Court: Essentially All Gene Patents Are Invalid

By Dennis Crouch, Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)March 30, 2010 at 07:17AM

Association for Molecular Pathology and ACLU v. USPTO and Myriad (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (Judge Sweet)

In a powerful move away from standard thoughts on patentability standards, the district court for the Southern District of New York has held that Myriad’s patents claiming “isolated DNA” do not qualify as patentable subject matter under 35 USC 101.

The claims-in-suit directed to “isolated DNA” containing human BRCA1/2 gene sequences reflect the USPTO’s practice of granting patents on DNA sequences so long as those sequences are claimed in the form of “isolated DNA.” THis practice is premised on the view that DNA should be treated no differently from any other chemical compound, and that its purification from the body, using well-known techniques, renders it patentable by transforming it into something distinctly different in character. Many, however, including scientists in the field of molecular biology and genomics, have considered this practice a “lawyer’s trick” that circumvents the prohibitions on the direct patenting of DNA in our bodies but which, in practice, reaches the same result. The resolution of these motions is based upon long recognized principles of molecular biology and genetics: DNA represents the physical embodiment of biological information, distinct in its essential characteristics from any other chemical found in nature. It is concluded that DNA’s existence in an “isolated” form alters neither this fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body nor the information it encodes. Therefore, the patents at issue directed to “isolated DNA” containing sequences found in nature are unsustainable as a matter of law and are deemed unpatentable subject matter under 35 USC 101.

Similarly, because the claimed comparisons of DNA sequences are abstract mental processes, they also constitute unpatentable subjct matter under Section 101.

This decision is the result of an action brought by a coalition of scientists and public interest groups in 2009. The group challenged Myriad’s breast cancer gene patents as violating both the patent laws and the US Constitution.

The Federal Circuit is likely to reverse this decision — opening the door to an important Supreme Court showdown.

Download Myriad Opinion

The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop

By Joshua Johnson, Smashing Magazine FeedMarch 30, 2010 at 05:49AM

Smashing-magazine-advertisement in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
 in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop  in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop  in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop

Photoshop’s wide array of cloning tools is the cause of many of the absolute best and worst works created with the application. In a skilled and experienced hand, these tools lead to phenomenal results. In the hands of a careless artist, Photoshop cloning can be disastrous to the credibility of the result. This article introduces the several cloning tools available in Photoshop and goes over the proper usage and best practices of each.

[Offtopic: By the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has a mobile version? Try it out if you have an iPhone, Blackberry or another capable device.]

The Clone Stamp Tool

The Clone Stamp tool is the oldest and most widely known of the cloning tools. The basic concept is that you duplicate certain portions of an image using a source, destination and brush.

2-sourceset in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Use the “Option” key (”Alt”) to set the source.

To clone out the name on the tombstone above, you would select a source that shares the texture of the area you want to replace. In this case, the area around the words provides an ample source of stone texture from which to clone.

To begin, simply click on the preferred source area while holding down the “Option” key (”Alt” on a PC). Then, with no keys held down, begin painting over the area you want to replace. The image area from the source will be transferred to the destination.

To be able to use this tool effectively, let’s look at the relevant settings.

Basic Settings: Brush

Below, you’ll find the default settings when the clone stamp is selected.

1-clonestamp in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The clone stamp’s basic settings.

The first setting you’ll want to familiarize yourself with is for the brush. Photoshop does not restrict cloning to a basic default brush. Instead, it allows you to use any brush you want, allowing you to create an unlimited number of effects. In the example above, and in most cases in fact, a small to medium-sized round soft brush gives the best result.

3-hardvssoft in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
A hard brush creates noticeable seams.

As you can see, a hard brush often creates visible edges along the path of the clone. The transition is much smoother on the left side, where a soft brush was used. Both sides suffer from noticeable replication, but this was intentional to exaggerate the cloned area. We’ll discuss how to avoid this later.

