The Story

Once upon a time, in a small town, lived a yellow pencil. Now this pencil loved his life in the store. But one day, someone grabbed the poor pencil from his container. In all the commotion, the pencil smacked his head of of a shelf and was knocked out cold! The next day, the pencil woke up in a dark area with a pair of keys, a laptop and a pile of paper. He saw a bigger yellow pencil and a smaller white one not far from him, he gathered his courage to go towards them. The pencil got as big as he could and asked:

“Um, excuse me, by any chance would either of you know how to get back to the pencil store?”

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This is one of those things that rarely makes me laugh, let alone guffaw while staring at my computer:

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You know how people sometimes say that jazz is the only truly American art form? Animated GIFs are like the jazz of the internet: they could only exist, and be created and appreciated, online.

Photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg may have finally found a way to elevate the animated GIF to a level approaching fine art, with their “cinemagraphs” – elegant, subtly animated creations that are “something more than a photo but less than a video.” Here’s one of my favorites:

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While Visual Studio 2008 SP1 provided great features and benefits, painfully slow installation and other assorted headaches made me a bit leery about SP1 for Visual Studio 2010. Fortunately, the installation experience for Visual Studio 2010 SP1 wa

s comparatively painless—and enabled me to finally kick Microsoft’s ASP.NET Cassini sample web server to the curb in favor of IIS Express.

Installation via Web Platform Installer
Installation time for Visual Studio 2010 SP1 is going to be linked to how “large” your Visual Studio surface area is in terms of installed features and components. Consequently, you’ll want to check out Jon Galloway’s tips on installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1, to see if there are ways to help optimize the installation process.

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It happened not once that I placed my fixed-price bid on a project. I knew exactly what the project was about and I had no concern the money will cover my time. There is no problem with fixed-price projects, AS LONG as the buyer knows what she wants. However, even for projects with requirements clearly stated, the hourly rate is still my preferred pricing method. Projects for which hourly rate pricing is not an option still don’t make me walk away.

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Ever wondered what’s the Dior signature typeface?

Well, it’s Nicolas Cochin. The curved leg of uppercase R points to Nicolas Cochin. Hard to be 100% exact, but Nicolas Cochin Regular (or perhaps just Cochin Roman) is pretty close.

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In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

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