Antonio Gaudi was born in Reus (Spain) in 1852. He was a very sickly child, and suffered from rheumatism. His personalty was very shy and reserved. From the beginning he had always been a remarkable drawer. This allowed him to make the illustrations of a school magazine called Arlequin. Gaudi's father had to sell some land properties to be able to pay the studies of Antonio and his brother. Gaudi was not a good student. His interests were beyond the academic studies. He was imaginative, revolutionary. Elies Rogent, the director of the Architecture College, said once: "I don't know if we've given the degree to a genius or to a lunatic. Time will give the answer". His politic ideas were those of the Utopian Socialism. He worked as a draftsman for important architects. This was a positive step to get contacts for later works. After some works, Gaudy traveled to Paris. There, in an exposition, he met Eusebi Güell, a wealthy industrialist that became a friend and patron for Gaudi. In 1833 he accepted to lead the project "Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia" ("Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Family"). But Gaudi changed the project completely, and devoted to it all his time until he died. Gaudi was a man who felt a great passion for his work, so much that he even lived inside the buildings while they were in construction. He was mainly a creative genius. The imaginative shapes forged in iron in the balconies, the buildings or the furniture... all that was born from the mind of the genius. Gaudi was a visionary and a vanguard artist. He loved all the kinds of architecture: Classical, Arabian, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Gothic, Baroque... He took elements from all that and merged them in his works, mixing, without following any rules or established conventions. He let his imagination fly, and that made his artworks so special and unique. His works were free and his fantasy knew no limits. His inspiration had its source in Nature. Gaudi said that in Nature there were logical shapes, strength and beauty. There were many who criticized him for his freedom of thought and his vanguard art. All that was perceived as a menace and an offense. Gaudi was more than a modernist architect and a creator of trends. He was a great artist, and his art obsessed him completely. In 1926, in a June 7th, he went for a walk like all days, and was run over by a streetcar. He was carrying no documents to identify him. His clothes were old, and had not very good appearance, so they thought he was a beggar, and took him to a Hospital for poor people. A priest recognized him. Three days after, he died. Between his most remarkable works there are: Casa Vicens (1883–1885), Palau Güell (1885–1889), College of the Teresianas (1888–1890), Crypt of the Church of Colònia Güell (1898–1916), Casa Calvet (1899–1904), Casa Batlló (1905–1907), Casa Milà (La Pedrera) (1905–1907), Park Güell (1900–1914), and Sagrada Familia (1884–1926), although this last one is still in construction. Antonio Gaudi, one of the most brilliant architects that have ever been.

Sometimes you delete some important file by mistake, or worser, you crash your entire partition or format it to reinstall Windows, and then you remember that you forgot to backup some important file. The kind of programs that can save you in these situations are called data recovery software. Some people are forced to pay big amounts of money to bring their hard drives to specialists that use that software to recover lost data. Anyway, there are some affordable alternatives for this. One of them is this program that you can test: Handy Recovery. It is able to recover deleted files from hard drives, and also performs data and image recovery on memory cards like those used for digital cameras (CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards). It can restore files deleted from the recycle bin, or corrupted by viruses or power failures. Also with encrypted and compressed files. You can do it by yourself without having to pay a service that would always be much more expensive. In addition, if you have the software, you can use it many times. When you run the program, it analyzes your hard drive, memory card, etc. Then it displays a explorer tree view of the contents of your drive. It marks deleted files with red crosses. Thus, you can see the deleted files with the current ones, in their original places before you deleted them. You can select a file, and its contents will be shown in a preview window under the explorer. The program is really intuitive and easy to use. It has a toolbar with big icons for the most common functions. It has an internal search engine and a filter for searching for a specific file type, or for showing only deleted files. These two functions can also be combined. When you have located the file that you want to restore, then use the restore button to recover it. The program saves the restored file in the folder that you specify. You can also restore a complete folder, not only files. You can test Handy Recovery downloading the free demo, that runs in all Windows OS, no matter what file system they use. It is certified for Windows XP and Vista by Microsoft. It's in three languages: English, French, and Spanish. It only costs $49 which is not too much considering that a data recovery service may cost much more. So if some day all your computer crashes or is attacked by a virus, it's not the end. It has a solution.

