A quick update before holidays
Now I know how it feels... Somehow, it enforces my suggestion Be notified of DDs given to people you watch and the secondary suggestion/corollary of notifying people when they get a DD.
Now, it is quite obvious when you get lot of faves and comments on a given piece, but even then...
Anyway, thanks to Tepara for suggesting that Watching you? could be a DD and to DCZed for giving it.
Somehow, I am a bit disappointed I got a DD for my script, not for my art. But actually, I am happy! 
And this choice doesn't really come as a surprise, since I am a much better programmer (trained for that, doing it daily for years for living) than artist (self-taught, occasional practice)... 
And most of my scripts are among the most popular pieces of my gallery...
I still owe a number of features in my latest journal. I must find some time to do them. I sure don't forget them anyway.
I also have tons of deviations in my devWatch waiting to be purged or looked more closely... It will be worse when I come back from holidays... 
Although I am in holidays for quite some time already, the days are flying by and I hardly find some time to do productive things in dA (eg. uploading the stuff I scanned).
I will go away for a week, so no answers for a while...
Recently a cousin owning an Wacom Intuos 3 graphics tablet lent it to us, so we can try it. My wife was starting to think it would be cool to have one (she does posters and ads) and knew I would like to have one too.
So we got the opportunity to try it and thought it is great. So we jumped the step and bought a Wacom Bamboo Fun (A5 format). It was cheaper and we thought if it was too limited, it would make at least a great tool for our kids: Intuos is too expensive to left them play with it.
After doing a drawing with Intuos, and a similar one with Bamboo, I can say they are similar enough (for beginners like us) not to buy the Intuos right now. Ie. the Bamboo will be enough for some time.
Actually, I even prefer the "paper" touch feeling of the Bamboo. The Intuos might have better options (finer pressure sensitivity (twice many levels), better resolution (twice much), more buttons and two touch strips vs. one touch ring, tilt detection) but for most of them, we don't really need them. Perhaps in the future, if we hit the limits of the Bamboo.
As expected, I had trouble using it with Gimp (and probably Inkscape). I saved the link to the solution some time ago, to answer questions in Software forum and in case I ever get one...
The link is: Bug 496958 – Wacom Bamboo doesn't function with GTK apps in Win32 (Gimp, Inskscape). The comments explains how to fix the issue with an hex editor: you just have to change a byte in a DLL file. Really easy to do, and it works very well.
So expect to see my first tries (a bit ugly but hey!) and more color graphics in my gallery (gasp!).
See you in a week or two!
Feature meme (2/10), works, readings
Some time ago, I participated to a feature meme. I wasn't subscribed at the time, so I didn't made one myself. Recently, I participated to two others (FeuSigil and Eru142), and I have no longer that excuse.
</p>So here it is:
- First 10 people to comment on this entry will have three deviations from their gallery featured here till next journal entry (I can accept more, but I will be happy to reach this number already!).
- If you are featured, please do the same for another 10 people in your own journal (but I just make this optional, as I don't like to tag people in general, and it is a bit pointless for non subscribers).
I will update this journal for each (batch of) answer(s)!
[EDIT] First batch of features! Don't hesitate to comment here to be featured!
FeuSigil
Cute character, emblematic since she chose it to illustrate her journal.
Because the characters are amusing and well defined, and because there is a good effort on making a background.
Because I am still a sucker for black & white illustrations, the character is nice and I love Halloween like atmosphere...
<div class="Clr>
Shin-Senpuu
Nice ID, with good layout, nice border and interesting choice of colors (beside the original paintings by JunkbyJen, of course).
It is less a story than a sketch of a possible future world. I made a similar timeline for one of my stories, so I appreciate this kind of work, trying to define a consistent history where to place a story.
Not much. I should update my Greasemonkey scripts, I made some small adjustments. Most of them are in UserScripts.org, but I hadn't updated the dA pages yet.
I plan to translate my comic pages to English.
I still owe to frozenpandaman a kiriban for 3,000 (talk about being late!), I made a preliminary sketch since a long time, I think it will become the final work... 
I made my little (30s) film for Ani-Jam and sent it, I wait for the final result. It might be also my first film deviation, and I plan to do the planned animation (I made a simpler one to meet the deadline) where the ferns are growing. See
for details.
