Update: Were any of you using Google Labs for Gmail? If so, please leave a comment! I’m trying to get to the bottom of this myself. Thanks!
Update #2: Thanks to Flo, we have a link that should get you in for now: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html. Also, according to Google Help, you may want to try to disable Google Labs if you have it enabled.
Has anyone out there seen this before? I’ve been seeing this more and more often lately…
Can’t wait to see how WordPress tries to format that URL. 
Anyway, there’s a great site hosted at Stanford that will convert your HTML code into its character literal equivalents for posting within a webpage / blog post so that it is visible as code instead of being interpreted into formatting.
Quite nice for making Flickr invite/comment code snippets, btw. 
Update: Here’s the URL, by the way: http://www.stanford.edu/~bsuter/js/convert.html
One of my Flickr friends, Steve-h just sent me a message today recommending that I read the profile of Bachspics, which contains a wealth of advice on taking better pictures and scoring better in Flickr Explore.
Here’s a clip:
TIPS ON TAKING AND PRESENTING BETTER PICTURES
Here are some tips on improving composition, taking better and more interesting pictures I’ve collected. [Feel free to send me a Flicker Message with your suggestions.] I also recommend Geoff Quinn’s “A few lessons learned the hard (and slow) way on Flickr” at: www.flickr.com/people/gcquinn/ You may also be interested in David Brooks’ Photographic Composition Tutorial and blog about photographic composition theory found here: giant-steps-giant-blog.blogspot.com/ You can see 24 articles mostly about nature photography by Darwin Wiggett, here: www.darwinwiggett.com/articles.html Also check out some Photoshop tips and tutorials here www.tommysimms.com/photoshop.html See “Ten Questions To Ask When Taking A Digital Photo” here: digital-photography-school.com/blog/10-questions/
In the examples below you can click on the picture for a larger view.
* NO FORMULAS: To begin with there are no formulas or recipes for great photographs. But there are matters pertaining to beauty and interest such as principles relating to light, harmony, balance, color and emotion and elements of design such as line, form, pattern, shape, texture and color which enter into making a photograph attractive and interesting. Successful photographs are about knowing and applying those principles when appropriate, but also about perception, thought and creativity.
And more:
TOP TEN WAYS TO MAKE “EXPLORE”
Just photograph….
10. …looking down on a buxom woman from above her head; preferably if she has a low-cut top on.
09. …a flower and/or an insect on or near it; or just the insect will do. [Late in September 07 Flicker averaged about 50 flowers in each day's 500, or 10%; They had 10-15 insects per day.]
08. …a cat, any cat, lots of cats; and once in a while a dog; or a dog, any dog, lots of dogs; and once in a while a cat.
07. …a sunset [Flicker includes anywhere from 25-50 of these per day.]
06. …a young adult leaping through the air, or one eye of a woman (there was a tie here).
05. …a picture of the “the 275th day in the life of…” (Who started that inane fad?); these are often self-portraits (see # 3 below)
Wow. Excellent advice. Thanks again to Steve-h for the suggestion, and Bachspics for the excellent writeup!
By the way, the rest of the writeup is on Bachspics profile page. =)
Yet another excellent article from dPS, this time about lenses:
What is a Prime Lens?
A prime lens is a lens that has one focal length only. They come in all focal lengths ranging from wide angle ones through to the longer telephoto ones.
What is a Zoom Lens?
A zoom lens is a lens that has a range of focal lengths available to the photographer in the one lens. These have become increasingly popular over the past few years as they are obviously a very convenient lens to have on your camera as they mean you can shoot at both wide and longer focal lengths without having to switch lenses mid shoot.
As you surf around different camera forums you’ll find people who argue strongly for both prime and zoom lenses. Each have their own fans and each will pull different arguments out about them. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons Zoom and Prime lenses:
(continued via: Prime vs Zoom Lenses – Which are Best?)
