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Sunday, November 18, 2007

A Day At the Spa

I�m just hoping that my friend Durjaya Pliske doesn�t find out when or where my next record attempt is going to be. Don�t get me wrong � you can�t find a nicer guy, but whenever Durjaya shows up to one of my events, something unusual happens, and it invariably involves butterflies!

Durjaya is a professor of biology at a university in Florida, but his passion is butterflies. He even used to breed the winged creatures to help pay his way through college. In fact, he is so into butterflies, it almost seems like he attracts them wherever he goes.

The first time Durjaya came with me on an adventure was in Japan. We were both on a spiritual retreat with my meditation teacher, Sri Chinmoy. I decided to take a break and attempt to set a new Guinness record by climbing 16 miles up and down the foothills of Mt. Fuji on a pogo stick! As we traveled on the bullet train from Tokyo to Gotemba, just to make conversation, I asked Durjaya about his butterfly collection. Mistake number one. For two hours, to be polite, I feigned interest in his stories. Mistake number two. Durjaya was convinced he had discovered a dormant lepidopterist.

Jumping up Mt. Fuji was difficult, but nothing compared to the descent. It was drizzling and I was tired and cold and intensely concentrating on not taking a spill onto the slippery blacktop. Pushing to finish before the threatening clouds unleashed their fury, I suddenly spotted, about 40 yards ahead, my professor friend frantically waving his arms in my direction. �Oh my God, what�s going on?� I thought. �There must be an accident of some kind; I hope no one is seriously hurt.� As I rushed over, expending valuable energy, the excited Durjaya pointed to an enormous ugly brown moth stuck to a tree and exploded with glee, �Ashrita, look! Isn�t it marvelous? It is the rare Lepidoptera Satunid. I haven�t seen one of these in years. What a good omen!�

I should have paid more attention to the omens when I invited Durjaya to my recent record endeavor of trying to break the record for standing on a gymnastic ball. Also known as a Swiss ball, these are the colorful 2 to 2� foot rubber balls you find in most gyms nowadays. We were on retreat in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this past December when I decided to make the attempt at the Sheraton Hotel Spa. Since the attempt was indoors, I figured Durjaya would be unable to communicate with his flying friends.

The spa management set me up in front of a huge picture window overlooking an exquisite tropical garden. As I stood up on the bright yellow Swiss ball, I was astounded by the beauty of the lily pond, the elaborate fountains and the lush vegetation. Balancing on the ball requires tremendous concentration and inner tranquility, and the scenery was a soothing inspiration�.that is, until I noticed the first butterfly! And then another and another followed by the inevitable, �Hey Ashrita, did you see that awesome monarch? What perfection!�

For the most part, I was able to ignore the local butterfly population (and my friend�s comments) and focus on the task underfoot! After 2 hours, the pain became a major source of distraction, but meditating on a photo of Sri Chinmoy, which was propped up against the window, gave me strength. After I surpassed the old record of 3 hours and 16 minutes, I relaxed a bit and felt confident enough to even start chatting with my professor friend. �Hey, Durjaya, I�m thinking of trying to stay on this ball for 4 hours, but I can�t go another minute without knowing the name of that butterfly over there.� He squinted through the glass and replied, � Oh, that�s a yellow tiger swallowtail. Common, yet well-rounded.�

As the minutes flew by, I got more and more caught up in the Indonesian fauna. Suddenly, an enormous butterfly crossed my field of vision, shattering my equanimity. �Durjaya, did you see that thing? Its colors are brilliant and it�s the size of a bird!� To which he smugly replied, �Yup, that�s a swallowtail alright, quite common even in the U.S.� �No�, I insisted, �You missed it. It wasn�t a swallowtail, it was gigantic!� At that moment the airborne wonder flew within inches of the window and I screamed, �Durjaya, look, there it is!� And I immediately proceeded to tumble off the ball!

The stopwatch read 3 hours and 38 minutes, but I was nevertheless fulfilled. I felt the joy of self-transcendence and sighted the glorious Golden Bird Wing butterfly as well. Now I understand how people can get so carried away with these graceful insects. Still, I�ll be quite satisfied if from now on, when it comes to breaking records, the only butterflies I experience are the ones in my stomach before the event!

A Fairy, a Low-Fat Bagel, and a Sack of Hammers

A Fairy, a Low-Fat Bagel, and a Sack of Hammers

One bright, sunny day, the Bad Internet Fairy closed down every company and organization site on the web. No more shopping. No more sites selling endless products and services. No more university, non-profit, or political sites.

All closed.

So all the programmers, designers, and usability engineers went home, shaking their heads.

Too bad! No more web.

And they all slept in the next morning. After all, with the web gone, why go to work? They stayed home, got up late, sipped on their cappuccinos and nibbled on low-fat bagels.

And they missed something.

They missed the fact that even though all those company and organization sites had closed down, the internet was still ablaze with activity.

