Moazzam's Ramblings

Author: Moazzam

  • A second look at Zephir

    Ever since I found out about Zephir, I have been very curious about it. I mean compiled PHP code. How awesome is that? Also, Zephir code doesn’t have to be compiled into a PHP extension. You can just convert it to binary and run it normally like any other PHP code. Why spend a lot…

  • Macports Ruby: Symbol not found: _SSLv2_client_method error

    This error usually shows up when you try to run the following command: sudo gem install For those that don’t know what I am talking about, this is the error message: ERROR: Loading command: install (LoadError) dlopen(/opt/local/lib/ruby2.2/2.2.0/x86_64-darwin15/openssl.bundle, 9): Symbol not found: _SSLv2_client_method Referenced from: /opt/local/lib/ruby2.2/2.2.0/x86_64-darwin15/openssl.bundle Expected in: /opt/local/lib/libssl.1.0.0.dylib in /opt/local/lib/ruby2.2/2.2.0/x86_64-darwin15/openssl.bundle – /opt/local/lib/ruby2.2/2.2.0/x86_64-darwin15/openssl.bundle The only way…

  • Oil paints with fast drying time (but not too fast)

    As some of you know, I mostly used acrylic paints because they don’t take ages to dry (unlike some of my initial oil paintings which took almost a month to dry). Who wants to wait a month to varnish their painting? Or worse, some artists wait 6 months to a year. As annoying as the…

  • Setting, removing and reading cookies in Javascript

    Copy/paste these methods and use them /** * Create a cookie * * @param string name * @param mixed value * @param int days */ function createCookie(name,value,days) { if (days) { var date = new Date(); date.setTime(date.getTime()+(days*24*60*60*1000)); var expires = “; expires=”+date.toGMTString(); } else var expires = “”; document.cookie = name+”=”+value+expires+”; path=/”; } /** *…

  • My latest painting

    Lately, I have been painting a lot of 8×10 paintings on canvas panels. They don’t take much time and you can keep the panel on your lap, or wherever you feel comfortable. Another advantage of doing an 8×10 inch painting is that you can experiment different with different techniques and see the result fairly quickly.…

  • Beware of the pouring medium

    Beware of the pouring medium mixed with water as it can destroy your painting. I had a painting I had been meaning to varnish for a few months and finally decided to do it 3 days ago. For isolation coat, I figured I would use the pouring medium sold by Liquitex. It levels itself and…

  • An unconventional painting

    Unconventional for me, anyway. This was the first time I painted on a wood plank. I think it came out alright. Here it is:

  • Hyper-realistic beaky beans

    While going through my books, I came across this painting/drawing/whatever-it’s-called I did quite some time ago. I was trying to paint a can of beans but I got the name wrong and a new type of beans were invented – the beaky beans. Here is the painting:

  • My misadventures with paint brushes and pig hair

    When I started painting about a year ago, I knew that I was not allowed to use any brush made of human hair (Islam forbids it to the best of my knowledge). Human hair was very common for soft brushes a few years ago so I took extra pre-cautions and made sure I didn’t buy…

  • Synthetic alternative to hog bristle brushes

    I will add more brushes as I come across them but here is a line of brushes I have fallen in love with : http://www.dickblick.com/products/princeton-catalyst-polytip-bristle-brushes/ I bought a few of these brushes and had a chance to try the fan brush. It has become my favorite. Their fan brush is almost as stiff as a…