pick up the <template> element itself. The importNode method creates a copy of its contents, with the second argument telling it to take a deep copy of everything. Finally, it can be added to the document like any other element. Templates can contain anything an HTML page can, including CSS and JavaScript. As soon as the element is applied to the page, those styles apply and the scripts execute. Bear in mind that these will run globally and so can override styles and values if care isn't taken. The best part about templates is that they are not just limited to web components. The examples here apply to any web page, but become particularly powerful when paired with web components, in particular the shadow DOM. 03. Shadow DOM Avoid styles leaking out Naming becomes simpler Keep implementation logic inside The Document Object Model – or 'DOM' – is how the browser interprets the structure of a page. By reading through the HTML, it builds up an idea on what elements in the page contain what content, and uses that to decide what to show. When using something like document.getElementById() the browser is actually looking through the DOM. That may be okay for the layout of a page, but what about the implementation details inside an element? Pages shouldn't need to worry about what makes up the interface inside a <video> element for example. That is where the shadow DOM comes in. A shadow DOM is created when applied to an element. Any content can be added to the shadow DOM just like the regular – or 'light' – DOM, but it has no effect on what's happening outside of it. Likewise, nothing in the light DOM can access the shadow DOM directly. This means we can add classes, styles and scripts anywhere in the shadow DOM without worrying about clashes. The best use of the shadow DOM with web components comes when coupled with a custom element. By having a shadow DOM in charge of the content, any time this component is reused, its styles and structure will not affect the rest of the page. 04. ES and HTML Modules Add in where needed No build step requirement Keep everything in one place While the previous three specifications have had relatively straightforward paths to success, the packaging and reusability of them has long been a sticking point. Originally, the HTML Imports specification defined a way for browsers to include HTML documents, much like CSS or JavaScript is already today. This would allow custom elements, along with their templates and shadow DOM, to live elsewhere and imported as needed. Firefox chose not to implement HTML Imports in its browser, and instead favoured a newer specification around JavaScript module importing. Modules do not apply their content globally by default. By marking certain variables, functions or classes as exported, they can then be imported by anything that needs them and used as if they were local. This is a great help to web components, as a custom element containing a template and a shadow DOM can be exported from one file and added to another. As long as it gets defined somewhere along the line, it is ready to use. An extension to this specification has been proposed to bring back some of the ease of HTML imports, alongside module imports. They will allow web components to be written using declarative and semantic HTML. Spearheaded by Microsoft, this feature is soon coming to Chrome and the Chromium-powered Edge browser. Next page: How to build you own components While there are a lot of complicated things you can achieve with web components, simply getting up and running actually involves very little code. Take your first steps into web components with a couple of short examples. This component enables you to display user comments, using the HTML templates and shadow DOM APIs This first tutorial (below) focuses on building a component to display user comments by making use of the HTML templates and shadow DOM APIs. Jump to page 3 to learn how to save yourself time by using custom elements. 01. Provide a template The component needs a generic template it can copy in order to generate its markup. This can live anywhere that the custom element class itself can access through its unique ID. Add the <template> element directly in the HTML of the page. Any styles written here will only affect the component. 02. Add in markup Along with the styles, the template contains the structure of the component's internals. In this case, it is set of <div> containers for layout purposes. All dynamic content is passed in through slots. Add in slots for the user's avatar, name and message, and give them appropriate names to reference later. 03. Default slot content Fallback content will appear when no information is supplied for a slot The data passed into the slot will override whatever sits inside it in the template. If there is nothing supplied for that slot, it displays the fallback content instead. In this case, if no username is supplied, the comment will display a 'no name' message in its place. 