Excellent tutorial on a fundamental concept of photography from digital Photography School:
In this tutorial Natalie Norton explores the topic of Aperture.
A few months back I wrote an article here at DPS that created a bit of a stir:
4 Reasons Not to Write Off Shooting in Automatic.
I expected to get a lot of naysayers scolding me up and down and all around. I did get a few of those, but what I didn’t expect were the literally dozens of emails (not to mention comments on the post itself) from people sincerely thanking me for taking the pressure off, for helping them see that great photography is great no matter how it’s captured.
I stand by everything that I wrote in that post. I particularly maintain that photography should be FUN and rewarding and that focusing too much energy on the technical aspects of it shouldn’t detract from that.
HOWEVER one can’t argue with the fact that shooting in Manual does give you more control and greater creative freedom. Period. End of story.
So on we go to Manual settings: I know this topic has been discussed a ZILLION times over, and that it’s as boring as dry toast, but we’re going to go at it again. . . in layman’s terms.
(continue reading via: Moving Toward Manual Settings: Understanding Aperture)
Cool stuff!
Who We Are:
The Pacific Northwest Parkour Association is a non-profit organization chartered by Northwest traceurs (Parkour practitioners) to further these goals:
- Foster collaboration among Parkour communities
- Educate new traceurs and the general public about Parkour
- Build confidence through safe and effective Parkour training
- Encourage overall fitness and healthy living in our communities
The PNWPA supports community projects that contribute to a healthier world. This includes coordinating and participating in cleanup and building/rebuilding efforts in our public places, particularly those where we enjoy practicing Parkour. We also offer guidance and support for Parkour training, including providing assistance to schools wishing to teach Parkour as part of a physical education curriculum
We are moving fast, but just getting started! Stay tuned for more information on membership and upcoming events!
Update: There’s also a Flickr photo pool here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/849156@N23/
In relation to the last post, here are some starter kits and projects officially listed at Microsoft’s own ASP.NET site (http://www.asp.net/community/projects/)
DotNetNuke is an open source web application framework ideal for creating, deploying and managing interactive web, intranet and extranet sites. The combination of an enterprise portal, built-in content management system, elegant skinning engine, and the ability to display static and dynamic content makes DotNetNuke an essential tool for ASP.NET developers.
TheBeerHouse starter kit enables you to implement a website with functionality typically associated with a CMS/e-commerce site. This website demonstrates key features of ASP.NET 2.0 and is the sample used in the book, “ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming / Problem – Design – Solution.”
The Small Business Starter Kit provides a sample of a business promotion website suitable for small and medium-sized businesses. It provides a template for customizing and creating a site for your own business out-of-the-box, with advanced features including integration with SQL and XML data sources for content and data management.
dasBlog is a blogging engine that offers elegant visual aesthetics, powerful easy to use features, and a unique application architecture. dasBlog requires no database engine, using file-based content management with an architecture that ensures excellent performance.
ScrewTurn Wiki is a fast, powerful and simple ASP.NET wiki engine, installs in a matter of minutes and it’s available in different packages, fitting every need. It’s even free and open source.
I started looking for free/open-source ASP.NET applications to run on my development instance of IIS (since IIS is already running on my machine), and stumbled upon this list today:
As a big ASP.NET advocate, I’m loving the recent surge in open source / free ASP.NET applications that are hitting the web – And what’s more because Microsoft have given us some great building foundations with the frameworks like the ASP.NET Membership Provider, a lot of these open source programs are very high quality! More so than some of the paid applications.
I thought it would be a good idea to create an ever growing list of all the open source ASP.NET applications I could find – Obviously I haven’t had chance to download or install every application so I can’t vouch for them
Notable applications:
Full list available at:
http://www.blogfodder.co.uk/post/2008/07/List-Of-Free–Open-Source-ASPNET-Web-Applications.aspx)
This one took me a little while to figure out, so I thought I’d share my steps with you:
1) Open ImgBurn and select “Write image file to disc” (or choose “Write” from the Mode menu)
2) Click the CD with a music note button (Create CD CUE file)
3) Click the top button on the right (Find Files)
4) Once you’ve added your files, you can choose the tagging/gap preferences
5) Then, click OK, and you can burn the compilation from here.
