(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) -

Source: Treasurer Wayne Swan says inflation will remain "subdued" | Business Breaking News | News.com.au

With the end of a decade approaching it seems only proper to reminisce over the noughties and the changes they brought to our lives in the design industry. (Please feel free to add more)

1. Long live Indesign!

Finally we saw the end to the Quark Xpress monopoly. It was a long time coming and after Quark had rested on their laurels for more than a decade, the launch of Indesign was much-lauded! Can you remember the days of one undo, no layers and dodgy previewing? Design graduates don’t know they’re born!

2. OS X

I loved the Mac Classic operating system. It was a simple and uncomplicated design that did what it needed to. In fact, I thought it was all rather frivolous when OS 8 added shading and OS 9 included drop shadows, so you can imagine my dismay at the transparent sliding Dock with its camp Genie Effect and full colour icons the size of houses. Thank god I learned to switch most of that off and after using it for only one week OS9 suddenly seemed sooo last century. Which, of course, it was.

And while we’re on the subject of Mac – where is my Apple key? It seems to have disappeared off the keyboard in the last two years. What’s a command key? Another concession to PC users? A friend once told me he was sitting outside a Scottish pub one evening chatting to the Landlord. With a beer in his hand and the sun dropping behind the mountains he said, “This would be perfect if the midges would just go away.” The Landlord replied “Ahh but it’s the midges that keep all the  ***** away!” So, Mr Jobs if you are reading this…

3. Brandwagon

“Corporate Identity? What’s that? You don’t want that… oh no, you want this… a new improved type of Corporate Identity, called Brand Identity. It’s like Corporate Identity only better! In the 80’s and 90’s you thought you were the bees knees with your new Corporate Identity but you were wrong. What you need is this – a lovely new Brand Identity.”

Of course we all know there is a different level of thinking between Corporate Identity and Brand, but as everyone started talking Brand overnight a lot of companies carried on delivering Corporate Identities – and some still do.

Brand also spelled the end of a lot of the smaller, more groundbreaking design consultancies. Unfortunately, what were once exciting and dynamic places to work turned into huge, corporate, often witless, behemoths.

4. e

I don’t mean the drug because that’s all a bit 90’s. I mean words with an e prefix like e-mail or e-commerce and e-words – yes, even word has an e variant. It appears that all you need to do to put an internet/virtual bent on a service, product or application is to simply place an e on the front of an existing word. So now we have all read e-newsletters, sent e-cards, e-banked and I have even frequented an e-cademy! Is this an e-rant?

But don’t worry because if you are getting bored with e-words we now have i-words to mix things up a bit. This is particularly smart because not only does it indicate an electronic/computer based product, service or application it also hints that you, the user, is in complete control of how you use it!

5. Hot desking

The beginning of this century promised more flexibility in our working lives. A desk at work was no longer a necessity. All you needed was a laptop and the information superhighway! Imagine the money employers could save as they scaled back premises, reduced energy bills and paper usage as their employees delivered work electronically from their home, their cars or even the park.

Unfortunately the dream was destroyed as the dotcom bubble burst and it wasn’t the desks that were made redundant.

6. Social Networking

Who would have thought this could be so contentious. Mention Facebook around the table in a pub and watch the debate unfold in front of you. If you think it is “voyeurism at its most lazy”, “a stage for the attention seeking”, “makes people socially inept” or just that it is “not as good as it used to be” (?!?) it is still undoubtedly a useful tool for users, marketers and researchers alike. More interestingly, imagine what a valuable resource it will be for historians and genealogists in years to come. Social networking is still in its infancy and it will only get more sophisticated.

And while we’re on the subject – who can forget the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York? Footage was recorded and uploaded to Twitter before a News Agency had even heard about it. (More about this below at number 10)

7. Media

Internet has changed media. It has made it more convenient and consumers love convenience. Wouldn’t we all like to choose when we listen to music, watch a film or read the news? Broadband and 3G have enabled this and the consequences are huge.

Licensing of films, TV and music will have to change. No longer can it afford to be region specific and the way artists and publishers charge for their products will need a major rethink. Amplify these issues with the ease that files can be copied and shared and you have a major headache. Services like iTunes and Spotify have started addressing some of these issues but they are still a very long way from having all the answers.

