If you enjoy scrapbooking or creating craft projects at home, then Provo Craft’s Cricut Mini, which becomes available in November, will make your hobbies a lot more fun. The Cricut Mini is a personal electronic cutter that can cut many types of materials including paper, vinyl, foil and fabric. This small machine offers precise and detailed cutting capability for shapes and fonts from .25” up to 11.5.” The Cricut uses cartridges to provide the letters and shapes desired. The machine also comes with a new feature — the Cricut Craft Room (www.cricut.com/craftroom). Use any computer to access the Craft Room and design with any of the cartridges in the Cricut library, without owning them first.
 

Florida State University has opened limited enrollment for a new animation and visual effects program that will graduate students with cutting-edge animation and visual effects skills to produce the Hollywood blockbuster movies of the future. Unlike other digital arts programs, students completing the Animation & Digital Arts program will graduate with both a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida State University and professional certification training in the area of their choice. This means students will be “industry ready” and prepared to work on digital animation and visual effects projects in the film industry upon graduation. For more information see http://film.fsu.edu/Apply-to-FSU-Film/BFA-in-Animation-Digital-Arts
 

The eBook, “The Economics of Software Quality,” focuses on the business value inherent in prioritizing quality in the software development process. It aims to quantify the factors that influence software quality and to enable readers to predict and measure them. Using data and case studies from hundreds of software organizations, authors Capers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour show how integrated inspection, structural quality measurement, static analysis and testing can achieve defect removal rates exceeding 95 percent. Managers and stakeholders need to focus on quality issues at the start of planning and developing new applications, and when enhancing or maintaining existing ones. This includes predicting and measuring quality levels associated with items such as software project schedules, staffing, development and maintenance costs. The authors also explore the emerging topic of “technical debt,” or the cost of fixing problems in working software that, if left unfixed, will likely cause critical business disruption and extended costs for post-release defect repairs.
 

The DoughMain.com platform consists of a family calendar that is integrated with a chore tracker and an allowance/rewards tool. Parents set up their own customized DoughMain that serves as a secure micro-network for the family. Within each DoughMain, every family member can view their own responsibilities as well as the group’s information. Parents control the information their children can access, such as the ability to create calendar entries or designate that a chore has been completed. Since information is updated in real-time, parents can instantly reward their children for positive behavior and/or accomplishments – either through DoughPoints (DoughMain’s virtual currency) or an allowance. DoughMain also offers a financial education curriculum through three age-relevant websites. Featuring teacher-developed content, the sites include: TheFunVault.com, a Flash game portal teaching basic money lessons to children ages five to nine; SandDollarCity.com, a multiplayer virtual world where children ages eight to 12 manage a family candy shop; and IRuleMoney.com, a site featuring financial-oriented content tailored to teenagers.
 

The Skype for iPad app brings more than 25 million iPad users a Skype video calling experience optimized for their tablet device. The app lets users make and/or receive free Skype-to-Skype video calls from their iPad to an array of Internet-connected devices over WiFi or 3G. Optimized for the iPad, the app enables users to take advantage of the device’s large screen for video calls that deliver up to VGA quality video (640x480) at 15 frames per second. Skype for iPad works on iPads updated with the most recent iOS firmware. Two-way video calling is available on the iPad 2. Users of the original iPad are able to receive video during Skype-to-Skype calls.