Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Me, I am just an ordinary person, nobody special or even important (in the grand scheme of things, hopefully someone out there thinks I am at least a little bit special). I try to be a good person but of course fail miserably at it more often than not… My consolation, nobody is perfect but at least I try.

Two of my pleasures in life are watching movies and reading books. I love action, sci-fi, thrillers… pretty much anything that isn’t down right stupid. In the last six month, I came across two items that affected me in a very profound way, one is a movie and the other is a book. If I hope to convey why these two items are so profound to me, I’m going to have to tell you just a little bit more about some of my thoughts and opinions (begrudgingly I might ad, but this is important).

I believe that we (people) are doing very poorly. We kill our gorgeous world in the name of progress when it’s really greed. We believe in money and power instead of God and kindness. We have become the epitome of selfishness and cruelty. We give more rights to the pedophile, the rapist, the murderer than we do to the victims. Let me make a point of saying that not all people are like that but I think you get my point…

Then I watched the movie The book of Eli. A 2010 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by the Hughes brothers, written by Gary Whitta, and starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson and Jennifer Beals. Yes, I watched it way later than the rest of the world, sue me. The point is that it embodies pretty much everything that I believe. All the complexities of my believes and thoughts about the world and the people in it, good and evil, so clearly expressed in a two hour movie. The twist at the end… (…which I will not reveal in the off chance that I was not the last person on the planet to watch this film)

Then today I finished reading The Taking. A story of the end of the world, but probably not as you might imagine, written by Dean Koontz. One rainy night, the end of the world began… According to Wikipedia, this novel was first published in 2004. Yes, I read it later than the rest of the world, sue me. The point is that when I first started reading, I thought, oh great, another war of the worlds… But being one of those people that has to finish reading a book once I’ve started it (except once, it was so bad even I could not finish it) and since it was written by Dean Koontz (my favorite author), I read on. Once I finished the book (earlier today), I sat for a while and contemplated the book, life, etc.  I came to the conclusion that here is, once again, an embodiment of pretty much everything that I believe, just in a slightly different way. All the complexities of my believes and thoughts about the world and the people in it, good and evil, so clearly expressed in a 67 chapter novel, by my favorite author no less. Also once again, the twist at the end, starting at around chapter 62… (…which I will not reveal in the off chance that I was not the last person on the planet to read this novel)

Watch the film The book of Eli. Read the novel The Taking. See what I’m talking about for your self.

What do I think they try to convey? Among other things, never give up hope, never give up faith, never give up on love, never give up!

So, what is Residential Black Cart Garbage Collection? If you go to The City of Calgary website and look it up, you will find this:

The black cart is the standard method of collecting garbage in Calgary. Black carts improve garbage collection service by reducing litter in lanes and streets, increasing efficiency and making things safer for collectors and residents.

And if you look further, you will find this under the Preparing garbage for pickup section.

…If your black cart is full, and another garbage bag will not easily fit inside, extra bags can be set one foot away from your cart for collection at no extra cost.

The pamphlet that was handed out with the black carts also states that extra bags will be picked up, so why don’t they? That is precisely what I would like to know.

Two of our neighbors moved out yesterday, one to the right of us and one to the left. Here is my story:

A neighbor to the right of us moved out yesterday and left extra garbage bags out for pick up this morning. I was out there talking to them and together we read through the pamphlet about the rules on extra garbage bags. They followed the instructions to a T because they were concerned (given the history of poor garbage collection) that the garbage collectors would find some excuse NOT to pick up the garbage. Guess what? …they came and emptied all the carts but the bags of garbage, they left behind.

So now, the neighbors are gone but the garbage is not. This is our fantastic system at work ladies and gentleman. How long before cats, dogs, birds, mice or other animals will have these bags ripped apart strewn up and down the alley? How long before it gets cleaned up? I guess time will tell.

Oh but yes, there is still the other neighbor that moved out (to our left) who moved all their garbage into the old wooden container that was used before the black carts. Now, I did not see them do this otherwise I would have told them that this garbage would not be picked up (not that I think it would have made a difference).

So they too are now gone but the garbage is not and me, I am stuck right smack in the middle. The smell is already starting to get really bad with the sun having beat down on it all day, can’t wait for tomorrow, the day after…

So what is their excuse? Why was the garbage not picked up? Well, I am sure they’ll come up with something…

Way to go beloved city of Calgary, we are so proud of you. At this rate, we’ll soon be able to compete with New York’s back alleys and if we’re really good, we’ll end up with rats even bigger than theirs.

