The Origin of Christmas

The origin of Christmas differs as the precise date of the birth and historicity of Jesus are much debated. Christmas, literally meaning the Mass of Christ, is a traditional holiday in the Christian calendar. The festival of Christmas takes place on 25th December, every year to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas is also celebrated as a secular holiday throughout the world, including countries with small Christian populations like India. Various theories of the origin of Christmas exist that give a clear insight into the celebration of Christmas.

Date Of Christmas
Christmas is celebrated on December 25 in all Christian churches including Eastern Rite, Roman & Protestant. Since most Eastern Orthodox churches have not accepted either the Gregorian calendar or the Revised Julian Calendar reforms, December 25 will fall on the civil date of January 7 for the years from 1900 to 2099. It is believed that the nativity was set on December 25th by a Roman bishop around the third century A.D.

The Roots Of Christmas
Christmas is from Christes Maesse, which means Christ Mass. It is referred that during the 4th century, the celebration of Christ's birth on December 25 was gradually adopted by most Eastern churches. In Jerusalem, opposition to Christmas lasted longer as according to them the exact date of birth of Jesus Christ is unknown. It is said that December 17-24th was the period of Saturnalia, a well-known festival in pagan, Rome. December 25th was the birthday of Mithra, the Iranian god of light. This day was adopted by the church as Christmas to counteract the effects of these festivals.

The Acceptation
Though the true origin of Christmas is filled with controversy and compromise, today, Christmas has turned out to be one of the most popular festival that fills joy, happiness and love in people's life. The festival of Christmas has absorbed various customs and traditions of world and 25th December has emerged as the most important day for Christians, irrespective of its roots. It is taken as a day that reflects the power, glory and salvation of Jesus Christ and his message of hope to the world.

Various Theories Of The origin of Christmas
As the origin of Christmas has been a debatable issue, various theories has been suggested, supporting the date of 25th December as the birth of Jesus. Few of them are:

Roman festival of Saturnalia
It is an appropriation by early Christians of a day on which the birth of several pagan gods, Osiris, Jupiter, and Plutus, or the ancient deified leader Nimrod, was celebrated. It is an appropriation of the Roman festival of the birth of Unconquered Sun, celebrated on the day after the winter solstice, or the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

Jewish Festival of Lights
It derives from the tradition that Jesus was born during the Jewish Festival of Lights that falls on 25th December.

Date of Good Friday
The date of Christmas is based on the date of Good Friday, the day Jesus died. Since the exact date of Jesus' death is not stated in the Gospels, early Christians sought to calculate it, and arrived at either March 25 or April 6. Then, wishing to calculate Jesus' birthday, they followed the ancient idea that Old Testament prophets died either an anniversary of their birth or of their conception. In Jesus' case, they reasoned that he died on an anniversary of the Incarnation so the date of his birth would have been nine months after the date of Good Friday-either December 25 or January 6. The date of 25th December became popular.

Love At First Sight

Love at First Sight. Perhaps, it is the most romantic thing that can happen to anyone. It makes people lose their heart and mind within a matter of several seconds. Love is a very strong emotion which, sometimes, is even impossible to control. Love at first sight can happen anywhere, anytime - in a subway, while walking on a street, or seeing a beautiful face from across the room ... 

People who haven't experienced love at first sight themselves, probably don't believe that it can be real. There are many skeptics who say it is just passion or lust that attract people to each other, and refuse to believe that one can really fall in love with another person at the first moment their eyes meet. 

And do you believe in love at first sight? Some scientists after studying human brain activity noted that it is quiet possible, but everyone is free to believe or not to believe. There are people who really experienced this wonderful moment. They say that as soon they have raised their head and met those eyes, they instantly knew that they were looking at the person of their dreams.

Psychologists say that love at first sight depends on our psychological state at the very moment. Sometimes we will not even notice those charming eyes, and other times they can deeply impress us. Also they say we need approximately 30 seconds to fall in love or, to be more precise, to establish whether the person is attractive, and a potential mate. By the way psychologists claim that men fall in love first. 

