Hi. I’m Andrew

The new style in Ubuntu is inspired by the idea of “Light”.

We’re drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that “light” is a good value in software. Good software is “light” in the sense that it uses your resources efficiently, runs quickly, and can easily be reshaped as needed. Ubuntu represents a break with the bloatware of proprietary operating systems and an opportunity to delight to those who use computers for work and play. More and more of our communications are powered by light, and in future, our processing power will depend on our ability to work with light, too.

Visually, light is beautiful, light is ethereal, light brings clarity and comfort.
— On Brand at the Ubuntu Wiki

As the cornerstone of the old and new identity is the “circle of friends,” an icon showing three abstract human figures coming together to form a whole. A lovely concept. A terribly tired visual cliché. And, in this case, one tepidly executed and forgettable that has not evolved in the least for the new identity. What is worse is that now that it is significantly smaller in relationship to the typography, the shapes become indistinguishable. But let’s assume that the “circle of friends” has enough equity within its community to survive at that size, then at least some technical assistance should have been provided to make it more readable and scalable — perhaps not to the exhausting degree of Firefox, but in that vein.

In terms of typography, I surprisingly liked the old one, or at least the combination of these particular letters, since the full font is kind of half-cooked. The new type is more techie and gadgety, rarely a good thing, and it doesn’t quite work here, as it breaks the harmony of the characters with those pointed corners. And being so big, the typography would have to be so much more interesting than this.

In contrast to underconsideration, I found Ubuntu's new typography beautiful, calm, & professional compared to the humble, comic old one. Though it looks gadgety, it's kind of distinct in letter form and is, I believe, recognizable when applied to different medium. But I have to agree that the symbol really was reduced. Looking at the symbol of the "spread ubuntu" & "ubuntu forums" logos, it isn't that legible enough. 

But It's all clear. Flat is way more effective than glossy & bevel. And all-in-all the redesign/realign was a very good move by the Ubuntu the team. I can't wait to actually use the release 10.4 using this brand new Ubuntu identity.

Thanks to ragingfx for the heads up.

Many designers keep designing between each freelance work just for the sake of it. Sometimes great stuff comes from the design we create during these gaps and not few of them end up getting their bytes covered with dust. Instead of loosing forever that precious time why don’t we sell them online? We will review a series of sites that allow you to deliver your digital goods on your own site along with hosted solutions that allows you to market the items on your site while leaving the payment process to a third party.

Payloadz

https://www.payloadz.com/

This service is remotely hosted and offers a free account with 1Gb and a transaction limit of $50.

E-Junkie

http://www.e-junkie.com/

E-junkie could be one of the most popular platforms, since it has no limits on transactions or bandwidth and no transaction fee. At only $5 per month it is an affordable solution yet a feature packed one.

Zen Cart

http://www.zen-cart.com/

Zen Cart is an well known free open source self hosted solution to manage your online store that offers downloading of digital goods right out of the box.

DigiVendor

http://www.idevspot.com/DigiVendor.php

DigiVendor is a solution to be used with PayPal, as it generates custom purchasing buttons from PayPal using its IPN feature. There’s a one time fee but you can install it on multiple domains.

byteCommerce

http://www.bytecommerce.com/

byteCommerce is offered in both hosted and self hosted version. The fee for the hosted solution is quite interesting:

for every 20 copies of your product that is sold, the 20th order is directed to us as payment for our services. That’s our commission.

Plimus

http://www.plimus.com/

A hosted solution that provides a variety of strategies against copy protection, such as Armadillo and Plimloc integration as well as serial numbers from a list provided by seller or a url to a randomly generated serial, also provided by user.

Zipidee

http://www.zipidee.com/

Born as an alternative to eBay and sites alike, Zipidee is more like a marketplace where you can upload your items for sale.

DigitalGoodsDelivery

http://www.digitalgoodsdelivery.com/

This system works pretty much like DigiVendor in the sense that it also uses the IPN from PayPal to generate purchasing buttons. Unlike DigiVendor, you can also sell tangible goods but the system will only provide the payment gateway.

Early Impact

http://www.earlyimpact.com/

This hosted solution does not focus solely on digital downloads but offers a variety of add-ons to further expand your store, such as a module to publish on eBay, recurring billing or e-mail marketing.

Cerizmo

http://cerizmo.com/

Cerizmo focuses on selling digital goods offering a secure hosting for your files and a fully customizable white label front-end. You can use your own domain or a Cerizmo subdomain. The most basic plan offers $300 limit, 2Gb disk space and unlimited products and bandwidth.

Digital Content Center

http://www.digitalcontentcenter.com/

Another hosted solution featuring things such as a player for the user to preview audio files before buying or a digital fingerprints for PDF files to stamp the name and data of the purchaser on every page of the PDF.

WordPress eStore plugin

eStore by Ruhul Amin

The eStore plugin makes it possible to create a complete store solution directly within WordPress. It can be integrated with NextGen Gallery which is a definitely plus and it works with PayPal. This plugin is not free but they are offering the next product as free software.

WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart plugin

Simple PayPal Shopping Cart by Ruhul Amin

Unlike the previous plugin, this one is provided free of charge although it has more limitations. Despite that, it can also be integrated with NextGen Gallery. It also works with PayPal.

WP Secure Downloads

http://tomuse.com/wordpress/wp-secure-downloads/

Another paid plugin for WP offering the PayPal payment gateway. For a small amount (separated from the plugin price), you can acquire a pack with an installation plus two support incidents.

WordPress e-Commerce Plugin

http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/

No list would be complete without the mention of this free plugin for WordPress. It boasts an incredible amount of cool features that you can get separately for a moderate price, such as a drag and drop cart, a product slider, FedEx shipping integration, audio player and the capability of integrating it with NextGen Gallery.

Digital Goods Delivery through PayPal

If you’re only using a PayPal account you can use any of the partners listed by PayPal.

Love these set. Thanks to Relaxdiego for forwarding the link.

Serious efforts are being made to get more typeface choices on the web to enhance web typography. Still, most of us prefer web-safe fonts like: Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman and Arial. Though choices are limited, yet the number can be increased by exploring other pre-installed fonts.

Before the end of today, what would you wish to happen?

What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? Scott Hansen asked notable design & art personalities to overcome creative block

To all Joomla fans and it's community. Here's a great theme for you. Here are some screen capture.

Now who says quality ain't free.