You should be able to burn any audio format supported by DirectShow; if you need M4a/AAC support, you’ll have to download a plugin, such as the one below:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/CoreAAC_Directshow_filter.htm
And…you can find the official instructions from the ImgBurn forums here:
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?s=22c67d5cf8ed90447ab85dacfcb532d3&showtopic=5555
This is a really good read…
I would like to tell you that I was down but not out. That I just brushed myself off and got on with life. I didn’t. At first, I kept myself hyper-busy. That lasted for about three months. Then, I sank into a depression. I’m sure I was in shock for a long time. It was a very dark, confused time in my life. I kept pushing myself to get back to normal. That didn’t happen. I never got back to myself. I became better than I was.
This is super cool – it’s essentially a pinhole camera, but on a gigantic scale…
The cameratruck works in exactly the same way as the first cameras ever made. These are called pinhole cameras.
They work according to these basic principles:
Light enters a sealed chamber through a tiny opening, and falls onto the opposite wall inside. Here it produces an inverted image of the world outside.
The first pinhole photograph was taken by Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster but the pinhole effect was observed by the Chinese philospher Mo Ti in 5 BC and also Aristotle in 4 BC.
The cameratruck uses this same principle only amplified thousands of times and with a lens added for sharper detail in the final shots. The cargo box of the truck becomes our sealed chamber, and the aperture is a small hole in one side.
As the light enters the truck, it falls onto giant sheets of photographic paper pinned to the opposite wall. This is how we are able to create our giant negatives, almost three metres wide.
Update: New post, new information available here:
New Teaser Ad for Canon 5D Mark II, 50D compared.
From Gizmodo:
The calendar tells us that the 5D, Canon’s second best DSLR range, is due for a refresh. It comes from a message board, so take this with a grain of salt, but someone on DP Review forums has posted specs for a second generation 5D with the following changes: A modest 15.3MP up from 12.8MP, and a massive 2 stop bump in light sensitivity to 25600 ISO.
The cam will supposedly shoot at 6fps instead of 3, and will have dual Digic III processors instead of a single Digic II cpu. The AF system will use 29 points instead of 9, and it’ll have the same weather sealing as the topline 1Ds Mark III, as well as live view. The announcement is supposed to come on April 22nd, at $3500. That’s a lot of stat smather, but the bottom line is that Nikon’s D300 better watch its ass.
This is definitely going to be my next camera. I had been thinking about getting a 5D as an upgrade for my 30D for some time, but I’m willing to wait to see what happens with this one. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be priced as reasonably as the current 5D is now. =P
http://gizmodo.com/367086/canon-5d-mark-ii-rumored-specs-and-details
Also:
So cool! Hard to believe that these are actually real photos of life-size objects!
From the post:
Believe it or not, all of these photos are of real life-size locations or objects. The technique of tilt-shift miniature faking makes the life-sized look like a miniature scale model. The process involves using Photoshop to fake a shallow depth of field and punching up the color saturation. The results are truly amazing. I’ve rounded up 41 of the best tilt-shift miniature faking photos around to inspire you. Below each group of photos will be the link to the creators Flickr page where you can view more of their great work. Stop by and show your appreciation with a kind comment.
I’ve been using this guide since the 6.06 version and have found it to be incredibly useful, and increasingly helpful with each new version.
I found this post at my old blog and thought it would be worth reposting; these are cool skydome images and/or great widescreen wallpapers. Click on the images to download the full-size version.
(Note: I forgot who made these originally a long time ago; if these are your images, please send me a note and I’ll be happy to attribute them to you!)
I’m tempted to invest in this as my next lens, but many people have recommended to me to get a prime lens next. Any thoughts?
