A couple of amateur safe crackers in Colarado Springs were struggling to find out how to open the safe of a business, so they used one of the office computers to find out how to crack the safe.

The burglary at Bigg City, formerly Mr. Bigg’s Family Fun Center, turned into a comedy of errors early June 10. The burglars tried to disable a security camera by repeatedly spraying it with WD-40 — it only cleaned the lens — and spent an hour and 15 minutes trying to open three safes, apparently unaware that some types require the dial to be turned two or three times.

They finally did a Google search for “how to open a safe” and “how to crack a safe” on a computer in the next room.

“They’re not professional safe people,” said Colorado Springs police detective Chuck Ackerman. “No, they’re not.”

On the other hand, the Google query apparently worked: The burglars haven’t been caught, and they did get about $12,000.

Full report ….

Classic!

On Tuesday DeNada, Star Now and Karactaz are graduating from CHQ. (We missed the cut off this year, but we’ll be good for next year.)

It great to see such great companies flourishing. They will join companies including Optimal Usability, Virtual Katy, Spikefin, Calcium Communications, Innaworks and SilverStripe as Creative HQ alumni.

Here are some information about the companies.

Star Now

With over 500,000 members worldwide and clients including the BBC, MTV and high-profile reality TV stars, chief executive Cameron Mehlhopt says StarNow.com has no intention of slowing down.

“StarNow.com gives talented entertainers like actors and models the chance to manage their own careers, be their own agent and sell their talent to casting agents and directors around the world,” he says.

“The UK is our main market, however we are expanding our local profile and planning to officially launch StarNow.com into the USA and Australia in the coming year.”

Karataz

Karactaz was founded by Dylan Coburn in 2002 to sell creative services, especially animation products and technology.

The company has received multiple international awards for television commercials and advertising campaigns, and has a strong and growing export market.

“We’re fast becoming a major player in global animation – original property development, production services and proprietary technology,” says Mr Coburn.

“Now we’re developing our own in-house software product ‘Karactaz Eclipse’ to transfer the techniques created for short-form work into long-form forms like television.”

De Nada

DeNada is the first fashion company to graduate from a New Zealand incubator.

Co-run by Nada Matthews and Stewart Island-based Jo Learmonth, deNada launched a new concept in fashion and retail with the opening of their Featherston Street store.

The collection of street-styled and urban garments in sizes 8-16 is extended to include off-the-shelf garments in curvy and tall, catering for different body shapes.

Jewellery, accessories, good coffee and a boutique selection of low-fi and café style music are available to listen to and buy.

It’s going to be a great party. Last year seeds of Summer of Code were planted… Who know’s what will happen this year ?!?!

Nahum sent through this link to a post on 100 free CSS resources.

The list includes a number of tools that will help you with your website optimisation.

Enjoy!

I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before! Information Aesthetics is a blog by Andrew Vande Moere from the University of Sydney that highlights examples of fascinating, illuminating, experimental and just plain gorgeous data visualisations on a vast range of topics. There are maps, of course, and everything from social network visualisations and airline infographics to interactive architecture and “human visualisations” (a video of people dancing to demonstrate protein interactions). The projects range from the practical and political to pure art, but it’s always full of inspiring ideas and plenty of eye candy.

From Scoble’s blog….

Here’s a stunning little visualisation tool that popped up at Where 2.0 recently: animated maps of urban growth. Trulia is an American real estate search engine, but they’ve found some unexpected gold in their property assessor records: they reveal when a property was built, and thus can be used to show maps of development over time. The result is called Trulia Hindsight.

The data visualiser in me is impressed by the simplicity of the concept, the clarity of the interface, and the judicious use of transparency and animation to draw attention to where it’s needed. The urbanist in me is appalled by the rapidity of unsustainable sprawl in places like Texas and Las Vegas. It could be a useful tool for studying urbanisation, but in any case, it’s wonderful eye candy.

More sage advice from the master.

“Maybe the reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is…

… that you haven’t given them anything else to care about.” - Seth Godin