As stated, while a soft round brush is recommended for basic cloning, a number of interesting effects can be created using alternate brushes. For instance, below I’ve used a scatter brush shaped like a leaf to add some visual interest to the photo.

4-scatterbrush in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Use a scatter brush to create interesting particle effects.

Experiment with the opacity, blending mode and brush flow for an even wider variety of results. For more information on using these features, check out the article “Brushing Up on Photoshop’s Brush Tool.”

Basic Settings: Sample

Under the “Sample” menu are three options: Current Layer, Current & Below and All Layers. These options affect the area you are sourcing. Here’s a visual illustration of how each mode works:

5-sample in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The area cloned depends on the selected layer and sample mode.

As you can see, with Current Layer selected, the clone stamp ignores pixel data contained in any other layer. Conversely, All Layers ignores all layer distinction and clones any visible pixels in the document (invisible layers will be ignored). Finally, Current & Below samples pixels from the selected layer and any visible layers behind it.

Basic Settings: Adjustment Layers

The final basic setting (the circle with a diagonal line through it) lets you decide whether the clone stamp tool should sample adjustment layers when cloning. Adjustment layers, such as Hue/Saturation and Levels, are meant to be a non-destructive way to change the appearance of layers. So, you can make drastic changes to a layer or group of layers without destroying the original pixels.

Because of this, turning on Ignore Adjustment Layers When Cloning is almost always a good idea. This allows you to clone the original image, which can then be affected by an ever-changeable adjustment layer. If you do not choose to ignore the adjustment layer, the adjustment becomes permanent in the cloned areas.

In the layer set-up below, turning on Sample All Layers would by default clone pixels from both the background layer and the adjustment layer in the foreground. Turning on Ignore Adjustment Layers prevents this.

6-adjustmentlayer3 in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
You can choose to ignore adjustment layers when cloning.

The Spot Healing Brush

As you can see below, the Spot Healing Brush tool is located under the Eyedropper tool and above the Brush tool, and it can be accessed quickly by hitting J on the keyboard.

7-spothealingbrush in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Type J to bring up the Spot Healing Brush.

The Spot Healing Brush is by far the simplest cloning tool in Photoshop. With little to no experience, you can repair small areas of an image. The secret to using the tool is in the name: Spot Healing. The tool is intended not for large areas of replacement, but rather to remove little unwanted spots, such as a scratch on an old photograph or a mole on a person’s face.

To use the tool, simply hover over the area you want to replace and click once. Photoshop does all the work by examining the pixel data around the spot and seamlessly integrating the data into the destination.

9-beforeafter in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Spot Healing Brush is perfect for repairing old photographs.

As you can see above, the tool does a remarkable job of not leaving behind any noticeable artifacts or repeating patterns. The trick is to go slowly and work on very small portions of the image. Select a spot to fix, and use a brush that’s only slightly bigger than the selected imperfection. The larger the brush, the more likely you are to clone unwanted portions of the surrounding area, and the more noticeable the repetition of pixels will be.

8-smallbrush in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Use a brush slightly bigger than the target spot.

The Healing Brush

The Healing Brush tool, located under the Spot Healing Brush tool, is very similar to the Clone Stamp tool. To begin, Option + click (Alt + click on a PC) to select your source, and then carefully paint over the destination to transfer the pixels. The Healing Brush performs this operation with more built-in intelligence than the Clone Stamp.

As with the Spot Healing Brush, the Healing Brush attempts to automatically blend in the cloned pixels with the environment around it.

11-puppyface in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Healing Brush tool automatically blends the source with the destination.

As you can see, using the Clone Stamp to clone the puppy’s eye results in a straight copy of the pixels, while the Healing Brush does a much better job of blending with the background.

This built-in intelligence proves extremely helpful when cloning a subject with diverse colors, textures and lighting conditions. Using the Clone Stamp in these situations can leave you with a lot of noticeably patchy spots that really stand out from the surrounding area.

