design, photography and fun » xlt

Dunamunde 2010

xlt — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:47:48 +0000

Last weekend I attended festival of war history reconstruction "Dunamunde 2010". It took place in fort of Daugavgriva located here in Riga, Latvia. The aim of the festival was to show armies in different periods of time. See photographs from event in my photo gallery.

Hiking from Cēsis to Līgatne

xlt — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:27:05 +0000

For long time i haven’t been on real hike – on foot, for at least two days and with tents. Probably i’ve never been. Just can’t remember. but last weekend i succeeded. Hike was planned for a long time before but came out pretty spontaneously – we just decided we have to go and it’s all.

So on Saturday’s morning we pretty quickly hitch-hiked from Riga to Cēsis. We wasn’t on hurry so spent few hours there. Our plan was to go by river Gauja. It used to be hiking paths nearby river in soviet times. though it came out nobody used them for at least 20 years. So time to time we had to break through scrubby paths and bushes.

Further are pictures from hike with some comments.

Fortress of Cēsis (or what’s left from it). Built in first part of 13th century. One of first buildings made from rock in Latvia.

Oldtown. There’s church in the background. It’s possible to climb up to the tower. So we used the possibility and there are some photos made in tower.

Unfortunately windows in tower are barred. So picture with castle is “squared”.

Square of Roses (hides behind small house in front). One of central squares with cafés and fountain.

When we left Cēsis road took us into woods. .

We found some bilberries by the way.

Road leads to hillfort of Kvēpene.

There are legends that oak in photo below served as prototype for illustration on Latvian money (bank note of five Lats). Don’t know how much truth is there.

After visiting hillfort we started to look for suitable paths as we lacked reliable map and also locals wasn’t much help. At the end we took longest way but we got to the river Gauja.

At one moment we took wrong path and ended up near small and romantic but abandoned hut.

It took quet a time for us to find a right place for tent. At least we found nice meadow.

Breakfast and morning coffee. And then on the read.

Classical countryside of Latvia.

Ferry on river Gauja near Līgatne.

And Līgatne itself.

.. and just few kilometers to highway. With some more classical landscapes.

Scotland

xlt — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:01:52 +0000

At the end of May I visited my girlfriend who lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. Wee took trips to Stonehaven nearby and of course Edinburgh (that’s “must see” if you’re in Scotland). As i came through Glasgow is saw a bit of it, too. Very nice country. All my impressions you can see in my photo gallery (just click on picture or link below).

Full gallery: http://www.xltphoto.net/gallery/travel/scotland/

Free icons from artua

xlt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:00:32 +0000

Russian design company artua offers several free high quality icon sets. Just see sample below. Icons available both for MacOS X and Windows. Icon sets are free for non-commercial use.

Free Green Leaf Labels Vector

xlt — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:38:29 +0000

These green leaf labels vectors are pretty nice I think. And free. Click on picture to download.

I heart realism

xlt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:34:50 +0000

I think this t-shirt design is really nice. I simply love it.

Free vector graphics by dragonartz

xlt — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:38:01 +0000

I often publish some free vector graphics made by designer dragonartz. Because he has some cool and usable graphics. :) And here comes collection of my favorites for few last months.

Filmstrip

Handshake

Message block

Fat pencils

Glass lab bottles

Colorful abstract background

Rainbow in the clouds

Sealed envelope

Red silk flower

Colorful painted circles

Floral announcement

Free symbol signs collection

xlt — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:04:40 +0000

Collection of 50 common used symbol signs for public services (such as toilets, telephone, first aid, coffee shop, recycle icon, arrows collection and much more) available free of charge as an OpenType font format. Released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 for personal and commercial use.

Download from here.

Free DreamWeaver extension for WordPress users

xlt — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:55:52 +0000

TAGStention is free extension is DreamWeaver extension which you can use for inserting WordPress template tags into your theme files. Might be useful for those WordPress web designers who use DreamWeaver. Works with Dreamweaver 8 and Dreamweaver MX2004.

Features :

Wizards for tags with parameters
Help button redirects to codex
Support for 90% of the tags
Insert basic loops (wizard)
Insert headers (wizard)
Ultimate TagWarrior tags supported

Free iPhone GUI in Photoshop PSD Format

xlt — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:39:17 +0000

An update version of iPhone 3.0 graphic user interface (GUI) in Photoshop PSD format is released along with Apple’s official release of the new iPhone 3.0 software as new soft came with a number of new graphic elements. It’s all still fully editable. Download from here.

Some of the changes and additions in the 3.0 PSD include:
• Map and map elements including curl
• Copy and paste elements
• Timeline bar editor
• Horizontal iPhone
• Horizontal Panels bars and keyboards