New Baseball-Themed Set!

What I taketh away, I bringeth back. Baseball on my mind, this new set combines my photo of a pro ball team (without showing who) and some clipart graphics made from dingbat fonts.

Oh phooey! I just remembered I didn't watch today's game. Argh! That's what happens when you're busy trying to release a set. (Just a quick peek at the team's web site to see what happened.) Oh shoot! It's happening right now -- top of the 8th! Gotta post this quick.

So if you're a big fan of baseball, download this set and try it out. Lots of graphics but no pre-printed nav buttons -- sorry -- so you can create a really cool fan web site or blog.

Check it out here. It's called -- ta-da! -- Play Ball!

Ooh, I just noticed they're behind big time. Argh!!!

And ooh, I almost forgot -- Happy birthday honey bunch! XOXOXO

New Graphics!

Hey everyone! I've got three new side border backgrounds and a new desktop wallpaper in three sizes for download.

The side border backgrounds are called Metallic on Black, Metallic on Gray and Metallic on White. Rather than just offering the metallic left side border on one color background, I made it on three. You decide which one you like. The border has enough room (about 150 pixels) to put text links or small link buttons to other pages on your web site, or for small graphical ads not more than 120 pixels wide. These are linkware which means you need to post a link back to Arride Graphics on every page this background is used.

The desktop wallpapers are called Mars: Four Faces, Four Major Features, and come in three sizes from 800x600 to 1152x864. I obtained four separate images of Mars from the GRIN web site and combined them for the wallpaper. This is the third version I made and liked the most. These wallpapers are meant to be used on your computer's desktop not on web pages. Choose the one that most fits your monitor's resolution and follow the download instructions. While you cannot post a link back to our web site, if anyone asks where you got it, send them to Arride Graphics at http://www.arride.com. Thank you!

Just to whet your appetite, I'm re-doing a baseball set I removed earlier this year. I was using a third party graphic in the previous incarnation, which I decided wasn't a good idea. Don't know if anyone actually downloaded that one, since no one has e-mailed me about using it nor has anyone triggered Sitemeter by its use on a temporary web page. This new incarnation uses a photo I took at a pro ballgame. Naturally, I tweaked it in PSP so it looks generic. I really like the image. I may use some of the icons from the previous set or I may create new ones for this set. Still a work-in-progress. You'll get notice of this new set on this blog and on the main page of Arride Graphics in the near future.

Downtime

One of my uptime watchers reported downtime for less than one hour (again!) Friday night at about 7 p.m. PDT.

New Background Tiles!

Alright, I'll admit these have been sitting around in my computer for who knows what reason. Anyway, here they are - more basketweave background tiles in larger weave than the lonely one already on the page and in more colors! Can you find a use for any of these? Good!

I've got another desktop wallpaper in a space theme coming up. This time it's Mars. Look for it soon!

Okay, gotta watch baseball, so bye for now!

New basketweave tiles on Page 1 of Patterned Tiles.

New Stuff!

As promised, here are three new things to decorate your web site, web page and desktop!

• Right border web page graphics set called Statica. The colors are green and violet with two page backgrounds you can work with. Comes with 20 navigation buttons, a blank button if you don't like the font I chose, a matching bullet, a matching page divider, and two Welcome header gifs that coordinate with whichever background you use.
• Top border background called Rainbow Paper Chain People. Could possibly be used for a child's web site.
  
• Finally, a hot and sunny desktop wallpaper that I actually created last year and forgot about. I think I was going to add some people to it but that never happened. So here you are, plain ol' sun on warm colors that I call Hot Fun in the Summertime.

All of the above were created solely with Paint Shop Pro 7 and with tubes as in the case of the latter two things. Hope you enjoy them! See ya next month.

Visitor 10,000!

I don't know how to report this accurately. On one hand, the person who triggered Sitemeter to record number 10,000 should be just that. But on the other hand, I did trigger two visits myself (at least) accidentally when I forgot to ignore my visits, so visitor number 10,002 ought to be the rightful owner of the honor. But, to simplify everything, I really should go back to the person who actually triggered the 10,000th visit count. I'm all for simple!

