DJ SirJim's blog: "Skin Creation"

For those of you who do not know, I make "Free Skins" for everyone's use. I say they are free because the only thing I ask in return is that you Fan Me, Rate Me, Friend Me, and rate and comment a few photos. My skins cover a WIDE variety of topics such as Autism Awareness Breast Cancer Awareness Support Our Troupes Bands Movies Unicorns Fairies Wiccan / Pegan Goth Winnie The Pooh Tinkerbell Lions, Tigers and Bears (OH MY) Sports Teams Hot Rocks Radio and too many more to mention in detail. Stop by my page and scroll all the way to the bottom where it says browse users skins. Feel free to rip and use any you like and tell your friends! SirJim - HRR -

@ CherryTAP Live Video Feed of me writing HTML,XHTML and CSS ->

For those of you that have requested a special made skin, they are done and ready to be ripped. If I could not find a picture that you wanted I left you a message to send me one that you would like as a background. IF you ever requested a skin and have not heard from me, then I am SO SORRY. PLEASE COMMENT TO THIS POST WITH YOUR REQUEST. If you haven't requested a skin from me and would like one made for you.... then PLEASE COMMENT TO THIS POST WITH YOUR REQUEST. For those who have no idea what I am talking about, here is my original post. ------------------------------------------------- Hey all. It is amazing. I started off by maing a few skins to improve my HTML programming skills (I guess I'm too white and Nerdy) and next thing I know... it is almost a full time job keeping up with special requests. LOL! I think it is awsome that most of you returned the love by rating all my pictures and commenting so that I knew you were there. Those who don't... Oh well... The song Instant Karma comes to mind. Anyways, I have found that it is getting hard for me to track who wants what made, so hence this blog. If you want a special skin made for you, PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT on this blog. Let me know what picture or topic you want in the background and if you have a link to a particular picture that would help a lot. Also, if you have already requested a skin, PLEASE re-request it (I am making up words now) by commenting here also. This way your request will not fall away to never never land. I am so glad to see so many of you using my skins. It makes me happy that you seem to enjoy my work. Now if I can figure out how to make some money doing this. LOL! Live Video Feed of me writing HTML,XHTML and CSS ->

Every once in awhile I get questions on creating skins. I have several blogs that answer these questions. Here is a really good one that I thought I would share with everyone. TY CINDY for the question! === 'Cindy' spewed forth the following at '2006-12-05 09:41:23'.. > I was wondering, when I am making a new skin. How do I set the background that I am using for it to just one big picture instead of having it tiled ? > > First you need to resize the picture to be big... Usually 600 Hight is best due to how some people set their views up... This way it looks good no matter what resolution they use. Then you want the lines to read something like: background-attachment: fixed; background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; This tells it that you want the background to stay in place and not move when you scroll, place it top and cetner, and leave it as 1 pic not repeat. You can change the location depending on what you want the page to look like... Example background-position: Bottom Left; will put the image in the lower left hand corner. I hope this helps!