10-facefix in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Healing Brush Tool makes it easy to clone visually complicated areas.

The photograph above is a good example of a subject with a fairly complicated surface. Using the Clone Stamp tool would have made it quite difficult to paint over the cracked areas while retaining the integrity of the stained stone. Much of the discoloration would have been sacrificed as you sourced smoother areas to erase the cracks. However, the Healing Brush was able to effectively replace the cracked areas with smoother areas, while sampling from the surrounding area to replicate the stains.

The Patch Tool

The final healing tool we’ll examine is the Patch tool, which can be found under the Healing Brush tool, as seen below.

12-patchtool in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Tip: hit Shift + J to cycle between the tools in the fly-out menu.

The cloning tools we’ve examined so far are best when used meticulously on small portions of an image. By contrast, the Patch tool is the best way to clone large, relatively uniform areas. As with the other healing tools, the Patch tool not only performs a straight clone but attempts to blend in the edge of the selected area with the target environment.

To use the Patch tool, either make a selection with any of the selection tools, or simply select an area with the Patch tool’s built-in lasso. There are two modes to choose from for the behavior of the patch: “Source” and “Destination” (found in the menu bar above the document area).

Source Mode

With the source mode selected, first select the area of the image you want to replace, and then drag that selection to the area you want to source. For instance, to eliminate the golf ball in the image below, you would first select the area around the golf ball, and then drag that selection around to find the best source.

13-source in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
In source mode, first select the area you want to replace.

As you drag the selection around to find a suitable source, watch the destination (i.e. your originally selected area) for a preview of what the source pixels will look like in that area. Keep in mind that this preview is a straight clone without any blending (the final image will look much better). Release the selection to see the actual result.

14-noball in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Patch tool’s result.

As you can see, it does a pretty impressive job of blending the source and destination pixels all on its own. But going over areas that need improvement with the Healing Brush is good practice.

Destination Mode

With “Destination” mode selected, the area you select first will be the area that is replicated elsewhere. For instance, if we start with the same selection as before, dragging the selection this time gives us a preview of copying the ball to a new location.

15-destination in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Patch tool destination mode.

After you release the selection, the golf ball is copied to a new area of the image and blended with the surrounding pixels.

16-twoballs in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Result of “Destination” mode.

The Clone Source Palette

The Clone Source palette (found under Window → Clone Source) is an invaluable resource for professional-quality cloning. This tool gives you much more control over the results and functionality of the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush.

The Clone Source palette contains three primary sections: cloning source, offset adjustment and overlay options.

17-clonesource in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Clone Source palette.

Cloning Sources

In the first section in the Clone Source palette, you can define multiple areas of an image as a source from which to clone and/or heal.

18-sources in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Defining multiple sources.

The image above illustrates an example of when you might want to define multiple sources. To save a source, click on one of the five source buttons, and then Option + click (Alt + click) with either the Clone Stamp or Healing Brush. That location will now be saved to that button. Now, select the next button in line, and do the same in another part of the image. Once your sources are loaded, you can quickly shift between them simply by clicking the related button.

Notice that the file name appears just under the clone source buttons. This is because you can actually select a clone source outside of the image that you’re working on. Simply open a different file and set the clone source. Then, when you go back to the primary file to paint with the Clone Stamp or Healing Brush, the pixels from the other image will function as the source of the clone.

Offset Options

The second section of commands in the Clone Source palette really increase the variety of cloned results available to you. You can set exact coordinates for the source, change the size of the cloned result relative to the original source, tweak the rotation of the result and set a precise offset (again, relative to the original source).

19-hayclone in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Tweaking the cloned results.

You can see these transformation effects in action in the example above. The two bails of hay are actually one and the same, but they look considerably different because of the offset options. First, I set both the width and height to 90%, so that the cloned bail would appear slightly smaller than the original. Then I changed the width to -90% to flip the clone horizontally (you could change the height to a negative number to flip the image vertically). Finally, I set the rotation to 10° to give the illusion of a small hill.