04. Create the class Custom elements start life as a class that extends the generic HTMLElement class. As part of the setup process, it creates its own shadow root to render its content into. Keep it open in order to access it in the next step. Finally, tell the browser about the new UserComment component class. 05. Apply shadow content When the browser finds a <user-comment> element, it is going to populate the shadow root with the content of the template. The second argument tells the browser to copy all of the template, not just the first layer. Add that markup to the shadow root, which will immediately update the visuals of this component. 06. Use the component Back in the HTML, the component is now ready to use. Add the <user-comment> tag and add any relevant data inside. As all slots are named, anything else that is passed through outside of a slot will be ignored. Everything inside those slots is copied in exactly as supplied, including related styling. Next page: How to create a customised built-in element Custom elements can also extend existing ones. It helps to save time by not having to recreate some of the behaviour that's already in the browser. This tutorial shows you how to extend the <time> element to display relative times that machines can understand. Extend the <time> element to display relative times that machines can understand 01. Create the class Custom built-in elements start life exactly the same as autonomous ones, but instead of extending HTMLElement, they use an existing element as a starting point. This component uses HTMLTimeElement – the class that <time> elements use. It includes all the behaviour around the datetime attribute, including the format it expects that data to be supplied in. 02. Define the element Again, much like autonomous custom elements, these also need to be registered with the browser using the define method. One added detail is the third argument, which takes an options object. For now, this object only has one key, which is used to define exactly which built-in element it customises. It takes the tag name, and will cause an error if it doesn't exist. 03. Set the time As the components set the value of the element in multiple places, it should have a method to call that contains that logic. Inside that method, the component tells the timeago library what that time is and sets its return value as the contents of that element. Finally, set the title attribute, which allows users to hover their cursor over the text to see the exact time being referenced. 04. Update on connection The component can use that new method to set the time on the element as soon as it appears on the page. Customised built-in elements cannot have an attached shadow DOM. As there is no other setup required, the component does not need any constructor. 05. Check attribute changes At the moment, if the page wanted to update the time programmatically, our component would not react. It does not know it should be watching for changes to the datetime attribute. By defining observed attributes, the attributeChangedCallback will run each time one of them changes. In this case, the component can run the setTime method again. 06. Add to the page The final result As this element is an extension of a built-in element, the implementation is a little different. To use our new element, create a <time> tag with an extra is attribute. This should match the name given when defining the component. For browsers that do not support customised built-in elements, they will display the fallback content that is inside instead. Next page: Tools and frameworks to try 01. LitElement LitElement provides helper methods and classes to create web components Spearheaded by Justin Fagnani at Google, LitElement aims to supersede Polymer Classic as the premier approach to web components. It provides helper methods and classes to create web components, without the required boilerplate setup. It has dramatically increased in popularity since its first stable release in February 2019. 02. Stencil Stencil is a compile-time tool from the Ionic framework team. It will analyse each component, optimise it as best as it can, and return a version that can be used across different browsers and frameworks. It includes added behaviour such as JSX, which handles data binding like a React project. 03. Vue web component wrapper While the Vue framework can work with web components without issue, using an existing Vue component as a web component elsewhere is trickier. This library will wrap the single-file component and map all the necessary bindings automatically, or the Vue CLI can take care of all the heavy lifting. 04. Angular Elements Similar to Vue, there is another wrapper to allow web components to be created using the power of Angular. The createCustomElement function links the APIs used with custom elements with the equivalent Angular syntax. Add this as part of the application bootstrap process and the rest is taken care of. 05. Skate Skate works with other templating languages By providing guidance alongside a thin layer on top of existing native functionality, Skate can provide great benefit with a smaller footprint than other libraries. Much of this comes from the ability to work with other templating languages like Preact, and drop in modules for additional functionality, such as server-side rendering. 