Information growth-spurt

It was one of those weeks were I was finding out about new things almost every day. I love that, except that I wonder how all this stuff was out there circulating without me knowing about it? Probably the fact that we don't watch TV has something to do with it.

First I was introduced to Kuler. It's a rockin' online color tool! Featuring tons of preconceived color palettes and options at the click of a button. If you click the tiny slider icon near the selected palette you get the color breakdown for RGB, CMYK, Hex, etc. Hats off to Adobe for yet another innovative tool.

Then I saw an article in a national trade magazine about the USS New York. I had no idea that a military ship had been made from the steel recovered from the World Trade Center. Sorry if this is old news but I found it pretty interesting.

I also found this great online tutorial for enhancing photos with the high pass filter in Photoshop. Definitely worth tinkering with if you're looking to boost your PS skillset.

And finally, I had a taxpayer epiphany. Instead of paying my accountant a sizeable chunk of change to hammer out our taxes this year, I made the leap to TurboTax. Downloaded last evening for a fraction of our preparer's tab, completed within about 2 hours rather than 3 weeks which is the usual wait from our busy accountant's office -- our taxes are done & e-filed! Crazy. The downside is that we aren't getting a tax break on the Toyota Prius hybrid we purchased last April. Apparently our government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to do a percentage phase-out on that exemption. Interesting concept to dangle a $3,100 carrot in front of the consumers nose only to have it vanish after they made the purchase which should have earned them the carrot. Verdict: TurboTax good, IRS bad.