"The study gets at the basic perceptual aspects in mating," said psychologist Jon Maner of Florida State University, who decided to find out how people react on strangers they have never met before. "It shows how quickly, strongly and automatically people are attuned to physical attractiveness whether looking for mates or guarding their mates from potential rivals," he added in an interview.

In the study university students were shown pictures of very attractive or average-looking people for just one minute, and after that they were asked to look at other things. The reaction time of the participants was measured, after what the psychologists were able to determine that half a minute was enough for students to decide if someone is attractive. The researchers also noticed that people fixated on attractive faces for half a minute longer after the one minute time limit. 

"These are the kind of people we might prefer as romantic partners, but it doesn't mean we'd be able to have a relationship with them because highly-attractive people are very sought after," said Maner. 

A lot of factors play role in the situation of falling in love from the first sight. When you fall in love at the first sight you are usually ready and willing to do so. There is less chance that it will occur when you are tired, depressed or your head is exploding with problems. The main part in falling in love is given to the physical appearance, voice, gestures and smell. One person intuitively searches in the other the qualities and the features he likes and enjoys the best. It is a known fact, that beautiful people attract attention the most, but sometimes it is wrong to fall in love with them right away, because those people are most probably spoiled by attention from others as well, and, therefore, might not even notice you, or simply leave without attention.

So how is it possible to understand if what happened to you is love at first sight? 

1. First of all, try to understand what is the first thing that got into your mind when you saw a person. If the first thought is physical, then it probably is not love. But if you are excited and overwhelmed by a desire to get to know the person better and take things slowly so they work out for you, then it might be a good sign for a deeper relationship. 

2. A person's attractive physical qualities are something that anyone can see and appreciate, but when you really fall in love with someone, it means that you will not appreciate and notice only his/her physical appearance, but also will notice other qualities that no one else can see. If you are able to notice such features, but your friends, for example, are not, then it is another good sign that you might be falling in love. 

3. Falling in love with someone means wanting to know everything about that person, from their likes and dislikes to their life experiences. Just have patience to learn about them slowly, be understanding and supportive, and at the end, everything will work out for you in a best way. 

Still, the cases when people really had fallen in love from the first sight and lived a long and happy life after are very rare. People may dream of a beautiful stranger that waits for them just around the corner, and sometimes it takes patience and time to find a real love. People must understand that this kind of things do happen, but not as often as they would like them to. And if out of nowhere you just suddenly start feeling the growing wings behind your back, still try to keep your feet on the ground because if it is really a deep and true feeling, nothing will ever happen to it, but if it is just your illusions that you accept and see as a reality, then disappointment from falling back on the ground can be very, very painful.

Surprised by Love

Oh, how can I give you up ...?
How can I let you go?
How can I destroy you ...?
My heart is torn within me,
and my compassion overflows.
... for I am God and not a mere mortal.

Sentimentalists, don't get your hopes up by this title; this isn't a "chick flick" worthy story. It is, however, about the truth that underlies every single one of those stories that has value. In some ways, what we discover together here is far more important than any other story no matter how sentimental. This is the discovery of truth — the surprising, experiential, multi-faceted, ever-repeating reality — about love and all genuine love stories.
Love is unpredictable. There you have it. That's it. That's a truth you can bank on!
Love is unpredictable. Love does the unexpected. Love is full of surprises. Love is new even in the face of mind-numbing monotony. Love twists when rationality says go straight. Love forges ahead when logic says make a major change. Love doesn't budge when conventional wisdom says run. Love moves like the wind when common sense says "Be still and hide!" Love does the unexpected!
O I know that is not the exact definition of love in Scripture  for example). I can't quote a verse as a proof text that really summarizes what I'm saying ... at least not one verse that says it exactly. But I can get you proof.
God!

Love is unpredictable.