I have been asked by A LOT of people "How can I create my own skins for LC. Well here is my attempt to help. DISCLAIMER OK, please understand that what I am going to show you is really poorly written code. It works for most things, but when building a professional web page you want to make sure that it would also translate well to PDA's, Web Phones, etc... But this takes some shortcuts and to explain further would be book, not a blog. JUST THE BASICS Here is the basic for the body of a page: body {background-image: url(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g7/YOURPIC.jpg); background-attachment: fixed; background-position:top Left; background-repeat:repeat; The first line tells the browser that you want to display an image and gives the address of what image to use from photo bucket or whatever. If you do not have photobucket or another server that you store pictures on that gives you the HTML code, go to www.photobucket.com. It is free! The second line tells the browser that you want this image to be fixed in place so it doesn't scroll when the user scrolls down the page. I like to use this option 99% of the time. If you want it to scroll, then leave this out. The third line tells the browser where to place the photo. (First Vertically, then Horizontally). The commands are common English. Top, Center, or Bottom (Vert) and then Left, Center, or Right (Horz). This can be used in any combination. EXAMPLE background-position: Center Center; will place the photo in the center of the person's browser vertically and horizontally. The fourth line tells the background if you only want to display the picture once or if you want it to repeat to fill the entire page. To not repeat it would look like background-repeat: no-repeat; If you want it to repeat then background-repeat: repeat; Now as far as changing the colors, font, etc, this is where it gets too complicated for a blog. So what I would suggest for your first few is to browse through my skins and find one that uses a color combination that you like, rip it, then change the background image. (Put the http info from the picture that you stored in photobucket into the parenthasise in the background image url line. Rename the skin, and Ta-da. You have created your first skin. Below is an example of what the code looks like. Feel free to copy and paste this into a new skin, and then change the background image to one of yours. body { background-image: url(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g7/YOURPIC.jpg); background-attachment: fixed; background-position:top Left; background-repeat:repeat; } table.user { border:none; padding:5px; } td.user_left { text-align:center; padding-left:2em; padding-right:2em; } td.user_right { text-align:left; padding-left:2em; padding-right:2em; } td.user_center { text-align:center; padding-left:1em; padding-right:1em; } table.user_opts { border:1px solid grey; background-color:transparent; text-align:left; padding:5px; width:100%; } td.user_opts { text-align:left; padding:2px; } table.poke_box { border:1px solid red; background-color:transparent; text-align:left; padding:5px; width:100%; } th.poke_box { font-size:11px; color:yellow; font-weight:bold; background-color:transparent; } td.poke_box { font-size:10px; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:5px; } a.poke_box_opt { font-size:10px; color:red; text-decoration:underline; font-weight:bold; } a.blast_link_body { color:white; text-decoration:none; } table.tabbed_friends_family { } td.tabbed_friends_family_thumbnail { } td.tabbed_friends_family_name { } table.my_friends { border: 1px solid white; background: transparent; background-color:transparent; padding:3px; } td.my_friends_top_sep { text-align: center; font-size:12px; font-weight:bold; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:5px; } td.my_fans_top_sep { text-align: center; font-size:12px; font-weight:bold; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:5px; } td.my_fans_sep { text-align:center; padding-right:3px; padding-left:3px; } table.my_fans { border: 1px solid white; background: transparent; background-color:transparent; } td.my_fans_top { text-align: center; font-size:12px; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:5px; } td.my_fans { text-align:center; } table.my_fan_of { border: 1px solid white; background: transparent; background-color:transparent; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:5px; } td.my_fan_of_top { text-align: center; } td.my_fan_of { text-align:center; } table.referral_path { font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; color: white; text-indent: 0; text-align:left; padding-bottom:5px; background-color:transparent; } td.referral_path { text-align:left; background-color:transparent; } a.referral_path_me { font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; color: red; font-style:italic; text-align:center; } table.user_info { border-top-style: inset; border-top-color: white; border-top-width: thin; background-color:transparent; } td.user_info_name { color: yellow; text-align:center; font-size: medium; background-color:transparent; } td.user_info { text-align: center; color: white; background-color:transparent; } td.user_info_c { text-align: center; color: white; background-color:transparent; } table.user_info_c { text-align: center; color: white; background-color:transparent; } td.user_info_r { text-align: right; text-indent: 10; color: white; } td.user_info_l { text-align: left; color: white; } table.user_music { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_music_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_music_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.play_track { text-align:center; padding:10px; background-color:transparent; border:1px solid red; } td.play_track_hdr { font-weight:bold; text-align:right; padding:5px; } td.play_track { text-align:center; padding:3px; color:red; } td.play_track_r { text-align:right; padding:3px; color:red; } td.play_track_l { text-align:left; font-weight:bold; padding:3px; color:white; } table.user_aboutme { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_aboutme_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_aboutme_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.user_games { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_games_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_games_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.user_music { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_music_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_music_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.user_general { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_general_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_general_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.user_movies { border:1px solid white; text-align:left; padding: 2px; } td.user_movies_hdr { text-align:left; color:black; background-color:white; padding:2px; font-size:medium; } td.user_movies_data { text-align:left; color:white; background-color:transparent; padding:2px } table.leave_comment_box { border:1px solid white; padding:10px; background-color:transparent; background:transparent; text-align:center; } td.leave_comment_box_hdr { text-align:center; padding:5px; color:yellow; border-bottom:1px solid yellow; font-size:larger; background-color:black; } td.leave_comment_box_body { padding:5px; background-color:black; } table.user_rating_box { border:1px solid red; text-align:center; padding:3px; background-color:transparent; } td.user_rating_current { background-color:transparent; padding:3px; } td.user_already_rated { text-align:center; font-size:10px; color:#CCCCCC; background-color:transparent; } td.rating_anon_desc { text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; font-size:10px; font-style:italic; color:#CCCCCC; background-color:transparent; } table.top_lists { padding:5px; background-color:black; border:1px solid #990000; } td.top_lists_hdr { padding:5px; text-align:center; background-color:transparent; color:yellow; font-weight:bold; font-size:14px; } td.top_lists { padding:5px; text-align:center; background-color:transparent; font-size:14px; } table.user_comment { padding:3px; background-color:transparent; background:transparent; text-align:left; border-bottom:1px solid red; } td.user_comment_user { border:none; padding:3px; background-color:transparent; text-align:center; } td.user_comment_hdr { font-size:9px; font-weight:bold; color:white; border-bottom:1px solid red; background-color:transparent; } td.user_comment_body { text-align:left; background-color:transparent; } td.user_comment_date { color:grey; font-style:italic; border-bottom:1px dashed grey; font-size:9px; padding-top:3px; background-color:transparent; } table.profile_viewers_small { text-align:center; color:white; padding:2px; background-color:transparent; } td.profile_viewers_border { text-align:center; color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid white; } td.profile_viewers { text-align: center; color: white; padding:4px; }