Perhaps the change needs to come from the artists. The internet, MySpace in particular, has allowed artists to bypass the record companies. This may seem good for the struggling artist when trying to get their music “out there” but it has seriously harmed the profits of those who make it big.

The only way to make money as a musician these days, it seems, is to tour constantly. One internet downside appears to have become a very big upside for live music. The impersonal relationship fans now have with their bands via the internet may have led to the massive increase in attendance to live gigs and concerts.

Even the news is changing. Consumers now expect to get news for free from the internet and newspaper readership is down. Some publishers have responded by offering free newspapers to mass audiences like London commuters. These newspapers rely solely on advertising for revenue and sensationalism for popularity. The result is that they seem dumbed down and not very impartial.

The recent challenge by Rupert Murdoch to charge Google and others for displaying his news content is an interesting area to watch. This is the first time a prominent person in the industry has questioned how his empire survives in this world of instant and, so far, free news. Others will follow and it may only be a matter of time before we will have to subscribe to get quality news services. Mind you, if it meant I could catch up on the BBC website (as a non-licence fee payer) without adverts, I’d pay.

How does this effect our industry? Consumers are gradually abandoning traditional media for the internet and our clients will be shifting their attentions and spend even more over the coming decade. It comes as no surprise that during the most recent recession spend in digital media continued to grow as the rest of the industry contracted.

8. Green

Over the millenium I designed a logo standards document for Arthur Andersen that marked the end of over indulgent design for me. A polypropylene folder housing examples of logo reproduction on anything from leather to stainless steel sheets, using various techniques from screen printing to laser engraving. Then, to top it all off, the folder was placed inside a dip-moulded, near flouro, orange rubber slip case. A year later Arthur Andersen changed their name to Andersen and the whole lot went off to the landfill. A year after that Andersen went bust in the wake of the Enron scandal.

I remember thinking then that this was probably the last time anything like this would be as extravagant as the general trend was shifting towards a more sustainable future.

Since then ours and related industries have changed dramatically. Not only in the way clients brief us but also in the way we go about our daily business. Vegetable based inks, paper recycling, streamlined printing technologies, recycled and sustainable papers and electronic delivery to name a few.

9. Google

OK, Google officially started in 1998 but it started to gain traction in 2000 by selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and click-throughs. This model of selling keyword advertising was actually pioneered by Goto.com before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Market. So Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

Then just when you thought Google couldn’t get anymore useful, they added an image search…and then some.

10. Realtime

John Simpson, BBC reporter, was on the front line when troops took control of Kabul during the Allied invasion to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was reporting in realtime using a satellite phone with an in-built camera. This was one of the first times this technology had been used to report on a war and it’s portability allowed for up-to-the-minute updates, 24 hours a day, from the centre of the action.

In the heat of it all, John Simpson – who to be fair was risking his life to bring the reports – inadvertently reported that “we have liberated Kabul”. The fallout from this was unstoppable. News agencies jumped on these words, and for the next three years, papers portrayed John Simpson as an arrogant, self-important man who thought he had been instrumental in liberating Afghanistan. John immediately apologised but it was too late.

Traditional reporting allows journalists the time to write a report and edit it before broadcast but consumers insatiable appetite for news and this new technology had made John’s report impossible to retract leaving egg on his and the BBC’s faces.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with the design industry and branding? Instantaneous messaging, tweets, blogs, updates and emails are all little calling cards from us and effect how people perceive us and our client’s brands. Ill-judged publications, written in haste, can damage our reputation, products and services.

Just because we can publish instantaneously doesn’t necessarily mean we should. Perhaps this post included.

Get your Euro on with this ridiculous helmet for your moped or motorcycle. You’ll probably cause more accidents than prevent with this helmet on, but you’ll have your eyes glued intently on the road ahead as other people stare. This is to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of SpongeBob and is a very limited release of only 200 available at where else Colette.

Making a foreign investment might seem like Greek to you, but if you are into stock investing, going international could be a great investment strategy. For the past 10 years the best investment strategy has NOT been BUY AND HOLD American stocks, equities. In fact, the U.S. stock market has been a loser.
pubDate:Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:34:59 -0600
Original Link:The Best Foreign Investment – iloveinvestments.com

A decade ago, the magnificent seven—Jill Ferris along with Robin Abbot, Mark Begnaud, Jay Burnside, Diana Garcia-Lavigne, Tom Quinn, and Kristin Scott—(with VECO International, now CH2M HILL, and SRI) made a successful bid to provide logistics support to the National Science Foundation’s arctic research program.  

O.G. Kristin Scott Nolan, left, and Susan Zager celebrate...something. Photo: Diana Garcia-Lavigne

Led by Jill Ferris, our fearless (but for public speaking) and unstoppable leader (and owner of PFS), the team set out from the US Antarctic Program in December, 1999, entering the relative frontier of arctic polar logistics. In our first year, PFS supported about 50 programs. We have tripled that number in 10 years.    

Early days: Merle Bowser, Tom Quinn, Robin Abbott, Jay Burnside, Marin Kuizenga, Susan Zager, Mark Begnaud, and Jill Ferris.

We’ve lost two of the original seven: Kristin Scott Nolan made a permanent home in Alaska, marrying researcher Matt Nolan (UAF) and starting a family.  Turner is an apple-cheeked boy of around 5 who has more wilderness experience than most people gain in a lifetime; since earning her pilot’s license, Kristin now flies in the Alaskan bush.  Mark Begnaud retired in August after another great year of helming the logistics operation in Kangerlussuaq, having come to a point in his life where he can choose to work if he wants to. Lucky for us, he has agreed to come out of retirement (like Michael Jordan) to help us with turnover—perhaps this is the first of many command performances to come.   

Kangeroos: Tom Quinn, Ed Stockard (usually behind the camera), Robin Abbott, and Diana Garcia-Lavigne celebrate the end of season in Kangerlussuaaq, circa 2001.

Of course, we’ve gained a few people: Susan Zager, Marin Kuizenga, Angela Pagenkopp and Jason Buenning entered the fray in the early years. A huge turning point came when the elegant and ever-calm Sandy Starkweather joined the team to manage Summit Station projects five or so years ago.  Another personal favorite in PFS staffing decisions: the hiring of the so-young and fresh-faced Kyli “The Pup” Olson three years ago, who has demonstrated time and again that she’s really an unflappable superwoman behind that Kansas girl exterior.     

Kyli Olson holds up the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support building. Photo: Ed Stockard

We had no children and few grey hairs when we started out; we’ve got oodles of both now.    

Siggy Zager, Ella Kramer (rear) and Brooke Burnside enjoy a PFS BBQ on Jill's deck.

So finally, when all is said and done, after pondering life’s meaning and consulting our thesaurus for exactly the right words, we come to this one absolutely true thing about Polar Field Services, the little company that could:     

We’ve always had dogs and we always will.    

Sammy Buenning, the wonder hound.

Even as a baby, Cooper Score-Robbins was a stand-out boy.

Snoop and Fuse TV

Mister Cartoon & Mrs Toons

B-Real

Kurupt

APL ~ Black Eyed Peas

More from the red carpet

More from the stage

I also contributed some photos to Rime Magazine’s coverage. Check out Rime Magazine’s web site.

A look back at the best of the past 10 years in baseball.

Source:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0912/all-decade.mlb.top.10.games/content.1.html?eref=sircrc

Last night I sent in my letter of resignation, or more; my e-mail of resignation. As of 20100101 I have no job, or more, since I’ve studied for the last year and a half, I have no place of employment (and no place to earn extra money).
So why the resignation? Why give up an employment in these hard times?
Well, the company, my company (soon former company) lost the contract we had, so there is no place for me to work (if I don’t want to change work-place, and perhaps also type of work… which I don’t).
So on December 19 and 20 I do my last shifts.
It’s the end of an era, for me at least.

I started working at this place, or at least at this company, on the 24:th of June 1999.
Man, over 10 years.

Moving on.

I don’t know what I’ll be doing instead, apart from my studies and my music that is. If anyone has any work for a security guard/musician/philosophy student then I’m your man! Send me an e-mail and offer me millions. It could be anything in the lines of guarding a guitar while arguing for it or maybe thinking about writing a song about a guard. I can do it all!

Here’s to letting go of the old, and embracing the new, whatever it may be, and al the time!

