transparency - Can I change the default Gimp transparent background to white?

I'm using Gimp 2. The default grid-style transparent background makes it incredibly difficult to get a sense of what the image will actually look like, when I finally display it over a background. Is there a way I can make the transparent background display as something other than the default grid, for example as a simple white background?

Answer

Yes, that would be very easy, I just opened up Gimp 2 my self and tried it out to make sure! :p Anyway, in the layers panel, right click and choose New Layer.

Then make sure you select White for the Layer Fill Type.

Now, click OK and move the new white layer to the bottom of all the current layers.

To change the layer color, select it and just paint it in with any color you want!

Hope this helped.

What is the standard way for conveying vegan and vegetarian as separate icons?

Working on a project, I need 2 icons for Vegan and Vegetarian to display at a glance nutritional information. The problem that I'm running into is that there doesn't seem to be a good way to have each icon stand alone and the user knowing exactly what it stands for, example below.

Vt vs Vg

Vt is fairly easy to understand as vegetarian. But Vg runs the problem of not knowing that its Vegan without seeing the other icon. Is there a standard way for conveying vegan and vegetarian?

Additional Specs: The icons will be used in a variety of sizes from 150x150px to 24x24px. Here's an example of the current icon set: http://imgur.com/2NkXIcN

Answer

The standard for vegetarian is generally just a "V", usually in a green circle or something similar, and that'll be pretty much universally understood.

The Vegan Society has "the Vegan Trademark" which has been around a long time and since it explicitly says "Vegan" there's no ambiguity as there is with "Vg" vs "Vt". I have seen "Vg" and "Vt" used in the past, and even as someone who was vegan for ~12 years it wasn't clear to me what they meant; so stay away from using those.

Something that's worth pointing out though... If something is vegan it is by definition also vegetarian so there's generally no need for both icons; if someone sees "Vegan" they already know it's vegetarian.

non fiction - When *should* I use passive voice?

Is there ever a good time to use passive voice in nonfiction?

Answer

You can effectively use passive voice when the action is more important than the actor.

For example, if you were writing about the effect of pollutants on a river, you might introduce the facts in the passive voice, because in terms of the effects, it doesn't MATTER who did the action:

"The pollutants were released into the lake in 1979. Significant amounts were detected in the last test of the area, in 2010."

If this was an expose on the SOURCE of the pollutants, maybe you would want to avoid the passive voice, and say:

"Company X, Company Z, and Farmer B released the pollutants into the lake in 1979. While the govnerment said that it was all cleaned up immediately, independent labs detected significant amounts in the area in 2010."

Or there's the old "John Smith found the body on the courthouse steps," vs. "The body was found on the courthouse steps." If John Smith is just a passerby, he's not really important to the story, and it's distracting to have him in there.

I think there's also a tradition of using passive voice in lab reports, to make things seem less personal. "I turned the burner on" vs "The burner was turned on." Again, I guess it's trying to de-emphasize the importance of the actor. It doesn't matter WHO turned the burner on; the important thing is the act.

login - Why should we ask the password twice during registration?

It would be easier to ask for a user's password only once during registration.

The problem: The user could make a mistake while typing the password once because of hiding letters.

The solution: The user could have a toggle button for showing or hiding the password.

Working example with toggling the visibility of the password. This approach could be used on the registration or login page.

Are there any benefits to asking a user's password twice during registration vs just not masking the password? Why would you ask twice?

P.S. Jakob Nielsen about unmasking the password:

• Users make more errors when they can't see what they're typing while filling in a form. They therefore feel less confident. This double degradation of the user experience means that people are more likely to give up and never log in to your site at all, leading to lost business. (Or, in the case of intranets, increased support calls.)


• The more uncertain users feel about typing passwords, the more likely they are to (a) employ overly simple passwords and/or (b) copy-paste passwords from a file on their computer. Both behaviors lead to a true loss of security.

Update: I created a WordPress plugin which unmasks the password field. So you may use it if you want to.

Update 2: WordPress.com use same technique to show and hide password.

Update 3: Internet Explorer 10 added a toggle password visibility icon. It looks like this:

Update 4: Article about unmask password on smashingmagazine.

Update 5: Example with unmasking password on focus.

Answer

We should not ask for password twice - we should ask for it once and make sure that the 'forgot password' system works seamlessly and flawlessly

style - Using dashes in writing dialogue

Does anyone use em dashes (or two hyphens) to denote speakers in dialogue passages? Joyce does this as does William Gaddis. Many others. I practice it, but my only "conceptual understanding" is that the dash-dialogue format allows you to group a character's entire range of actions, thoughts, and words into one chunk, headed by a dash. I really like this idea; it's very dramatic.

Here's an example which will lead to a more specific question.

Rick and Nelly walked through the cathedral.
-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, he said shivering. I think it's something in the prayers.

One thing I seldom if ever have seen with dash-dialogue is the placement of the speaker tag at the end. So never this:

-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, Rick said shivering.

So, I have made up a sort-of rule in my head that any speech tags or character blocking written into normal dialogue should only be inserted into the middle of dash-dialogue and not at the beginning or the end. My question is: does anyone know if there are specific rules to follow in writing this kind of dialogue?

Answer

I think that's the default in Spanish; I grew up reading stuff written that way, and I find the quotes... strange.

I do use it a lot to add description to the dialogue. The way I use it slightly different to yours, though:

Rick and Nelly walked through the cathedral.

-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, - he said shivering. - I think it's something in the prayers.

It's called a "quotation dash", apparently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark,_non-English_usage#Quotation_dash

registration - What should a e-mail address confirmation e-mail say?

I'm sending out an e-mail containing a link to prove the user had registered with an e-mail address they have access to.

1. 
   

   What is the name of such an e-mail? Verification e-mail, confirmation e-mail, account activation or something else? In a similar sense what is the name of the link in the e-mail?

   
   


2. 
   

   What should the e-mail say? I want to make this accessible to non-technically inclined users.

   
   
   


3. 
   

   What should the subject of the e-mail be?

   
   

Answer

Sadly there is no standard for the name of such an email - all your suggestions are used. But consider the following:

• Verification Email - used when you can still access services, but need to verify your email in the meantime.


