As much as I love Thanksgiving and Christmas, my absolute favorite time of the year is Black Friday! Waking up at 3 A.M. to get a good parking spot at the mall; even better, camping outside of Best Buy for days to get the season’s greatest deals! Once inside your select stores, you literally have to shield yourself from claws and hair pulling, and that’s just from your best friend. But, if you’d rather stay home and miss the crazy retail madness, there are many retailers that offer Black Friday deals specifically for online shoppers. Check out sites like blackfriday.com and blackfriday.gottadeal.com. They list top retailers’ advertisements with the best deals. Also, for even more savings they provide you with some online coupon codes. Awesome, right? It gets even better, some companies offer free shipping with a minimum purchase. For example, Target.com offers free shipping for all orders over $50 and Nordstrom.com offers free shipping on orders over $100 (piece of cake!) So relax in the comfort of your warm home, perhaps with a glass of eggnog (don’t forget the rum, haha!) in front of your computer. Black friday isn’t that bad, right?

GARDENING: You can do weeding or lawn care, grow and sell plants, grow and dehydrate herbs and make herb blends, press flowers and frame them or make cards or preserve food such as berries to make and sell jam. You can ask a local florist if they’d like to buy your flowers or ornamental branches such as willows, dogwood or forsythia, or sell right from your home, too. You can grow your own food to save money, and anything you sell can go toward funding your hobby or directly to savings.

CRAFTS: You can sell crafts at craft shows and malls. You can teach your skill out of your home or possibly at a local craft store or at a community education course. There are a lot of people who would love to learn how to make items such as jewelry, soap, candles or quilts, to name a few. Ask if you can hang a flier at your local grocery store, library or local craft store. If you sew, you can make slipcovers, or do mending or alterations. Or specialize in an area such as zipper repair, making boutique childrens’ clothes or upcycled clothing from thrift-store garments or material. There are Web sites online that you can sell your work, too. Visit www.etsy.com, www.1000markets.com or www.artfire.com. You can start an online club or newsletter featuring tutorials or patterns, as well.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Not everyone has the talent to do photography for special events, but nothing can stop you from earning money as you learn more. You can find a niche in an area such as pet photography, stock photos or taking pictures of local landmarks or popular regional places, and make cards or calendars to sell. You can contact your local newspaper, magazines or real estate agencies to see whether they’re interested in your work, too. Or contact local businesses and see if they need photos for brochures or ads, or sell your photos at art and craft shows, fairs or festivals.

ORGANIZING AND CLEANING: Start with friends and family and ask if anyone needs help. You can set yourself apart by using eco-friendly, homemade cleaners.

WOODWORK: Have you ever made something to fit a need, such as building a custom deck, picnic table, bookshelf, dog or birdhouse or bed frame? Or maybe you paint small wooden items for ornaments or doll houses. All of these projects can be sold. If you enjoy refinishing furniture or working on trash-to-treasure projects, you can sell at flea markets or arts-and-crafts shows, too.

FOOD: You can sell decorated cakes, cookies, bread, candies, etc. You can go into catering, too. Or place an ad to cook for a busy family, someone sick or the elderly.

The information above is from: Source

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“It’s All You Need: The 12.3 Megapixel Nikon D90 D-SLR Premieres with the New 18-105mm VR Lens to Give Photographers Superb Image Quality, Live View Shooting, Nikon’s Scene Recognition System, and HD Movie Clip Recording.

Nikon Inc. today announced the D90, a digital single lens reflex (SLR) camera that redefines the creative boundaries of digital photography allowing photographers to easily create stunning still images and High Definition (HD) movie clips with sound — with the same camera. A host of Nikon core technologies were leveraged to develop the D90’s scope of versatility, calling on years of photographic and optical expertise. Whether consumers are graduating from an advanced compact digital camera or are a seasoned D-SLR enthusiast, the Nikon D90 emphasizes brilliant image quality and versatility with its exclusive advanced Scene Recognition System, intuitive creative controls, blazing fast performance and the industry-first ability to create HD movie clips at 720p in the new D-Movie mode.

Inspired by Nikon’s acclaimed flagship DX-format digital SLR camera, the D300 and building on the success of the wildly popular D80, the D90 delivers stunning image quality. The CMOS image sensor and 12.3 effective megapixels combined with Nikon’s exclusive EXPEED image processing system deliver outstanding images with fine details, smooth tones, brilliant colors and low noise across a broad ISO range.

