Officially:

This is the coolest thing I have seen in a while. Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman. Damn.

Peggy Lee only has eyes for you...

Damn... she was so great. Youtube brings us some amazing moments in time doesn't it.

Workshop Photos (by attendees)

I love it when students who have rarelytaken shots that they had liked do some killer shots in the workshop.



Some shots from the workshop. These were shots by the students. (Sorry, I don't know which student shot which photo at this point, but if you recognize your work, send me a note and I will credit the image.) These images were done in the afternoon session with the help of some great models, Christina and Bryan. next workshop is September 16th.

Complicating simplicity (37Signals)

This is an excellent catch by the guys at 37Signals. Talk about overblown hooey. Sorry, but this kind of writing (the quote, not the 37signals blog) makes me laugh. Talk about blowhard crap... actually, that is exactly what it is.

Complicating simplicity - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "I've got an idea where the intervention should start.

If you're going to talk about simplicity, why not do it with words that are actually simple?"

G&C in Vegas: Part 2

I really have begun to enjoy the clothing business. There are many perks and it is so interesting to be on the other side of the marketing messages.

Great marketing example: Make it exclusive.

There were many, many booths there. In an overwhelming amount they were simple trade booths with samples. Buyer walks up, marketer begins spiel and shows merch. While it is a simple way to do it, the process is, well, mundane. Many buyers would look at a piece or two and then mosey off to the next booth.


English Laundry's booth was closed off with see-through curtains and 'gatekeepers' who were only admitting buyers who were really interested, and even then by appointment only. Once you were inside you are introduced to the designer who offers you a cold drink. You are seated at a station and a sales expert takes you through the new line. Piece by piece it is revealed to you with style, panache and a good sense of humor.

The exclusivity of the experience meant that there was less wasted time with lookielous and more quality time spent talking to the client that are really interested.

We were sold. We are very excited about our new line of English Laundry shirts and jackets at Arrogant Menswear and will be revealing them soon.

How do you treat your customers?

Short, but very good little article on givin those that give you their money a lil' bit of love.

Creating Passionate Users: Why marketing should make the user manuals!: "Let's take the whole damn ad/marketing budget and move it over to product manuals and support. Let's put our money where our users are. If we're in it for the short term, then sure--it makes sense to do everything to get a new user, while doing as little as possible once we've got them. But if we're really in it for the long haul--for customer retention and loyal users--then shouldn't we be using all that graphic design and pro writing talent for the people we care about the most? Our users?"

"Gear and Clothing in Las Vegas" Part 1

Downtown... from the tram.

Yeah, I borrowed the title from my friend Barrett who titled our podcast from Vegas. He told me he borrowed it from someone else. Kinda like the entire trip to Vegas to me. MAGIC was the reason for our visit, and we had only one day.

I saw a tremendous amount of marketing at various levels there, after all, it was a tradeshow designed to allow marketers to market directly to willing buyers. So at this affair, I was a buyer and was the target of billions of dollars of marketing. Barrett and I were two of the estimated 140,000 buyers there for the week.

We were on a mission to find special lines of men's shirts and jackets that would fit with our "Arrogant Mens Wear" lines. We met our goals, but one of the interesting take-aways is watching how clothes are sold to wholesalers. From typical tradeshow booths to structures that looked like mini castles built into the venue, the business of selling clothes is, well, big business.

I will have 3 more entries as I get them put together: the best, the worst and the most memorable. This post will just have a few fun pix from Vegas.

Aaahhh... a green couch, a little shade and a dragster. Pure Vegas, baby.

Barrett and buses. This was near the end of the day when our quest had turned from the coolest shirts to the coolest drinks... we were on our way to the MGM Grand.

Great Workshop Saturday

It was an amazing Saturday! We had 5 talented photographers and some beautiful models. Together they made some amazing images. I will post some of them here as they come in. These images were taken by David, a great friend and one who comes in and helps occasionally during the workshop. This Saturday he brought his daughter Amanda and she was an enthusiastic model for the photogs.