So he or she hails from Jackson Heights, New York (I have no idea where that is), uses a computer with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6.0, connects to the internet using Verizon Internet Services (I thought they only did cellular phone services), and used MSN search engine to look for palm trees wallpaper. This all happened on Saturday, May 27, at 8:22 a.m. (such an early bird for a weekend day!)

Anyway, they did not stay long enough (or maybe they used some blocking software) because they looked at the palm tree wallpaper I have. Maybe it just wasn't what they had in mind, though.

Thank you anyway for your visit!

Keep coming back, everyone, because one of these days I may have what you're looking for!

Downtime Two Days

My uptime watchers found downtimes both yesterday and today, both for less than one hour each. Yesterday's occurrence was at 3:31 am PDT and today's was at 11:30 am PDT.

I wish my host had a system monitor page so that we can see what servers are/ were affected by downtimes. My previous host had such a page which I found informative. I'm only informed about outages caused by scheduled maintenances. I don't like being kept in the dark about unscheduled downtimes such as these, though. I'd like to know what causes them. Still, the downtimes are not severe, so I can't complain too much.

In an unrelated topic, I believe I can release three things before the end of the month: a new desktop wallpaper, a new top border background, and the new web page set I promised. Also, we're getting close to seeing the 10,000th visitor. I think that will happen very soon if not today, or may have already happened yesterday.

New Background Tiles!

I was looking at the solid color background tiles today and noticed in the brown-tan-beige section there were three too many that looked almost the same color. So I removed those three (they were blah-looking anyway) and created five more in different shades to replace them. One of them looks a little pinkish but was created from a brown color starter. I named that one Tad Pink Tan.

View all of them on page 5 of the solid color tiles page.

Just an update: I'm still working on a set I will release as soon as I find a font/ typeface I like for it. I thought I had just the right one, but it didn't work with the pattern after all. So I had to hit a few font archive sites to look again. Hopefully I'll have the set out before the end of May.

Down Again Over the Weekend

One of my most reliable site uptime monitors reported Arride Graphics down on Saturday night beginning around 7:15 PDT for less than one hour.

I was away visiting my mom and dad for Mother's Day weekend, so I couldn't report this until today. Hope all you moms had a great Mother's Day!

New Desktop Wallpaper: Saturn System Montage!

Just uploaded another GRIN photo montage, this time of Saturn's system including her moons.

I discovered this oversight today when I was going through my collection of GRIN photos. I haven't done a wallpaper for it! So here you are. This may be the last desktop wallpaper I make of the space series. I think I've run out, although there are photos of astronauts I could possibly use.

I hope you've enjoyed the entire series.

Look for another web page graphics set to come out soon.

View thumbnail of the Saturn System Montage and download the size you need on page 2 of Wallpapers.

Outage, Again

Another one of my site watchers reported an outage early this morning, my time, at 4:05. It lasted until an hour+ later. If this continues, it'll bum me out. I just paid for another year of hosting.

Not to worry, though. There is no perfect, 100 percent uptime all the time with any host.

Outage

Another outage lasting less than one hour occurred in the early evening PDT on Monday, May 8th. This will not be posted on the main page of Arride Graphics. Kind of droll, no?

Visitor 9500!

Hey, as I predicted, visitor 9500 came by before the end of April...today, in fact.

While this visitor is recorded as 9502, I tripped the counter accidentally twice this month and added to the count so this visitor really is 9500. If I count the visitor tripping the counter at 9500, it would be boring to report because that visitor was Inktomi Search.

Anyway, this visitor uses an ISP whose address I won't divulge and I don't know exactly where there are, but they are somewhere in North America. They are using a computer with Windows 98 installed and IE 6 as their browser. They were looking for some linkware and found Set 131 - I Don't Believe in Time. Their total time here was 4 minutes, 35 seconds. They were good and looked at the Terms of Use page. *pats on back*

Cool! Hope that the set was of interest and they come back to download it.

So here's to the end of April! Wishing lots of visitors next month and see my first 10k visitor.

New Web Page Graphic Set!

Just as I promised, the latest web page graphic set was uploaded today. Today's release is called Aqua Gel and was made purely with Paint Shop Pro 7. It's another one of those sets I started last year and never got around to finishing until this week. Check it out on the Simple Table Sets page.

