Been so busy with the label lately, I’ve haven’t had the time to do any personal works. We recently just launched our lookbook for sifr.

Click the image above, or here to download the look book

So, I know we use Sifr or Nifti on a lot of our projects. I’ve known about some other alternatives for a while but didn’t give them much thought as they were just different means to the same end. Well, apparently that’s not entirely true.

I was on the UXBooth blog, and noticed how pretty their post headers were (it’s overall one of my favorite site designs). So I assumed they used sifr, but then realized that the headers underlined ‘and’ highlighted:

So I dug a bit deeper, and found it was using cufon. I’m not sure how exactly it underlines or highlights, but it manages to integrate HTML text and styles with anti-aliased, image replaced headers, so it must be deeper than sifr or nifti.

That, and it doesn’t use flash, which is nice. It uses VML (on IE) and Canvas (on Webkit) to render the type into vectors then rasterize it for the browser.

Recientemente me he interesado por el venerado juego “Canción de Hielo y Fuego” que Green Ronin sacó en inglés el año pasado y que Edge Entertainment traducirá y lanzará en castellano el próximo otoño.

Como no podía esperar decidí descargarme un pequeño manual gratuito (Quick-Start) de 32 páginas y en PDF que se lanzó para el Free RPG Day del año pasado y me lo he estado leyendo para dirigirlo cuanto antes, la mecánica me ha encantado y ha cumplido con creces mis expectativas con lo que he decidido traducir la ficha a fin de comenzar a jugar cuanto antes.

Descarga la ficha en formato PDF.

Yeah, it is pronounced like “fleer“. So what’s this facelifting thing? It’s a type of plastic surgery that makes you look like Michael Jackson (with respect to the King of Pop. R.I.P). But in the sense of web development, it is simply a technique with which you can use any type of font you want to use! Seems too obvious?

Though the web has been around for over 10 years and we’ve seen Flash and other so-called Rich User Interface, one thing has been bothering the web designers for a long time: using the exact font they want to use. FLIR solves this one pretty neatly by implementing PHP and it’s well-known GD library. There’s just two cons to using this procedure:

1) The texts are actually rendered as images. So it is not possible to copy those rendered texts (you can still copy them as images though).

2) GD library introduces some artifacts to the fonts so you can’t expect FLIR to render the true image of the font (pun intended).

Here’s a tutorial that teaches you how to use FLIR: http://net.tutsplus.com/javascript-ajax/how-to-use-any-font-you-wish-with-flir/

You should also check out sIFR

When deciding how to best insert rich typography into my web pages I implemented 4 technologies namely sIFR, server-side installed fonts, TypeSelect and Cufón which I have reviewed below:

sIFR

sIFR stands for Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and is an ongoing development on the invention made by Shaun Inman in 2003.   sIFR uses JavaScript and the Document Object Model to replace all designated text with Flash rendered text.

Advantages

1. Fairly easy to implement
2. Degrades gracefully
3. Accessible
4. Search engine friendly

Disadvantages

1. Requires a Macromedia Flash plugin
2. Requires Macromedia Flash software to create the font file
3. Online documentation is extremely fragmented
4. Can slow the loading of the web page if used frequently on a web page
5. Requires  careful tweaking of the CSS font size to get the the desired size
6. Overestimates the number of lines required to fit the text which occasionally  leaves the text with a blank line below
7. Does not handle hover states as defined in the CSS
8. Does not handle customisation of text eg. drop shadows

Server side fonts

Server side fonts require font file(s) to be uploaded to the server.  A script written in PHP, Perl, ASP, Java servlets or any other server side programming language creates PNG images of all replacement text.  JavaScript replaces the designated text once it has loaded.

Advantages

1. No Macromedia Flash plugin required
2. Degrades gracefully
3. Accessible
4. Search engine friendly

Disadvantages

1. Writing of the script requires an in depth understanding of the server-side language
2. Forcing a background colour on the heading does not give the best text results
3. Does not use font styles as defined in the CSS to style the font
4. Text cannot be selected

Type Select

Type Select uses a font generator, which converts fonts to a proprietary format. It uses Javascript to create PNG images for each text replacement letter which it inserts into the web page using the element whose style attribute is set to use PNG image as the background image.