Update: I have been getting a lot of emails from people wanting to know what became of this issue. So here is an update.

The office of Mayor Naheed Nenshi had contacted the responsible department, Waste and Recycling, on my behalf but, I am sad to say, that failed to accomplish anything. By Monday afternoon (5 days of unbelievable stink), still not having heard from the Waste and Recycling department, two fine young men from 310-Dump came and cleaned up all the garbage for us.

Wednesday afternoon I received another email from the Mayors office reading as follows:

I have been advised by our Waste & Recycling department that someone went to the location you’d specified in your email at 10:59 am yesterday.  He reported that the pile of garbage and brown bin were gone and the whole area was very clean.  The City worker also spoke with a resident across the lane who advised that someone had cleaned it up on Monday.  The driver on that route is currently on vacation so we have not been able to speak with him directly.

So, to this day, I have not heard from the Waste and Recycling department. No explanation, no apology, NOTHING. To be absolutely honest, I don’t think the person in charge of the Waste and Recycling department gives a crap and the only reason someone decided to come out to my place six days later is entirely due to the involvement of the Mayors office.

So there you have it. Very disappointing, I know.

There are different types of masks; we used the Quick Mask (lets you refine a selection boundary area by hand) tool in Photoshop for Total Beginners – 5.

Today I will show you how to use a Layer Mask (often also referred to as Pixel Mask). A Layer Mask allows you to vary the transparency (opacity) on a layer. Don’t worry, it only sounds complicated.

You will need to open at least two pictures that we will place on top of each other. I will place the image with the coyote over top of the picture of the giraffes.

Select the move tool from the tools panel and drag the image with the coyote over to the other picture.

Click on the mask icon  at the bottom of the layers panel.

Select the brush tool and then click on the size button  on the options bar. This will open the following window.

In here I picked 50 px just for demonstration purposes. You can pick what ever you like.

The foreground color  is the one that will control how things look, here are the rules:

Black = 100% transparent
White = 0% transparent
Gray = transparent, how transparent depends on the shade of gray

I have my foreground color set to black at the moment. On the picture, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag it around on the picture. Because black is 100% transparent, it cuts right through the layer and exposes the layer (image) below it.

Press Ctrl  Z to undo the change. Now lets change the black to a shade of gray. Click on the black foreground square to open the color picker window, I decided on #dfdfdf for my shade of gray.

Now try it again, on the picture, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag it around on the picture.

Notice how it affected the opacity, how it cut through the layer much softer? You can also use a gradient (adjusted to go from black to white) here if you want but that is not something I will get into today, perhaps some other time.

So go ahead and play / experiment / have some fun. You can add as many layers as you like, same rules apply. Here is what my picture ended up looking like.

You can change the shade of gray (change the different opacity levels) as often as you want and apply them as you wish to the image.

Using all the different tools I have shown you in my tutorials so far, you should be able to create some pretty cool pictures…

Cheers until next time.

Open image in Photoshop.

Now click on the Text icon in the Tools panel , click somewhere on the sand area in the picture and type something. Adding text will automatically create a new text layer.

Now press and hold down the Ctrl key and click on the text layer thumbnail in the layers panel to select all the text we wrote.

Now with the text selected, press and hold down the Ctrl key and click on the background layer thumbnail in the layers panel to move the selection to the background. Now with the background selected go to the menu bar: Layer – New – Layer via Copy

This will now have created a new layer.

So now in order for us to actually see what we did, we need to move the new layer to a different location on the picture. Highlight the newly created layer (in my case Layer 1). Click on the move tool in the tools panel .

(When the move tool is selected, you will be able to move what ever element is highlighted in the layers pane.)

There are different ways to move a selected element around, you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard or you can click and drag (the element around) with your mouse.

1) Left click (and hold the left mouse button down) the text and drag it up into the sky area.
or
2) Press the up arrow key on your keyboard repeatedly.

Now let us hide the original text layer by clicking on the eye next to the text layer.

And here is what we got.

It got me wondering, how do other web developers do it?

So I googled it and found this post on thesitewizard.com pretty good. It goes through how to have different versions of other browsers co-exist on the same machine. A lot of this was not really new to me except for how to test on different versions of IE.