06. Svelte Svelte compiles its components into regular JavaScript and avoids shipping a runtime like other frameworks, which results in smaller files. While not required, Svelte components can be built as web components without needing any external tools. Define a tag name in the module configuration and Svelte will do the rest. 07. X-Tag X-Tag is useful for tying components with those in other frameworks The X-Tag project has gone through many iterations over the years. Now, this Microsoft-backed library mirrors much of the custom element specification, with its own approaches to style and templating. It is particularly useful when needing to support older browsers, or when tying components together with those in other frameworks. 08. Slim While Slim is a relatively unknown library, it provides added functionality, such as one-way data binding and automatic re-rendering out of the box. It's fast and small too – weighing in at only 3.4Kb gzipped. Other directives can be dropped in as and when they are needed to keep things lean. Feel the benefits of web components right away with these elements. 01. Wired Wired can help you mock up a page quickly Most sites and applications go through several iterations before becoming a finished product. A lot of these start life as a prototype sketched on a notepad, or created inside a graphical application. Wouldn't it be better if these lived inside the browser to get an idea of how it works in the real world? Wired is a set of web components that generate an interface with a hand drawn look using rough.js under the hood. Buttons, inputs and more are ready to be dropped in where needed and linked up for basic interactions to mock up a page in no time. 02. Material Components These components are a work in progress The team behind Google's Material Design pattern already have an implementation for the web. Currently, they're working to have them consumable through web components to be dropped in without extra configuration. Complex patterns such as tabs and drawers have been created with more on the way. 03. Brightspace UI The company behind the Brightspace learning tool has made a set of its components open source for all to use. These include buttons, tables and inputs all with a focus on performance and accessibility. Any bugs the team come across are fixed and pushed out to help anyone else using them. 04. Vaadin These pre-built components can help get you started The Vaadin platform is a set of pre-built UI components ready to be used to create an entire application. There's plenty available to help you get off the ground, including grid layouts, tooltips and progress bars. The paid-for pro components also include charts and text editors, configurable for all needs. 05. Animated Content Placeholder Skeleton loading is a great way to improve perceived loading times. They act as a placeholder for incoming content that may take a while, such as a news feed or gallery. This component builds out a skeleton by using web components as the building blocks to mimic the loaded state. 06. Gluon-font-awesome This is a lightweight wrapper around the popular Font Awesome icon library. Icons can be dropped in using a <font-awesome> tag, while the component handles the importing and loading of the font awesome library. It is built using Gluon – a lightweight framework providing convenience on top of native custom elements. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 287 or subscribe. Read more: The best laptops for programming in 2019 8 amazing Google APIs (and how to use them) Web designers create the most annoying UI ever View the full article

You're reading Startup – 40 New Ecommerce Designs, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook! One of the most asked-for feature requests is e-commerce predesigned blocks, so we immediately started work. Here we have 40 absolutely new designed blocks that are ready to use in the Startup app! We tried to create every type of … View the full article

Intel issued patches for a high-severity flaw in its processor diagnostic tool as well as a fix for a medium-severity vulnerability in its data center SSD lineup. View the full article

Amazon Prime Day is now just days away, but as the company get set to release some epic Prime Day deals, Walmart is already spoiling us with some incredible offers. And this Corel PaintShop Pro 2019 deal is no exception. A professional photo editing tool, PaintShop Pro is a quality and affordable Photoshop alternative for creatives working with the Windows OS. Each feature in PaintShop Pro has been inspired by user ideas to help deliver a set of highly productive image editing tools. Now just $40 for the entire suite, PaintShop Pro is a great option for novices or creatives who want to create attention-grabbing imagery but don't require the complexity found in (or want the subscription rates of) Photoshop. Key features of PaintShop Pro include: Enhanced performance, speed and quality New brushes, colour palettes, gradients, patterns Picture to painting presets Retro and vintage tools Photo restoration Graduated filter tool If you're not in a region with access to Walmart deals, never fear, here are the best PaintShop Pro prices in your area: Read more: 50 best photo apps and photo-editing software The best camera for creatives in 2019 The best digital art software in 2019 View the full article