Advantages

1. No Macromedia Flash plugin required
2. Degrades gracefully

Disadvantages

1. The font family as to be set within the HTML page
2. Styling on descendant text elements is ignored

Cufón:

Cufón uses a font generator, which converts fonts to a proprietary format, and a rendering engine written in Javascript.  The font generator builds a custom FontForge script based on the user input, runs it and saves the result as an SVG font.  The SVG font is then parsed and SVG paths are converted to VML paths. The resulting document is then converted into JSON with a mix of functional JavaScript. The rendering machine has a core API and two rendering engines, one which renders VML shapes used for Internet Explorer and one which renders as <canvas> element for other browsers.

Advantages

1. Does not require a Macromedia Flash plugin
2. Degrades gracefully
3. Extremely easy to implement
4. Accessible
5. Search engine friendly
6. Good online documentation
7. Lightweight
8. Quick to load even when used more than 10 times on a page
9. Easy to choose different character sets
10. Applies CSS font definitions exactly including hover definitions
11. Applies text customisation like drop shadows

Disadvantages

1. The image replacement text cannot be selected, except weirdly in IE
2. In IE text decoration on the a:hover does not show

Personally, I found Cufón to be the best and most easiest to use.

@font-face surface on FF
Finally, with the new release of Firefox browser v3.5 , custom font type could be supported via uploading to the server and reference it using font-face css command.

Previously, I was working on a project that utilize SiFR, a kind of technology that combines flash with java-script to give user of a specific type of font display without installing the ttf / otf on their own PC.   It will be degraded successfully if you don’t have any flash plugin installed on your browser tough, the strong point of SiFR.
Read more here:: http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/.

However, it’s messy in the sense that the screen might be flash-flash-flash if you had a lot of css that calls the font type user does not have, and a bunch of javascript (which is quite heavy performed, as it load through the document body in a loop, getting every styling properties of a <div> that has that font-type matched.

Also, the SiFR requires javascript, javascript setup command, flash .swf file, .ttf installed on your pc so the adobe flash can read that application, publish the flash application in swf file, then the javascript setup command will work.

For those with interest of @font-face css properties, you guys can have a  look at mozilla developement center url below:
Read more here::https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/@font-face

With the @font-face introduced, I believe on FF browser, we only need a .tff on the /Public folder to reference the .ttf font files and render it on users screen.

P/S:
I have not have time to get my hand dirty installing Firefox it, I am going to try now, I think the result is quite positive, as it’s already a part of css 2 specification.. I believe.

Here are five of the tips that caught our eye…

1. Get robotic help

Robots.txt is a plain text file found at the root of a server. This tells search bots which content needs to be allowed or disallowed when it visits their website. If your Flash text content is the same as your HTML version, you could set the Robots.txt file to ignore the SWF content and push only the HTML content to the search bots.

2. Add SWF content to the HTML source

An iron-clad way to guarantee that a SWF’s content is picked up and ranked by search engines is to extract the content and place it into the page’s HTML source. Tools such as Dreamweaver use SWFObject to embed Flash. The code view in Dreamweaver displays comments where you should add your alternative HTML content.

3. Add text to your Flash applications

A simple Flash SEO enhancement is to use Flash-generated text in your creative when displaying or animating type. You can do this instead of using text that’s a flattened bitmap. Flash text can contain keyword-based messages, which help increase traffic. Include this text in the HTML source of the page as well.

4. Embed Flash content with SWFObject

SWFObje movies. This ensures that the content is indexed by search engines. Users without ct is a search engine-friendly way to embed Flash content. Alternative (non-Flash) content is produced first, then snippets of JavaScript are used to swap out the alternative content with the FlashFlash will still see a working HTML page.

5. Try using sIFR

Use Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) for HTML pages with SEO-friendly embedded Flash fonts. Simply create an HTML page, add CSS and create a SWF file containing your custom font. Link the font SWF to the HTML and then mark up live text headings in the HTML, using sIFR to display a custom font that’s easily read by search engines. Find out more, including documentation and tips for using sIFR

What is sIFR

sIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) is a technology that allows you to replace text elements on screen with Flash equivalents.

