Online Observations

There are many photography sites on the Internet which you can go to when you are looking for images that you need to use for your website, brochure, blog, or anywhere else. However, most of the sites are paid or have some kind of copyright assigned to the photographs. WebWorkerDaily covered some of these sites a while ago (and most of these are highly recommended by me as well). However, that is not the topic of this post. I want to talk about a website which offers thousands of good quality, completely free, photos.

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Do you have one of those presentations coming up for which you have less than a day left to create the content? Are you running out of ideas and time? Worry not, rescue is here.

Online Service SlideShare.net is the place to go to. It’s a site where people share PowerPoint presentations for free. You can go there and search for your idea and choose from the many presentations that show up. You can then view them online or download them to your desktop.

For instance, take a look at the results when I searched for “blogging”.

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Do you like Graffiti? Despite the fact that it ruins walls and landscapes, there is still something very artistic about it. It would surely require a lot of talent to create something like that. I could never do it. However, I can still create some graffiti for my desktop with this neat tool I found (thanks to Pixeloo). Take a look at the graffiti below:

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For me the search box on the Google home page (or my browser’s search box) has always been like a command prompt to the Internet. You can do calculations on it, you can check for the weather, the time, flight status, and a whole lot more from this little box. Someone, it seems took that thought too seriously and created a Google Shell (much like a Unix Shell). It’s called Goosh – the unofficial Google Shell.

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With all these coming to life of popular animation characters (Jessica Rabbit and Stewie Griffin), it’s not hard to think that someone tried to bring to life the cute Tinker Bell below.

Of course, she is not Tinker Bell on many counts, but is every bit as pretty as Tinker Bell is. This creation is by Will Murai who is an excellent artist. Head over to his site to see many more of his creations.

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Here’s a blog which is not about photography at all, but the blog owner has put up some photos that he has taken with his camera. And in my opinion, these are quite good. Take a look, and click the photos to visit the blog for more of this goodness.

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Nationmaster.com has been a go to source for a long time for statistical information about the world. Here you can find data on crime, transportation, people, population, media, lifestyle, and many more categories.

However, raw data alone is not very exciting. What makes these data dumps exciting is if you try and interpret them. While you are free to start diving into these interpretations, I recommend you start with some of these interpretations already present on their website. Take for instance this little fact about Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka has the lowest divorce rate in the world.

Alone, this is a nice to know fact, but also consider this:

Sri Lanka has the highest rate of female suicide in the world.

This makes you think, is there a correlation? Do females in Sri Lanka simply commit suicide instead of getting divorced? I suppose the next thing to see is of those who commit suicide, how many are married.

Here’s another one:

Indians go out for movies 3 billion times in an year, way more than any other country.

Head over to the Nation Master facts page to read more interesting facts and move around the site to find your own.

Pixeloo has done it again. Last month he had brought Jessica Rabbit to life (and I believe nothing can top that effort). This time around he  has taken Stewie Griffin from the Family Guy and made him real. It is quite amazing how this Photoshop wizard brings things to life. Below is a quick look at the latest effort. Click the image to go to the original article and a chance to look at the high resolution version of the image:

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Here’s a tip that not many employers would like their employees to know about. How would you like to spend time at work reading your favorite book and yet if someone takes a look at you, you will seem deeply engrossed in work? I bet, a lot of people would love to be able to do just that (if you like to read books that is).

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I took this picture when I went to visit one of the families that I did get to meet. I rang the doorbell, and Christopher came out with his kitten to greet me. I was taken by how much Christopher and the kitten appeared to be the same person.

- Mary Ellen Mark, on an assignment covering poverty in America.

One of the tricks was for his dogs to beg with cigarettes in their jaws.

- Mary Ellen Mark, from one of her many visits to India

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