God is love. He shows it instead of just saying it. Or better yet, he says it by doing it. He can be tough or tender. He can be patient or pushy. He can rage and he can whisper. He can show his power and he can hide in the quietness of his creation. He can punish and he can suffer under the scourge. He can thunder and he can weep for a dead friend and his sisters. He can demand allegiance, but he can also risk everything to win our hearts. God is not unpredictable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Yet his actions will always appear a bit unexpected and surprising if we do not humbly recognize that he is driven by one truth that trumps all others ... his love for us ... his gracious, undeserved, and unexpected love for us.
That's not to be confused with sappy emotions without gut wrenching sacrifice. It should not be mistaken for spoken intentions without follow through. This love should never be reduced to politically correct sounding speech with hollow character. We've let baby boomer sappiness and TV driven sentimentality replace the real grit and authenticity of true love ... unexpected, undeserved, sacrificial love. God will do the unexpected to reach the undeserving ... to reach us. He always has. He always will. That's what his book is about. Even more, that is what his ultimate message, Jesus is about. And that is what he is at work doing in your life and mine ... even when the unexpected turns of our life leave us ripped up and full of questions.
So ...

... will you trust that whatever he is up to in our world, your world, its about finding a way to reach you and your heart even when you can't understand all the why's of life?

... will you join him in his passion to touch everyone — even the ones most of us can't stand or wouldn't waste time to reach — and change them by his love?

Graphic Design

9 Photoshop Editing Tips Web Developers Should Know

There are quite a few reasons why having basic Photoshop skills beyond slicing PSD’s to XHTML/CSS is essential to any web developer.

I have discussed some of those reasons in this article on my blog, but to make a long story short, there are times when you just need to do minor image editing tasks but don’t want to hassle your web designer for it.

Here are common tasks and processes that web developers often need to deal with when working on a web design/web interface using Photoshop.

1. Changing the background color of an icon

As a web developer, one of the most common tasks I encounter is changing the background color of an icon or making its background transparent.
Let’s take an RSS icon for example. RSS icons come in different shapes and sizes.

When you finally find the "perfect” icon, you sometimes need to modify it. One common issue is that if your site’s background color is one color and the icon’s background is another color, to make them seamlessly match, there is a little work we need to do to it.

If the image is in GIF format, I recommend converting it to PNG because they’re similar, but PNGs will usually be smaller in file size. Read about the pros and cons of using GIF versus PNG at W3C.
To do that, open the image in Photoshop, then go to File > Save for Web & Devices (Ctrl/Cmd + Alt/Option + Shift + S), then select either PNG-8 or PNG-24 under the Optimized file format drop-down on the right-side. You’ll have to see which one is better in terms of quality and file size.
(See a guide on how to save images for the web.)

Then close the original GIF file because we are done with it, and then open the image with the new format you have just saved.

Now if you look at your Layers Panel (if it’s not visible, hit the F7 key to toggle the panel’s visibility), you might see that there is a layer called Background.

Right-click on that layer, select Layer from Background from the menu that appears, and then click OK.
Second step: use the Magic Wand Tool (W) from the Tools Panel.
1. Click on the Magic Wand Tool.
2. Make sure that the Tolerance value is set to about 20 and that the Anti-alias and Contiguous options are checked as demonstrated below.



Then click on the white (or whatever color) background area surrounding the icon.
Make sure that the selected area doesn’t "eat" too much of the shadow below the icon. If it does, play with the tolerance value a bit (and reselect the background again with the Magic Wand Tool), until you get the desired result.

To delete the background color

To delete the background and make it transparent, simply press the Delete key to clear the area below the selection. Then save it again as a PNG by going File > Save for Web & Devices, making sure that the Transparency option is checked.

To change the background color

1. Click on your Foreground color, select the desired color from the Color Picker dialog window, and then click OK.
2. Click on the Paint Bucket Tool (G). If you don’t see the Paint Bucket Tool, right-click on the Gradient Tool icon and choose the Paint Bucket Tool from the menu that appears.
Then, click inside the selected are around the icon to apply the color you chose.

2. Selecting a layer with Auto-Select

Selecting a layer may seem obvious: you click on the layer’s name in the Layers Panel (press F7 if you don’t see it).

However, finding the relevant layer can be tedious when there are many layers in your work or if the layers aren’t named intuitively.

One option is to enable the Auto-Select option:
1. Click on the Move Tool (V) in the Tools Panel.
2. Choose Layer from the Auto-Select drop down.
3. Make sure to check the Auto-Select box.