Turns out, completely unexpected I might add that there is a pretty cool, easy and free solution from Microsoft. It comes in 2 parts, the first being Virtual PC (download here) and believe me, the install could not be easier.

The second is Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. Windows Virtual PC VHDs for testing websites with different Internet Explorer versions (download here).

I had everything installed in minutes and without any problems. I am so impressed and recommend this solution for that same reason.

Unfortunately, this is a Windows solution only. If you know of a free and easy solution for Mac developers, PLEASE do share your knowledge in form of a comment.

The Surface Blur filter works quite nice for softening skin tones.
Take for example Mr. Sean Connery here, not that I would ever change this sexy man in any way, shape or form. But for demonstration purposes…

In the menu bar go to Filter – Blur – Surface Blur… and the Surface Blur window will open up.

These are the values I chose but have some fun and experiment with the settings.

Can you believe this?

Today I will show you how to change the eye color in a photograph. Are you excited yet? No? Hmmm…

Create a new, blank layer by clicking the Add New Layers icon  in the bottom right hand corner of the Layers Panel.

Make sure the new layer (in this case Layer 1) is selected (highlighted).

Pick a color from the Swatches Panel. I am going to pick a drastic green for extra effect.

Select the Brush Tool.
Pick a brush size, I will use 10px.
Zoom in on the eyes to be more accurate and paint the eyes.

In the Layers Panel, click on the drop down icon (where it currently shows Normal) and select color.

I bet you did not think it was this easy.

Oh, and by the way… If in this how to post I talk about a tool or action without giving you direction on where to find it or what it looks like, it’s probably because I did so in an earlier how to post. So go and take a second look at those.

Before we get started today, I wanted to make sure to mention; each tool is good for specific scenarios and/or picture content. When one tool does not do the trick, the idea is to try a different tool. You will probably very seldom achieve a desired outcome by using only one tool. Ps has so many tools that you can pretty much achieve anything when using them in the right combinations. What is the right combination? That depends on the picture, what you’re trying to achieve and what your preferred tools are… as you may have noticed by now, in PS you can achieve the same outcome oftentimes in many different ways.

The reason I am bringing this up is because the tools I am showing in my posts may work well on some pictures and not so much on others… Suck it up, deal with it, and try a different tool.

Today I want to touch on a new feature introduced into CS5 called content aware. This tool is so awesome that there are a LOT of video tutorials out there that will go into great detail. Here are a couple of my favorites if you feel like giving them a look:

Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2

Using the Lasso Tool  I selected the hot air balloon.

Right click inside the selected area and click the fill option.
This opens the fill window.

Make sure you have selected the Content-Aware option and click OK.

I never get tired of this…

If you think this is cool, wait until next week, it will blow your mind.

Got an old shoebox full of old pictures up in the attic, basement or closet? Go get it and scan the images into your computer and let’s play…

Here is an old scratched up, covered in dust picture and nope, I don’t know who that is.

Open your picture in Ps.
IMPORTANT: Copy your image to a new layer. This way you are not changing your original picture, you know, in case you mess up or want to go back to it down the road.

In the layers tab, click and drag the Background down to the ‘Create a new layer’ icon and let go. You should now have a Background copy.

Make sure that the copy is highlighted / selected so all our changes are being made to that copy. If we mess up, we can delete that copy and start all over again.

So, Ps has a filter that is really quite perfect for just this scenario. It is called …wait for it… Dust & Scratches. On the menu go to Filter – Noise – Dust & Scratches… this will open the Dust & Scratches window.

Check the Preview box and play with the Radius and Threshold to see how it affects your picture. Click OK when done. If you want to know in more detail about what this filter does, feel free to google it.

I chose these settings; it eliminated a lot of the white scratches and softened the entire picture. Now we move on to the Patch Tools to finish the job.

Note: Patch tools are not to be confused with the Clone or Pattern Stamp Tools. The Patch Tools blend the pixel data together where as the Stamp Tools do not.

Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool and select the size you want to work with at the top by clicking on the black arrow to the right of the size box .

Click and hold down the mouse button on a white spot and move the mouse around until the white spot is covered then let go of the mouse button and Ps will attempt to fix the selected area.

If you don’t like the outcome of a fix, use Ctrl + Z to undo. You can try again or leave it to be fixed with a different tool later.

Here is what my image looks like after I finished using the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

Now I will use the Healing Brush Tool to get rid of the white spot on the shoulder and hair line.

