Thanks to J. K. Rowling, many children and not so children, have become interested in fantasy genre books, and with that, to reading. Many children from all over the globe translate her books from English to their own languages, because they can't wait for the translated editions. It's not easy that children, so used to this audio-visual society, have welcomed so well Rowling's books. Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July of 1965 in England. Joanne's mother was very keen on reading, and Joanne inherited that hobby. Joanne not only liked reading since she was a child, she even liked to write her own stories. The first story that Joanne wrote was when she was 6 years old. It was about a rabbit and its friends. The Rowling family moved several times. In one of them, they went to Winterbourne, where Joanne started a friendship with a neighbor called Ian Potter. She used this surname for his character Harry Potter. One of the hardest blows in Joanne's life was the death of her mother. After a long illness that lasted for 10 years, Joanne's mother died of multiple sclerosis, without knowing the success that her daughter will have. When her mother died, Joanne moved to Portugal. It was the year 1990. She had already graduated in Exeter University, and went to Portugal to work as an English language teacher. She had wrote two novels, but never thought in publishing them. During a travel by train from Manchester to London, she had the idea of Harry Potter. It took her 6 years to structure the wizard's story. And this story will go in 7 books. In Portugal she met her first husband, with whom she will have a daughter. When her daughter was born, she already had written several chapters of "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone". They divorced and Rowling moved to Scotland, to work as teacher again. "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" was rejected by many editorials, until one of them accepted. They advised her to sign the novel with initials. She used J. for her name (Joanne), K for Kathleen (the name of her grandmother) and Rowling. A North American editor offered her the chance to publish her books in the U.S.A. He would give her some money in advance, something that was really good for Joanne, who had some economic problems. Her book received positive critics very soon. The following books of Harry Potter ensured her success. When Harry Potter reached the cinemas, it turned into an absolute success. Everybody read her books and the merchandising of the young wizard started to be sold. Joanne has become one of the most rich women in the world. She married again and had more children. A part of Joanne's earnings goes to investigation of multiple sclerosis, the illness that killed her mother. The seventh book of Harry Potter is the last of his saga. With this book, she ends an important phase of her life. Harry Potter was decisive not only for Joanne's life, but also for many of her readers, that enjoyed through the eyes of a young wizard and his friends.

To love and respect animals, you only need to know them. And when you do it, you'll discover parts of you that you thought didn't existed. Respecting animals is respecting nature and life, thus respecting oneself. During this year I have been saving some pages of animal pics. These are the funniest. I hope you like them. When you click in a pic, you'll go to a web page that contains more. Enjoy them. (Click on the images to go to the pages)

It was the day before Christmas and it was cold, very cold. In the middle of that terrible cold, there was a child who sold matches. In her home they were very poor, and in that day she had not sold even one match box. So there was no money to bring home. She was very hungry and was very cold. So she sat in a corner, and from there she could see the Christmas lights, and hear other children's laughs while they were decorating the Christmas tree. She could also smell the turkey. The child was there all alone, and no one cared about her. No one had noticed that there was a poor child dressed with rags, hungry and cold, in the Christmas Eve. She was so cold that lighted a match to warm herself. But soon it went out, and she lighted another and another. Then, suddenly, her mother, that was in the Heaven for years, appeared wearing a white and beautiful dress. The child stared her mother with emotion, and with tears in her eyes, said her: "Mom, why don't you take me with you?" And her mother smiled at her, took her and, and together, they went up through a long stairway surrounded by clouds. The following day, some people saw that child, who sold matches. She seemed to be sleeping. But from that dream she would never wake up. In her face, there was a sweet smile. With this famous tale by Hans Christian Andersen, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. And remember that there are many match-sellers like the child of this tale in the world. There are many people that say they hate Christmas, and they say this when they actually don't lack of anything important. Don't look to another side when you see people that are hungry and cold in the Christmas day. My wish is that we all could be happy and value what we have.

