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Author Topic: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool  (Read 19897 times)

mouser

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Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool..


allen

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2007, 06:31 AM »
Not an attack on you mouser . . . but this link is more than just a novel tool for me.  It's a cold, shocking reality check.  We're talking about somebody putting together an all out web design, complete with a blog, blog-independent comments, folksonomy functionality--all of this for a little ajax toy that . . . makes stripes.  It makes stripes.  I have to say it again.  It makes stripes.

Now, I will admit openly I'm not fond of this hype-tastic labelling "Web 2.0".  I think it's a vague, stupid label applied to any and everything shiny for the sake of stirring (oft undue) hype.  I mean, honestly, what is "Web 2.0" outside of that context? And this striped shit only serves to validate my qualms.

How did the author not choke on his own vommit when he dubbed his striper "The ultimate tool for web 2.0 designers" ? Seriously, a thing to make a striped texture is the ultimate tool for a web 2.0 designer?  To be 2.0, not only must you master ajax -- you too must, must, must don the striped uniform of the 2.0 movement. Forward thinking thinking web designers wear stripes!

Dubbed as anything else, I could have appreciated this tool.  But their jumping on, if not altogether hanging on, the 2.0 label -- going so far as to claim that stripes are the definitive tool of the web 2.0 designer -- it sickens me.  To me, the web 2.0 movement is to web development what the Boy Band and Pop Diva movements are to music.  Over hyped, over packaged shit that everybody devours.

Look at the comments on this thing--they are absolutely raving.  I assure you if it didn't claim to be definitive web 2.0, the comments would be mixed -- half people saying "WTF, it makes stripes? Who cares?" -- but hell, if it says it's 2.0, then by golly you'd better throw yourself at it. Love it. Lust after it.  After all, you aren't anybody unless you're 2.0!

But come on . . . this thing makes stripes. That's what it does. That's all it does. It . . . makes stripes.

Useful? In a limited context.  Web 2.0? Maybe. Definitive tool? I certainly hope not.

If I ever brand anything I create "Web 2.0", please--for the love of Bumba, Zeus, God, Lucifer, Tom Selleck: Kill me.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2007, 06:35 AM by allen »

mouser

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2007, 07:11 AM »
Well i must admit to being totally 100% completely baffled by the fact that web2.0 supposedly has this "look" with these weird stripes and fonts.  It seems insane to me.

Here's wikipedia on "web 2.0":
"Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2003[1] and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004[2] , refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. O'Reilly Media titled a series of conferences around the phrase, and it has since become widely adopted.

Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to Web technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. According to Tim O'Reilly, "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

See also: http://www.martinblu...a.php?wakka=HomePage

However if you didn't know any better just from browsing the web you might guess that web2.0 referred to the logo design style..

jgpaiva

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2007, 07:14 AM »
Now that's a decent rant!  ;D

I also agree with your point, allen, when i tried the tool i also throught "hmm.. is this all there is to this site?".
This site is about all i hate in apple's products. First, worry about making it beautiful, then add it some functionality just to say it isn't absolutelly worthless.

BTW.. See the "your stripes" section. They actually have a whole share / comment / rate / etc system associated with the stripes each person makes! How crazy is that?

I wonder if we aren't the ones who just don't understand how important stripes are for the development of human kind ;)

mouser

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2007, 07:21 AM »
Well i have to diverge from the criticism here..
I just appreciate the mechanics of the stripe generator, and i always enjoy when i see a site really focus on something that others take for granted.  so i kind of like how people are debating the merits of different strip patterns :)

I'm not saying it's important what stripe you have in your logo -- i'm just saying i think it's a fun site.  Much in the same way that i think the design of apple boxes is a fun issue of aesthetics and art, while at the same time i find it's role in *marketing* a product to be distasteful.

tinjaw

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2007, 07:56 AM »
And it is great for Fourth of July 2.0 !!!  ;)
[attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg][attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

allen

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2007, 08:05 AM »
I'm familiar with O'Reily's coining of the term--and the spirit he coined it in is good.  Unfortunately, the web 2.0 movement I see most commonly is nothing more than a certain homogeny that allows the developers to leverage/harness the momentum of a certain demographic--a demographic of bloodhounds who howl and pursue ravenously anything with "Web 2.0" in its nomenclature.  If you had no self-respect and really wanted to grow donation coder, all you'd have to do is overlay this website with that special, bubbled shiny "2.0" aesthetic, throw in some stripes, and sub-title this website.  "Donation Coder -- The Web 2.0 Software Distribution Model" and the hounds would come.

How is a stripe not just part of, but the definitive tool of "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform." -- unless rules for success include/are equal to . . .  stripes.  I agree with you, Mouser, that some things are taken for granted.  Some things should be taken for granted! A stripe generator is a novel tool with a very limited application.  I am not saying it shouldn't be created.  I'm saying that it shouldn't be over emphasized.  The problem isn't that there is a stripe generator, the problem is that there is a stripe generator--and a slew of other web apps--that compensate for their underwhelming feature set and limited scope by claiming to be web 2.0.  If your application can't excite end users on its own, label it web 2.0.  After all, if someone doesn't "get" an app dubbed Web 2.0, it's not because the App is underwhelming or poorly conceived.  It's because they don't get Web 2.0.

In all fairness--Forgetting it thinks it's web 2.0's definitive tool, I'd review it as such:

The Stripe generator does precisely as its name implies.  It generates stripes.  If you want to generate a striped tile to use as a background for something, there's no better online application for it that I know of.  You pick the colors, the line density and choose from 4 possible angles and your tile is generated on the fly.  There are community features provided allowing stripe enthusiasts to share their designs and discover those created by others.

