The design was sorta simple yet went back to my own tastes with various inspirations elsewhere. I do like simplicity, and I think simplicity fits me well. I would like to try out various other styles of design like the very artsy vintage, grunge styles, and vectorish modernish.

They should have a class specifically for web design styles, haha. Then again, there might be stuff already made for that and I wouldn’t even know.

So today I completely neglected the fact I had a math exam in calculus. I stayed up all night until 5am doing my website and formatting my portfolio to be displayed.

I still have not come up with a great work flow that covers the creative aspect as well as the organized format of a web design portfolio. If you don’t know what I mean, I am talking about what to do when you create a finished product or work, such as a wallpaper. How would you display it for the world to see on a website? More specifically, would you keep copies of your wallpaper in an archive on your external hard disk (like me) and make a copy specifically for your website to distribute?

Also, how do people go about making thumbnails? Thumbnails are really a pain… This is true for even different sizes of print material.

As you can also see, I have updated my portfolio. You can see my various works I have finished. I think I will update it to have titles and general information on the works.

And I must not forget my resume..

So, do you have a young kid? Do you have the internet? Are you afraid? Well you should be. As we all know, the internet can be a great resource for learning and it can teach you everything you might need to know and yada yada yada. Well, whatever; we all know that for the most part we all spend probably 95% of our time on the internet playing games, chatting, procrastinating… generally wasting time. So sure, it’s easy for kids to accidentally type the wrong word into google and end up with a shitload of porn, or for them to befriend the wrong 14 year-old girl who actually ends up being a 42 year-old guy named Bill with a strange affinity for children. Well if you have children and you’re afraid of this happening, then keep reading and maybe your child will survive…(cue dramatic music here) the internet…

Alright, so first of all you might be asking, “Is the government helping me protect my child online?” The answer to this would be both yes… and no. “How?” you may ask? Well technically there is a law that is supposed to make sure no personal information from your child is given without your knowing and consent. However, let’s be real people. If a 12 year old wants a MySpace(I hate MySpace btw, Facebook too) page they’ll probably know a way around it. Thus if you really want your child to be safe on the internet, you need to follow through with your job description. Be a parent!

Next are the built-in parental controls. These can allow you to block any content you might find “objectionable”. Now should little kids be allowed to see anything pornographic? Well we’ll all agree that it’s probably wrong. But as for me, I don’t believe in censorship and while these tools will definitely keep the kids away from it, it can also block out plenty of perfectly valid topics from the eyes of your child. Now do you really want to stunt their emotional growth like that? Now you may still be worried that your children will come across porn on the internet. Well there’s definitely a lot of it and there’s probably no way you can possibly block all of it. So your best defense is once again to do your job and teach them right and wrong like you’re supposed to. Rather than blocking it all and pretending it doesn’t exist you should stop being so damn lazy and teach them how it’s bad. Yes they’ll probably see some type of porn on the internet accidentally, but come on. They’ll probably be living in mountains of the stuff by the time they’re 17 or so anyway, so you might as well teach them while they’re young and impressionable.

Now for those creepy guys in the chat rooms. You just need to teach your kids to be smart enough not to become a victim. It’s not that hard. Let your kids know not to give out any personal information. Tell them not to meet with strangers. Tell them to never give out too much information. If, after all this, they still get stuck in a bad situation. Your final salvation might be to just give the kid away to someone who probably at least “loves” them. Heartless, you say? Yeah, probably, but let’s think about this. You taught them well, showed them right from wrong, instilled strong values and principles in them, told them how to stay safe online, and they still got mixed up with pedophiles. Your DNA mixed with your significant other’s DNA and somewhere along the way something went wrong and you ended up with a proverbial lump of coal from God. It’s time to just cut your losses and move on.