Photographers are able to easily compose stunning images using the Live View Mode on the large 3-inch 920-k dot high-resolution LCD screen. The 11-point auto focus (AF) system utilizes Nikon’s exclusive Scene Recognition System and Face Detection to help make the best shot in a variety of environments. Matched with the new versatile AF-S NIKKOR 18-105mm Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilization lens, and a burst rate of up to 4.5 frames per second, photographers can confidently capture fast action and precise moments as they unfold. Also helping to ensure no missed memories, the D90 offers fast handling with a power-up time of a mere 0.15ms and split-second shutter response measuring just 65ms, eliminating the frustration of pictures lost to shutter lag.
“The D90 delivers incredible imaging performance and control, setting a new standard for its class. This marriage of outstanding still image performance and HD movie clip capacity represents the dawn of a new age for D-SLR cameras. The D90’s handling characteristics and long list of features are sure to deliver the photographic experience that Nikon photographers have come to expect from Nikon engineering,” said Edward Fasano, general manager for marketing, SLR System Products at Nikon Inc. “Everyone at Nikon is especially eager to see the myriad of ways that imaginative D90 photographers will explore the world of cinematic 24fps HD video through the eyes of NIKKOR optics.”

Legendary Image Quality
For shooting in a variety of lighting conditions, the D90 has a wide sensitivity range of ISO 200 to 3200 (expandable to Lo 1 ISO 100 and Hi 1 ISO 6400) to deliver incredible low-noise images. The camera also employs an Image Sensor Cleaning function that works to free image-degrading dust particles from the sensor’s optical low-pass filter, helping to ensure spot-free images.
The new D90 companion lens, the AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR provides a versatile focal length, and the benefits of Nikon Vibration Reduction (VR) imaging stabilization technology. Nikon VR reduces the image blurring effects of camera shake allowing photographers to shoot hand-held at as many as 3 shutter speeds slower than would otherwise be possible*, assuring dramatically sharper images, even in challenging lighting conditions.
Borrowed from Nikon’s professional line of digital cameras, the D90 is the most affordable camera to include Nikon’s Scene Recognition System and adds newly-developed advanced Face Detection technology. The intelligent Scene Recognition System interprets color and brightness information of each individual shot from the 420-pixel RGB sensor, and applies changes to AF, auto exposure and auto white balance. The D90 can also detect up to five faces using the new Face Detection system, producing flattering portraits with astounding definition and accuracy. While in playback mode, simply press the zoom button and portraits captured with Face Detection can be immediately magnified to ensure proper focus on the subject and faces are displayed on the LCD screen within brackets for easy reference and subject tracking.

The D90 benefits from Nikon’s comprehensive digital image processing engine, EXPEED, which provides smooth tones, rich colors and defined image details, as well as enhanced processing performance. Additionally, Nikon’s exclusive 3D Color Matrix Metering II helps to ensure accurate exposures, even in the most challenging lighting conditions. Evaluating each scene, input data from the system’s sensor is automatically referenced against an internal database of over 30,000 scenes derived from actual photographs to calculate correct exposure values. To push the creative boundaries even further, Variable Center-Weighted metering and Spot metering centered on the active focus area are also available, as are exposure compensation and auto exposure bracketing.

The Next Big Blockbuster
For the first time in digital SLR photography, Nikon introduces the addition of the D-Movie mode, allowing consumers to create their own HD movie clips (1280 x 720) with sound from their D-SLR camera. Photographers will appreciate the cinematic qualities that come from the 24fps frame rate, which matches theatrical film, whether producing vacation clips or creatively melding stills with video. Additionally, the large size of the D90’s DX-format sensor, combined with the optical superiority and broad selection of NIKKOR lenses, provides shooters with the ability to capture amazing perspectives not possible with typical camcorders. D-movie clips also benefit from Nikon VR image stabilization, which is automatically activated during recording to aid the low-light capability that trumps many other hybrid devices. Users can record movie clips onto an inserted SD / SDHC card, created as Motion JPEG AVI files that are easily edited with widely available video editing software. The D90 also features an HDMI terminal, allowing viewing of both pictures and movies on High Definition televisions…”

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This is a blogger’s perfect blogging companion, and, in my opinion, Canon makes the best lenses around, which is apparent in the final photo and video quality. It’ll fit easily in your pocket or purse to take your discrete photos for posts that you MUST blog about! Bloggers and photographer enthusiasts alike, will fall in love with the G9. There is just no way you will be disappointed with this digital gem.

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