Archive for February, 2007

農曆新豬年豬朋狗友祝福語句

.icio(I made a hilarious Chinese new year greeting message tailored for the year of the Pig. Unfortunately it’s hilarious only if you understand Chinese language & a bit of Chinese new year culture. I wished I could translate it into English without losing its hilarity… Sorry about that) 

小弟創作了一段給豬年度身訂做的惡搞版祝福語句,將用於AniGreetings動畫賀卡發給某些親朋戚友。以下是賀卡的預覽 :

Preview snapshot of an AniGreeting

我已把這個anigreeting上載YouTube:

若你打算發anigreetings給你的親朋戚友,不妨參考一下。假如你是屬雞,收件人是屬馬,那麼用「雞朋」、「馬友」或會比用「豬朋」、「狗友」更合適!如想個人化此豬年財神AniGreeting動畫賀卡,請按此


1 comment February 17, 2007

Chinese New Year Greeting Words or Phrases

Here’re a collection of popular Chinese new year auspicious greeting and blessing phrases in Chinese along with an English translation for each. Phrases that consist of 4 Chinese characters are most commonly used formats, although there’re phrases that consist of 5 or 7 characters.

4-Character Phrases (吉祥語句)

恭喜發財 : wish you have good fortune

財源廣進 : may there be more sources of income/revenue

年年有餘 : may there be surpluses every year

歲歲平安 : may you live safely and peacefully every year

和氣生財 : harmony brings wealth

招財進寶 : wish you can attract plenty of money and treasures

一帆風順 : wishing you every success

心想事成 : may all your wishes come true

萬事如意 / 萬事勝意 : wish everything works out as you’ve expected

身體健康 : wish you have good health

生意興隆 : may your business flourish and prosper

步步高陞 : may your career grow  

學業猛進 : wish you the best on your study (for students)

年生貴子 : may your family have new gem members this year

To get an idea of how to say any of the above phrases, click here to go to an experimental online Chinese text-to-speech system from MS. Copy the phrase over there, select Chinese, then click “Synthesize”.

Consider sending a Chinese new year AniGreeting, personalized with any of the above phrases, to each of your friends and love ones to show you care! AniGreetings are more than traditional e-cards. You may personalize an anigreeting with not only photos and words entered from keyboard, but also your handwritings and drawings. As your friends and love ones may save a copy of your anigreetings to themselves, you give your recipients a sense of possession of your greetings. They’ll feel that you seriously care about them by sending them anigreetings.


Add comment February 16, 2007

Chinese New Year of the Pig Animated Greeting eCard (春節豬年賀卡)

In 2007, 18 Feb marks the first day of the Chinese lunar calendar year. In China, it’s a traditional period for family reunion and blessings just like christmas in other countries. It’s quite a funny period as people suddenly become superstitious on the Chinese new year day and the next few days that follow. It suddenly becomes a taboo to say anything negative to anyone. At the same time, many people suddenly become interested or knowledgeable in feng shui or other fortune-telling subjects. Many “experts” will even come out to the mass media and try to predict what will happen in the next 12 months, pretty much for the sake of gaining visibility among the community…

Anyway, I’ll also follow the tradition and stop saying anything bad from now on. Here comes my Year-of-the-Pig blessings for you in an anigreeting (a 3D animated video greeting card/e-card), with the help from one of the most popular Chinese new year god called the God of Wealth (財神) cast by our best loved pet of the year:

By the way, just a reminder that you may customize the banner shown at the last seconds of this animation. Personalize it with the name of your relatives and friends and send them a copy! Yes, they may save a copy for themselves. You may even add your handwritten words onto the banner. If you’re an expert in Chinese calligraphy, this is a great opportunity to show off your skill to your recipients! Sounds interesting? Click here to learn more, or you may try personalizing this animation right away.

(Edited 16 Feb 2007): I’ve just posted a list of commonly used Chinese greeting words or phrases here. Feel free to use any of the phrases as part of your greeting message.


1 comment February 13, 2007

Still Got a Serious Valentine’s Day Confession or Commitment to Make in the Last Minutes? Send an AniGreeting Now!

Life’s not always well planned, especially in the quest of the romantic Love River. So I guess you’ve finally made up your mind to make (perhaps) a life-time confession or commitment to your existing or potential partner after days of indecision. However, it’s only a day away from Valentine’s Day. If you send him/her a gift and/or paper greeting card, chances are that it won’t get there by Valentine’s Day. Of course, in some cases you may call him/her up to meet in some special places, but what if either one couldn’t make it due to various reasons? I definitely understand that traditional ecards simply aren’t fit for serious use, as they lack personal touch and don’t give recipients a sense of possession. In situations like this, you should consider sending him/her an AniGreeting.

An anigreeting is a 3D animated short greeting video that can be personalized, downloaded (in its personalized form), and delivered to your recipient(s) in a matter of seconds. You may personalize one or more sections of the animation with your typed and/or handwritten words, drawings, or photos. AniGreetings are tailored for serious senders as the recipient may save a copy of an anigreeting, as if it’s a paper greeting card that can be kept. To add warmth and personal touch, you may also write your confession or commitment by hand rather than typing, then embed your piece of handwritten message into the anigreeting. No anigreetings are created equal with your handwritten messages in them.

