Wed - November 28, 2007

Stick a fork in it - It's done


This blog has served me well for almost 2 years and it's time to upgrade. Please click here to be redirected:

Go to the new blog

The new blog is powered by Wordpress and is much more flexible as well as being easier and faster for me to keep updated. I'll also be able to embed video clips and have ad free comments (that really annoyed me about this one, having ads on my comment pages, bleh!). All of that will translate into a much better experience for both of us. For those of you that keep track of me with an RSS reader or service, the options just got a lot better too, you'll have to go to the new blog and re-subscribe, but you'll be able to choose all entries, all comments or subscribe by individual categories. Pretty cool, huh? I think so. This blog and it's entries will hang around for your amusement and mine for the foreseebable future, so links to here (like the ones on my custom wedding pages) will keep working.

See you at the new blog!

~Bill

Posted at 09:12 PM    

Mon - October 22, 2007

Creative Suite 3


The fedex man just brought me a couple packages, one of which has my software updates for all the Adobe products I use every day. It's a little like Christmas! Before I tore into the package I set it on some white seamless and did my best impression of a product photographer:



OK now I'm going to play get to work with my new toys tools... ;-)

Posted at 11:51 AM    

Tue - July 24, 2007

The world in my pocket


Meet my new assistant....

The coolest iPod ever, the coolest phone ever, the coolest PDA ever, all in my pocket.

You may know that I used to work for an engineering company that develops PDA applications on the WinCE platform. I know PDAs pretty darn well. PDAs are equal parts function and frustration. Not this thing, it's functional and beautiful and, so far at least, not a hint of frustration anywhere.....

The internet: The real internet - always on, EDGE network on the road, WiFi for indoors
Email: my email - all the time
Pictures: 1357 of my favorite pictures in living, breathing clarity
Music: 482 of my favorite songs
Video: widescreen super clear real time video, both stored locally or streamed from Youtube
Plus all the functional stuff: calendar, maps, weather, clocks, alarms, notepad

Maybe you think you've heard hype about the iPhone, but you haven't, it's for real.

And... It's a business expense, so the next time you see me, just say 'let me see it' and I'll gladly let you play with it and look through my portfolio or my music collection, or watch a video... of course after a few minutes I'll want it back, and then you'll have to go get your own.... :-)



~Bill

Posted at 07:53 AM    

Fri - May 4, 2007

Watermarks - Apology


Now that I'm depending on my photography income to make my mortgage payment and buy groceries I have to be more careful about my images being 'borrowed' from the galleries. I've spent quite a bit of time investigating watermark options that both protect my images and still allow them to look good. This is what I came up with. I apologize to you all for having to 'look past' the watermark when you're deciding which images to buy, but that's the way it goes sometimes....

I am, of course, open to suggestions on this, so leave a comment and let me know if you have a better idea. :-)


Posted at 10:25 AM    

Newsletter


Rather than send out the occational email by hand to my ever growing blog update email list (a little over 200 recipients at the time of this post), I'm going to be using a new newsletter style email system. If you look in the left hand column on this page you'll see the sign up form, you can use that to add yourself to the list.

The newsletter will come out every couple weeks and will include news, tips, pictures, and coupons and specials that never make it to the blog. So... if you're not on the list already, feel free to add yourself!

Oh, and, Happy Friday! :-)

~Bill

Posted at 09:05 AM    

Tue - February 27, 2007

Hacked! Stolen email messages


What a long tough day yesterday....

On Saturday while I was at evergreen taking pictures of a U18 club volleyball tournament, someone was busy hacking into my work computer! Damn them. They used my machine to log into my web hosting control panel and reroute all my incoming email to a disposable email address that I don't have access to. Fortunately 'email silence' is not a part of my life, so when it stopped coming in I noticed pretty quick. I spent all day yesterday figuring out how it happened (a hole in my firewall and a rogue VNC client). I also changed all my local and online passwords. They apparently were planning to use my ebay account to sell high ticket items, not deliver and stick me with explaining the sale. They needed to get my email (and for me not to get it) to make that work.

I've already sent email to most everyone on my mailing list about the lost emails, but if you sent me one in the last couple days and I haven't responded, please please resend it!

What does this mean to all of my wonderful friends and customers? Hopefully nothing, but here are some questions and my answers:

What about my Credit card number?
I want to make sure all of my customers understand that I don't do any credit card processing myself, so the financial information you provide when you order prints is not on my machine and therefore could not be stolen from me. (yay!).

