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In the fall of 1987, Thomas Knoll, a doctoral candidate in computer vision, was trying to write–as a diversion from his doctoral–computer code to display grayscale images on a black-white bitmap monitor. Because it wasn’t directly related to his thesis on computer vision, Knoll thought it had limited value at best. The code was called Display. Knoll wrote it on his Mac Plus computer at home. Little did he know that this initial code would be the very beginning of the phenomenon that would be known as Photoshop…

www.photoshopnews.com

Design Enterprise is a blog out of Malaysia, covering global design, architecture, fashion and culture, but also with a focus on the Pacific Rim.

We’re pleased to announce that two of our projects have been featured in Rockport Publishing’s new book, “Business Graphics: 500 Designs that Link Graphic Aesthetics and Business Savvy”. Our website for the American Tap Dance Foundation was recognized in the Web section, and our logo for The Handel Group was recognized in the Identity section. We’ll be posting pics soon, but for now here’s a link to the book.

Via Tutorialblog, some great examples of creative advertising. They’ve also got some nice example of creative business cards in a separate post…

Check this out – http://www.google.com/microsoft

We have recently had a chance to help implement an osCommerce solution. This solution is great because it’s free and open-source. It has an abundance of ecommerce plugins which were written for it. It has a very large and devoted following, including both users and code contributors. BUT…here is the problem.

Whether it is because of all the different contributors or because the original creators chose not to adhere to any code formatting standards; the code is very difficult to debug. Also, vital mistakes were made. Like for example the use of global variables to store sensitive information. Another thing that really bugged me is that the creators were obviously skilled enough to create a folder full of classes which they then use throughout the application..BUT – and this is a ‘BIG BUT’… Why wasn’t the whole application built on classes?

Anyhow enough with the ranting. I leave you all with this final thought: Open-source is a great idea and we have seen some amazing outcomes [i.e. the PHP project] but things like sloppy code, lack of structure, structure which is too complicated and other quality control problems will serve as the final nail in the coffin to any programming project, but with open-source, you will not have the money to go back and pay someone to fix it.

Happy Coding!