The North Pole is the zone of Earth where the axis of rotation is. Its contrary is the South Pole. In the North Pole is the Arctic Ocean. The first explorer that is known to have reached the North Pole was called Robert Edwin Peary. He reached the North Pole in 1909, with his assistant Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos. The North Pole is also known as the Arctic. The word comes from the Greek "artus", and from the Latin "ursus", and means "land of bears". Among the North Pole fauna there are polar bears, seals, and sea creatures that live under the so called "sea ice", that is another name of the Arctic Ocean. Among the vegetation can be found lichens and other small plants that are able to resist the extreme cold. In the most external zones of the North Pole, there is more presence of vegetation and fauna. The so called "pole star" points to the North Pole, being a natural compass. In this place is where the Aurora Borealis can be more easily watched (also called Northern Lights). The North Pole is covered by eternal snow. Some say that due to the global warm-up, this snow could disappear in 40 years. With this, the sea level all over the globe would increase. All this would produce a climate change. Sometimes, in the North Pole can be found strange figures called Inukshuk. They symbolize the human race, and serve as a guide for the Eskimos in their travels. Let's hope that the global warm-up can be stopped some way and these gorgeous landscapes are not lost.

These days, in the cinemas, you can watch "I am legend", directed by Francis Lawrence, and starring by Will Smith. The movie is based on a science-fiction novel by Richard Matheson, edited in 1954. The story is about an epidemic that spreads all over the globe, and its symptoms are something similar to vampirism (if you are curious about vampirism, read this article). The protagonist of the book is Robert Neville. Neville tries to bear the best that he can the fight against loneliness and madness. Although it may seem a story of vampires, it's much more than that. "I am legend" is about how someone stops from being normal and becomes a monster. It suggest you many questions. For example, if an entire village is mad and only one citizen is sane, won't be the sane a madman? In an ancient cannibal tribe, did they consider each other as psychopaths? Or only those who watch them from the outside? Does a pathologic habit stops from being sick or bad when it becomes popular? Or are Good and Bad something absolutely pure and independent from society and culture?

Robert E. Howard was the creator of Conan. The first time that Conan appeared was in 1932, and Howard was writing for a magazine called "Weird Tales". Those were a series of stories about a barbarian hero and the plot was located in the Hyborian Age. It was a fantastic age, with never found mythical places. Howard's stories were compiled in a series of books. Howard was a big friend of Lovecraft. So it's not strange that the creatures of Lovecraft can be found in some of the stories of Howard, and vice versa. After the tragic suicide of Howard, there were many authors that, feeling a big enthusiasm for the figure of Conan, wanted to continue with his stories. In 1970 Conan becomes a Marvel hero. His scriptwriter was Roy Thomas, and his drawer was Barry Windsor Smith, who was later substituted by the famous John Buscema. Later, followed Ernie Chan, and others. Conan not only had the success of public, but also the critics', obtaining numerous awards. Conan is a brave warrior, very tied to material, to the Earth. The only thing that he fears is what is intangible, the magic. He is a conqueror of kingdoms, surrounded by a mythical aura, and gorgeous women. Conan's women are princesses, warriors, thieves, pirates... Maybe this aura of mythical places and situations, having something to fight for, to conquer, is what has made many readers to feel enthusiasm for the character. Conan takes you away from the urban and the politically correct. In 1982 Conan appeared in a movie directed by John Milius, and starred by a young and unknown actor called Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was winer of Mr. Olimpia award many times. So it was easy for Schwarzenegger to play the part of Conan. The movie was a great success, although it was not exempt of controversy. Not so successful, there was a TV series called "Conan the Adventurer", starring by Ralf Moeller, in 1997. Nowadays, the mythical warrior triumphs in the videogames industry. It seems that Conan still has many adventures and battles to fight.

The reasons why people choose Linux are because it's safer (a must-have if you want to run your home server), has a low use of resources, it's free... But it has always been hard to use. With the arrival of Ubuntu, this is not a problem anymore. Ubuntu is Linux for all. These programs can be run in any Linux system, but this list is called as Ubuntu apps because they can be installed with Synaptic directly or are already prepared to be installed as .deb packages. In the previous post: Top Best 50 Ubuntu Opensource Applications For Design And Developing was proved that Linux can be used for design and developing very successfully. Following, 50 more Ubuntu apps for design and developing: 2D Graphic Design Inkscape, A professional tool for vector graphics design. It's like Freehand for Linux. Not as easy as Xara, but with more tools. GIMP, GIMP is to Linux what Photoshop is to Windows. It can manipulate images, apply filters, and even capture the screen. Have a look also to the GIMPshop mod that was named in the other list. Krita, A good image editor, that has layers and many tools. F-Spot, Photo manager that can do basic editing of photos and also make a photo CD. Scribus, Desktop publishing suite, very complete professional tool for any printed document. Cenon, A complex suite of applications that can do many things from desktop publishing to vector graphics drawing. Scrot, An application for the console terminal to capture the screen. Panorama Tools, Complete set of tools to generate panorama images of landscapes. Gimp-gap, A set of plugins for The Gimp to make animations and movies. KoverArtist, Create CD covers with this easy and clean application, with images, titles, etc. gColor2, A simple and easy color picker. Hugin, Useful to do panoramas from photos, for example for website headers. A panorama is a photo, usually of outdoors, that has no visible borders. 3D Design Wings3D, This modeler can export to 3ds, nendo, vrml and others, and apply textures and materials. FreeWRL, VRML and X3D (the two languages for interactive 3d worlds) viewer. G3DViewer, Fast viewer for a wide range of popular 3d formats. WhiteDune, Complete application for creating, modifying, and animating scenes of VRML and X3D. Video Editors Jahshaka, Not only an application but an enormous suite to edit video and apply all kind of effects. Slideshow Creator, Made with Gambas (Basic), this application allows you to make high quality slideshows with transition effects and music and save them in DVD format. Kino, Capture and edit videos from a DV Camera with ease. RecordMyDesktop, Records all that you do in your desktop in video. System Tools Endeavour Mark II, (package: endeavour2) Another file explorer that has trashcan and image explorer. Krusader, Dual panel explorer for KDE that has many good features and modern look. XFE, A file explorer with bookmarks, dual panel and a very interesting trashcan feature. The trashcan is missing in some Linux distros, so it may be valuable to many. It is also lightweight, using a bit less than 2 mb of ram. gParted, Interface for partitioning your hard disk drive, and make it a bit easier, without having to reinstall everything. Wine, In case you miss some Windows application or a game, Wine can run it, 'cos it is a Windows emulator. Filelight, Displays a circular graph of the space used by your files, so you know when you have big files (for example, images of your work) that if you backup them you'll save space. GDmap, Another program that displays space used by files, but with squares. APTonCD, Just for Ubuntu and Debian. Allows to backup your packages installed in a CD so you can have them ready to install in another computer without having to connect to Internet. A very valuable tool for those without Internet connection and also for doing backups. Programming Tools Crystal Space, Professional platform to develop 3D games, used in some famous games like Keepsake. Eclipse, A programmers editor that is the competence of Netbeans, with many plugins. QuantaPlus, HTML and other web languages editor that has many interesting features like visual CSS editor. JEdit, Huge programmer's editor that supports many languages, and is written in Java, as says its name. Scribes, A text and programming editor which has printing previews, and customizable colors, and is very lightweight. Productivity Tools Katapult, A program launcher simple and very customizable. Beagle, Search tool that can find almost everything that you did or have in your computer. RSSOwl, A feed reader that allows to open the news in its integrated browser,or in the one you choose. BasKet, A very complete solution to organize all kind of stuffs with impressive looking. You can add an icon to each entry, link anything, insert any image or type of data... all displayed very eye-candy. Meld, A simple but powerful small tool that can compare two files or directories and tell you the differences, or merge them. tkdiff, Compares two files and tells you the differences, and has a graphic showing them all. HomeBank, If you work as a designer or developer, you may earn money, so you may need an application to take note of your expenses or earnings. TaskCoach, Organize what you must do (your tasks) with a very attractive interface. FreeMind, Java application that helps you to organize your thoughts and projects visually. Sunbird, Calendar application by Mozilla, light and fast, and visually appealing. Sound And Music Edition Rosegarden, Complete suite for music and score creation and MIDI. Audacity, Sound editor used by many people, that can capture and edit audio. Ardour, Multi-track sound studio to record and mix music. CAD-Industrial QCad, A CAD program to draw planes and industrial design. SagCAD, 2D CAD editor to make all kind of industrial design. Webmaster Tools gFTP, This FTP program has a very easy layout, with a dual panel, and supports secure protocols. Wink, A tool to make manuals and tutorials. Can export to pdf for printed manuals, and flash and html for online tutorials. Has a lot of possibilities.

