RssA1

sâmbătă, 1 decembrie 2012

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:02 PM PST

November was a busy month! Not only did bloggers and writers churn out pages for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but illustrators and artists also took part in NaNoDrawMo, which challenged participants to produce a minimum of 50 new works between November 1 and 30.

In honor of NaNoDrawMo, we’ve highlighted some illustrators and sketchers in our community. Take a look:

Photo courtesy of Pete Scully.

Pete Scully

Currently in Northern California, Pete Scully sketches the world as he sees it — and his visions are unique, intricate, and oh-so-fresh. (His sketches above prove this, don’t you think?) We love Pete’s style, as seen in his drawings of pubs, bookstores, and urban neighborhoods. Browse his sketchbook images of San Francisco, London, and more; and be sure to follow along on his NaNoDrawMo journey. His black-and-white header adds a personal touch, and his substantial blogroll of fellow artists is worth checking out.

Pete’s blog uses Twenty Twelve, an elegant, readable theme that’s fully responsive — content looks great on any device. If you’re curious to see how other artists use this theme, check out cartoonist Chuck Cottrell’s blog Sketches from Memory and follow along on his Sketch a Day series. (He’s also participating in NaNoWriMo. That’s dedication!)

Paula Knight

You’ll find art projects, sketchbook pages, and works in progress on Paula Knight’s blog. What we love best is that we get the sense of an artist at work — series of sketches, quick doodles in spiral notebooks, commentaries on older drawings, and personal reflections. Be sure to check out her comics, which comment on fertility and childlessness. Also a writer, Paula has published children’s books and is currently working on a graphic novel for adults called The Facts of Life.

Paula’s blog uses Twenty Eleven, the third most popular theme on WordPress.com (and our default theme in 2011). Versatile and full of features, Twenty Eleven is a tried-and-true theme on which you can experiment with various post formats, a light or dark color scheme, and different layouts. For more inspiration, check out how cartoonist and writer Ulises Farinas uses Twenty Eleven as well — the Brooklyn-based artist creates imaginative, super-detailed worlds of heroes and beasts.

Our Process

For a dose of politics, current events, education, and culture with your artwork, don’t miss the comics, portraits, and maps of Aaron Guile. Aaron’s visual style is very distinct, and his commentary is sharp. Unlike the other illustrators in this list, Aaron doesn’t use much color. He eschews color for bold, black on white illustrations that convey potent ideas.

Aaron’s blog uses Forever, a simple and modern theme originally created with weddings in mind. But, as you can see, Forever works with different kinds of content — it’s really up to you to transform a theme into something that works for you!

The Town Mouse

Avid drawer and architectural historian Joanna Moore compiles drawings created on location — if you’re in London, you may find her sketching frantically on a street corner. Check out her mixed media drawings of Gothic cathedrals and sketches of castles, or browse her category archives at the top of her front page.

Joanna’s blog uses Imbalance 2, a modern, sophisticated theme that can easily turn your blog into a professional portfolio or online magazine. Imbalance 2 is also appropriate for collaborative projects — check out Illo Confidential, a group blog of about 20 illustrators.

Hotcharchitpotch

Gareth Cotter serves up wonderful sketches, illustrations, and comics that show his passion for architecture. His drawings inspired by a fall trip to Gdansk, Poland, are worth noting, as well as this comic/graphic story about a “cyclical city.” We’re waiting to see what whimsical little world he’ll illustrate next.

Gareth’s blog uses Blogum, a clean and minimalist theme — with a touch of modern — that lets you focus on your content. Its simplicity allows for images and illustrations to take center stage.

Easily Emused

How can you not enjoy the drawings at Easily Emused? They’re colorful and quirky, and complement the blogger’s musings perfectly. (Read “Earring Aids,” a recent post about piercing one’s ears — it’s a nice mix of storytelling and illustration.)

This blog uses Balloons, a lighthearted theme that effortlessly creates a playful mood.

Creative Stuff

Photographer and student Jessie Vittoria loves to draw, and she uses Creative Stuff to compile her illustrations, greeting card designs, comics, and doodles. Her artwork is airy and playful — you can see this right away in her blog’s header image. We like how she keeps it simple and makes her different types of artwork easy to find, and how she uses built-in features to add color and draw visitors to her popular content.

Jessie’s blog uses Yoko, a theme that’s simple and elegant, yet customizable. We asked Jessie about the features she uses.

Talk a bit about the features you use to make your blog look the way it does.

The full-size images in my posts allow viewers to see my art without having to click another link, while the slideshows present smaller, less prominent images. For example, I use the slideshow to quickly give an idea of a certain type of drawing. I really like the images in my sidebar; I am a very visual person, and for an illustration blog, it makes sense for users to click on images — rather than text — to navigate the site.

Why did you choose Yoko as your blog’s theme? What features do you like in general?

I was looking for a simple way to display my art with easy navigation, and Yoko seemed to have everything I was looking for. The sidebar makes it easy to find specific pages. I can display my work in the header to immediately show visitors what I do as an artist — even before they click on my posts. I also like the scroll-and-load feature – you don’t have to click “next” to view older posts. Overall, I like how clean the theme is, which doesn't take away from the art itself.

Want more?

Looking for more advice on how best to showcase your art on your blog? Head on over to The Daily Post for our Q&A with two illustrators — Thomas James and Mark Armstrong — who share their design tips.

[New post] 51% of iPhone Accidents Happen Around The Home [INFOGRAPHIC]

[New post] Sports & Location-Based Services [INFOGRAPHIC]

Bloggertone updates

Three Deadly Traps Of Success!