There was a conceited woman that loved to stare her face reflected in a pond. She used to go there when the full moon shone in the sky, because it made her reflection become more enigmatic and beautiful. But as time and years passed away, when the woman saw her face in the pond, she used to cry. The pass of time had marked her, and that gave her a big anguish. One day, when she was knelt in the pond, feeling depressed for her reflection, she saw a strange flower. Its petals were white as snow, white as the moon. When she saw it, she was amazed, and forgot her suffering. Since then, her main purpose was that pale flower, that bloomed into the night. Each night, she gave it all her care. She awaited the night with anxiousness, as if her life depended on it, to go to the pond were this strange flower lived. And the years passed so quickly... And one day, the woman met a conceited youngster that had gone to the pond to watch her face reflected in the waters. The woman said her "Are you coming to see my beautiful flower?" And the young girl answered: "That thing? No, don't you think that flower is ghostly and dreadful?" "Not at all. It is the most beautiful thing that the waters of a pond may ever reflect", said the woman, and suddenly, she vanished like smoke. Since that day, the young girl started to be obsessed with that strange flower. She called it Vanity. And each night, she went to the pond. She gave it all her care and love, as if her life depended on it.

Loch Ness is in Scotland, near the city of Inverness. Loch Ness is a lake of fresh water, with warm waters in the surface and very cold in the depths. It has 56.4 square Km (21.8 square miles). There are some points where the depth reaches 200 meters , in addition to numerous underwater canals that flow to the sea. It's a lake surrounded by mountains, what makes it very shady. It is said that the Loch Ness Monster, also known as Nessie, lives there. The characteristics of the lake make very hard to investigate about the existence of Nessie. Around the legend, it has been created a commerce that benefits the zone: hotels, merchandising, souvenirs, photomontages... But the belief in the existence of a huge creature that inhabits the Loch Ness is not modern. The first reference to the Loch Ness Monster is in 565 A.C. A missionary called Saint Columba encountered a strange creature. Since then, the sightings of these creatures, both inside or out from the water, have been counted in hundreds. Currently, the mysterious creature is "protected" by the law. Following the descriptions made by people who witnessed the monster, it may be some kind of Plesiosaur: a type of marine dinosaur of the Mesozoic Era. It is described as enormous, with long neck, small head and fins. Scientifics deny both the existence of Nessie as well as the possibility that it may be a Plesiosaur. The reason is that these creatures need to breathe air frequently. If it was that way, the sightings would have been much more usual. In addition, the lake is not large enough to ensure the survival of these creatures. An opposite theory would be that these Plesiosaurs would move through the underwater canals of the lake. Scientifics explain these sightings of Nessi like simple mirages, light distortions, confusion with a wood in the water, seals, water effects, or even bubbles produced by volcanic activity. In 1934 some photos of the Loch Ness Monster were taken. But the same people that took those photos confessed that it was a fraud. In 1936, 50 people said that they have seen Nessie during 15 minutes, near the castle of Urquhart. In 1960 T. Dinsale recorded a short video in which a strange shape emerges from the lake. In 1972 Robert H. Rine said that he had been able to photograph two creatures similar to Plesiosaurs. There are hundreds of photomontages. It seems that the myth of Loch Ness is profitable for some, and source of jokes for others. Real or not, who knows? The dark waters of Loch Ness will continue, for many years, being an inexhaustible source of mysterious stories.

Icons are a very important piece of an application. Both for web applications and web pages, or for software solutions, they are widely used to make them more user friendly and easy. Icon design is a very specialized branch of graphic design. Not all the graphic designers can make professional-looking icons, or they don't have the time for designing them. Also, software developers need icons for their applications, and they need professional icons. Although there are many sites that offer free icons, professionals need quality icons that they can add to their commercial applications without being forced to link or credit anyone. It also adds reliability to their product. Finding a provider that fulfills these requisites can be hard. But there's one that stands out for its advantages and quality. It is Icongalore. Each day, more professionals choose the advantages of Icongalore. They offer quality icons that follows Microsoft XP Guidelines. Their icons have the modern look of Windows XP and Vista. These are the most affordable icons for professionals for very simple reasons: You just have to buy what you need. Icons can be purchased one by one (in a minimum of 10) for $3. The payment is made through Paypal or 2CheckOut. You can buy just the package you need. For example, if you're making a web application, you can purchase the "Web Icons" package. You can also buy all the icon packages together for $349 (this is: 679 icons). The purchase gives you the right to use the icons you bought in all your future projects and modify them if you like, without having to pay again. For any problem that you may have, they have a chat support. More advantages: Each package has icons in active, inactive or over state, with five different sizes, in six file formats. Icongalore has icons for every kind of applications: accounting, email, navigation and folders, network and database, e-commerce and web applications, and many more. In case you don't find the icons you need, they also have an icon design service. They can customize and make new icons for you for only 35$ each one. You may also have the need to print some in big format. For this, they can also offer you them in vector format for 25$ each one, which is really affordable. For being completely sure that the icons are really good, you can download a free sample from their website. So if you need to make a web design, or need icons for your professional application, for every work, don't forget this valuable resource.