Steps to use sIFR

• download sifr Click here to download
• create swf file with your custom font in it.
• add following files in your website sub folder (in my case i have used ‘custom-font’)
  • sIFR-screen.css
  • sIFR-print.css
  • sifr.js
  • sifr-addons.js
• add the following lines of code in your html head tags

  <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”custom-font/sIFR-screen.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />
  <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”custom-font/sIFR-print.css” type=”text/css” media=”print” />
  <script src=”custom-font/sifr.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
  <script src=”custom-font/sifr-addons.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

• add befoew body closing tag

  <script type=”text/javascript”>
  //<![CDATA[
  /* Replacement calls. Please see documentation for more information. */

  if(typeof sIFR == "function"){
  sIFR.replaceElement("h2.golden-heading", "AvenirLight.swf", "#448971", "#448971", null, null, 0, 0, 5, 0);
  };
  //]]>
  </script>

here in above code “sIFR.replaceElement” function gets the paramerts for :
sIFR.replaceElement(“[(tage name)html tag where you want to apply sifr style]“, “[Your font swf file for example albertus.sw]f”, “static text color”, “hyperlink color”, “hover color” , “back color”, 0, 0, (font size-the greater the num the smaller the font), 0);

(tage name) explains
to apply style in a id use h2#heading-id
to apply style in a class use h2.heading-class
to apply style in all tags use h2 (without any # or .)

• add your created swf file in your website
  swf file should be in the same folder where you are using it. otherwise have to give the full path.

Known Issues

These “decoy” styles defined in “sIFR-screen.css” as below:

.sIFR-hasFlash h2.golden-heading {
visibility: hidden;
letter-spacing: 0px;
font-size: 14px;
}

are used to hide the browser text before it is replaced… the negative-letter spacing in this case is used to make the browser text metrics match up with the sIFR text metrics since the sIFR text in this example is so much narrower… your own settings may vary… any WEIRED SINZING ISSUES you may run into are usually fixed by tweaking these decoy styles. ]]> http://trsone.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/web-font-replacement-methods/ Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:03:55 +0000 trsone http://trsone.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/web-font-replacement-methods/

sIFR
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/

Cufón
http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2009/03/cufon_font_embedding/

A comparison between the two
http://www.erenemre.com/2009/03/cufon-vs-sifrwhich-one-is-better/

Nakon napisanog teksta o budućnosti web dizajna u kojem sam zapravo htio govoriti samo o izgledu stranica, a dok sam pisao nešto me vuklo da idem i dalje od dizajna, pa su tako spomenuti i Silverlight, jQuery, HTML5 i još poneka sitnica.

Eto, sad mi je bilo dosadno, pa rekoh, ajde da napišem i drugi dio ovog teksta. Naslov copy-pastean i dodano u zagradi broj 2. Da se vidi da je drugi dio. Planiram editirati i prvi dio kako bih dodao na kraj link na ovaj drugi. No to kad završim pisanje ovog posta.

OK, nakon malo offtopica, ide pravi tekst.

Da vas prvo podsjetim. Rekao sam da se nadam kako će sa web stranica nestati i vertikalni scrollbar te će se sve moći prikazati bez potrebe za scrollanjem (onda možemo iščupati kotačiće iz miša . Veliki portali koristit će auto scrollere (lijevo – desno npr.), tabove i sve to pomoću jQueryja ili sličnog Javascript frameworka. Na taj način može se donijeti mnogo informacija bez potrebe za scrollom. (Naravno, ukoliko krene taj trend, a ja tvrdim da hoće). Još sam rekao i kako će se web dizajnerima olakšati život dolaskom tehnologija HTML5 i CSS3. Poseban je tu CSS3 pomoću kojeg ćemo moći konačno napraviti opacity, shadow ili te zaobljene rubove bez potrebe za otvaranjem Photoshopa. No naravno, kad se CSS3 počne širiti i postane nam tako lagano napraviti npr. zaobljene rubove oni će izaći iz mode, a izmislit će se nešto novo. Onda ćemo ponovno Photoshopirati i kad nam najave da će nam olakšati izradu tog određenog efekta u CSS4 onda ćemo jedva čekati CSS4. Kad dođe CSS4 taj efekt zamijenit će se nekim za koji ćemo čekati CSS5, itd.

