JabberWocky!

In early December this new musical trio will be making their debut in Japan doing a Christmas show featuring ‘Jingle Bells’ and other Christmas favorites.

Musical Trio Does Christmas Show

Now! While I don’t generally blog on two subjects in one day I just can’t resist this! You know how I love to tell stories about really dumb criminals that I come across?

It seems that a man in South Carolina went into a bank recently and tried to open a bank account…with a $1 Million Bill!!

Needless to say he was caught in the act and charged with disorderly conduct, (?), and two counts of forgery!

Man with $1M Bill Busted at Bank

Well that’s all for me this week, but make sure you check back tomorrow when HDW will be doing his next post in his series on Art and Design only here at…

Apple iMac, iPod, and now iPhone are the names that have become synonymous with pop culture in the 21st century.

Apple is refining the digital lifestyle of music, movies, and communications for the tech industry.

Now there is a place that you can go 24 hours a day to get video coverage of Apple news, rumors and the digital lifestyle.

The Digital Lifestyle

That’s all for me today! Hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

If you’re going to protect yourself from the outside world locking your doors and windows can help but how about protecting yourself from identity theft when you are on your computer?

Most people surf the Internet without thinking about it and in fact for many it is a hobby. Unfortunately in doing that it is easy for someone to access your data or even introduce spyware into your computer.

So what’s a body to do? Well if you use Mozilla Firefox it has several security settings that you can adjust via the Preferences pane and there are also more than 150 privacy and security extensions that you can add as well.

Below are a few Firefox extensions to help keep your browsing private and secure.

• NoScript, makes every site that uses JavaScript ask your permission before running it
• FoxTor, provides a way to mask and unmask your browser on the fly
• SafeHistory, allows you to hide your data without having to delete it
• Gmail S/MIME, encrypts Gmail messages, including attachments, automatically, as long as you have the recipient’s digital certificate
• Petname, save a reminder note about a relationship you have with a secure site
• SecurePasswordGenerator, sits in your toolbar and helps you create unique passwords
• FormFox, finds out where your information goes once you hit “send” on a form
• TrashMail.net, disposable or temporary email address service
• Page Title Eraser, lets you either blank out the title and icon in your browser’s tabs, or replace the text with something of your choice
• TrackMeNot, sends mostly false information, which means your search activities remain hidden from view and search engines won’t glean any meaningful data from your visit

Of course in order to use these Firefox extensions you will need to have the Firefox browser installed on your computer! This can be downloaded for Free here!

Firefox 2

Well, that’s all for me today! Stay safe and hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

I was out and about the Internet this week-end and I came across some nice photos that I thought I would share with you today!

I love every season but I think that the colors of fall are some of the prettiest on earth! Below is a link where you can find some fabulous Fall Foliage photos taken by Fr. Brian Cavanaugh, TOR

Fall Foliage

Fr. Brian also has other photo galleries that can be seen here, all photos are of the same beauty as the Fall Foliage…Well done Fr. Brian!

Fr. Brian’s Photo Galleries

Well, that’s about all for me today, hope you enjoy the photos and hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

Not exactly true, but I’ll explain. In my opinion, a formal design degree however isn’t required. I think a good education is important, but the subject of this education isn’t as important to me as it is to most. To me, it’s important to get an education because it teaches a person how to learn. Knowing how to learn is important in any profession.  The design field is continually changing though, making this aspect more important that some other fields.

While I don’t think a design degree is required however, I do think studying some aspect of art is a good idea. While a lot of design and art talent is innate, there are a lot to be learned as well. Software, hardware, and various tricks and techniques of the trade. This training is necessary before you can really be a fully functional designer. Learn it in school, learn it at home, or learn it in some for of internship, but it must be learned.

So is a degree required? No, definitely not. There are a host of professional designers with little in the way of design school. Make no mistake though, they are often well educated. Education doesn’t end with school, prepare yourself for a lifetime of learning. There are always new things to learn in design, and the best thing you can be taught, is how to learn.