Nostradamus was born in the December 14th, of 1503. His real name was Michel de Nostredame. His father was a wealthy notary and his two grandfathers were famous doctors. From his early youth he was interested in maths and astrology. He studied medicine, but had to interrupt his studies due to the Plague. He had to travel all along France to help the diseased of this illness. In this travel, he met alchemists and Cabbala studious that were clandestine. His skills for pharmacy made him possible to create what was named "the rose pill", that was very known as a remedy to stop the Plague. The famous pill was just a strong dose of Vitamin C. In 1529 he received his doctorate in medicine, and worked teaching medicine. Years later, he married and had two children. The three died due to the Plague. The lost of his family was very hard for Nostradamus. Due to a blaspheme comment he did to a cleric, he was asked for explanations by the Inquisition. After freeing from the Inquisition, he went to travel around France and Italy, in search of internal peace. In that moment, he started to investigate in mysticism. It is said that in this travel he started to develop his "prophetic powers". In 1547 he married with Anne Ponsarde, a somewhat wealthy woman. Nostradamus got away from medicine and entered in occultism. In this times, he was very well known for knowing the future. He started a cosmetic business, and to sell almanacs that had predictions written for each month. The Inquisition was watching him close. Nostradamus had quite fear for Inquisition. He had heard about the horrible tortures and people that had been sentenced to death. So to avoid having problem with the Inquisition, he wrote his prophecies with numerous plays on words. He even wrote his prophecies in several languages... Greek, Latin, Italian, Hebrew, Arabian... So that's the reason of why his prophecies are so arcane. His book "Les Propheties" is probably the most famous, translated, and spread book of prophecies in History. The first edition was published in 1555. "The Prophecies" is written in verse. It talks about the future of the world until the year 3797, year in which, following Nostradamus, it will be the Apocalypse. Nostradamus prophesied the death on Henri II of France. When that prophecy became true, the French Court covered Nostradamus with honor, and asked him for advice constantly. In 1558, he did another edition of "The Prophecies", adding more prophecies. The life of Nostradamus was surrounded with controversy. There were who called him a fraud, and who called him a prophet. One of his sons (that he had with Anne Posardes), Michel de Nostradamus, followed the steps of his father. Michel prophesied that a village called Pouzin will be devoured by the flames. Michel was caught setting the village on fire, so that way his prophecies would be true. For this crime, Michel Nostradamus was sentenced to death. Nowadays, the prophecies of Nostradamus are studied with care by people from all over the world. Their crypticism generates many interpretations. Nostradamus started a new way of predicting the future full of mysteries, metaphors and prophecies.

Gnomes are fantastic beings of small size. Their origin comes, probably, from small people that inhabited the Carpathian Mountains, and used to be miners. Thus, Gnomes are linked to mines, metals, caves and precious stones. The troops of the Roman Empire reached the Carpathian Mountains. The word "gnomes" comes from latin "gnomus". The roman sergeant Publius Octavus wrote in 470 AC : "Today I saw a tiny person with my very eyes. He wore a red hat, and a blue shirt. He had a white beard and was wearing green trousers. I talked to him several times. He said he was descendant of a race called kuwalden. He used to heal diseased animals and liked to drink milk". The Swedish Frederic Ugarph found, in the house of a Norwegian fisher, a wood statue that was 15 centimeters tall. In the pedestal, these words were marked: "Nisse Riktig Storrelse". Which is something like "Actual size of the Gnome". Ugarph was several days discussing the purchase of the figure. It was in the house of the sailor for many generations. But at last, he sold it. Today, that statue is in the hands of a private collector. The statue was analyzed and it has more than 2,000 years. But the markings were sculpted hundreds of years later. The alchemist Paracelsus included Gnomes in his catalog of elemental creatures: Sylph (Air), Salamander (Fire), Undina (Water) and Gnome (Earth). Some locate the Gnomes living in hundreds-year-old trees. They are described as mischievous and familiar beings, that love music, and are able to build their own musical instruments. The musical instruments linked to Gnomes are: the 8 strings violin, flute, harp... Gnomes have filled books, tales, and legends of fantasy. In these, Gnomes master the deepest secrets of the Earth, as they live in the most hidden caves and the deepest grottoes, guarding mines of silver and gold.