• Activation Email - used when services (account) are not accessible until email activation takes place. You can argue that there is some more urgency in 'activating' than in 'verifying'.



• Confirmation Email - I prefer to think of this as something sent as a confirmation of something (purchase confirmation, password change confirmation). You can say that the email is to confirm the user's email address.

Here are a few examples to get you started (starting with my favourite):

Please Verify your Noun Project account

The good:

• Very minimalistic design.

The bad:

• email subject and content terms don't match. Subject says 'Verify' while content says 'Activate'.


• No need for the 'Activate Account' heading. It is redundant to the button, which is the primary action point.


• Link contrast somewhat low.

Activate your MailChimp account.

The good:

• Monkey and "Just one more step..." make the system appear more fun and the sentence should motivate people to click on the button.

The bad:

• No need for the line asking people to click on the button. Most people should get it without these instructions (and even if they won't get it - people often try the most probable possible action when inconclusive).



• Few will care for the address of the company, or the copyright clause at this point and user eyes will most often skip this. The address of the company does promote trust, but such soft goal is likely to have already been satisfied prior registrations.


• No links in case the email was sent by mistake, or if people have problems when clicking the button.

Please confirm your email

The good:

• Nice design.

The bad:

• Again, no real need for the sentence next to the button.


• Two exclamation marks can be considered style that is not ideal. Exclamation marks should be used sparingly for a very specific desired effect.


• The long link is ugly, and in my view unnecessary. This is even more odd as the Privacy Policy is given as a normal link.

research - How do approaches for UX differ between intranets and normal websites?

I have been asked to offer advice for the development of an intranet for a large international company.

The client will be developing the intranet in Sharepoint and is keen to use a user-centric approach for its development and I have been asked a question:

"how do approaches for UX differ between intranets and normal websites"

I'm finding this quite hard to answer succinctly because its complex and nuanced. By and large the procedure will be much the same insofar as one must carry out substantive user research and develop iteratively, but I'm still having trouble with any specific differences of approach between ux of intranet vs website.

Have you developed for intranet? what were your experiences and how did they differ from developing for normal websites?

caveat: this is a general question that I have been asked lacking any real specifics

Why are Inverted Colors considered an accessibility feature?

Why is it that in most Operating Systems the "Inverted Colors" display setting is considered an accessibility feature? Both Windows and OS X include this option so it seems to be a recognized feature and not not a vendor specific quirk.

I understand that some users are color-blind. This could possibly justify the Black & White, or grey-scale modes for developers wanting to be assured that the experience is cohesive for everyone. What I don't understand is how or why does inverting the display color help someone with any specific, visual impairment or dysfunction.

As a programmer that wants to understand the need so that I can develop better, accessible software, what purpose does this feature serve to the end user who has some form of visual impairment?

---

UPDATE

I asked this question quite a while ago, however, it just dawned on me-- I think I am one of those individuals that this feature was designed for. I almost always try to keep the contrast reversed from the typical settings for my text displays. I hate white backgrounds with dark text! As a coder, all of my textual GUIs are black with green text. This isn't just a throwback to the old monochrome, green screen days. The pairing of the two colors is quite comfortable to my eyes. However, stairing at to much black-on-white actually hurts my eyes from some form of eye strain.

I mention this in an update because the color inversion feature is not useful.. it's annoying! As someone who needs a good feature like this, it's a shame that all implementations that I have ever seen are just a poor attempt at solving a problem. I would hope that Apple, Microsoft and others have done their research but I'm guessing that might not be the case. Color inversion just feels like slapping a band-aid on a bigger problem.

Developers, if you want to help people who need such a feature as to prevent eye-strain, find ways to change the text and page background and not necessarily the entire display.

Answer

Research generally suggests light on dark is harder to read in most cases but considering we're talking accessibility, you should know that results for those with normal vision don't necessarily hold true for those with various vision impairments.

I've heard higher contrast (the mode in Windows is called High Contrast mode I think) can be easier to read for those with impaired vision though; the white text seems to stand out more. I'm curious as to why that is psychologically; the actual contrast ratio should technically be the same between white on black vs black on white.

Note that it's recommended to increase font sizes and leading when inverting text colors:

When reversing colour out, eg white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letterforms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines.

Mark Boulton

Also, a common reason for white on black (which this feature mostly produces) is for night reading; many e-readers offer a Night Mode with white on black. The black screen is less painful to read with low to no external light.

Another reason it might be common is simply because it's easy and relatively safe to to implement. Compare it to other obvious color effect options; if you tried to Sepia tone the whole screen (an effect I've seen to make reading easier on the eyes) you would reduce contrast significantly. Turning things black and white could eliminate color cues used to differentiate interface elements.

Simply inverting colors preserves the relative contrast between UI elements (so you won't have black text on grey backgrounds), so it's a "safe" effect at the least. And if it doesn't help, no harm done, just undo the effect.

modal dialog - Are Mailing list popups bad usability

I had a client request that they wanted a mailing list popup like the example given below where the popup is presented to the user as soon as they land on the site

I am a little concerned about the effectiveness of this popup in terms of conversion and the potential for it being an annoyance. I did some research on what the general view is on mailing list popups and there seems to be consensus that they can help in increasing conversions but they can be really annoying as well. However most of this information was garnered by discussions in forums about such methods to sign up people. I am wondering if there is any research on whether such a popup is bad usability or there are pros which outweigh the cons?

Answer

Simply ask your client if they are willing to lose users at this step in hopes of collecting more email addresses. A complete and thorough visit of the site may be worth less to them than having that email address or vice versa.

I also like to tack calls-to-action like this at the end of good content (a gallery, a video) that I feel engaged users are likely to consume.

r - short-sale constraint with nonpositive-definite matrix in portfolio optimization

I need help about portfolio optimization in R. I have inverted matrix and I want to use it as an input in portfolio optimization. It was non-positive definite before I have handled it. In portfolio selection theory we need inverted matrix I have already have it. The problem for me that to impose a non-negativity constraint (short sale prohibited) on weights. In traditional optimization packages we have to put covariance matrix and it solves. I do not want cope with the covariance matrix by using different technique. I have already inverted matrix. The aim for me to solve portfolio selection codes with putting inverted covariance matrix(precision matrix) under non-negativity constraint (each element of weight vector must be positive) Which method should I use I do not know. If you help me, I would be very happy..

