Sink or Swim

My re-design project for a web site offering life insurance quotes online have taught me a lot of things when it comes to insurance. For one, I found out that I can get a cheaper life insurance called term life which can cover me for a specific period of time. It’s cheap, it’s convenient and perfect if you’re planning to travel for a few years and want to be covered.

Anyway, I’ve seen several health-related and sports web sites while working on this project. For inspiration, I’ve selected my top three favorites and showcased them here.

Till next design inspiration post.

A friend was looking for Adobe Lightroom presets and upon checking Google, I came across presetsheaven.com. It’s a resource web site for free high quality presets that both newbies and professional photographers can use. There are featured presets everyday with plenty of contributions from other users as well. Take a quick look at my fave below and you’ll see just how nice they are.

The best things in life are indeed, free.

Preset 1

Preset 2

Preset 3

Preset 4

My baby’s baptism party is in a few weeks and I still don’t have giveaways to my guests. I don’t want the usual dust gatherers, i.e. figurines, frames so I’m looking at promotional items instead. I saw some really useable items from US Imprints like custom journals, bike bottles, aluminum coffee mugs and eco-friendly totes. But what I liked most are these cute non-alcoholic hand sanitizer sprays. They are costly if you buy just a few but for a minimum of 250 items, you could get them for as low as $1.06. I’ll have to check if you can have different logos per spray because my client is planning on purchasing these for a promotional tour this December. I could ask him to get me extra fifty items so I can hand it out to my guests as well.

Bingo sites have become so popular these days that they spring up all over the Internet by the hundreds almost everyday of the week. These sites, typically for players who are 21 and older, allow gamers the chance to try their luck at one of the easiest games in the world. Bingo dates back hundreds of years and has brought pleasure to millions of people throughout those centuries. Bingo can win players physical prizes such as televisions, iPods, radios, CDs, DVDs, DVD players and gift cards. One of the most popular prizes a bingo player can win is cash. Cash is so fun to win, especially when you get to yell the word ‘bingo’ and feel the rush of energy jolt through your body.

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I love reading eBooks on my smartphones. It’s actually the only thing that I do aside from browsing websites and checking emails. Which is why I got so frustrated when I switched to iPhone. Although there are several ebook readers that you can choose from (free and paid), either you still have to buy books from them so you can use the ebook reader or scroll left and right to read the whole page of the book. I got loads of ebooks in html, txt, prc, lit format and I want to be able to read them again. So I didn’t give up until I came across BookShelf for iPhone. I wanted something that I can read just by scrolling up and down, with nice sized fonts so it won’t hurt my eye and overall pleasant looking. I got all that with BookShelf and more. In fact I couldn’t stop raving about it that I emailed all my friends who have iPhone and told them to download it immediately.

First you’ll have to install the ShelfServer on your PC. Once installed, you’ll need to add a shared directory which is basically specifying a folder where your ebooks are located. On your iPhone, you need to install ShelfServer (around $3.99 at iTunes). You need WiFi to be able to download the books from your PC. Once installed, scan for Near-by ShelfServers until you find the one for your computer. Tap that server to see the shared directories that you created and then a list of all ebooks available. Just click on a file to download and that ebook will be stored on your iPhone.

I just love how the final output of the ebooks look like. It’s almost like you’re reading an actual book from the type of text and paper, the way you turn the page, bookmark and many more. I’ve read about 20 titles ever since I’ve installed this app. I’ve never been so happy with my iPhone until now.

Read here for full details

I’m huge as a hippo at 38 weeks. I wonder when is the safest time to take slimming pills when I give birth? I don’t think it will be possible though, what with me breastfeeding and all. My OB assured me I will lose at least 20 lbs in one week and at least 2lbs or more once I start breastfeeding. That is one great news since I don’t think I’ll have enough time to work, let alone exercise. With my firstborn, I did lose a lot of weight but that was because of my diet and her allergies. Now, all I have is hope that my OB’s words will come true. That or just accept that my pre-pregnancy clothes will never fit me anymore.

A friend was ranting over Twitter today on how her laptop dies every hour or so. She was so worried about the possibility of buying a new one that she couldn’t work any more. As soon as she told me how hot it is in her work area, I told her to get a notebook cooler immediately. There could be tons of reasons why laptops heat up from clogged laptop vents to improper placement to a broken laptop internal fan.