Overlay Options

The overlay options are among the most helpful features in the Clone Source palette. Years ago, cloning involved a lot of guess work because it was difficult to tell exactly what the selected sample would look like without actually applying it. The guesswork has been eliminated with the “Show Overlay” command. When “Show Overlay” is selected in conjunction with the “Clipped” option, your brush is shown with a preview of the clone source inside. This is extremely helpful when attempting to clone inorganic areas with straight edges, such as a brick wall.

20-overlay in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
An overlay of the source is displayed within the brush.

Note that if you choose to turn on the overlay but turn off “Clipped,” then your entire clone source layer will be shown surrounding the brush.

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An overlay of the source is displayed within the brush.

Working this way is actually quite difficult because the source significantly blocks your view of the destination. But if you prefer it, try reducing the opacity of the overlay so that you can see the image below.

Vanishing Point

Vanishing Point takes cloning to an entirely new dimension, literally. The tool makes it possible to set up primitive planes across your artwork, which a clone then follows to simulate a three-dimensional space. Vanishing Point has a ton of features and potential applications, and it really merits its own entire article, so this will be just a brief introduction.

When you open up the Vanishing Point dialog (found under the “Filter” menu item), you’ll see a large preview of your image, along with a small set of tools on the left side.

22-vanishingpoint in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
The Vanishing Point dialog.

Grab the tool sitting second from the top to set up your initial plane. With this tool, click once on each of the four corners, outlining the desired plane. Once you’ve created an initial plane, you can Command + click (Control + click on a PC) to extend the plane perpendicularly. Some images, though, like this old barn, won’t have perfect angles. In this case, you’ll have to create a second plane, entirely distinct from the original.

23-twoplanes2 in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Setting up planes.

Once you’re satisfied with the planes, grab the Clone Stamp (fourth from the top), and Option + click the desired source (in our case, the barn door). Then clone the door onto the front-facing wall using the same method you would use with the normal Clone Stamp tool. Turn “Healing” on in the drop-down menu above the image preview to ensure that the source is properly blended into the destination.

24-vp-result2 in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Vanishing Point result.

As you can see, Photoshop interpreted the planes fairly well. Some fine-tuning and clean-up are definitely necessary if we want a believable image; but overall, the result is extremely impressive, given the lack of work required.

5 Quick Tips For Better Cloning

Now that we’ve examined each tool in depth, let’s close by recalling a few things to keep in mind if we want to clone with professional results.

Take Your Time

As you undertake a cloning project, the quality of the result is directly proportional to the amount of time you put into it. Cloning photographic details can be incredibly tedious work. The world has become well acquainted with Photoshop magic, so never assume that no one will notice your blunders.

Duplicate the Active Layer

The very first step to take when cloning parts of an image is to duplicate the layer you’ll be working on (or to just work on a new transparent layer). Realizing that you made a mistake so long ago that your “Undos” don’t go back far enough to fix it is beyond frustrating. Keeping the original image on a hidden layer gives you the flexibility to revert any part of an image to its original state.

Be Selective With Your Tools

Each cloning tool has its strengths and weaknesses, as outlined above. Never arbitrarily grab a tool and stick with it for the duration of a project. Consider which tool is best suited to the particular area of the image you’re working on. On large projects, no single tool creates believable results on its own. Use two or more tools in synergy to achieve a realistic result.

Watch for Obvious Duplication

25-grass in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Sloppy cloning results in noticeable patterns.

If you’re not careful, duplicated pixels can become painfully obvious. This is especially true of areas that should look fairly organic, like the grass above. Instead of appearing natural, an obvious pattern emerges when you use the same section of an image over and over. To avoid this, make heavy use of the Clone Source palette. Use multiple sources; and change the size, rotation and orientation of the areas you’re cloning to give the illusion of an unmanipulated image.