This is my work so far:

I am trying to construct a portfolio weight vector to minimize the variance of the returns.

       w ̂=argmin w'Σ w
s. t.  w'I = 1           #weights sum up to 1                                                 
       w'μ=ρ             #target expected return
       w≥0               #non-negativity(short-sale) constraint

where w is the vector of weights, Σ covariance matrix.

optimization<-function(returns) {
  p <- ncol(x)                    #number of assets

  n <- nrow(x)                    #number of observations
  x <- matrix(data$return,n,assets)
  mean <- colMeans(na.rm=FALSE,x)
  M <- as.integer(10)             #nuber of ports on the eff.front.
  S <- cov(x)                     #covariance matrix
  Rmax<- 0.01                     #max monthly return value
  Dmat   <- solve(S)              #inverse of covariance matrix
  u <- rep(1,p)                   #vector of ones

  These codes are for the Lagrange solutions


  a<- matrix(rep(0,4), nrow=2)    
  a[1,1] <- t(u)%*% Dmat %*%u 
  a[1,2] <- t(mean)%*%Dmat%*%u
  a[2,1] <- a[1,2] 
  a[2,2] <- t(mean)%*%Dmat%*%mean 
  d <- a[1,1]*a[2,2]-a[1,2]*a[1,2] 
  f <- (Dmat%*%(a[2,2]*u-a[1,2]*mean))/d 
  g <- (Dmat%*%(-a[1,2]*u+a[1,1]*mean))/d
  r <- seq(0, Rmax, length=M)

  w <- matrix((rep(0, p*M)), nrow=p)

I tried to find non-negative weights using the codes below:

for(i in 1:M) { w[,i] = f+r[i]*g                    #portfolio weights 
      if (w[,i] <0) {w[,i]=0} else {w[,i]=w[,i]}
    } 

Also, I tried to make a loop using 'while' function in R.

while (w> 0) 
  { for(i in 1:M) { w[,i] = f+r[i]*g }

  print(w)                     
  } 

Unfortunately, I could not get the positive weights. Is there another solution to get positive weights?

Dealing with a large registration form

I'm in the the process of creating a registration form for a company where (quite a lot!) of information is required from the user, but I want to make it as painless as possible, while still being successful with obtaining the information from the user.

I've considered several options to deal with this problem and would love your thoughts as to which solutions is the most preferable.

This is what I had in mind:

1. 
   

   'Small' registration form only asking for e-mail and password followed, by either:

   
   
   

   a) User lands on a dashboard page with some stats related to his account, where one of them would be 'x% of profile complete' which links to the profile page.

   
   

   b.) User lands directly on his/her profile page, with the message asking for additional info and the 'missing' fields are somehow highlighted.

   
   


2. 
   

   'Medium' sized form asking for some more (but not all information) with more fields additional to e-mail and password (i.e name, city, country, etc)

   
   

   a) Same steps as above the collect the additional info.

   
   

Answer

Making a well designed on- boarding wizard kind of flow (lots of forms up front with the option to skip) can be very useful not just in collecting info but in guiding a user through the app. If you ask me for my college alma mater, for instance, you're also showing me that alma mater is important to a good experience on the platform.

It can double as an explanation of the value of your network/platform/application.

On boarding with instagram for instance includes both a list of suggested users to follow and a "find your friends" feature. They could just dump you into your feed (fewer forms, faster time to the experience) but your experience would be terrible.

So I think forms up front can be done well if they assist with the overall experience.

lists - What is the most user friendly way to allow users to insert data into a hierarchy?

I have created a hierarchical data set which I use to store a tree of regions. I want users to be able to add new nodes onto the tree, but I am having a hard time thinking of a very user friendly way to allow the user select the parent node they want to add a child to without having to either:

• Scroll through the entire list


• Click to expand all levels of the tree until they find the one they want (there is no limit technically to how deep this tree can go)


• use some clunky combination of drop-down select boxes to choose the appropriate parent node

Here is a sample of my data, the actual data will contain a ton of information about locations worldwide:

Earth
- North America
- - United States of America
- - - Alabama
- - - - Montgomery
- - - - Birmingham
- - - Alaska
- - - - Juneau
- - - - Anchorage

- - - Arizona
- - - - Phoenix
- - - Arkansas
- - - - Little Rock
- - - California
- - - - Sacramento
- - - - Los Angeles
- - - Colorado
- - - - Denver
- - - Connecticut

- - - - Hartford
- - - - Bridgeport
...
- - Canada
- - Mexico
- South America
- - Argentina
- - - Buenos Aires
- - Bolivia
- - - La Paz; Sucre

- - Brazil
- - - Brasilia
- - Chile
- - - Santiago
...

Any Ideas?

Answer

When your hierarchy is so large, there's no way to avoid clunkiness because it's there by design (large data sets are unwieldy). Miller columns with an "add" button on the bottom will be the most elegant solution here. They allow you to have as many hierarchical levels as possible while making selection process simple because they clearly separate the levels. So your interaction will look something like this:

If you have space limitations (either horizontally or vertically) you can add the respective scroll-bars to accommodate for additional nodes (vertical) or levels (horizontal).

interaction design - Interactive documents v websites. What research/studies exist to cover when one should be used over the other?

In discussing my question Does any research/study exist on what makes an interactive document better from a user experience perspective? an interesting argument has arisen that using a website is a better approach for creating an interactive document, as opposed to creating an interactive PDF for example.

To my mind, an interactive document is not the same as a website. Sure, they can be designed to be very similar and can share some of the same attributes and goals, but a single document that is entirely portable and can be viewed on any computer regardless of whether it is online or not will meet the needs of many situations that a website cannot do in the same way or with the same ease.

Some examples I can think of where creating interactive documents (such as PDF) may be preferable:

• for organisations that have staff on the road without easy access to the internet


• in situations where the content is commercial-in-confidence or has some other type of security restriction on it


• where ensuring that what is viewed appears exactly as intended (although the interactivity may not always work as intended on some devices)


• to ensure that when it is printed it prints as intended (incl. the ability to prevent printing altogether)


• to ensure maximum portability


• to minimise the risk of these documents being blocked by "email" and "internet" gateways


• for archival/legal purposes where ensuring that an accurate historical record needs to be kept of the entire document without fear that images and other interdependent files have changed or been deleted

The above are only some examples.

