Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/Oc8eL2-osBI/master-adobe-cc-with-this-bundle

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Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/v1zgbdD8KFc/best-laptop-cooling-pad

The best laptop cooling pads might seem like an easy find, but search results reveal a surprising amount of choice. Why? For artists and designers using these devices for long periods of time, a laptop cooling pad is essential. Cooling a laptop allows the processors to push harder and perform better, without crashing. The challenge is finding the best cooling pad for your device, which means considering size, number of fans, power, noise, portability and more. Confused? Fret not, we've got you covered. Scroll down for our pick of the best laptop cooling pads available right now. 

First, let's take a look at the different specs you'll be dealing with. Size is a big issue. You don't want to buy a pad that's not large enough for your laptop as it won't cool it enough to offer any real benefit. Number of fans presents a similar issue, although this is more a question of power efficiency – some single-fan units can still push out a lot of cooling power. Noise is a big factor for anybody that thinks a whirring pad is going to get on their nerves (especially if this is for movie binging stints without headphones). Portability is a must for anyone using their laptop on the go, so keep that in mind when comparing size to power.

Our current favourite laptop cooling pad, which incorporates all of the above, is the Cooling Master NotePal X3. It's affordable, powerful, good looking and even comes with LED lighting – all that plus it's easy to buy from most countries via major retailers, meaning you get that peace of mind too. But while that's our pick, you might need something more specific for your needs. Read on to find the best for you.

The best laptops for graphic design

The Cooler Master NotePal X3 is a beast of a cooling pad that is capable of chilling laptops up to 17-inches in size. This is done using a single, giant 200mm fan that is able to spin at up to an impressive 850 RPM. That speed can be controlled using a physical scroll wheel found on the side of the pad – this allows you to find the balance between noise and chilling efficiency. The LED lighting can also be controlled here allowing you to turn it off if you need. The pad is charged via USB but does offer a pass-through port meaning you can charge your phone while using this excellent cooling pad at the same time.

The Tree New Bee TNB-F003 cooling pad is a highly affordable way to get an active platform that cools your laptop. This unit features dual fans and handy clips that pop up to hold the laptop in place even when propped up on the legs at an angle. Made from ABS plastic and metal, the mesh layer is strong, grippy and able to transmit the air freely for the best cooling effect on the laptop, which can be up to 15.6-inches in size. 

The Tree New Bee TNB-K0025 cooling pad is a high-end option for those that want the best without pricing being and issue. While the mesh metallic top layer will draw away heat, the four fans circulate cooling air to the laptop that can be between 15.6 and 17-inches. There are also two anti-slip pads, dual legs to prop the laptop up, dual USB ports and fan speed controls. All that makes this ideal for designers that want to keeping pushing their laptops' limits without the worry of a crash due to overheating.

The TeckNet Quiet Laptop Cooling Pad offers a whopping five fans that work at up to 1,200 RPM yet do so very quietly. The result is a super chilled laptop that can be run to its limits, for watching or editing a 4K and HDR movie, say, all while the fans remain quiet enough to avoid affecting the experience. The dual USB allows for power while still offering space to charge a device. Also the ergonomic design allows for two angles, with grips for stability – meaning maximum viewing comfort, again, ideal for movie viewing sessions.

The Cooler Master Ergostand III is a laptop cooling pad designed for adjustability, making it ideal for designers that need to move their laptop for the best viewing angle. The super large 230mm fan is ultra silent and works in conjunction with a six-angled stand. Everything comes apart for easy cleaning to ensure maximum airflow and cooling efficiency. The four port USB hub makes charging other devices easy and everything is easily accessible, further enhancing this pad's ability to go easy on your neck and back.

The Deepcool N9 isn't the slimmest cooling pad you can buy, but it is the best slimline option for the features we think you're going to need. Not only will this support laptops up to 17-inches with its metallic and grippy two anti-slip baffle platform, but it'll cool them powerfully with its speed-adjustable 180mm fan. You can enjoy four USB ports and six angle options for ideal viewing. All that is crammed into a unit that's slim enough to take anywhere, making it ideal for pros on the move that don't want to scrimp on power or settle for anything but the perfect viewing angle.

The TopMate C5 laptop cooling pad is the best for gamers who want maximum power out of their machine and maximum cooling to keep it from crashing under the strain. Thanks to a whopping 2,500 RPM from the five fans, which somehow still remain relatively quiet, this cooling pad is ideal for high-powered gaming laptops specifically. The downside? It won't manage larger 17-inch laptops, but for up to 15.6-inch devices it offers multiple angles and kickers to hold the laptop in place. A dual USB hub allows for device charging and there's also a blue LED light so you know when that quiet fan system is active. 

The Game Lab Vortex E-Sport LED Cooling Pad offers a great combination of affordability and power that makes this a top option for gamers that want to get a powerful cooling pad on a budget. You get four fans capable of an impressive 1,400 RPM, all while staying quiet, as well as LED lighting. The brightness and power of all that can be controlled using a scroll wheel. Stands allow you to prop this cooling pad up for perfect viewing angles while ABS legs hold the laptop in place on the heat dissipating metallic mesh plate. Ideal for gamers, designers and general users alike.

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Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/create-an-automated-scoreboard-that-senses-your-score-with-a-raspberry-pi/

On an impulse just before Christmas, I bought myself an NBA “over-the-door” mini basketball hoop. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it, but having a basketball hoop for my office seemed like a good move. In the end I decided to experiment and bring some connectivity to it by hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi to give it a scoreboard display. Here’s how that went, with step-by-step instructions if you’d like to try to adapt and improve upon it!

