That’s right. The majority of tutorials teach you nothing that you couldn’t learn on your own. Most tuts exist to “teach” amateur “graphics designers” how to make “AWESOME LIGHTNING EFFECTS!” Let’s actually take a look at this tutorial that I saw on WikiHow and its end result:

Before you waste your time starting a tutorial on “How to make _____”, take a look at the END PRODUCT before wasting your time following the 6 steps of idiocy to produce a garbage looking lightning effect. What lightning looks like that? I wasn’t aware that lightning was hairy.

Photomanipulation tutorials can be even worse. Especially when they have titles like “How to make Dark style art”. If you need a “How to..” on how to make a style of art, give up right there. People who write tutorials like that only do so because a) They suck at art and think that they’re good enough to be teaching you and b) They want you to make crappy looking art. Here’s an example of a tutorial you should never follow.

I’m sorry, but that looks like something I made when I was 14. The saturation is out of control, the lost/lonely/emo angel-girl has no directional lighting on her face whatsoever. The whole thing looks like a bad CD cover for a failing gothic metal band (you know, bands with names like “Charlemagne” or “Black Unicorn”..stuff like that). It’s fine if you want to make something that you think looks pretty, but for God’s sake DO NOT UPLOAD IT AND WRITE A TUTORIAL ON IT.

Another thing that annoys me are tutorials about how to make sunsets with crappy fake grass in the foreground. Example:

The tutorial for this image is meant to be made into a web site, so I have serious sympathy to any of the misguided people who used it thinking that it looked good. Let me explain this in a delicate way that hopefully makes sense: making little “grassy plain with a sky in the background” images just look bleh. I’ve seen several examples of this theme used in signatures and art and it hardly ever looks any good. This is because the grass just looks flat and crappy and the sky is always made using some horrid filter (Render Clouds).

I’m not saying that you should never use tutorials. I’m asking you to not use tutorials that teach you how to make ugly things. If you follow these types of tutorials, you’ll be bound to make amateurish stuff that no one, but amateurs, will think looks nice.

And I feel like a complete jerk for really not noticing it sooner. I don’t normally spend my time reading topics in Runescape General Discussion since I don’t play RS anymore, but I’ve realised that the RS sections of our site consist of really good and interesting people. In some blog posts, I talk about the immature people on RSBANDB who act like sarcastic morons, but after really looking at the individual replies to topics in Runescape General Discussion and Runescape Questions, I really do think that we have a great and helpful community.

Because of this, I know that our community hasn’t really changed. When I first came to RSBANDB, I felt that there was a lot of really good and interesting discussion amongst people who typed well and were helpful. In the RS Questions forum alone, each question usually has about 3-15 replies from people who know what they’re talking about. Things haven’t changed. If you step outside the world of the Sandbox and Non-RS discussion, you’ll see good discussion going on. The only difference is that since I no longer play the game, I don’t really connect to what’s being said there. So the change is really just me, not any of you guys.

Wow, yes, I’m sort of babbling. But my main point is something I said in a blog post a really long time ago about how communities really don’t change, we do.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Well, after reading a news article on the BBC, I noticed it mentioned that the AOL Netscape company recommended its old Netscape users to switch to Firefox or Flock (as it is based on the same platform as Netscape).Well, here I am thinking “What the heck is Flock?” I’ve heard of Opera, Camino, Safari, and every other less-famous browsers, but never this “Flock” thing.

I went on a whim and gave it a try. After using it for a solid three hours, I can say that I am pleased with it. What sets Flock apart from other browsers is that it integrates some of the most common Web 2.0 websites into your browser. In essence, you log into these sites and Flock pulls information from them and displays them within the browser for convenience. That sounds like a pretty simple idea, right? Well most users of different browsers have to download add-ons in order to get some of the same features that are offered in Flock. Those of you who use Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Photobucket, and WordPress (plus a few other 2.0 sites) can greatly benefit from using the browser.

What Flock brings to the table:

• A unique sidebar linking your social networks and RSS feeds.
• A “media bar” which drops down and allows you to easily view your own media (video from Youtube or images from Photobucket) and access the public collections of other people’s.
• A feature called the Web Clipboard serves as a little scrapbook of images, links and text that you want to save for later use (it resides nicely tucked into the sidebar).
• The ability to post and manage your blog (if your blog is on a major blogging network such as WordPress or Blogger) and write/save posts via the browser.

Now, you might tell me “Yes, MQ, but you can just as easily download features similar to these as add-ons on Firefox/Opera” and I would tell you that these non-native add-ons are such a freaking annoyance that nobody bothers. A while ago, I decided to download an RSS reader for Firefox and it drove me crazy after twenty minutes. The integrated services in Flock look, they hide away easily, and they’re neatly organised.

Things that need Flock needs to work on:

There are a few minor annoyances with usability (especially in the blog post window). For example, the browser is a bit top-heavy. I like have three skinny toolbars in Firefox so that I can make the most of my page space. Flock has pretty big top toolbars and that is a small annoyance to me. Also, upon starting the browser you get a short loading screen. Let me stress: it’s short. But people don’t want loading screens on their browsers. We use browsers because they’re efficient and easy to use. When my browser shows a loading screen, it tells me that the browser isn’t efficient. Hopefully, they can find a way to fix that. Firefox has the right idea in that it just opens.

Who should use Flock?

I don’t recommend Flock to my mother. That’s because she does not use the computer for social networking at all. If you use 2+ social networks, then this browser may be beneficial to you. I’m not very big on social networks and Web 2.0 sites, but I found that this browser rekindled my interest since everything is all in one place. So, if you’re a casual user of these social networks, I really recommend this browser to you. It’s built off of the same technology as Firefox is, so I haven’t seen any page rendering issues.

I’m also not going to recommend that multiple people use Flock. This is because you input your username and password for the integrated services to work. I wouldn’t want my brother or parents snoop about in my weird collection of images on Photobucket or my favourites on YouTube. You can solve this by not telling them, but I see Flock as essentially a one-person browser that centered around you. The folks at Flock should look into introducing profiles for users of the browser, but that might just complicated things even worse. Either way, be forewarned that you will have to log out of your services via Flock to ensure your privacy on a shared computer.

So, I’m basically going to start using Flock from now on. I’m part of the flock, if you will. If any of you decide to give it a try, please tell me what you think of it!

Update: Apparently you can remove the Splash (”loading screen”) by altering the Target line in the shortcut properties and adding in “–no-splash” after the quotation marks. Woot.

Blogged with Flock