I know an argument could be put forward that you can create a website that is stored locally (and not in fact published online at all), but the portability of these is questionable. For example, one can email a single PDF while one cannot email a website. Sure, you could compress the site (e.g. into .zip format) but many email gateways will block compressed archives.

So, I am wondering what research or studies exist relating to the comparison of interactive documents with websites from a user experience perspective, and in what situation(s) should one choose either option over the other to ensure the best experience for users.

adobe illustrator - A logo looking like the image in description

How can i make a logo filled with other shape like the example i have given

I have already used "CIRCLEFILL" plugin in illustrator but that was not as clear as unilever logo is.

Please suggest is there another plugin or script for illustrator or i have to do that manually.

website design - How do I add the ability to cancel editing without a button?

We currently have an interface pattern that consists of a list of rows; clicking on one row activates "edit mode", where the lables turn into text-boxes, afterwards you can either save or cancel.

Hovering over an item indicates that you can click it (the cursor is actually a pointing hand)

After clicking on one or more items, you go into "edit mode"

If possible, I'd like to get rid of both "edit" and "save" entirely. You can start editing by clicking on a row, but what is the best way to cancel editing without any controls?

There are now four buttons in two places, only one of which looks different from the rest.

• These buttons aren't always where you left them


• Clicking 'save' twice by accident could delete your record (though there is a delay)


• Users have to be able to edit these in bulk, so closing items when another one is opened isn't an option (also: there should be a way to get the whole page to look like you've just opened it)


• While the interface can be controlled with keyboard shortcuts, a tablet user needs to be able to control the site just as well.

So to summarise:

I'm planning to get rid of the "edit" button. Is there a nice way of also getting rid of the "cancel" button?

---

After getting a bunch of great answers, this is what the view looks like:

(the second item has just been edited)

Answer

The standard keyboard command for cancellation is ESC. You should be able to map it with JavaScript to act the same way on your page. However, a) not all users know about it and b) your case calls for compatibility with touch-screen devices that don't have it.

As has been answered on another question, an explicit Edit button isn't always needed as long as it's clear how to enable the editing mode. However, an explicit Cancel is a must and an explicit Save is desirable (users need to be told that saving is automatic). These are especially important when modifying domain settings.

I think you should keep everything as it is except for 3 things: 1) make Save green & see if yellowish works for Cancel, 2) increase the delay in switching from Save to Delete, and 3) add a deletion confirmation (if there's none).

creative writing - What software/techniques do people use to gather ideas?

I'm planning to create a game. It won't be the first game I've created (or even released), but it will be my first game with any story to speak of.

I'm still very much in the planning phase of the entire thing (even earlier than that perhaps), and I often have thoughts of events that could happen, or pivotal characters that could exist, but I don't know of a good way to track them.

I know that I've already had (and subsequently forgotten) quite a few ideas.

I think the fact that it's going to be a game is irrelevant to the question really. I'm quite sure that my problem applies to any kind of story writing.

• I could probably write things down - but I fear that doing so would not scale well. I might keep jotting down paragraphs here and there - but once I've done so I may never find it again once there are a few.



• Ideas containing events may not necessarily have a character assigned to them yet. How do people even write down ideas when you aren't willing to commit to the names of characters yet? "Person A meets Person B" is confusing to write and read.

What software or techniques do people use to keep track of their fragmented ideas so that they can be found later, and drawn together as they evolve?

Answer

Use a wiki

Many people are using a wiki when they are creating their worlds, as can be seen by this answer to the question What software is available for keeping and organising notes about your world? on WorldBuilding.SE.

The biggest one is MediaWiki (the power behind Wikipedia). MediaWiki can be private, and it's not too hard. See this tutorial for information on how to do that. But basically you would create one account and limit it to that. As a bonus MediaWiki is open source and free.

Another option would be DokuWiki on a Stick. This would be a simple home wiki that you could transport around on a USB drive, or possible share over the internet. To see set up look here. And it can still be private. DokuWiki is also open source and free!

There are many other private wiki options but many of them aren't opensource/free.

These are a few easy and free options that you can use to create documents with your ideas and link them to each other. It will be easier to keep track of if you have all your documents in a searchable wiki. And you can link to an existing page whenever you reference it.

For your specific problems:

I could probably write things down - but I fear that doing so would not scale well. I might keep jotting down paragraphs here and there - but once I've done so I may never find it again once there are a few.

It will be easy to find stuff again if it's all in one place with a title. No need to fear that you will have multiple files with each one being somewhere on your computer. Everything will be kept in one place and can be found again if you know what you are searching. You can also simply create a page of "Ideas that are not yet integrated into the story" or something like that and whenever you have a random idea you can link to it there. This will make it easy to keep track of the things that are not yet finished.

Ideas containing events may not necessarily have a character assigned to them yet. How do people even write down ideas when you aren't willing to commit to the names of characters yet? "Person A meets Person B" is confusing to write and read.

The normal way is to use some kind of placeholder. For example whenever you want to have a minor character you simply write down {MinorCharacterWithGrayHair} or something like that. It's best to try of something interesting or somewhat remarkable whenever you introduce a character to make it easy to identify them. You can then create a stub page for them and once you get around to give them a name and some characteristics you can update their main page. Whenever you then come across such a reference you can look at the referenced page and update the name.

If the characters are really just background characters and you feel that the above approach is better to be reserved for you main characters with yet-to-decide names you could of course just use a placeholder without referencing a new page each time. Something like {OldMan} or {LittleChild}.

marketing - Writing an "honest" Blurb?

My story is set in a sci-fi universe but it is less about genre tropes and more about the kinds of grown-up complicated characters I'd want to find in any story. I'm not bragging or trying to be highbrow, it's more like I don't want to promise a rip-roaring adventure and then bait-and-switch to my philosophical, unsatisfying ending.

I guess, like a lot of people, I'm not very good at marketing my own work.

The online advice tends to be:

1. "Read the back of your favorite book. Copy what they did."


2. "Keep the hype in hyperbole!"

