Before:


After: (4 hours later)

Had new windshield put on my vehicle last Friday.
Today, I drove it for the first time to go to a sales meeting next town over.
On the way back, rock flew from under the tire of the guy in the slow lane on I25. Now I got a chip, that I don't even know if it can be repaired, or if it will start spreading, requiring new windshield :-(
Oh, yea, I already checked with my commercial auto policy (6 or 8 months ago); there is no window coverage available on commercial policy, period.
The only option to go thru insurance is to file a full claim.
$500+ deductible, insurance hikes, the works.

Sorry Mario that sucks

I didn't go to sleep Friday night, Its 6Am Saturday morning. I stayed up assembling the 1280X768 Tactical template. I started around midnight. Its about 90% of the way there. I have a few little odds and ends but this is a screenshot of it. Now i just need the iPhone and im finally done with every available resolution for Crestron. Im about 50% of the way on HAI and then on to AMX.

I used to live in Chicago up until a few years ago. No garage! Every night i had to drag in every tool i owned and then i had to load it all back up the next morning. I did that for like 8 years and those were the years i did a lot of wiremunky'n so i had a ridiculous amount of tools in my Van.

When considering the cost of owning a car in Chicago you have to include parking tickets & replacing windows. When i lived in wicker park i would get between 3-5 parking tickets a day. I contested every single one and i usually beat any meter tickets "Meter was broken" excuse worked every time because they don't investigate. When i moved west towards Logan Square i had to get a new window or spare tire every 3 months. If a crack head sees something shiny in your car your window gets broken so something as simple as a gum wrapper will cost you a $150.00.

There is nothing worse then dealing with being robbed or having your vehicle broken into. This is making me think twice about moving back to the City.

5% window tint? nobody is going to see in there. all my vehicles/work trucks have limo. Even though its illegal in NJ to have your front windows tinted i do it because i feel its a safty issue and i cant afford anything to be stolen/broken into. Especially if their is some type of customer info in their i just dont want to deal with it.

Cops are D!cks about it, but if you fight them and tell em its to keep your customers privacy safe they snarl and let you go.

But i live and work in a very "up to do town" so generally I dont have to wory about this. (knock on wood) we do some work in Philly and actually caught someone trying to peak in the windows of my old truck, they couldn't see a dam thing. I had my camera, laptop and my expensive multimeter in there. Had the windows not been tinted we most definitely would have been cleaned out.

Sorry Mario and Trilliumtech that really does suck. Best of luck with everything!

This afternoon I was lucky enough to go for a ride in a Superclass (Water) Ski Race Boat - sitting backwards (in the observers seat), saw 129.6 mph on the GPS.
Amazing what 1400 -1500 hp will do.
What a buzz!

Nice work Stamp, it's looking good. The only critique I have, probably just a personal preference, I think you can come up with something better for your "GYM" icon. What you have is good, but I know you can do better.

Now make me a SB Template for purcahse =P

If the guru's at IP have time to teach us how to make SysBuilder compatible templates i will sell them to you for half off :).

The icons were the most difficult part of the template. They took a ridiculous amount of time. These were my first attempt at icons. I actually started the set last year but abandoned it because they were taking so long. When i finally got the store up and running and had time to tweak TACTICAL i started contacting icon companies to have a set made. One place wanted $200-400 per icon! Since i don't have $30k laying around to purchase an icon set i decided to go back to the drawing board :) I found a couple of reasonable offers that i might consider once i make more money but hopefully my skills improve and i can speed things up.

I would also suggest a scosche of color to the "Home" "Security" and "Features" Icons. The look real bad next to their colorful neighbors

Good catch, I agree.

I know you have the skrills so get on it! =D

The vision for this template was "murdered out" flat black SWAT team. This is the first screenshot of it ever. It got edited quite a bit before its release in November of 2009. Color has slowly been creeping into it :).




I just found the original icon set i was working on where every icon was going to be black.

I like the black-on-black "murdered out" style too. I just think that the BOBMO (black-on-black-murdered-out) and the nice color.....well I guess the current aren't the same, but the color's really pop and will probably make a nice touchscreen look nicer.

I think what I'm looking for a GUI design now is real quality graphics that actually make a $10k tp look like a bad-ass $10k touchpanel....not just function like one.

I'm curious how much pizaz you can put in the the type of buttons/icons that you had in the original. They look good and flow really well together.

I'm not expert and ultimately it has to be easy to understand. I think you're doing some great work! Keep it up!

The way i look at it is u have 3 things to consider. #1. The Panel Layout. #2. Buttons & Elements and #3. The Icons.

I think i have #1 & #2 nailed down. I have a simple and flexible background and hundreds of buttons to accomplish anything you can imagine. #3. Is something i need to improve on.

If you get a template from http://ntdesignsonline.com you get their icon set with it so there is no extra charge. The icons come in a couple different styles. Free floating transparent background and then 2 versions where they are iPhone style buttons. guifx.com has a great industry related icon set also.

There are thousands of good free icons on the web but its impossible to find a set that has everything for our industry and theres the obvious issue that we are not really supposed to be using free icons for our clients. It would suck to get your GUI screenshot in a magazine and then get sued for using freeware icons on a commercial project.

If i could afford it i would outsource the icons and invest my time in creating new panel layouts. Its not easy to reinvent the wheel.. This is a screenshot of a project i spent 3 or 4 hours on and when i sent it to someone to ask for an opinion they said "hideous" and i agree with them 100% :). But at the time... i was thinking "MAN THIS IS SO COOL". I have like 20 of these that wont reach production but i do like some of the effects on this one so they might get used on a future project. I like the "band" effect for the transports and the color buttons. Its a subtle way to break up the page and provide some 3 dimensionality.

When i look at this im thiking about some user interface for the doomsday machine that can be used to blow up the world. I named it DANGER! LOL!

Interesting. i think you're on the right track of trying to get some 3D feel to the panels. I think some real depth could make a panel really stand out, however, its a fine line of sweet graphics and too much graphics making it too busy or harder to use. For example, the GuiFX Dean set, the buttons and elements really have depth and look 3 dimensional.

I think the the problem with the RED is that it's just so loud. I always struggle with bold main colors on a panel. I think if it flows with the decor it could work, but in general the theme should be fairly neutral. Blue always seems to work b/c its the easiest color on the human eye.

I'd be interested in a designers opinion of color use on a panel simply b/c they are trained in that area.