Perfect if you want that American touch, or if you just want something beautiful and mesmerizing to look at. Download the wallpaper here.

Take me home, country roads… Check it out here.

Great theme if you’re into things of the more psychedelic nature. This HD wallpaper is available in many different sizes – take a look at it here.

This one is the obvious choice for all the Mac-lovers out there. Pimp your Mac with a Mac… Double the fun!

This photo makes me feel very Zen, a big plus when you have a stressful day at work. You’ll find this wallpaper here.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is one of my all-time favorites and it’s not only because of its great content (although it’s excellent) but because of its great design. It’s mainly black and white with some colors popping out here and there. The best thing is of course its typography. I don’t know any other website that’s been as successful as The New Yorker when it comes to transforming a certain typography into being part of their brand.

Let it Bleed

There is just something about this site that’s so very appealing. I’m usually not a big fan of dark websites but if it’s done properly there’s nothing better. Well, perhaps there is – let’s just agree that this is a beautiful site that’s truly inspiring.

Favorite Website Awards

The FWA website is pure heaven when it comes to finding inspiration. Take a look at the “Site of the day”, “Site of the month” and so on… You get the idea. This is the Oscars of web design and it’s probably the best site to visit if you’re having a slow day at work.

So, that’s it. Three websites should do the trick. Still not inspired? Have a cup of coffee and a long walk. Still not inspired?!?!? Hope is over for you…

“A bad company and one of the employees “X” has a grudge against me because I am on disability. Clearly discrimination. Hands down. Who cares if I am on disability? What if you broke your back? You do not know why I am disabled in the first place as well. Many Americans do not have a job too but it was just because I said I was disability. He was fine with me until I mentioned it. Plus, this guy threatened me on AOL about calling CPS on my children. This company provides horrible service and has a big ego.”

Have you ever felt discriminated when buying a service of some kind?

Super Bowl is as you all know just around the corner, 7th of Feb to be exact, and it will of course be interesting to see who wins between New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts but I know that many people are looking forward to see the ads in-between the game (how often does one look forward to the ads?!!?) as well. The Super Bowl ads are known for being super expensive and also, often, very funny.

This year we will get to see ads by for example Frito-Lay’s Doritos (who topped last year’s USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter), Mars Chocolate, Homeaway Inc, Diamond Foods and of course GoDaddy (for the sixth year in a row). We recently published an article about the GoDaddy girls and say what you want about their ads; they always manage to create a certain buzz (in lack of a better word). It’ll be interesting to see what they’ve come up with this year…

I just recently wrote a short post about YouTube entering the rental market with five indie movies that was showcased at the Sundance movie festival. So, how did it go? Hmmm… I don’t think a total view of 2,684 views netting a total of $10,709.16 can be seen as a great success. That’s a shame as I thought that this could be the start of something very good.

Perhaps needless to say but I don’t think these numbers will scare companies such as Netflix and Amazon. YouTube however claims that they were very happy with the test but I just can’t see what they have to be happy over. That it worked? Well, that shouldn’t be the most difficult thing a company that’s already streaming videos. Sure, they weren’t blockbuster movies YouTube has millions of users and now we’re talking about a mere 2,684 views. The future of their rental service is difficult to predict but I sincerely hope that this wasn’t the last we will hear about it.

Youtube, who made a name for themselves by offering free streaming videos, made a step, although small, towards the rental market. They have a long way to go before they will be able to compete on the same level as Netflix but it’s still an important step that is well worth noticing.

At the moment Youtube, who is owned by Google, will begin with only offering five movies and they are not of the blockbuster type. They are not even old forgotten classics. They are something much better – at least according to a movie geek like me. The films that will be up for rental are part of this year’s, or was part of last year’s, Sundance Film Festival so expect something that is a bit more independent than say Avatar. You’d better be quick if you want to try out this service as the movies will be available for a limited period, from Friday 22nd to the end of the Festival which is January 31.

It’ll be interesting to see how this service gets received by the users. If a success I guess that Google will put even more efforts into getting the full version launched as soon possible. Youtube has already held discussions with many of the major studios so in the future I guess that it will be possible to watch all your favorite Mel Gibson movies as well and not only the ones made by directors with unpronounceable names.

This Tuesday Google threatened to shut down all of their operations in the People’s Republic of China. The reason is that they discovered a very advanced cyber attack against Chinese human rights activists.

According to Google, Chinese “cyber spies” hit the company, along with at least 20 other companies whose identity has not been revealed. The purpose of the attack apparently was to gain access to email accounts belonging to activists all over the world.

The company said that they now are looking over their business in China and that they’ve made the decision to no longer filter search results in China.

Many bloggers claim that Google’s filter in China already is long gone, or at least that it’s gotten a lot softer. When searching for the Tiananmen Square while in China you apparently get a much broader set of results than you used to.

China is still to respond to the threats made by Google. The Chinese authorities are “looking for more information” regarding the alleged attacks, according to a Chinese official.

What can one make out of all this? It’s difficult since Google once in a time agreed to allow very strange censorships, at least according to me, in China but I think it’s a good thing that they now finally decided to take a stand against pointless ruling by “Big Brother”. What do you say? What’s the best thing Google can do now?

Click the video above to learn how to work with search engine optimization – and get access to all of our other videos.

Microsoft and Yahoo recently released details regarding a web search and advertising revenues alliance, all according to Reuters.

The alliance is going to be complex (as expected when dealing with two giants) but the companies will for example split the revenues coming from online advertising and Yahoo will use Microsoft’s search engine Bing on their sites. Yahoo will be the company in charge of managing the revenues from the advertising on a global scale.

“Through this partnership with Yahoo we will be able to create innovative search functions, add value to our clients as well as providing consumers with an alternative to a market that is dominated by one single company”, says Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive at Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer obviously refers to Google, who is getting increasingly dominating on the search engine market. With this alliance Yahoo and Microsoft are stepping up their position in the battle against their enemy Google.

The alliance can lead to around 500 million dollars in increased revenues per year, according to a press release in Reuters.

“This deal means a lot for Yahoo, for our users and for the industry as a whole. I believe that it creates opportunities for a new era of innovation and development on the Internet”, says Carol Bartz, Chief Executive at Yahoo.

The contract will tie the two companies together for a period of ten years. This arrangement was preceded by an 18 months long attempt from Microsoft to get Yahoo to join them in the battle against Google. I for one am looking forward to see how all of this will present itself in the future. Beating Google is not the easiest of tasks.

I don’t know if you are as tired as me about hearing how great and “happening” virtualization is, but I am getting pretty sick of hearing about it. However, there’s a lot of truth to all the positive things that’s being said so I thought that; maybe I should publish a post about Virtualization as well…

First of all, what is virtualization? I guess that it can be explained from a very techy point of view or from a more basic aspect. I’m gonna go with the latter; Virtualization allows you to run several different virtual machines on one single physical system. This means that you for example can have your file server, DNS and print server all operating at the same time.

The advantages with Virtualization are plenty but the main advantage, at least according to me, is that it cut downs power and hardware costs. Another benefit with Virtualization is that it will simplify operations as well as ensure data protection and availability for people or businesses that are involved in a project on the web.

So, that’s my short and concise contribution to all the fuzz and buzz about Virtualization. Hopefully you feel a bit more informed on the issue now and if not – browse the web, there are thousands of articles on Virtualization…