mobrec

So
I just recently stumbled across slidshare, a site for sharing presentations. Supports both powerpoint and open office formats. Also allows you to rate (and of course tag) presentations as well.

It would be nice for this to catch on and become a single place to go for slide decks from conferences and workshops.

Technorati Tags: webtools, slideshare, presentations

So
This was too funny to pass up.

Technorati Tags: fun, history

So
I think that this blog posting over at librarything is spot on when it comes to peoples motivation for tagging: they will do it for 'their stuff' but are less likely (or even motivated) to do it for other peoples stuff. I love the analogy of spending time tagging stuff at Amazon is like going down to the grocery and tidying up the shelves. Yes, it looks nicer, but it is the grocer that benefited and not you.

In reality the same thing goes for writing reviews on Amazon, you do the work, they get the benefit. At least if you write a review on your own blog (and are an Amazon affiliate) you might make a few cents if some one clicks through your review and buys the book (or whatever item).

Technorati Tags: tags, tagging, amazon, librarything

So
Building on the annals of beer can wifi extenders a Kiwi eschews a $20,000 link; instead uses a $10 wok to keep a TV station on the air. Priceless.

Technorati Tags: ingenuity, newzealand, fun

So
A List Apart has an interesting article on using HTML and CSS to format a book. At least the creators of CSS2 had the foresight to incorporate the concept of 'paged media' into the spec and didn't just limit it to web presentation.

Technorati Tags: books, technology, design, css, html

So
...When it comes to megapixels supported by digital cameras:

More subtle problems also are possible. Camera image sensors rarely get larger from one generation to the next, so squeezing more megapixels out of a sensor means each pixel on the sensor is smaller. In most of the chip business, smaller electronics are dandy, but with cameras, they translate to less light per pixel.

That light difference means it's harder to distinguish the signals produced by light from the electronic noise in the sensor. The idea of making the signal-to-noise ratio worse may sound pretty technical, but possible consequences are easily understood: images suffer from color speckles and cameras work poorly in dimmer conditions such as indoors.

Technorati Tags: gadgets, photography

So
I just discovered a nifty little trick for uploading pictures to Zooomr if you are using Aperture (or iPhoto). You can drag and drop photos directly from Aperture onto jUploader and click the upload button. jUploader will then upload the full size image from Aperture. Maybe this is obvious to others, but I was pleased to find that I didn't have to export to jpeg from Aperture first to use jUploader.

One side effect of this for me, is that I will be uploading a lot more of my stuff to Zooomr as it has just become so much easier.

Technorati Tags: webtools, photography, zooomr, aperture, iphoto

So
Photo contests always seem to be very subjective things to me where more often than not it seems that a 'good' photo is one that matches the judges own person style or taste and not one that necessarily has objective merit to it. I certainly sense some of this in the results of the National Geographic Traveler photo contest.

For example, I find the first place photo sort of mundane and the second place shot too predictable. However, I find merit prize 5 and merit prize 8 to be much more interesting. This merit prize shot is exceptional for its spontaneous nature and probably would have suffered if it had been staged.

Don't get me wrong, they are all great shots; I'm not sure that some of them are 'all that'. Which brings us back to the subjectivity thing.

Technorati Tags: photography, ideas, nationalgeographic

So
These are probably a really bad idea of there is any likelihood that the other guy is going to be toting the real thing.

Technorati Tags: gadgets, fun

So
I thought that this posting on Learning in Grayscale was interesting and might prove to be an interesting thought exercise the next time I am out taking photos.

My stumbling block with this technique is that I typically find black and white photography to be sort of self conscious, stilted and one dimensional — where the photographer twiddles a color shot into black and white thinking that a B&W shot is instantly going to have more cred. B&W is not going to fix crap composition and other flaws.

I realize that this a drastic generalization. It is just that I have seen a number of instances recently with people trying to 'legitimize' their photos by casting them as B&W shots.

Technorati Tags: ideas, visualization, photography