The software giant also addressed 15 critical flaws and advised on the recently disclosed Linux Kernel "SACK Panic" bug. View the full article

The vulnerability can be exploited on a drive-by basis by a malicious website. View the full article

When you think of street art, chances are you imagine eye-catching images sprayed onto the side of a building. However, an Italian design agency has given the medium a technological twist by using a team of drones to spray-paint a giant mural in Turin. We've seen plenty of stunning murals over the years, but none of the masterpieces on our list of inspirational street art has been created by a swarm of drones. And while this isn't the first ever piece of street art to be painted by drones, it's certainly one of the most impressive. Curated by innovation and design firm Carlo Ratti Associati as part of the brilliantly named Urban Flying Opera (or, to use its acronym, UFO), this project relied on over 1,000 sketches contributed by artists from the local community. These artists were asked to illustrate their hopes and ideas regarding what cities should look like, and their thoughts were whittled down to the 100 drawings that would eventually get spray-painted onto the mural by the flying graffiti machines. Measuring in at 46 feet wide and 39 feet tall, the mural features drawings in three different colours that are layered one on top of the other. The drones, which were supplied by Tsuru Robotics, were carefully controlled by multiple position monitoring systems to ensure that they didn't fly into one another and ruin the mural. As for the sketches, these were uploaded to a central computer before being relayed as controls for the drones to follow. The result is a unique piece of street art that took 12 hours to complete. "The city is an open canvas, where people can inscribe their stories in many ways," Carlo Ratti Associati founder, Professor Carlo Ratti, told New Atlas. "Such processes have always been happening; however, with UFO we tried to accelerate them, using drone technology to allow for a new use of painting as a means of expression." Related articles: 14 incredibly cool office murals The best camera bags and cases in 2019 The best cheap GoPro deals for filmmakers and creatives View the full article

Creating creature designs and art in general is like a sport. You need to practise and train if you want to improve. When you draw every day and have thousands of used sheets of paper and sketchbooks, you learn some tricks to make the process a little easier. Draw everything: you’ll get faster and your brain will become a database full of references. There are also a few basic tips you already may know, but it’s good to go over them again: things like contrast, shapes, lines of action, movement, perspective. Put all of these techniques together and your creatures will look alive and be full of personality. For more on process, see our post on art techniques. Read on for my top 15 tips for creating better creature designs. And if you want to read more about characters in general, check out our character design tips post. 01. Draw quick thumbnails Create simple silhouettes to get started with your creature design Drawing quick and simple thumbnails is a helpful warm-up exercise. There are a few things to bear in mind, though. I always try to keep the design simple; the silhouette needs to be easy to read. I use a solid colour and sometimes I draw over it with a darker colour tone. In this case I’m concentrating on creatures, which means I’m free to create different shapes, combining object, animal and human elements. 02. Don't forget references References are vital to designing creatures If I don’t feel inspired to draw then I’ll look around for some references. In this case, I’ll search for objects that I can either use as part of a creature, or just act as a launch point to galvanise me into action. My main reference sources are mythology, animals and nature and so I’ll draw some objects (African masks, runes, a cauldron…) and some animals. My sketchbooks are full of such doodles and they can easily end up being part of a figure design. Need a new sketchbook? Check out our guide to the best sketchbooks. 03. Use basic shapes Simple shapes can become complex characters What if I start with basic shapes to create my character? All of them can turn into a creature, right? You might think this is a limitation, but it also forces you to be extra creative. This approach can be a good method for designing a squad of characters that work together, like superheroes. These shapes are just one way to start your designs. Sometimes I break the silhouette by adding elements, or I leave some empty spaces. 