Interestingly, all the photographers in attendance wanted to try out my inexpensive lighting setups instead of the strobes. All the studio images that were taken on Saturday were taken using the same tools as discussed on my DVD. That was very cool!!!

Here's what David said about the workshop:
"Thanks Don for another great workshop. I can't believe you can take
pictures like these while only spending $80.00 on the lighting! You
gotta take this workshop. It's simple, yet beautiful lighting."
--David H. Smith

Thanks David.

Sunday tunes 2

Bill Evans and the trio...

Sunday Tunes

YouTube: gotta love the fact that we can see and hear those wonderful talents who no longer grace us with their talent, music and gifts of all kinds. Mr. Luthor VanDross...

Paula Scher: Designer

Nice little video over at Adobe. Paula is a wonderful designer and communicator. Listen to how she approaches creativity and it's many challenges.

Photojournalists Fight Back

When a photojournalist sees such blatant lies, and using photography as its tool, it is incumbent on other photographers to take the rotten apples to task. This well reasoned, devastating, take-down of a story you probably heard of will make you wonder at what level our journalists and photojournalists and editors are operating. even a cursory glance at the top of the ambulance clearly shows it could not have been a missle. No way.

So why was it photographed and reported that way? Have our press become so incredibly lazy that people can pull abandoned ambulances with no smoke or fire damage out and claim that it was a missle with complete immunity from questioning? Really.

Sheesh....

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident: "On the night of July 23, 2006, an Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. Or so says the global media, including Time magazine, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world. If true, the incident would have been an egregious and indefensible violation of the Geneva Convention, and would constitute a war crime committed by the state of Israel.

But there's one problem: It never happened. "

If you aren't reading Scott's blog...

... you ahould be.

Visualville: A Photographers Resource: "Since 1987, TEOE has sponsored more than 19 international photographic exchanges involving more than 65 volunteer photographers and thousands of students on three continents."

Attracting attention is a marketing touchstone

...unless, of course, you are a moron.

My favorite quote from the story... "He had said the restaurant’s name — “Hitler’s Cross” — and symbols were only meant to attract attention."

Yep. That it would.

Hitler-themed eatery to be renamed - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com: "BOMBAY, India - The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said Thursday he will change its name because it angered so many people."

...

Hitler’s Cross opened five days ago and serves pizza, salad and pastries in Navi Mumbai, a suburb of Bombay, also known as Mumbai.

On Thursday, Bombay’s Jewish community welcomed Sablok’s decision to rename his restaurant.

I just wonder what the reaction would have been if it were a depiction of, oh, I don't know..., a famous middle eastern prophet who is spiritual leader to millions for instance?

Conquering copyright infringements

Good, basic advice.

Conquering copyright infringements: "Copyright infringements can be a pain to deal with. With the Internet wide open people are stealing content from other people's sites and acting like it is their own. And the last thing you want is your content on 100 other sites because it can potentially hurt your search engine rankings. So how can you deal with copyright problems like this?"

Aahhh... Now I Remember...

... why I don't shoot for ad agencies anymore. This is what they considered a 'cool' viral campaign to land Subway? Really? Man this is lame.

Wanna learn to make an action?

A lot of photographers I am working with were unsure how to make actions in Photoshop. Actions are one of the wonderful things about Photoshop and learning to use them will increase your speed and workflow. So I made a little movie on how to do it.

New Movie on how to make actions. This tutorial will show you how to save time and effort, especially when you have a lot of images that need the same correction, or style attached.

The Cosby Show was always a re-run...

Many of you will get a kick out of this list. I find it an interesting thing to think about when preparing messages for your audience. Read the whole list.

What Your Freshmen Don’t Know

Beloit College has released its latest “Mindset List,” to help academics understand what freshmen know — and what they don’t have a clue about. This list has been prepared each August since 1998 and past lists are available online.

...

17. They grew up pushing their own miniature shopping carts in the supermarket.
18. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
19. “Google” has always been a verb.
20. Text messaging is their e-mail.
21. Milli Vanilli has never had anything to say.
22. Mr. Rogers, not Walter Cronkite, has always been the most trusted man in America.
23. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.
24. Madden has always been a game, not a Super Bowl-winning coach.

