Web 2.0 Entrepreneur

Create a Reflection effect using Fireworks in 5 simple steps

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on June 10th, 2007 filed in Web Design, Fireworks, Tutorial


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One of the usual designs around Web 2.0 includes having texts or images to appear reflected as if they’re on a shiny-clean surface. Last month I provided some simple tips on creating a decent Web 2.0 logo (which applied the reflection technique) but since it wasn’t a tutorial post, I didn’t explain step by step of how to actually do it using an image editing tool. It ain’t that hard if you’re a fast learner…. only 5 steps to go through. But before we do anything, let’s see the example end result that we’re trying to create in this tutorial (btw, this tutorial uses Fireworks 8 as the image editing tool):

Looks good enough to you? Now let’s get started!

Step 1 : Write the text

Obviously you need *something* to apply the reflection effect to. So open up your Fireworks application and write some texts on the canvas (using the Text tool). It doesn’t matter what fonts or colour you wanna use, just get some texts on the canvas quickly.

Step 2 : Duplicate the text

We’re going to use the duplicated text as the reflection later. So if you’re wondering how to duplicate the text, here’s how: Copy and paste. Just select the text (use the Pointer tool) and then press CTRL+C (to copy) and CTRL+V (to paste). This will paste the very same text on top of the original text, so it’ll look as if nothing happened.

Step 3 : Flip the duplicated text vertically

This shouldn’t be painful. Just go to the toolbar menu and find Modify -> Transform -> Flip vertical.

By now you should see the original text behind the flipped duplicated one. It’ll look something like this:

Step 4 : Move the flipped text below the original text

Push the *downwards* arrow button on your keyboard until the flipped text is placed just below the original text.

Alright…. the reflection is now in place. What you need to do next is have the bottom part faded so that it looks more realistic… let’s proceed.

Final Step : Fade out the bottom part of the duplicated (and flipped) text

To do this is easy. There’s a build-in Fireworks command that can do the fade out for you. Simply go to the toolbar menu and click on Commands -> Creative -> Fade Image. A new dialog box will pop-up giving you options of where you want the image to be faded out; either top, bottom, sides, etc. We want to fade out the bottom part, so use some common sense and choose the right option

By doing that, the reflection is now faded out. If you find the reflection to be revealing too much, just drag the controller pane up a bit and adjust until you’re satisfied.

Done! Wasn’t that hard was it? Having this steps mastered adds you another graphic design skill that you can apply in many things (logos, menus, buttons, etc). Now go repeat everything again with different fonts and colours, add some gradients or anything so that you can remember the steps like the back of your hand.

How much money do you need to start a Web 2.0 business?

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on June 8th, 2007 filed in Web App Development, Thoughts, Entrepreneurship, Financing/funding


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There’s actually no definitive answer to how much capital you need to start a Web 2.0 business. How much you need may depend on so many factors that it can sometimes be a thousand bucks, 5 thousand bucks, 10 thousand bucks, 20 thousand bucks, or down to only a few hundred bucks. Those factors include what type of application you’re building, your own skillset, existing resources, whether you need staffs (if you need then how many of them?), whether you need an office, outsourcing, additional machines, servers and whatnot. Even though I can’t really estimate how much you need to start a Web 2.0 business, I can roughly say that if you spend more than 10 thousand bucks just to develop and launch your web application, then I think you’re overspending. And you better think of how you can mitigate your spending fast because touching that 10 thousand threshold shows that you’re spending too much on unnecessary things. Spending too much money before you even start making money is bad because that means it’ll take longer for you to be in profit. Not only that, if things doesn’t turn out the way you planned it to be, you may even go bankrupt for spending more than you need on the beginning phase.

Sometimes I find it rather disturbing when some of the new Internet startups claimed to have spent over millions of bucks just to get their Web 2.0 ideas developed and launched. That is totally unacceptable in my opinion. Even the overall cost of development, launching, marketing and maintaining of the web app should not take up to millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Why? Because we’re on the INTERNET business. And when I say INTERNET that means things that used to be 10,000 bucks in real life can be absolutely FREE in the cyber world. Consider some of things below:

- Development tools are free (Komodo Edit, PHP+Apache+MySQL, Linux?)
- Open source scripts (which are free) can be leveraged for creating your app’s blog, forum or support center.
- Communication is free via E-mail, Skype, IRC or Instant messaging.
- Outsourcing is cheap.
- Existing programming components can be reused. Think about rapid PHP frameworks and Ajax frameworks
- Google is your library for doing researches
- Advertising can be free by leveraging search engine marketings, social networks, blog marketings, forum marketings, the good-ol “word-of-mouth” marketing. Or even if you purchase advertisings on certain websites, Google Adwords, Advertlets, or other PPCs, it won’t take up so much to kickstart the hype.

There you go. I just can’t help but wonder what have some of these companies spent on that took up millions of dollars for their web application business. Internet business is meant to be cheap but highly profitable. Let’s just keep it that way… Truemors did it with 12 thousand bucks overall. They could’ve spent way less…

The future is now!

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on June 1st, 2007 filed in Thoughts, Technology


• 6 Comments »
• (625 Views)

Five years go, not so many people realize how much Ajax is going to influence the Web development industry as we see it today. In fact at one point I thought Javascript was going to die. Before Flash was invented, many people think the Web is a boring, dull world full of text pages and non-interactive static images. But things have changed drastically since then. If people who used to socialize using the Internet were once regarded as computer freaks, today they are called the “new age” people. Calvin Klein calls it “technosexual“. Thanks to the emergence of these two powerful Web technologies, the Web has become more alive and socially friendly even to the non-tech-savvy community.

Now imagine if in the near future, people will start developing Web applications using a new technology where users can manipulate stuffs in the webpage by using their fingers on a multi-touch screen monitor. Not only that, users can also upload/download files, images and videos from/to our thumbdrives or mobile gadgets by just placing them on the screen. Had you watched the movie Minority Report, you’ll know how cool this application is if it becomes a reality. Look no further, the future is nowhere but today. I say this after watching a cool video about a new product announced by Microsoft yesterday which is known as Microsoft Surface. Check out this video to see it in action:

While the technology of a multi-touch screen has already been invented years ago, it has never been designed to be as socially fancy as this 30-inch screen “coffee table” hardware. Looks like Microsoft is bringing this to mainstream. This new technology may not seem to be directly related to the Web application industry - or at least not yet - but I bet this innovation is gonna bring a huge impact on how we write Web applications in a few years to come. Imagine how many interesting things we can do when this technology is implemented on the Web. Be prepared for the next shift

Credits to TechCrunch and Smart-Machines