Another Logo

Jas Nagra continues his logos with Q13 Industries. I'll keep you tabbed on any others that come up.
Mike! He says this one is for you! what is it?

And I will be *gone* for a week. Byes!

Poll is over!

Flickr is the obvious winner.... Hope to see you there!

Spin! Spin!

Noddy has a sweet rotating bike :D

For ages 10+

The well-known nnenn presents us with a wonderful micro Star Wars Playset, because "Every little kid and his brother should have one."

It's basically all the famous star wars ships, miniaturized and in one easy-to-chew package.
He has:

• A-Wings (in different colors)
• B-Wing
• X-Wings
• Y-Wings
  
• Millennium Falcon
• Imperial Shuttle
• Tie Fighters
• Tie Bomber
• Tie Advance(s) (there should only be one, only one darth vader!)
• a strangely colored Tie Fighter
• surfaces of the Death Star
  
• and imperial guard tie fighters and tie advances.

Neat! Some of these are the best micro renditions of the ships I've seen (Y-wing especially)

3vil Thing

BShelf user Dillon presents a steaming pile of 3vily goodness. It's a little blocky, but the lettering and color stripes make up for it. I'd also enjoy it more if the engiens were extended on some sort of pylons I think. That'd be cool. I love the eye that was replaced with a cannon.

Another Transformer - Shellshock

Not only is Adrian Florea's Halvetrack one of the best I've seen, but it transforms into one of the awesome-est transformers I've seen!

[Pictures]

Noddy's Bikes

I've been aware of brickshelf Noddy's bikes, but only after he built this small diorama did I really look closely. They are awesome! Very accurate, and an entire minifig can comfortably ride in one! Some great part usage there too, an old grippy hand for the back fender, and a droid body for the handlebars. Check it out.

Also look at those blue flames as a water splash... just awesome.

Another Optimus

Astronut1 on flickr has made a town-size TRANSFORMING (that's the best part) Optimus Prime! Sure, it isn't entirely accurate, but it's nifty anyway.
(Via TBB)

Movie Optimus Prime

Rediv on flickr has made a movie-version lego Optimus Prime! He's great, with lots of detail and stunning accuracy! The only part I don't think looks great is the crotch (don't say I look at the crotch too much! I knew that was coming!)

anyway, go check it out

Musical Motivation : Spoon

Graphics

Jas Nagra (J5N) on flickr has some neat graphic logos he made for fictional companies.
I love these, it's like product placement in movies and TV, so that it seems just a little more real. For my G2, I plan on using the Enertech, because all that speedy power needs to stay cool!

I also see G&K (a German military manufacturer) supplying parts to RAMM...

Remember, these are fake, but still nifty.

Jeez, I've been blogging a lot recently.

Groups on Flickr

By Lukas "Gladius" W.P.

Groups on Flickr are a huge part of the social part of the website. Groups are where collections of members can band together, talk, and share pictures.

Getting into groups is pretty easy. You can ask somebody who you know to be in a group (you can tell if somebody is in a group if they can put pictures into them, and groups that a picture is in appear under the photostream, and you can view the groups somebody is in by looking at their profile page.) if you can join, or make your own (which is awfully easy, but don't make groups too much, there is probably already a group for what you want.)

You can submit any of your pictures into any group you belong to. Just click the "submit to group" option atop the picture. You can remove a picture you have in a group by clicking the [X] next to each stream tab of the groups the picture is in, as you can see in the picture.

If you click the "groups" tab up top, you go to a main screen listing the groups you are in, a "Search for Groups" function (which is also in the main searchbar up top), and a link to start your own group.

If you start a group, there are only a few things to do:

1. Choose the privacy. Public groups allow anybody to join if they feel like it, Invite-only are public for the most part, but if you ask somebody, you can probably get into the group. Private groups are "invisible" to non-group members, and are invite-only. Choose wisely.
2. Choose a title for your group, and a description. Remember to make sure that there isn't already a group for what you want.
3. If your group is Public or Invite-Only, choose what non-members can see (discussion and/or pictures in the group.)
4. Choose what the members, Admin(s), and Mods will be called in your group. For instance, if you had a group about gardening, Members could be "Grass," Mods could be "Trees," and Admin(s) be "Flowers," or whatever you feel.
5. Once that is all done, you can edit some finer preferences about the group. You can ban people, invite people, establish a picture limit (see below*), make an icon, give your group rules, and other things.

*Some groups have picture limits (mostly the large groups, ones that get enough photos in a day already). This means that you have a limit as to how many pictures a day you can put in. You can assign a limit for weeks, days, months, or EVER! Not very many groups have limits, as it is encouraged to take as many pictures as you want.