Ubuntu (and its variants Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Fluxbuntu) have made Linux more accessible to the big public, as it has brought both ease of use and eye-candy as well as security and ease of installing programs. The users of Ubuntu have a big range of software to choose and install, but it's hard to choose what software is the best for your needs. This list hopes to help to choose the right software, and here follows what I think is the best Ubuntu software for designers and developers. Most of them are available with Synaptic, but anyway the links to their websites are provided. (Note: I've recently done a new list with more applications. You can find it here: 50 More Ubuntu Apps For Design And Developing) 2D Graphic Design Xara Xtreme, (package: xaralx) This is simply the easiest vector graphics drawing program. You just need to test it and will be using it in minutes, as it is very intuitive, which is not usual in this kind of applications. Ktoon, A very easy 2D animation tool specially aimed to draw cartoons. Synfig, A professional studio to make 2D animations. Beware that this is downloadable from Synaptic but has 2 packages: synfig (the application) and synfigstudio (the graphical interface to use it), so install both. Skencil, Apart from Xara Xtreme and the universally known Inkscape, here's Skencil, another good vector graphics drawing application. It has many clipart libraries included. MyPaint, Although it lacks of layers, it is a simple but superb natural painting program. It has many interesting artistic brushes, and you can do your own. The brushes are sensible to pressure (if using a graphic tablet), speed and random factors, making of it a very "living" and artistic way to paint. Pixelize, creates mosaics with small photos so all together form a bigger image. A very impressive effect for big posters. OpenOffice Draw, (package:openoffice.org-draw) It is part of the OpenOffice suite. It has many interesting features, but the most remarkable is that you can export in .swf (flash), which is perfect to share your work online. Gimpshop, It's a modification of The Gimp so all the menus, windows, icons, etc. are changed to match those of Photoshop. And even more, if you compare Photoshop menus and the ones that Gimshop has, you will see they are not only similar, but better and more readable. If you find changing from Photoshop to The Gimp hard, this is your program. 3D Design PovRay (POV), It's simply the best rendering engine ever. KPovModeler, As PovRay is a renderer and also a descriptive programming language, some people will find easier to use a modeler. KPovModeler eases the use of PovRay providing a graphical interface. Reppu, Rendering big or complex scenes in PovRay takes time. Reppu is a program that can share the task of rendering between many computers connected to Internet, so it does that faster and better. Art Of Illusion, If you are looking for a good modeler that is easy to master, Art Of Illusion should be the first option. K3DSurf, If you like fractal art and are good with Maths, you should test K3DSurf. It generates stunning 3D figures from mathematical expressions that can be rendered in PovRay. Blender, Millions of people use Blender to model in many kinds of 3d formats. Of course, it can deal with 3ds and obj formats. Takes time to master it, but the effort is rewarded. Xj3d, X3D is a language for creating virtual 3D worlds that can be visited and interacted by people. Xj3D is both a browser for X3D worlds and a Java library to manipulate it. System Tools Conky, Sometimes a developer (or an advanced PC user) needs to know how much ram memory, CPU cycles, or bandwidth is the system using. Conky can measure and display that all, and much more. Even more, it can display it in your desktop or in a window, and you can customize all so you do your own conky (see this forum). Rox-Filer, You may need a light and fast file manager that doesn't use too many resources. Rox-Filer provides bookmarks, easy and fast interface and thumbnail previews for images. Reconstructor, Ever wanted to make your own Linux disk? With Reconstructor you can customize a CD of Ubuntu so you change almost all (the desktop, icons sets, packages installed, etc) so next time you install you use it to install your own customized Ubuntu. Pcman, A good alternative to other file managers. It has bookmarks, tabs, drag and drop support, customizable file associations, thumbnails... It is light and fast. There's two versions, pcmanfm and pcmanx-gtk2 (this one requires less packages to install). LPROF, A tool to make