Here’s one of the latest anigreeting of the Valentine’s Day collection. You may customize the unrolled banner as shown at the last seconds of this anigreeting.

Click to play this anigreeting

Each personalized anigreeting needs to be “brewed” prior to delivery. When you plan to customize and send an anigreeting, please allow up to 12 hours for the personalized anigreeting to be brewed prior to delivery. Normally, the brewing time is around 2-3 hours. However, as it gets closer to Valentine’s Day, the brewing time will be considerably longer. You may want to consider going for the urgent option, which costs more, but guarantees delivery within 8 hours.


1 comment February 13, 2007

Valentine’s Day AniGreeting To Venus, From Mars

Click to play this anigreeting 

When Mr. Cupid comes, even Mars and Venus can get together!

My wife and I created this anigreeting in the hope that any conflicts or misunderstanding (if any) arised between you and your partner in the past will, at least, be eased by this Valentine’s Day. Of course, we sincerely hope that those bitter spots can be settled by then.

Just in case you’re wondering what anigreeting is: An anigreeting is a 3D animated short greeting video e-card that can be personalized, downloaded (in its personalized form), and delivered to your recipient(s) in a matter of seconds. You may personalize one or more sections of the animation with your typed and/or handwritten words, drawings, or photos.

Please click here if you want to personalize this anigreeting.


1 comment February 8, 2007

Don’t Type! Hand-write Your Confession this Valentine’s Day!

We’re just human and born to be sentimental. You can’t be rational and do things right all the time, so does your partner. Forgiveness, appreciation and commitment are very important elements of maintaining a good and long lasting relationship. Express yourself in a creative and romantic way will definitely help a lot. 

It’s relative easy to be romantic at the beginning of a relationship. But the real test is the time, particularly when you think you know what your partner will and won’t do, and when everything becomes so routine apparently. Any romantic acts of expression that you’ve done before will probably no longer be as effective if you do it again, especially if it’s entirely not the work of your own hands. This includes sending real flowers, or even buying diamonds for your partner. On the other hand, it’s usually very effective if you handmake or cook something special for your partner, but you don’t always have the time to think about and do that, do you?

If you don’t have the time but still want to express your confession in a special and touching way, perhaps you should think about writing your confession by your own hand this time! As the internet and the computers rule our world for the past decade or more, most of us seldom see each other’s writing by hand especially when we’re out in the workforce. Handwritten text is becoming more and more like a piece of art and treasure. It doesn’t matter if you think your handwriting is ugly. Handwriting is the signature of your character. When people read your handwriting, the feeling is like seeing you and listening to you face-to-face. You don’t have such a feeling when you read typed and printed words nowadays, as you probably are forced to read them everyday, every hour, and almost every minute.

That’s why traditional paper greeting cards still have its market despite of the massive offerings of free or subscription-based e-cards anywhere online, as you can express yourself on paper greeting cards using a pen in your own hand. But unfortunately, the quality of your handwriting often contributes heavily to the overall aesthetics of the card. Another thing, which is also the case for most e-cards, is that the way your words are presented often don’t harmonize with the graphics and design of the card itself. It’s usually the case where the graphics is on one side of the card, whereas your words are entirely on another side, unless you’re artistic enough and have the right tools to fit your words into the graphics and design. Sometimes you may even need to tweak the card a little bit by additional sketching or cutting for such purpose. Again, you’ll need extra time to do all that. Not to mention the additional time it takes to have the card delivered to your location (if you order it online), and in some cases, to your love one. Something that doesn’t apply to e-cards.

Therefore, AniGreetings.com offers a solution that takes the best of both worlds. An anigreeting is a 3D animated short greeting video that can be personalized, downloaded (in its personalized form), and delivered to your recipient(s) in a matter of seconds. You may personalize one or more sections of the animation with your typed and/or handwritten words, drawings, or photos.

All you need to do is to think about what you want to confess. Write your confession using a black felt-pen or ballpoint pen on a piece of white paper. When you’re done, take a photo of what you’ve written using a digital camera (or scan it if you’ve a desktop scanner). Then pick an anigreeting of your choice in AniGreetings.com and upload the image file online. Remember to indicate in the checkbox that the image is a drawing/handwriting, and to adjust the size and the orientation of the image block to be rendered in the section. Then you’re all set for a preview of what you’ve put in. Your handwritten words will be transformed and rendered using the same color shades and appearance as that of the typed words. Fine tune the size and orientation of the image block and run the preview again if necessary.

Digital camera capture of drawing/handwriting

Preview snapshot of an anigreeting

Example of how handwritten words and drawings are transformed and rendered in an anigreeting. Top: Digital camera capture of words written on a piece of white paper. Above: The preview snapshot of an anigreeting.

When you’re done with the personalization, you may then send it to your love one through email just like sending e-cards. You may also download the personalized anigreeting as a .mpg movie file, which can be shared with your love one through video sharing providers such as YouTube. Alternatively, it can be burnt into a CD for later distribution. As your love one may also download and keep a copy of your personalized anigreeting, I’m sure your love one will have a feeling of commitment from you about your confession made on an anigreeting!

Click here to show the collection of Valentine’s Day anigreetings to date.


5 comments February 6, 2007


Calendar

February 2007
M T W T F S S
« Jan   Mar »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  

Posts by Month

Posts by Category