Cranial Soup

New Art and a New Blog

2012-02-29T06:25:00.001-05:00

I recently redesigned and moved my old RussoGraffix art site to Blogger. From now on I'll be posting all my art releases there, instead of here.

To celebrate the occasion, I have released 6 new CC-BY licensed works for you to use.
Click the images to visit the pages and get the files.

Free Website Banner Graphic: Night Sky

Free PSP Vector: Cube of Spheres

Free PSP Vectors: Dice

Free PSP Vector: Balloons

Free Images: Gold Coins

Free PSP Vector: 4-Leaf Clovers

Free Art Download: Like Us (CC-BY)

2011-09-29T17:56:00.001-04:00

(shown actual size)

What you get: This image with a transparent background in both PNG and PSP vector formats.

Font used is Cooper Black which you will need to open the PSP vector file.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Free Art Download: Bat (CC-BY)

2011-01-05T07:57:00.001-05:00

What you get:

This image in PNG format.
An additional image without the background (transparent) in both PSP vector and PNG formats.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Chop These Up and Have Some Fun (CC-BY)

2011-01-05T03:11:00.001-05:00

Here are a bunch of desktop wallpapers that I made way back when I thought 800x600 was the standard. Since desktop resolutions are much higher today, they really aren't suitable for that purpose any more.

I have decided to re-release them under a Creative Commons Attribution license, and let everyone have some fun chopping them up and turning them into new art. Just give credit by linking back here, anywhere that you display them or works created with them.

Click thumbnails for full size images.

Free Art Download: Blame Game (CC-BY)

2010-07-20T01:03:00.002-04:00

What you get: This image, about twice the size, without the watermark text, on a transparent background, in both PNG and PSP vector formats.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license, suitable for personal, non-commercial, and commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Blame Game by app103
Create mugs at zazzle.com

Free Image: Instant Photo (CC-BY)

2010-07-11T10:49:00.001-04:00

What you get:

This image (drop shadow is included), about twice the size, without the text, on a transparent background, in both PNG and layered PSP formats.

On the layered PSP, you can easily insert the image of your choice over the black area.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license, suitable for personal, non-commercial, and commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Number Icons (CC-BY)

2010-01-21T06:17:00.001-05:00

Big, beautiful, and easy to read, these icons will dress up any application or website, where you need some number icons.

Included in the set are the numbers 0-9 in PSD, PNG, ICO, BMP, and PSP formats.

The layers are preserved in both the PSP and PSD files, so you can use the color changer in your favorite graphics editor on the lower layer, to customize them to suit your needs.

The ICO files show big, bold, and beautiful in just about all versions of Windows, including good old Win9x.

These are actual size screenshots from Explorer (they also look great in the system tray):

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, they are suitable for both commercial and non-commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Free PSP Vector: Puzzle Piece (CC-BY)

2009-11-26T20:17:00.001-05:00

This is a simple puzzle piece vector in PSP7 format that can be used in a variety of creative ways. You can use it in logo art, or other projects. As a vector, you can easily change the colors and it can be enlarged as much as you want, without losing any quality.

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY), it is suitable for personal, non-commercial, and commercial use. All you have to do is link back here to give credit.

Here are a few quick examples of use:

This item has been moved to my art site.

Free Buttons: Top Ten (CC-BY)

2009-06-15T13:25:00.002-04:00

A long time ago I created a set of buttons for use on my old art website, to number pages.

Back in those days, I was kind of careless and stupid concerning saving the original templates for my artwork. Instead I saved one blank button with a black background, to match that site, which means I can only use those buttons on sites with black backgrounds.

I really liked those buttons a lot, so I recreated them from scratch today, in much better quality than the originals.

(shown actual size)

With transparent backgrounds, they can now be used on any color website. I also made a set with a slight drop shadow, so they would stand out more on lighter backgrounds.

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, suitable for both personal and commercial use. Just give credit by linking back to this site on any page that you use them, or in your about box if you use them in a desktop application.

Besides using them to number pages, I think they would be great for numbering items in all those “Top 10” lists that so many bloggers seem to be fond of.

And in case you want to do a top 20 list, I have included .psp and .psd source files of both versions, so you can edit and make more buttons (or change the font).

This item has been moved to my art site.

font used on buttons: Adorable

Free Bird Icons (CC-BY)

2009-06-13T18:21:00.003-04:00

Perfect for linking to your Twitter profile or any other purpose in which you’d need a bird icon.
In 16 assorted colors, so you can dare to be a little different and match the colors of your website.

Also included in the full set, are the original Paintshop Pro vectors (.psp).