This tool will clone from a selected area and apply this to the area you tell it to. In this case I will Alt + click right next to the white spot on his shoulder to select a spot from his suit. Now as you move the mouse you’ll notice that it moves with it the selected area. Move the area over the white spot where you want to apply this selection and click.

Make sure you stay out of the dark background area. Use Ctrl + Z if you don’t like the outcome.

I am now going to increase my brush size and select an area that has half suit and half background and finish off the white spot.

Now the hairline…

Now you have seen what is possible…

I will quit here but you can certainly continue experimenting with the different tools to take it even further if you so wish.

Let me very quickly summarize the Patch Tools:

Spot Healing Brush Tool: Click or click and drag over the area to fix and Ps will fix using its own interpretation.

Healing Brush Tool: Alt + click the area to clone from. Click or click and drag over the area to fix and Ps will use the cloned data to fix the area.

Patch Tool (which we did not use): Select the area to fix and drag it into the area to clone from.

Cheers for now.

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can’t see anything you post and here’s why:

Facebook rolled out a new feature with the “New Profiles” that has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: Scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed on the homepage and click on “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages”

Note: This is the fix for personal pages but I am unsure of whether or not the business pages are set up the same way.

View article here…

Last post I showed you how to do a simple selection on a simple picture, the duck. I am going to keep it just as simple for this post and reuse Mr. Ducky for this example. So let’s say you have ducky selected but want to refine that selection a little bit. There is a very easy, quick and dirty way of doing so with the Quick Mask Tool; it let’s you refine a selection boundary by hand.
Make sure you have something selected, in my case the duck.

Click the Quick Mask Tool found at the very bottom of the Tools Panel. This will now display the picture in a reddish hue. It does that to make it easier for us to see the area we are refining.

It uses the foreground color to determine the action we want to take.  Black = remove, White = add. Right now black is selected, if you want white, click on the little arrows to swap / toggle  between the two colors.
Now select the Brush Tool . Once you have selected the brush tool, you can choose the type and size of brush you want to work with at the top of the screen.

Don’t worry about what all this stuff does right now, we only care about the second option showing the brush size which in this example is ten. Click on the black arrow to the right of it to get your brush options.

Now refine your selection on the picture. I wanted to add a little bit of a white border around the duck so I traced around him with the white. To toggle between quick mask and actual view, use the Quick Mask Tool button .

Remove from the selection (switch foreground color to black). Area that has the reddish hue represents the area NOT selected.

Hope you are finding this as cool as I do.

Next post I will start on Image Enhancements.

Today I will show you how to make a selection on one picture and then add that selected area onto another picture. Remember, I am not here to make you Ps experts, I’m just showing you very basic and straight forward stuff to get your imaginations going; to show you what’s possible. How good you become and how complicated a task you’ll be able to accomplish depends solely on your resolve to practice and play…

I have two images that I am going to play with. A boat on water (where I removed the boat) and a rubber duck. I know, so predictable…

You need to have both images open in Ps. We will start with the rubber duck. Because ducky has a simple white background, selecting the duck is super simple. We start by selecting the Magic Wand Tool , with the magic wand tool selected, click somewhere on the white background of the image. The tool will automatically select all the area of the same color around it. So now we have the background selected but what we really want is the duck.

Go to and click on Select – Inverse in the menu bar. Ps will now switch the selection to what was not selected, the duck.

Now that the duck is selected, switch to the Move Tool , click (and hold down the mouse button) on the duck and drag it over to the other picture. Once you are over the other picture the mouse pointer will turn to a little + sign. When it does, release the mouse button. Ducky will now appear on the other picture as a new layer. You can click and drag him around on the picture until you’re happy with his location. Me, I put him where the boat used to be.

I know, sort of boring. Feel free to try this with more interesting subjects and challenging pictures. Don’t forget to have fun!

Make sure that the picture mode is set to RGB it allows you to apply color to the image. Image – Mode - click RGB Color.

Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the tool bar. On the picture, click once on the location where you want to start selecting and move the mouse to the location at which you want to change direction; click once again. Until you have a region of your choice selected. I am just selecting an arbitrary area in the sky. Ctrl + d keys can be used to de-select. (You can do this with any selection tool of your choice, just so you know) Once your selection is made, go to Image – Adjustments – Hue/Saturation… which will open the Hue/Saturation window.

