Comment to win a HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation

You can read more about this laptop in this post where i give it a brief review.

How to Enter

“Leave a comment below stating – Why you need a new computer or Laptop (be as creative in your answer as you like!)”

Follow @designshard on Twitter and like Design Shard on Facebook, dont forget to follow the good folk over @HP too.

HP EliteBook Fresh In The Box

Terms & Conditions

  • HP sent me this laptop to keep, due to US laws i need to tell you that!
  • The competiton is open to all countries so dont worry about that, although the laptop has a US layout keyboard.
  • Please only leave one comment – Suspected multiple entries will be disqualified.

How is the winner determined?

One winner shall be picked at random using a MySQL query on the comments for this post – one random comment ID shall be selected and that will be the lucky winner! make sure you enter your email address / Twitter ID so you can be contacted for your postal address, a winner will be announced on Friday 14th October 2011.

HP EliteBook

HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation Review

HP EliteBook 8740w

First Impressions & Overview

The HP EliteBook 8740w has a very distinct grey metal finish to the outer casing which makes it look particularly classy and durable. its scratch resistant and also helps protect against general wear and tear.

The weight of the laptop is something to be desired as it is particularly heavy, but to be honest this can be overlooked due the specification which out performs most desktop computers.

The HP DreamColor LED-backlit screen is very bright and makes most graphics pop, it really is better than most desktop LCD displays which makes me very envious when I’m using my desktop computer.

The battery on this thing only lasts about 1.5 hours on full charge, must be all that top notch hardware draining the power!

Technical Specification

As you can see it has a bit of a power house when it comes to hardware.

Who is it aimed at?

This laptop is targeted towards the creative industry whether it be for people using resource heavy applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Cinema 4D this laptop can handle it.

I’ve been using this laptop fine with multiple Adobe suite programs open such as Illustrator, Photoshop Dreamweaver and having Firefox open with multiple tabs…the laptop still runs very smooth.

HP EliteBook Front

What Others Think

If you want to find out more about this laptop check out what some other bloggers have been saying.

  • Solid Smack many photos and lots of reading! – Read Review
  • Fuel Your Creativity a series of mini reviews – Read Review
  • Icrontic a more technical review with photos and videos – Read Review

12 Top Quality Photoshop Light Effect Tutorials

Below are a few Photoshop light effect tutorials that have caught my eye while looking over the tutorial sites, for me these produce the best results while using brushes, blurs and other media such as textures to create a top quality effect.

Create Awesome Abstract Nebula Circle Shape in Photoshop

Covers using filters with textures such as the twirl filter and warp filter with a Nebula star texture making for impressive results.

Create Awesome Abstract Nebula Circle Shape in Photoshop

Create a Colorful Aged Poster With Special Lighting Effects

You’ll learn how to use texture and adjustment layers to create an aging effect on a colorful abstract poster design.

Create a Colorful Aged Poster With Special Lighting Effects

Create a Surreal Girl with a Raven Composition in Photoshop Tutorial

Loads of great tricks in this tutorial. If you want to take your creative composition skills to the next level, this Photoshop tutorial is perfect for you as it involves illustration, textures and Photoshop.

Create a Surreal Girl with a Raven Composition in Photoshop Tutorial

The Making of “Constant Slip”

This is more a process description of making this illustration, than a detailed step by step how to, but is very detailed and can lead to some very creative ways of achieving light effects.

The Making of Constant Slip

Achieve Brilliant Lighting Effects in Photoshop

Using default brushes, blending options and a few stock images, you’ll learn step by step a variety of techniques that you can use in your own digital artworks to achieve professional results.

Achieve Brilliant Lighting Effects in Photoshop

Add Brilliant Light Effects to Your Work with Photoshop

Several super easy techniques for incorporating remarkable light effects to your work using Photoshop. Including making your own set of abstract brushes and working with textures.

Add Brilliant Light Effects to Your Work with Photoshop

Create a Cosmic-Inspired Dreamy Scene in Photoshop

A demonstration of how to use stock photography, 3d elements, and various techniques to create a cosmic-inspired Photoshop master piece.