04. Combine basic shapes How a basic shape design can develop into a creature This approach can lead to interesting results. One of my previous thumbnails is a blend of triangles, circles and a rectangle. When I sketch over this basic form I can see immediately that it’s a one-eyed warrior hare carrying a shield and a candle. I start with a very simple doodle in greyscale and then add some details in the colour drawing. This breaks up the symmetry and make this character more visually appealing. 05. Draw without purpose Put your references away and just start sketching Another useful starting exercise is to simply draw without a specific purpose. And it’s important to me to do this without references. I don’t expect to create my greatest piece of art this way, but this can inspire future projects. Maybe I’ll pay attention to these sketches someday and fresh ideas will come to mind. It’s also a good exercise to banish the dreaded artist’s block. 06. Think about body language Body language can convey a lot about a character If you want your creatures to be expressive then it’s crucial to understand anatomy and body language. Combine these two key topics and your creation will feel more alive. I believe it’s vital to understand how bodies can express an emotion. You can obtain references from plenty of sources: study films, friends and model sessions; look in the mirror; or take some photos of interesting poses. This step is crucial. As a cartoon character designer, I tend to exaggerate these body expressions with more pronounced curves or shapes. For more on anatomy and figures, see our guide to figure drawing. 07. Use lines of action Straight lines can look dull, so experiment with curves and contrast Using simple lines will define the movement of the creature. These are called lines of action. They’ll vary depending on the creature’s mood and activity. Straight lines can make your figure look boring or static, so I often use curved and contrasting lines because they result in more eye-catching body positions. It’s crucial to draw a range of dynamic poses, because they’re a useful way of testing your creature’s proportions and anatomy. 08. Keep experimenting Try a number of different variants of a creature before settling on your final design Maintain your creativity by revisiting older designs and producing variants that will work in that universe. Here I’m keeping the same basic shapes and proportions for the different versions. Colours and materials have an important role to play, too. What if, instead of leaves, he has crystal hair? Or maybe there’s a constant flame on the top of his head? These variations can enrich your original concept. Other options include changing the size, age or sex of the character. 09. Add contrast Contrast is a basic concept that you need to bear in mind when designing a creature. This contrast can be between colours, shapes, objects and more. I make sure that I think about contrast in every stage of my designs. At the sketching stage, when I draw some basic shapes, any contrast between them will be most obvious during this stage. One creature will be curvy, the other straight. This can be very rough – there’s no need for details. Next, I work more on the sketch, adding details like the ropes and plants. You can enhance the personality of your creature by adding contrast to the attitude. In this case, a monster is happy carrying a very serious stone head. I’m also using contrasting colours for them, increasing the visual effect and making them complementary characters. Colour and texture can also enhance contrast The final step is adding additional details such as texture, shadows and a background. It’s time to paint them all. Texture will enhance personality and give the figures the spirit of adventure. The background is part of the story, so I add a path and some mountains inspired by Chinese art. 10. Add an object You can tell a lot about a creature from the objects it's holding An object can be a good way to further strengthen a creature’s design. These props can boost their personality and charisma, and can also enrich their back story. What are they carrying? And why? Maybe they’re carrying luggage, or they’re holding a lantern to light the path into a mysterious forest. Depending on what they have on their back or in their hands you can define their jobs or roles in your narrative. 11. Try different facial expressions Use your own face as a reference when trying out facial expressions on a creature design Body poses are of vital importance when showing a creature’s emotion, but so are their facial expressions. Both work together. Try some basic emotions like happiness or anger, then try less-common ones. By placing a small mirror close to your work area, or using your camera phone, you can use yourself as reference. Study how the facial muscles move. Essentially, eyebrows and mouth will do the most amount of work for basic fantasy creatures. Consider adjusting the ears while squashing or stretching the main shape of the head to accentuate these emotions. 