I understand blurbs are totally subjective, and there's another question that talks about What are the elements of a good blurb? So I wrote a blurb that cherrypicked one character and made her opening situation sound saucy:

Alex earned a mentorship under the legendary robot general. Tracking him across the Gap proved her skill, her body bared evidence of her commitment, and she needed answers to her family’s past…. But she didn’t expect the first lesson would be to survive.

It could use polish, but you get the idea. It's trying to be all hook.

So my problem is while this blurb is true it's more a sub-plot and just the set-up for her character. It's not the tone of the story which is more political intrigue with some action. There are dozens of detours and also other main characters whose stories are perhaps better resolved. The situation I cherrypicked is just the first chapter. She is not "battling the robot general to survive" for the rest of the book.

When I try to summarize the story it is a very different description. Am I being dishonest or am I marketing?

gimp - Photoshop curved Shadow

How to create the shadow effect as per the url/image below? Specifically, the rounded/curved shadow at the bottom:

adobe illustrator - How to make rounded corners from shapes drawn with lines?

I am trying to make a shape like this:

And so far in Illustrator, I've drawn this:

Now, I know how to make a rectangle/square rounded. Select object, go to Effect -> Stylize -> Rounded corners...

But, when I select them all (except the rectangle) and do this process, it does nothing. Possibly because I've drawn the lines individually.

Can anyone explain and/or advise a way to get them rounded?

Answer

The pen tool is going to be better rather than drawing each line individually.

However, you can take your paths and combine them into a single path by selecting them and going to:

Object → Path → Join or Right Click → Join

and then you can round that path by going to:

Effect → Stylize → Round Corners

Alternatively, once the paths are combined you can individually select the points and adjust the corners however you'd like using the pen tool.

portfolio management - Optimization: Factor model versus asset-by-asset model

In portfolio management one often has to solve problems of the quadratic form $$ w^T \Sigma w + w^T c \rightarrow \min_{\omega} $$ with portfolio weights $w \in \mathbb{R}^N$ a constant $c \in \mathbb{R}^N$ and a covariance matrix $\Sigma \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times N}$. Furthermore we assume real world continuous and binary (e.g. cardinality) constraints.

For estimating the covariance matrix $\Sigma$ we can e.g. use the sample covariance of the returns of all assets - let's call this an asset-by-asset model. It is known that some care has to be taken here if $N$ is big and so forth, but this is not the point of this question.

On the other hand we can define factors $(F_k)_{k=1}^K$ with $K

I sometimes read that a problem with covariance matrix $\hat{\Sigma}$ from the factor model is easier to solve than with $\Sigma$. Is this true? If yes, then how can we see this? My personal answer so far is: no. Because both are $N \times N$ matrices and the structure does not help in general.

Especially if the factors are not orthogonal - what do we gain? If the factors come from a PCA then we might gain something but I wonder how many PCs we would need e.g. in a global equities portfolio ...

Answer

A few points.

First, In a typical factor model, the idiosyncratic piece (what you call $Var[\epsilon_k]$) is non-negligible, which results in a $\hat\Sigma$ that is going to be well-conditioned. From a numerical point of view, this is very convenient. The more well-conditioned a covariance matrix, the less susceptible the optimization routine is to round-off errors.

Second, one can introduce variables $l_1, ..., l_K$ with constraints that $\sum_{i=1}^N e_{i,j} w_i = l_j$ and then work with $\Sigma_F$ directly in the formulation of an optimization and not use a full $N\times N$ covariance matrix.

Third, from a portfolio optimization standpoint we don't care if the factors are orthogonal or not. We can rotate them to be orthogonal. As long as $\Sigma_F$ is positive definite, we can use the Cholesky decomposition to write it as $LL^T = \Sigma_F$ and then replace the loadings matrix $e$ with a rotated one $\tilde e =eL$ so that now the factors are orthogonal. That is $$e\Sigma_Fe^T = eLL^Te^T = \tilde e \tilde e^T.$$

gif - Facebook: Ways to preserve image quality of uploaded images?

After uploading an image, Facebook converts it to a new image. Their conversion process introduces artifacts and mottling to the magenta-ish parts of the image.

Original image:

Facebook's conversion:

Are there ways to preserve the original quality of this image and have the image appearance on Facebook reflect more of the original quality?

resource recommendations - What does an artist who wants to learn graphic design need to know?

There's a (very popular) question that discusses tips and resources for learning graphic design already, but it's from the perspective of programmers who want to get in the game.

I have a friend of a friend who is interested in design, but her background is in drawing and art, not design. I learn this a day before I saw the work of a person who was interested in design but had more art experience.

I realized that artistic skills can help a designer, but, as it's been discussed here, it's not necessary.

So, what are some tips and resources for an artist who wants to get into graphic design? Has anyone here taken this career path? What did you need to learn?

adobe illustrator - How to make spirals into endcaps for strokes?

I'm creating an illustration for a quote and I want to finish the strokes with swirls -like in the image below- but I'm having problems making them look similar. I'm using a spiral tool and adding a circle dot to the stroke but the results differs from one to another.

Do you know a method to make them and then to replicate so they mantain a visual unity or can you point out a tutorial for a similar process (perfect swirls at the end of a stroke path)?

Thanks in advance!

touch screen - Re-thinking "hover" functionality with touchscreens in mind

Take the following page as an example (possibly in Firefox only):

As you hover over each search result, an "+ Add to Firefox" button appears.

However, that idea of the button appearing upon hovering doesn't apply to touchscreen users. How might this functionality be re-worked for the touchscreen?

The button could be always displayed, regardless of hover. However, then you would have a long line of identical "+ Add to Firefox" buttons down along the page.

Answer

Luke Wroblewski covers this topic in his book Mobile First

He stresses the importance of transitioning your on-hover menus to mobile using the most appropriate solution for your site:

...any actions that rely on mouse hovers in our desktop web experiences need to be rethought—and that’s a good thing. Many uses of hover actions on the web assume too much.

Replace by direct actions

...taking actions and information out of on-hover menus and placing them directly on the screen could be the right approach. This is the solution Twitter used on their original mobile web experience.

Here, he refers to Favourite, Retweet and Reply being visible at all times via an iconic button instead of a hover button.

Replace with on-tap menus

...they could be turned into on-tap menus by default. This might be good if the actions or content in the hover menu are a logical next step for people. But it could be annoying if the hover menu content introduces an unneeded extra step that gets in the way of people’s progress.