Here's my problem, though--the author of this application has not asked to be judged on the merits of his application alone.  My problem isn't with the stripe generator, sure, it generates stripes.  But since he has gone to all the trouble to label it the definitive web 2.0, I feel obligated to discuss it according to the promises inherently made by the author.  With apology to those reading, my griping continues.

Consider this--nearly all "Web 2.0" calibre developers are first and foremost graphic designers who use the Internet as a vehicle for their skills in aesthetics.  These graphic designers tools are capable of everything the stripe generator does--and can produce striped fills every bit as quickly.  They also have far more control over the angles, line density, gradience and so on.  They can create this locally, thereby removing the download step before they upload it to their server.  Bottom line:  The target audience for this elaborate stripe generator are the sniffers--those web 2.0 bloodhounds.  I know, I'm a bigot--I vehemently despise leveraging indiscriminate, pop-culture sensational band wagons.  Unfortunately, that's all web 2.0 means to me--which is to say it's a meaningless marketing gimmick deployed by web developers who are either not confident enough in their work or not creative enough to release an application on its own merits.  Let the end users play with your masterpiece--and if they dub it web 2.0, wonderful--let the hounds come.  But spare me the prescribed bewilderment.  Let me decide whether or not stripes are definitive web 2.0 tool.

If, in speaking of web 2.0, a stripe generator meets the following criteria--I retract my rant.

serving to supply a final answer, solution, or evaluation and to end an unsettled unresolved condition

Web 2.0 is certainly "an unsettled, unresolved condition" -- but, please, are stripes the answer?

f0dder

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2007, 08:21 AM »
Nice couple of rants, allen, and I have to agree with you. And it's sickening. I appreciate the technology behind web2.0, or rather, the kind of things that the technology allows you to create. Interactiveness without requiring java/flash and without having to constantly reload pages. This can be genuinely useful, not just to make silly toys. But it's oh so goddamn overhyped it makes me want to puke up my intestines and carve out my eyes.

The stripes are preeeeeeetty though, and the generator does work pretty well (just a bit lame that you have to click the preview to make it update, instead of updating auto).
- carpe noctem

tinjaw

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2007, 08:23 AM »
Donations seem valid, processing...
All donations processed successfully.
  gave $1.00 credit to allen (Thank you for saving me some time today by writing you comments on the Web 2.0 Strip Generator. You wrote what I didn't want to take the time to write.)

iphigenie

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #9 on: July 05, 2007, 08:36 AM »
It's a bandwagon thing - jump on it or sling mud at it ;)

But back to this site, beyond all the fun and clever semantic discussions, there is one thing that makes it a representative ultimate web2.0 site:  it doesn't work as well as it looks

* the generated stripes did not change as I changed settings - and i didnt see a "refresh" button
* the colour picker was iffy - i found it impossible to drag the colour stripe marker all the way down to orange as it insisted on being 3 cm above my mouse pointer and my screen is only so big..
I gave up after that

iphigenie

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #10 on: July 05, 2007, 08:38 AM »
I guess i did try some more...if you disable "tiled" preview then a graphic appears that lets you know that you need to click on the image to refresh with your settings... the colour picker is still broken, though

allen

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #11 on: July 05, 2007, 08:45 AM »
But back to this site, beyond all the fun and clever semantic discussions, there is one thing that makes it a representative ultimate web2.0 site:  it doesn't work as well as it looks

I wasn't going to say anything--I thought it was just an Opera problem, and "Web 2.0" notoriously leaves us Opera users out in the cold.  I didn't feel the tool was worth firing up another browser -- I really didn't need any stripes.

Perhaps I was a bit hasty with my judgement. My mistake was not defining web 2.0 properly.  If pretty, broken, over-hyped and underwhelming is web 2.0, we have found the crowning glory. :)

nudone

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #12 on: July 05, 2007, 12:02 PM »
anyone remember 'interfaces' on all the 'happening' websites - where are they now?

in a years time... "remember all those web 2 stripes and reflections and glossy buttons - where are they now?"

hamradio

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #13 on: July 05, 2007, 01:11 PM »
When I asked for someone to post it last night in the irc channel I overlooked the "web 2.0" stuff and on my computer I was actually able to get it to do some stuff.  I thought it was neat to generate stripe graphics for other stuff than just "web 2.0" easily.

Lashiec

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #14 on: July 05, 2007, 04:50 PM »
Reflections and glossy buttons... *thinks in Ad-Aware 2007*

f0dder

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- carpe noctem

urlwolf

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #16 on: July 06, 2007, 03:12 PM »
Damn F0dder, you are always in the know for all these things...
What are you, a sysadmin for a fortune 500 company?
A security ninja?

allen

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #17 on: July 06, 2007, 03:18 PM »
He is categorically a security Ninja. But shh, it's a fsekrit!

Lashiec

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #18 on: July 06, 2007, 06:02 PM »
HUH? XOR encryption, easily discernable password, poor checksum routines?? What the hell were they thinking? And that inflated number of entries? Are they scared of a-squared numbers? :D

My god, I could extract the file myself without coding anything. Anyway, I hope they fixed THAT in 2007 version... although they introduced another problems (this time at user-level).

</thread hijack>

app103

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #19 on: July 10, 2007, 04:54 PM »
If you had no self-respect and really wanted to grow donation coder, all you'd have to do is overlay this website with that special, bubbled shiny "2.0" aesthetic, throw in some stripes, and sub-title this website.  "Donation Coder -- The Web 2.0 Software Distribution Model" and the hounds would come.

Look very carefully at the background of this page.
There are 2 different stripe patterns here.  :P

nudone

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Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool
« Reply #20 on: July 10, 2007, 05:34 PM »
i think the web 2.0 law states that lines have to be diagonal. it's subtle but that is perhaps why the DC stripes run horizontally - who knows what horrors would be unleashed if the lines were ever to slip 45 degress.