Now there may also be some signs that your kid’s already involved in this stuff. In which case you’re probably screwed anyway. But just to let you know, here’s what you should look out for. If your kid gets gifts in the mail from people not named Grandma or Grandpa, it might be time to ask some questions. If you get phone calls from people you don’t know, they could very well be wrong numbers, telemarketers, or it might be the pedophile of your nightmares as well. Then, if your kid turns the monitor off immediately when you walk into the room, there’s a couple implications. The most likely one is that he is looking at porn. The other is that he apparently has mastered the alt+tab shortcut; he’s also probably not cut out to be 007. Anyway, the point of this whole post? Just be a better parent. Then your kids might get into some shady stuff and still be able to come out the other side unscathed. You have no one to blame but yourself, although I wouldn’t blame you for suing for a boatload of cash. If your kid’s screwed, you might as well make some money while you’re at it, and you would definitely have a more legitimate complaint than the idiot woman who burnt herself with coffee.

For those in need of some memory, I found all types of good deals for you to peruse here, from computer ram to memory sticks for your phone and camera, and even some good deals on USB Flash drives. Make your computer faster or carry around whatever you need. Check them out after the jump.

First off we got the Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x1GB) PC2 6400 DDR2 Kit from Newegg.com. It’s 1×2 gigs of ram for your aging desktop and the performance increase should be substantial. They clock 800 mhz and before buying make sure they’re compatible with your computer. I know y POS computer needs some of this lovin’ but w/e this isn’t about me. It’s $67.00 – $30.00 rebate – $5.00 using coupon code Consair05 = $32.00 with free shipping. That’s a good deal. Check it with other 2 gig memory kits yourself if you don’t trust me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590&nm_mc=AFC

I don’t personally know any cameras that use these, but there must be if they exist. So for those of you who can make use of it, this 2 gig xD picture card should let you store around 500 photos or so for only $35.00 with free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=203921173

I know there are plenty of cell phones which take microSD cards to hold songs and plenty of other stuff. And for all of you there’s this 2 gigabyte card available. It’s from Buy.com and its only 19.99 with free shipping. If you need this card I’d jump on this deal if I were you; a comparable memory stick from Circuit City is $80.00.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=205097702

Not much to say here; 8 gigs on a SD card for only $37.00 with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211180&nm_mc

If the 8 gig version wasn’t enough for yor giant collection of photos or illegally downloaded music, or illegally downloaded movies and TV shows, or whatever you’re pining to carry around, then here’s the perfect thing for you. 16(!) gigs on a SD card. It’s too expensive for me to really call it a deal though, but I thought you might like to know. $80.00 with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211245&nm_mc

OK, now to the ever-popular USB 2.0 flash drives, imminently portable and useful these are always popular and we’ve got a good selection here. If you can stand the plain design and the huge ugly brand label printed on it, this flash drive gives you 4 gigabytes at a very palatable $19.45 with free shipping from Yesbuy.com.

http://www.yesbuy.net/compmedia-usb-2-flash-drive-4gb.html

This is the 8 gig version of the Sony MicroVault line of flash drives. While not really a deal at $70.00 it’s $80.00 off from the original price and this is by far probably the best designed flash drive available. I actually have a 2 gigabyte version of it which I use all the time and it’s never failed me. I think the black and red of this one looks better than the black and green of mine though. If style is what really matters for you, even in a flash drive, then this is for you, free shipping included from Circuit City.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=179112&linkid=j13774590k9470&affiliateid=k9470&mid=

Now for those of you after an actual deal, if you can stomach the bland design of this flash drive and can appreciate its utility and practicality, then yesbuy.com has this flash drive available to you, 8 gigs for only $32.00 with free shipping.

http://www.yesbuy.net/a-data-pd9-8gb-classic-series-usb-flash-drive.html

Now for those packrats out there, those of you who scoff at a mere 8 gigs of carrying ability, and those of you with an insatiable need to carry around your entire porn collection even though most normal people would just leave it at home in their computers, there’s this 16(!) gigabyte flash drive available. However, the downside once again is that it’s pretty ugly. 16 gigs for you for only $66.25 with free shipping.

http://www.meritline.com/a-data-pd-2-my-flash-16gb.html

So yeah, those were the memory deals I found today. Hope there was something useful for you here.