Zašto će se to događati? Zato jer kad nešto postane lako dostupno za izradu počet će se zloupotrebavljati i onda će postati iritantno (Marquee, anyone?). Mogu samo misliti koji će se kaos događati sa custom embedded fontovima. Počet će nam nabijati na nos hrpetinu jedva čitljivih i odvratnih fontova. Naravno, profesionalni web dizajneri znat će dobro iskoristiti tu opciju, te nam više neće biti potreban sIFR. No, zamislite ovo. Hrpetina stranica koje dizajniraju ljudi koji nemaju pojma o dizajnu. Svatko stavlja svoj neki ludi font. Ljude počinju živcirati ti custom fontovi. Razvija se Custom-Font Blocker (kao i pop-up blocker, samo za blokiranje custom fontova). Ljudi to počinju koristiti i mi koji ćemo to znati pametno iskoristiti nećemo moći jer su ljudi uključili Custom-Font blockere. Sjetite se samo, i pop-up je nekad trebao biti koristan, ali većina je pop-up prozore počela zloupotrebljavati i razvijeni su pop-up blockeri.

Postoji i jedna stvar koju bih htio povući. Nažalost, nakon određenog razmišljanja kažem da Silverlight neće uspjeti. Kad malo razmislim, ipak je to Microsoftova tehnologija, a kod njih uvijek nešto po zlu. Ne znam niti koliko ljudi ima instaliran Silverlight, samo znam da ga od mojih poznanika nema nitko. Meni dovoljno. Nisam razmišljao. Meni se svidio Silverlight i još uvijek mi se sviđa nakon što sam vidio onu izvedbu Bug TV-a u Silverlightu. Kada malo više istražim o Silverlightu onda ću početi o njemu govoriti sa sigurnošću.

OK. Idemo malo detaljnije na HTML5. On nam donosi nove tagove poput <audio> i <video> za umetanje audio i video elemenana na stranice bez upotrebe Flasha ili Silverlighta. Dalje, možemo zaboraviti na <div class=”header”>, <div class=”clanak left”>, itd. Zamijenit će ih novi elementi <header>, <content>, <article>, <aside> i <footer>. To bi ukratko bilo to o HTML5.

I za kraj, malo o browserima. Pokušajte pogoditi što će se dogoditi nakon što svi browseri prođu ACID 3. Da, bravo, pogodili ste. Počet će utrka browsera za ispravnim renderiranjem ACID 4 testa. Naravno, svi će raditi nešto, ali nitko neće postići ništa dok jedan od njih ne uspije prvi. Onda kreće utrka ovih ostalih. I tako će to uvijek biti. Kad svi “polože” ACID 4 doći će ACID 5. Baš kao i sa primjerima već navedenima u tekstu.

Oho, counter riječi već pokazuje veliku brojku. Mislim da je ovo kraj. Ukoliko se pitate postoji li mogućnost za treći dio ovog teksta, da postoji. Čim utvrdim o čemu ću pisati u trećem dijelu, koji će vjerojatno biti nadovezivanje na ovaj, drugi dio, baš kao što se ovaj nadovezuje na prvi.

Ajde sad, gotovo, kraj, nema više. Odite prosurfati po drugim postovima ovdje, valjda ima još nešto zanimljivo.

I najavljujem slijedeći post… uskoro (a samo ja znam kad je to

Napomene:

1. Trenutni broj draft postova mi je nula. Tak da… čekajte
2. Nije mi se dalo prolaziti (čitati ponovno tekst) koji pokazuje tretnutno 740+ riječi.
3. (Odnosi se na točku broj 2.) Zbog toga slobodno recite sve riječi koje su krivo napisane ili rečenice koje vam nemaju smisla. Da ih mogu ispraviti.
4. Stvarno nisam pročitao cijeli tekst. Krenuo sam ga pisati prije možda pola sata do sat vremena i sad je gotov. Ne da mi se čitati.
5. Komentirajte. Želim znati što vi mislite.

My dear collegue Martin told me a while ago about Cameron Moll´s article about Cufón -the new sIFR.

Instead of creating flash that replaces the font,  Cufón creates VML copies of the font.