In the year 2000, and by chance, the Cave Of Crystals was discovered. It is in the mines zone of Chihuahua (Mexico). In this area, there are the most valuable mines of silver and lead in the world. This cave is filled with crystals of selenite (gypsum), some of the biggest ones in the world. Many of them are longer than 11 meters (36 feet). This was possible due to the high temperatures reached inside the cave during thousands of years, approximately 58º Celsius (136.4º Fahrenheit). It is thought that these macro-crystals were formed under water, in a complex crystallization process, with uncommon conditions. Nowadays there's no water in the Cave Of Crystals. Currently, the temperature of the cave is kept constant by a ventilation system, but there's some areas in the cave that reach 45º Celsius and more (113º Fahrenheit). The humidity of the Cave prevents human beings from staying inside for more than 20 minutes. The size of the Cave Of Crystals is 50 meters long and 30 meter width (164x98 feet approx). The discoverers of this cave were two brothers: Eloy and Javier Delgado. The access to the cave is restricted to avoid damages to the crystals. Only geologists, scientifics, and technical workers can access to it. Maybe this cave reminds us the cave of Superman, but one more time, reality is much more awesome than fiction. The Cave Of Crystals, a wonder of Nature, in the inners of the Earth.

10,000 B.C. was shown for first time on March 7th in all over the world. Its director is Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day", "Godzilla"...). The reviews on this movie are really terrible. But the truth is that I've watched this movie recently and I liked it, and I can recommend it. It has the quality of the big movies of the mythical genre (Conan The Barbarian, Scorpion King...). Maybe the problem of this movie is its name. It is based on a fictional story with fantasy elements: a witch, some prophecies, a mixture of civilizations that never lived together. Just like in Conan. But there's many people that took it seriously. There are critics that, trying to analyze the film from the historical point of view, come to be hilarious. In some reviews I've read complaints about the presence of dinosaurs in the movie (that is located in 10,000 BC). But in the movie there is no dinosaurs. If they call dinosaur to a mammoth, we can have a big laugh. Mammoths lived at least until 4,500 BC. In the movie also appears a saber-tooth that lived until 9,000 BC. There are also some totally imaginary giant ostriches similar to the Australian Moa, which reached 12 feet high, and was extinct between the 15 and 19 centuries. There are also Egyptian pyramids, which is also another fictional element. But the movie is of a fantastic and mythical genre. In the movie, there's a mixture of bravery, friendship, love, union against injustice... among unforgettable landscapes. The argument is the following: A village of mammoth hunters sees how the number of mammoths decreases day by day. So their life style is menaced. The old witch of the tribe has several visions and makes a prophecy. A little girl with blue eyes will come to their village and will save them from this situation. One night, the little girl appears, Evolet, that grows up in their village and falls in love with D'Leh, a hunter. But a band of warriors that ride horses kidnap their strongest hunters and the girl with blue eyes. D'Leh was away from the village and was not captured. He decides to follow the kidnappers, and some of the last hunters follow him. In their travel they'll find some other tribes that have also been attacked by those villains, and they join all together against their enemies, and follow D'Leh as leader. The best of the movie is the union of people from different cultures and races with a same will of justice.

