Aztaro Reviews: Paint Tool Sai

Wow I need to look stuff up or something, INACTIVITY! :D

Reviews the art program Paint Tool Sai
[Update] Site: Sai.Detstwo.com/sai/ [English site, other languages available]

Huh... Could have sworn it was just Paint Tool Sai, anyway this is a program like PhotoShop but more geared to drawing artists. This program can be used for realistic drawings/paintings, I'll provide an example-

Ooo look, it's coming out great so far. This is one of those programs that is more commonly used for Anime or Manga style artists, another example-

Yeah~, Tails, Okay besides that, back to the review.

This program is originally a Japanese program translated into many other languages, Paint Tool Sai has many brush options and I'm not just talking about what kind of brushes you can use, those can be downloaded and loaded in. With Paint Tool Sai you can control a "smoothing' option. This has got to be one of the best and most important idea of the program. I'll explain this first because I love this option, when activating smoothing it has 23 options, 0-15 and S-1 to S-7. The higher the number the smoother the line will come out, how is this possible? Pretty much each stage adds a smigit of lag to the brush, so for example setting 0 will be dead on accurate with the mouse. If you go to the highest, which is S-7, you can click and start drawing the line and the brush won't follow until a certain amount of time. It also will make the brush want to the follow the mouse itself not the path it goes, because then it would make it completely irrelevant. It has a folder and layer system just like PhotoShop and can support vector layers. It has an array of brush tools that bring different effects to your drawing style as well as some artistic filters. One big kicker that artists will like, tablet compatible so draw your hearts out!

Personal Opinion [Read this, skip it, I write it for people who'd rather hear a humans opinion]: This is an amazing program for artists going to cartooning, also it has so many save options you'd be able to transfer your work else where. Also I have the Paint Tool Sai Portable which gives you a very compact but not limited to death program, heck some of my files are bigger than the program! Anyway I don't have much fault with the program but some artists I see will often bring it over to PhotoShop for colouring, me, I'm bad at colouring so this it a stepping stone but so far it's good for me. I use it to draw silly things for friends and practice drawing things so I can get better at it overall [I'm self conscious about my art so I won't show mine]. Great program to look into, the portable version is small as in 14.9MB, free and there's no installation so you can just throw it on a USB drive and draw where ever you go, just don't expect your friends to have tablets to draw on.

This is something to look into, I'm going to post some artists that use Sai below

Squeedgemonster on Deviantart
[Warning: If you don't like furry don't view]

If I find more I'll try to update, I just am having a blank

Aztaro Reviews: Amazon.com

Running out of ideas [even if the world is FULL of ideas to review] anyway I'll post about what I've been using lately

Yes this image is what we are reviewing, it is a .jpg with the dimensions of...

Just kidding it's the subject in it, amazon.com, for all your shopping and selling needs

[Update] Site: Amazon.com

Amazon is an online shopping hub, you can buy things from either companies or other users. As well you can sell your own belongings there as well so you can also make some cash. It has everything you need and has specific categories for it's merchandise so it's easier to find. From computer parts to MP3 players, from Atari 2600s to Sony Playstation 3s, from clothes to fit your feet up to clothes that'll fit your head. Pretty much it has a large quantity of items being sold over the net by different people. Interface is an easy search and page system, been around sense ever and it's done good so far. Credit cards and I believe paypal accepted. Not sure... what else to say here... besides it's a good site...

Personal Opinion [again, read if you want input by human and not something all positive]: ... It's good... I don't know, it's a good site and I like it better than e-bay

Aztaro Reviews: New Blogger

Hi there, sorry to be all inactive but, life
Anyway I transformed to the new Blogger style [because it was going to be forced anyway so why not do it early?], this was something I felt maybe I should have postponed... or was it good I'm trying to learn it now?

Before anything, that new logo feels very new and it's nicely designed, though some outside people won't think a letter "B" but it's very beautiful font. Back on task, the new system has elements of the classic and new features from previous versions. It makes viewing blogs easier and in a nice group also it shows your followed blogs below it like the classic view. Also getting into viewing posts and comments of a certain blog a couple less clicks away so if your a big page [not that I can say anything about comments or even views but hey I'm still new here]. Little blog select tab for when you want to see posts only by one blog and you don't want to completely open the site and search that way.

Sorry I don't have more but I'm still clicking around this with what time I can view it.

Personal Thoughts [Hey, if you don't like my ideas, skip this part]: I don't see anything wrong yet, pretty solid looking interface. One thing I have problem with, ... well I don't know yet but maybe I'll think of something. This is kind of short so, "Glargo-dems-fllodive-zaar", there now I feel better [especially saying that out loud, was fun]. So short post today, enjoy your day!

I hear warm weather coming as well so ENJOY IT!

Aztaro Reviews: TotL [Turn off the lights]

Ever wanted your internet video watching experience to be a bit more "theatrical"? Well Turn off the Lights has a neat little program for Firefox users to "turn off the background"

Turn off the Lights [Firefox only?]

Small picture not good enough, here's link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/turn-off-the-lights/

With this add-on you can start watching a video and dim the background so nothing else can bother you while you watch it. This add-on is pretty much an overlay in which one area is not covered so your video can stand out more against a solid coloured background [or a picture if you'd like]. It works with Youtube and even has a setting where it will automatically dim and undim when the video is played, paused or when it ends. This add-on supports HTML5 video as well though there may not be a lot of sites that support it, there is another way to keep videos, animations, pretty much anything in a neat little box. With options to automatically search your webpage for flash player it can also help to make it easier to click and dim without extra thought. If all else fails there is an option to draw your own area to focus on.

Personal Review [again skip if you don't care]: I like the program for when I'm watching long videos because ninety nine out of one hundred times there is a white background behind the video and if the video is changing light levels constantly, it will save eyestrain. It's auto feature on Youtube is nice but if your watching short videos, it get's old fast with the dim and undimming, but they have an option to turn it off. Another peeve I have is I only found Youtube to work with the auto focus feature so I wound up drawing my own when outside of the site. Even with the auto focus being still very Youtube clingy, it's really nice for when you watch long videos, a very nice alternative to full screen because face it, some videos look better in the little player than in a full sized monitor screen.

Something to stick your nose into, can be a keeper, but if they get to coding some more video players in this could be much better. Also it's free to use so why not try it?

Update: There is a website that has an option for HTML5 it is here The Escapist Magazine