Replace by a separate page

If the content within a hover is extensive, it may be best to move what’s inside the hover menu to a separate screen on mobile. This is the approach used by Barnes & Noble

Here, he refers to a hover panel with product info and add-to-cart button which moves to a separate page on the mobile version (and which enables the addition of extra options in the process)

Make sure you get hover covered

Whichever approach is right for you, just make sure when you go mobile your hovers have been covered.

fiction - Is it strange/confusing to initiate/introduce a dialogue without a dialogue tag?

In other words, is it strange/confusing to do this?

For the next few seconds, I watched Aiko read the letter with her lips agape---lips that steadily curled up into a smile. A contagious one. Because before realizing it, I found myself smiling too, enjoying a happiness that came from someone else's heart. It was my first time.

A first time that wouldn't last.

"Hey, Daichi." Kiyoshi tapped me on my shoulder.

As opposed of writing: "Hey, Daichi," Kiyoshi said, tapping me on my shoulder.

Why or why not?

Answer

The quotation marks themselves provide signal. By then tying the line of dialogue to an action in the same paragraph, it's clear that Kiyoshi is speaking. If anybody else were doing the speaking you'd need to say so, but that's not the case here.

Beginning writers sometimes make the mistake of attaching attribution -- he said, she asked, Bob mumbled, etc -- to every single piece of dialogue. Don't do that; they get in the way when not needed, and if you establish the context they won't be needed very much. (Occasionally you'll need one, especially if more than two people are speaking; I'm not saying to banish them entirely. But you don't have to use them liberally either.)

ux field - How to convince stakeholders to invest in proper UX?

I'm working on a web app with a team of 5, including me. One database administrator, one project manager, two programmers and me the front-end designer. This project is an internal reporting system.

Anyways, I've struggling a little bit with my team, the DBA and two programmers seem to control our meetings with what Data we are going to pull and the best way to work it into an object model. And then look to me to design some pretty interface.

Truth is, we've never measured the objectives of this application and what strategy will best meet them from a front-end design/UX standpoint. We've done no wire frames, no planning of content, no planning of pages, no conversations on specific interface components, nothing like that. It seems my team is content with designing and building the entire UX/UI based on a couple of ideas we've spit-balled in meetings.

Forgive me if this sounds too much like a gripe, but I'm at a loss. How do I get my team to understand, we can't just throw the front-end together based on back-end data and the interface HAS to be well planned out and organized?

forms - Do "add" or "edit" functions need a confirm button?

I am designing a UI that includes a list of items that you can add to or edit. When you click on an item it turns into a text dialogue. When you click off or hit "enter" it saves the changes. Does there need to be a placebo "ok" button as well?

Similarly when you click on "Add new item", do I need a placebo "add" button as well as a cancel? Should the placebo confirm button be in both or just one mode?

numerical methods - How good is a "good accuracy" in pricing?

Say you want to test various numerical algorithms for purposes of pricing.

How close do you need to be to some benchmark value (the "actual" price) for your accuracy to be good?

Say I am trying to approximate the Black Scholes formula for a call option price. How many digits of accuracy do I need to get from my numerical algorithm for it to be acceptable and maybe even usable in practice? Obviously you wouldn't use it since BS-formula is quick and exact, but imagine if for some reason it took a long time to use the BS-formula so that we start looking for numerical alternatives...

I find this hard to answer since the answer would seem to depend on the real-world consequences of the mispricing, which I feel like I am in no position to quantify.

How to create an extruded halftone effect in illustrator or photoshop

I saw this photo on Smashing Magazine:

Portrait of Alfred Nobel by Viktor Hertz

And I was wondering how I can make a similar effect with the halftones extruding into 3D like it is shown. I don't have access to Photoshop Extended, so was trying to create the effect in Illustrator with the 3D effect with no avail.

Anyone know how this is done?

Answer

Ok, so I figured out one way to do this effect.

I started with the original photo in Photoshop (I used the Wikimedia photo of Alan Turing)

I then adjusted the contrast and levels to make the photo more dramatic for the halftoning effect later:

I added a Gaussian blur (about 5 pixels) to the photo and saved it to be placed into illustrator. Remember fo make the picture Greyscale so you only get one color halftone:

Once in Illustrator, I added the color halftone effect (Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone) to the photo with these settings:

Once I adjusted the settings to be what I wanted them to be, I had this image:

I went to the Image Trace menu (Object > Image Trace) and used these settings:

The halftone is still a little off, but it's because I wasn't using a high resolution image, I think.

Once the image got expanded, I ungrouped it and then cleaned up the dots a little bit and had this to work with:

I shrink this group to about a 10th of the size in the middle of the screen and then pasted a copy in the front (Ctrl + C, Ctrl + F)

I then resized the copy to be the original size and selected both of the groups in the layers panel:

I then went to the blend options (Object > Blend > Blend options)

I would normally use a smooth color, but this always resulted in only 1 step being made, so instead, I used the specified steps option and put 200 steps for an attempted smooth color.

That gave me this after a few seconds for the processor to think

After that, I was able to convert the object colors back to CMYK or RGB and change the colors

With some more fooling around, I ended up with my final piece which I think resembles what I was going for nicely:

collaboration - Co-branding a book with a website

For the last several months, I've had a a professional assignment writing an ongoing series for a well-known website. It was repurposed from a book I wasn't able to sell to a publisher. It's been well-received as a series, so I'm thinking about working up a new proposal for a reworked version of the original book, and shopping it around to publishers again.

It occurs to me it might be a win-win if I could convince the website to co-brand it as "presented" by them. So, it would be the same book, but I'd include some of their branding on the cover, etc. Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? Would I owe them a flat fee, or a percentage, or would that all be a negotiation?

Note: The website only owns first rights, I still have copyright over the source material --which I would probably rewrite in any case.

How do I break apart text in Photoshop?

I have a word in a text layer in photoshop. I want each character to be on a separate layer, how can I do that?

Answer

1. Select the Type tool.


2. Type your letter.


3. Duplicate the layer.


4. Select the new layer.


5. Highlight the copied letter and type the second letter.


6. Repeat as needed.

Unless you're breaking up "antidisestablishmentarianism," this is the faster way to go.

fixed income - Derive Perpetual Bond Price

It is known that a perpetual bond with coupon $c$ has price $$P=\frac{c}{r}$$ How do you get to this price? Is $r$ stated in discrete or continuous compounding?