Still playing with Processing, that's a nice tool. Will draw mazes with it. If you look at my CSS experimentation playground, you can see beating hearts in the header. I made them with Processing: by fixing some parameters, I can make them in various styles and colors, etc. Perhaps I will do free avatars on demand with this! 
Not much planned on the drawing side, still must scan my comic with Prune.
Lately I read a lot of the public transports. I always did, but it was these free newspapers. Now I read books from my local library.
I recently read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (À la croisée des mondes in French) trilogy, after having seen the first movie which I liked.
I am enthusiast, it is one of the best books I ever read (along with the Harry Potters I would say...). It has a good, consistent universe, a solid, well woven story, and despite the apparent child (or, rather, teenager) target, it is deep and mystic and an adult can enjoy it a lot.
A must read if you are not afraid of big, profound books.
On a much lighter side, I have read two volumes of Don Dracula by Osamu Tezuka. This is a very funny parody of Dracula classical movies, which moved to modern Japan with his daughter.
They are confronted to modern problems, and Tezuka develops well the father-daughter relationship, while making the reader laughing out (usually I just smile at such stories).
Just before, I have read Lady Snowblood, the manga that inspired Tarantino for Kill Bill. Superbly drawn and interesting story with historical roots in Meiji period (some adult material).
And I have just read the first volume of Cross Game by Mitsuru Adachi. I am fan of this mangaka, I like his laid back humor, his style of drawing, his storytelling. I have most of his early works in Japanese manga, but not much yet of what have been translated in French. This first volume is excellent, moving, and I hope I will find the followings at the library.
That's the problem with libraries: you often cannot start to read a series because the first volumes are missing, and after the start you have to wait for the gaps to come back!
I was more lucky with Dance! Subaru as I found the 11 first volumes. I am at vol. 5. It is about a girl dreaming of dancing, fueled by the drama in her life. Nice dance images, and good work on psychology, even if likelihood isn't the strong point!
I just stop there, I fear you felt asleep by reading the above!
Comics are an art form
I love Comics and Cartoons
ComicsList
I'm an adult and I still love cartoons!
I read the gallery descriptions
:thumb34894270:
I love your OC's even when it seems like nobody else does
I love black & white
I love animation
:thumb73718788:
I love all forms of animation
And an image too:
FAQ #81: How can I create links to other deviants, deviations, or websites?
:faq88:
FAQ #104: What HTML formatting can we use on DeviantArt? And what is the format for these codes?
:faq223:
GIMPtacular
Mozilla
TheKnotters
deviantartfilm
Comicslist:iconme: :devme:
Sorry for the noise, this meaningless journal (although not more than some I have read...
) is made only as a CSS playground, to allow me to test various CSS designs, for me or for others, in various browsers.Of course, the great Journal CSS Editor made by xork could be used for this, but I prefer to have my own sandbox, in real, live setting.
The first version was for feawen but I just changed the images to no longer use her design, since she picked another CSS.
These are bookmarklets, to be pasted in the address bar of the browser. Should work for most browsers.
(No mood) for journal
javascript:var es = document.getElementsByName("supermoodid"); es[0].value = 0; void(0);Move comment box next to deviation
javascript: var co = document.getElementById("reply"); var ca = document.getElementById("zoomed-in").parentNode; ca.appendChild(co); void(0);- Gallery feed: http://PhiLho.deviantART.com/stats/gallery/feed.xml - OR - http://PhiLho.deviantART.com/stats/gallery/script.js.php
- Gallery RSS feed: http://backend.deviantart.com/rss.xml?q=by%3Aphilho+sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps&type=deviation
- Journal RSS feed: http://PhiLho.deviantART.com/journal/rss/ ==> http://backend.deviantart.com/rss/journal/philho.xml
- JSON interface:
- http://www.deviantart.com/global/difi.php?c[]=Menu;get;art,2&t=json
- http://www.deviantart.com/global/difi.php?c[]=Menu;get;art,2&t=php -- PHP array
- http://www.deviantart.com/global/difi.php?c[]=Menu;get;art,2 -- HTML table
<i>italic</i> italic (also <em>emphasis</em> emphasis)
<b>bold</b> bold (also <strong>strong</strong> strong)
<u>underlined</u> underlined
<sup>superscript</sup> superscript
<sub>subscript</sub> subscript
<acronym title="tooltip">acronym</acronym> acronym
<strike>strike</strike>
Only admins like lolly can use hn tags!
For some mysterious reason, span tag isn't allowed on dA.
