Its Friday and I want to make a fun post! Last night while working on a project with Christopher, I mentioned that we should add more dirt to some of our designz. He asked me how, so I made a quick HOWTO make dirt using our beloved Inkscape drawing software and then uploading the results, as scalable vector files to our project, Open Clip Art Library.

Check it out! If you like this post, please try to make your own dirt and upload to the Open Clip Art Library:

1. Download image of dirt from a source like Google Image Search or Flickr.


2. Download and use Inkscape, the free drawing tool!


3. Import image in inkscape (I usually embed the image for now)


4. Select Path > Trace Bitmap...


5. Play with options (prefer simple black and white)


6. Convert image to paths by clicking "OK"


7. NOTE: At this point you will have some dirt. You may want to delete the image source material you imported now, or later.


8. To create dirty type or make some shape dirrrty, then...


9. Overlay shape or type on the dirt path.


10. Then, play with path operations in the Inkscape Path menu like intersection, exclusion until you get a desirable result


11. Have fun! Undo and Redo menu operations are your friend


12. Upload your saved SVG (without the image in the file) to the Open Clip Art Library.
    

Check out my growing collection in my Dirt Gallery (some of you who have known me for some time will get that KC comment ;).

I really struggled with if I should delete all my social media accounts this fall. On December 1, I decided instead to just stop using cold turkey. I did it. I still feel great about it. It put me outside of my comfort zones and gave me some perspective on connecting with people, really.

My final conclusion however is that I can't have relationships online. Rather, my online persona @rejon is for social markiting. I drew the line, and now I'm ok with controlled posting again. Remember: you don't want to end up crying on camera because you used your desire to emote to become a crazy person screaming into the air (real and virtually).

Use social markiting to your benefit, not to your failure.

Along with Open Clip Art Library 3.1, we released Aiki Framework 0.9.0, "Infrastructure for the Future" release. Aiki Framework is a software invented by Bassel Safadi to power the Open Clip Art Library and other database heavy sites, that need collaboration on the web. Fabricatorz and Aiki Lab use this software where possible to solve client problems and to make the platform better so it becomes easier to make sites each time.

In this Aiki 0.9.0 release, we fixed 76 bugs and added 23 new features. The highlights of the release are a new installer, and lots of developer-centric infrastructure for the future: multi-languages, multi-views, multi-sites and more! Get it while it's hot!

Aiki keeps getting better. Have you tried it? Join us! If you want a fast website that is scalable, hire us.

Check out the new installer below (a big thanks to rg1024 and jcubic for working so hard on this release too):

The new Fabricatorz is here; and its about you! People are the core of our business and the service we provide. This starts from the root and extends outward to the relationships we build, the clients we serve, and the healthy process of matching results with expectations. Please do join us in welcoming the new Fabricatorz website. Its a medium for working together with you. We believe that in a world of 7 billion people, the best Fabricatorz have yet to be found. The 王 resides in each person. We work each day to make better relationships, better business, and services through the software we create, hardware we build, and the communities we grow. Hire us today. We will work together as Fabricatorz of the New Era.

A few years ago, we got swept up in a wave of projects in Singapore. A little prior, Bassel invented the Aiki Framework software for powering the heavily trafficked Open Clip Art Library which needed a fast database-backed engine that allowed for collaboration. Bassel and myself set out to make a company around this project, because we had some good offers of support in the Neoteny Singapore project by Joi Ito, and Christopher and I didn't want Fabricatorz to become locked into one technology platform.

While we do prefer to use Aiki Framework for web-based software, we push the development and holding of all Aiki projects over to the completely separate company, Aiki Lab. While this is mostly an on-paper different project right now, expect more from Aiki Lab in the future.