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 04:54 AM PST

Recently when I saw the announcement that Paul Otelllini, the current CEO of Intel, was retiring, I immediately thought of Andy Grove, a former CEO of Intel who is generally viewed as one of the greatest CEO's of our times.

Andy made enormous contributions to Intel. He was the driving force behind the decision to transform Intel from being a manufacturer of memory chips to instead, take the risk that the personal computer business was going to be big and that Intel should be able to manufacture a microprocessor good enough to power IBM's first personal computer.

After much work, Grove got IBM to use Intel microprocessors when they launched the IBM Personal Computer. The IBM PC was a huge success, spawned many hardware clones that also relied on Intel microprocessors, and Intel quickly became a giant business.
Grove served as CEO of the company from 1987 until 1998, and during that period the stock price increased by +2400%.

A simple business philosophy

Grove is famous for his simple business philosophy. According to Grove; "Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."

Grove explains his reasoning: "A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation."

Another reason why I bring up Andy Grove is that his record is so drastically different from that of Intel's retiring CEO, Paul Otelllini. While during his 8 year tenure as CEO, Otellini did a fine job preserving Intel's 80+% share of the PC microprocessor market and that is a major accomplishment. On the other hand, the company's stock price is actually off -4% versus the price when Otellini took over as CEO 8 years ago.

Why the lackluster stock price performance?

The personal computer business is starting to decline, for the first time in history, and the big growth areas for microprocessors are the tablets and smartphones, both of which are the absolute rage these days.

Unfortunately for Intel, it is struggling with both tablets and smartphones. The big players are ARM and Qualcomm. In fact, it was a real surprise to see recently that Qualcomm has eclipsed Intel's market capitalization to become the most valuable semiconductor company. Even in servers, Intel could soon face strong competition from rival ARM-based chips.

The real shocker here is that if there was going to be one company who would religiously live by the philosophy of Andy Grove, you would expect it to be Intel!

Three deally traps

So what is the learning here? Success leads to complacency which leads to the following three traps that are deadly:

Neglect: Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model - Intel's ongoing, laser-like focus on personal computers caused them to not really get aggressive early regarding smartphones and tablets. Now they are a minor player trying to catch up in those two emerging components of the microprocessor market.
Pride: Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated – Kodak was very proud and protective of its film business and failed to realize it was actually in the photography business. Photography went digital and left the now-bankrupt Kodak with a fast declining film franchise that disappeared right before their eyes.
Lethergy: A Culture of Comfort, Casualness, and Confidence – In the early 1980's, IBM management was so comfortable with the fat profit margins of the mainframe that it very reluctantly allowed a bunch of renegade employees to launch a personal computer. They cared so little they outsourced to microprocessor to Intel and the operating system to Microsoft without exclusivity clauses, allowing any clone manufacturer to also use the same Intel chip and Microsoft operating system.

It is very clear that Any Grove was dead right: Only the paranoid survive!

Did you like this article? Sign up for our RSS, join us on Facebook, on Twitter and on Google+ to get the latest Tweak Your Biz articles and updates.

The post Three Deadly Traps Of Success! appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

Hacker 10

OpenPGP encrypted Instant Messenger SafetyJabber

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:13 PM PST

SafetyJabber is a Jabber instant messenger with integrated encryption for Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android. The messenger uses the XMPP transmission control protocol (TCP), an open standard developed by the Jabber open source community and compatible with any other of the bountiful IM clients supporting XMPP, this includes Google Talk, Jitsi, Pidgin, Trillian and Gibberbot, but not ICQ, Yahoo Messenger or Skype.

After the installation you will be asked to create a new PGP keypair or to import your own, key length can be up to 2048 bit and the encryption keys password is optional. If you are familiar with PGP encryption everything will be intuitive, otherwise you can watch one of the video tutorials in the developer’s site or read the included help manual with screenshots, there is a user support forum too but everything appears to be in Russian.

Before you can start chatting you will need to create a Jabber account first in any Jabber public server, a list can be found with a quick Internet search. Once you have registered for an account enter the given server settings in Accounts>Add, specifying to encrypt the connection with SSL or StartTLS, those details should be given to you during registration. The Advanced Setings button allows you to enter proxy details to connect to the server, this will hide your real computer IP from the Jabber server.

Encryption OpenPGP messenger SafetyJabber

The premium version version of this program removes an advertising banner, allows for bigger encryption keys of up to 4096 bit, comes with a portable version and a screensaver utility with hotkeys to lock your computer while you are away and to quickly shut it down during an emergency using the hotkey. The program features are simple but enough for all one needs, you get notified when contacts come online, conversations can be logged and there are smilies and a system tray icon with sound notifications, all of this can be configured within the settings. You can download SafetyJabber source code from the official website, checking that there is no backdoor and freely modify the code to add anything you want were you to have the skills for that.

The most appealing thing from SafetyJabber for me is that you can look at the source code, very important for a security product, and they use an encryption standard like OpenPGP. This messenger will make sure that nobody can read the IM conversations with your friends, the private encryption keys always remain in your power and are not stored anywhere else, the only downside is that if you would like to send encrypted files you will have to pay for the premium version.

Visit SafetyJabber homepage

RssA1

sâmbătă, 1 decembrie 2012

[New post] Financial Fact Sheet: Student Debt In America [INFOGRAPHIC]

Financial Fact Sheet: Student Debt In America [INFOGRAPHIC]

[New post] Stealth IT: Ninjas In The Workplace [INFOGRAPHIC]

Stealth IT: Ninjas In The Workplace [INFOGRAPHIC]