A delightfully absurd take on everything from superheroes to office humor, twisted relationships, huggable animals, and more.
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An adroit mixture of everyday settings and extraordinary events.
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The world of business and finance gets skewered, as Bottom Liners tackles subjects such as foreign takeovers, office policies, getting a raise, and the fast-paced world of Wall Street.
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A wry look at the absurdities of every day life.
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Remove distractions and focus attention.
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A Note of Thanks
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Bring Life to Your Site
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Computer on a Stick
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A Message From Susan Compton |
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Planting a Seed
A young woman decided she wanted to grow an apple tree in her back yard. She had never planted anything before, so she started researching all she could about growing an apple tree. She learned about site selection, training and pruning, adequate fertility, pest control, and other factors helpful for creating a healthy apple tree. Every time she went out in her yard, she pictured the tree already grown with rich, beautiful apples all over it. Because of her determination and ongoing nourishment, the seed she planted grew into a flourishing tree that she was very proud of.
Here's the way I see it: You can't plant apple seeds and expect oranges. However, with a little determination and effort, you may be amazed at what you can grow. We plant "seeds" in life more often than we realize, and sometimes these ideas flourish into great accomplishments. If you're looking for creative nourishment, give us a call. We'd be happy to help your seed grow.
Susan Compton
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Idea of the Week |
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Fixing a Problem Photo...
| ...by blurring the background, yet keeping the grain.
You can remove distracting detail from an image or focus attention on the subject by isolating the subject and keeping it in focus as you blur other parts of the picture. The Photoshop technique presented in this tip imitates the effect you get with a shortened depth of field, traditionally achieved by opening up the camera’s iris (setting the f-stop low). The blurring can be limited to the background, or, as shown here, the sharp subject can be sandwiched between blurred background and blurred foreground. In either case, you’ll need to make the blurred areas match the sharp ones by restoring the film grain or digital noise (the equivalent of film grain in an image captured with a digital camera) that was lost in the process of blurring. |
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| Defining the Foreground
If you want to keep a foreground subject in focus while blurring only the background, it’s a good idea to make sure the foreground subject bleeds off the bottom of the picture, even if it means cropping the image. Otherwise, if the subject is standing on the ground, it can be very tricky to make the transition from the in-focus ground at the feet of the subject to the out-of-focus background. |  |
See more great ideas like this!
Click here to visit the Compton Design and Printing, Inc. Ideas Collection.
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Tech Tips |
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Portable Apps
If you are currently using a flash drive simply as a backup or transfer device, you haven't truly unlocked the potential of the USB until you've installed some programs on it. Because portable applications allow users to run programs independently from a removable flash drive without the hassle of installing them, they are becoming a favorite for professionals in a variety of industries. If you aren't already using this feature, here are a few portable apps for Macs and PCs to check out:
- HTTP File Server is a very simple application to send/receive files over the internet, and is very handy when exchanging files that are over the maximum e-mail size limits.
- Foxit Reader is a small PDF reader that is much faster than Adobe Reader.
- OpenOffice Portable is a great alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator, and database tool.
- Thunderbird Portable Edition is a popular e-mail client that allows you to bring your e-mails and address book with you.
- MemPad enables you to save all notes in a single file but arrange and manage them in a hierarchical tree-based manner.
- KeePass Password Safe Portable allows you to carry multiple login information and passwords on your USB drive accessible through one master password to protect them.
- Firefox Portable Edition enables you to bring your bookmarks with you.
- Google Chrome Portable enables you to run different tabs as separate processes which prevents different windows from interfering with each other.
- Notepad++ is one of the most popular replacements for Windows Notepad.
- Web Design Toy splits into two views where you can instantly preview the output when you type HTML code.
- GIMP Portable is the best alternative for Adobe PhotoShop, enabling you to easily edit images no matter where you are.
- Fotografix is a tiny application alternative to GIMP with features including clone, eye dropper, magic wand, etc.
- Inkscape Portable is an open source vector graphics editor, and is a great alternative for Adobe Illustrator.
- FileZilla Portable is the most popular open source FTP client and allows you to save and conveniently access your clients' server details and settings.
While portable applications are great, just remember if you plan to take a USB flash drive with portable apps to a client site for use on one of their machines, you should always check their IT security policy in case they have security restrictions in place.
Don't worry if the portable app program details sound like foreign language... we'd be happy to help you with both your technical and printing needs.
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