Curiously, the closing span tag isn't escaped.
A little update for Spring
My account is quite quiet currently, even though I am active on dA, answering messages in Suggestions and Programming forum, commenting on deviations, trying to catch up on my overfull deviantWatch list... And I keep discovering interesting deviants!
I don't draw much, I program a bit, I am planning to participate to a few contests even though I am not sure to meet the deadlines... So I don't promise anything.
I have some old drawings scanned, but I have to do a bit of clean up before posting them, so I postpone them a bit...
Anyway, I though I could make a little casual journal to give some news and show I am still here...
As you can see, I am subscribed again! Yay for CSS experiments and beta testing (currently Portfolios!). And a bit more comfort in browsing and managing the message center. I might try to do a new poll too.
My current one year subscription is thanks to Age2003 after the contest he held and that I won. He was away from dA for a while, that's why I was unsubscribed for some time, but it's OK, real life has to have a higher priority than dA life...
And one morning, I had the pleasure to see a FedEx man bringing an envelope from California to me. Inside, there was the nice Fella plushie! I am happy (I am fond of plushies!) and so are my children.. (That's the other part of the prize.)
spyed has put my Watching you? script in his collection of deviantART Ideas which was some time in the top of collections, bringing even more faves to an already appreciated script...
Somehow, my Greasemonkey scripts are more popular than most of my drawings... Actually, it is logical: I am a professional programmer, trained for that and with quite some experience, while I am an amateur artist, self-taught and with less experience (I don't do that for a living!). So it is OK, I suppose, and the attention is still appreciated.
Another good news: I have now a new computer. Not a fancy super-modern one with a gazillion of cores, a "simple" Pentium 4 of 2004, which is already better than the previous one... The good thing is that I paid nothing for it: my company has moved to a new place (not far of the previous one, but with lot more space) and some computers and screens were deemed as obsolete and promised to recycling... But they allowed some employees to take one each, and most of them went this way... I grabbed the computer, a keyboard and mouse, and a cathodic 17" screen. And the Windows XP Pro license coming with the computer! It would use some more memory, but it is OK, and I type these words on it.
Oh, and I might get some things from my Amazon Wish List because I helped somebody re-coding a site (the main page and the Pizza & Wings page). The design is the original one, but I re-coded it entirely to use modern CSS and HTML instead of tables and monolithic big background image...
That's all for today, see you soon!
Oh, and take a look at my faves, there are beautiful things there!
APA covers / Couvertures d'APA
I write this journal because I will upload a series of related pictures, and I don't want to put a long introduction in each (or even one) Artist's Comments...
Do you know there was a time, in the previous century, no, in the previous millennium!, where most people haven't access to Internet?
They used to write things on paper, sometime even by hand, and put these "letters" in "envelopes", they sticked "stamps" (little pictures with monetary value) on these envelopes and sent them with the Post Office.
Yes, the same that today provides you with invoices and spam on paper... That's what geeks call snail mail...
At the time, people passionated by a topic, be it science-fiction/fantasy, comics, music, movies, role playing games... made fanzines. They collected (often for free) articles and works from amateurs (some which became later well known professionals), reproducing them with techniques going from alchohol copier to professional printer, but most often using a simple copy machine (Xerox). Then they distributed the issues in little shops or to subscribers. And they were often spending more money than they earned...
At the start of the '90s, I discovered an alternate way: APAs. These Amateur Press Associations collect works from their members, and money too, to feed an account. The publisher compiles the works, reproduces them and sends them to members, taking the costs (copying, sending) on the accounts. There are variants, like selling some extra issues to get money and new members, requesting the members to participate more or less regularly, etc.
I discovered that concept, very popular in the USA (at the time; I don't know if there are still much APAs), with lot of topics (the above, politics, religions, local news, etc.), with the French AAAPA (Ailleurs & Autre APA), centered around science-fiction/fantasy. I started seriously to type (on a mechanical typewriter!) to participate there. I participated also to an APArock, which included an audio cassette to share our tastes.
Some years later, being involved a lot in the French anime/manga fandom, participating to the AnimeLand fanzine (later becoming a well known magazine), I had the idea to create an APA around this theme. Thus was born Animapa, were people shared thoughts and tastes on anime and manga. I made the covers of the issue #0 (a proof of concept...) and #1, then other participants made the covers, I reserved for myself #5, #10 and #15.