One thing I’ve proven however is that it could be as simple as very hot room temperature. Getting a laptop cooling pad is a necessity now especially if you live in humid areas. If you check the laptop accessories at LaptopStand.org, you’ll see tons of options depending on your budget and style. I’m particular in choosing a more expensive laptop cooler after doing some research on how it can really help your machine perform well. I also have personal experience in buying those generic, cheap coolers and all it did was create noise and gather dust without really improving the temperature of my laptop.

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HP coupons are issued to customers who are interested in buying HP products by the Hewlett Packard (HP) Company. HP Home and Office Stores offer various types of coupons every week or month to promote online purchases of its products. The three main types of HP coupons are free accessory with a purchase, free shipping, and discount coupons. Using such coupons, you can get a superior deal on your online purchase of outstanding HP products. An HP coupon is your ticket to big savings or accessing free “extras” when you buy a product from HP.

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See my first post about it here.

Aren’t these the coolest? The details are just amazing and I love how they display the big version then the small version next. The third or last photo is their actual size.

Belsay Hall, Northumberland

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Want a quick eczema treatment? Check out the Photoshop Disasters Blog to see it in action. Seriously, there’s so much airbrushing there you’d think some companies are now hiring 14-year-olds as graphics designers. Scratch that. I’m not being fair to these guys. To be fair, I’ve had my own share of Photoshop disasters. It’s not easy when you’re working on a very tight deadline. But for big companies and design studios, you just can’t afford to make mistakes. It also works the other way around. Some of these ads are so good they just look so fake.

Do I even have to say it?

Someone got addicted to the Liquify feature of Photoshop

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No time to exercise? Spare yourself the trouble and access www.fatburnerpill.org. Not only you’ll have plenty of options to choose from but also, you’ll be able to tell yourself that you’ve made your research thoroughly before buying anything online. That’s the only thing that I recommend for those who want to lose weight the easy way. If you don’t have the time to exercise, at least exert an effort to read about what you’re planning to put into your body to avoid any health problems. The Internet is huge and not reading reviews and researching on disadvantages is just unacceptable when purchasing a foreign health product.

Buy.com is at it again with their famous weekly sale and discounts. A quick look on their netbooks category showed that my next “to-buy” is now only $355.

ASUS Eee PC1005PE-PU17 10.1″ Netbook
Intel Atom N450, 250GB HD
Wifi, Bluetooth, Webcam, Windows 7 Starter

I’m not sure if this is similar to what we bought for my mother-in-law last year or if it’s more advanced. Either way, she still uses it now without any problems on the battery and memory. So I’m pretty sure this one will do the job as well. Besides, I won’t be purchasing this for myself. My mom, who’s a real estate agent needs to replace her laptop really bad so I suggested we get a smaller one yet still powerful than what she has. The size is perfect for her traveling needs and the technical specs should be enough for all her online brochures, flyers, excel files and maybe a photo editing tool like Photoshop Elements.

I love looking at wedding web sites. Everything is just so white and clean no matter what color I’m looking at. I enjoy browsing through them that wedding web sites are one of the categories that I like to design. Along with parenting / baby online shops, computer / gadgets and fashion.

But back to weddings, when my friend asked me to help her source for wedding accessories, I immediately agreed. I can’t think of anything better to do in my free time than look at nice little tiaras, fabulous bride jewelries and lovely shoes and purses to complete the look of the “blushing” bride.

Costume play or “Cosplay” is a type of performance art wherein the participants wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character which is often drawn from popular fiction in Japan. Artists everywhere delights in the creativeness of the model in portraying their selected character. With several creative props and costumes, a stunning character is made into being…

SOURCE

There are plenty but let me just post here my favorites. I love anime, manga but Cosplay usually makes me laugh. However, these photographs were so good that it seems I could hear the theme song being played in the background.

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My aunt is considering undergoing a colon cleansing weight loss treatment as soon as she saw it on TV last week. Apparently, colon cleansing can help you drop weight fast. There are rumors all over the market that you can lose as much as 7lbs but according to articles I’ve read, that’s only water weight and temporary.

Just like everything else, one must research not only the advantage but also the downside of taking any supplements, treatments especially if you only learned them in the Internet or TV. One thing I can be sure of, colon cleansing, even if it won’t help you lose weight is something that everyone should try at least once a year. To rid yourself of dangerous toxins is the best way to get started in living a healthy life.