Avoid Disasters

When retouching significant parts of an image, overlooking certain areas becomes all too easy.

26-disaster in The Ultimate Guide To Cloning In Photoshop
Where did her leg go!?

If you’re not careful, you could eliminate enough vital body parts to make the image humorous. Your goal is to prevent your work from showing up on Photoshop Disasters, which is where you’ll find the image above.

Conclusion

Cloning in Photoshop is a difficult task that requires significant time, studious attention to detail and an in-depth knowledge of several tools and commands. To improve the quality of your results, invest some time learning Photoshop’s entire cloning arsenal. Experiment with all of the options for each tool to get a better feel for where you can excel.

Additional Resources

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Judge: Gene Patents Are Invalid

By Mike Masnick, Techdirt.March 29, 2010 at 07:13PM

In a huge ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet has said that gene patents are invalid. As you may recall, last May, the ACLU was the first to finally challenge whether or not genes could be patented. There was a lot of back and forth over the case, with many saying that a ruling against gene patents would throw a wrench into the business plans of many companies, because so many biotech/medical companies have been relying on the idea that gene patents must be valid for so long. But just because many companies relied on a mistaken understanding of patent law, doesn’t mean that it should be allowed to continue. The judge made the point clear when it came to gene patents, saying that they:


“are directed to a law of nature and were therefore improperly granted.”

The case was brought against Myriad Genetics, who will surely appeal, so this is nowhere close to over. But it involved a test for breast cancer, that Myriad basically had a monopoly over — and the claim was that this not only made it more difficult for women to get tested, but it also greatly discouraged other research in the field. In part, this was because the patents that Myriad held were incredibly broad.

Patents, of course, are not supposed to be granted on things found in in nature — and it’s hard to argue against the idea that genes are found in nature. Supporters of gene patents often claim that they’re not really gene patents, but a patent on identifying the gene, which is a nice semantic game that the judge clearly saw through. This is a huge step forward for encouraging more real research into genetic testing, rather than locking up important information.

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Build a Custom Knife Drawer Organizer Inexpensively [DIY]

By Jason Fitzpatrick, LifehackerMarch 29, 2010 at 01:00PM

Build a Custom Knife Drawer Organizer InexpensivelyKnife drawer organizers are either moderately priced and not custom or custom-made and expensive. This easy-to-execute hack gives you a custom organizer for your cutlery drawer on the cheap.

Over at the DIY blog IKEAHacker, reader Laura was disappointed to see IKEA had discontinued their cheap knife drawer inserts. Rather than pay expensive shipping fees to get the organizer she wanted shipped to Italy, she made her own:

I measured my longest knife blade for the length of the long slats, and steak knife blades for the length of the short slats. I began to hot-glue the slats on the Ikea rubber drawer liner to line them up and prepare them for screwing, from the other side…. but I discovered that the hot-glue fused fully with the rubber of the drawer liner and [created] a very strong hold. So… all I did was just glue the little lengths of wood and spent a total of €5 in materials.

You can pick up wooden slats like the ones she used at any hardware store or craft store, one or two 3ft lengths for a few bucks should be more than enough for even a large knife drawer. The best part about the project—inexpensiveness aside—is how you get a perfect fit for your knives without any wasted space.

Have a clever kitchen hack to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments, bonus points for including links and pictures.

15 Classic April Fool’s Pranks You Can Do At The Office

By Drea, Business PunditMarch 29, 2010 at 11:40AM

April Fool’s Day 2010 could be the best workday of your life–if you plan your office pranks right. To help you strategize, we compiled 15 classic April Fool’s pranks that you can do at the office. See which one best suits the Dwights, Miltons and Lumberghs in your life.

15. Spilled Coffee

Know anyone who would lose it if they found spilled coffee on their desk? Feel like agitating the office neat freaks? Making your own spilled coffee can be a fun, easy prank. Construct your coffee lookalike about 3 days in advance for the best results.

