Light strips, or Magic Tape, are by far one of the coolest gadgets I've seen lately. These things are electrically lit, almost paper-thin, and I can think of dozens of uses for them! And with each system limited by a size of 9 squared meters, that's a whole lot of lighting.

Although I wish my wife would let me light our house with these, I can primarily see them being used in highly populated areas such as restaurants, clubs, and concerts.

Over the last few years, as multimedia production targeted at churches grows in both number and value, several stock sites have hit the web. These internet shops are great for finding provocative sermon illustrations, backgrounds, before-church-countdowns, and other stock footage. To narrow things down, here are the top 5 out there.

I was listening to the guys over at ChurchTechTalk, and they mentioned this website called Big Huge Labs.

The Labs offers dozens of free browser-based tools... most of which are for manipulating photos into simple creations. If you want a quick calendar, or photo mosaic, then this site will do it for you easily. Better yet, you can access your Flickr profile and pull photos directly from it.

Congratulations are in order to CHRI for their hugely successful Sharathon 2007. Their initial goal was to raise $30,000 but God has blessed then for an amazing total of over $40,000!

It's a joy to work with them, and I'm glad to see their campaign take off.

Even being a professional designer, I've always had the hardest time with actually naming colours. Sure I know how to use them and match them well, but I've never been able to just point one out and identify it. Being a typical guy, my wife always teased me about not knowing the differences between pink and magenta. But thanks to Chirag Mehta, there's a funky little piece of Javascript that solves all my colour troubles.

StriveMind colours:  Aqua Island, Pear, Tamarind.

StriveMind.com is now listed on Who's Web, interesting little web app mashing Google Maps with the locations of Graphic Designers and other web specialists.

Oh the wonders of Google Maps. Amongst some of the best hacks out there, are maps that show Gas Prices,  Weather, and Web server location.

Interesting how network and movie executives say that sex and violence does not affect viewers, and then turn around and claim that advertising does.

Take the new Transformers movie, for example. One of the funnest (and geekiest) parts of the film was when random gadgets began transforming into malicious little robots. Including, the Xbox 360.

It's about time producers started acknowledging the power in the image they cast. To wow and amaze audiences, and compel their thoughts and their futures.

For someone like myself who doesn't watch a lot of TV, spending $40/month for basic cable sounds outrageous. Especially if I would only ever watch 2 or 3 of the 38 channels. I'd have to spend almost $100/month to get the channels I really want.

Thankfully, the FCC is starting to push for an a-la-carte method of distribution . Of course the broadcasters are against this, since many of them own a large number of the television stations being offered (and consequently, the advertising revenue coming from them).

I would much rather pay more per-channel to get the few I want, than pay more overall for stations I'll never watch. Broadcasters better 'get with the times', as modern consumers want their entertainment accessible, and in the format they desire.

While I'm developing sites, there's all sorts of testing that needs to be done. Or even just when I'm browsing the web and find a great website, I like to look behind the scenes and figure out what makes that site work so well.

Thankfully, there's some really great tools and extensions to use with your Firefox browser that will make your life a whole lot easier. Big thanks to all the developers that made these, and offer them for free.