In looking at the other unfinished sets, I decided to move a few of them out of the non-exclusive side to the exclusive side. That means that I will be offering those sets to just one of you. No one else in the world will have that set because it will be sold to only one party, first come, first served. Of course, if someone takes the graphics from your web site, then it will be around elsewhere. But that's stealing. As with the non-exclusive sets I give away for a link back to Arride Graphics, the copyrights to these sets remain with me and with any third-party whose photos or graphics I use with their permission.

When will the exclusive sets come out? I don't know right now. I do hope to start releasing them sometime this year, though.

So take a trip to my web site and check out the latest set and the other graphics I offer. Maybe you'd like a new desktop wallpaper? Those are my most popular graphics!

Have a great weekend!

New Background Tile!

Hey there! Just uploaded the newest background tile which I call Sierra Granite, because that's just what it is. The tile is made from a photo I took of a granite rock up at Lake Tahoe, California, which is in the Sierra Nevada range. Although I tried making it seamless, you can tell it isn't quite so. Nonetheless, you should not use this background tile alone for your web pages. Please use a solid-colored tile or color designation in a table or content box so that your text can be seen.

In a departure from the usual, I've created a sample page so that you can see how it looks tiled. My notes, which are similar to what I've said here, are included.

So head on over to the Patterned Tiles page 3 and check it out!

Also, I may be releasing another set on Friday and that will be all for April.

Outage Again

My web site was out last night (Sunday 23rd) between 10:17 and 11:15 pm PDT but I couldn't report it because Blogger was not available. Less than one hour so not too much to worry about.

Also, at the rate visitors are coming to Arride Graphics, I expect to see visitor number 9500 before the end of April. Nice way to start May!

About the Desktop Wallpapers

(from the Linkware page at Arride Graphics)

I have noticed people looking for web page backgrounds and sets wander over to the desktop wallpaper pages. The desktop wallpapers are meant to be installed on your computer's desktop, not as web page backgrounds.

Your computer's desktop is the image on your screen after you log in. That's where your shortcut icons to your installed programs and your system are located. The wallpaper is the background image. Because the image is one piece, many of the wallpapers are very large in size, meaning as far as kilobytes and megabytes are concerned.

If you use these on web pages, the pages will load very, very slowly, as you notice when you try to download them. If they load that slow for you, imagine how slowly they will load for your visitors if you use them as web page backgrounds. That will really annoy them and drive them away, never to return to your web site again. Not good. So please do not use desktop wallpapers for web pages. Enjoy them on your computer.

If you find a desktop wallpaper appealing enough to want to use something like that for a web site, please contact me and I will consider making a web set or just a similar background for download.

Outage

An outage lasting less than one hour occurred on Saturday, April 15, beginning approximately 10:18 a.m. PDT and until 11:16 a.m. PDT.

New! A Set and A Wallpaper

As I promised last month, a new set is released today and a new desktop wallpaper, too.

The set is called "Wish You Were Here" and features a dream-like photo of two lonely, empty lounge chairs on a tropical beach just waiting for you and your honey to sit in them. If you're sick and tired of the rain and snow like I am, here's your set to make a sunny web site for your summer vacation photos, of your paradise home, your travel web site, if you're a travel pro, or whatever's your fancy. See and click the thumbnail on the Top Headers page for more.

The latest desktop wallpaper is one I've been enjoying on my own computer's desktop now. It's a detail of the largest pillar of the Eagle Nebula. You've probably seen NASA's full photo taken by the Hubble Telescope before of the Eagle Nebula with its three pillars of gases and dust. The Eagle Nebula is also called M16. Read more about this fantastic nebula at NASA's GRIN web page. To download one of three sizes of the Eagle Nebula Detail, see the Wallpapers 2 page.

Visitor 9000!

Been asleep again, but not for long. This time I "caught" the visitor only one day behind.

Visitor number 9000 uses Verizon Internet and Windows XP with the Mozilla browser. He or she was looking for spring web borders graphic but apparently didn't find it on my site. :-( They got as far as the top border backgrounds page and looked no further. Too bad.

Maybe it was just too late to look as it was just after 9 p.m. their time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hopefully they bookmarked the site for further viewing when they have the time.

Thanks for visiting, anyway, and hope you come back later!