ICC color profiles for cameras, printers and scanners. It also helps you to calibrate your monitor colors. GAG, The easiest and more robust solution to boot different partitions of your hard drive is GAG. You can use it to dual boot Windows and Linux, and other OS, or boot different Linux partitions, in one hard drive or many. Terminal, (package: xfce4-terminal) If the system terminal is too ugly for you, Terminal gives you a more warm interface, for example with a background image, and bold fonts. Productivity Tools Gnome Do, A tool that learns of your system and when you type the name of an application, folder, etc. it shows you it in a small window and opens it. That way you speed up your work. Specto, It tells you when a website has updated, or you have received an email, or a system process that you want to watch happens. qOrganizer, Do you need a general organizer? With calendar, reminder, notes, to-do list...? Here it is, and free. Incollector, Organize all kinds of information and give them tags so you can search between your data easily. Zim, An organizer that allows to link notes between them, or with files. Web Design Kompozer, As a descendant of NVU, it adds many improvements that make it a complete visual editor for web pages. Amaya, It started as a HTML and CSS visual editor but now it can be an easy tool to make any modern web pages visually, supporting many file types. Kazehakase, Some people want a lighter browser that Firefox. Kazehakase is much faster and uses very low resources, so it's perfect for old machines and home servers. Kruler, A very useful tool to measure anything in the screen. Drupal, Although it's not a Linux program, it is available as a package with the name "drupal5" through Synaptic. Drupal is the best CMS out there, used by thousands of web servers and with lots of modules to add anything you want to your server. Xampp, Was formerly known as Lampp. It installs Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. That way you can test your web pages in php locally, without having to upload them to the server. Image Viewers ShowImg, It has support for many image formats, a tree view, full-screen view, mini-view and image converter. Gpicview, Easy to install and use image viewer that is very fast. Bluemarine, A photo cataloger that can display your photos and categorize them in many ways, with a superb visual appearance, and even a 3D map to locate your maps in the World. Xzgv, Ultralight and fast image viewer that is perfect for a quick view of image files. Audio Tools Jokosher, Multi-track audio editor with an impressive and easy interface. Hydrogen, Use it if you want to play drums with your Ubuntu. Soundconverter, A tool to convert between sound file types. Soundkonverter, This is the KDE version of Soundconverter. Programming Tools Bluefish, It suits the needs of those who look for a fast editor that doesn't use too much resources and has multi-language support, syntax highlight, etc. Gobby, Suppose you want to work together with other developers. Gobby allows you to code and write at the same time in a multiuser text editor with chat, so you all can program together as if you were in the same room. The communications are also encrypted and secure. Netbeans, The best recommendation to use to program in Java. Geany, A lightweight programming editor with a clean and very few requirements. Gambas, (package: gambas2-ide) Gambas is an IDE for a language very similar to Microsoft's Visual Basic. So it allows you to program in Basic with a visual interface. Scite, It's a programmers editor that support many language and can be customized in almost everything of it's behavior and colors. Cream, Many people in Linux use Vim to edit files. Cream makes easier for the beginner to use Vim, as it is an improved Vim. Miscellaneous Fontforge, A serious tool to create new fonts for computers. CinePaint, Collection of video tools used by companies like Imageworks in movies. They allow per frame edition of films.

Flash is one of the most used animation programs. It is useful for animating both vector graphics as well as bitmaps. Some go even further and create complete web pages entirely with Flash. Many of the adds found in Internet are done with this program, because with it you can create fun and imaginative adds. Flash brings movement to the web sites. The following tutorials will help you to learn new techniques, or maybe to remember them. But mainly, they'll be source of inspiration and ideas. (Click the images to go to the tutorials) Add Design Water Effects Interactive Photoalbum Character Animation