First thing you need to do is check the Colorize checkbox, now you can play with the sliders to adjust the hue, saturation and lightness of your selected area. The best advice here is to just try things out. When your happy with the color, click OK.

Hue – the color

Saturation – the intensity of the color

Lightness – how bright or dark the color is (make the color closer to black on the left or white on the right-hand end of the slider)

Now pick the Magnetic Lasso Tool from the toolbar. Again click once on the location in the picture where you want to start selecting. If you trace very slowly and carefully, the tool will try to put direction points where it thinks you want them. You can also place them by clicking the mouse like you did with the Polygonal Lasso Tool.

Once your selection is made, open the Hue/Saturation window again and apply the desired color. I am going to select the bottom part of the tree trunk for the first two trees.

Well that wraps it up again for today. Remember, practice makes perfect. What I am showing you is the absolute basics so that you can see what is possible and how. Now the idea is for you to play and experiment…

Cheers until next time.

Go to Window – History to open the history window.

Now go to Filter – Texture – Stained Glass… click OK.

In the history window  click on the little camera icon to take a snapshot of the image as it looks with the stained glass texture applied. Also make sure that there is a history tool icon in the box next to the original picture not the snapshot, like this:

In the tool bar select the history tool and on the picture hold down the left mouse button and move it around. You are now drawing back the original picture…

Let’s do this again with a different effect. In the history window click on Open; now right click on Snapshot and delete. Your picture should now be back to when you first opened it.

Now go to Filter – Blur – Motion Blur… and depending on the picture you may want to adjust the blur using the slider at the bottom. I increased my blur to 73 pixels. Don’t forget to take a snapshot.

That wraps it up for the history and history tool. In my next post I’ll show you how to apply color to selected areas on a black and white picture. Until then have fun playing with history…

I am a total Photoshop beginner and in an effort to find tutorials to learn Photoshop, have discovered that, for the most part, they all suck. Everything I found out there assumed that I know stuff about how to use Photoshop and its tools… which I obviously don’t. So, I decided to take a Photoshop course to learn how to use this awesome software. I had my first class and am so impressed already. I got an instructor who REALLY knows Photoshop AND is really GOOD at teaching.

- Thank you SAIT – Thank you Anthony Neilson -

The class started off at the very beginning and did not assume any prior knowledge on my part. I had so much fun that I decided to share some of what I’m learning with those that are interested. So if you are a total Photoshop beginner like me, this Photoshop for Total Beginners series might be for you.

Note: The version of Photoshop I am using and referencing is CS5 Extended; also from this point forward I will be referring to Photoshop as Ps.

» Ps is a raster application. A raster graphic is resolution dependant and cannot scale up to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality.

» Some pretty important optimization can also be done. To start off, get lots of RAM, the more the better. Don’t go on less than 3GIG, you’ll probably not be happy with performance. Don’t have a gazillion windows open and or processes running while working with Ps. We want Ps to have to share as few resources as possible. Make sure you have lots of space on your hard drive and that the space is not crazy fragmented. Ps refers to this as the ‘Scratch Disk’. Now let’s go and fire up Ps and go to ‘Edit – Preferences – Performance’. Here you can see how much of the available memory (RAM) is being dedicated to Ps while running. I have set mine to 70% and have been very happy with Ps performance.

Here you will also see the scratch disk assigned and how much space it has. Keep in mind that a lot of space means nothing if that space is crazy fragmented. So be sure to run a defrag on your disk once in a while.

» The toolbar is divided into 3 sections separated be horizontal line.

The first section contains the selection tools,

the second section contains the manipulation tools and

the third section contains the vector tools.

The hand is used for moving around and

the magnifying glass is used to zoom in on the picture.

Foreground color and background color can be changed here.

» The minimum recommended resolution (measured in pixels-per-inch, or ppi) of an image you want depends on what you want to do with it. Here is a very simple ‘quick’ reference chart.

Ps allows you to easily resize and or resample images. What’s the difference between the two?

Resizing – Changing the size of an image without changing the number of pixels in the image.

Resampling – Changing the number of pixels in an image (which also affects the image size).

The way Anthony had explained it was simply to say that ‘resizing will invent or toss out pixels’ while ‘resample will move pixels closer or further apart’. This is done in ‘Image – Image Size…’.

