Icecreamist: (adjective if using to describe) 1. A person or persons addicted to or obsessed with ice cream. ‘An extreme ice cream fanatic.’
2. A person or persons subscribing to ‘Icecreamism’ as an ideology.

Icecreamism: (Noun) 1. A term used to define people suffering from an addiction to or obsession with ice cream. 2. A philosophical or political ideology arising from the 21st century meltdown.

There were a few places on the internet that I noticed a mention about the not so avarage ice cream installation, The Icecreamist. They created their lounge at Selfriges, Bond Street London and is open 10 September – 1 November 2009. I had to see what it is all about.

Who are The Icreamists?

(This is a bit from the menu)

The Icecreamists are a troupe of provocateurs and iconoclasts with a background in staging dramatic high-profile events. Whilst engaged on these clandestine and legally dubious pursuits, they would on occasion be discovered by law enforcement officers, enjoying illicit chills with a tub of freshly-made artisans gelato. One day they read that ice cream could be subversive and was being used to undermine the government of Belarus, a state in the former Soviet Union.

Organised ice cream eating as political protest had begun and The Icecreamists were born; sub-zero missionaries destined to convert a cold, cruel unforgiving world to the life-enhancing gospel of freshly-made artisans gelato. Today, the founders are still hopelessly foul-mouthed, anti-establishment and politically incorrect, but they have purged themselves of their old law-breaking ways and dedicated their lives to pioneering a new ideology, what they describe as ‘Icecreamism.’

The Icecreamists says it’s a bit like socialism, only funnier, more addictive and tastes better. Now aficionados can enjoy Icecreamism anywhere they fancy. Against the bar, against the wall or against the law.

The Experience

The Icecreamist set up a restuarant/ ice cream boutique in Selfriges, Bond Street London with the theme “God Save the Cream”. Live performances take place during the day on a little stage with The Icecreamist “God Save the Cream” version of the Union Jack. I had good timing with 3 Italian opera songs while indulging in the naughty ice cream delight.

What to order!?

Disregarding an ice cream only menu, it consists of sweet and savoury ice creams which include Selfridges Ice Cream Sandwich with cream of Cucumber, Gordon’s Glory, a 21st century reimagining of the Knickerbocker Glory and ‘The Sex Pistol’, a Natural Stimulant Ice Cream served as a shot in a pink water pistol! Also Sundae Lunch Sorbet: World’s first frozen three course Sundae Lunch Sorbet. A 3 course menu consisting Green Pea Sorbet, Beef Bouillon Sorbet with a hint of Horseradish and Yorkshire Pudding Crisp, Blackberry & Apple Ice cream with a crumble topping. Finished with a frozen shot of coffee. I am not so sure about this one, but it is going for £16.99.

The average size is 180ml at £3.99 for the sorbet and £4.99 for ice cream. That can be topped up with a selection of hot sauces: Hot Chocolate, Hot Fudge & Hot Espresso at an extra £1.99. For the over 18′s there are the more daring Alcoholic Ice Cream Cocktails.

It is pretty much up to choices choices… and between me and my friend we came up with the following selection:

• Chocland Yard Dark: Chocolate Ice Cream blended using Willy Harcourt Couze’s famous 72% Dark chocolate ‘Rio Caribe Superior’. Strong, earthy chocolate flavours with fruity notes. Dark, decadent and naughty. The ultimate chocolate hit. “Really gorgeous, less sweet smooth dark chocolate taste – just the way I like it!”
• The Custardy Suite: Traditional Italian Crema Ice Cream. Rich, eggy and delicious. A unique Italian alternative to vanilla. “A bit to much on the sweet side, but with a smooth creamy texture. Perhaps there was more interesting options on the menu…”
• Absinthe Ice Cream: I do not have a description for this one, but it had a nice wilder taste to it… or was that my imagination. This flavour is also used in ‘The Infamous Sex Pistol Ice Cream’. “Interesting almost spicy but pleasant taste… I do not know otherwise how to describe it.”

If you find yourself in the neighborhood and in the mood for an experience with a twist, make sure to pop in before 1 November 2009. You can also visit their blog.

Personlise prints, such as company Christmas cards and party invitations with Data Merge in Adobe® InDesign®. Data Merge is the ability to create fields (name, surname, message) in your Adobe® InDesign® document. It can automatically populate from comma-separated values (.csv) or a tab-delimited (.txt) file. The easiest would be to create these fields as columns in Microsoft® Excel and then save the file in .csv format. These files can also reference the paths to images and logos so that the images and/or logos change too.

To find out more, you can read my post at PrintQuote for Printhouse Corporation where I explain how to create a Merged Document in 9 Simple Steps.

