It gives us great pleasure seeing children using our KIDpeda Interactive Learning app to play and learn at the same time while parents enjoy a peaceful lunch, like in this video taken in San Francisco's The Chessecake Factory.

Watch it and see how a one year-old plays with KIDpedia Interactive Learning and develops visual coordination skills by grouping objects and manipulating them on an iPad.

Get KIDpedia Interactive Learning here now!

After a long break (yeah right) we have finally launched our very first app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It is called KIDpedia Alphabet and it is an interactive tool for children to learn the alphabet in three languages: English, Spanish and French.

You can find the link to the App Store here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kidpedia-alphabet/id413447904?mt=8

Additionally, you can visit our app website to learn more about the app and also for a chance to win a promo code to review the app: http://www.kidpediaapp.com

We will be launching more apps very soon so stay in touch.

While looking for an easy-to-use framework/starting theme for my websites I learned that Zen was one of the most popular choices in the Drupal community, but I could not understand how the content and sidebar columns worked with negative right margins. It took me a few minutes to realize that while the width is specified in the CSS, the math between margin-right and margin-left needs to match it in order to have well positioned columns.

This post only applies to designers who wish to understand how Zen works and/or wish to position columns in a different configuration.

It's been over a year since I wrote about the 3D scam movie studios are running in order to squeeze more money out of people's pockets, and of course they are succeeding by making silly 3D movies look worth seeing.

And that's the reason why, really, I barely go to the movies nowadays. It is sad to see the art of making a movie is second in priority to the art of selling it. It means that marketing a "successful" movie depends on whether it is natively shot in 3D (which is technically difficult) or if it is possible to fake it and force movie-goers to wear silly glasses hence paying more.

In my opinion it is a scam played out by two players, the studios and projector systems pushing each movie theater to adapt to this technology to increase ticket sales and digital projection units respectively. In the end movie theaters are forced to invest in this new technology just to surrender a bigger chunk of the receipts to the studios, and again we are all falling for it.

I must admit I am a Michael Jackson freak and I wished I had worked in some creative level designing stuff for him; like graphic design work creating posters or album/single covers or even doing video work. Now that must have been a long shot considering how much care he must have put into his videos, hiring A+ directors like Spike Lee (They Don't Care About Us), John Landis (Thriller and Black or White), John Singleton (Remember the Time), Stan Winston (Ghosts), Bob Giraldi (Beat It, Say Say Say) among others. See full list of Michael Jackson videos and their directors here.

Left out of that list is Billie Jean, but just because I think is the best music video ever, directed by Steve Barron. I also like Thriller and others, for instance Thriller has a linear story line, it is like a mini-movie but awesome nonetheless. Now, Billie Jean is much more original in camera and editing techniques, props, obscure plot, solo dance moves and who can forget the iconic lighted floor and lighted bed? I still watch Billie Jean wondering what was the director's inspiration, I mean, even today, Billie Jean stands out against any other music videos.

Having said that, I feel lucky to have produced the Santa Barbara's Solstice Parade video for the Michael Jackson's "Beat It" flash mob on June 26, 2010, I wanted to display the love and appreciation every dancer felt for Michael Jackson, every age group was present and even revelers joined in the flash mob and some danced until the end.

This, and other flash mobs around the world celebrate the love and music of the King of Pop, and even though I would have preferred him around, it serves as a reminder that Michael Jackson lives on.

While preparing to shoot a Michael Jackson 'Beat It' flash mob at Santa Barbara's Summer Solstice Parade I realized that this video could in jeopardy if I didn't have all my ducks in a row by using a model release form signed by all the participants of this video.

There was a time when people didn't sue each other for frivolous reasons, besides you would think that anyone who stands in front of a camera would know what they're up to, but you'll be proven wrong. That's why you need a release form to clear yourself of any legalities and follow standard procedures of this industry. Remember that this will save you some grief (and money) or at least will make you look professional.

It came as a surprise that a mainstream station like Fox would broadcast the UEFA 2010 game between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich for the championship final in the United states, but it was more of a surprise to me when a 3 minute long Nike commercial was aired during the 15 minute break.

Nike's Write the Future was directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and who knows how much time it took to shoot those awesome pictures and pretend movies but at the end it was an incredible feat of soccer, action, frustration, egos, fun, etc.

The final product is an awesome video featuring the world's most celebrated soccer players (Wayne Rooney, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tim Howard, etc) NBA's Kobe Bryant (imitating Ronaldinho's dance) and who would've thought? Homer Simpson, who recognizes Cristiano Ronaldo instantly. His cameo makes me wonder whether soccer is already mainstream in the United States. I would like to think it is though that will largely depend on the coverage of the South Africa 2010 World Cup, soccer's biggest players and equally important the performance of the United States soccer team.

We'll see.

As a graphic designer I was intrigued about whether anyone could take passport style photographs and send them off with the application, after all doing so will save you some money, specially if you are processing all your family's passports.

Passport pictures at Costco, Kinkos, the Post Office or any other place will cost you about $10-$20, with some work and time you can beat the system and do them yourself.

Here's how I did it.

In the last months I noticed how the database for my Drupal site was over 100 megabytes, I knew something needed to be done but I did not know what, until now.

While switching from GoDaddy to Dreamhost I learned that Dreamhost sets you up with a unique sub-domain for your database, something like http://db.yourdomain.com that you can access without logging in to your host account and finding your way to phpMyAdmin. This feature made it easy for me to find out which parts (tables) of my database were the ones slowing down my Drupal installation.

In 2005 I visited LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and to my surprise they have in their permanent exhibition the most awesome chair anyone could ever dreamed of, IF function is not what they are looking for.

In my case, I was struck by the fact I was seeing an actual Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair, the one I had seen in design books as a landmark of the De Stijl artistic movement ( though Rietveld designed it before he was formally associated with De Stijl, and later changed its colors to reflect simplistic color palette and values of De Stijl ) and always thought I would not mind having one at home, the problem is I do not have $900 sitting around to get my own ( Link here ) so that’s why I cheated and made my own virtual one. See it here: