It was a night filled with work, mostly like every other night. I was sitting and doing my regular sharing / posting on twitter. All of a sudden my updates weren’t refreshing, I couldn’t navigate backwards or forward, I couldn’t click any links either. So the good old F5 (Command + R on the beloved MAC) had to come to the rescue.

What appeared infront of my eyes next was nothing less than mindblowing. At first I though I had been forwarded to a different website, but after a scouple of seconds I realized I had just witnessed a massive Twitter upgrade. Not only did they run this massive UI upgrade on their website, they also upgraded the apps for Android and iPhone users.Even though I had anticipated the update for quite some time, I didn’t expect it to come this fast. I am really impressed with the work the twitter team has done. The UI is a lot more user friendly and more importantly it is so much easier to navigate.

I’m not going to go into detail about all the new functionality and technical improvements, it’s all very well documented on the twitter homepage. To give you a little head start you can go to the official twitter page and read more about hte upgrade right now. I’ve summarized some of the main features  below.

Home is where you view Tweets from the people you have chosen to follow. It’s your personal collection of Tweets, featuring the latest news, commentary and information from the sources you care about.

The new Connect section is where you get in on the conversation. It’s the place to see who has followed or mentioned you, retweeted or favorited one of your Tweets. Connect is your way to keep the conversation flowing.

When you use Discover, you’ll see results reflecting your interests—based on your current location, what you follow and what’s happening in the world. As you use Twitter more, Discover gets even better at serving up more content just for you.

The new profile section puts you and your interests front and center. Others can Tweet directly to you and view your lists, favorites, followers, photos and more. The Me tab is also where you can stay current on your direct message conversations.

Twitter really has it going now and we’re looking forward to some really exciting times in the battle between the social media giants. I have to be honest with you. This twitter upgrade has impressed me far more than the Facebook timeline implementation.

Adobe has finally launched the much anticipated Creative Suite 5!

The product revamps PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, DreamWeaver and Flash and it comes with a new feature: Omniture, a tool to track the relative success of different versions of websites, such as a new home page design.

The full product, called Master Collection, is priced at $2599 and if you have the predecessor,  its upgrade is $899.Advantages ?

• Industry-leading performance enhancements – work faster with the native 64-bit support for both PC and Mac.
• Support for evolving web trends – now Dreamweaver CS5 comes with full support for content management frameworks, including Joomla!, Drupal and WordPress.
• Expressive motion graphics and blockbuster visual effects – A revolutionary Roto Brush in After Effects CS5: isolating, moving foreground elements from their backgrounds with automatic transparency is now dramatically faster.
• Truer Edge detection technology – Hair selection has never been easier !
• Crisp graphics for web, interactive and mobile delivery – Create clean artwork that aligns perfectly – no more fuzzy graphics for the web and mobile apps !

• Type enhancements for the web – create sophisticated typography for the web with support for bidirectional and vertical text, flowable text layouts, and support for more than 30 writing systems including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, and more.

Mac OS

• Multicore Intel processor
• Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6
• 1GB of RAM or more recommended
• 10.3GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash-based storage devices)
• 1280×800 display with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card, 16-bit color, and 256MB of VRAM
• Some GPU-accelerated features require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0
• DVD-ROM drive compatible with dual-layer DVDs

• Java Runtime Environment 1.5 or 1.6
• QuickTime 7.6.2 software required for multimedia features
• Adobe Flash Player 10 software required to export SWF files
• Broadband Internet connection required for online services*

For more details, please visit Adobe.com

I have nothing special on the menu today, so I wanted to talk a little about speed painting. For those of you who don’t know what speed painting is all about I have posted a little explanation further down. If you want to master the art of speed painting you have to practice for years, by hand on paper and infront of the computer.

Speed Painting demands a lot of  patience and a lot of artsy skills. A lot of beginners think they will master this artform in a matter of weeks or months. Unfortunately that’s not the case. There is a reason why digital artists get paid big bucks for their projects :)

What is speed painting?

Speed Painting is an exercise, primarily digital, in which one paints on a time budget, using already developed methods to create a piece. Contrary to (somewhat) popular belief, “Speed Painting” is not the same as a time-lapse video of a painting. Speed Painting is a widely used term in the Entertainment industry, often amongst Concept Artists. One of the great speed painters is Nico Di Mattia.

What do you need if you want to get started?

Well, you really don’t need much more than a mouse, a monitor and a computer, BUT (yes, there is a always a but :), if you want to master speed painting you should get a Wacom board. You can start out with one of the simple Bamboo boards and move on from there to the more advanced Intuos or Cintiq boards. I should probably emphasize the importance of a GREAT montior as well. (look for IPS panels on flatscreen monitors or preferably even a good old CRT monitor). You don’t want to work on a painting for hours and find out that the color balance is totally off on other monitors. I know I’d hate it if that ever happened!

Here are some of the most amazing speed painting videos I’ve found on youtube. Feel free to share others if you know of any ;)

A dragon

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Volcano

Click here to view the embedded video.

Megan Fox

Click here to view the embedded video.

Michael Jackson

Click here to view the embedded video.

A lot of people have been emailing me about the Fabnomena.com design I’m using. I don’t know why the design is causing such a stir, but I think it’s time to share the secret.  The design is made by me and only me :) I spent a couple of weeks redesigning my entire site and this is the end result. You will notice small changes here and there in the future, but I’m pretty happy with the outcome so I’ll keep it that way for now .

I’ve got some other projects up my sleeve that I’m sure you’ll LOVE and I can’t wait to share them with you but I have to finish the projects before I give you the details ;) Meanwhile, why don’t you head over to Dreamlevel Studios, my other website where I share some of my design & multimedia related work. The DL site also has a blog @ Dreamlevel Studios Blog. And in case you ever wondered why I’m so busy, well now you know ;)