Archive for the 'Books' category

SitePoint is giving away (for a limited time only) an excellent e-book about PhotoShop. It’s well worth the effort to donwload the PDF file.

SitePoint sensational Photoshop book is now FREE to Download!

I do not often present character fonts, but this one is definitely nicer than usual with its elegant 3D effect of folded white paper.

Source: DaniellaSpinat.com.

I found this funny little piece of SciFi/security litterature. I’m sure you’ll like it.

The man blurred into existence behind the dense shrubs, and checked a small device he took from his pocket. Since time and date seemed correct, he straightened his sports coat and stepped from behind the bushes.

[…]

Source: Ironic Sans.

We do not often see the sceenplay of a movie we like. Maybe it’s fortunate because they are hardly exhilarating except when they come from Alfred Hitchcock (the man was a maniac of detailed preparation) or when they describe all about animation movies.

The Wall, the Alan Parker movie created with the eponymous music album from Pink Floyd stays a monument of moving images. But, now, you can look at the pages of Roger Waters and Gerald Scarfe, the original screenplay (in PDF).

For those who did not notice, a disproportionately large majority of the titles to Woody Allen movies are written in one and only one font: Windsor.

Apparently, this comes from a conversation with Ed Benguiat, famous American typographer, where Allen wanted to know what a good typeface was.

Source: KitBlog.

With VozMe, it’s easy to have your computer read a text. In English (but also in Spanish and in Italian), you will get an MP3 file with your text read by the slightly-metallic voice of your computer.

One of the greatest minds and authors of the 20th Century just died. Arthur C. Clarke was very well known for some of his highly acclaimed books (think about 2001: A Space Odyssey and the collaboration with Stanley Kubrik on the movie with the same name). Some of them were only known to Science Fiction fans (Rendez-vous with Rama, The Fountains of Paradise, for example).

But Sir Arthur C. Clarke was also the author of significant steps for science like the observation that geostationary satellites would be the practical solution to many telecommunication issues. I can vividly remember my reading of Interplanetary Flight; an introduction to astronautics, where in 1950 he stated very clearly concepts like the multi-stage rocket or the geostationary satellite and why they should be prefered to other technical solutions.

The old man (born on 16 December 1917) was living in Sri Lanka where he appreciated the leisure of all-year-long scuba diving.

Science Fiction can no longer be the same after he left us.

Arthur C. Clarke died at the age of 90 from respiratory complications linked to the post-polio syndrome that forced him into a wheelchair for his last years.

Here is a software tool that will allow you to explore the fonts installed on your Windows computer: FontEXPRO.

If you are interested in GNU/Linux and want some useful e-reading, you should jump to this list of free ebooks related to Linux from LinuxHaxor.net.

You may not have the time and money to go to University lectures. But there are other open options that the Internet is now offering. Many universities and famous institutions provide free online lectures. Let’s browse a few of the best ones I could find:

• Collège de France : the most famous French scientific institution has free-access lectures all year long. Most of them are available online too (from Mathematics to Philosophy through Archeology).
• The MIT publishes a number of lectures in video-on-demand (and has a large web site named OpenCourseWare).
• OpenYale is presenting seven free introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.
• Courses of all levels from the Washington University (introductory, undergraduate, graduate).
• PodCasts from UC San Diego
• Lectures from Vanderbilt.
• Computer and Computer Graphics, from University of British Columbia or from Virginia U.
• Webcasts from Oxford Internet Institute.
• Webcasts from Rice University.
• Podcasts from York College (NYC).
• Harvard at Home.

I could also advise you to check the Lecturefox Blog with a lot of information about these free lectures.