14. Reset the Office Clocks

Arrive at the office before everyone else (or be the last to leave at night). Reset the office clocks one or two hours ahead. Savor the panic that results.

13. Who Taped My Conversation?

Stick a piece of Scotch tape on the mouthpiece of your coworkers’s phone. The people on the other end won’t be able to hear very well–but your coworker won’t know why.

12. My Pen’s on Fire!

Replace the head of a ballpoint pen with match material (the video above has specific instructions). Watch your victim’s face light up with shock as her pen catches fire.

11. Computer Malfunction

This will work especially well on Windows users. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Mouse Properties > Pointers (these are instructions for Vista). Make the pointer’s default setting an hourglass. Your victim won’t know why his computer is “malfunctioning.” Bonus: You can also set his mouse pointer speed to slow on the Pointer Options tab.

10. The Avalanche

Collect a bunch of empty water bottles, empty soda cans, packing peanuts, ping pong balls, or anything else that can easily get all over the place. Open someone’s overhead cupboard or cabinet door a crack. Start piling stuff into the cupboard through the crack in the door. Use a box or piece of paper to keep smaller items like packing peanuts contained. Shove the cabinet door shut. When your officemate opens it, she’ll be in for a deluge.

9. Desk Mayhem


Image: Hank Ashby/Flickr

Remove and change around the desk drawer’s in your coworker’s desk. If your target has the right kind of desk–and you’re motivated–take all the drawers out of his desk. Turn it upside down. Put the drawers back in. Turn the desk right side up. When he opens his drawers, all his stuff will fall out.

8. Who Farted?

If you have an iPhone with the iFart app, try this easy, if juvenile, office joke. Put a dollar on the floor near your desk. When someone bends over to pick it up, let your iFart rip.

7. Broken Mouse

Cover your coworker’s optical mouse receiver (at the bottom) with tape. Watch as she struggles to get the mouse to work.

6. Faulty Desk Chair

Tape down the lever of your coworker’s adjustable desk chair, as shown in the video. When he comes to work in the morning (or comes back from lunch), he’ll think his chair is broken.

5. Detour


Image: Takeomabibelot/Flickr

If your building has two entrances, tape up official-looking signs saying “Please Use Other Door” on each door.

4. Stapler in Jell-O

The Office made this prank an instant classic. Pour Jell-O around a stapler. Let it set, then turn the mold upside down. Put it on a plate. Put the masterpiece on your coworker’s desk when she isn’t around. Watch her reaction at your leisure.

3. Auto-Corrected

Open your victim’s Miscrosoft Word or Outlook program. Go to Tools > AutoCorrect Options. Once here, you can do a few things. Replace their name with “Fruitcake” or some similar insult. Replace common words like “the” and “to” with misspellings like “thee” and “tough.” Or replace those common words with outlandish ones, like “banana.” There’s lots of room for fun here.

2. Who’s Calling, Please?


Image: William Hook/Flickr

This is another Office-inspired prank. Link your coworker’s cell and office phone to your Bluetooth headset. Proceed to confuse and aggravate said coworker.

1. Fridge Trouble


Image: d00d/Flickr

Popular Mechanics
describes this priceless joke:

On most fridges (certainly the ones in most offices), you can flip the hinges from one side to the other, allowing you, for example, to open the door on either side for corner placement. Typically, one switches the handle as well, but if you don’t, the refrigerator becomes a nearly unsolvable puzzle as victims pull and pull on the handle. If no one’s watching, some will even dig in their foot against a nearby counter and pull in vain directly against the hinges.

Make the switch to your office fridge right before the lunch rush, and settle in with a sandwich to watch the fun. The beauty of this prank is that once someone knows the trick, they can’t wait to see someone else fall for it.

The File Cabinet Standing Desk [Featured Workspace]

By Jason Fitzpatrick, LifehackerMarch 28, 2010 at 07:00PM

The File Cabinet Standing DeskIf you want the health benefits of a standing desk but you have no money in the budget to buy or build one, you’re out of luck. Unless, of course, you use a little ingenuity to repurpose some file cabinets.