If you play in here and make changes (without saving) but want to go back to the original settings without clicking cancel and then having to reopen the window, press down on the ‘Alt’ key, it will change the Cancel button to a Reset button.

Here are two articles I found online that are worth looking at to get a better understanding of Resizing vs. Resampling.

Difference Between Image ‘Resizing’ and ‘Resampling’ In Photoshop – Changing The Number Of Pixels vs Changing The Print Size Of The Image

Understand How Color Works in Photoshop

This is it for the Introduction. My next post will be on History and the History Tool; how to use the two to do some very cool but simple picture manipulation. I will of course give you a step by step example; this is after all where all the fun starts…

So stay tuned and come back for tomorrows post Photoshop for Total Beginners – 2

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has 296 steps to reach the top. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2010. If those were steps, it would have climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa 4 times

In 2010, there were 37 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 19 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 762kb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was July 18th with 76 views. The most popular post that day was TOMS Shoes.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, telus.net, twitter.com, yfrog.com, and linkedin.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for 70 creative gimp tutorials, 70 gimp tutorials, gimp tutorials, creative gimp tutorials, and photoshop cs5 content aware swf.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

TOMS Shoes July 2010

Lena Headey August 2010

ZoneEdit – Best Managed DNS Around August 2010
1 comment

Children… September 2010
1 comment

70 creative Gimp tutorials September 2010

Then I came across these guys, phoenix studios. They assumed nothing, instead they produced a tutorial so detailed and easy to follow even I could do it. Even gave little icons to show what tool they’re talking about and showed screen shots to coincide with the instructions they are giving.

I sure do hope they create many more like this for the total beginners like me out there. In the mean time, here is the one I am talking about today. Create a Twitter bird mascot by phoenix studios

Go to the tutorial…

But let’s start at the beginning. What is Greasemonkey? Mark Pilgrim, author of the Greasemonkey Hacks, explains it in great detail here. For the purpose of this post however, I am just going to borrow some of his words.

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. You can use it to make a website more readable or more usable. You can fix bugs that the site owner can’t be bothered to fix themselves…

Note: You’ll need the Greasemonkey add-on in Firefox in order to use these scripts. On Chrome, it works by default like any other extension.

Now back to the new twitter and its massive sidebar cluttered with Trends, Who to follow and Definitions. I found this really awesome resize twitter script that will transform your side bar from this

to this

How cool is that? Well, I happen to think VERY.

So if you are like me and are annoyed by that in your face sidebar full of stuff I could not care less about, here is a way to get rid of it. Too bad twitter developers just don’t listen to the end-users, how much more popular could twitter be? Oh, but that might not be good either, they already can’t seem to fix their over-capacity issues as is… BUT hey, don’t misinterpret my rantings here, I love twitter!

Download Firefox
Download Greasemonkey
Download Resize New Twitter Script

View article…

Please help them reach their target and donate a book.

Donate a Book

Acadia School is located in the southeast community of Acadia. Designated school for Acadia, Fairview and New Brighton residential dstricts. At Acadia School, our purpose is to provide learning opportunities where students, teachers and parents share the responsibility and the rewards, benefits and advantages of learning. Our students will become successful learners and problem solvers in our ever-changing global community. Our principal and teachers work hard to make reading a priority every day with the materials they have. They are amazingly resourceful but new books in the library will make a huge difference to our students. We’re so excited to be adopted by our Chapters store and to work with them to achieve our goal of putting one new book in our library for every student. Help us spread the word about the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation Adopt a School program and put new books into our library!

Donate here…

In this article, reencoded has listed some of the very important and indispensable tools and resources for PHP developers.

View article…

Jessica with her daughter Paige at the Alberta Children's Hospital.

Here is a foundation that has not only realized this problem but has stepped up to try and do something about it. PLEASE check out their website and then tell me that this is not a cause worth supporting…

Here is an opportunity for YOU to help this foundation win a $25,000.00 grant from Pepsi and all it takes is 1 minute of your time between now and October 31, 2010. Log on to the Pepsi voting page and vote. You can vote every day right up until October 31, 2010.

Helping Families Handle Cancer Foundation

Our Foundation is new and needs a hand up! This is how our Care Program works:

1. The Alberta Children’s Hospital refers families who are struggling financially because they have a child battling cancer. They fill out a Request for Assistance Form detailing the exact bills that the family needs help with.
2. Helping Families Handle Cancer pays those bills directly to the creditor (eg: rent, gas, electricity, etc.). No money is given directly to the family and all the money goes directly for what it was intended.