Tens of millions of people were sending billions of messages to each other. Young people and old people alike. Instant messages were flying. Blogs were being written and updated. Newsletters were being edited and sent out. Discussion lists were being read and replied to. Personal sites were being created and published. Emails were being written to family and friends.

People were reading and writing. Frowning and laughing. Crying and cheering. Agreeing and disagreeing.

People were engaged. Tens of millions of them. They were reading line after line, page after page. What did they enjoy the most? The best writing. The most interesting opinions. The most original thinkers and voices. Yes, everyone was reading like crazy. People love to read when the subject is close to their hearts, when the writer is known to them and trusted, when the writing is exciting and well crafted.

No surprise here, of course. It�s always been that way. Since the first Usenet groups. (Drugs, Sex, and Rock and Roll ... naturally. 1988.) Since the early days of The Well. Since the first Bulletin Boards.

Regular folks, those tens of millions of �prospects� and �customers,� have always loved to read online. They love to write, they love to read, they love to get involved, feel engaged. Just text, just the words. (�Just the words?� What a terrible to thing to say about writing!)

Although these millions of people don�t think about it or analyze it, they all know a simple truth: their experience of the web is about words, the text. Always has been. Always will be.

This is their place, their medium. They were there, online, before any company or organization. They were there before venture capital companies had wet dreams about �upswings� and IPOs. They were there before a thousand experts decided that the web was about technology, design and process. They were there before some of those same experts announced that people don�t like to read online.

Anyway...

After a few days, the Bad Internet Fairy, who wasn�t so bad after all, put all the websites back online, and the designers, programmers and usability engineers heaved a collective sigh of relief and went back to work.

And they did what they always did. They designed, programmed and constructed, using the latest software, adhering to the most recent standards, following the coolest design trends.

And when everything was set, mapped out, constructed ... they had someone find a writer to fill in the blank spaces with words.

Too bad. Dumb as a sack of hammers.

A Few Airbrush Tips

A Few Airbrush Tips

With a large pool of artists implementing the airbrush art movement into their art, many airbrush tips exist for beginner and constant users alike. Most often, beginning airbrush users like to know the proper way to utilize the airbrush for their own needs. Learning how to clean their tools also serve as an important airbrush tip.

For airbrushes to work correctly, it must be kept clean. The methods used in cleaning these products are explained in airbrush tips. With airbrushes that use oil paints, lacquer thinner is the best cleaner. To use this material, have a wide brimmed can (with a cover) and enough thinner so that a brush can dip down and grab the thinner.

The airbrush tip continues to explain that once you are done with a color, you can then pour the rest back into the bottle and spray the remaining out on an old rug or tee shirt. Wipe the cup with a rag and then dip the end of the brush into the thinner and move it around a bit. After that, pour the thinner out of the cup and make another partial cup load. Then, spray the thinner into the can and you�re done.

Another airbrush tip includes the use of acrylic paints with your airbrush. These paints can be cleaned out much like the other, with lacquer thinner. However, many have discovered that running warm water is available it�s much easier to use. After pouring the extra paint into the bottle and spraying the remaining paint out, this airbrush tip explains to the user to put the brush into the running water and flush out most of the extra paint.

One can use their finger to put at the end of the brush and put some air with the needle pulled back into the airbrush. This put excess paint into the cup. The airbrush tip continues to explain that one must work the needle valve back and forth until there is no paint left. After that, you should blow a cup of water out of the brush and shake the brush out at various angles. This airbrush tip is extremely important because you do not want a lot of water in your brush when you place more paint into it.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

10 Tips For Using Adobe Photoshop

10 Tips For Using Adobe Photoshop

Like a brush is to a painter an essential skill in the field of graphic design is Photoshop. The software offers increased productivity as well as flexibility. The features include aspects like file browser, vanishing point tool, smart sharpen filter, noise reduction filter, smart objects, as well as camera workflow enhancements. Photoshop offers professional photo editing features, digital imaging, as well as non destructive editing.

There are so many hidden features and insights to software, that it is often impossible to know them all.

1. There is a hidden option using which you can simulate bold and italic formatting styles for fonts that do not have these options. Click the button on the type tool option to bring up the character palette. Then select text and click the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the palette menu where faux bold and italics are present. However you will not be able to warp type when formatting has been applied.

2. One can quickly flip through blend modes while trying out effects by using the keys �shift+ to change to next mode and shift- to go to the previous mode.� When a painting tool is active this shortcut will change the blend mode of the painting tool. However, if anything is highlighted then the shortcut will not work. You will have press esc and then use the shortcut keys again.

3. The photomerge feature can be used to seamlessly combine multiple images to create a panorama. This feature can be accessed from the Automate menu. You can even refine the composition using tools like rotate, zoom, pan, and set vanishing point.