Answer

A Consol Bond is a bond that pays an annual coupon of c every year. Therefore its price is $P=\frac{c}{1+r}+\frac{c}{(1+r)^2}+\cdots$. Factoring out the c and using the known formula for a geometric series, namely $u+u^2+u^3+\cdots = \frac{u}{1-u}$ we get $P=c[\frac{1}{1+r}/(1-\frac{1}{1+r})]=\frac{c}{r}$

Clearly this is a discrete compounding, not continous compounding formula.

website design - Should hyperlinks be blue?

I've built a site where all hyperlinks have the default colors: blue for links, purple for visited links. They turn red on hover.

I believe that always using blue for hyperlinks is a good thing, so your users quickly can see what's a hyperlink, and what isn't. However, some of my colleagues disagree and want other colors.

What are your thoughts on this?

Answer

A standard, such as #0000FF for unvisited links and #800080 for visited links, is only good if nearly everyone does it. Otherwise users cannot anticipate when the standard will and won’t be followed and thus can no longer use it to predict site behavior. Unfortunately most web sites do not follow these color standards. In a haphazard survey (not to be confused with a random survey), I find that less than a third of sites comply with the standard. In my experience, users who are relatively new to the web may not even be aware of the standard –it just isn’t something they’ve been able to pick up from their experience. Color has proved to be too important of a graphic attribute for aesthetic and branding purposes for designers to strictly follow the standard. Frankly, it wasn’t a great standard anyway –it’s hard for some users to focus on high-saturation blue text, especially older users. Overall, I don’t think there’s much point to complying with this standard anymore.

However, it still makes sense to make your links blue in a more broadly defined sense. Over 80% of the sites I surveyed use some shade of blue for link. So while it’s not exactly a standard users can rely on, I believe they will tend to assume bluish is more linkish than other colors. From what I’ve seen you can get away with using a non-blue color for links as long as it is a distinct color (your users shouldn’t have to scrub the mouse over each color text to see if it’s a link or not). However, if it’s at all reasonable to use blue, then go blue.

Even more important than color choice is to underline your links, at least for links that aren’t in a top or side-bar menu. Over 90% of the sites I looked at use underlining to distinguish links (although often on mouseover only), making it a very consistently followed convention. Underlining also neatly side-steps the accessibility issues of color –including issues involving the small minority of users that are completely colorblind.

Putting it together, I recommend pretty much the same things Jakob Nielsen recommended six years ago:

• 
  
  

  For a give site, use one color for all unvisited links. Using multiple colors to mean an unvisited link increases the learning burden of your site and makes it harder for users to scan for links to select.

  
  


• 
  

  By “color” I mean it has a hue -links must not be black, white, or gray. Non-colors indicate non-link text to users.

  
  


• 
  

  If there is any blue in your site’s palette, then use that blue for links.

  
  


• 
  

  Never use the chosen link color for non-linking text on the site. This will confuse users on what is and isn’t a link, defeating the purpose of coloring links.

  
  
  


• 
  

  Underline all links. Use mouse-over underlining with caution. I would only consider it if links are blue or the links are in a top or sidebar menu.

  
  


• 
  

  Never underline non-links. Use italic or bold for emphasis instead.

  
  

For sites with static content, research suggests that you show visited links in a different color. However, with no specific color for unvisited links, it’s hard to know what to use for a visited link. Only a third of the sites I surveyed distinguish visited and un-visited links, and most of these don’t use purple for their visited links, so I don’t know how familiar users are with this convention. Color-coding is arbitrary here –there’s nothing about purple per se that means “visited.” Users may be able to infer the meaning once they click on a link and go back and see the color change, but imagine a user who returns to the site a month later, and some links are one color while others are different color –it can be hard to remember which is which.

All I can suggest is to try to leverage broader user experiences and adopt a “worn”-looking color for visited links. This should have lower color saturation than the color for unvisited links (consistent with the use of #800080 versus #0000FF), but lower saturation by itself is probably not sufficient to make visited adequately distinct from unvisited for all your users. What else? Red-shift the hue like some sites do, consistent with using purple versus blue? Use a lighter color, like other sites do to make the link look “faded”? Use a darker color like still other sites do to make the link blend in more with ordinary text? I think this needs some research, and then we need to make it a standard.

stochastic processes - Use of Girsanov's theorem in bond pricing

Assume that we want to calculate the time $t=0$ price of a bond: $B(0,T) = E_P[\exp(-\int_0^T r_s ds)]$, where $r$ is the interest rate following the SDE $dr_t=k(\theta-r_t)dt+\sigma dB_t=b(r_t)dt+\sigma dB_t$.

I was shown that one could write the price as

$B(0,T) = E_{\hat{P}}[\exp(-\int_0^TB^{*}_sds)\exp(\int_0^Tb(B^{*}_s)dB^{*}s-\frac{1}{2}\int_0^Tb^2(B^{*}_s)ds)]$

where $B_t^{*}$ is the "new" Brownian motion from the Girsanov theorem.

However, when I try to implement it, it results in prices that are too low. Here is what I did:

Since $dr_t=b(r_t)dt+\sigma dB_t$, Girsanov's theorem gives a new Brownian motion with dynamics $dB_t^{*}=\frac{1}{\sigma}b(r_t)dt+dB_t$, and the dynamics of $r_t$ becomes $dr_t=\sigma dB_t^{*}$. So $r_t=r_0+\sigma B_t^{*}$ and $dB_t^{*}= \frac{1}{\sigma}b(r_0+\sigma B_t^{*})dt+dB_t$. With this last expression I tried to use Euler discretization to find $B_t^{*}$, then finally I approximated the three integrals as sums.

What am I doing wrong? Secondly, I also wonder what the starting point of $B_t^{*}$ should be, i.e. $B_0^{*}$.

backtesting - Back-testing Value at Risk with a WML investment strategy

I'm currently taking a course in Financial Econometrics and there is a question in the lecture notes regarding back-testing of VaR which I'm have difficulty with.

