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[phpbay]Cut Studio,100, “”, “”[/phpbay]



Cut Studio

Cricut Design Studio Help For Dummies – 5min Tutorial

Turn on your computer! If you’ve successfully installed your Cricut Design Studio software you should see the little green Cricut Bug looking at you with big eyes right from your desktop.

When you load the software, you’ll be presented with a large window with components that may look strange (or not so strange) at first glance.

Here’s a short description of the main items in the Cricut Design Studio software to help the beginner (you!) get started without pulling your hair to baldness because the software’s manual is a little too thin:

1. The first thing you’ll notice is the virtual mat which looks just like your physical cricut mat. That’s your virtual design space and where most of the action is going to take place. Start by clicking on any shape in the keypad overlay (the big box just on top of the mat) and play around with the image. You’ll see big circles around the shape, those are called “selection handles” and they let you manipulate and distort the image in every direction.
2. The second thing you’ll notice is, as talked about in the previous point, the keypad overlay. This is your virtual keypad that changes according to the cartridges you’ve selected.  Every time you click on one the shapes or letters available it will appear on your virtual mat so you play with it and design what you want.
3. Third are the 2 boxes just besides the keypad overlay: the cartridge library on the left and the shape properties box on the right. The cartridge library is just what the name suggests, it’s kind of an index of all the cartridges available. You can design with any of the cartridges and even use shapes or letters from  different cartridges in the same design but you’ll be able to cut only with the cartridges you own (not cool!… I know). The shape properties box lets you manipulate the selected shapes or letters with more precision. You can give them X and Y coordinates (just like back in school), you can give them precise width and height,  you can rotate them, you can nudge them, weld them or kern them.

What is nudging? Clicking on the nudging buttons moves the shape you select by very small increments. Use it when you need to make small adjustments.

What’s welding? Welding enables you to have shapes “glued” together when you cut them with the cricut. Just make shapes or letters overlap on your design, when you turn the weld function on those overlapping letters will be glued together when you cut them.

What’s kerning? Kerning let’s you specify the space between words. Use it to have a specified number (negative or positive) between words without having to nudge them over and over again.

Things to remember:

• You can design with all the cartridges that exist on planet earth (don’t know for other planets) but you can only cut with the ones you’ve purchased.
• You can use other people .cut files if your not in a very creative mood. just head over to the cricut message board or do a quick search on Google for “cricut design studio cut files”.
• Make sure to update your software when necessary to get new cartridges loaded in your cartridge library and to get bug fixes.

About the Author

If you’d like to learn how to use the Cricut Design Studio software to it’s full potential, save time and money from trial cuts and avoid going bald from hair pulling out of frustration with the software, visit TamingTheGreenBug.com for the full Cricut Design Studio Tutorial. Inside you’ll learn how to create shadows, use multiple layers for your creations and more.

[phpbay]Lost City,100, “”, “”[/phpbay]



Lost City

The Top 5 Lost Cities Around the World

There’s nothing like staring at the ruins of an ancient, lost civilization to make you feel like Indiana Jones. Visiting the 5 ancient cities below, you can’t help but reflect on the transient nature of even the most ambitious human efforts:

Pompeii

Located in sunny Southern Italy near Naples, Pompeii is probably the most famous “lost city.” This old Roman town was a lively port city and a favorite vacation haunt of Roman notables. Before 79 AD, Pompeii bustled with shops, restaurants, a bar, bathhouses and even a public pool. Then, Mount Vesuvius, a nearby volcano, buried everything, including many of the inhabitants. Today, it’s been excavated and is open to tourists, of course. Ironically, the volcanic ash that destroyed the city also did a strikingly good job of preserving a slice of the ancient Roman lifestyle for us to explore today.

Akrotiri

Akrotiri was a Minoan city located on the Greek island of Santorini. Much like Pompeii, it was also buried under layers of ash and pumice when a nearby volcano called Thera erupted. Fortunately, the people living in Akrotiri had enough warning to escape the eruption. They escaped, but left behind a city and some breathtaking frescoes that were preserved by the volcanic ash.

Unfortunately, you can’t visit Akrotiri at the moment- it was closed for renovations after a roof built on top of the site collapsed.

Chichen Itza

Located in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, this former Mayan stronghold features impressive step-pyramid style temples and other monumental architecture. A reminder of the power of the ancient Mayan empire, the city was mostly abandoned by AD 1000 for reasons unknown.

L’Anse aux Meadows

Columbus wasn’t even the first European discover the New World. The Vikings had him beat by about 5 centuries, when they discovered North America on expeditions from Greenland. They called the land they discovered “Vinland,” and the small settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Canada is the only known remnant of their time here that mainstream scholars give any credence to.