About the different Group Rankings, Members can just put pictures in, and make + add to discussions. Mods can lock discussions and edit what members have said. Admins can do that, ban members, remove pictures from the group pool, and much more.

Some groups will do this differently than others. Most use the normal, there are members, dedicated members become mods, and the person who made the group and their close associates is/are the admin/s.

In the picture there you can see a group called LEGO Microspacetopia. In that group, every member is an admin, and we are trusted not to mess the place up. It just depends.

Admins can also make "announcements," which appear of the front page of the group and everybody can see. Only other admins can remove or change this announcement.

The Group Pool is a collection of photos about whatever the Group is about! For instance, if I upload a picture of a lego spaceship, I would put it into the group "Lego," And the group "Classic-space," as it fits both.

As for discussions, it's fairly straightforward. When you go to the groups mainpage (which can be accessed again through the "groups" tab on the top bar, or by going directly to the groups web address), you'll see something like what is in this picture:

You can view each "thread" by clicking it, and then you can read the topic post, and what people have said about the topic. at the very bottom of the page, you can click to go to different pages of the topic (as some become longer than one page), of voice your own opinion. Mods and Admins can lock threads (or unlock locked ones.)

It's pretty obvious how to make your own topic, just click "Post a new topic," and away you go!

If you are an Admin for a group, you can invite pictures you see in flickr into the group. Under the text box, you can see a link...
"Invite this photo to..." Click it, and a dropdown menu of the groups you administrate with pop up. Select one, and an automated message with linkage to a group invite will appear. Just click "POST COMMENT," and be on your way.

Hopefully, that person will join, and submit the picture(s)!

Some groups are big, some are small, some are personal, some are annoying, and some don't have any discussions whatsoever. It all depends on the members, so make sure you are a good one!

A Poll

I'm testing out a new blogger feature to add polls into the sidebar. Vote!

Brickshelf will NOT be shutting down! *squee*

1. Read this post
2. Go to Brickshelf
3. Read the new message
4. Re-read the new message
5. Process the new message
6. Say hooray
7. Go on with whatever you were doing.

Well, it looks like I did that backup for naught, but whatever :D

Random Brain Fizz

Knick has two Post- Apocalyptic dios!

• Tea Time
• Save the Links!

Both are neat-o, and I can see the PA theme growing....
I love the non-baseplateness of them... and all the rubbly, messy details. Just wonderful :D

And then aidan build'd. :O

Warning

So BShelf is up, for the time being. It closes down *JULY 31 2007* so make sure you get yany pictures you need off by then. I figure it'd be good to point this out, incase sometone failed to check Bshelf or CSF yesterday.

Uploading to Flickr

Uploading to Flickr by Lukas "Gladius" W.P.

• Using the on-site uploader
• Using the Uploadr Application

I'll do the on-site uploader first. If you go to the main flickr page after logging in, (the "Home" page, see the picture") it says right there: "Upload Photos." You can also click "Upload" from the drop-down menu after clicking "You" at the top menu bar.

Click the link, and be lead to a page that looks like this picture.
Follow the guidelines and check to make sure your pictures less than 10 megabytes.
Then, just click each "Browse," Select an image file, and then click "Open" in the documents window.

You can put one picture into each "Browse," and flickr cannot handle zip files (but a way to mass-upload if you want is coming up.)

Once you have the 6 (or less) pictures you want to upload, choose communal tags. The tags you place in the box will appear on ALL SIX of your pictures, so choose carefully.
Choose whether to make you photos Private (Friends or Family), or Public. Most will be Public.

And then Simply click "UPLOAD." Leave the window open, at least until they are done uploading, then flickr auto-resizes the pictures for you.
You gain a square size (75x75) a thumbnail (100x67) Small (240x160), Medium (500x333), Large (1024x681), and an original size at uploading. Some might not be applied; For instance, if your picture is 500x500 pixels, You won't have a large size, just Medium, and then original.

After they have been uploaded and resized, You go to a screen where you can easily customize the name of the Image (without editing, it's the file name), the description, and the tags. You can change any of these aspects later in the future at any time, so don't worry.
Just click "SAVE," and your pictures will appear on your main page!

Now, if you have TONS (or more than is reasonable to do in batches of six) of pictures to upload, you want to use the flickr uploadr. Next to where you clicked "Upload" on the Home flickr page, there is text "Or, look at our uploading tools..." Click this.