12. Use perspective Avoid symmetry if you can, as it's often dull Another way to improve your creature designs is adding some perspective. Symmetry can be very boring, and a simple pose viewed from the front may fail to resonate with the viewer. So it’s important to work with depth and space, to give your creature a strong feeling of movement. Try different angles when you sketch your characters, and look for references if you’re struggling. With this creature, I’ve increased the stroke width in some areas that are close to the viewer to boost the feeling of depth. 13. Create a point of interest Focus the viewer's attention With some simple lines defining a direction, you can create a point of interest in your drawing where you can focus the viewer’s attention. This visual flow leads the viewer’s eyes in the direction you want. You can even create different entry points and there are a lot of ways to achieve this. Faces and hands are very expressive, so concentrate your efforts here. Colour and lighting can also help. Increase the brightness or ramp up the saturation of the area that you want the viewer to focus on. 14. Tell a story Props and details add context to your creature design Does this creature have a back story? And how can you tell? The attitude and action of the creature will play an important role, even if they’re standing still or looking at something. The environment plays an important role, too. It helps to explain what’s happening to your creature. Adding some props and details in the background will support the story and give context to the figure’s personality. 15. Create an atmosphere The colours in this piece add something extra Lighting and colour are key tools to use when painting creature concepts. You must play with lights and shadows to create interesting and atmospheric environments. This will focus the viewer’s eyes to some areas of the drawing. Selecting a source light and applying the correct shades will enable you to highlight key parts of your design. Keep in mind that colour, lighting and shadows are only part of the story. Make the choices that will enhance rather then detract from your narrative. Carry out colour tests to see which ones work best. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Subscribe here. Read more: 10 ways to create better character animations Top speed painting tips (that work for speed drawing too) 19 best drawing apps for iPad View the full article

When it first aired, The Simpsons was a groundbreaking piece of subversive pop culture. But even in its heyday the show never went as far as this fan's dark version of the programme's intro, which sees the famous family reimagined as downtrodden citizens in a rather depressing-looking Russia. Thanks to its never-ending repeats, The Simpsons intro is probably one of the most well-known TV title sequences of all time. This makes it a perfect vehicle for parody, as viewers will be able to draw comparisons between imitations and the real deal. This clip though, created by YouTube animator Lazy Square, takes things to a grim new level. Each beat of the title sequence is followed, but everything's off. The contrast can be seen immediately. Gone are the distinctive silhouettes that were Simpsons creator Matt Groening's shortcut to good character design. Instead, Marge's tall beehive is tied down, and the jagged outlines of Lisa and Maggie are replaced with utilitarian, close-cropped haircuts. The vibrant colours of Springfield are also gone, Marge berates the cashier in a dank convenience store, and Lisa is threatened by armed policemen for blowing her sax. Check it out below. There are plenty of little details that will make you re-watch this video. Is that Bart getting beaten up by bullies in the beginning? And just where does Lisa disappear to in the end? As far as fan films go, this one is bleak. Of course, the programme itself never shied away from taking a pop at Russia. Who could forget the scene where Lenin bursts out of his mausoleum growling "must, crush, capitalism"? Or the Eastern European version of Itchy and Scratchy, called Worker and Parasite? However, The Simpsons has also come under fire in recent years for its stereotypical depiction of different ethnicities, such as the Kwik-E-Mart's tireless manager, Apu. Even a fumbled apology didn't get the show off the hook in the eyes of some fans. So does this violent parody also cross the line? It's hard to tell from comments, most of which are written in Cyrillic characters. But if the 'like' bar is anything to go by (currently it stands at 32,000 thumbs up to 2,000 thumbs down), it looks like Lazy Square has hit a home run. Related articles: How fan art can get you paid Understand Disney's 12 principles of animation Top 10 TV logos of all time View the full article