Meanwhile, seeing lot of participants were good drawers, I launched also the GraphAPA: the idea was to showcase graphical works (illustrations, comics), and to comment on the works of the previous issue. Sounds familiar?
Again, I did the covers of the issues #1 and #5.
These APAs were successful, Animapa had 33 members at issue #10, published in two A5 volumes of roughly 100 pages each; and the GraphAPA had over 150 A4 pages, with 25 members. But in 1995 I had to left responsibility to a member, lacking time to manage correctly the association: the issues were late.
It was a nice adventure, exciting despite the big work. I really enjoyed it.
Now, I do similar stuff... on Internet. So do most of the previous members, I suppose.
J'écris ce journal parce que je vais téléverser une série d'images en relation, et je ne veux pas mettre une longue introduction dans chaque Artist's Comments...
Savez-vous qu'il fut un temps, au siècle dernier, non, au millénaire précédent !, où la plupart des gens n'avait pas accès à Internet ?
Ils écrivaient des choses sur papier, quelque fois même à la main, et mettaient ces « lettres » dans des « enveloppes », ils collaient des « timbres » (petites images avec une valeur monétaire) sur ces enveloppes et les envoyaient avec la Poste.
Oui, celle-là même qui vous fournit en factures et en spam sur papier... C'est ce que les geeks appellent snail mail (courrier par escargot)...
À l'époque, les personnes passionnées par un sujet, que ce soit la science-fiction/fantastique, les BDs, la musique, les films, les jeux de rôle... faisaient un fanzine. Ils collectaient (souvent gratuitement) des articles et travaux d'amateurs (certains sont devenus des professionnels reconnus), les reproduisant avec des techniques allant du reproducteur à alcool à l'imprimeur professionnel, mais le plus souvent passant par un photocopieur. Puis ils distribuaient les numéros dans de petites boutiques ou à des abonnés. Et souvent ils dépensaient plus d'argent qu'ils n'en gagnaient...
Au début des années 90, j'ai découvert une alternative : les APA. Ces Amateur Press Associations collectent les travaux de leurs membres, et leur argent aussi, pour alimenter un compte. L'éditeur compile les travaux, les reproduisent et les envoient aux membres, prélevant les coûts de reproduction et d'envoi sur les comptes. Il y a des variantes, comme vendre des numéros supplémentaires pour gagner un peu d'argent et de nouveaux membres, demander aux membres une participation plus ou moins régulière, etc.
J'ai découvert ce concept, très populaire aux USA (à l'époque; je ne sais pas s'il en reste beaucoup de nos jours), avec plein de sujets (ceux ci-dessus, la politique, la religion, les nouvelles locales, etc.), avec l'AAAPA français (Ailleurs & Autre APA), centré sur la science-fiction/fantastique. J'ai commencé alors sérieusement à taper à la machine (mécanique) pour y participer. J'ai aussi participé à l'APArock, qui incluait une cassette audio pour partager nos goûts.
Quelques années plus tard, étant beaucoup impliqué dans le fandom français anime/manga, participant au fanzine AnimeLand (devenu plus tard un magazine bien connu), j'ai eu l'idée de créer une APA autour de ce thème. Ainsi fut né Animapa, où les gens partageaient leurs passions pour l'anime et le manga. J'ai fait les couvertures pour le numéro 0 (un premier essai) et 1, puis d'autres participants ont fait des couvertures, je me suis réservé celles des numéros 5, 10 et 15.
Entre temps, voyant que de nombreux participants (apaïens) étaient bon dessinateurs, j'ai aussi lancé la GraphAPA : l'idée était de montrer des œuvres graphiques (illustrations, BD), et de commenter les travaux du numéro précédent. Cela vous semble familier ?
Là encore, j'ai fait les couvertures des numéros 1 et 5.
Ces APA étaient des succès, l'Animapa avait 33 membres au numéro 10, publié en deux volumes A5 d'environ 100 pages chacun ; et la GraphAPA avait plus de 150 pages A4, avec 25 membres. Mais en 1995 j'ai dû donner le contrôle à un membre, faute de temps pour gérer correctement l'association informelle : les numéros prenaient de plus en plus de retard.
C'était une belle aventure, excitante en dépit du gros boulot que cela représentait. J'ai vraiment aimé ça.
Maintenant, je suis actif... sur Internet. Comme la plupart des membres, je suppose.