Mohenjo-daro

Mohenjo-daro is a fascinating city that was once inhabited by the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization. The city dates back to 2600 BCE, and is amazingly advanced for the time, with “modern” conveniences like toilets and a sewer system. It’s in Pakistan, so US citizens will find it difficult to visit under the present circumstances, but hopefully that will change in the future.

To visit any of these sites, you will need a passport. Make sure to plan ahead: regular passport processing takes about 6 weeks, while expedited processing takes about 3 weeks door-to-door. For faster processing, consider making an appointment at a regional passport agency office or using a private expediting company like RushMyPassport.

About the Author

Alison Kroulek is a freelance writer and blogger with a focus on the travel industry.

[phpbay]Castle Designer,100, “”, “”[/phpbay]



Castle Designer

The History And Some Unusual Facts About Jumping Castles

The bouncy castle was originally designed by university students in England around 1961 for a fundraising event. Bouncy castles are now available not only in castle shapes, but also in many others including popular cartoon, movie and childrens’ book characters. New variations on the general design have resulted in inflatable slides, interactive games and climbing walls. The variety of shapes has made them popular with some installation artists.

The surfaces of bounce houses are typically composed of thick, reinforced PVC and nylon, and the castle is inflated using an electrical or petrol (gasoline) powered fan, known as a blower.

The biggest bouncy castle ever made was in Canada by two inventors they started in 1994 and finished it in 1996. Although it has never been blown up it is believed to have 61 floors in a height of 157 ft (48 m) and 400 ft (120 m) wide. Some people have valued it at $200,000 but health and safety officials have deemed it too unsafe to be used. There are 20 obstacle courses and one giant slide which is believed to be over 100 ft (30 m) high with two drops in the middle of it causing even more speculation it will be demolished. Other features include zip wires, ball pits, a main stairwell and balconies.

The record for “Longest marathon on a bouncy castle (team)” is 25 hr 25 min and was set by Will Scogin, Patrick Taylor, Miller Wright, David Wilson, Forrest Haynes and Jimbo Wilhite (all from USA) at Northridge High School, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA, on 10-11 October 2008.

Stay tuned for more

About the Author

Nick Alers is the webmaster of http://happyhop.store.co.za

[phpbay]Print Shop,100, “”, “”[/phpbay]



Print Shop

Business Card Slitters For Print Shops

Printing business cards is expensive. A few years ago I got pretty excited about printing services on the internet because it seemed such a perfect way to find deals on all kinds of printing services. Some internet printers have ventured into the business card market and done fairly well, but it’s still easy to spend over $100 to set up a new employee with high-quality business cards. And the price goes up dramatically the faster you need the cards.

The reason these companies have had some degree of success with business cards (a product that many local print shops shy away from) is that they can do extremely large quantities at once with orders coming in from all over the country. With local shops the cost of running individual business card orders was not worth the profit.

The main concern that I have about internet printers is inconsistent quality and service. Many do not guarantee the quality on business cards, and the paper and image clarity have varied wildly in the few times that I have seen business cards ordered from the same sites at different times. One of my orders came so poorly done (by comparison to a previous order with the same specs) that I tried to call and email the company to see if they would do anything about it. After several emails and phone messages, they responded that they could not always get the same paper or print quality and that was just the way it is with business cards. I had paid $130 for 2 day turnaround on 1000 cards that I had created the Illustrator files for myself.

From what I have heard and read in forums, I am not the only one disappointed by the once-promising internet printers. I’m reminded of how friendly and easy to work with the local printers are on other projects.

So my new stance (or hope) is that local print shops look at the newer models of business card slitters and offer them at prices comparable to the internet guys. I’m talking specifically about catering to the frequent, small runs for local companies that need business cards. Nothing fancy – just plain white, one color cards on 16pt. paper with clean, even edges and consistent quality. It could be done well with the new business card slitters available. I think it would satisfy customers who usually only go local for envelopes or letterhead to be able to tack on business card orders at a discount.

There are a few inexpensive business card slitters out there that could probably produce the same quality that I’ve seen on some of the good results from internet printers. But, for a little more money initially, it’s worth it to look at a higher quality cutter that will last and end up saving money and hassle. I’d recommend RB Sun Enterprises – they only make business card slitters, and they have a reputation for durable, low-maintenance machines.

The RB Sun Enteprises HS-2000-B Handi Slitter is a 4 up desktop model slitter that you can get for $1400 online. It can produce up to 600 cards a minute from 8-1/2″ x 11″ stock. Printers that do even the occasional business card run could make money with this model.

RB Sun Enterprises also offers the slightly less expensive HS-2000-M 12 up slitter. For about $1200, the HS-2000M is a manual slitter that will also work for printers who don’t specialize in business cards but still want to offer them to customers.

About the Author

Amanda Leavelle is the marketing director for
MachineRunner.com
. They specialize in providing quality equipment for print shops, schools, and small business. Find
paper cutters
, shredders, money counters & more at factory direct pricing.