Lifehacker reader Josh Nunn kept thinking about getting a standing desk after reading about it on Lifehacker, but alas it wasn’t in his spartan office budget. He writes on his personal blog:

About 6 months ago I read a Lifehacker article that advocated standing at your office desk to stay healthier. I thought it was a neat idea at the time but didn’t try very hard to make it happen. Then Lifehacker again linked to an article in the NY Times about standing at work, and this time I decided to do something about it.

He expands on his reasoning for using file cabinets in his submission to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool:

This is my standing desk. It’s two filing cabinets, edge-on. A two drawer and a three drawer are the perfect height for my hands hovering a little above my keyboard, and my two monitors respectively. I needed a no-cost desk as I work in a school and this is the perfect solution for me.

We applaud Josh’s ingenuity. It’s easy to not get around to trying out something new, especially when you have no money to do so. The staggered file cabinets hack is clever, readily available in most offices, and free save for the labor of dragging things into place. Great work, Josh!

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

The File Cabinet Standing Desk [Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool]

Top 3 Sites For Free Printable Wedding Announcements

By Beth Ritter-Guth, MakeUseOfMarch 28, 2010 at 03:30PM

Before I became the Dominatrix of Grammar, I was a simple school girl fascinated with the look, feel, and smell of all things paper.

I still love paper (Crane’s Paper is my absolute favorite). But, the simple truth is that most of us can’t afford to buy fancy paper and pay someone to design our good news, too!

In this wedding season, let’s take a look at three awesome sites to get your creative juices flowing so you can print up some elegant wedding announcements all on your very own.


Planning a wedding is fun because it allows you to design and create your dreamy day.  Attention to detail will set the tone of your event, and that tone is first set by your announcements. Imagine the announcement as the “first impression” of your special day… you want it to look classy, right?

Design Betty

DesignBetty is one of my all-time favorite websites. Not only can you design and print free wedding announcements, they also have an assortment of other free printables.

Design Betty ranks at the top of my list because there is no sign up (although you will need to provide an email address to download, as they will send you a back up copy of your design)! You simply choose the template, edit the font, color, and/or image and presto! You are all done!

Simply download the invitation or announcement as a PDF and print it out on nice stock paper.  You can also email the invitations to guests if you want to save paper.

What makes DesignBetty the cream of the crop is the elegance of the designs.  No chintzy graphics.  No blah fonts.  I printed the announcement below on card stock, and it held the same quality as the invitations I had forked out precious gold for when I got married.

There are just tons of layouts and designs to choose from on their site, and being able to customize the invites and make matching thank you cards is awesome!

There are designs for every taste!

And, the best part is that these classic designs are FREE (and come with thank you cards!).

Although you do not have to register with Design Betty, they do ask for your email address so they can send you a copy of your design.  This is really useful because where else could you go back and get your design?

Southworth

Southworth is another excellent place to design and print wedding announcements.  Even though they (really) want you to print the announcements on their paper (which looks very nice, by the way).  Their site is easy and simple to navigate.

Southworth four nice graphics, modifiable in Microsoft Word.

Hoover Web Design

If you need a one stop resource for every and any kind of template, Hoover Web Design is the absolute best place to park your pixels!  Even though they are a business, they offer so many free goodies that it makes you want to do business with them!

Like Design Betty, they have 5 pages of nice images that aren’t chintzy or lame. They also have a really good resource area for help with wording and suggestions about where to get the best prices on fancy papers.

The invitations print out in Word and you alter the text. There are two graphics to pick from on their site, but they give you links to other places to get graphics. Like Printables, another text-heavy site with all sorts of helpful tips and advice, you will be inspired by the many resources!

The Final Vow

Creating the first impression of your wedding day can be a lot of fun with these resources.  What other resources have you used?

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