OMG, I am sorry to do this, but I am tired of the whinning and crying on here. This is strictly my oppinion and if you agree you can repost, if you do not, then please ignore. When I started on cherry I was naive and thought that when I would go to someone's page and rated ALL their pictures, added them as a fan, a friend, and left all the cherry love I could, that the favor would be returned. However I quickly learned that not everyone did this. I even went as far as posting things as stupid as I am going to remove you from my friend list unless... God what a fool I was. Since then I have came to the conclusion that I am a good person and will continue to do what is right no matter if it is returned or not. That is just life. Even though I make tons of skins for everyone to rip in tons of different themes (most of which I have no interest in but I know others do) I honestly do not expect everyone to take even a quarter of the time it took me to make the skin to go through my pictures and comment on them. For those of us that are honest and good, it may be a shock, but EVERY DAY, I will see at least 10 people who have visited my site and not left me a user comment. However, when I go back to their page, they are using one or more of my skins. I did the math and if everyone who ever ripped one of my skins left me 5 ratings on my photos and 5 comments, I would be at level 30 already. BUT, the reality is... that is not why I do it nor should be why anyone on Cherry does what they do. This is just a way to express yourself and makes some friends along the way. There are TONS of really cool people here who will actually leave messages to people on their friend lists whenever they are on, even if that is every day, every few days or once a month. They will stop by and see what is new and leave some point. I would love to add the names and links to the pages of the people thaqt are great. If you hear from me every day or few days, you know who you are... but you may not want your name in this post. But what I cannot stand to see is people crying about things like "Wah... someone rated me all ones", "Why are my photos not in the top ten", etc. etc. etc. I have seen that most of these posts are by people who I have accepted as friends and have rated and commented on all their pics but have yet to return the favor. My main feeling is that what goes around comes around. If you actually take the time to be a real person and get to know people, then their are no worries. If you are on here for yourself and your points, then you get what you deserve. Having said this, here is my promise to all my friends and the cool people of LC. 1) If you take the time to rate all my pics and comment along the way to let me know you were there, I WILL return the favor. If I do not do it that day, do not worry, I WILL do it. I think you rock and I want to see you level up. 2) If you are on my family list, I will visit your page and leave a message every day that I am on. You are a true friend and I have gotten to know you through chat either on here or pogo.com. Anything that you want or need from me is yours. You are very special and I enjoy hearing from you. 3) If you are not on my family list but do stop by every few days or so, I will ALWAYS do the same. Unfortunately Cherry only allows me so many spots on the family list. I would love to add you, and WILL when more spots open. It does not mean that you do not share a space in my heart. 4) If you are a friend that sends comments every once in awhile and you enter a contest, I will vote for you. If you are on my friend list and I have not heard from you since the last contest, well I may still be nice and vote for you, but that may be all. 5) No matter if I get any regognition for it or not, I will continue to make skins for everyone. I do not care if you even say hi when you rip them. I make them for you all and I hope you enjoy them. So forgive me, I am getting off my soapbox and will never say this again. Just please quit worrying about what everyone else does. Do things for yourself or do not do them at all. If you are worried about a stupid point system or worried about what others think, then you need to take time to reflect on who you are. I love you all and I hope that my true friends understand where I am coming from.

