I made this as a « gift » for a colleague. I actually like it, so I’m keeping it as my desktop background for a couple of days and I share it with the world.
(Click on the image for a larger version. Other formats available on request.)
My thoughts on tech and other hopefully–not–too–irrelevant stuff
(Disclaimer: although I’m all for constructive criticism most of the time, this is clearly nothing more than a rant, which by the way, does not even deserve translating.)
Lets start with a dictionary definition of the word seamless:
adjective. perfectly consistent and coherent
Now lets take a look at a quote from the website of a product I decided to work with while writing my book on WPF (highlight mine):
Expression Design is the perfect companion to Expression Blend, letting you quickly build sophisticated vector assets. Then seamlessly transfer — by way of XAML — your graphics to your Expression Blend projects.
Finally, lets take a look at what actually happens when the product in question « seamlessly » exports to XAML:
Do you see it too? How its not at all consistent or coherent, but rather the outlines become horrible thick black blotches and the gradients simply disappear? Ah, thank you… That’s a relief. For a moment there I thought it was just me.
In whoever wrote that clearly fallacious marketing crap’s defense, they do seem to know what the imputed word means. Take a look at this other quote:
Or seamlessly copy and paste your images into Microsoft Office while preserving transparency.
Ah, now this one does work, as you can see in this screen-shot:
You have to wonder what kind of black magic is behind this magnificent feat:
Oh, a PNG. Why not?
L’autre jour Patrice nous dirigeait vers FeedIcons.com où on peut trouver le fameux logo RSS utilisé par Firefox et Internet Explorer 7 « sous toutes ses formes« .
Or, sur ce site je n’ai trouvé que des images au format bitmap ou au format vectoriel mais que je ne peux pas ouvrir avec les logiciels gratuits que j’utilise (j’insiste, sur les logiciels que j’utilise !).
Je me suis donc amusé à recréer le logo avec mon éditeur d’images gratuit (pour l’instant) préféré: Expression Graphic Designer.
Voici le résultat :
Cliquez sur l’image pour télécharger le fichier XPR.
Edit : j’ai mis à jour le ZIP avec une nouvelle version .design pour Expression Design.