LOL

Really nothing to say. Just is what it is.

Aaahh Willie... that's a nice rendition

Classy, sexy and wow

The amazing Julie London. She was so damn classy. I love this silly production number. Just wish I could find "Cry me a River." That was her signature song, and it is a classic. This one is fun and shows her tremendous 'cool.'

Dean Martin Peggy

Oh man... I love it!

7 Idea Dumping Tips (How To Manage Diarrhea of the Brain) at LifeDev

I love this post. I do. It makes total sense to me as a creative, organizationalphobic entrepreneur. I have the notebook, and in many ways I do some of these things now. As a matter of fact, some of these are how I plan websites and projects. But using it to classify ideas... wow... cool.

7 Idea Dumping Tips (How To Manage Diarrhea of the Brain) at LifeDev
Idea dumping is a lot like brainstorming. (I happen to be an expert on idea dumping because I just made the term up 5 minutes ago.). Brainstorming to me is more of a process where you have a problem, and you try and find a solution to it, with the end goal in mind. It’s a great concept in theory–except it never happens that way for me. It seems like whenever I really need a great idea, they are nowhere to be found. Yet when I’m doing something completely unrelated and seemingly unimportant, I’ll be floating in ideas. And when the mind finally does agree to cooperate and turn on, I won’t usually get just one good idea but a bunch of ‘em at a time. When it rains it pours, but it’s a summer in Texas otherwise.

Take a look at these great notebook ideas:

The Watercolor Reporters are available in pocket and large sizes, and sell for the same price as the Classic Moleskine formats - contrary to what you may have seen elsewhere with some online sellers taking pre-orders at inflated prices. Please remember if you are ordering from outside the US that you cannot use the Shopping Cart in the online store - just email your order and I will send an invoice through PayPal that includes International shipping.

Ooooh... Ebay!

Anyway, I will be taking this post and printing it and working with the concepts. Hope you take a moment to read and think about how it can work for you.

UpDate: Damn. maybe I was a little hasty on jumping on the Blogger beta. Lots of errors. Forgive me.

2,996

A most worthwhile project. Signup. Write, be creative and do something really positive. I will be honoring Joseph Dickey here on 9/11/2006. Who will your honoree be?

2,996: "2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers."

Blogger:Beta

Ok... I have switched to the new Blogger. Not really going to dive in and start monkeying around with it today, but later in the week I have set aside an hour or two to see what this can do. In the meantime, there may be some issues with Safari... sorry bout that. The folks at Google say they will have that fixed shortly.

Signum sine tinnitu--by Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with Seth Godin

This is really a grand interview. Take a few moments to read it and think of how these nuggets can add up to huge changes in our own marketing... big company or small.

Signum sine tinnitu--by Guy Kawasaki: Ten Questions with Seth Godin: "Ten Questions with Seth Godin

Seth Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, entrepreneurship, and work. He is also a renowned speaker and a helluva nice guy. I cornered him and got him to answer ten (really eleven) questions about his latest book, Small is the New Big, and “life.”"

At ProBlogger: 82 More Lists

Getting away from non-critical thinkers, like the EDITOR FOR WIRED... , sorry, I uh, still a little steamed by him (prvious post)

Anyway, at Problogger you will find a fantastic list of, well, lists. This is really fun stuff, enjoy.

82 More Lists - Group Writing Project Reader Submissions Part III: "Here are today’s 87 submissions (once again there are some beauties in this lot). The full list of all submissions is at our central submissions page (we’re now up to a total of 238 submissions):"

Wired News: Editorial Buffonery

Thanks Kevin.... arghhhh! (You were right about the blood boiling. I thought this crap was done with the 'autofocus is cheating' foolishness 20 years ago.)

Hey Wired guys... Here's a word of the day for you. It may be a good word to think about in these trying days for journalism. Credibility. You know... so that your readers don't think that morons are at the helm.