As it works together with jQuery, I think we have to test it in a project…

Browsers support (april 2009)

• IE 6,7,8
• FF 1,5+
• Safari 3+
• Opera 9,5
• Google Chrome

Es gibt ja einige Möglichkeiten, Schriften zu ersetzen. Wir sind gestern über Cufón gestolpert. Mir war das bislang überhaupt nicht bekannt, aber es macht einen guten Eindruck bzgl. der Geschwindigkeit.

Einen Vergleich zwischen sIFR (sIFR 2, sIFR3 beta, sIFR Generator) und Cufón findet man hier.

Update: Man hat bei Cufón erstmal leider einen “Blob” Effekt, d.h. man sieht erst die normale Schrift, dann die umgewandelte. sIFR macht dies anders: alle Elemente für sIFR werden erst einmal per CSS mit

visibility:hidden;

versteckt, dann rennt das sIFR Script durch die Seite. Dadurch erscheinen sie erst dann, wenn sIFR fertig ist.

Update 20.04.

Dank Twitter (@gracesmith) habe ich noch einen Artikel zu vermelden: “Exploring Cufón, a sIFR alternative for font embedding“. Dort geht es auch noch einmal um die Benutzung und die Gegenüberstellung zu sIFR.

Ich weiß jetzt nicht, ob das schon immer ging, aber hier sieht man an der Überschrift, dass bei sIFR auch hover geht und man kann darauf klicken.

How to have desired fonts shape the content of your web design?

sIFR comes in place to hand you different fonts using Flash and CSS. With CSS3 you could replace titles with any font you want. The text is search engine friendly and users can cut and paste the text as they expect. There are nice tutorials and video blogs that help you get started with ease.

Easy, elegant tutorial on sIFR
http://designintellection.com/2008/this-is-how-you-get-sifr-to-work/

Follow the above tutorial and you can replace the needed font to have content with your desired font.

Video based tutorial
http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/39-how-to-use-sifr-3/

To download the sIFR nightlies, visit
http://dev.novemberborn.net/sifr3/nightlies/

All you need to do is create the “swf” flash file or to download it from one of the available websites and then to configure the javascript, css files to make this work.

Happy sIFRing!!!

2008 is my 4th year of watching anime and has came to a close with its wide array of great animes, not to mention some does not meet expectations as well.

Here i would like to present you my list animes i watched in 2008 and my annual award to conclude the year. The overall anime list here are listed with the rule that the anime is finished aired in 2007 or 2008. So it means anime airing in 2006 and before wont be listed here anymore because its already being ‘considered’ last year.

Why include 2007 also? This is because i will watch some anime that i didn’t follow when it was airing in japan. However, 2007 anime listed last year wont appear again.

Let us start first:

(click image for larger view)

Most disappointing anime of 2008:

Minami-ke Okawari

Minami-ke Okawari (2008)

Minami-ke Okawari is continuation of Minami-ke that aired in 2007. Minami-ke features the three Minami sisters: Haruka, Kana and Chiaki, who have an average life. The girls only have each other to depend on and help each other get through everything from love confessions to cooking.

original Minami-ke series (2007)

The original Minami-ke aired back in 2007 was great. But the 2008 version (Okawari) quite disappointing. The art and animation greatly differs from its 2007 series, and for me ~Okawari~ is towards worse. A great comedy anime has been ruined by the uncute emo faces and out-of-place jokes. Failing to meet or exceed my expectation, i tag this Minami-ke Okawari as most disappointing of 2008.

Worst, there’s third instalment of this anime, Minami-ke Okaeri, animated by this same studio, to further ruin this anime.

Minami-ke Okaeri (2009)

Most Favourite Opening Song

Opening songs are usually used in introduction sequence of anime. Sadly, there’s no Opening song that sticks in my head for this year

Most Favourite Ending Song

The Ending songs, same as opening song, are used to roll out credits and sometimes previews next episode in anime. There are plenty of ending songs that are great.

My most favourite Ending song is….

solita - Tokyo et Paris

Nodame Cantabile ending - Tokyo et Paris sung by solita, violin by Emiri Miyamoto, with variations from Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. Simply love the violin! Click to listen!

Some great ending songs are:

PNGN4 - Yurete Hajikete Afurechau Miwaku no Penguin Musume

Penguin Musume Heart Ending song – Unique song with unique animation as well! Click to listen!

Aimmy - Kaze no Kioku ~to the end of the world~

World Destruction – sung by Aimmy Click to listen!

Most favourite Character (Non Human)

This is awarded to characters that does not have human appearance. For 2008, the most obvious winner is….

Chi from Chi’s Sweet Home

Chi's Sweet Home

A grey and white kitten with black stripes wanders away from her mother and siblings one day while enjoying a walk outside. Lost in her surroundings, the kitten struggles to find her family and instead is found by a young boy, Youhei, and his mother. They take the kitten home, but pets are not allowed in their housing complex, so they try to find a new home for the kitten. This proves to be difficult, and the family eventually decides to keep the kitten, naming her “Chi”.

Chi

Chi never fails to show it’s cuteness throughout the anime The third picture is when Chi is first being taken photo, surprised by the camera flash!

Most favourite Character (Human)

Fumika from Shigofumi

Shigofumi

Shigofumi

Fumika is the main character in the anime series. She works as a mail carrier from the afterlife realm of Shigo, delivering what are known as “shigofumi” to people in a Japanese city that she has been assigned to. These shigofumi are letters written by those who have recently died, and it is Fumika’s job to deliver the letters to whoever the dead wanted them to go to. The letters usually contain things that the now-deceased could not say while they were alive, such as things they wanted to say before they died, or even to inform others about who killed them in the case of a murder.

Best Comedy

Definitely Detroit Metal City OVA. Among the anime i watched in 2008, Detroit Metal City made me laugh hardest and longest!

Detroit Metal City... DMC

Detroit Metal City features Souichi Negishi, a shy young man who came from the rural Ota Prefecture to Tokyo for college and wished to become a kindergarten teacher. However, he became the singer and songwriter of a metal band named “Detroit Metal City,” with a stage name “Johannes Krauser II.” Whenever he wears the heavy makeup, Negishi becomes a completely different person, shouting the most vulgar profanities beyond anyone’s imagination.

DMC

I decide to follow this anime after i seen the incident of Negishi with old man Shige See how he rapes Tokyo Tower

Other great animes for laughs worth mentioning are:

Kemeko DX!

Kemeko Deluxe! – The story centers on a high school boy and a super-deformed, doll-like robot. The robot declares itself to be the boy’s wife, and only then does a beautiful girl emerge out of the robot’s mouth.

Penguin Musume

Penguin Musume Heart! – Sakura Nankyoku is a total otaku. Due to a fluke, she gets elected as her class’ Student Council President. Everything takes off from there into a series of crazy misadventures revolving around Sakura, her family, and her classmates.

Kannagi

Kannagi – Crazy Shrine Maidens is also a good anime. Our unlucky protagonist Mikuriya Jin, uses the trunk of a sacred tree to carve a statue for a school project. When he takes it outside, it begins absorbing the surrounding earth and transforms into a girl! So like all similar setups this guardian deity is pretty pissed that her tree was cut down and lives with Jin while she takes out her anger on squashing bugs….er, cleaning the “Impurities”.

Kannagi is really good in terms of bringing joy and laughs. The girl (Nagi) is cute and i think fluid animation is also important in animating slow (non action-packed anime), it’s entertaining to see Nagi in this anime My favourite episode in this anime is when Nagi locks herself inside the closet.

Minami-ke Okawari (2008)

Another anime good in comedies is Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. The story: Thousands of years ago the God of destruction, Enka, died saying thats its child would destroy the world.Thousands of years later the potential children of Enka are found (some human, some not) and take part in the Peaceful Family Operation in order to discover who the true child of Enka is and stop them from destroying the world by teaching them the importance of family love.

The novels depict the not-so-normal life of a “family” that includes a catgirl “mother,” a lion “son,” a living land-combat android weapon “son,” a jellyfish-like otherworldly “daughter,” and a hapless 27-year-old military officer as their “father.” This motley “family” was assembled as part of the Imperial Japanese Anti-Paranormal Phenomena Section’s Special Operations Forces to save Earth in 2063.

The creativity of the writer in terms of characters and story really amuses me and never fails to make me laugh in every episodes. My favourite story and character from this anime is during the Shinigami-san arc.

