Ben Shoemate's Notebook

via http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200711/bierut-smiley

via http://dl.ziza.ru/other/042008/08/pics/038_pics.jpg

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelleoshen/2215156535/

Duncan Riley via The Inquisitr shared by 5 people

Interesting Google Maps discoveries are a dime a dozen, but a missile in flight is a rare find. The shot below shows a missile in flight over Utah near the town of Circleville (direct link on Google Maps here)

It’s hard to be sure from the shot, but the Missile appears to be an AIM-9 Sidewinder used by the US Air Force. It’s also a considerable distance from the Utah Test and Training Range, so it would appear to be out of place.

Hunter via Daily Kos shared by 4 people

Oh. My. God. Giant hat tip to JLFinch's recommended diary: here's McCain's selection for the Vice Presidency of the United States, Sarah Palin, answering a 2006 policy questionnaire:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance

I don't even know what to say to that... I think the only possible response is a long, drawn out pause, followed by a vigorous beating of your head against the wall.

Fun facts: when John McCain's grandfather graduated from the Naval Academy in 1906, the Pledge of Allegiance, as first written, was only fourteen years old. It would not be made the official pledge of the United States until 1942, six years after John McCain himself was born.

When John McCain was born, the words "Under God" were not in the Pledge. They would not appear there until 1954, during McCain's senior year of high school.

Either McCain's graduating class included Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (hey, maybe Palin will ask him), or McCain's own vice presidential candidate doesn't know a stick of history -- but still feels perfectly qualified to opine on it anyway. What a completely non-comforting thought.

Marshall Kirkpatrick via ReadWriteWeb shared by 14 people

Google watchdog Phillip Lessen has scanned and posted a printed comic he says he received in the mail from Google today describing the company's forthcoming open source browser Chrome. The link to Chrome is currently a 404. Long rumored to be in the works, this appears to be the first formal acknowledgment that Google really is working on its own browser - and it looks very cool.

Will you drop Firefox and use Chrome instead? Take a look at what the Google browser will offer - we're pretty interested in it.

Chrome is being framed as a browser for applications instead of just web pages. Here's what Google thinks that should look like.

• It's built on Webkit, the browser framework used to power Safari and the iPhone.
• It's faster. Smarter implementation of Javascript rendering will make pages more responsive and let your browser do more than one thing at once.
• Smarter memory management. A sophisticated approach to data storage across time and tabs will keep the browser in top shape.
• Crash-free app browsing. Applications will be partitioned in the browser so if one crashes, it won't crash your whole browser.
• Tabs on the top. Instead of tabs being displayed below your address bar, inside the browser - they'll ride on top of each browser window. We'll see what this is like for the user, we do wonder.
• Quick navigation. Your most frequently visited pages will be available in a point and click navigation, like Opera's Quick Dial.
• Gears integration. Google Gears will be integrated throughout the experience for offline use, local storage of information and all kinds of other magic that Gears-heads are working on.
• Open source. The browser appears to be entirely open source, Google says it wants other companies to borrow from it just like it learned from them.

These are just a few of the new features and strategies you'll see applied in Chrome. There's no mention of when it will be available, but we'll be watching closely. For now, check out Lessen's post for more details and discussion.

Chrome looks pretty hot to us; it seems to include many state of the art details and several things that will push the envelope. Google, and millions of us, may love Firefox - but that's no reason to stop innovating elsewhere.

via http://completeall.com/index.php/Art-and-Design/Fantasy-Photograpy-Artwork.html

Noupe via Noupe shared by 4 people

August was a busy month, we have been watching great news, articles, tutorials, scripts, tips and lot of inspiration for web designers popping up everyday so we thought it would be a great idea to wrap all those resources in one package where you can check to fuel your energy for creativity. I found some nice examples posted at devsnippets that is worth mentioning, so i am going to list them here as well.

Today we have a round up of useful CSS, Ajax, Tutorials, tools, Graphics, WordPress and articles we’ve found in August that is worth your time.

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Photoshop and Illustrator Tutorials and Resources

- Dynamic Recessed Watercolor Typography in Photoshop

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In this tutorial, you will learn how to mix vector elements and watercolor effects with text to create a stunning design. It’s a quick process that depends heavily on good choices of images and colors.