After enabling Auto-Select, clicking anywhere in the canvas itself will activate the relevant layer.

3. Selecting a layer with Ctrl/Cmd + click

A second option for selecting a layer is to use the Move Tool (V)—leaving the Auto-Select option unchecked this time—and then Ctrl/Cmd + clicking on an object in the canvas to select a specific layer.

4. Isolating a layer

After selecting a layer, you may want to copy it to a new document where you can save it as a separate image.
One way to do it would be using the Crop Tool (C).

However, there is a quicker way that preserves the accurate size of that layer:
1. Hold down Ctrl/Cmd and click on the layer’s thumbnail. This should make an automatic selection around the objects in that layer.
2. Press Ctrl/Cmd + C (shortcut for Edit > Copy)
3. Press Ctrl/Cmd + N to create a new document. Photoshop detects the size of the layer you want to copy and creates a new document with the same size.
4. Click Ctrl/Cmd + V to paste into the new layer.

5. Copying a layer from one document to another by drag and drop

There are many ways to copy a layer or a group of layers from one PSD file to another. However, the easiest method is simply to drag and drop them.
1. Select a layer from the Photoshop document you wish to copy from. If you need to copy multiple layers, hold down Ctrl/Cmd and click on the layers in the Layers Panel.
2. Select the Move Tool (V).

3. Click anywhere in the canvas and drag the layers up to the tab of the document you want to copy the layers to.
The window will switch to the second document. Release the mouse button in the canvas where you wish to place the copied layers in the second document.

6. Refining a selection by contracting or expanding it

In the first tip, I demonstrated how to select the background of an icon. In some cases, the selection is inaccurate and you may want to expand or contract that selection from all directions.

First, to get a closer look at your selection, press Ctrl/Cmd + + which will zoom into your work.
Go to Select > Modify > Expand or Select > Modify > Contract.


Type the number of pixels you wish to expand or contract your selection by, and then click OK.

7. Using Layer Comps

When working with many layers, it is more efficient to capture different layer visibility states. In other words, it’s best to set a layer’s visibility to display only the layers you want to.

1. Display the Layer Comps Panel by go to Window > Layer Comps.
2. Click on the Layer Comps menu and select New Layer Comp or click on the Create a new layer comp button at the bottom of the Layer Comps Panel.


3. Type the name of your Layer Comp, check the Visibility option and click OK.

Toggle Layer Comps

To hide and show your layer comps, just click on the icon on the right side of the layer comp.

8. Basic image manipulation: changing colors

Another common task in Photoshop is duplicating a part of a layer for color changes or transformation.
Here’s an example. The following icon is used as a menu button:

How can you create a duplicate version of the house (only), and make it black and white? This is a situation that often occurs when you need to create mouseover effects on a web page.

1. Click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M).
2. Select the house on the canvas. Then press Ctrl/Cmd + J to duplicate it into a new layer.
3. Click Ctrl/Cmd + U to adjust Hue/Saturation for the new layer. Scroll the saturation left to turn the house to black and white.


The result:

Remember that you still have the colored version of the house. To view it, just toggle the duplicated layer’s visibility.

9. Using measurement tools

As a web developer, you often need to measure objects for pixel-perfect accuracy when rendered on a web page. A common example is calculating menu item sizes for creating CSS sprites.
Here are two methods to measure elements:

Rulers (Ctrl/Cmd + R)

1. Click, hold, and drag from the top left corner of your rulers towards the canvas.
2. Release the mouse button where you want to start the axes.
3. Zoom in (Ctrl/Cmd + +) to view finer increments of the rulers.
Tip: To change the measurement units of the rulers (from inches to pixels for example), double- click on the ruler itself to open the Units & Rulers Preference dialog window (or go to Edit > Preferences > Units & Rulers) and select the desired measurement unit.

The Ruler Tool (I)

1. Click on the Ruler Tool’s button on the Tools Panel (if you don’t see it, right-click on the Eyedropper Tool and switch it to the Ruler Tool).
2. Click and drag from the start to end-point that you wish to measure.
3. Check the width and height indications.


Got Photoshop tips for web developers of your own? Please share it with us in the comments.