Andrew Bird is an American musician. He was born in Illinois and resides in the Chicago area. Bird is a singer-songwriter, a violinist and, since 2004, a guitarist. He also is an accomplished whistler.

His early work, which echoed gypsy jazz and traditional folk, has led into his current sound, which mixes rock with more broad compositions. His years of solo song-craft have now enabled him to produce a sound that is uniquely his own.

The instrumentation is bracingly inventive, but never for mere shenanigans or showmanship. The songs are each a perfectly formed vignette. And he's a world class whistler; not the loud summoning blast, but the supple and nuanced vibrato-laced melodicism of a master. There is no shortage of utterly riveting songs here. They work their magic on their own believable terms, without a hint of cloying nostalgia or riff-fueled seduction. - David Greenberger

Currently Andrew Bird has a new CD out called Noble Beast and he is also currently on tour. If you want to see if he is playing in your area check out his site: Andrewbird.net. The new CD is such that of some soothing jazzy folk sound.

I recently acquired a piece of art work done by Chad Mize for my birthday. (Thanks Monique your the best). I was very please with the creativity of the art work and the platform on which it was placed. So I wanted to share his work with others by writing a blog to show support where it was definitely deserved.

Chad Mize and Phillip Clark own a company called Blue Lucy which is a collaboration of creativity of both artist. On the Blue Lucy site you will be able to view both Chad's and Phillips work. I highly recommend checking out both artist. They are very talented individuals. They also have different options available on there site for downloads, web work, clothing, and there blog as well as animation.

Chad thanks for the awesome piece of artwork and for putting it up on your blog.




“Damion” by Chad Mize – Comission for Monique to give to her boyfriend for his birthday. Happy Birthday, Damion and thanks Monique!

Starting out a Website has never been easier with the help of others providing great ideas and tips and tutorials to make it easier for you the beginner. These sites have blog posts, tutorials, tips, tricks, articles, freebies, and more for all of you aspiring web designers.

http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/


http://www.w3schools.com/


http://www.cssnewbie.com/



http://webdosanddonts.com/



http://www.tutorial9.net/


http://colorburned.com/

There are many ways that people show and generate their creativity. One way of showing your creativity is through photography. So how would you go about showcasing your work or your business in which you enjoy. Here are a couple of different photography websites that might kick start your ideas for your photography website. If anyone knows any other great photography websites let me know and leave a comment.

Timothy Allen
Timothy Allen’s website is a WordPress powered blog, slightly corporate in nature as it’s put together in conjunction with the BBC. The design is very effective, there is a fast moving slideshow at the top of the front page, and below that, a moving strip of thumbnails that are links to the latest articles. The latest article is published underneath, and at the bottom five short columns display links to articles on Photography, Travel, Video, Tutorials and My Musings. The front page is designed to wow the visitor and provide easy to follow links to all the interesting content within the website.

Paolo Boccardi
A big photo on the front page, easy to navigate links (I really like the little windows that pop up when you mouseover the links) and then horizontal photo galleries. Lovely!







Chase Jarvis
Chase Jarvis is famous amongst photographers for his blog, but his website is a masterpiece of web design. The viewer is greeted by a large, dramatic, slideshow on the front page, and an easy to navigate menu. The portfolio pages are spectacular, and the flash based design looks great.




Timothy HoganThis website expands to a full screen to show off the photographer’s photos. Although I would have to say that the load time is a little slow.








Mitchell Kanashkevich
A beautiful website, the reader is in no doubt that the website belongs to a travel photographer. Navigation is clear and simple and the photo galleries are stunning. The photographer has a small collection of his best photos. This is very important, because the quality of a portfolio is often judged by the weakest shot.




Isabelle Ribeiro Photography
There’s a lot to like about this website; a strong, simple front page slideshow, beautifully presented photo galleries, and a blog!

Strengthening its line up of portable 1.8” hard drives for external storage markets, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced its 250 Gigabyte (GB) 1.8 inch hard disk drive, the Spinpoint N3U which incorporates a native USB controller on its printed circuit board. This optimized design results in a smaller foot print, less power consumption and optimized performance, which is ideal for portable external storage devices. The Spinpoint N3U stores up to 125 Gigabytes per platter for a total 250GB data storage capacity.

“The new high-capacity 1.8” 250GB drive enhances Samsung’s product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage,“ said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics. “It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G.”

Samsung now ships industry leading areal density levels for all of its hard disk form factor products with up to 1.5 Terabyte for 3.5” drives, 500GB for 2.5” drives and 250GB for 1.8” drives. The Spinpoint N3U comes in 120-, 160-, 200- and 250-GB capacities, the disk rotation speed is 3600rpm, and it supports a USB 2.0 interface. The drives are equipped with an 8MB cache memory. Initial shipments to OEMs are scheduled from mid-July with a MSRP at $199.00.

To all the beer lovers around the Tampa area I have a treat for you. The annual Craft Beer Expo scheduled for July 18 at the Mahaffey Theater near downtown St. Petersburg's waterfront.

