Lofty Matters

Are you a font addict? I admit it – I really, really love fonts. I even had to move all of them out of the default windows font folder and onto a special font application because I have so many. I literally have thousands. Not exaggerating! When you work with graphics at all, you develop a thing about fonts, I think. At least that’s where my love of fonts came from.

Now that I’m dabbling in internet marketing and am starting to create some websites, I’m also finding that webmasters love fonts, too!

As a person who loves fonts, finding sources of free fonts always perks up my ears. Hacking Ball Z is a huge spanish online community that has very popular sections…one of which is a new fonts section. Listen to this: They have over 31,000 “True Type Fonts” that are available for free download.

This is a spanish service, but don’t let that scare you. It’s easy to use for any Internet user. By the way…if you’re wondering…fuentes means fonts! HBZ also offers a preview of the fonts with the option to select the color of the preview. The most exciting thing is the extensive collection I found here…it’s just huge! Additionally, HBZ offers a daily updated list of proxys.

Have you joined the big party yet?

I admit I was sorely tempted to download…really, I wanted to. Even went to their site and almost clicked. But then I decided to browse around on the support forums a bit first to see what other folks were saying and I got scared off. While I’m sure the majority of downloaders went happily on their way, some of the problems were just so nasty…and with my luck I’d be in that boat, too.

So….I’m waiting a bit. I also want to make sure that all of my most important plug-ins will work so I’ll give those authors a little more time.

I did think this was cute though. Microsoft sent a congratulatory cake to Mozilla today. It was delivered in person and was graciously accepted by the Firefox crew.

Let’s face it. Your web host can make or break your web site and your presence on the internet. If you decide to cut a few corners or you don’t have enough experience to choose a host with all of the services and features that are essential, you WILL regret it. There’s no doubt about this.

If you are looking for a new webhost either for the first time or because you maybe didn’t make the best choice the first time, a good place to find information about the best web hosting may be Web Hosting Geeks.

This is actually a web hosting review and resource guide. They review and rate all of the web hosting services so that you can make an informed decision about the best web host for your needs.

Food has become the new gold. Investors weary of the real-estate bubble-burst have poured millions of dollars into grain futures. This has succeeded in driving up prices even more. Now we are witnessing a global panic as nations are waging a run on our wheat harvest.
Foreign investors have begun to stockpile wheat by placing orders on US grain exchanges that are two or three times larger than normal. This has led US mills to place large orders in the fear that there would soon be no wheat left at all.
Asian countries have placed huge orders with little concern over how high the prices are going. Grain prices are currently rising more in one day than they have in entire years. Regardless of the price the grain is selling. People need to eat.
Food prices are causing upset worldwide. We are seeing an unprecedented wave of hunger rolling through the poorest nations of the world. Between early 2005 and early 2008 prices rose 80 percent according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. So far, most of the increase is being absorbed by distributors and processors but consumers are feeling the pinch as well.
The world’s food supply and demand has grown into a situation of civil turmoil. After violent riots in Port-au-Prince, Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis was forced to step down recently. At least 14 countries have had food-related violence occur recently.
To control the unrest, some countries are digging deep to increase food subsidies. The U.N. World Food Program has issued warnings of an alarming surge in hunger in areas such as North Korea and West Africa.
Wheat has now begun to moderate slightly as farmers rush to plant more wheat now that profits are rising. Analysts predict that prices may come down possibly 30 percent in the next few months. Even so, this would still leave prices up 45 percent. Prices are not expected to go back down to where they were in early 2006 so this means that the world must accept the reality of more expensive food.
Countries that have driven up the food demand are now dealing with the cost of their own success – rising prices.
China is trying to reassure its people by announcing reserve grain holdings of 30 to 40 percent of annual production, but fears persist. There are widespread reports of grain hoarding. In India, the government recently restricted all import duties on cooking oils and banned exports of non-basmati rice. The impact in India is being felt the most among the poor.
Even in Japan, a country with a distinct aversion to genetically modified grains; manufacturers are taking a risk by importing them for use in processed foods for the first time. Inflation in the EU hit 3.6 percent in March, the highest rate since the euro was adopted almost a ten years ago. Food and oil prices are mostly to blame.
Back in the US, consumers are reducing quality and increasing quantity if something can be purchased at a better unit price.
The root cause of price surges varies from crop to crop, but the crisis is being fueled largely by an unprecedented linkage of the food chain. A big reason for higher wheat prices is the drought in Australia.
Wheat prices are also rising because U.S. farmers have been planting less or moving their wheat to less fertile ground. This is due to the fact that they are planting more corn for biofuels. At least a fifth and possibly as much as a quarter of the U.S. 2008 corn crop will be allocated for ethanol. As food and fuel combine, it has given American farmers a huge opportunity for large profits after years of stable prices.
The global food trade never became the kind of well-organized process that made the price of manufactured goods such as electronics uniform around the world. Where food has been concerned, subsidies designed to protect farmers have distorted the real price of food globally and prevented the market from normal price adjustments as global demand has risen.
If market forces had played a larger role in food trade perhaps the world would have had more time to adjust to the gradually rising prices. As it stands now, higher food prices are here to stay.