London’s West End Theatre Heats Up for the Summer

London may have had a washout summer, but the West end is pumping with some great new shows as well as some of the old classics.

The Lord of the Rings musical, which was premiered in Toronto, has become the world’s most spectacular, ambitious and expensive theatre show to date, taking more than four years to make and costing a total of £14.3 million. To create the different Middle Earth kingdoms, a 40 tonne rotating stage lifts and falls in 17 different sections, and 50 actors, 19 musicians and 60 stage hands work behind the scenes to ensure the 256 costume changes go smoothly as Elfin silk. The show has successfully condensed Tolkien’s epic world into a three hour singing, dancing, flying and fighting extravaganza and will please musical and Middle Earth fans alike.
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Tosca at the Garden - a True London Summer Experience

London is well known for its vibrant arts scene and its year-round packed musical programme. From Camden’s Roundhouse to the world famous Royal Albert Hall, the UK’s capital is overflowing with eclectic musical venues that attract concert-goers from all corners of the globe. But amongst the giants of London’s summer musical fixtures looms one well-known regular: the world-famous Puccini opera, Tosca.
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DreamsPost.com - join free and share!

One of the problems most designers and writers have is that they don’t know where to start promoting, or even displaying their artwork and poetry. There are many places online which require paid membership, but not everyone who has talent can also afford sponsoring his talent’s exhibition. Thankfully, the guys at dreamspost.com understand this artistic need and open a website - Dreams Post - where members can:

- Join absolutely free
- Promote your photography, poetry, and artwork
- Win monthly prizes for top vote getter

Moreover, they also have an active blog which keeps the members up to date with the up-coming events and activities. I browsed some of their categories where members submitted photos and artworks and must say, this community definitely has high quality standard and many extra-ordinarily gifted members. It’s a great way to share your work with people of a similar interest and get some recognition as well as exposure to your talent.

Art of logo design

The recently re-designed Nowg.Net is up online now with a new logo:

What does it represent? From artistic point of view - not much, I didn’t want to add icons or anything that would suggest what the blog is about since it’s running rather general recently, but from design point of view, I was after a very catchy and brandablelogotype, which can easily e remembered, and even more easily recognized. Good colours contrast, not too busy, web 2.0 style. In my opinion, it’s a good

New York or Middle Earth: the Choice is Yours in London’s West End

London’s West End is famous the world over for its first-class theatrical productions and renowned musical adaptations. From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest production of The Sound of Music – starring TV’s ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria’ winner Connie Fisher - to the recent stage adaptation of the classic 1980s movie Dirty Dancing, London’s theatres attract visitors in their hoards. Moreover, London theatre breaks are especially popular with people interested in taking a short holiday in the UK’s bustling capital.

May 2007 sees the opening of two new plays in London’s West End that will have theatre fans across the UK chattering with excitement. The Theatre Royal on Drury Lane will be showing the world’s first adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Following on from the phenomenal success of Peter Jackson’s Oscar winning movie trilogy, the Theatre Royal’s new production of Tolkein’s epic masterpiece combines an ecstatic musical score with heart-stopping choreography and a spectacular stage design.

Featuring over 70 actors, singers and musicians, The Lord of the Rings stage play will follow Frodo Baggins on his amazing journey through Middle Earth - and the production looks likely to be a runaway success. Opening on May 9th, LOTR fans should make sure they book their tickets well in advance to secure a seat.

If enchanted rings and hairy hobbits aren’t quite your idea of an enjoyable night at the theatre, then you’re in luck: May also sees the opening of Fame at the Shaftsbury Theatre. The original high school musical, Fame revolves around a group of students in New York’s school for the Performing Arts. Like The Lord of the Rings, and starring Irene Cara, Fame was adapted into an Oscar winning film in 1980 and has since spawned generations of fans of both the film and the original stage musical alike.

