Hello spring. All of those beautiful, fragrant flowers and deep green grasses that allergy-free people love to coo over and pick and prune literally make you sick. Springtime is when trees and plants spread their seeds by the wind and by insect. Pollen can travel long distances and are usually the main cause of seasonal allergies. The pollen levels in the air can vary from day to day and different in various areas so don’t let  pollen wreak havoc on your body. Here are some ways to avoid pollen exposure:

• Keep windows closed to prevent pollen from drifting into your home.
• Minimize early morning activity when pollen is usually emitted between 5 to 10 a.m.
• Keep your car windows closed when traveling.
• Stay indoors when the pollen count is reported to be high, and on windy days when pollen may be present in higher amounts in the air.
• Take a vacation during the height of pollen season to pollen-free areas, such as the beach or sea.
• Avoid mowing the lawn and freshly cut grass.
• Machine dry clothing and bedding as pollen may collect in laundry if it is hung outside to dry.

There are natural remedies to treat seasonal allergy but always do your research. I’ve come across a few sources that lead me to believe that remedies like using local honey or bee pollen for allergy therapy can generate severe reactions! Check out Consumer Health Digest to read more about the strong caution on local honey allergy therapy.

You can also read more on how others are coping with seasonal allergies at About: Allergies.

iPhone has a passcode lock feature that comes in handy when you want to keep others from using your phone. This is a really useful feature! I’ve had an iPhone for over 3 years and can’t believe I waited until now to use it!

We were having dim sum this afternoon and found a lonely iPhone that someone must have dropped behind our table. We turned it on to see if we could contact someone to return it to its owner but it had a passcode lock. Luckily, we found the owner and gave her back her phone. I could only imagine what would happen if they didn’t have a passcode lock and someone else found it and kept it for themselves!

To enable the passcode lock feature:

1. Go to Settings → General → Passcode Lock
2. Enter a 4 digit sequence to continue
3. Re-enter your passcode to confirm

Once it’s set, you will see the general passcode lock settings. You can always go back to reset your passcode or turn it off if you feel a passcode lock is no longer necessary.

St. Patrick’s Day is a yearly holiday named after Saint Patrick and celebrated on March 17. It began as a Catholic holiday; An official feast day in the early 1600s and now a secular celebration of Ireland’s culture. The color that was originally associated with Saint Patrick was blue. Over the years, green ribbons and shamrocks were worn to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish, thus becoming a ubiquitous feature of the day.

Pinching those not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day is an American tradition, having really nothing to do with Ireland or Saint Patrick. It’s thought that if you wore green, it made you invisible to the Leprechauns, which was good because they would pinch anyone they could see. So the pinching is to warn and remind you about the Leprechauns.

To read more about St. Patrick’s Day, visit Wikipedia.

This is my interpretation of a tutorial I came across on the Internet. Using Adobe Photoshop, you can create this abstract watercolor effect with any photo using layers, masks and splatter brushes. You can find parchment paper texture from Bashcorpo and download free splatter brushes from Brusheezy.

Open Photoshop and create a new document. I’m using 1920×1200.

Copy and paste your photo onto the canvas. Even though the photo I’m using here has small resolution, it won’t matter since I will be using filters that will remove any sort of pixelation.

Use transform and scale it to fit our canvas by going to Edit → Transform → Scale. Hold down the Shift-Key to keep the original aspect ratio of the photo.

Go to Image → Adjustments → Brightness/Contrast to add more brightness and contrast.

Turn the photo into grayscale by going to Image → Adjustments → Desaturate, then duplicate the layer. Name the original layer “Watercolor” and the duplicate layer “Threshold”

Apply Watercolor filter to the “Watercolor” layer by going to Filter → Artistic → Watercolor. Use 12 for Brush Detail, 1 for Shadow Intensity, and 2 for Texture.

Select the “Threshold” layer and go to Image → Adjustments → Threshold. Move the threshold level to anywhere between 160 and 180.

Set the blending mode of the “Threshold” layer to Multiply. Merge the “Threshold” layer to the “Watercolor” layer by going to Layer → Merge Down. Rename this merged layer to “Photo”

Now it’s time for some painting! Create a new layer called “Brush” and select some splatter brushes and start painting over your photo.

When you’re done painting, select and copy the “Photo” layer. Go to the “Brush” layer and add a Layer Mask. Alt+Click on the layer mask and you will see the canvas is now white.

Paste the image copied from the “Photo” layer.

Go to Image → Adjustments → Invert. This will hide the blacks in the layer mask to reveal the whites of the photo.

Click out of the layer mask and delete or hide the “Photo” layer. We can see our image is now in abstract watercolor!

Add a nice parchment paper texture and place it on top of the other layers. Set the blending mode to Linear Burn.

Finally, add some more watercolor splashes and a fancy text and you have your abstract watercolor design. Have fun!

For more information about the Abstract Watercolor Effect, check out Tutorial Magazine.

Whether you’re trying to catch an episode of your favorite TV show you may have missed, or watch movies without going to the theater or video store, most likely, there is a website that has what you’re looking for. Here are a few of the web’s best free video sites…

Watch-Movies

This gold mine of a website has gone through about five domain name changes over the past couple of years, but that hasn’t stopped it from providing the largest source for free online movies. Like many websites offering free goodies, it has a lot of ads and popups so be warned! There’s also heavy traffic to this site so have a little patience and you will get your movie.

Quick Silver Screen

Quick Silver Screen is a website that organizes movies and TV shows from Megavideo into a YouTube-like layout. This site is much easier to navigate, and you can watch movies directly within Quick Silver Screen, without having to switch to Megavideo.

Luutit

Luutit is like the IMDB with links to actual movies and TV shows. Of course, not all listings have links, but many of them do. You can also submit your own links and help expand the database!

For more websites that offer TV, PPV and movies, check out the Online Video Guide.