Tis the season to be gory.... I have just created 15 new Halloween skins at the time that I write this. There are many more on the way so come by often to see what is new. Please go check out my page, browse my skins and rip any that you like. IF you take one or more, please do the common courtesy of sharing the Cherry love... you know... Add me as a fan, a friend, rate my profile a 10, rate my photos as a 10, leave tons of comments, promise me your first born... the usual. :) Know that it takes me 15 min to an hour to make each skin depending on the color combination etc. IF you have a particular picture and or color combination that you want, send me a private message with a link to the photo and what colors you want for the text. If you have no color preference I am really good at picking the best color scheme to go with the background. For an example of my work, come check out my page several times. I have a few of my favorites set to random. Also, please respect my wishes on skins that say (DO NOT RIP). These are made for specific members that want their own special skin... I will do the same for you and I expect the same courtesy from others not to rip a skin that is specially made for you. :) HOW TO RIP A SKIN 1) Go to my page... (click on the link at the bottom of this message). 2) Scroll all the way down until you cannot scroll any more. You should see pictures of the people who last viewed my profile. 3) Below that you should see links that say something like Rip This Skin and Browse Users Skins. Select BROWSE. This will give you a complete listing of the skins I made. 4) For any skin that you want to see, click preview. When you find one (or more) that you like, click Rip Skin. 5) Go to your home page. In the top box on the left is "My Skins". Click this. Then turn off any skins you do not want to use and turn on any skins that you want to display. If you only choose 1 it will be the skin that ALWAYS shows when people come to your page. If you turn on more than one, then it will be random to which one shows when people view your page. And there you go. Now just make sure to show me some cherry love. :) PLEASE KNOW that if you want anything made specifically for you, I will do so. Just ask by leaving a request on my Skins Request Blog. The link to my page is: SirJim

@ LostCherry

Hey all. It is amazing. I started off by maing a few skins to improve my HTML programming skills (I guess I'm too white and Nerdy) and next thing I know... it is almost a full time job keeping up with special requests. LOL! I think it is awsome that most of you returned the love by rating all my pictures and commenting so that I knew you were there. Those who don't... Oh well... The song Instant Karma comes to mind. Anyways, I have found that it is getting hard for me to track who wants what made, so hence this blog. If you want a special skin made for you, PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT on this blog. Let me know what picture or topic you want in the background and if you have a link to a particular picture that would help a lot. Also, if you have already requested a skin, PLEASE re-request it (I am making up words now) by commenting here also. This way your request will not fall away to never never land. I am so glad to see so many of you using my skins. It makes me happy that you seem to enjoy my work. Now if I can figure out how to make some money doing this. LOL! Live Video Feed of me writing HTML,XHTML and CSS ->

Just thought I would let those know that have friend requests in to me that I have created skins for... Once Cherry fixes the comment problem I will accept your friend requests. The problem is that when I accept a friend I make sure and rate their photos, leave tons of comments, etc. And unfortunately, once you accept a friend, the request goes away and if you have a lot of people on your friends list, the new ones can get lost in the shuffle. I just want to make sure that I share the cherry love.