This is just another example of how the MSM is getting hammered. To say that this guy lacks critical thinking skills is simply a 'duh'. Look, quite possibly he is a victim of the public unschooling, but this goes so far into the land of absurdity that pointing out that he wrote his article in an air conditioned office, wearing good clothes on a word processor, with editing hints and spell check, with a CMS, for a web based magazine on the inter-freakin-net instead of sitting in a shack using a mud-dipped pen and a piece of papyrus.... OMG... he is an EDITOR? AT WIRED?

Attention Wired: Fire the morons among you. The holes in this guys story are given lots of light in the comments below it, but what I want to take a shot at is sloppy logic, uncritical thinking and 'elitist blathering.' My freshman daughter saw the inconsistency immediately when she said..."Well, why isn't he using a typewriter?" (Yes... I have one... looks cool and 'arty' in the office.) Can you read this drivel and not wonder if he had anyone else in the newsroom look it over and ask a hard question or two... like...

• Are you aware that technolgy changes, new art forms arise with the technology... uhh, you know... like, uh, electric guitars, stereo, automob i l e s... helloooooo???? anyone home in there?
  
• are acrylic painters less important than those who paint with oil?
• typewriters with 'repair' feature eliminated 'real' typists who had to do it right the first time
• Photographers who shot b&w and developed it themselves were 'superior' to photographers who shot transparency film and had a lab develop it? Jay Maisel aint gonna like that.
• Unless I 'do it by hand', it isn't good art. Got it. So stravinsky shouldn't have had to hire all those musicians to play his music, he should have damn well played it all himself... and as far as having another symphony play it... What's up with that... they ought to get their own music... wait a minute... we are in a quandry now...
• Mathmeticians who use calculators and computers aren't really mathemeticians. Lazy shirkers.

Do you see where lazy thinking takes us? Critical thinking is becoming a lost art. But at Wired? Good grief.

Wired News: Art Does Not Apologize: "In other words, it was hands-on. It required some honest sweat. It required time. When you were finished, and assuming you had done sterling work, you had produced a piece of art.

Which is why it's so hard for me to work up any passion for digital photography.

The advantages of digital are plain enough: easier storage, the ability to upload photos straight to the computer, no need for film, being able to take a mulligan on images you don't want to keep and, if results are all you require, no need for screwing around in a darkroom. Digital makes sense for the photojournalist, where mobility and simplicity are key, and it's useful for taking those casual snapshots of besotted friends down at the neighborhood local."

In business for yourself?

I spent yesterday morning in a dentist chair with people I hardly knew staring down at me and wielding implements of terror. Well, in my mind that is how a trip to the dentist is usually. But not yesterday. Dr. Babitz and his staff have a totally friendly, customer centric approach to the business. Immediately upon entering a very lovely lady greets you and engages you in some relaxing conversation. The staff is courteous, interested in you and seem genuinely happy that you are there. Really. They know that going to a dentist is frought with fears - some real, most imagined - and that alleviating a bit of stress is important for the patient.

In fact, they were so engaging and 'comfortable' when I went in for the first exam that I had no morning nervousness about going in for the actual work. I made a mental note of how 'customer centric' they were.

Later in the morning I was meeting with Peter at Mighty Imaging and we were discussing how to get the community talking about ways to get the community charged. One of the things that Peter prides himself in is the customer centric way he and Stephanie run the business. It is different than most labs, where the customer interacts with employees who may or may not have a 'stake' in the business. At Peter's lab, the customers interact with the owners.

He said something that I really liked. "Customer service is not a department, it is an attitude." So true. The dentist office was a place totally devoted to customer service, and you never felt that it was pushed or phony. This attention to the customer sets his lab apart from so many others. Chromatics in Nashville is like that... totally devoted to the customer's needs and finding ways to make the customers job easier. There is a Safeway near my home that has that same all encompassing aura of customer service. Being there makes you important to them.

When we look at our businesses in this light, we should take some measurement on how customer oriented we are. Do we publish information that the clients need? Do we keep them informed about changes or new offerings? Are we constantly focused on what they need to make their business or lives better? Are we in business for ourselves or our clients?