What about my Email address?
It is possible that my email address book was copied. But I doubt it. I really think the focus of this attack was the ebay scam.


This was a big lesson learned for me, I locked down the security on my hardware firewall and the software firewall on my machine in a big way. I also stopped storing passwords for my online accounts in the browser.

Mac's may or may not be more secure than Windows, but none of them are hackproof. Be warned!

...And hopefully this never happens to you!

~Bill

Posted at 08:18 AM    

Sat - January 13, 2007

Not just a mac geek - Token PC tip


I've recently been accused of being a Mac Geek (he actually said Mac Nazi, but that's not very PC). But I'm an equal opportunity geek. In fact I spent years building, selling and supporting Windows based PCs and networks, so Macs are new to me, but so far I'm happy about my switch...

So here is today's token PC tip: Chances are your machine has gotten slower since you bought it and you have trouble with lots of random software that you don't even realize is installed on your computer. Check out What's Running , a free software app that will tell you what's really happening on your PC and help you take back control....


So there! ;-P

~Bill

Posted at 03:39 PM    

Wed - January 10, 2007

The Cell phone Reinvented


At the opening of the MacWorld Expo yesterday Steve Jobs announced the iPhone. This amazing little device actually runs the complete Mac OSX operating system (just like the PowerBook I'm typing on!). So it's a lot more than just having an ipod/phone/net/video player in your pocket. I'm excited! Are you? ;-)

The only downside in my opinion is that it only works with Cingular Wireless. But who knows maybe by the time my current cell contract runs out that will change....


Posted at 06:08 AM    

Fri - January 5, 2007

The power of slideshows


I really like slideshows, with motion and music and variable timing, there is just so much that can be conveyed. Carmen forwarded me this note yesterday from one of her family members, it made my day!

From: "Dawn" <xxxxxxx@hotmail.com>
To: "Danny and Carmen" <xxxxxxxx@hotmail.com>
Subject: WOW Re: slideshow
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:20:44 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

WOW

Is there any other words?

I nearly cried it was so beautiful!

I am SO SO SO HAPPY for you!

You are so beautiful.

A million times thank you to Danny for helping to bring to the outside the super beautiful person that I could always see inside of you.

WOW

Love,

Dawn

--

Now I know that she was commenting on how cool Carmen and Danny are (and she's totally right as far as I can tell), but it's still very nice that my work can help facilitate that! ;-)

See the show here: Carmen + Danny

Posted at 06:31 AM    

Thu - November 30, 2006

Nifty Borders and Fancy Slideshows


I got a cool new plug in for Photoshop that adds borders to my images without all the work of doing each one by hand! Very excited about that and I'll use it here on my blog for sure, but I'm curious what you think about prints with borders? Should I make it an option in my galleries? drop me a note and let me know: My email.
I also got a cool new program for moving picture style web slideshows. If you've seen any of my DVD productions then you know what this is all about but now I can put them on the web much easier. Sweet!

The snow is gone today, but it was sure pretty while it was here.



Thanks for visiting!

~Bill

Posted at 04:33 PM    

Tue - June 20, 2006

Fifty Thousand Hits


In mid April (about 2 months ago) I switched to a new gallery hosting and print supply company. I'm pleased to report all the customer feedback from this service has been positive and as of today my galleries have had over 50,000 page views. That's quite a few for just 8 weeks! :-)

No post would be complete without a picture, so here is one from this weekend. :-)

Girls playing in Spokane's new fountain in Riverfront Park:

Posted at 04:31 PM    

Wed - February 8, 2006

Apple 1 Billionth song scandal?


Is Apple rigging the readout on their billionth song page?

I opened this page in two browsers on my Mac and two browsers on my WinXP box, and the number displayed is very different in each window. In general the readout for all open windows on a given machine are within 1500 or so. But the Mac machine reads consistently 15-20k higher than the PC. And Safari consistently reads a higher number than Firefox.... So which is closer? when should I make that well timed song purchase? Is Apple favoring those that use their OS and their browser with a better chance at winning?

Or am I just crazy? Here is a guy who had a more scientific approach than my multiple machine, multiple browser approach: Anders Brownworth

I'd be curious to know if anyone has more research or an answer to this question. As a side note, the number jumps 10-20k in a matter of seconds when it goes from one 100k to the next, so alot of folks are trying to time a purchase to win the Nano...

Posted at 05:32 PM    

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