The Pink Panther as a cartoon appeared by chance. There was a movie called "The Pink Panther", by Blake Edwards, released March 20 1963. They needed an animation for illustrating the credits at the beginning of the film. So Edwards called Friz Freleng (the creator of Bugs Bunny) for making a cartoon that may be fun, that doesn't speak, and be of pink color. The character that was created for that opening sequence was so eye-catching that appeared in "The Times" cover. The Pink Panther, with some aristocratic look and some pop-art style, had great possibilities. So the producers thought in doing a cartoon movie, independently from the movie. So they did an animation short film. Its star was the Pink Panther, and that same year it won an Oscar for the best animation short. With this short film started the series of the Pink Panther. Movies were done, comics, merchandising of all kinds... that is still alive even nowadays. The music of the Pink Panther was done by Henry Mancini (the composer of "Moon River" of "Breakdast at Tiffany's"), and he won a Grammy with this. Curiosities: The name of the Pink Panther comes from the name of the diamond that was stolen in the film, where Peter Sellers played the role of Inspector Clouseau. Clouseau also appears in the Pink Panther cartoons. The Pink Panther also has its footprints in the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Its star was given in 1999. Although the character is mute, it talks in two chapters of the series. The secret of the success of the Pink Panther character is due to the aristocratic and elegant personality, associated with the 60s and the pop-art style. The Pink Panther is a British gentleman. Intelligent, methodical, smart, fun, sometimes similar to the Charles Chaplin's Charlotte, and without a doubt, these characteristics have captivated the public for decades. The chic pink of the Pink Panther is a trend from time to time.

I've done this wallpaper. Its size is 1600x1200 pixels. It's free, and you can download it from here: Free Xubuntu Wallpaper As I know that some of you are Linux users, I wanted to tell you. The wallpaper is of Xubuntu as it uses its logo, but if you just like it, go and download it. And please don't drive me crazy :P telling me that I should use a penguin, why not Ubuntu and Xubuntu instead... so you know, all that... Why Xubuntu? Because I love that little mouse :)

Resources The secrets of grunge design. These are backgrounds, textures... sometimes urban, sometimes not. Designs that are top fashion, a style followed by many designers. The secrets of grunge design Corporate images. Logotypes and corporate image define the public image of a business. Watch some of the most successful ones is a source of inspiration. Ateneu Popular Video A stunning video. It starts in a theater, and suddenly the musician translates himself to... Have a look and you'll see. Giovanni Sollima Photography Herbert Wong is an experienced traveller and makes awesome photographies of his travels. Herbert Wong photography Art Kyle M. Stone is a great illustrator, with a very personal style. Drop by his official website and by his gallery. An artist full of imagination. Kyle M. Stone illustrator Humorous Celebrities caricatures. They're really hilarious. Some are so similar... Famous Caricatures Bizarre Who has never dream of having a house in a tree? Specially when one is a child. Well, there's some people that have made this dream come true, and their tree house has even a microwave. Real tree house Music Following with the country-rock series, George Strait, a country singer that you must listen. George Strait Steph Waller has written a very interesting article about Mozart. Don't miss it. All the curiosities about the great musician. Mozart

