dPS: 10 Really Useful Flickr Greasemonkey Userscripts

All of these are excellent scripts, and many of them are available in the Better Flickr extension from Gina Trapani at Lifehacker, but my favorite by far is the Flickr Follow Comments plugin which makes that atrocity of a page into something sane and manageable.

Flickr, are you listening? The “Comments You’ve Made” page sucks hard. (Otherwise, I love Flickr to death, and everything else is somewhere in the range of pretty good to awesome.) 🙂

This post on Useful Flickr Userscripts has been submitted by Martin Gommel. You can see his work at his is a Flickr account and his blog KWERFELDEIN.

Userscripts are add-ons for the Firefox web browser, which dynamically enhance the communication and visualization of certain websites.

To be able to use these scripts you need to have installed greasemonkey on Firefox – this enables and manages the userscripts. If you have greasemonkey in Firefox you can install and use these userscripts instantly.

(via 10 Really Useful Flickr Greasemonkey Userscripts)

Juche Girl

If you know me, or have read my blog in the past, you’re probably familiar with my fascination with North Korea (DPRK) and everything related to it. So, when I found the “Juche Girl” blog (http://juchegirl.blogspot.com/) today, I was ecstatic. Here’s a sample post from her blog:

Pervert Bush

I cry very much today because of Bush. Today my brother show me video of Bush who fly inside Germany country with his plane and make vicious sex attack from behind on poor downtrodden woman victim of US imperialism and now I’m scared Bush will fly into our home tonight and rape my mother TT.TT I hate Bush!
I hate Bush. Bush is such liar and pervert. I hope his plane fall out of the sky and he dies with face folded. >_<

And another…

Evil Bush strike more but Dear Leader is best

Bush oppress the poor downtrodden people of the world for his own sick twisting pleasure. My brother who is very smart show me picture of Bush who pick up handicap people in wheelchair and toss them on the ground for laughing like maniac with the vampire Cheney. >.<
Dear Leader never do that. Dear Leader make the handicap walk and the blind see. Dear Leader is always full of loving care for the people.
Once Dear Leader went for giving guidance to handicap hospital with one room full of people who had lost an arm or leg in accidents of construction sites building the great powerfull prosperous country. Dear Leader distributed arms and legs to who needed arms and legs and when Dear Leader had finished distributing arms and legs all the people who had missing arms and legs did not miss one arm or leg no longer! Bush can’t do that but Dear Leader can.

Wow. Just wow. I love it.

For those of you who have no idea what this is all about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

…And the blog itself can be found here:

http://juchegirl.blogspot.com/

dPS: 20 Photography Tips from Our Twitter Followers

Great list from digital Photography School’s blog:

Last week I asked some DPS readers who follow this blog via Twitter (our account is here) to share some of their photography tips with us.

The catch was that they had to do it in 140 characters or less (the limit that Twitter allows per message). Here’s a collection of 20 of their photography tips:

“I would recommend any serious photographer a Tripod. It’s indispensable for any photography & most if your hands won’t stay still” – maniar

“don’t spend your time looking at the lcd screen…you end up missing fantastic moments. The pictures will still be there later!” – burks

“Shoot in RAW mode if your camera has it. Offers so many more opportunities for editing than shooting in JPEG” – PattyHankins

“don’t just stand there. Instead of moving the camera, move yourself…” – XmasB

“Always remove the lens cover.” – fireeducator

“Get closer to the object.” – Celebtur

“Expensive equipment don’t make great photos. Great photographers do.” – quicklunarcop

“Fill the Frame” – ebradlee10

“shoot the magic hours(!!); remember the exposure triangle; look for a new/unique angle on your subject. :-)” – laepelba

“Keep taking photos, look at your photos, then take more photos. Learn from your mistakes and don’t be afraid to experiment.” – NeilCreek

(continued at digital Photography School)

WordPress.com: How do I get more views and traffic?

This is pretty self-serving, but could be useful to you if you’re a blogger as well:

How do I get more views and traffic?

If you feel like you’re not getting the amount of traffic to your blog that you’d like, there are a few things you can do to try bring a few more folks to your blog. Here’s a quick summary.

Bug your real-life friends

Almost everybody has 10-20 friends and family members they can coerce into reading their blog. Send them reminder emails when you update, talk to them about it when you meet in person, just generally encourage it as a new form of communication between you guys. Often having a really small audience of people you care about is better than having a million visitors and not knowing any of them.

