Google Hints Beta :P

Have any of you noticed the subtle hints that start to go on around election day? Possibly seeing new casters wearing a red or blue tie?

It is tradition for Google to revise their logo on days that is special to the country. Today is no different as they came up with this graphic.


Is it just me or do you also think that there might be a motive behind them picking the blue G to be fully exposed? I don't think it's a coincidence and I like it :P

Make animated pics for www.hi5.com

Do you have a hi5 account? If so you just might find this interesting. You can create animated profile pictures also knows as "animated .gif files" at www.gifninja.com for free.

So here's the scoop

Click here -----> www.gifninja.com

then click on "create animated gif" in the upper right tool bar.

Now browse to your images

then select your speed

and click on "Make my gif"

Now all you have to do is save the .gif when it pops up by right clicking on it and selecting "save as"

After you've saved your .gif to your computer go ahead and upload it to your favorite social network or website like myspace, hi5, facebook, bebo or youtube.

Go on and make yourself some moving pictures now!



P.S. you can make them from picture images or even video clips :)

Why Google is targeted by webmasters

In the webmaster world there is a lot of buzz going on about how much junk gets through the the SERPs (search engine result pages). If you have ever Googled a term and came up with a page the seems to be irrelevant or virtually bare of content and don't understand why it made it to the top of Google's ref feral list I am going to try to clear things up in this post.

Let's get raise some facts and try to connect them. Google is by far the leading search engine in the world, Myspace is the leading social network in the world and Microsoft internet explorer is the leading web browser in the world. What do all of these services have in common? They are all targeted by spammers and black hat advertising for the same exact reason, they are the largest. They reach more computer screens in homes and offices on a daily basis than many of their competitors combined. If you can the cheat the system why not cheat the best.

If you are able to reach the top of Google you will reach 1.5 times the people that you would reach if you top out on Yahoo and 3 times as many people if you get the #1 spot on MSN. Take a look at THIS page to see the amount of searches a day through the major search engines.

HERE is a great pie chart showing the dominance (although fading) of Internet Explorer web browser. If you can get your spyware into the computers of IE users you are going to reach approximately 88 people for every 1 you reach with Firefox. This is exactly why so many people are moving away from IE and towards Firefox. If Firefox were to ever take the top spot for web browsers you can put your money on Firefox seeing a whole lot more spyware and viruses.

The same rules apply for social networks that apply for Google and Internet Explorer. With sites like digg, Myspace, Stumble, Flikr, Wikipedia and many powerful niche forums you are bound and determined to run into a more than fair share of spam and inexpensive advertising.

In conclusion I guess you have to ask yourself if you are with them or against them. can you disguise your spam really well it won't be spam at all. Your spam will actually be quality content that gives the user what they are looking for but leaves them hungry for more with a mouse that can pay your bills.

surge of 20,000 plus troops to Iraq?

OK, I have been waiting a few days since the news of the troop surge to iraq to post my thoughts or feelings about it. At first I could have said yeah that'll do the trick or what on earth are they thinking a troop surge would change but I decided to let my feelings get a little stronger. Then it just kinda came to me yesterday while I was at work driving my tugger (hauling things around the plant) and now I am ready to write a blog post about it.

If you have a few children that always fight in school what do you do? Do you lock them in the same room and hope they'll sort it out? Or would you seperate them and maybe suspend/expel them from the school? I think that most rational people would say to separate the kids that are fighting and causing all of the trouble. Why don't we do something like this in Iraq?

Lets say the Sunni's and the Shiites are the ones causing all of this sectarian violence in Iraq because they are. They are fighting for power over this oil rich nation and have been doing so for the last thousand plus years. Who is to say that they are ever going to stop fighting for power?

Why don't we divide the the country of Iraq and the oil fields evenly into two nations and give them each the % of land/oil that their population would demand. That's right, if we can make 1 government why don't we just make 1 more and be done with it. Split them up and give them things constructive things to do for their own people rather than destructive things to do against their enemies.