So, this was unexpected. 10 Years was previously unheard of to me, the song above having been discovered among a chilled-out compilation. On finding they’re some kind of metal band, I wondered if perhaps I’d mixed up one 10 Years for another; So Long, Good-Bye is a wonderfully mellow song, and nothing much like the rest of their output — which is a shame. I might trawl through their discography and try to find more along the same lines.

That’s about all. Nothing overly special, just a tune I’ve been fixated with for a little while.

Het is nog lang geen kerstmis, maar Viagra haalt een kaarsje van zolder om zijn tiende verjaardag te vieren. Subtiel, dit filmpje. Opdrachtgever is Pfizer, het Amerikaanse  concern dat het receptgeneesmiddel op de markt brengt.

Bron: Reclamewereld

As compilações NOW,  estão a comemorar 10 anos desde o primeiro álbum com as melhores músicas do ano. E desta vez, os ouvintes têm oportunidade de escolher 10 músicas.
Só é pena que a escolha esteja limitada ás músicas que pertenceram a álbuns da NOW.

Mais em NOW 10 Anos

Moguai 

Mirror


Mirror


Mirror

Ferry Corsten 

Mirror


Mirror


Mirror

Gregor Tresher 

Mirror


Mirror


Mirror

Sven Vath



Mirror


Mirror


Mirror

Newsweek rewinds the first 10 years of the new century, reminding you of the best, worst, and unforgettable moments.

Source:
http://2010.newsweek.com/video/decade-in-seven-minutes.html

It’s been an exciting and confusing 10 years for NHL fashion, and not just because hockey fans’ Jersey Fouls have become the subject of academic discourse on blogs.

Source:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/The-5-best-and-5-worst-NHL-jerseys-of-the-last-d?urn=nhl,200390

You know you work for a good company when people stay for a long time, Congrats to Jane on her 10 year anniversary!!

One of the many nice gifts she received was her very own parking spot in the company lot…so awesome.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – Today marks the 110th anniversary of the start of the Boer War in South Africa.

About 16,000 Australians fought in the war and over 600 of them were killed – Australia’s third largest loss in conflict.

Australian War Memorial historian Peter Burness says people tend to overlook the point that more Australians were killed in the Boer War than in the conflict in Vietnam.

“The Boer has probably been lost in the midst of history but it was a very important war, it was a large war, and one in which Australia was heavily involved,” he said.

“The troops we sent there were mainly mounted men, a lot of them from the country districts – they usually fought on horseback over long distances, almost riding those poor horses to death, and fighting a very nasty guerrilla war.

“We lost more killed in the Boer War in the period of two-and-a-half years than we did in 10 years in Vietnam.”

Half of those deaths were in battle, the rest due to accidents and disease.

Source: Boer War remembered 110 years on

We arrived in a completely foreign land ten years ago, curious and naive. Watching the lights emerged from under our plane, we were excited.

Now, 10 years later, we are no longer the same. No longer the young teenage boys and girls. We have jobs, or are pursuing higher education; some are planning to marry very soon, some are looking for a house. 10 years still seem to be a concept too big for my mind to wrap around.

Our gathering on Saturday was pleasant and exciting. Squeezing in a small room in Sentosa, we played card games and board games, laughing and talking, all seemed to be familiar, yet different.

I can still remember we girls having language lessons in Cedar language room, visiting St Patrick House, going to 会馆, visiting MOE, having meeting in MOE Edutorium, listening to the rules about our O Levels, etc… There are so many things…

10 years in Singapore, I still can’t believe that’s how long we’ve been here.

10 Years
Låt: Wasteland

Betyg: AAAA
YES! Där satt den! Veckans kanske månadens mysikfynd.
Hade inte en aning om detta band men de faller mig i smaken. Härligt…
“Wasteland” var låten jag fastnade för men kolla upp låtarna “Beautiful” och “Through the Iris”.

—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

WEBB:  http://www.10yearsmusic.com/
MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/10years

—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

On October 15th 1999 Brian and I went on our first official date. It was to see a movie I had been planning on seeing for months. I had been planning to see it by myself. But on October 15th 1999 Brian asked, after five days of us hanging out together if he could go with me.

Before I was set to pick him up he called me. He said he had a blast hanging out with me all week and that people at work thought we were dating. I responded in my nonchalant air “I don’t care what they say.”

He then added “Well then, lets give them what they want.”

“Huh?” I replied.

“Lets start dating.” He suggested.

“Oh, ok.” I answered.

And with that simple response, both of our lives changed forever.

That first movie date was a foresight of sorts of our relationship. Fight Club. My favorite quote off Rotten Tomatoes.com is “[A] bold, inventive, sustained adrenaline rush of a movie..”

Which is an excellent description of our relationship thus far.

Two months after dating and pretty much living together we went to the jewelry store in Vacaville Outlet Mall, and we picked two white gold bands out. Brian bought mine and I bought his. In the parking lot we slipped the rings on each-others fingers and under the dull flickering parking lot lights next to the Nike Outlet store, we promised to love each-other to the best of our abilities.

Every day for three years Brian asked me to marry him. It was like the random “I Love You” wasn’t enough, so he threw in the “When are you gonna marry me?” to seal the deal.

In those three years we had our ups and downs, we got an apartment in Sacramento, Brian supported me and the work I did with my little zine, Brian lost his job where we both worked together, Brian found a band and didn’t take me seriously when I had mentioned I wanted to try out to be a singer, then I was the singer in the band thanks to the guitar player not getting along with the original guy, then we started playing shows and breaking in to the Sacramento music scene, then Brian won a trip to Hawaii where we celebrated our first year anniversary of dating, then the band broke up and we formed a new band, we went to Boston to visit my mom and stepdad.

Then one day around Christmas, Brian said “If we don’t get married this next year, we never will.”

With that I guess my fear of marriage was washed away. I had been making him wait cause I didn’t want to tie my life around someone who might hurt me or leave me. I figured it was time to try my hand at forever, or at least a promise at forever.

A month later I talked to my parents about us tying the knot, and they were happy and supportive.

On October 10th 2003 we got married. It was a beautiful day, but it didn’t change anything in our relationship but my last name. The way it should be.

So this year in the middle of finding a house, packing up, moving and unpacking, we let our 10 year anniversary kind of just come and go without the bang or celebration we were hoping for before we got our lousy 2 week notice from our former landlord. Sure I got some congrats from friends on my facebook, myspace, and shit, but really, 10 YEARS.

10 F-ING YEARS. Not an entire day spent apart in those 10 years either. I hear all those “THATS CRAZY!!!” and “WHY WOULD YOU NEVER SPEND AN ENTIRE DAY APART!”

And my answer is “Because we like it that way….and the sex is awesome.”

But really how many people do YOU know that are happy and together after 10 YEARS?

Maybe a handful.

So to us, the fact that this day came and went without fireworks, roses, champagne, dinner or even a movie is kind of disappointing. But we remedied the disappointment with a homemade steak dinner, beer, and an evening IN with our awesome son who wants everyone to call him Spiderman now.

Ten years ago today BF and I made love for the first time.

I was sixteen and had already had 2 sexual relationships and a 1 night stand.  He was 21 and a virgin.

In the last 10 years I’ve dated widely, slept with a (small) handfull of men and had 2 children.  He’s still been with only me.  That’s right, I’m with a man who truely only wants me.

Back then we were both deeply in pain from broken hearts.  We tried to bandage ourselves with each other, with drugs, with anything to numb the agony.  We tried to make each other and our relationship into something it could never be: the loves we grieved for.  We were the epitome of broken and co-dependent.  We were selfish and angry, bleeding and desperate.

And today we are in love with each other.  We have faced our demons, put ourselves back together.  We have faced mortality and found maturity.  We have enough confidence in ourselves to give love and receive it.

And yes, to give the answer everyone’s been waiting for, my self-control has cracked and we could not wait any longer.  It’s not like we’d never done it before, after all.  And yes, he’s even better than I remembered…. but I’ll not go into the steamy details.

I am having trouble getting my mind around the idea that here I am, with this man, 10 years later.  Granted, we spent much of that 10 years apart.  But we have also wondered together just how things would have been if only if….

Whatever lies in our past we have a now which is lovely and a future which looks to be even better.  I see us in another 10 years, still happy to spend a few minutes on Saturday morning snuggled up in bed while the kids watch cartoons.  Sigh.