A good font can become a logo by itself alone. It can express fun, transgression, design... Another good resource are dingbats, funny and original images that you can be an important element in a banner, a button... This list contains more than 150,000 free fonts and dingbats. Its purpose is to compile together the best sites. Use it as your main bookmark for finding good fonts. RFonts, Excellent resource. Fonts are ordered by categories and subcategories, and are of high quality and very original. Abstract Fonts, More than 11,300 free fonts. You can also download the catalog of fonts in PDF, and choose them carefully. Betterfonts, More than 10,000 text free fonts of many different styles. TypeNow, 305 fonts of movies, music, games... Surprise with the font of Alien, Mario Bross... Dafont, Over 7,800. Some of them are shapes like animals, saint valentine, symbols, runes, Halloween, nature, tv, movies... Very fun. Urbanfonts, More than 8,000. Gothic, graffiti, Celtic, 3d, futuristic, Chinese... Grunge Fonts List by BittBox, BittBox makes a selection of the best free grunge fonts. Creamundo, 9,800 free fonts. They are in alphabetical order, so you can search for any font you know the name, and you'll surely find it. Fontcubes, The correct place to find good fonts and dingbats, with search engine included. AcidFonts, With many fonts, near 2,000. Some of the categories are: grunge, dingbats, horror, retro, pixelated... 1001FreeFonts, Although it says 1001, there are many thousands more. They all are 100% compatible with Macintosh and Windows. Smashing Magazine, Smashing Magazine did a compilation of more than 40 free fonts that may be the most interesting for professionals of graphic design. Great Fonts for Web 2.0, Here you can identify some of the most famous fonts used in internet websites like Popurls, Techcrunch, 9Rules... 1001Fonts, Here you can find very good fonts, some of them of very original categories and specially fun ones. It also tells you the names of the author of the fonts, so have a look to their sites too. Larabie Fonts, Ray Larabie offers 384 totally free fonts, for commercial or personal use. He only asks you to help to promote his site and have a look to his websites. Very good quality work. FreeFonts, 6,500 free fonts in true type format. And an explanation on how to install them. Fonts500, A visual index of 500 fonts. Some of them are very fun and original. Smashing Magazine 19 Free Quality Fonts, Smashing Magazine offers 19 free fonts of high quality, and makes a good proposal for designers. SymplyTheBestFonts, An big index of free fonts. You can find fonts for kids, liquid fonts, sci-fic fonts, funky, hollydays, cartoons... Programming Fonts, A big set of some dozens of fonts for programmers, easily readable ones. Most of them are free. SearchFreeFonts, 13,000 free fonts and 30,000 for sell. There is a search box and categories index. Some categories are: military, antique, christmas... Proggy, Some free fonts for programmers (monospaced, etc). 16 Dingbat Fonts by BittBox, BittBox lists 16 fonts of shapes and silhouettes (also called dingbat fonts) of excellent quality, as it's usual in BittBox. Fawnt, 9,348 free fonts, all with large previews for easily browsing them. Blambot, Near 50 of the fonts listed there are free. They are fonts with appearance of comic. Divide By Zero, Tom Murphy is the creator of these fonts. They are absolutely great and funny. Don't forget to drop by his website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/ FontFreak, It's one of the most visited fonts sites. Has 5,000 free fonts, and if you click over the samples, it shows all the letters of the font. HighFonts, 3,200 free fonts directly downloadables. Daily Free Fonts, 4,200 free fonts with ratings and lists of the most popular ones. Fontheaven, This site includes more than 1,000 fonts and has a tutorial about how to install them on PC and Mac. Font Reactor, Over 4,100 fonts, ordered by categories. Very easy to browse. There are alien dingbats and elfic runes amongst others. FontShack, Sorted in alphabetical order, for Windows and Mac. Font Garden, There are 2800 free fonts of letters and dingbats. Some categories: alchemist, flowers, cultural, fantasy and mythology, celtic... File Cart Fonts, One of the biggest free fonts archive, with 9,350. Some of the categories are quite original: cool, square, distorted... Fontsy, 3,000 free fonts for flyers, word documents, any type of print medias, corporate branding, letter copy, etc. For PC and Mac. 2200FreeFonts, There are 2,200 free fonts that can be downloaded one by one or buying a download with them all. KillerFontz, Good fonts and funny dingbats for PC. ShowFont, This visual index of fonts has been very famous on Digg. The fonts are on alphabetical order and there are thousands of them. Absolute Fonts Archive, 6,800 free fonts, some of them really original and can't be found in other places. Dingbat Depot, This website is specialized on dingbat fonts, and has many of them ordered by categories. CrunchBang Ubuntu Fonts List, 465 free fonts by Brian Kent, for Ubuntu. A tutorial explains how to install them. Top 25 Geekiest Free Fonts, A selection of 25 fonts, quite funny. Some are: Austin Powers, Blade Runner, Alias, Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Files... Fontennium, Historical, arcane, symbolic, medieval fonts... Free Mac Fonts, 6,000 free fonts only for Macintosh. Font Foundry, Another great resource for finding fonts, that also displays a list of the most popular ones. Free Fonts, 2,500 free fonts in a very easy to use site. The authors of the fonts are also displayed. Iconian Fonts, Many fonts and dingbats, many of them unique. Sketchpad Free Fonts, Huge list of fonts and dingbats. Free Chinese Fonts, The Institute of Chinese Studies of the University of Heidelberg offers Chinese fonts in different styles. There are more fonts also at http://www.sj00.com/soft/2/ Fontriver, A very popular fonts site that has all kinds of fonts and dingbats, and also an original section with fonts that imitate the style of languages like Hindi, Thai, Arabian or Chinese.