If we could implement this than our troops would be able to come home safely.

On another note I almost broke into tears today as I was in our local Caribou Cofee and I saw a post on the bulletin board. They are having a benefit at one of our local legions for a young soldier who got injured in Iraq. He was riding in his humvee when a IED blew up underneath them and his 2 best friends died. He sustained many life threatening injuries such as losing both of his legs, breaking both arms, breaking his hip and fracturing his skull. I can not imaging how hard it would be to keep moving forward in life after an experience like this. I wish him and his family the best and I will definitely pray for them.

Make your car blink or wink

The other day I blogged about how I turned my Jetta into a Pixar Car by following a Photoshop tutorial that I found on digg. Well I decided to take it one-step further and turn my picture into an animated gif. I am going to show you quick what steps I did to do it here.

Step 1: Take a picture of your car and click HERE to go to the digg tutorial. After you are done, you should have a picture that looks something like the one below.



Step 2: Open your finished picture in Photoshop and close the eyes on your car. I did this by selecting the bucket paint tool, targeting 1 part of the eyelids color (Alt click) and then filling in the eyes with that color.

Step 3: Save the image.

Step 4: resize the images down a bit if they are huge. I used Microsoft Office Picture Manager to resize the two images to the "web-small" size.

Step 5: create a new folder and put 7 copies of your original image (eyes open)in there along with 1 copy of your picture with the eyes shut.

Step 6: Compress the folder by right clicking on it, click send to and then in the drop down click on "compressed (zipped) folder"


Step 7: Now to go Gifninja's image to animated gif making web tool HERE, browse to your zip folder and click upload. I kept the slower faster setting at the default and this is what I ended up with.



I had a ton of fun making this picture and .GIF and I hope you will too. Get creative cause there are infinite things you can do with Photoshop and Gifninja.

Kodak Z650 review; Photos included

Right before Christmas, I decided to finally replace my broken HP digital camera. I was looking for a camera with a higher pixel rating and good optical lens but didn't want to spend the 800 + dollars to get a SLR. So after searching the internet, talking to friends and going to Best Buy, Circuit City and Target I decided on the Kodak Z650.

The Kodak Z650 runs under 200$ at most retail stores that carry them. It packs a nice 6.1-mega pixel with a whole array of 17 diff3erent scene modes for taking pictures. Another great feature is the 10X optical zoom Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon lens. The Camera is definitely designed for the person who wants to take great pictures but does not have the time to make a full time hobby out of photography.However if you do want to take a bit more advanced photos the settings definitely allow you to take your photographs to the next level.

Video features on this camera allow you to take 640X480 at 11 frames per second or 320X240 at 20 FPS. I have not really used the video mode a whole lot yet but it is also extremely easy to use (just turn the top switch to video, press the button and point).

Kodak Easy share Software comes with the purchase and installs in just a few minutes. I find the software good source for organizing all of your photos. Easy share software allows you to share your photo albums on the internet with family and friends effortlessly. There is also the option to order your prints off the web and have them mailed directly to your house.

Overall, I find this to be a great purchase for a family camera.

Click on the picture below to enlarge it and see the quality pictures you can take with this affordable Kodak camera.


If you are looking for more details on the Kodak Z650 you can check out this thorough review at DPreviews.

Turning your winter beater into a pixar car :)

As I posted the other day, I have been playing around with Photoshop recently. I learned how to make miniature sets from photos and now I have learned a new little trick. Following This tutorial, you can turn your car into a Pixar car.

I took the smile, eyes, wheels, stickers, exhaust tips from Lightening McQueen from Cars, and put them on my Jetta. With a few tweaks of hue/saturation and distorting the size and angles, everything fits very nicely. If you are familiar with Photoshop and using layers, you will find this a fun and simple task :)

Here is the picture of my car before the chopping.



Here is the picture that I cut the graphics out of.



And here is my final product :)



I had a lot of fun with this product. I am new to photo editing so the end result was very gratifying.