South Jersey Graphics Design – Blog

That's me, on the left, with my authentic Bolivian dance costume... for last Halloween.

Halloween has always been a fun time of year for me. It seems that its just a darn good excuse to dress up and play the role of someone else.

As a kid, I was obsessed with ninjas. It seems I was dressed up as some form of ninja for about 5 years straight. But before that, I was much more imaginative in my costume selection (well, to be fair, my mother was much more imaginative in helping me put together my costume). One year I was a knight, complete with silver spray-painted plywood shield and wooden sword. Another year I was Superman which included blue, ballet tights and a homemade cape.

It was from about 15 years old until I was in my late 20s that I really didn’t dress up at all. Other things really just seemed like they were more important. It’s only now, as I creep daintily into my 30s, that I’ve rediscovered the fun in dressing up for Halloween.

In 2007, my wife and I went to Bolivia for a couple of weeks. We brought back with us a couple of traditional Bolivian dance costumes. We had some concern, however, when we brought them back through customs. They were adorned with authentic horse hair, goat toenails, and other animal parts that should not be mentioned. Yet, they were authentic, which I loved.

Last year, my wife and I dressed up in these traditional costumes and had a great time (see picture). This year???? Well, my costume is ready. I’m so excited about my costume this year that I actually told my wife, “If I had thought of this before our wedding, I would have insisted on walking down the aisle with it on.” Yes, I’m quite excited about this year’s costume. Stay tuned to see what it is…

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Yes, the purpose of this image is to bolster my case for a Rottie... Michelle are you reading this?

As many of you know, we lost our dear beloved Rottie, Bear, not too long ago. We was our best friend.

If you’ve ever loved and lost a canine companion, you’ll understand that our house now feels deplete of certain liveliness that only a dog can provide. While we’ve been grieving and mourning for quite some time now, we have also been asking ourselves, “when is the right time to look for a new companion for us?”

Certainly, Bear is irreplaceable. But we are, at our core, dog people. We love those furry little guys and miss having one in our lives. We would never want to go out looking for a new puppy thinking that it would replace Bear. We would want to search for a pup that satisfies our love for dogs and owning dogs.

So, the friendly debate in the Roberson household has been, “when and what kind of puppy are we looking for?” While there’s really no easy answer to the previous two questions, we have rounded the “what kind” down to a couple dogs: Another Rottweiler, a Bernise Mountain Dog, or a Bullmastiff (yes, we’re big dog people). The debate on what kind of pup shall rage for many more months I assume. Suffice it to say that I’m leaning towards another Rottie.

The “when” is a much harder question to answer. We had Bear for 10 years. He was a well traveled dog that adapted quite well to change. In short, we were lucky with him. I don’t think we can assume the same luck with our next pup. I think the plan is now that we get some of our travelling wishes done with over the next year (Ireland, South America, Asia, etc) and, when we finally settle for a bit, start a serious search for a new furry family member. With that said, the tide changes on the “when” debate on a daily basis. You may very well see some pics of a new pup on this blog before the end of the year.

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I guess this post should be more aptly named “Jets of the future…” as British inventor James Dyson (yes, the vacuum cleaner guy) is close to launching the world’s first bladeless fan to US and Australian markets.

What’s this have to do with websites and the online world? Well, nothing really. I just think it’s really, really cool and wanted you to know about it (it’s the enginerd coming out in me).

The fan works by forcing a jet of air out a narrow circular slit and then over an airfoil to generate an Air Multiplier effect that causes 119 gallons of continually flowing air to flow per second.

The benefit is elimination of the fan blades (a safety hazard) and continual flow of air as opposed to intermittent flow that fan blades cause. Plus, it’s just downright cool!

The cost of having the newest toy in your neighborhood? About $300.

To read more, follow this link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ba62a00-b755-11de-9812-00144feab49a.html

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It’s no secret that hackers present a very specific risk to internet users through underhanded tactics such as Phishing, viruses, and bot-nets, but recently, the United Nations has proclaimed that the next world war could be fought solely in cyberspace.

I’m sure your initial thought is that hackers from countries like China, North Korea, and similar countries would wage the wars on our government’s websites  for sensitive information (CIA, NSA, etc). However, it’s important to realize that our country, and our world, has become dependent upon our websites to run our businesses. Should a country decide to wage cyber-war on another country, they aren’t only going to go after the sensitive government information, but they are going after the heart of our economy as well. They will do this by waging war on private websites in order to strike a blow to the country’s economy.

If you think this is a simple over-exaggeration, consider this. Our firm responded to a frantic call from one of our clients last year after being successfully hacked. The initial review of the security breach by our firm noted that the hackers simply changed the home page to boast the successful hack of the website. Further investigation by us found that the hackers corrupted most files on the website as well as installed software on the server in order to add this server to their “bot-net” (a bot-net is a number of servers, several thousand usually, that have been hacked and are turned into a server-zombie with it’s sole purpose to carry out orders by the hackers – usually sending viruses, SPAM and carrying out denial of service attacks on other sites).

The hack on our client’s server was reversed and they were back online within a few hours. We further researched the hack and traced it back to a user in North Korea. Just as our government is putting in place thousands of new professionals to thwart cyber-attacks on our country, other, malicious governments are hiring thousands of hackers to carry out these attacks.

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Bear and the wife...

I violated the first and most often violated cardinal sin of blog writing: Never take breaks.

Well, I did just that. Unfortunately, life got the better of me this Summer and I let my regular blog writings slip. However, know that there were good reasons for my hiatus. Good reasons? Yes. Pleasant reasons? Certainly not.

I won’t get into the details of what the distractions were this summer but I can summarize it with the following:

• The municipal sewer backed up into our basement
• We had some crazy torrential storm hid our area and knock out a bunch of trees in our neighborhood and in our yard
• And, most importantly, I lost my beloved best friend, Bear, to a battle with cancer.

So, Im picking myself up and hopping back in the saddle (yes, that was a violation of cardinal sin #85 in blog writing: “Thou shalt not use cliche’s in blog posts”)

Rest assured that I have much more to share with you guys. While the summer may have been quiet, it sure wasn’t inactive. The online world is evolving faster than ever before and I’m here to keep you in the know.

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