First of all the procedure for back-testing of VaR using a rolling scheme is described as follows:

assume we have returns data $r_{t}, t=1,...,T$ for some large enough $T$. We take the first 60 observations and calculate their sample mean $\mu_{1-60}$ and variance $\sigma_{1-60}^{2}$ and then calculate: $$\mbox{VaR}_{1-60}\left(\alpha\right)=-\mu_{1-60}+\Phi^{-1}\left(\alpha\right)\cdot\sigma_{1-60}$$ Where $\alpha$ is our confidence parameter (usually $\alpha=0.05$) and $\Phi^{-1}$ is the inverse standard normal CDF. If $r_{61}<-\mbox{VaR}_{1-60}\left(\alpha\right)$ we mark $1$ and otherwise $0$. We proceed doing the same thing for observations $2...62$ compared to $63$ and so on and in the end we count the number of times in which the result was $1$. while under the null hypothesis we expect that the proportion of times we got $1$ to be at most $\alpha$. In particular it's important to notice we had an assumption here that the returns are all normally distributed, $r_{t}\sim N\left(\mu_{t},\sigma_{t}^{2}\right)$.

Now for the actual question, suppose $r_{t}, t=1,...,T$ are the returns using a WML investment strategy (momentum trading strategy). Is the procedure described above suitable for testing the VaR in such a case and if not why?

Usually the phrasing of the question would hint towards there being some sort of problem with using the procedure in such a case but I don't see why that would be the case... Help would very much be appreciated!

Answer

What you could do is to apply the methods of portfolio risk analysis. If you buy $n$ stocks with percentages $w_i,i=1,\ldots,n$ then your portfolio return is $r = \sum_{i=1}^n w_i r_i$.

Dealing with investment strategies I would not include an expected profit in the VaR calculation and put $\mu=0$ for this reason.

To calculate the volatility of your portfolio you can do the following:

• calculate the covariance matrix of your assets on the past $N$ (e.g. 60) days, $\Sigma$



• caclulate portfolio ex-ante volatility by $\sigma = \sqrt{w \Sigma w^T}$.

You ca plug this $\sigma$ into your formula and proceed. This is the basis set-up, assumptions about the dependence of the assets or the distributions of asset returns can improve the risk analysis.

IMPORTANT addon:

• the formulae above are valid for negative weigths too. All you have to do is to determine a cash basis from which you calculate the weights. Say you have $50 000$ cash, buy a stock for $25 000$ and sell one for $25 000$ then you have $100\%$ cash and weights of $+50\%$ and $-50\%$.

interaction design - What affords scrolling?

Besides the obvious:

• Scrollbar


• Touch interfaces (especially mobile ones)


• A sign saying "You can scroll here you know!"

This for a desktop application.

Answer

Besides the obvious...

An indication that what is on screen is not the complete content. For example:

• 
  

  Text stops mid sentence

  
  


• 
  

  A border box shows no bottom but has the left and right edges stopping at the bottom. Even more emphasized if they have drop shadows.

  
  



• 
  

  Text or lists that cut off the bottom half of a line.

  
  


• 
  

  Pictures cut in half

  
  


• 
  

  Long text which has a contents list at the top but only a subset of which is visible - and no other way of 'paging'. Faqs are an example of this.

  
  

Basic mobile phones use a section indicator which is not interactive but just shows that for this page you are on section 1 of 4 for example.

Familiarity and similarity to other pages where the user has become accustomed to a page having certain content - in particular 'end markers'. An example of this might be looking for a submit button at the bottom of a form, or the comment field at the bottom of a blog entry. The textual footer links on many sites are also common expected end markers.

Replace layer color with Photoshop

I've got this image of one of our products (baby bottle nipple) and I need to change its color to Pantone 7596, which is RGB 92, 61, 49:

In Photoshop CS5, I first use the Magic Wand Tool to select the nipple. I copy and paste it into a new document. Then I use the Color Replacement Tool with these settings (following instructions in this article):

• Mode: Color


• Sampling: Continuous


• Limits: Find Edges



• Tolerance: 50%


• Anti-alias: checked

However, the result doesn't look correct to my eyes:

This is my first time replacing an image's color. Should it be darker based on the RGB values? Or is this correct?

Here's the RGB color I'm trying to use in the image:

Thank you.

Answer

If you really want to do this in a "mechanical" way or if you need to print CMYK + a Pantone, there's a few ways to do it.

Here is one:

1) Make a duplicate of your file and keep the original file somewhere.

2) Make a layer mask to isolate the nipple image from the shadow; use a brush with a hardness that isn't below 85% and not 100% either. Don't use magic wand if possible, it doesn't do a nice smooth edge to your image. On my examples below, I didn't do any mask but you should.

3) Put your image to grayscale mode, then put it to Duotone mode

4) Choose a black 100% K, and your pantone. Adjust the curves in each color to fill the image with brown in the mid tones and light tones. You could use another black but be careful to not use a black that is green or blue! Make sure your values in Magenta-Yellow are higher than the Cyan-Blue. You want a black that is a bit brown.

5) If you go in the color mode "multichannel", you'll see how the colors are shared in both channels black and Pantone. You can verify your work this way. If your printer needs to print with an extra pantone, then you can save your image in duotone mode in EPS or Multichannel in DCS2. Ask him about it.

You might also want to simply use a CMYK base and add the new pantone channel on top of your CMYK (see here)

6) If you don't need to print with an extra pantone but only simulate it, convert your color mode back to CMYK.

---

If this was my project, I would take the final result in CMYK, but I would use the shadow from the original image.

I didn't do this on my example but you should. This way if the light skin nipple is next to the other one, they'll have the same shadow and it will look nicer.

You don't need to use the same numbers as I did for my curves! You can add more black but be careful to not add too much in your mid tones or it will change the color of your pantone to something darker. I used the black to accentuate the shadow.

---

If you look at the dark brown part of your image on the "info" window, the Magenta and yellow are in higher value than the cyan.

But in the mid tone near the middle, these CMY values are very close and the brown can looks a bit grayish. To fix this, you can simply slightly adjust the cyan and lower its value a bit using the "levels." It will give your brown a warmer tone.

Again, don't change these values too much. You can see I removed -0.21 but usually +/- 0.20 is the max before getting in the "danger zone!" You don't need to remove as much cyan as I did.