Technolits Technologies

WordPress Almighty!

Rahul Chawla — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:56:30 +0000

During the past few years, WordPress has evolved enormously from just being a blogging tool to a,

Content Management System for professional web designers and agencies.
Base framework for web developers and technically enabled companies like ours.

Here at Technolits Technologies, on a numerous occasions, WordPress has been used to its fullest, as a Content Management System, and as a base framework on top of which complex yet user friendly web applications and web products are developed to meet today’s need.

The most remarkable thing about WordPress is that on a single installation you can manage 3 entirely different things,

Your website, to promote your business/service.
Your blog, to express your thoughts and latest happenings.
Your web application/web product, which would be used by tens of thousands of people all around the world.

We have done it in the past. We have helped people build all the above 3 things just using WordPress as a single base setup and rest running on top of it. This implementation not only saves time and cost to the clients, but also eases the maintainability issue. So, there is only one back-end that the client (i.e. the product owner) uses to manage everything. The back-end provided by WordPress is very user friendly and even a non technical person can use it to its best without wasting much time on learning and getting used to the functionality.

Social media awareness and promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Media Uploads (audio and video) has become an integral part of any service or product offered to the users of the internet. So, if you have your 3 things (website, blog and web application/product) developed on a single platform using WordPress, its becomes really very easy to do the social promotion, SEO and media management right from your website.

Some of our projects that are currently using the power of WordPress,

Films Division – Website, blog and an eCommerce store.
Evolve – Website and a training/course management system.
Taxmantra – Website, blog and web application for tax payers in India.
Citypal – Website and a blog.

Stay tuned to hear more on WordPress Almighty!

Ubuntu’s Goin Strong – Prospects for the Future with Convergence

Nikkhil Narang — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:45:07 +0000

With convergence on the rise, here’s Ubuntu’s answer to the addition of a new platform thus completing their entire stack.
We already use Ubuntu desktops and a server at Technolits, soon there will be a Phone OS and Tablet OS too.

The Open Source Community has a new project to foster, Ubuntu has given a very good prototype in comparison to Android/iOS, goes to show that they can still redefine the whole UI/UX with so much more elegance.

But the key element here is, this is just the start, we’re soon heading into interoperability becoming more and more clear, people are going to have a wide array of platforms/devices they use in combination (like iPhone, Ubuntu Tablets and Windows Desktops).

Ofcourse with such fragmentation of platforms and availability of devices, most of them release their individual SDK’s to the Open Source community with the hope that it will increase development and help with faster resolution of bugs along with development of new features, there is a need for more and more developers always just as more and more SDK’s shape up. Some things become standards and are common across most SDK’s but the crux of it remains different programming languages.

I feel soon there will be only one way to develop apps and distribute them alongwith which all platforms will share that data and playback content with each other. One way in which no matter what OS you use, the software standards will be set in the next few years such that interoperability is preserved. One framework in which all these apps can be compiled and distributed no matter what kind of developer you are, as i said standards will be formed.

All this is just sets the tone for so much more that will shape up, unified backup solutions, unified communication/sharing interface.

Hope we all can take advantage of the evolving times and make the most of the opportunities.

Add Glossy / Shine effect to icons or images to make them beautiful

chetanb — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:29:01 +0000

We’ve seen plenty of icons especially on mobile apps having a sleek gloss/shine effect over it. The same effect is applied for many images across web and print platforms. Amazing how a subtle gloss effect can make your icon or image look more appealing. If you are trying to achieve the same effect for your icons but don’t know how, perhaps following the simple steps below will help you out.

What we need?

- Adobe Photoshop
- Basic Photoshop skills

Lets Start!

Step 1: Open new file in Photoshop

Lets keep the size 500px by 500px.

Step 2: Select a elliptical marquee tool and create a circle with any color. For reference purpose I’m gonna go with #22b1dd which is the color of skype logo.

At this point, I’ll be adding some effects to the circle for the sake of accentuating it. You can add your own effects according to your icon.

Inner shadow, stroke and drop shadow is what I’ve used to get the above result. Pretty cool, let move ahead.

Step 3: Adding gloss to the icon/image

Create a new layer and select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and create a circle.

Now, make sure that the foreground color is set to white and jump to your gradient tool and set it to “Foreground to Transparent”.

Now, simply drag your pointer from top to bottom and see the magic. Do not worry if you’re not getting the desired result. Undo at this point and try dragging from top to bottom again till you find what you are looking for.

Step 4: Add text and finishing touches

Well you have a gloss effect, now add your text or art work in a new layer and place it underneath the gloss effect layer.

Decorate the text with some stroke or other subtle effects and Voila, your work is done.

Few pointers and tips:

Incase you are looking for gloss effect in a non-circular shape, you can use the pen tool to create a shape, right click inside the shape and hit “make selection”. From hereon follow the above process.

Or, you can also use different transform tool such as skew, distort, perspective and change the shape as per your desire.

I hope this process of few simple steps helps you achieve your desired look.

20 Beautiful Web Fonts You Can Download For Free

chetanb — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:24:13 +0000

Fonts are integral part of any web design process. Often, designers tend to get overwhelmed by the multitude options of web fonts available across popular platforms such as Google web font, font squirrel and many others. It may get difficult for designers to single out the appropriate fonts for their design projects. For this very reason, I’ve compiled a list of 20 amazing fonts useful for web projects.

Also, these fonts are available for free download. With so many fonts available for free download, it hardly makes sense to spend big bucks on purchasing fonts. Just read the licensing before the download and actual use.

Technolits Technologies

WordPress Almighty!

Ubuntu’s Goin Strong – Prospects for the Future with Convergence

Add Glossy / Shine effect to icons or images to make them beautiful

What we need?

Lets Start!

Few pointers and tips:

20 Beautiful Web Fonts You Can Download For Free

1: Maven

2: Blanch

3: Cubano

4: Lavanderia

5: Haymaker

6: Habana

7: Deming

8: Highlands

9: Quaver

10: Ranger

11: Avril Sans

12: Bemio

13: Venera

14: Edmond Sans

15: Geared

16: Museo

17: Sanchez

18: Sansation

19: Sofia

20: Arvo