Real life, for every person has so many security risks every day. If that is not enough, so does everyone’s virtual world. Con Mallon, European product developer from Norton, spoke at London Girl Geek Dinner, 30 September 2009 about their new cloud-based anitvirus. Even though the big world out there seems dangerous, according to his statistics, 1 out of 5 people gets effected every day by the ‘scary’ virtual world; the internet.

Con Mallon started off with the complexity of their business, keeping up with all the internet baddies constantly creating new applications with new attributes. Reality bites in a few ways:

AV signatures will never be good enough. Signatures presume you have a sample of the malware itself or are generic enough that you can make some assumptions about the “family” it belongs to in order to detect it properly, even if it changes a little. Since most malware today is unique and thousands of new ones everyday, it has become a daunting task keeping track of every day’s latest malware and getting it blacklisted. Signatures should rather be the last line of defense and rely on newer technologies to deflect or capture unknown threats.

Scanning is getting old. There must be a constant search on the computer for threats. The most popular threat today is the Trojan horse. If there is a scan after this infection takes place, some or most of the malware will be found. It is not comforting to know about the possibility of undetected malware. And what about the fairly typical rootkits that now burrow deep in an infected system? Normal scanning can not detect ALL the malware, because some of them might still be unknown. It is not completely useless, but also more a last-line of defense.

Intrusion prevention or exploit blocking. It works on the principle that a lot of attempted infections know which computers are unpatched. Thus some sort of “virtual patch” can prevent an attack. Malware detection techniques that monitor application behavior do the same kind of work, as they detect unknown threats.

Watching network communications on a system. This is similar to what a firewall does. It is looking for signs of an unknown threat or unwanted application.

Basically, none of the new-style protection techniques mentioned are foolproof, but are required to defend a computer properly. Plans had to made…

Scanning SAPS Performance.

Norton Insight was developed, which is based on the idea of scanning less. It determine what is trusted and consequently, do not need to be scanned. Norton AntiVirus which is full-featured AntiVirus & AntiSpyware (e.g., full real-time protection, behavior-based protection, intrusion prevention, Norton Insight, etc.) use roughly 2.17MB of RAM. If there is any trouble with performance impact, then the solution is to turn off logging. Scanning only takes place when files are executed. This model allows malware to be copied merrily from place to place without detection in an effort to lighten the load on the system.

Norton AntiVirus 2010.

Cloud computing from what I can make in simple terms; a whole lot of data/information tucked in a cloud and anyone from anywhere can access it. Norton security protection use to work on the principle of creating endless blacklists and white lists and a community-driven database of trusted applications that don’t need to be scanned. The need for a cloud-based approach became necessary to improve scan speed and focus attention where it’s needed most: unknown applications. Now, the latest malware can been seen, by using techniques like behavior & network traffic analysis.

Cloud-based antivirus (AV) can be seen as a subset of cloud security. When installing the new AntiVirus, there is an option to agree that your computer can be scanned in the background for unknown files (AV definitions). This create a super database of AV definitions in the sky.

Cloud-based malware detection is a technique that provides an additional layer of protection beyond the traditional signatures that typically detect a single, known threat. It adds more sophisticated techniques (as mentioned above), such as behavior-based malware detection, network traffic analysis, and strong intrusion prevention (exploit blocking). All of these work even on unknown malware. And even these protection features, much like cloud-based AV, work a lot better when they function together inside an integrated suite with layered protection.

Features: Anti-Malicious Software (virus, rootkit, spyware, worms and Trojan boot protection included), Pulse Update and Application Optimization.

New Features: Norton Insight Network and SONAR 2 (cloud computing based protection).

Strong Points: Fast install and loading times with very low system impact and fast scanning. Automatically delays products updates and other tasks in the middle of important activities like watching movies, playing games or burning CDs/DVDs. Power Saver setting is great for a laptop/notebook.

Thanks again to the people at SYMANTEC for an informative evening with wine & snacks and last but not least, for donating the lovely sweatshirts!

1. Litho Printing

Litho printing (Offset printing) is also known as lithography or lithographic printing. Litho printing works on the basic principle that oil and water do not mix.

2. Digital Printing

Digital printing is a four process colour reproduction method that uses electronic files and dots to produce an image using ink and toner. It is basically a ‘print straight from disk’ process. The computer works in sync with the digital printer to produce a smoothly finished image.

Read the rest of my post at PrintQuote where I have blogged for Printhouse Corporation.

When it comes to designing, it is all about concept, layout, font and typography. The other very important thing is colour.

There are two basic usage of colours when designing print artwork.

1. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)

2. Spot Colour Process

Read the rest of my post at PrintQuote where I have blogged for Printhouse Corporation.