Hey everyone. In case you didn't know, I love to create skins for everyone to use. Here is a list of the skins I have created so far. Bubbles2 Dolphin Bass Cuff Me Please Irish Love Sparkle Butterfly Heart Bubble Ribbon Cammo2 Celtic Purple Bubbles Cammo3 Purple Dragon America1 America2 Daisy Pooh Bear 1 Devil Girl Sept 11 One John Deer John Deere2 Rush 2112 Sept 11 two Sept 11 Three Sept 11 Four Sept 11 Five Sept 11 Six Sept 11 Seven Sept 11 NINE Sept 11 Eight Goth1 Support Troups Purple Love Unicorn 4 Chicago Skyline Dark Dragon Rush 2 K Chesny Blue Man Group 2 Purple Cat Dragon B Teal Dragon Dragon 3 Red Rocker Smiley Faces Weeeeeee! Pagan Calendar Ocean DragonRed Tiger Stripes Da Bears Smurfette Pooh Sexy Fairy Dark Candle LOR 1 Fairey1 Fairey2 Grim1 Black Dragon zombie Dark Angel White Wolves White Wolves 2 Dark Blue Pagan Black Rose Goth2 China Goth Goth3 South Park Goth Zombie 2 Goth Cry Orange & Blue Bones (Rush) Wavy Flag Yellow Rose PSYCHODELIC BLUE SWIRL Red Glitter Roses Purple Roses Purdue Boilermakers1 Fyre's Dragon Skin White Angel Pegasus 1 Ovarian Cancer Skin Vamp Fairy Blue Alien Blue Pegasus FlowerLove Moon Woman Pink Purple Teal Halloween 1 Pink Tink 2 Ma Love 2 (DO NOT RIP) Ma Love1 (DO NOT RIP) Tinkerbell Sparkle Tinkerbell 2 Breast Cancer Awareness Please go check out my page, browse my skins and rip any that you like. IF you take one or more, please do the common courtesy of sharing the Cherry love... you know... Add me as a fan, a friend, rate my profile a 10, rate my photos as a 10, leave tons of comments, promise me your first born... the usual. :) Know that it takes me 15 min to an hour to make each skin depending on the color combination etc. IF you have a particular picture and or color combination that you want, send me a private message with a link to the photo and what colors you want for the text. If you have no color preference I am really good at picking the best color scheme to go with the background. For an example of my work, come check out my page several times. I have a few of my favorites set to random. Also, please respect my wishes on skins that say (DO NOT RIP). These are made for specific members that want their own special skin... I will do the same for you and I expect the same courtesy from others not to rip a skin that is specially made for you. :) HOW TO RIP A SKIN 1) Go to my page... (click on the link at the bottom of this message). 2) Scroll all the way down until you cannot scroll any more. You should see pictures of the people who last viewed my profile. 3) Below that you should see links that say something like Rip This Skin and Browse Users Skins. Select BROWSE. This will give you a complete listing of the skins I made. 4) For any skin that you want to see, click preview. When you find one (or more) that you like, click Rip Skin. 5) Go to your home page. In the top box on the left is "My Skins". Click this. Then turn off any skins you do not want to use and turn on any skins that you want to display. If you only choose 1 it will be the skin that ALWAYS shows when people come to your page. If you turn on more than one, then it will be random to which one shows when people view your page. And there you go. Now just make sure to show me some cherry love. :) PLEASE KNOW that if you want anything made specifically for you, I will do so. Just ask. The link to my page is: SirJim

@ LostCherry