In 1621 the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. This harvest meal has become a symbol of cooperation and interaction between English colonists and Native Americans. Although this feast is considered by many to the very first Thanksgiving celebration, it was actually in keeping with a long tradition of celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops. Native American groups throughout the Americas, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Creek and many others organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America.

Historians aren’t completely certain about the full bounty, but it’s safe to say the pilgrims weren’t gobbling up pumpkin pie or playing with their mashed potatoes. The only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl.

This does differ a bit from the story that I was told though. The story that I heard was that the only reason that the Native Americans came to dinner that day was because they thought it was a going away celebration for the Pilgrims…but who am I??

If you want to know anything about this glorious holiday then I would suggest going to:

The History of Thanksgiving

That’s it for me today as I’m off to go and gobble, gobble some turkey and dressing! I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and make sure you stop by tomorrow when HDW will be doing his next post on his series of Art and Design only here at…

According to scientists a major coup has been made recently with work that has been done on cloning.

Scientists have taken normal human skin cells and made them take on the powers of embryonic stem cells. This is an amazing breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without all of the controversy that goes with it today.

The “direct reprogramming” technique avoids the ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.

This is a tremendous milestone because now there is proof that in principle it can be done.

There is a draw back though and that is that it requires disrupting the DNA of the skin cells, which creates the potential for developing cancer. But the DNA disruption is just a byproduct of the technique, and experts said they believe it can be avoided.

The White House praised the papers, saying such research is what President Bush was advocating when he twice vetoed legislation to pave the way for taxpayer-funded embryo research.

For more on this important breakthrough go to:

Stem Cell Breakthrough Uses No Embryos

That’s all for me today hope to see you back tomorrow for more…

It seems that Detroit is back in the car business after years of focusing on sport utility vehicles and trucks.

Today an announcement will be made naming the new Cadillac CTS Motor Trend Magazine’s, 2008 car of the year.

The CTS, made by General Motors Corp., won from a field of 18 significant vehicles such as the Honda Accord and new Dodge and Chrysler minivans.

To be eligible, vehicles must be new or totally redesigned and released in 12 months prior to Jan. 1, 2008.

The CTS won out over 4 other U.S., 5 Japanese, 4 German and 2 Swedish models.

Motor Trend said the CTS was chosen from among one of the toughest fields in the awards history.

“The CTS obliterates the old man image of Cadillac,” Motor Trend Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Angus MacKenzie said. “This car will turn heads in the same way the elite European models do, but it is unmistakably American.”

The CTS was tested and developed in the U.S., Germany and China and has a base price of $32,990.

Motor Trend names Cadillac CTS 2008 Car of the Year

Well, that’s it for me today, I think I am going to go off and check out that new CTS! Hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

I was out and about on the Internet this week-end and I came across this very unusual and unique site.

“There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

“The most popular theory states that the universe grew from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion- trillionth of a second.”

While the entire site is interesting I especially enjoyed the abstract portraits of people created by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, (1527-1593, Milan), he was definitely way ahead of his time!

Collective Perception

That’s all for me today, hope to see you back here again tomorrow for some more…

This post falls into the better late than never category. This was supposed to be another of my weekly posts on Art and Design. Rather than missing this post altogether, I thought I’d try to salvage something here. Time. More specifically, time management, is a huge part of the business of design. Take today for example. My regularly scheduled posts for both here and my own site got pushed aside because of work deadlines. They were innocent victims of time management. So go take a look at a few sites that do have new content. This is a few sites from my personal list of favorites that I call The Creative. Go take a look at my sidebar for the full list.

• 456 Berea Street
• A List Apart
• A Word In Your Ear
• adaptive path
• Andy Budd::Blogography
• ARCHE BLogGER
• Baekdal
• Brisbane Creative
• CascadeExposures
• College of Visual Arts
• ConverStations
• Craig Photography
• creativebits
• David Airey
• Derek Powazek
• Design View
• DesignNotes
• E is for Erik
• E.Webscapes Blog Design Studio
• Fine Art Photography
• Fresh Squeezed Droplets
• freshly{blended}
• frogblog / frog design
• gapingvoid
• Jarrett Fuller
• Jessica Claire Photography
• John Cox Art

Until I have more time…

HDW