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- Free iPhone Design Set for Photoshop

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- Create a Glowing Abstract Light Vector Graphic

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- Wacom Settings In Illustrator

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Ajax and Javascript

- Build An Incredible Login Form With jQuery

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In this tutorial,you’ll create a sliding panel, that slides in to reveal a login form, using JQuery to animate the height of the panel. Checkout the demo here.

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- Design a stunning Alert Box using MooTools

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This tutorial explains how to design a stunning Alert Box which changes and improves the classic look of JavaScript Alert Boxes.

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- Creating a Slick Auto-Playing Featured Content Slider

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- Unobtrusive jQuery slide toggle with cookies

Using jQuery to create a “slide/hide” toggle and remembering the last state on reload, or page navigation

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- Automatically Generate a Photo Gallery from a Directory of Images

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This gallery is built using PHP, javascript and CSS. This gallery will not create the thumbnails for you, it builds itself dynamically from your directory of images. So when you want to add new photos, you simply drop the new photo and thumbnail in the directory and you are done! Removing photos just means removing the photos from the image directory.

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- CSS Sprites2 - It’s JavaScript Time

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Dave Shea demonstrates inline CSS Sprites2 in this article and adds some JS magic into it.

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- Use jQuery with Google Analytics to Track Clicks on Outgoing Links From Your Site

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Add outbound link tracking to a new or existing site. Provided that your links to other sites open a new window, you can track them very easily with some help from jQuery.

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- Degrading Script Tags

Ever wanted to degrad the script tags that reference external resources (via the src attribute) and execute script embedded within the tag itself. So instead of doing this:

<script src="some-lib.js"></script>
<script>
  var foo = use_some_lib();
  foo.do.stuff();
</script>

You can do this:

<script src="some-lib.js">
  var foo = use_some_lib();
  foo.do.stuff();
</script>

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- Mootools basics + 5 useful tips

In this post, you will find a little reminder of Mootools base functions (Basic Learning) , tips and examples to do more things with less code.

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- Ten commandments for developers

10 thoughts that should be patently obvious to developers, but typically aren’t.

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CSS and XHTML

- 10 Principles of the CSS Masters

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10 excellent principles that any web developer or designer can find useful, meaningful, or challenging. These are the true masters of CSS. Drink deep from their knowledge and take their wisdom on your next designing adventure.

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- Override Inline Styles from the Stylesheet

If you have a little bit of curiosity if you can overide inline styles through your stylesheet, check out this tutorial.

/* override inline styles */
span[style]{
color: inherit !important;
font-size: inherit !important;
}

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- Force IE6 To Support Alpha Transparency

A script created by Dean Edwards to force IE6 to render PNGs properly. Additionally, the script will also help to fix many common bugs from IE5-IE6. It also allows for advanced CSS selectors.

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- 10 Useful CSS tricks to conquer the world!

Some CSS gems that are very useful for beginners and for advanced designers.

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- Using CSS for Bar Graphs

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You can use graphs to display data more illustratively. This tutorial is going to show you how to take boring data in a table and display it in a bar graph. The technique is simple, but the affect is drastic.

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- 20 Websites To Help You Learn and Master CSS

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This article features 20 excellent websites to help you “grok” CSS. There’s a wide range of websites included – from blogs to directory-style lists and websites that focus on one particular topic related to CSS.

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- How to Add Drop Shadows to Menus or Windows with CSS

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A tutorial on how to add soft drop shadows to your site’s menus and windows using CSS.

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Design News and Tutorials

- School Is In Session - 100 Design Articles To Keep You Motivated : Part 5

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100 design related articles to help get you motivated.

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- Blank Themes, Frameworks and Templates: Resources to Speed Up Your Development Time

Great resources including skeleton templates that will simply give you a starting point for your design that you can style in any way you like.

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- How Simple Web Design Helps Your Business

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Excellent article on why “Keep It Simple Silly” is still right when it comes to web design.

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- Designing for Print - Setting Up Crops and Bleed

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A design destined for print requires setting up to certain specifications to ensure that the work is printed correctly by industrial lithographic or digital print firms. Here is a really useful post that you will put on the right track.

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- 66 Links To Learn The Webdesign Basics

Here are some of the best articles and sites from around the internet that will teach you some of webdesign basics.

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Freebies

- 16 “Sketchy” Illustrator Brushes

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- 9 colorful rust textures

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- FREE Icon Set for Bloggers!

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- Worn and Torn Edges

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A pack of worn edges contained in one PNG file.

