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How to Create an Icon


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How many icons do you have on your desktop? I’m betting you probably have a few, unless you have them hidden. Even so, you still have tons of icons on your computer. An icon isn’t like a ‘normal’ graphic, since it can have multiple sizes or resolutions within the same file. They’re quite complex little pieces of art, so how can you easily create them yourself?

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How to Make an iPhone Web Site and Icon

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Yes, I have an iPhone. If you look closely, you can see my little Chris icon on there. It’s also on my home screen. When I tap it, it opens my blog. When you open my blog on your iPhone, it’s going to look a lot different than it would on a browser. That’s due to a plugin I am running in WordPress.

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Are you an Indiana Jones Fan?

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You could say I’m an Indiana Jones fan. Heck, I even watched the old “Young Indiana Jones” television show. So of course, I’m excited for the release of the newest movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The plot promises: “Famed archaeologist/adventurer Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones is called back into action when he becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.” Yeah… I can’t wait to see this. It comes out in theaters on May 22nd, 2008.

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RSS, OPML, Tag, Bookmark Icons

We have a “standard” RSS icon and a similar working OPML icon, but I’d like to work with the graphics community on creating a “standard” Tag icon and a “standard” Bookmark icon – in a similar square style. These icons would tie into the functionality of my first two WP plugin ideas – where the user would only need to display one icon, and when the visitor hovers over it, would receive a nice callout to selected services. We could eliminate a massive amount of confusion and save page space at the same time. I think it’s time we started thinking about this – but I’m not a graphic designer. Help?

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OPML Icon

OPML is great – and for feed organization, it’s equally awesome. Just about every news aggregator supports importing and exporting OPML, but there hasn’t yet emerged an OPML icon design that is equally as appealing as the “standard” feed icon set forth by Firefox and subsequently adopted by the industry. In working with information architects on TagJag, we decided to dedicate some cycles to designing an OPML icon for use on the site:

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The Feed Icon Debate

I received an email from Daniel Goldman earlier today regarding Mozilla’s filing for a trademark on the feed icon, requesting that Opera Software sign an agreement before using it in their Web browser. Daniel asked me if I thought this was a good thing or a bad thing for the feed icon. Let me start out by saying that the blogosphere has to get over the whole “copyrights and trademarks are evil” jihad.

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Windows Explorer ToolTips

I don’t know how it happened, but I somehow lost ToolTip functionality in Windows the other day. I’d hover over an icon and NOTHING would show up. Needless to say, I was more than a little perturbed. I did a quick look around the ‘Net and discovered The Elder Geek had an answer that might work. It involves a bit of Registry diving, which is no problem from a seasoned power user like myself. To Enable or Disable Tool Tip Displays, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced. Look for “ShowInfoTip” and make sure its value is set to 1. That’s it. Shouldn’t even need a reboot in XP to see ‘er work again.

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