Megan Bondi at Kent Johnsons Flickr

Megan Bondi
Originally uploaded by Kent Johnson.

I love this little set of images of his "notebooks." I think they give the work a strong, personal impressionistic feeling. I have a couple of these notebook things, but his are so much more arty. Mine have lots of notes and such. Do you use notebooks for your creative output?

Holy SLR Batman!

My friend Scott at Visualville has finally started a blog. He is one of the most connected photographers resource person I know. From Digital cameras to Photoshop tricks and insider info, he is my "connection" to some quality info. I imagine his blog will become an outstanding source of real life information for photographers and digital artists everywhere. BTW... he builds the most incredible Photoshop boxes available. Fast, dependable and powerful.

Visualville: A Photographers Resource: A Digital Camera That Fights Crime? Holy SLR Batman!: "Unlike other digital cameras the FinePix S3 has 6.17 million pairs of photodiodes which, according to Fuji, has four times the dynamic range of normal cameras. One diode captures mainly brightness information, while the other takes in mainly color information. Onboard hardware combines the information to produce the final picture."

This post from the new LiveWriter from Microsoft.

 Just checking how well it works. Seems ok to me. Alas, only seems to work in IE and is PC only. Still, it is a definite plus so far.

Welcome to the Windows Live Writer team blog! We are excited to announce that the Beta version of Windows Live Writer is available for download today.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service. 

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience. Some of the ones we are most excited about include:

WYSIWYG Authoring

The first thing to notice about Writer is that it enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles. 

Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode.

Now you don’t have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want. It’s all right there in Writer as you create your post.

Source: Writer Zone: Introducing Windows Live Writer

Michaila and Alissa shooting the final DVD chapter

Finally finished the last bit of work and put the DVD in final stages. Burning test copies in the morning and getting the packaging delivered. Here are some shots taken of my kids for the final shoot. These shots are using the "Home Depot" lighing kit I use in the DVD. Total cost is about $80 for the lights, shower curtain and fomecore. The rest is knowing how to use them, lighting basics and a bit of finesse.

Free Sample Movie

I have placed a free sample movie from the Photoshop tutorials section of my DVD at esnips. It has 16 bit sound so it is seems to hang while playing. I am going to replace it soon with one that doesn't hang.

I will put some images there, some before and after examples and such if any of you are interested. Send me an email if you would like to see some more examples.

Kevin makes a point

And links to a wonderful article by Guy Kawasaki that I had nearly forgotten. Thanks Kev!

Organized Individualists: Only logical: "Our client's budgets are usually inflexible. Complaining that they're turning to cheap stock sites instead of hiring us is to no avail, because if there isn't the money in the budget for a thousand dollar location shoot, there's little that can be done about it. The problem from the client's perspective is that cheap stock sites they turn to have a lack of quality photos. So on the one hand, there are a lot of photographers out there that are contributing to those sites but with photos that stink. On the other hand, there a bunch of professional photographers other there who take good pictures, but can't compete with the prices the amatuers on istockphoto are charging."

Images of Cuba

Beautiful new set of Cuba images over at Visualville. Scott is redoing his machines to be even more powerful, quiet and fast. Check out the new images there, as well as his stock agency, AdStock. He will soon open his newest agency at Visualville using our PHOTOtool as the backend. That will be very cool.

If you have ever wanted to search Flickr

for a group of images just for fun, try this cool little tool. Lots of these out there, and this one looks kinda cool.

FlickrStorm. Search on Flickr with some Magic

My DVD nears completion

I have been working on this project for quite a while. You know how these things go. Get an idea, sketch it out, work a little more on it... then it takes on a life of its own. Shooting, editing, filling in - redoing. Whew. Anyway, it is almost finished. Just a bit of editing down to do of a recent shoot and it is ready for shipping.

The premise of the DVD is that lighting is an art that takes understanding more than expensive tools. To show what I mean, I show how to use cheap work lights from Home Depot, a couple of sheets of fomecore, and a shower curtain to do professional looking lighting. My point is that light is a tool that can be manipulated, and doing it with inexpensive tools just reinforces that point.