The venue is part of the Progress Energy Center for the Arts, 400 First St. S. This year's festival is from 2-7 p.m.

Just go to the Web site at www.craftbeerexpo.org, and follow instructions

Tickets are $30 for the main beer tasting event and access to seminars on subjects like beer and food pairings and homebrewing demonstrations. A VIP ticket for $60 will get you all that plus access to pairing parties featuring cheeses, chocolate and main dishes like barbecue.

You can also follow this expo on Facebook and maybe even win a free ticket to the expo. They will be giving away one more free ticket soon.


Resource: Craft Beer Expo, The Ledger

Sony PlayStation 3 owners used to have the ability to watch Hulu content through their video game consoles, due to Playstation adding flash browser capabilities. This is not the case anymore due to users are now reporting that they are getting errors when trying to access Hulu content. The error message is as followed: "Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience."

The problem occurred hopefully due to the 2.80 firmware update -- if not, however, it's possible PS3 users are being intentionally blocked if Hulu no longer wants its content available through the PS3. In the June 26th PS3 system update, there doesn't appear to be any terms of service changes related to Hulu TOS update.

Sony has apparently been silent about the entire issue, with no public statements made by the company. Hulu has not made any public statement either. So at this time we only have speculations of what might have happened.

In the meantime, their are a couple different ways to get around the issue of no Hulu. The first would be to add a media server that offers Hulu as a service. The one I currently just added was PlayOn . What is PlayOn you ask? PlayOn is software that you can purchase for $40 that allows you to watch movies in your Netflix Instant queue, Hulu videos, Youtube, some ESPN videos, CBS shows and newly added Amazon Video on Demand on your PS3. There are other video plugins that can be added as well.

Go here for more information and a 14 day free trial:

The second options is to trick Hulu. Some clever users have figured out how to workaround the issue. You're going to need a computer running Linux or Windows and some third-party software, however.

The hack involves using a proxy server to trick Hulu into thinking that your PS3 is a Windows machine running Firefox. You can find the instructions here, but honestly, it's probably not worth doing all of this for Hulu on your TV.

Resources: G4TV
CDFreaks.com
PlayOn

That's right people, the Zune HD is real, and it's coming this Fall. Here are some of the features that Microsoft has added to the new Zune HD.

Touch Screen
Get quick and instant access to your content with multi-touch navigation. With a 3.3-inch screen and vivid 16:9 OLED display (480x272 resolution), premium entertainment is at your fingertips.*

HD Radio
Tune into all your favorite stations with crystal-clear reception. With an integrated HD Radio receiver, you can access a variety of HD Radio stations at no additional cost. Plus, tag the songs you like for later purchase.

HD Video Out
Watch supported 720p HD movies, TV shows and videos in high definition on your HDTV through the Zune HD & AV Dock (sold separately). Or take them with you for premium entertainment on the go. Additional dock and HDTV are required.*

Wireless
Connect, update, and buy content wirelessly from Wi-Fi hot spots. Stream millions of songs over Wi-Fi directly to your Zune HD and turn it into a portable digital jukebox.

Web Browser
Surf the web anytime, anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. Enjoy your favorite websites with a full-featured web browser including tap-to-zoom technology, built-in accelerometer, and touchscreen QWERTY keyboard.

Handheld games have grown over the years to become more advanced and more complex. Let's take a look back on the gold old days of simpler handhelds of the past. Tomy was a company who made electromechanical games back in the day. I can remember playing the Turbo Turnin Dashboard when I was a kid. That is when things were so much easier and less complex. Here are a couple of Tomy toys.

Tomy Turnin' Turbo Dashboard (1983, Lights, 4 D Batteries)





Driving simulator, table-top design. Lights and mechanical parts.

Tomy Blip / Blip-o-Mat (1977, LED/Mechanical, 2 AA Batteries)



Blip... This is a mechanical Pong-type game. All of the game play is mechanical, powered by a wind-up timer mechanism. The batteries are only there to light up the single red LED light that represents the ball. (You can actually play the game with no batteries in a bright enough setting).

Tomy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pocket Games (1982, None, None, wind-up)

Wind up games, part of the Pocket Arcade series (also called Technoboy series in Japan). This was a sub-series of 4 games based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one game for each of the turtles (they were sold seperately). Donatello's Sewer Seltzer Canon, Leonardo's Pizza Vault, Michaelangelo's Tunnel Trap and Raphael's Sewer Battle.

Tomy Digital Derby (1978, Lights/Mechanical, 2 C Batteries)

Another one of Tomy's electro-mechanical games. The battery does power the mechanism via a small motor. The lights in the game are normal, flash-light style light bulbs. (Foreign release called Black Racer, Demon Driver and Formula 1.) (Check out Drive Yourself Crazy...)

Gary Duke has written a simulator for this game that works on Palm OS PDAs, check it out here.

Tomy Attack In Space (1982, None, Wind-up)

Wind up game, part of the Pocket Arcade series (also called Technoboy series in Japan).