This tutorial isn’t intended to be used as a step-by-step “do exactly as I did” style guide — my hope is that you’ll take this concept and use it for all sorts of other ideas. Add a virtual scoreboard that counts how often people come into your office. Or go with a different sport (maybe a mini soccer goal tracker?). Or use an entirely different sensor but track hits on it visually with a Raspberry Pi! There are so many potential applications of this technique. Try stuff and let me know how you go!

What You’ll Need

In order to be able to follow along and make something similar, here’s a list of the parts I used (or their equivalent for the things I had around my lab already):

Raspberry Pi 3 B+ — I used an older version of this from 2015, if you’re going to buy one, get a newer version like this!
A MicroSD card with NOOBS — if you are looking to install this yourself and have an SD card ready to go Raspberry Pi foundation have a guide on how to do so here.
Spalding NBA Slam Jam Over-The-Door Mini Basketball Hoop — This is the mini basketball hoop I used. You could use a different one — especially if its net works better!
Raspberry Pi 3.3190G 7″ Touchscreen Display — This is my favourite display for the Raspberry Pi, it is a touchscreen, so you can interact with the UI without needing to connect up a mouse.
RS Raspberry Pi 7-Inch LCD Touch Screen Case, Black — To make the display look a bit nicer when all together with the Pi, I have my Pi in this black case.
HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Measuring Sensor Module — I had a spare cheap clone HC-SR04 sensor around, but I’d recommend buying a good quality one. My one has occasional odd readings and is a bit temperamental.

One thing to note — if you don’t have a 7 inch display for your Pi, you could display the score on a nearby computer monitor too. Any device on your local network with a web browser and a screen would work!

The Code

Want to skip to downloading the code? It’s available on GitHub here.

What I put together

I hung my new basketball hoop up on a door with an ultrasonic sensor attached to the hoop to track when a ball goes into the hoop. Underneath is a Raspberry Pi powered scoreboard — I’d actually recommend finding longer cables so you can connect it outside of basketball falling range.

Me testing out my connected scoreboard — with a customised Suns themed interface!

I’ll go over why everything is as it is below — along with some suggestions for those who might want to improve upon this base!

Languages we’ll be using

JavaScript – In order to follow along, you’ll need a knowledge of the basics, but we won’t have lines upon lines of code, things are actually pretty simple in the JS side of things.
Node.js – A basic knowledge of how to run npm and Node is needed to run our scoreboard server.

Setting up our Raspberry Pi

If you are completely new to the Raspberry Pi and haven’t set anything up yet, never fear! There are many guides out there for setting things up and it’s nice and straightforward. The Raspberry Pi foundation have a step by step guide for installing the Raspbian operating system using the NOOBS operating system manager. You’ll want to make sure the operating system is running before you get onto any of the other steps.

Touchscreen setup

I put together my connected scoreboard using a Raspberry Pi 3 with touchscreen. My touchscreen and case were already put together and screwed down tight as I’ve used this Pi 3 before for other projects, however if you are starting from scratch — it isn’t too hard to connect up. Newer shipments (like mine) actually have a bunch of it already assembled, with the adapter board already screwed onto the LCD screen, if that’s the case, half the steps are already complete! Instructions on how to assemble the screen are available online:

Official instructions — these are the instructions which come with the screen in case you lose them!
The Pi Hut have their own tutorial — they explain the details of the process too.
ZDNet’s look at the touch display with case — they’ve got a good amount of detail and tips for setting up the screen and case to use in various situations.

Case setup

When it comes to putting the case around the LCD screen and Raspberry Pi, that process is also quite easy with the case I have. I already had mine together, however the general steps for this are:

Make sure you’ve already got your microUSB card inside the Raspberry Pi and are happy with how it’s running! Annoyingly with a lot of cases, you can’t get the card out once the case is in place. My case linked above is one of those… so make sure the card is all good before you lose access to it!
Place the Pi with screen into place inside the case
Arrange the ribbon cables and cables coming from the GPIO so they aren’t in the way
Make sure the holes for your USB ports and such are on the correct side of the bulkier part of the case and line up nicely.
Once everything is lined up nicely, screw in the four screws to put it all together!
Turn it on! If you find that the screen comes up upside down, don’t worry, it’s a side effect of the case manufacturers lining up the power to come out of the top. When I mounted my scoreboard though, I mounted it with the power coming out of the bottom, so this wasn’t an issue for me. If it is an issue for you:

Run sudo nano /boot/config.txt to open the config for the Pi
Then add lcd_rotate=2 to the end, this will rotate the screen around.
Press Ctrl X and the Ctrl Y to save your changes.
Restart your Pi and when it loads back up it should be the right way around!

Running Node.js on our Raspberry Pi

Conveniently, Raspbian has Node installed by default! However, it is a rather old version of Node. You can check which version is installed on your Pi by opening up the Terminal and typing in:

node -v

I’ve got version 8.15.0 installed on my Pi. You can upgrade by running the following commands:

sudo su –
apt-get remove nodered -y
apt-get remove nodejs nodejs-legacy -y
apt-get remove npm -y
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_5.x | sudo bash –
apt-get install nodejs -y

After running all of those, if you type in that version command again, you should see a better version:

node -v

You can also check npm is installed correctly by running:

npm -v

With node running on our device, we’re ready to get a scoreboard Node server running!

The post Create an Automated Scoreboard that Senses Your Score with a Raspberry Pi appeared first on SitePoint.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Designrfix/~3/9VhzWEiw4E4/editorial-designs

You may have never realized it, but editorial designs combine the way information is presented in magazines, nooks, and newspapers in such a way to catch your eye.Designing these mediums has become increasingly difficult and challenging as we have moved towards a more digital age. With that in mind, editorial designs have been adapted to […]

The post Best Examples Of Editorial Designs To Inspire Your Creativity appeared first on designrfix.com.