Anyway, the DVD will ship on September 1 and I will begin work on a second one on shooting glamour. I want to have that one in the can by November 1. You can see more of it here.

Oh Hell, one more and then I am done

The amazing, astounding, beautiful and simply incomparable Kathleen Battle in a short piece from Orff's Carmina Burana; "Stetit Puella". Ok, I am going to sleep now. Regular marketing and photography blogging commences in the morning.

One last Birthday Post....

... and this one is for my wife of over 27 years. This one is for Marian. Gladys always tells the truth.

Not to everyones taste...

But, hell it's my birthday and I simply love Ornettes work.

I shoulda been a cowboy

I have always loved the cowboy ways. Quiet, dependable and iconoclastic. Photographers and designers are like that sometimes. I wish my mama had told me to grow up to be a cowboy. I got the ol' truck now.

Waylon. We miss you man.

Skippin the light Fandango with Annie

Who da Man? He da man.

More birthday faves. Enjoy one of the most popular arias in the world. Why is it so popular? Cause it is simply beautiful. Oh Man... you gotta hear Aretha sing it here. Sorry: no embed.

Sweet Sarah

Powerful Platters

I really love this song. Since it is my birthday, I will share a few faves tonite.

1 picture per day...

... for three years. Photography as art, video as medium, web as delivery. I like this dynamic.

See this clip.

This is easy to do.. and it works

Wow... got my little ol' E-Machines running noticably faster - without the 6 minute start-up too.

Tweak3D.net - Windows XP 15 Minute Tune-Up: "Don't throw out that old PC yet!

A fine-tuned Windows XP PC can run quite fast even it's seriously lacking in the memory and CPU department. Before you chuck out your PC to buy a new one, try stripping some of the rust that's built-up over the years; the results may surprise you.

It's probably your operating system that's slow, not the PC. It's software, not hardware - you know, invisible 1s and 0s held in an electric field representing your data. Your computer is still fast, but there's a ton of stuff slowing it down. There's more 1s where there should be 0s and your PC is killing itself fighting an impossible battle to burn off this fat.

We've seen Pentium II machines with 128 MB RAM run XP faster than Pentium IVs with 4x the clock speed and 4x the RAM - so what gives? This article will help you figure out why your PC is running slow and outline exact steps to fix it quickly, before throwing in the towel with a format, restore, or new PC purchase."

Visualville Launches New Site

My good friend Scott over at Visualville, has launched his new site (designed by me). It has some new images from the stock files featured on the home page as well as information on Scott's classes, consulting and Photoshop machines.

A word about the new machines: Awesome. They feature 4 gigs of ram, super graphics cards, blazing fast hard drives, and incredible dual core technology. They are made specifically for photographers and Photoshop. Scott has worked with some folks at Microsoft to increase the amount of ram that Photoshop has access to. If you are interested in a blazing fast, stable and powerful computer for your photography, you must take a look at these boxes. Give Scott a call at 602 788 4001 if you have any questions.

Saving time with your workflow is one of the most important reasons to upgrade to a faster computer. As files get larger and demands for images become "quicker, faster..." the speed of a machine like this can really make a difference. I have been using one of the Visualville machines for nearly two years. I cannot tell you how stable it is, how powerful it is and how fast it can run some of my resource intensive Fred Miranda actions.

So if Businessweek gets it this wrong...

on something we know all about, can you imagine how screwed up their foreign policy, financial and political reporting is?

I have been interviewed by "the press" on at least 12 occasions. Seven of them misquoted me in some measure, and two just flat out got it wrong (lied?... well.... maybe)

I have read articles about Photoshop, Quark, Picasa... many of the programs that I live in... and seen absolutely wrong assertions, claims and statements of 'fact. It was blatantly clear that the writer didn't actually use the software, but 'interviewed' someone and then screwed up their notes. This particular article is so poorly researched, written and fact-checked that it makes a mockery of the journalistic profession.

Now, think about that when they tell you they know what makes good policy, or what effect a tremendously complex economic model has on inflation. Morons.

Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag: "BusinessWeek's Kevin Rose cover story got a solid pounding in the online press today. The profile of Digg's founder earned these responses:"

Very Interesting article on Becoming a Master

Another way of asking the question that Tim McGraw asks on his recent album... - "How Bad Do You Want It"... And it really screws up that "Let's give them all blue ribbons so no one feels bad or, god forbid, unworthy," crap doesn't it?

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: The Expert Mind -- [ PSYCHOLOGY AND BRAIN SCIENCE ] -- Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well: "But how do the experts in these various subjects acquire their extraordinary skills? How much can be credited to innate talent and how much to intensive training? Psychologists have sought answers in studies of chess masters. The collected results of a century of such research have led to new theories explaining how the mind organizes and retrieves information. What is more, this research may have important implications for educators. Perhaps the same techniques used by chess players to hone their skills could be applied in the classroom to teach reading, writing and arithmetic."

I wouldn't be very happy about it at all...

... musta been that "rogue scent..." You can't make this stuff up.

Elvis' teddy all shook up by jealous hound dog - Yahoo! News: "'He is not very pleased at all,' he added."

One of the best articles on Malware Repair

... that I have seen. CNET has always been a good place for information, but with the plethora of malware, spyware and hacks out there, this particular article is a must have. Even though I use FireFox predominantly, I still clean 30 - 50 spywares off with each weekly run of Spybot. The Microsoft Defender seems to work well too.

8/4/06 Give me back my browser's home page! - CNET Community Newsletter: Q&A Forums: "Realize that while you might not navigate to 'dangerous sites,' it is possible that anyone else using your computer does. And if you share your PC with children - especially adolescents - the probability of their stumbling upon unhealthy websites or of downloading software bundled with parasites is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5000000%. SiteAdvisor will help you identify potentially dangerous sites. And, trust me, you will be surprised at the changes many seemingly 'safe' websites have been documented to attempt on visitors' computers."

Take a moment here...

Well, you know how I like good drumming. Well, this guy plays, uh, appliances. Beats the hell out of them. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" done in a way that cannot be described.

Amen...

I love Picasa. I love my Macs. I sure wish they could, ahem, hook up (so to speak). Maybe soon. However, if you like the idea of running web galleries for fun, take a look at this little tool.

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google Picasa Now for Mac, Almost: "I applaud this release, but creating a full Mac version of Picasa shouldn’t be a side project for a Google engineer - it should be a primary goal of the Picasa team along with photo syncing."

Great for Photographers

Have large files that you want to give others access to? Have some multimedia you would like to share with clients in other states / countires? AOL jumps into the free storage arena. Cool.

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » AOL/AIM users to get 5GB free storage: "Chris Gilmer over at AOL owned Download Squad reports the service will include permission based file sharing, scheduled automatic backups from your hard drive to Xdrive, automatic upload of e-mail attachments from AOL Mail or any non-AOL POP3 or IMAP-compatible mail providers and a lot more. Perhaps most important - there’s no charge for file transfer."

Digital Photography and acting

Gee, you'd think that this would be a help to making better movies, but I fear a whole bunch more Adam Sandler and Rob Schnieder 'classics' coming along.

Seriously, digital is changing nearly everything we do in the image world.

The Long Tail: How shooting digitally changes acting: "He explained further what he learned shooting Flyboys with the Panavision Genesis. 'The old model of acting is that the rehearsal is great and then things change when you say 'rolling'--usually for the worse. Now there's no film in the camera. You can shoot everything. So there's no rehearsal. Or perhaps it's all rehearsal. Either way, it's far more natural.'"

Why I believe Photography is so amazing

And adding the power of the web and some of the really smart tools out there... wow.

This is an amazing little tool that will bring the joy and wonder of photography to even more people. When I see things like this, I am in awe of the possibilities. I really don't know what this will do for professional photographers, but I definitely think it will have an impact. Let's all work together to make it a positive impact.

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth - Video: "Ever wondered what it would be like to walk through your digital photos in 3D or see what hundreds of other people shot at the same location? See Photosynth in action and hear how Live Labs is exploring new ways to change the way you think about the web."