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, suitable for both personal and commercial use.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Blue Bird by app103
Make a custom t shirt on zazzle

Free Website Buttons: Black Chrome (CC-BY)

2009-06-07T22:36:00.006-04:00

(shown actual size)

A set of 12 buttons in PSD, PNG (with and without shadow), and Paintshop Pro PSP and TUB formats. (They should work in any version of Paintshop Pro, v7 and newer.)

Set includes:

light bulb
contact
information
awards
about (male)
about (female)
home
help
rss
privacy
news
one blank button for you to customize in any way you choose

Icon images on the buttons were created by Yusuke Kamiyamane (from his Fugue Icons set). Chrome bezel buttons were made by me.

The entire button set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and can be used free, for any personal or commercial projects.

This item has been moved to my art site.

Converting and Encoding a URL Containing Extended ASCII Characters (Delphi utility with source)

2009-01-27T03:57:00.001-05:00

It has come to my attention that some programming languages do not always make it very easy to convert and encode a URL.

While helping someone with bug testing and adding Last.fm support to a media player, we came across a problem with opening URL's to the correct page on last.fm's site when the title, artist or other tag info contained extended ASCII characters.

Example:

Artist: Bjørn Lynne
Title: Methydias Cloudship

This would be the correct URL on their site for this song:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bj%C3%B8rn%20Lynne/_/Methydias%20Cloudship

But in AHK, which does not support unicode, attempting to come up with the URL resulted in this incorrect one:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bj%F8rn%20Lynne/_/Methydias%20Cloudship

The problem was that you have to convert the URL from Ansi to UTF-8 before you encode it.

At first he wasn't sure if he could fix the problem, as that was what he thought he was doing in the first place.

So, while he decided to take a break from bug fixing to go play with his kids, because all coding and no play can make a coder and his family miserable, I decided to go ahead and make a little helper utility for him, just in case he couldn't resolve the issue.

Now I am not too sure on the particular details of how he fixed it, but he did and didn't need my little utility, after all.

But I am not one to let code go to waste, and my intention was to help someone resolve a problem, so I decided that this code will still do just that, one way or another. I am pretty sure that there is someone out there somewhere that could find this useful for something.

So, here it is, a small command line utility for Windows that will accept a parameter of a URL containing extended ASCII characters, convert the URL to UTF-8, then properly encode it, and finally, open that URL in the system's default browser.

I have included the Delphi source in case you may need that, too.

While testing this with various browsers, I noticed something peculiar. Certain browsers will display the URL in the addressbar differently than what the URL actually is. Although it is properly converted and encoded, the addressbar will display the original extended ASCII. I suppose this is to make it look pretty.

The following browsers exhibited this behavior:

Firefox 3
Opera 9
Chrome 1

Additionally, while both Firefox and Chrome copied the correct URL to the clipboard from the addressbar, Opera did not.

Opera copied extended ASCII, instead.

Internet Explorer did not exhibit these behaviors and displayed the actual URL used, in the addressbar.

Rest assured, this application does work properly, even if your browser isn't displaying what you think it should be showing in its addressbar.

Now I don't care if you use either the code or the compiled utility in an open source or close source project, for non-commercial or commercial purposes, and you don't have to give me any credit or compensation if you use it.

My goal was to help someone and if this can help you in some way, feel free to use it in any way you wish. I have released both the utility and the source into the public domain.

This application and its source code is dedicated to the Public Domain.

Download: Delphi encodeURL utility with source

Creative Commons and Author's True Intentions Creates Copy Confusion

2008-05-13T02:30:00.004-04:00

You see it every day on blogs all over the web: content posted with a Creative Commons license.

The Creative Commons license, for his own original works, is the choice of the author. He is not forced to do this (unless it's a derivative work based on another Creative Commons work, or he is publishing someone else's CC licensed work). He does it willingly. He makes the conscious decision to make his work copyable under certain restrictions, whether they be giving him credit, not making derivative works, derivative works allowed, restrictions on commercial use, no restrictions on commercial use, etc.

But he is giving you the right to copy it, nonetheless.

I spotted this one at the bottom of the page on a blog today:

According to the Creative Commons license for that site, in which the author links to, I CAN copy his content. According to the little Copyscape banner above it, I may not.

So which is it? Can I or can't I?

I wish authors would think about it seriously and make up their minds before they put the banners on their sites. They can't have it both ways. They can't say out of one side of their mouths you can copy their work, and out of the other that you can't. They are conflicting statements and ideas.

If you don't want to give people the legal right to copy your work, don't release it under any type of Creative Commons license. Retain full copyright and priviledges for yourself. And get the Creative Commons badges off your site!