The movie version of Fame was spawned from a successful TV series and the movies’ skyrocketing success gave rise to a host of films made in a similar genre, including Flashdance and Footloose. Today, many films, musicals and TV programmes aimed at teenagers still use the formula that Fame made so successful - the charting of the hopes and dreams of young, idealistic adolescents. Recent films such as Centre Stage and Disney’s High School Musical have followed a similar pattern, but none have so far rendered the timelessness and eternal appeal of the original Fame.

Opening on May 4th at the Shaftsbury Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue, Fame promises a rollicking experience for any fan of the musical, the film - or simply anyone that desires a stunning stage musical experience! And, if you’re planning to visit London’s West End to see The Lord of the Rings or Fame this Spring, why not make a short theatre break out of it? That way you’ll get to take in London’s spectacular attractions and indulge in a spot of shopping while on a cultural weekend away.

By: Andrew Regan is a freelance online journalist who travels extensively.

Database Conversion tools

There are tons of products on the web, offering miscellaneous utilities and software, most of which are taking your money for doing something which you can just as well do manually, only don’t know how. And because of you can’t do it, you have to pay. I strongly do think that most products out there, especially when it comes to web development (HTML builders, flash builders, etc)  are a great way to make money off someone else’s despair and inability to do something themselves.

However, not all the products are the same. The people behind dbconvert.com decided to sponsor my review of their Database Conversion tool, and I must admit at first I was skeptic. I really thought it’s yet another tool that does nothing but any webmaster can, only for money. And yes, I was wrong. Database Conversion tools offer a big and very impressive variety of smart applications for speed conversion and synchronization between a variety of databases including MS SQL, MS Access, MySQL, FoxPro, PostgreSQL and many others. While there are many webmasters out there, many designers and even programmers, there very few people who can manually synchronize or, worst of all - convert a database. These tools save you hunting down programmers and hiring them on hourly basis, so basically you get a smart application for only one time, not big, fee.

Speaking of the fee, is it pricey? I’d say not terribly cheap, most prices range around 50$ if you buy once license, however, you save significantly when purchasing a several licenses at once.  1-year free upgrades and skin support are guaranteed, and as any respectable company, they allow you to avail of their free of charge trial (demo), which is available for for any of their Database Conversion tools. Very professional interface and most of all - easy to use application to let you play around with databases of any kind. Very handy tool if your work with SQL’s.

Yay, Page Rank?

To my total surprise we are now ranked PR2. Thanks to all the incoming backlinks from Technorati and those who downloaded and used the Lorelei Bliss 2.0 Theme. Man, what a few backlinks can do? If I calculated correct, only 250 websites with PR4+ are currently linking over here, at least 250 pings got logged from people linking over here. Could there be more?

Fantasy Art prints

One of the first works I submitted to deviant art in my fantasy art photo manipulation series. This happened right after DA enabled submission of prints to non-subscribed users (yes, I see no point in paying 30$ for Print account, just in HOPE that someday, maybe, someone will come across my print AND want to buy it. I think even lottery has a bigger chance of bringing something in return).

Anyway, you can now purchase this print, Glossy, 13*13 cm for 1.95$ only. Click HERE  to purchase.

DeviantArt - a (damn good) profit organization.

Have you thought about it? 35,571,104 deviations to date, at least 1/3 of them are for sale as prints, at least 1/3 are well selling, and from 100% of them they charge between 50% to 90% profit, leaving the artist with a few cents off each canvas he is selling. Don’t want to earn only 10%? Subscribe to Print account and make 50% of each print. Wow.

Even if this sounds senseless to you, many do it, or subscribe to ads cast, or to “just” subscription that gives u nice fancy stuff you practically do not need, like adding CSS to your weblog. Aye, you have a blog in-build there, in case you did not know.

SO, you don’t need to be a writer, artist, painter or have a talent to make a huge profit off ART.

Basic video tutorial for animating photos

This is one of the most basic tutorials I made, for one of my forum’s moderator’s, Niels, who requested a tutorial for making a basic animation. This is a video tutorial, and yes, the voice is mine. You can view the tutorial by clicking HERE and going to DeviantArt’s page where the download is available for all. Hope you will enjoy the tutorial and learn something new from it.