Most surprising anime:

Ga Rei -Zero-

Ga Rei -Zero-

Ga Rei -Zero- is aired on 5th October to 21st December 2008. Its story is about has an anti-paranormal special forces group Japanese Ministry of Defense, called Supernatural Disaster Prevention Office which is responsible to protect Japanese soil and its people from supernatural and paranormal events. In this anime series, they fight off evil spirits and ghosts… (highlight text to see spoilers!) …or so it seems. The “main cast” in the advertisements and posters are actually a side characters meant to be slaughtered to make introduction to the main series, Isayama Yomi. This anime leave viewers clueless again after slaughtering yet another cast in episode 2, including another main character of the series Tsuchimiya Kagura. The story finally settles to the past on how Yomi and Kagura lives together, become very close friends and also the unfortunate events turning Yomi to dark side. Great introduction and plot.

In promotions and in its official site, the characters in episode 1 is protrayed as main characters of the series, meant to trick the viewers. Their site layout is eventually changed when the series progressed. Opening and ending sequence are not revealed until few episodes in the anime (thus concealing any hints of surprise!). The poster of this anime later can be viewed in the spoiler image here.

…Ga Rei Zero packs surprise!

Best Action:

Mai Otome S.ifr OVA

Mai Otome S.ifr

The battle scenes in S.ifr is tremendous especially the final episode. Fluid and smooth battle animation, coupled with great music makes this OVA deserve my ‘best action’ award. The time setting in S.ifr is years before the Mai Otome timeline.

original Mai Otome series

Other great actions in anime:

Kurozuka

Kurozuka – Kurozuka features a samurai that flees into the mountains after losing to his brother Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first Shogun to rule all of Japan. History records that he committed suicide, but instead, Kuro meets a strange, beautiful woman named Kuromitsu in her mountain hermitage. Kuro falls in love with Kuromitsu, but then realizes she conceals a dark secret. He learns that he is unable to die and continues to live for a thousand years as Japan evolves into a future society.

…And the best anime for 2008 is…

2008 Best anime

Ga Rei -Zero-

Ga Rei Zero

Ga Rei -Zero- serves as the prequel to the Ga Rei manga. This anime starts off as an average zombie-and monster-fighthing anime by a certain military forces. They failed miserably and the special task force consisting the main characters of Tooru and Natsuki enters the scene and fight them with ease. Their partnership and Natsuki’se usage of the motorbike to fight off the zombies are superb. Click to see its trailer (highlight text for spoilers) As mentioned in spoiler before … this main characters in this first episode are fake “main characters”. They are all killed off by Yomi in first episode. The main ones for the series just appear on episode 2 and 3 onwards.

Yomi are adopted child in Isayama family, raised and will inherit the shishioh (sword) and the family head role. Yomi and Kagura develops relationships like sisters and they went to fight off evil spirits. As the anime progresses Yomi suddenly loses everything due to the internal conflict in Isayama family – she lost everything – her shishioh, inheritance, her adopted father, badly injured, can barely move, loses ability to speak (throat pierced) and possibly loses her boyfriend and also labeled as murderer. Never being able to justify herself, and cannot bear to see Kagura sad about her and later comforted and tempted by Mitogawa (evil boy!) Yomi finally accepted the evil powers to take revenge to the world that mistreated her. Scenes like her battle with Isayama Mei are very intense. The scene where Kagura and Yomi in hospital is also a very touching scene.

… To conclude it, Ga Rei -Zero- has great animation, good storytelling(which includes surprise elements), character design, weapons, battle and also the music. Recommended to watch, but not for those who cant stand the violence in battle. Viewers that can’t even stand the “violence” in Bleach should stay away from this anime.
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Here’s a long list of animes i completed watching on 2008 with my ratings out of 10:

3 = bad, 4 = lower than average, 5=average,

6 = good but not interested, 7=good, 8 = great, 9 = highly recommended

2007:

• Doujin Works (6)
• El Cazador de la Bruja (7)
• Kyou no Go no Ni OVA (7)
• Potemayo (7)
• sola (8)

2008:

• Akane Iro no Somaru Saka (7)
• Allison to Lillia (8)
• Chi’s Sweet Home (7)
• Detroit Metal City OVA (9)
• Ga Rei -Zero- (9)
• H2O ~Footprints on the Sand~ (6)
• Hidamari Sketch x365 (7)
• Hyakko (7)
• Kannagi (8)
• Kemeko DX! (7)
• Kurozuka (7)
• Kyouran Kazoku Nikki (8)
• Lucky Star OVA (8)
• Macross Frontier (7)
• Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~ (7)
• Mai Otome S.ifr OVA (8)
• Minami-ke Okawari (4)
• Moetan (5)
• Nijuu Mensou no Musume (The Daughter of Twenty Faces) (8)
• Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter (8)
• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (7)
• Penguin Musume Heart (7)
• School Days ~Magical Heart Kokoro-chan~ OVA (7)
• Seto no Hanayome Jin OVA (8)
• Shigofumi (8)
• Spice and Wolf (7)
• Telepathy Shoujo Ran (7)
• Tetsuwan Birdy Decode (Birdy the Mighty Decode) (7)
• True Tears (8)
• World Destruction (8); but very bad ending
• Zero no Tsukaima ~Princess of Rondo~ (7)

Dropped series; never want to finish watch it (2008):

• Rosario+Vampire (4)
• Rosario+Vampire Capu 2 (4)
• H2O ~Footprints on the Sand~ (3)
• Kimi Ga Aruji De Shitsuji Ga Ore De ~They Are My Noble Masters~ (4)
• Persona~Trinity Soul (5)
• ToLoveRu – Trouble (4)
• Druaga no Tou – The Aegis of Uruk (6)
• Amatsuki (5)
• Himitsu -Top Secret- (5)
• Real Drive – Sennou Chousashitsu (5)
• Crystal Blaze (4)
• Golgo 13 (4)
• ToHeart2 Another Days (4)
• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (6)
• Strike Witches (6)
• Koihime Musou (4)
• Blade of the Immortal (3)
• Seikirei (3)
• Kanokon (3)
• Kuroshitsuji (5)
• Kyou no Go no Ni TV (4)
• Tytania (6)
• Minami-ke Okawari (4)

Currently Watching:

• Casshern SINS
• Hidamari Sketch x365
• Michiko to Hatchin
• Penguin no Mondai
• Tentai Senshi Sunred
• Toradora!

*The list does not contain animes either i havent get the chance to watch.

Looking forward to…

Full Metal Alchemist

The new Full Metal Alchemist anime, to be aired in 2009!

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image and information source: MyAnimelist.net, wikipedia, AnimeNewsNetwork, play-asia, cdjapan

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séeput is hungry

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After a minor setback, I finally understand why I wasn’t able to get the sIFR to work. You are unable to test it on your local server (your computer), so I’m in negotiations with my awesome sister in law to see if I can borrow some server space to get them up and running. I found help via a website called Design Intellection that breaks it down for you like you’re a 5 year old. Or a 3 year old if your name is Michael Scott .

More to come after I put my daughters down for a nap and I snag a couple pictures of Saddleback Mountain with snow on it. Happens every year, but people always seem to forget come summer.

slowpoke….
sunrise kind a halfhearted in doing this series…
the story just too fast…
a lot of story details skipped,
in the end.. no one knows what is artemis…
okay… the costume it self was fabulous..
it’s like a light version from sapphire of blue sky regular costume…
can’t find good picture of the costume…
so just watch it by yourself…

Finally the last episode of Mai Otome Sifr! \>o</
Yes yes, finally get to see….well I don’t really love Rena~
But she’s a whole lot stronger than her daughter~
In IDWS, there’s one comment about the power depends on the oppai size……wkwkwkwkwkwkwk
Saa~
I don’t know what to write……..
Wanna watch?
It’s the whole Otome and Zwei and Sifr too~
Here

I have just finished (about 90%) of a website that I was designing (just see the Font Embedding Technology article). It uses sIFR (scalable Inman Flash Replacement), and can be an example for its use. Please note that it will render properly only on a screen resolution of 1024×768 and above. You can find it here.

If you have the curiosity to view the source, then be warned of some horrendous scripting (I haven’t tidied some parts yet), but on the whole it looks OK.

EDIT: (Have Fixed the Code!)

Any comments/suggestions relating to the website/sIFR are welcome. You are even open to criticize the website thoroughly.

Enjoy!