A good article from BBC news via Locker Gnome:
Digital cameras don’t only eliminate the cost and hassle of film processing, they should help do away with bad holiday snaps and see us all become better photographers.
Month: January 2004
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That wonderful glow
I’ve found that I really like taking pictures at night with long exposures. Sometimes the colors are not true to life, but that doesn’t bother me, I like what I see.
While waiting around for friends on Saturday night I was able to grab a few pictures in the back yard. I ended up with a flower picture I like.
I am surprised…. getting a picture a day is not as easy as it sounds. It is fun, however, because I am forcing myself to take any picture that comes to mind just to make sure I have something. It’s really helping to learn what works and what doesn’t.
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How not to support your customers
I’m trying to buy something from Amazon but my account has been broken since Thursday. Any time I try to submit my order Amazon just responds with:
We’re sorry!
An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we’re working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. If you were trying to make a purchase, please check Your Account to confirm that the order was placed. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Being a reasonable geek and a person in the Internet industry I expect this kind of thing will happen. So, I decide to wait and try later. Yep, it didn’t work later either.
Since their online help didn’t solve my problem I decided to ask them for help. Amazon has one method to ask for help: an online form. I don’t mind filling out a form. There’s just one problem… the form doesn’t work. I tried from work on my desktop machine. I tried from work on my laptop. I tried from home on my laptop. I tried from home on my home desktop. I tried clearing my cache. I tried deleting cookies.
My account is broken. I am unable to submit the support form. I’m unable to get in touch with Amazon, right? We’ll see. As a last resort I sent mail to every single Amazon.com address I was able to find on their website (everything from press addresses to their recruiting addresses). Hopefully someone will reply.
Here’s my advice to Amazon and everyone else who has customers: Think about it – what happens to your customers if they can’t get a hold of you? I’ll tell you, they get pissed off and they go away.
If it weren’t for the $50 gift certificate Amazon is holding hostage I’d write them off and take my business to Barnes and Noble.
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Planning on taking over the world?
You can’t take over the world without the right equipment. Visit VillianSupply.com to order your new lair, weapons or torture devices. They can even help to outfit your henchmen.
“See, I’m hip. Dukka, dukka, dukka, dukka.”
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A gift for that “special” someone
Sometimes I wonder if we’re getting a little too sensitive. From the “everyone deserves a friend” page of the touchy-feely handbook: downs syndrome dolls.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
- Someone who speaks three languages is…
- trilingual
- Someone who speaks two languages is…
- bilingual
- Some one who speaks one language is…
- American!
Sure, an oldie but a goodie. Now in my defense I speak English, French and a little German. I don’t, however, have any idea what is being written into the comment fields of my blog (see here and here). I found a Norwegian to English translator on the web (but have since lost it… I’ll find it again I know, if only IE had some sort of history feature ;)) and had fair results. Perhaps I should try Swedish or Finnish… I’d really love to know what this person has taken the time to write. Anyone speak… well… whatever?
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Micro-tastic!
Tonight I borrowed a couple of micro photography lenses from Phillip (thanks dude!) and played around taking close up pictures of anything that came close. I found taking pictures of the dog a challenge since the depth of field on these lenses are a touch on the narrow side. 🙂 At any rate, stuff looks really cool when you can get really close.
For the curious, the lenses I borrowed are a 60mm 2.8 Nikkor and a 105mm 2.8 Nikkor. I put the pictures which were mildly in focus in my micro gallery. I took the pictures of the dog with the 105mm and the others with the 60mm.
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Honey, I shrunk the laptop!
Here’s just what you need to get your geek buddies to drool: a 1 GHz laptop not much bigger than the power adapter powering your current laptop (4.9”x3.4”x.9” and 14 ounces). It has all the goodies you’d want, Bluetooth™, 802.11b, USB, FireWire™ and more. Dock it and it’s a full PC. It’s not as small as a PDA, but it’s close, and it’s running Windows XP.
One problem, there are a bunch of other things I’d rather spend 2 grand on.
Visit OQO to find out more about their ultra personal computer (uPC).
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Practice makes… well… better, I hope.
I’ve enjoyed taking pictures for as long as I can remember. After getting annoyed by me stealing his camera all the time my Dad gave me my first camera when I was 6. I took pictures of everything, but mainly my GI Joe.
So, now I’m older and wiser, I don’t take quite as many pictures of dolls and I’m not always happy with the pictures I take. I was inspired by Rob’s description of the picture a day challenge (PAD). The idea is you need to take and post at least one picture every day for a year. As you take pictures and are forced to choose your favorite each day (provided you take more than one) you will also be forced to improve (also, now that I’ve gone public with this I’ll be embarassed to quit :))
To that ends I’ve started my Picture a Day gallery. You’ll find that it’s a little bare as I’ve done a poor job taking one picture every day so far this year. I will, however, keep it up now that I will suffer public humiliation if I don’t follow through.
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CSS Positioning
I just found an excellent explanation of CSS positioning written by Mike Hall on his site BrainJar.com. Mike also has several other well-written tutorials on his site. Check them out.