Read and comment on other blogs

Use a search engine like Sphere to find the people who care about the same stuff you do. Then subscribe to their blog using a RSS reader like Bloglines and get to know them a bit. When you see an article that interests you click through to their site and leave a comment with your thoughts.

Link to other blogs

Just like you love getting links, so do other folks. (Remember, blogging is all about people.) When you link to another blogger or blog entry they’ll often find your blog through their stats, Technorati, or a pingback and come to see what you had to say. If you’re interesting, they may even subscribe to you and leave comments just like we suggested you do above.

(continued at http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/11/15/more-traffic/)

Our PDX Network

I’m always a fan of Portland related things on the interwebs. Here’s a site I found today called “Our PDX Network” which looks like it’s worth a read, or at least a blog post. 😉

Yes, it’s another local Portland, Oregon group blog.

Why?

After all, can’t people subscribe to the local blogs they want to, creating their own personal patchwork quilt of voices? Can’t they network on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn – or in person at events run by the very cool Legion of Tech folks, for example? Aren’t there already enough local PDX group blogs out there?

Nope, there aren’t. Or maybe we’re just egotistical enough to think there’s room enough for our blog – alongside efforts by local print media like the Portland Mercury or Willamette Week, nestled up next to Portland is Awesome and Portland Food and Drink and Bike Portland and Silicon Florist and Blue Oregon and, yes – the Metroblogging Portlands of the world.

See, we read everyone else’s stuff. And we think you should, too. That’s why we’ll be talking about all of the other excellent local sites out there – telling you what you’ve missed, shooing you over to read their inside scoops instead of trying to regurgitate them ourselves. Talking up the activity on networks like Twitter, on events like Lunch 2.0.

But we’ll also be offering up our own unvarnished view of life in Portland – warts and all. We’ll be asking you for your opinion, your insights, and pointers to those sources you can’t live without (you can share them with us via our new Mag.nolia group, for starters.) Or we’ll be recounting conversations we might have had with you in person at the neighborhood farmer’s market, or at that evening meeting.

And since we come from a variety of backgrounds and don’t all share the same interests, we can promise you a slice of life you may not always see in your RSS reader or in your neighborhood.

In a nutshell? We’ll be interesting. Informative. Provocative. Collaborative. And, most importantly, interested in creating conversation. With you. (Yes, you.)

And if we’re not? Interesting and/or informative, or…

We’ll settle for pointing you over to something else that better meets your sensibilities…!

(via http://ourpdx.net/about/)

10,000 Hits!

Woo-hoo! I just signed in to the WordPress dashboard to check my site stats and found out that my blog has just recently broken 10,000 hits! Thanks to everyone for visiting and commenting on my posts!

Also, a special thanks goes out to all of you who have read and commented on my post about TurboTax, which alone has brought in 1,419 hits, as of this posting:

Updated: TurboTax, IRS, and the late Stimulus Check Issue…

Thanks again to everyone!

DPS: 5 Quick Tips To Keep You Motivated

Great post from digital Photography School about how to keep yourself motivated in your photographic endeavors:

We all have those days. Days where you know you want to do something with your camera or photographs, but the motivation tank is on Empty. I’ve been having some of those days recently and came up with a list to help pop me out of the rut and back to being productive. This list is by no means exhaustive and I’d appreciate any additions that work for you, in the comments section.

TIP #1 – Go for a walk
I know, I know. It’s one of the hardest things to do when you’re not feeling motivated. Even worse if it’s raining outside. But getting your bum off the chair or sofa and out the door is a great first step. It is a lot easier to just keep staring at the computer screen and letting your analytical mind wander, sometimes feeling like you’re accomplishing something, but getting your blood pumping and elevating your heart rate will help activate your creative mind. It doesn’t need to be a long or fast walk. Just 15 minutes will be enough to get the juices flowing.

It also helps because it removes you from an environment that is obviously not helping you become creative at the moment. I like this method because it requires no special equipment, clothes or location. Everyone has ‘outside’ out their front door. Just lace up some shoes or boots and get your heart going!

(via 5 Quick Tips To Keep You Motivated)

digital Photography School: HDR Photography – What Do You Think About It?

Great article from digital Photography School about HDR photography:

There are numerous discussion on HOW to make HDR images in our forums but one recurring discussion that I’m seeing around the web is over whether it’s a form of photography that people like. Some people love the effect and others hate it. Some say it’s not ‘pure’ photography others ask what pure photography really is? Some call it ‘fake’ and others see it as a thing of beauty.

I thought it’d make an interesting discussion. Do you like HDR images? What do you like or dislike about them?

(via digital Photography School: HDR Photography – What Do You Think About It?)