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The author describes his garage art studio in Long Beach, California. He says that he and his wife changed his studio into a baby's nursery and retrofitted his detached garage into a studio. The author cites a cabinet drawer on wheels is his favorite storage element. He mentions that he has visited many studios and is always interested in seeing how artists work.

The article offers observations on the San Francisco, California-based design firm Duncan/Channon. Particular focus is given to the advertising and branding campaign they have created for the theme restaurant Hard Rock Cafe. Insights on the firm's corporate philosophy and creative approach are also included.

The article offers information on various topics related to skiing. It says that Jackson Hole host a drinking event ,gelande quaffing world championship, every March in which it involves slinging, catching and pounding. It mentions the Summit chair at Whitewater Ski Resort in Nelson, British Columbia, one of the longest running lifts in North America which is installed in 1975. Moreover, California Squaw Valley claims to have hosted the first pond-skimming event which is the Cushing Classic.

The article discusses the design agency Hello Design, which creates interactive experiences. Comments from cofounders David Lai and Hiro Niwa are presented which discuss their background in technology and design, a project creating a website for the J. Paul Getty Museum, and their move to Culver City, California in 2002. Also discussed is a design project helping the office furniture company Herman Miller connect with consumers through social media.

The article features Odopod, a digital marketing firm based in San Francisco, California. Creative director and co-founder Tim Barber explains the purpose of the company's office floor plan. Some of the firm's marketing clients are Sony, Red Bull and Nike. Several projects handled by the firm include a collaboration with The Martin Agency and partnership with Goodby Silverstein. The company is starting to make a name in interface design with its project with the California Academy of Sciences.

Features the graphic art designs of Department 3, an identity, design and interactive studio in San Francisco, California. Redesign of the PeopleSoft Web site; Creation of the Ultimate TV logo; Contribution of the company to Blacksquare.

Features the advertising agency THUNKdesign in San Francisco, California. Information on company founder and creative director James Tucker; Details on advertising created by the agency; Details on agency employees; Details on the advertising campaigns undertaken by the agency.

Focuses on success of Richmond, California-based Pixar Animation Studios in producing computer animated motion pictures. Company history; Awards won for their films; Process by which the company develops and produces computer animated films; People behind the company's success; Working environment.

Features San Francisco, California-based CircumStance, a company that specializes in graphic arts designs. Beginnings in the architecture department of the University of Texas in Austin; Breakthrough technology such as enhanced compact disc technology used in first projects; Launch of Web site.

Features Red Sky Interactive, an advertising agency in San Francisco, California. Corporate culture; History of the company; Red Sky's Web site; Design of the company's office; Top executives; Major works of the company.

Focuses on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a drag performance group based in San Francisco, California. Brief profiles of the group's members; Favorite moments; Involvement in consciousness-raising efforts and gay-rights advocacy; Celebration of the group's anniversary with a black-tie benefit called The Sistericus: A Decade of Decadence.

The First Art Center Design Conference held on March 18-21, 2004 in Pasadena, California, was called "Stories from the Source: Design Excursions Out of the Ordinary," and it lived up to that billing. More than 800 attendees filled a cavernous former World War II-era wind tunnel to hear from architects of temporary housing in Kosovo, scientists who buillt the Mars rovers, Academy Award-winning set designers and experts on cockroach locomotion. But really the conference was about stories and inspiration. The stories that is told to themselves, the stories that people tell about objects and the stories objects tell about other people, desires, values, aspirations. Where one would find the inspiration to tell the story. Day one began with John Hockenberry, a former National Public Radio commentator, who knows well the power of the spoken word to enthrall an audience. His introductory speech asked what is the role of design in a nation defined by short term memory that breeds and rewards invention.

Several letters to the editor are presented on several topics including early memories in Humboldt County, California, historic postcards of Arcata, California and journal appreciation.

