Well we’ve made it nearly through all of April and this year I was pleasantly surprised that I was not sent every link under the moon about cures for Autism, how bad it is or the new trendy therapy. Perhaps the Neurodiversity movement is finally making an impression! This month, in honor of National Autism Awareness month, I read look me in the eye, my life with asperger’s by John Elder Robinson. This is the brother of Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors (another good read). If you want to find out what Autism spectrum disorders are like for someone who has lived it, check out Robinson’s book.

Now to put in my PSA for this month I’m giving you my list of common misconceptions about what it means to be pro-acceptance (neurodiversity) vs pro-cure. As a parent of a child with Autism I think this is an important message.

There is a huge misconception of what Autism Acceptance (aka: Pro-Autism) means and what our motivation is that makes us, as parents, choose to accept instead of cure our children. I’d also like to discuss some of the Autism myths, feel free to add your own.

Misconception #1: There are no Autistic Adults. Also: Autistic Adults can’t be loving, or have families.

The truth: There are several Autistic adults with families all around you. They are loving and have the same type of “family life” that other families have. Autistic adults also have jobs and thrive at those jobs bringing diversity and unique skills into the workforce and our society.
Read More…

Do you love to read as much as I do? Good, because I have a contest for you that can help buy your next favorite book at Barnes and Noble online!

PRIZE: $10 Barnes and Noble Gift Card
DEADLINE TO ENTER: Open through May 7th 2010
HOW TO ENTER: Become a fan (like) of Web Savvy Mama on Facebook, that’s it!

RULES: The winner will be chosen at random and drawn by one of my children and contacted via the entered Facebook account. The winner will have 24 hours to claim the prize. If the prize is not claimed the winner during this time the winner relinquishes the prize and a new random winner is drawn. The winner may request the gift card information online to use at bn.com or I can mail the actual card to be used in person at a Barnes and Noble store. The choice will be left to the winner. Open to US and Canada.

That’s it! No hidden gimmick or catch 22, I just want to promote the fan page!

Ever get tired of looking at unorganized icons? Icons on the desktop are one of my biggest pet peeves. Yet, if you are like me you have a bunch there simply because its the easiest place to keep your current projects and most used files. This doesn’t mean your desktop has to look a mess or be totally boring.

While browsing the web I stumbled across a totally fun wallpaper idea, your desktop revisited. (see original find here) Who says your desktop has to be your standard background? Why can’t it help you organize your files too? When searching the web I found a couple variations on this idea but none f them were “me”. So I opened up Pixelmator and started grabbing furniture for my virtual office. What I came up with was a fun way to arrange my files and drives on my desktop.

Why stop there? Apple computers have a dashboard with some fun features, what if I could work those in too? So I found a bit of code that I could input into my iMac terminal to enable my dashboard widgets to stay live when my dashboard is closed. Now I have sticky notes, a calendar and weather always available! (source for detaching widgets) Sorry Windows users, you’ll have to figure that one out on your own. If you only have one monitor you may want to limit this though, the widgets do stay top layer and could get in your way. I have 2 monitors so I have all my folders, widgets and support applications on my second monitor and use my main one as my workspace.

Want to try it out for yourself? You can download my wallpaper here for free! 1440×900 Virtual Office Wallpaper Click the link, enlarge the image and save it to your computer to use.

As I’ve been doing all evening, updating the website and moving the portfolio pages to the blog area. Here are a few photo manipulation examples. Photo Manipulations are photos that have had editing done to either touch up or exaggerate the image. This can also include editing product photos, removing backgrounds or combining images.

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Some examples of blog templates I’ve done to match web site designs. Some of these are pretty old and these are just a few of the many I’ve done.

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I’m updating my web site, its been a long time coming! In this update I’m doing away with the old portfolio and going with a more updated way to manage it. All items will be featured on the blog area of my site rather than a hard to update portfolio page.

Here are some older banner designs that mostly date back pre-2008 that I wanted to keep in my online digital portfolio.

Not see what you are looking for? These are a small sample of the many many logos and designs I’ve done, ask for more examples if you have something specific in mind!

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