During this time of need no family should have the additional worry about how they are going to pay their bills. This help allows them to stay at their child’s bedside during this catastrophic illness.

Our foundation needs help to jump start this idea. 100% of the proceeds will go directly to these families. Our foundation is 100% volunteer based. Choosing our Care Program will make a huge impact to families struggling with cancer.

If we help them win the $25,000.00 grant, here is how it will be used:

$25,000 – 100% will pay bills for families in need.
Budget Notes: We help families with some of their rent, gas, groceries, and household bills. 100% of the proceeds of this grant will go directly to these families. This grant will have a BIG impact on the families we help. Our foundation is 100% volunteer based.

PLEASE vote for this idea and if you can, make a small donation, every little bit helps and is greatly appreciated.

Please help this foundation help families and their children.

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Go to the tutorial.

The alternative is called GIMP, it is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages…

This article has compiled a list of 60 excellent Gimp tutorials.

Read article…

As a possible cost effective solution for you, in this article, they have highlighted some freely available contract sample templates you could use. You are allowed to use the sample in their entirety, by simply filling in the relevant personal, client and project details, and use it as your own. Or, you could use them as a reference when writing your own. Whichever way you choose to use these sample contracts, it is recommended that you still have your contract draft checked by a lawyer. Protect yourselves.

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Here are 10 rules every freelancer should know about negotiating work contracts:

1. Know when you need a signed piece of paper… and when you don’t.
2. Know what you’re worth before negotiations start.
3. Research the client before you begin negotiating with them.
4. You can negotiate more than just money.
5. Be reasonable.
6. Listen to the potential employer’s needs.
7. Communicate with care and guard your emotions.
8. Don’t be afraid to negotiate.
9. Don’t rush it.
10. It’s not about winning or losing.

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A quick summary of what I did:
I registered a domain name, which is costing me approximately $20.00 dollars a year (for renewals).
I found a free DNS service that redirects to where my site is located. Yes, I said free.
I created my web site and placed it in free space from my ISP (Internet Service Provider). Yes, I said free.
And voila, I have a website that you can go visit. Lets get started then…

1. Register a domain name.
   The first thing you need to do is register a domain name. Here are three places where you can do that.
   Instant Domain Registration
   Canadian Domain Name Services
   register.com
   Of course there are others, do a search for “domain name registration” to find them.
2. Find a DNS Service.
   I believe all three of these places offer free redirection services. All you need to do is signup, enter your domain name and the address of where your website lives. This can be changed and modified at any time, so don’t panic if you don’t have all of your ducks in a row yet (or you decide to move your website somewhere else).
   ZoneEdit
   Dynamic Network Services
   Hurricane Electric
   Of course there are others, do a search for “free DNS services” to find them.
3. Create your website.
   This is the best part, so have fun. Don’t think you have to start off with this huge elaborate website, you don’t. Start out with a “one simple HTML page” and build from there. But above all, I can’t stress this enough, have fun.
4. Find a place to put your website.
   I “think” (always a dangerous concept) that most ISPs also give you free space on their server. If you are not sure that yours does, call them up and ask. They can also explain to you where it is and how to access it. Make sure to add the location to your DNS account. My service provider does give me free space so that is where my website currently lives. Everytime somebody types my address www.angiestropp.com into a web browser, ZoneEdit directs them to my website location.

Well, I hope this was a little helpful and gives you an idea of where to start. Don’t forget to have fun!

OK, so I can’t have a “People worth talking about” category and NOT have a post on Lena Headey… especially now that she has an “Official Fan Page” on facebook. Yup, you read it right, the REAL Lena Headey. I believe the site went live on Sunday August 15, 2010 and the “People Like This” number has been steadily climbing since.

The site is run by Lena and an administrator:

Welcome to the Official Lena Headey Fan Page. Please note that Lena will communicate with fans from time to time, but this page is also monitored by an administrator.

This is Lena’s only Facebook page. Lena is not on Twitter.

…and it appears she posted her first comment today. How very cool is that? What did she say? Sorry, you’ll have to go there yourself to find out.

Lena is currently working on HBOs “Game of Thrones”, scheduled to grace our screens sometime in 2011. Her role is none other than the very intriguing Cersei Lannister. Watch the teaser trailer here.