If you need to get serious in your designs, it's good to have a selection of great-looking serif fonts. Serifs are the sensible wing of typography; almost always pulled out for books and newspapers where long tracts of printed text need to be easy to read, they have a look and feel that we automatically associate with authority and class. That doesn't make them boring, though; the variety of serif fonts available is absolutely huge, and while some of them are definitely suited to quietly maintaining readability in lengthy body text, others are a lot more visually arresting with plenty of potential for exciting font pairings. Here are ten of our favourite new serifs; they're all free to use on personal projects, and some can be used in commercial work too. For more fonts of different types, see our post on the best free fonts. 01. Grenze Grenze is a full type system with nine weight plus italics Created by Renata Polastri and Omnibus-Type and with a name that derives from the German for 'frontier', Grenze is a really useful typeface system consisting of nine weights, from Thin through to Black, with matching italics. It's designed as a cross between Roman and blackletter fonts, combining visual impact with classical readability, and while it's envisaged as a font for magazines, it could be put to all manner of creative uses. It's published under the SIL Open Font Licence, so it's free to use in all projects. 02. Isle Headline Isle Headline has a sister font to take care of the body text A clear and sharp serif type family in four weights plus italics, Isle Headline was designed between 2018 and 2019 by Måns Grebäck. It's intended for large-scale use such as headlines and titles; if you want the same look for body text then look no further than its sister font, Isle Body, which uses the same basic structure but with a softer look. Both fonts are free for personal use; head to Måns' site for commercial licences and to see his other fonts. 03. Saonara Just the thing for those classy fashion spreads For those projects that require a luxury look that positively drips class, get a load of Saonara, designed by Maxim and Denis Schepin of MADE Type. Inspired by the world of fashion, it's a gloriously elegant font with strokes that veer between whip-thin and super-chunky, with razor-sharp serifs to finish off the look. It's free for personal use, while a standard licence will cost you just $16. 04. Coachella Coachella's full of contrast and quirky touches Another font from MADE Type that's free for personal use, Coachella is a contrasting serif font family in six weights from Thin to Black. In the heavier weights the contrast between line widths across the font is even more extreme than in Saonara, but the look's a lot more approachable; we love some its quirky touches such as the terminal on the lower-case 'a' and the triangular tail on the upper-case 'Q'. 05. Red Delicious Red Delicious is a tasty, full-bodied font Dan Zadorozny is a designer who's been creating fonts for the past 20 years, all of them free for personal use and available for commercial use in return for a $20 donation. His site's well worth looking through for typographic goodies; a recent offering that caught our eye is Red Delicious, Zadorozny's take on the classic varsity font often used on sweatshirts and the like. It features slightly rounded serifs to give the characters a full-bodied feel and weight, and comes in 25 different versions, each with an extended Latin character set. 06. Melisande Sharp For a less formal serif, try Melisande Sharp's hand-drawn style Serif fonts are often used as a visual shorthand for authority and gravitas, but Melisande Sharp, a hand-drawn serif by Brittney Murphy, is one that's a lot more fun to be around. It has some really eye-catching touches to it, such as the pot belly-shaped bowl on the lower-case 'a' and the incredibly high crossbar on the 'f', all of which combine to give this font a fantastically lively feel. It's free for personal use; for most commercial uses there's a standard licence that'll cost you just $8. 07. Halibut Serif Halibut's serif's look like they might bite There's nothing fishy about Halibut Serif, an open-source display and paragraph font from Colllettivo. It's another lively free serif font that comes in three weights – Regular, Expanded and Condensed – each packing in 234 glyphs. We particularly love Halibut's sharp, toothy serifs, which look like they could bite your hand off. Like all of Colllettivo's fonts, it's free to use on any project. 08. Libertinus Serif Here's a great all-rounder in plenty of styles and weights Linux fans will have doubtless noticed the resemblance between Libertinus Serif and Linux's Libertine and Biolinum fonts, and there's a good reason for that. Libertinus Serif is a fork of those fonts that addresses some of their bugs, and it's a classic-looking serif that comes in 14 styles to suit all manner of uses. Published under the SIL Open Font Licence, it's good for all applications. 09. Adega Serif Adega Serif is beautifully old-style Created by Brazilian designer Anísio Dega, Adega Serif is a print-focused font designed with books, newspapers and magazines in mind, and shaped to give maximum comfort to the reader. Coming on like a softer alternative to something like Book Antiqua, it features wonderfully tall ascenders and some beautifully hand-drawn quirks, and it comes in regular and bold weights with matching italics. It's available as donationware; if you get good use out of it then be sure to send Dega some money. 10. Afterglow Dial the elegance up to 11 with Afterglow To finish our round-up of 2019's best free serif fonts, here's Afterglow, a modern and classic serif typeface by Vintage Voyage. Full of contrast lines and with plenty of stylistic alternates, it's just the thing for retro-looking headlines with a bit of a 1970's feel, and it's free for personal use while a commercial licence is available for $14. Related articles: Font vs typeface: the ultimate guide The 10 commandments of typography 15 top typography resources View the full article

