Color Inspiration

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When creating a color scheme for a blog (or any artistic endeavor), a great place to see your colors side by side is COLOURLovers.  Even better, if you are at a complete loss, you can view other people’s color suggestions.  In a moment of serendipity, the colors I had in mind for the SheekGeek.org redesign of *blue* and *green* were in a palette on Color Lovers.  Not only that, the palette had been created just 7 minutes before I visited the site.  (Not surprisingly, these are also common colors used in our home.  I am definitely influenced by my surroundings.)

City_by_the_Sea
Color by COLOURlovers

The colors also come with HEX codes, which make it easier for web coding (or should I say tweaking, since I do not code!) and photoshop.

These colors really got me going, because I completed almost the entire overhaul of SheekGeek.org in one night.  In that night, we went from this (keep scrolling!):

Nature Wdl 1.3 Theme

To this:

Arthemia Free Theme V2.0

I am in love with dreamy goodness of this new site design!  It has my creative juices on overdrive – oh the post ideas that are brewing…

By the way, if you are wondering how I got those super long screen-shots, it was a snap with a firefox plugin called Screengrab!.

 

How to Replace XP with Linux

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Many people are curious about linux, or maybe have even tried linux at some point. There is a huge difference between people trying linux, and people using linux. Hopefully this article will sort of ease your transition into using linux, either as a full time OS or even just enough to get around if you ever encounter it. Once you are familiar with software on one OS, its tough to move on but with this article I hope to list out some linux software that replaces many of the XP programs I once loved and how to run certain irreplaceable Windows software on linux.

The version of linux used here is Linux Mint, which is built off Ubuntu.

(Image provided by Wikimedia Commons. Authors Larry Ewing, Simon Budig, Anja Gerwinski)

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Reference Managment in Scientific Papers

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Citing references in papers has always been a tough nut to crack. Everyone has their own preferences and style when it comes to writing, and different scientific journals all have their own specifications for how to cite references. Some people swear by LaTeX and BibTeX, others use word and Endnote.

While writing my thesis, I’ve come across a set of applications that I believe can be useful for almost any and everyone who is writing a paper.

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Skywriting: Drawing Light Pictures

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Tree and Sky LED Photograph Example

Tree and Sky LED Photograph ExampleCreating led light drawings using a camera is a snap!  All you need is a camera (with the ability to set long exposure times) and a tripod (We actually used a table!).  Most of the pictures we took had shutter speeds ranging from 20 to 60 seconds; however, even shutter speeds as short as 4 seconds can work (you just have less time to draw!).  The camera we used for this project is my trusty (and no longer manufactured) Panasonic DMC-FZ30.  See more example pictures and tips after the jump.

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Creating a Duct Tape Chair

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I purchased a dome chair from a big box store last year and it didn’t hold up very well.  The chair part ripped and fell of the frame.  Since the frame was still left intact, I didn’t want to throw it away -so I reused it to make a new chair.  Using duct tape (the best duct tape of all – Nashua 357), I created a new frame for the chair.  This project was quick, cheap, and easy; it used less than $10 in materials and only an hour of my time.  The result is a chair that is much sturdier than the original I purchased. 

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