4. When re-sampling images one can use either Bicubic Smoother or Bicubic Sharper. You can use Bicubic smoother for up sampling and Bicubic sharper for down sampling. You can actually specify which interpolation method is to be used by going to general preferences and setting a default.

5. There are two features for printing. You can use contact sheet II or picture package. Use contact sheet when you want all images in the same size and you want to print the name below the image. Use printer package when you want different image sizes on the same page, or multiple copies of the same image, or a text overlay.

6. If you want to remove a glare on the eyeglasses of an image you should use a part of the lens that does not have a glare and use it to layer the lens with a glare. Use tools like rotate and skew and soft-tip eraser to soften the edges. Ensure the glare does not show through from below. Or, do some careful work using the clone tool.

7. The online services enable you to connect to online photo printing and sharing sites.

8. The Web Photo gallery can generate hyperlink pages that can be uploaded to a server.

9. The Picture Package option will help you prepare photos in layout with multiple size prints on one page.

10. You will never forget how you achieved a certain result because the History Log will detail every step taken by you as well as time-tracking, and a legal record. There are three choices wherein, you can create a sessions only record where, it will record only when Photoshop is opened or closed; or a concise record which will record each action including the text that appears in the history palette; or the complete editing history including the text that appears in the actions palette.

Adobe Photoshop is a dream tool for every designer and one can over time master every subtlety of the tool and crop, rotate, resize, create shapes, add layers, change text, and play with colors. It is a hands on software where the more you use it the more you will learn.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

7 Options to Make Money Online

7 Options to Make Money Online

The Internet is full of Scam about making money online. Our own experience shows that you can make money online and you have 7 options that are real. You have to understand your capabilities to make money online.

Making Money online is possible even if you are a simple Internet user or surfer. For instance, Filling surveys online does not pay much, but you still can make money ranging from $5-75 per survey. Trading stocks or foreign exchange requires a capital and some financial background.

Data entry jobs or even reading emails pays as well. Building a Website makes money ranging from $10 to $5000 per month. Going to daily job can pay from $1000 to $20,000 per month.

It all depends on you to make money online. Your skills, how hard you want to work, your education, and your background will set your course to make the money you deserve.

Here are some options to help you start making money online. Starting with the simple ones first that makes little money and ascending to the one that requires most dedication:

1- Filling Surveys Online (Simple, No Capital required)

2- Data Entry Online (Simple, No Capital required)

3- Trade Stocks online (Easy to Do, Require some capital to start and lots of luck)

4- Trade Foreign Exchange online (Specialised, Requires capital to start and knowledge to win)

5- Build a Website online (Easy if you have the will, requires $10-25 a month and authoring time)

6- Find a Job that suits your skills. Find this online, but you report to it daily!

7- Start your own business from home.

3 Steps to Optimize Your Article - Key to Create More Traffic!

3 Steps to Optimize Your Article - Key to Create More Traffic!

In one of my previous article I wrote on �How to Write an Article�. In that article I mentioned some key points to write a good content article that will keep your readers reading. Now having understood on that, I would like to talk about how you can optimize your article to increase traffic to your site as well as increase potential readers when they search for an article.

Writers need to understand that a good content article must go hand in hand with a search engine friendly article. The following pointers are some keys to optimize your article which is important if you want your article to be search engine friendly.

3 Steps to optimize your article:

1. Firstly, you need to choose on a relevant topic to write on. You want your article to relate to your website. For example, if your website is about �dogs� then you can write an article which talks about �dog training� or even �dog nutrition�. This way, it shows your understanding on that topic which eventually makes the reader want to know more about other related topics. The reader will then click on your link which is available in the resource box. � This is what you want the reader to do, click on your website link! Traffic is generated this way. This one important part you need to do to optimize your article � Relate your article to your website!

2. The next thing that you need to know is the importance of keywords. Very often writers overlooked on the need to research for good keywords. Search engines has a unique way of searching through its database, it is base on textual information and will only show results based on the density of keywords in your website or article.

When writing an article, always remember to identify your keywords. You need to include the keywords in your title, description or summary and spread it through out your article. To optimize your article even further, try creating your own keyword anchor text links in the resource box that back link to the page that you want to show up in the results. As a gauge, make sure that the density of your keyword is about 3% - 5% of your article.

3. After you finish writing your article, search for the best 10 article directories to submit. If you want to be on the safe side selected 20 article directories to submit. Try to submit your article to directories that are popular as you want your article to be view by as many viewers as possible. Besides that you need to submit your article consistently to all your short listed article directories to ensure a gradual result in the next few weeks.

These are the 3 steps that you would like to take to optimize your article to the fullest. Your job is still not done yet! After your submission, do a reflection on your submitted article. Check the popularity of your article, read the comments of the reader and improve on it if necessary. To add to that, do a search and see if you are able to find your articles, if you can�t, work on your keywords! Be patient and do your article submission consistently and you will see your results soon.