Tim Owens (@timmmmyboy) and Alan Levine (@cogdog) – DS106.us heroes
Keeping the DS106 server happy.
Technology is great… when it works. And keeping the DS106.us site up and running has been a labor of love and a real pain at times – especially this week. So Talky Tina’s August 2013 Animated GIF Challenge #9 was to make an animated GIF celebrating the behind the scenes work that keeps the ds106.us server happy. Giving some love and recognition to the folks behind the scenes that keep the web servers and internet tubes running. Tim Owens and Alan Levine were on the battlefield this week.
D’Arcy Norman – DS106 Hero
UPDATE: Just found out from Alan (see comment below) that Tim and D’Arcy Norman (Twitter @dlnorman) are doing all the heavy lifting to get and keep the DS106 servers up and running. This thank you GIF is for D’Arcy too.
This was also an assignment before there was an Animated GIF category — found hiding in the Design Assignments category as @cogdog‘s wonderful Design Assignment 842: Rainbows and Unicorns in the Server Room. Make an animated GIF of a server room that includes both rainbows, unicorns, and a message of thanks. The cheesier the better. Bonus points for elves and pink ponies.
WOW! What a difference. Making the GIF this time around I discovered the wonders of the full version of Photoshop CS5. No more manually merging the layers before I can take a test drive, and I can easily change the animation screen time for each image seperately. In Photoshop Elements you don’t have that flexibility. I’ve had to use the brute force method of saving several versions of files with the individual layers, different merged images, etc. so I could go back to them when I wanted to make a change. A few of my past blog posts walk you through this time consuming painful experience.
Yes. Technology is great…. when it works. And I can tell you, the full version of Photoshop works! No wonder some of the DS106ers can crank these animated GIFs out in no time.
Images:
- Server Room
- Rainbow Image found at OpenClipArt.org
- Unicorn animated GIF found on a free clip art site with a page dedicated to unicorns
- Alan Levine [@Cogdog]
- Tim Owens [@timmmmyboy ]
- D’Arcy Norman [@dlnorman]
A few other server images you might enjoy
@IamTalkyTina #ds106 GIF challenge 9 sharing the love for @cogdog and @timmmmyboy w/ unicorns and rainbows. http://t.co/OlhD3HBUOp
I can’t agree more about how much more you can do in Photoshop, especially when you can toggle multiple layers on an off per frame, and use different frame speeds as needed. Keep on rocking the GIFs, your writeups continue to me models for others.
But I cannot take any credit for righting the server this week, that is all Tim and D’Arcy. My server admin skills are extremely thin. But its good to have it humming.
@dlnorman @cogdog told me you and @timmmmyboy are doing the heavy work w/ #ds106 servers. GIF 4 U too. @IamTalkyTina http://t.co/OlhD3HBUOp
This rocks! Thanks for the good vibes. It was a rough week and we’re hopefully on the other side of the storm. Never a dull moment!
[…] just recently discovered the wonders or the full Photoshop CS5 software for creating GIFs. [Technology is Great! (When it works.)] But as ‘luck” would have it, I have a 64-bit operating system on my PC based laptop […]
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