Frank Varro

It varies by state, but most states you CAN get licensed without the degree. However, many states require a LONG time, like 7 years (!!!) of work experience before you can take the test, verses 2-3 with a degree. You may well find a job, but with the economy still sucking, and a large amount of BSLA. MLA, and experienced designers still looking…[Read more]

It seems to be a firefox thing, as my fiance had the same problem, but it went away when she reopened it in explorer.

I had no idea there was a paperback even out yet. The Hardcover is looking to be a little less then I was saying on some sites too though…

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Landscape-Architectural-Graphic-Standards/Leonard-J-Hopper/e/9780471477556/?itm=1

OK, First, brand wise, I would look at Toshiba, Gateway, AlienWare, and HP. My Fiance’ has a Toshiba Laptop, and the things are built like tanks. HPs are also very well built. Gateway and Alienware are good proformance machines, although their good builds might be a tad out of your price range (1200 and up or so). I wouldn’t go Sony, as you seem…[Read more]

Check out “Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards”. Its published by Wiley, and seems to be a little more graphic based than Time Saver, is more up to date in terms of green infrastructure, and just a little more all-encompassing. Its not cheap ($230 ish), but seems like it is worth it.

Mine is Designplustech.wordpress.com
I mostly have been doing photoshop rendering tutorials, but I post on areas that intersect between Design and Technology.

It’s really more of a service few people KNOW they need. Most don’t know that a good landscape can (when the market starts to get back on its feet) increase your home value by, i seem to remember the number being in the neighborhood of, 5-15%. And that’s for private homes.

The way i describe LA: In every city you have buildings, and everything…[Read more]

Ok, This story just popped up today. Its for gaming CPUs, but same general stuff applies for graphic needs. http://gizmodo.com/5513561/the-fastest-gaming-processors-for-any-budget

I would go Intel simply for the fact that they have the i7 chips. As far as ATI vs. InVidia, I haven’t researched that lately. I would head over to a site that does benchmarking for gaming and see how the different processors and graphics cards stack up. It always is better to look model by model than brand by brand in general, as there are always…[Read more]

You could also buy a PC laptop; look at Asus, Gateway, HP or Alienware. For about as much as you would drop on a macbook pro you can get a KILLER mobile gaming rig (AKA graphics powerhouse!)

At Best Buy you can spend $2499 for a 17″ Macbook Pro with Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor 2.8GHz; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; 500GB hard dri…[Read more]

I would go PC, as everyone else has said, based on things like AutoCAD, and the fact that most firms you work in will use PCs as well.

You do also pay an extra 10-20% for that little glowing apple logo, so I would shy away from them for that reason as well, personally. As far as what type fo specs your looking for, it all depends on what you want…[Read more]

I would say the ease of graphic design software, whether talking about Indesign, Dreamweaver, or Powerpoint, has had done two things. First, for people who know how to do good graphic design, they have more tools than ever, and can make some amazing pieces of work. Secondly, and more unfortunately, many of these programs have helper tools that can…[Read more]

same story here as nrschmid. Both with the calls every month asking if I want to activate a trial now that they added cad integration, and with the feeling about the graphics. the fact that you can do basic animation and lighting, along with its plant image database, give it an edge over Sketchup, but not much of one in my opinion. It does ad some…[Read more]

I would say limiting you employees is extremely short sighted on a few levels:

First, you partially hired an employee for their graphics they brought with them. Asking them to tweak some stuff is not out of line, but if you want a totally different result prepare for a LOT of growing pains as they switch techniques and software.

Second, assuming…[Read more]

So make it graduate school? (Seriously, every late night in rad school we would ALL talk about how if someone threw hidden cameras up they could blow project runway out of the water with the drama that went on in that building…)

Wow guys, awesome feedback!

Sousuke, I hadn’t thought about doing that, but that is a damn smart idea.

NR, nice to hear from you again! A lot of this type of thing is… shall we say… “Pending”. The flash site, as of now, is really just a stand-in site. Used it to learn flash, and hide my old site which, while it is ok, it is poorly…[Read more]

I have two, a non-flash and a flash- both can be found at http://www.fvarro.com

The first thing is to set a way to organize the site that will make it easy to navigate both for you and your users. Along with this step comes creating a basic view of the site- where are the menu buttons, where do images go, text, ect… These will influence each other…[Read more]

Without knowing the specifics of what you were doing it is a little tough to say how I would state it in your shoes, however, I would try to think of whatever things you worked on that had some relevant experience, and call those out. Even if it was being a handy man, list that, and mention any ways in which it has potential to make you a better…[Read more]

Yeah I generally use Sketchup for my modeling, and then pull it into 3DS Max for lighting and material work. Realistically, you could probably spend a full semester working on lighting and texture/material work alone in that program too. I don’t have any experience working with Rhino, but was planning on starting to mess around with it, as I have…[Read more]

First, I must say that while OFTEN hand graphics are better received by clients, but that is not always the case. Often, the problem with computer drawn plans is that they look to cold, where the problem is really not that it is rendered by a computer, or in photoshop, but the methods used to make the drawings are not up to par. Also there is a…[Read more]