More (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers

As I told you yesterday, I am a huge fan of customization. Today’s customization link doesn’t cover desktop icons, but wallpapers. Titled More (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers, this blog article really does cover some of the most stunning desktop backgrounds. Plus they have different resolutions, so people with wide screens aren’t left out!

5 Real-Life Ghost Towns As Eerie As Silent Hill

Some places in the world are just creepy. Literal ghost towns, if you will. This blog entry lists 5 ghost towns and gives background information for each of them. The article talks about places such as Centralia, Pennsylvania and Chernobyl, Ukraine. If you love to learn about creepy places and their histories, check out 5 Real-Life Ghost Towns As Eerie As Silent Hill.

40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon Sets Hand-picked from deviantART

If you didn’t already know this about me, I love to customize everything. Wallpapers, screen savers, programs, I need to make them my own. But there’s one thing that I actually haven’t customized. My desktop icons. I just haven’t found anything that I really liked in that particular area. Until I found this. 40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon Sets Hand-picked from deviantART puts some of the most beautiful icons into the spotlight for their well deserved 15 minutes of fame. Some are very clean and modern, one set looks like stickers, and there is more than one Asian inspired icon set. Do yourself a favor and check this out!

Improve Your Writing

Where did a month wander off to? I really can't say that I exactly know. Sorry for the lack of any posts over the last month. I am now off for summer break, so there should be a sharp increase in posting.

With the internet as it is today, I have found that use of proper English has gone down. With terms such as ‘lol’ and ‘Gr8’ (Although I am guilty of the occasional ‘WTF’), students stop bothering to use the correct sentence structure on the internet. This behavior is starting to creep into the students’ work. If you know the concepts of English well enough to write, but still can’t remember where to use the semicolon, then this website is for you. Titled “Improve Your Writing,” this website will help you tame the jungle of English grammar. It will tell you where and when to use a hyphen, the difference between whose and who’s, and help you to remember where to put quoted material. That’s just the tip of the iceberg!

FSTDT Top 100

I’m Catholic and I go to a Catholic school, but I am embarrassed by the Christian fundies. They really worry me. If you want to see some worrisome (and really funny) fundie quotes, head on over to FSTDT Top 100. Sometimes they are funny (“I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie”) and sometimes they make you lose a little of your faith in humanity (“[Talking about an eleven year old girl who was raped and then buried alive] god was sacrificing this child as a way to show others the light. much as he did his own child. what a beautiful gift he has given us.”) If you’re not of the Christian faith, then you can point and laugh. If you are, you can either shake your head, or point and laugh. It’s your choice

100 Photoshop Tutorials and PSDTuts

I'll try to keep the posts coming! I'm sorry for the time gap!

Photoshop. It’s a wonderful program, but a pain in the ass to use. Thankfully there are many resources to help one adapt to the… uniqueness… of Photoshop. Now, if you have never used a professional photo editing program before, I wouldn’t attempt these tutorials because they do show some advanced methods for doing some things. Our first site is 100 Photoshop Tutorials. Some of them show step-by-step, and others are just an overview. Another useful site is PSDTuts. This site has broken the tutorials into different sections such as drawing, photo effects, and text effects to make finding what you want easier. Many of these are for the more advanced user, so get familiar with the basics before moving on to these.

Originally Posted November 22, 2007:

Again, I am so sorry I haven’t posted for about a month! School has taken up a lot of my time. I would rather be surfing the internet finding cool websites to post than do Algebra homework, but sadly schoolwork is higher on the need to do list than blogging.

That doesn’t matter now, though! I’ve found some new websites that I think will be to your liking!

Do you like products with personality? Do fast food erasers or hangers shaped like clouds? The website is fredflare, and it sells some of the oddest (and cutest) things I have ever seen. Bangles shaped like apples? Check. French fry coin purse? Check. Ear ring made from a mini cassette? Have that too. They’re priced pretty reasonably and even if you don’t have any money the stuff is a lot of fun to look at.

What comes to mind when you think Photoshop? Complicated? Useful? It can be both. Farlow Studios has got you covered with a few in depth tutorials. How to color flats, how to ink, and how to shade face and hair are all covered. In the side bar on the right there are a few other tutorials covering how to draw the female face and figure, how to prepare your lineart, and how to color a muscled arm. Pretty useful stuff right there.

How fast do you type? I myself type at about the norm. Don’t know your speed? Take this Speedtest and find out. It will only take you a minute. Go, do it now. It won’t take long.

Ahh. Who hasn’t used a box of Crayola crayons in their life? What other brand is there? Roseart? Bleh, too oily. Crayola? Just right. Now you can relive your childhood coloring experience with Crayola Digi-Color. Crayola has really updated their product line. This application only boasts nine of their many products. Crayons, Twistables, Super Tip, Washable Markers, Eraseable Markers, Colored Pencils, Slick Stix, Mini Stamper, and Paint are all included. Look ma, no mess!

Think of these words; amazing, angry, anger, answer, bad, dull, fat, good, interesting, move, say, and scared. What do they have in common? They all are common words that all have synonyms! This list of synonyms might just help you some in your writing. I know I’m tucking it away in my bookmarks for future use.

Some people learn by reading, some by hearing, and some visually. If you’re the kind of person that learns by looking at illustrations, Merriam Webster has something just for you. A visual dictionary! Now who doesn’t like looking at something than read a boring description that is hard to get in your head? Not too many people (and if you like reading boring descriptions, than you’re kinda weird). This is a wonderful resource for visualization.

If you are a writer, you know the common problems. How do I create a memorable character? Can talking be interesting? How do I name my story? Well I’ve got the resource for you! At Writing-World’s fiction page it seems that there are a million and one links for all sorts of topics. Check it out, I dare you.

Speaking of writing, it is important to have good spelling and grammar. Where can you find such a site to check if you’re writing right? The Research Tools at Economist.com, of course! Many things are covered there in an easy to read format. You can even buy a hard copy of the information if you want!

Okay, now that you’ve worked on your plot and storyline and made sure that you’re forming sentences correctly, where can you get published? Lulu.com! This is really a great site because not only are publishing prices reasonable, but you can also buy single copies of your book. Can you publish it yourself? If so, it will only put you back $50 USD! Publishing by Lulu itself is a little bit more expensive at $99.95 USD, but it is a far cry from the prices I’ve seen on some other companies (Oh, say about $1,000 USD). You can even get your own ISBN number. Pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

This is Kaitlin signing off.