Instead of looking to the future, invoking the feeling of days gone by seems to be many brands' favourite way to engage customers. Brands are looking to associate themselves with the warm, fuzzy feeling that many get when thinking of their childhoods, and of course, capitalising on these feelings to get us to spend money. Nostalgic branding doesn't mean relying on old forms of advertising, such as print campaigns, though (see our favourite print ads here). Brands can use cutting-edge technology to invoke the past. Can nostalgic branding ever go too far? Will customers eventually see through it? While there are many examples of brands who've looked to the past when creating their logos and branding (see our how to reawaken a brand's heritage post). Here, we take a look at five brands that hit nostalgia hard through their adverts, and evaluate their success. 01. Hovis Hovis has taken nostalgia to the next level by re-running a much-loved advert from 1973. The 'Boy on the Bike' advert has been voted Britain's most iconic and much-loved advert, and recently returned to TV screens after 46 years. The advert was directed by Ridley Scott and has been remastered for a 2019 audience. This seems like a smart move from Hovis. If your greatest advert is still so popular and loved almost 50 years later, then why not rerun it? Those who remember it from the first time round will enjoy reliving it, and it'll also reach a new audience. 02. GWR If Enid Blyton's books felt old-fashioned to many 20 years ago, they're arguably now at peak nostalgia. To invoke this spirit, adam&eveDDB created this campaign for Great Western Railway, which shows Blyton's Famous Five having an adventure across the South West's rail network. The campaign won a Graphite Pencil at D&AD Awards 2018. It's beautifully illustrated, and animated. Sadly, it's hard to feel very nostalgic or warm and fuzzy when your train's delayed for the third time in a week. Still, at least the illustrations are nice to look at. 03. Halifax Before Halifax's recent rebrand, the bank had a series of adverts focused on characters from the past, including Scooby-Doo, Ghostbusters, Top Cat, The Wizard of Oz and The Flintstones. These ads were created by adam&eveDDB and showed the characters interacting with people at Halifax bank. The Top Cat ad, in particular, was mocked, as in the ad, the character gets a mortgage in order to live in a slightly bigger bin than before – a pretty odd living situation for a bank to be advocating. It does make sense that a bank would try to tap into feelings of nostalgia, particularly when high-street banks are increasingly being left behind by 'millennial banks' such as Monzo, and the threat of crypto currency looms. Post-rebrand, Halifax is still drawing on nostalgia, albeit in a slightly different way. Its latest ad involves a slinky. So looking to the past is clearly still working for it. 04. Microsoft When your product feels a little outdated, and people associate it with the '90s, it is it best to just roll with it? Microsoft seemed to think so when they released this '90s-tastic advert for Internet Explorer in 2013. It had the tagline: 'You grew up. So did we. Reconnect with the new Internet Explorer,' and invited people to visit thebrowseryoulovedtohate.com (now defunct). The ad above has all the '90s paraphernalia you forgot you loved, including Trolls, tamagotchis and wallets on chains. So far, so nostalgic. The catch? With this sort of association, it's easy to lump IE in the same category as all the other long-gone products. If IE is as grown-up as it says, why does it want to place itself in the same category as pogs? 05. 7UP Another brand bringing back an old character is 7UP. Its latest campaign involves Fido Dido, 'the original chiller', and encourages people to 'put the chill' back in their lives. Fido Dido was created in 1985 and reached popularity in the '90s, and is one of those characters that a lot of people had pretty much forgotten, until now. The ad above shows Fido Dido trying to interact with the modern world, only to find that everyone in it is so busy looking at their phones they don't notice him. This focus on how we've lost real-life interactions is an interesting one for brands to tap into, and we've already seen it subverted by the likes of mobile company Three. Although this 7UP ad is pretty cheesy, it gets the message across well. Read more: Build a better personal brand 5 ads that tried to be cool but failed 5 ad campaigns that changed the world View the full article