Create a Cosmic-Inspired Dreamy Scene in Photoshop

Create A Gorgeous Light Effect Using Photoshop

Using soft brushes and smoke textures allows you to create simple yet effective light effect all is explained.

Create A Gorgeous Light Effect Using Photoshop

Creating a Surreal Smoking Bird Composition in Photoshop

Making a monochromatic scene with the subject being a bird with smoke surrounding its body. Using a high contrast stock image combined with smoke brushes.

Creating a Surreal Smoking Bird Composition in Photoshop

How to enhance your subjects with striking light effects in Photoshop

A simple technique that can be used to enhance any kind of subject with stunning light effects. Using a particular selection tools, gradients and brushes to achieve the result.

How to enhance your subjects with striking light effects in Photoshop

MSNBC New Background Design in Photoshop

Plenty and blur effects and colours to create a simple vibrant background.

MSNBC New Background Design in Photoshop

Show me the light digital art tutorial

How to use stock images to make a beautiful digital artwork with nicely colored lights, All you need for this tutorial is the provided colors in Motion textures pack and a model.

Show me the light digital art tutorial

Comments

Have any favourite Photoshop light effect tutorials let us know in the comments, also if there are any that aren’t on the list that are awesome let us know in the comments or on Twitter thanks.

15 Awesome 3D Text Effect Tutorials

I like to think that this is a list of some of the more high quality 3D text effect tutorials out there, Some of these aren’t for the faint hearted as they use programs such as Xara and 3DS Max, then they are imported in to Photoshop to get the desired results.

While some are quite labour intensive there are some that can be quite easily achieved just by using Photoshop…see my selection below.

Colourful Exploding 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D

Colourful Exploding 3D Text Effect

Glossy 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop, Xara 3D6

Glossy 3D Text Effect

Retro Sci-fi 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D

Retro Sci-fi 3D Text Effect

Realistic 3D Water Text effect

Programs used: Photoshop CS5

water text effect

Polished 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop

Polished 3D Text Effect

Steam Punk 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D

Steam Punk 3D Text Effect

Simple 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop

Simple 3D Text Effect

3D Shattered Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop, Cinema 4D

3D Shattered Text EffectTypographic 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop CS+, Cinema 4D

Typographic 3D Text Effect

Modern 3D Typography Poster

Programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator, 3DS Max

Modern 3D Typography Poster

3D Light Streak text Effect

Programs used: Illustrator

3D Light Streak text Effect

Retro 3D Arcade Text Effect

Programs used: Illustrator

Retro 3D Arcade Text Effect

3D Layered Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop

3D Layered Text Effect

Colourful 3D Text Composition

Programs used: Photoshop, Xara 3D6

Colourful 3D Text Composition

Warped 3D Text Effect

Programs used: Photoshop CS5

Warped 3D Text Effect

Comments…

Have you seen any great 3D Type tutorials out there? , which ones do you like the look of the most? let us know in the comments…

25 Examples of Clean and Well designed Web Sites

Ive been looking around the web to try and find some examples of clean well structured sites, this maybe a unique layout or just simply presented well with some good typography, spacing or initial first impression of the site, here are just a few of the ones I’m liking.

Brian Hoff

brianhoff

Kyle Steed

kylesteed

Spoon Graphics

spoongraphics

Sushi and Robots

sushiandrobots

New To York

newtoyork

Adrian Pelletier

adrianpelletier

Ribbons of Red

ribbonsofred

Purple Rain Cloud

purpleraincloud

Snook

snook

Tobias Ahlin

tobiasahlin

Srburns

srburns

8 Interactive

8interactive

Stuff and Nonsense

stuffandnonsense

Lift Interactive

liftinteractive

Jason Reynolds

jason-reynolds

Marten dejongh

martendejongh

Mutt Ink

muttink

Rainbeau Mars

rainbeaumars

Mark Boulton

markboulton

Simple Bits

simplebits

Ainsworth Studio

ainsworthstudio

The Darling Tree

thedarlingtree

Pixel Craft

pixelcraft

z8

z8

Glue

glue

Comments

Have your seen any well designed web sites on your travels around the web, if so feel free to post a link in the comments?