Guanfacine extended release (SPD503), a selective α2Aadrenoceptor agonist, improves symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents, and appears to be generally well tolerated, according to the results of four multicentre studies* presented at the 167th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) [San Diego, California, US; May 2007]. Guanfacine extended release is a new once-daily formulation of guanfacine, which is believed to improve ADHD symptoms through its action at the prefrontal cortex. Although small studies have demonstrated that the immediate-release formulation of the drug is effective for the treatment of ADHD, it only has a short duration of action. Guanfacine extended release is designed to reduce peak-to-trough fluctuations in drug concentrations to provide superior tolerability, while maintaining therapeutic levels of the drug. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SPD 465 (triple-bead mixed amphetamine salts) significantly improves and controls symptoms for up to 16 hours in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the results of two phase III randomised, controlled trials presented at the 160th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) [San Diego, California, US; May 2007]. In these studies, SPD 465 was shown to be associated with significant improvements in scores on the ADHD Rating Scale 4th Edition (ADHD-RS-IV), as well as significant improvements in Time-Sensitive ADHD Symptom Scale (TASS) scores. Furthermore, results suggested that the drug may significantly improve ADHD-specific Quality of Life (QOL) in this patient population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adjunctive aripiprazole appears to be efficacious in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in patients with an inadequate response to standard antidepressant therapy, according to the results of a multicentre, randomised study (CN138-139) presented at the 160th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) [San Diego, California, US; May 2007]. In addition to a significant improvement in depressive symptoms, aripiprazole was also associated with favourable effects on family life and social functioning. Furthermore, data from a subset analyses of the trial which was also presented at the conference, showed that the addition of aripiprazole to antidepressant therapy was effective in patients with and without chronic features of MDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents letters to the editor referencing articles and topics discussed in previous issues of "Los Angeles Magazine." "Lone Star," which featured athlete Landon Donovan; "The Full El Monte," which offered background information on the town of El Monte, California; "It Ain't Brain Surgery," which claimed that "ER" staggers on as a gerontology experiment.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles and topics in previous issues including American commercial property, public television in the U.S. and "California's Position on the Western Edge of the Pacific," in the May 23, 1992 issue.

The article discusses a computer crime case filed by social networking site Facebook against a spammer. The defendant, Sanford Wallace, was convicted by the California federal court. The plaintiff alleged that several Facebook accounts had been hacked by three men. The spamming career of Wallace is also cited.

The article highlights the Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef competition which was held at the Culinary Institute of America's Greystone campus in Napa Valley, California on March 8-9, 2008. The eight judges were comprised of notable chefs, media members and people associated with the foodservice industry. All culinary students, which were judged based on food presentation, flavor and kitchen cleanliness and media savvy, gained honors at the competition.

The article features Diesel's newly opened store on Tony Melrose Place in Los Angeles, California. The store has custom-carved ceiling and 17th-century castle door flown in from Italy. It features a towering denim wall and houses the brand's catwalk looks and entire accessories range. Also making their first retail appearances are the upscale Diesel Denim Gallery line and a relaunched footwear line.

Describes the North and South golf courses at the Silverado Resort (Napa, California). Napa Valley wine country; History of the resort; Golf-course designer Robert Trent Jones Jr.; Water hazards; Other activities; `California' cuisine; Address and telephone numbers; Rates for a golf weekend for two.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "Commentary," in the August 5, 2006 issue, an article about wine business in California and a column about the performance and production of wine makers.

The article reports on the bill SB 20 introduced by Senator Joe Simitian in California. The bill clarifies the breach notification procedures governing disclosure of financial information by consumers and government agencies. SB 20 also requires the attorney general's office or related agency to track security breaches to help public officials understand the nature of the problem

The article reports on the rejection given by Milpitas, California-based SanDisk Corp. to a proposed $5.85 billion acquisition bid of Seoul, Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. SanDisk contend that the offer is undervalued. However, analysts exclaimed that government regulators will still disapproved the deal if pushed through. They are likely to be fearful of a near monopoly that might be created in the flash memory market, the analysts added.

The article reports on the estimated information technology (IT) costs stemming from a networks alleged hijacking in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco officials estimated that the alleged hijacking of the city's WAN, a computer network that spans a wider area will total to more than $1 million. The hijacking was plotted by the DTIS admin Terry Childs, who reset passwords to switches and routers in the WAN.