You will be lead to a page titled Help/Tools. At the very top of the list of choices, it says Flickr Uploadr for Windows, and then just under that it has Flickr Uploadr for Mac.
Click the corresponding "Download the Flickr Uploadr" link for your computer, and go through the download process, it all depends on your browser and OS.
The installation wizard is fairly straightforward as well, and I wouldn't recommend making an icon on your desktop, as you don't use the uploadr terribly much.

Find where you saved the Uploadr, and double click to open up a small window. Open up your documents, and click-drag pictures (or entire folders, but still don't try zips) into the "Drop Photos Here" area. Thumbnails should appear quickly.

If you accidentally put pictures into the group you don't want uploaded, select them and click the red "-." You can rotate pictures using the icons at the top, and the lightswitch controls settings.

The first time you use the uploadr, you have to connect it to your flickr account. No big deal, just click the link it gives you and Accept it's connection.

Anyway, once you get the pictures into the Uploadr that you want, click Upload...

Choose tags, (again, these tags go on EVERY SINGLE picture you upload in this batch, so be careful, even though you can change it afterwards; it's just a hassle), put them all into a set (or create a set for all of them), choose the Publicity of them, and click "Finish" to begin uploading. Don't close the uploadr until it is done uploading!

The pictures should appear on your flickr page immediately.

There is one final way to upload, but this ONLY WORKS IF YOU ARE A PRO MEMBER! If you have a picture uploaded to flickr, and then say, edit it, you can "replace" the photo and keep comments and notes on it. You could seriously mess things up, so make sure it's at least a similar picture!
On the low right of the picture in flickr, under the list of "Additional Information," you will see "replace this photo" at the bottom of the list. Click it, and a small text box with "Browse..." button, just like on the upload page. Choose a picture, and press Upload. Ta-DA! Photo replaced! now adjust notes and whatnot accordingly (as you can move around notes people put on your pictures.)

Just be aware that as a normal flickr Member, you have a max of 200 photos in your photostream!

That's it for uploading, and thanks for reading!

Go to Flickr!

I'm not really looking forward to a huge surge on flickr (I like it how it is), but Linus does have a good idea:

Brickshelf may be gone, it may not be. But the fact is, there are other host options for lego pictures. One way of helping the community get past the loss is to help everyone get into these sites.

Now, flickr has risen to be one of the most used image-hosting sites by us builders. It's only natural that some of us will continue housing there after this, whatever the outcome. That's why I'd like to start an article describing how Flickr works, and good stuff to know about the site for Lego builders.

I'm going to try to help write. Sign-up here!

Maybe it sounds bit snooty to not want a whole load of new people come to flickr, but I already have waaaay too many contacts and too many groups.

*sigh*

Is brickshelf dead?

Uh-oh. Yesterday I was surfing brickshelf before it was time for dinner. I left the window open (I was looking at some zizy2 mecha), and when I came back from eating, I refreshed. This is what I saw.

Brickshelf has discontinued operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I was slowly switching over to flickr, so it isn't a HUGE HUGE deal for my pictures, but like Andrew said, it is a cornerstone of the lego community. It cripples my lego inspiration bookmarks folder, and quite a few lego websites.

You can still use Maj, Kevin Loch's other image website, but it's for non-lego pictures as well.

*sigh* I don't know what to do :(

A post.

OK, so I'm trying to make some posts. Tomove in that direction, I just looked at the recent folders on Brickshelf. I was surprisad at the amount of good things in there. Nothing mind-blowingly good, but several good things.

"Wiseman" has a nice Mobile Suit.

















A couple of pretty nice turrets by "Kenobi19"








Mr. Stenz has built a nice zeppelin, the "fuerschiff-z1."





I'm sure there's more stuff to be blogged, but I'll leave that for the other people.

Moon Rover Contest: WINNER!

After much impatient waiting, and much decision making by the judges, the winner of the epic Moon Rover Contest on CSF has been announced!

...And it's me!

I'm sure it was no easy choice for the judges, as there were many many awesome entries. I think everyone deserved to win, but alas it doesn't work that way... hehehe

View the contest thread

Also: My first blog post! Yay! :D

Spook Does it Again

Let's see, between the excellent color combination and placement, killer detail, and very helpful and detailed schematic, I think Tim may just win.


On a different note, I think I may be hanging up my Blogger hat for a while. See, CSF used to be one of my favorite places on the web. With all the recent drama and flaming, and the even more recent onslaught of *ahem* n00bs, I'm just not feeling it as much. I just find myself lacking the desire to visit the site as much.
2) There are plenty of blogs that highlight MOCs, and Moyblik will continue to be one, I'm sure.
3) Oddly, I don't find myself on the verge of a dark age, I've been building more in the past three days than I had in the past month. I'm just losing interest in this blog. So maybe I'll be around, but I won't guarantee it.