Another very cool film that Lena is starring in is a Short Film (Comedy/Horror) called The Devil’s Wedding. The film has won a couple of awards and just had a screening at the beginning of August in Los Angeles.    Watch Preview.    Watch Trailer.

The Sophisticates is a greatly anticipated ongoing project that Lena hopes to tackle/complete some day. We all patiently wait… Watch Trailer.

I would be lying if I were to pretend that I am not incredibly fascinated by this lady. Let me attempt to explain…
This woman is by far, the greatest actress to EVER grace our screens. I say this because she has no real formal training and yet when I watch her in a movie, she makes you believe that she IS the character that she is portraying.
Yet, I see interviews with her and she is so down to earth and honest, as real a person as you can be. I find that exceedingly refreshing.

Oh, and yes, here are some charities that Lena supports:
Plan
College Access Plan
Amnesty International

India may shut down Google and Skype Internet-based messaging services over security concerns, the Financial Times reported on Friday, as the government threatened a similar crackdown on BlackBerry services. Read article here…

Is it just me or is free speech slowly being eradicated?

However freelancing can be a lonely existence. You might find yourself not leaving the house for days and stalking everyone in your chat list just to feel humane. This is when co-working comes into play.

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It might be in its infancy, but HTML5 is the next 500 pound Guerrilla and much more as far as Internet is concerned. With features like plugin-less video playback, offline storage, geo location etc., HTML5 is on the verge of giving walled gardens like Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Cocoa a good run for their money. After the jump, we have compiled a list of HTML5 web apps developed for accessing from your smartphone.

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You can also follow him on twitter.

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Although there is a huge amount of free software available online, open-source software has numerous advantages, one obvious one being that it provides you the right to modify and redistribute the modified software. This article will feature 50 essential “open-source” applications for your Mac.

Read more.

Here you will find a list of 26 common mistakes that freelancers make when they are starting out – mistakes that you can avoid.

View list here.

ZoneEdit is a web-based DNS service offering free and paid options. Please check their site to see a list of all their offerings.

I have enjoyed their fabulous and dependable free service for many years now and I really do not have a single complaint.

So here is the thing, after all these years, ZoneEdit has decided to make some changes. And in order to be fair, they are giving people like me, a chance to keep the free services we have been enjoying thus far. All I had to do was make a one-time purchase of $10.95 for what they call a credit (see updates for details) and I continue to enjoy their service as I have been. OK, so technically it’s no longer free because I just paid for a credit BUT come on people…

Confused what my rant is about?
People are complaining and whining that they have to buy a credit in order to keep their free service!
Can you believe this?

Here is a company giving people a valuable service for free for years and now that they are trying to recover some of their cost (for really good upcoming changes), people are complaining. What is wrong with these people?

I for one was happy to spend a one-time $10.95 for continuing to receive their services! Way to go ZoneEdit! Keep up the good work!

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The site is very classy and different from the usual “it’s all about me and nothing else” clutter that people in the entertainment business seem to prefer.

The only ONE peeve I have about the site is that all links referenced open in the same window, replacing her site each and every time. Incredible annoying, cause now I have to continuously navigate back to her site to see more. How perfect would her site be, if the links opened into a new window? Oh well, enough complaining…

I love her original intro (and I am not being facetious here either):

Welcome to Wilde Things! This is a space for me to share with you the ever evolving grab bag of things I care about. Some of you may have ended up here because you know me from films or TV, and some of you may just have heard we have similar interests. Whatever the detour that brought you here, I’m happy to make your acquaintance! By putting my thoughts online myself, I have a chance to connect with you directly, instead of filtering everything through speculation, rumors, and glossy illusions. I’d love for you to be able to get to know me as if we met in person. Please enjoy.
Love, Olivia

BUT, nothing I can say here would do her justice. It’s just one of those “you have to go and check out the site yourself” kinds of deals. And yes, I almost forgot, you can also follow her on twitter.

Enjoy!

Take the scenic route…

Do you ever find yourself trying to remember how to do stuff while coding (in all the different languages we use)? Well I do and the obvious solution to that is google… how do I do that again? Let me google it! Well, turns out a bunch of developers decided to make work just a little bit easier for us and create cheat sheets for a variety of languages (such as HTML5, CSS3, and more).

So where can you get your hands on them? Click on this link and you are there!

Hope you found these as useful as I did :o)