The article reports on the lawsuit filed against a network administrator Terry Childs for locking up a city network in San Francisco, California and refused to disclose the passwords he set. It notes that Attorney Kamala Harris' office charged Childs for resetting passwords to the switches and routers in the city's fibers wide area network (WAN), which connect computers in buildings throughout the area and carries about 60% of the municipal government's traffic. Childs was arrested on July 13, 2008, and was ordered held on a $5 million bond until a hearing slated by Judge Paul Alvarado for July 23.

The article reports on the impact of data breach at United Healthcare Services Inc. on graduates and students at the University of California in Irvine. It states that United Healthcare Service serves as the university's provider of its health insurance program in 2006-2007. The incidence has resulted to the filing of false tax returns by computer hackers using gathered information of students and utilizing their names for generating tax refunds. It reveals that the computer crime has affected 1,132 students and 155 graduate students enrolled in the university's program.

The article reports that Lonnie Charles Denison pleads guilty to federal charges of maliciously shut down Independent System Operator Inc.'s data center in California after his computer privileges are revoked. Systems administrator Denison faced up to five years in prison and faces a $250,000 fine. He broke a glass cover and hit an emergency off button at the data center which resulted to the state's cut off from the wholesale electricity market. Prosecutors also alleged Denison of sending an electronic mail of bomb threat to an employee of the company.

The article reports that a computer crash knocked Wells Fargo & Co.'s online and automated teller machine services offline in San Francisco, California. It stated that the company did not disclose the cause of the crash but acknowledged that the problems were serious enough that the company had to restore data from backup sources. In a statement, the company stated that they are using backup facilities and they restored Internet banking services. Moreover, the company noted that point-of-sale transactions and wire transfers were affected by the outage.

The article reports on the effort of California Secretary of State Debra Bowen in mandating security standards for the state's electronic voting systems. During a teleconference, she asserted that citizens do not have confidence that elections have been fairly decided, since they do not have faith in the integrity of the tools. It will allow electronic voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems Inc. and Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. to be used only under strict conditions. She also ordered the same security measures for Hart InterCivic Inc.'s electronic voting systems without the single machine limitation.

This article reports on the plan of Intel Corp. to develop dual core versions of its Pentium 4 desktop and Xeon server chips in San Francisco, California. The company claims it is not yet ready to reveal details about the next Xeon processor but they promised that a dual-core Xeon will be the next major follow-on to the Nocona chip.

The article discusses the issues on grid computing which were discussed at the ClusterWorld Conference & Expo in San Jose, California in April 2004. Keynotes from grid expert Ian Foster and Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president of database and server technologies at Oracle, placed grid computing center stage. Grids link multiple distributed systems together to apportion compute cycles where needed in a network. Foster, a leader of the Globus Alliance, which has developed the open source Globus Toolkit for grids, considered whether grids could result in markets for compute cycles. According to Foster, one direction in which grid could go would be if a market for computational resources is going to be developed. After his speech, Mendelsohn revealed that Oracle expects a June 2004 uptick in user upgrades to its Oracle Database 10g platform, which puts a focus on grid computing. Also at the event, an SuSE official stressed the need for a Linux variant for clusters. A Sun Microsystems official said an upcoming version of Java would enable multitasking within a Java virtual machine (JVM). Scheduled for beta released in Fall 2004 and general availability in 2005, Java 2 Standard Edition 1.6 will feature an isolates function to boost application sharing in the JVM.

Reports on a lawsuit filed against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization which controls the Internet's Domain Name System, and VeriSign Inc. by domain-name registrars on February 27, 2004 at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, California. Reason of domain-name registrars for filing the lawsuit; Average costs paid by customers for back-ordered domain; Availability of back-order domains under the Wait Listing Service (WLS); Defense of Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president of government relations, for the WLS system.

Focuses on the gathering of semiconductor companies at the Microprocessor Forum held in San Jose, California to discuss processor designs amid signs of a possible rebound in chip sales as of October 2003. Participation of mobile-processor-core designer ARM in the event; Features of two series of processor cores from ARM; Functionality of Transmeta's TM8000 Efficeon processor. INSETS: Exploring the Core;Microprocessor Forum.