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Free Vector Pack 12 Sampler

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Freelance

- 9 Of The Best Ways To Present A Website To A Client

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9 of the best ways to present a website design to a client, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

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- FYI: Do You Know Your Freelancing Rights?

Do you know what your legal rights are when you work for hire? How do you get a copyright? Is it expensive? Can it be taken away from you? How long does it last? Read on for more information.

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- WHAT YOU’RE MISSING IF YOU DON’T CHALLENGE YOUR CLIENTS

Finding ways to bring clients out of their comfort zones and not upset them in the process takes time and practice. However, this is a skill that if practiced can really make a large impact on the outcome of your work.

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WordPress

- Build Your Own URL Shortening and Redirection Service in WordPress

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This article discusses the use of Short URLs, lists some services, and explains how you can create your own custom version in WordPress. It also covers a few concepts in the tutorial sections:

• One way to use WordPress Custom Fields.
• How to create conditional JavaScript code, based on PHP variables.
• How to redirect a web page in WordPress.

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- Liz Comment Counter by Ozh

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Liz Strauss Comment Counter is a highly configurable badge (very similar to the Feedburner one, except it’s more configurable) to show off the number of comments your blog has.

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- 21 Mindblowing Premium-Like Free Wordpress Themes

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An exclusive collection of free wordpress themes which are not less than premium themes and you may consider any of these themes as per your need before going to purchase any paid premium theme.

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Inspiration

- Web Design Black Layouts

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- Single-Page Portfolio Sites

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If you are looking for ideas to design a portfolio site, here are 30 single-page portfolio sites with exceptional design and implementation.

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- 30 Impressive Colour Spectrum and Rainbow Wallpapers

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If your desktop wallpaper is looking a bit dull, perhaps it’s time to add a little spice, make it something more cheerful. Here’s some really Impressive Colour Spectrum and Rainbow Wallpapers.

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- 20 Famous Logo Designs

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- Managing Inspiration

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If you’re inner muse is working correctly, you’ll find inspiration strikes just when you need it, but if you’re like the rest of us you’ll find that inspiration strikes at the oddest of times. In this post you will find some nice tools to help manage inspiration: getting it to strike, and making sure it isn’t lost when it does.

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- Fubiz Daily Inspiration

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If you are looking for daily inspiration proportions then Fubiz site is the place to go. Fubiz is centered on the subjects of the graphic world, the urban culture, the products tendencies and numerical arts.

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Resources

- Where To Get Your Own Avatar?

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- 3 Smart Moves To Make After Landing A New Client

Landing new clients can be one of the most time-consuming tasks for the overworked freelancer–and it doesn’t pay you a single penny. Here are 3 smart things you can do after you land a client that can pad your paycheck for months (or years) to come.

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Textures and Brushes

- 200+ Photoshop Brushes for Light, Sparkles, Glows and Glitter

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A number of designers have created custom brushes especially for various sparkles, glows and glitter. In this post you’ll find links to over 200 free brushes that you can download to reduce the amount of time spent on your designs and to produce some excellent results.

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- 75 Powerful Adobe Fireworks Extensions - It really can be as Great as Photoshop!

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Here are some of the best 75 Adobe Fireworks Extensions (MXP), nearly all are compatabile with Fireworks MX, 8 and CS3 (and quite a few with Fireworks 3 and 4).

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Interviews

- Quick Fire with Jeff Croft

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In this quick fire, Jeff will answer everything from his favorite music to his “web development pet peeves”. Enjoy!

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- Interview with Jacob Gube of Six Revisions

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Jacob Gube is the man behind Six Revisions, a popular web design and development blog. Here is a nice interview with him on Designm.ag.

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- Interview With Jeff Finley of Go Media Via Twitter

Jeff Finely is the main author of GoMediaZine and one of the owners of Go Media. He has created some amazing artwork for print, web and apparel. Here is an interview with him on Vectips.

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Mark Frauenfelder via Boing Boing shared by 8 people

The USDA tests 1% of cattle of mad cow disease. Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef exporters wants to test 100% of its cattle for mad cow disease. But the Bush administration took Creekstone to court, and a US federal appeals court ruled that the USDA has the authority to stop meatpackers from testing more than 1% of its cattle.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

The AP reports that "The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease." The Bush administration should apply the same logic to the TSA. Terrorists are extremely rare, so only 1% of passengers ought to be checked by airport security.
Link

(author unknown) via Simon Willison's Links shared by 4 people