Knick-Knack

Taking a break

2008-08-20

I'll be taking a week or two break from the site here. I've got a ton of sideline projects I really need to devote some time to knocking out, and the site itself is moving to a new account (same hosting company, just an improved account.) No more FreeBSD 4.7, now I get a shiny modern FreeBSD 6.3 system to work with. The best way to keep up and know when I'll be back would be to subscribe to my RSS feed. Personally I use Google Reader for feeds and love it.

Kite Surfer Goes Out During Tropical Storm, Learns Valuable Lesson About the Power of Nature

2008-08-20

Kite Surfer Goes Out During Tropical Storm, Learns Valuable Lesson About the Power of Nature. Video made me cringe for sure.

Singer's metal fence has heavy impact in Marin

2008-08-19

Singer's metal fence has heavy impact in Marin. That guy is just all class isn't he? Maybe we need a right to roam in the US...

TSA Inspector Damages 9 Planes At O'Hare

2008-08-19

TSA Inspector Damages 9 Planes At O'Hare. Wait, they don't hire geniuses at the TSA? Shocked, shocked I tell you!

Magneto Commerce

2008-08-19

Magneto Commerce, another web-store e-commerce download. Might be worth looking into.

Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5

2008-08-19

Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5. Getting ready to do this on a couple sites, fortunately I don't think I have much to do, most of my PHP is fairly neutral to begin with. Wait, I mean "classic" or "timeless".

Ars Technica: iPhone Atop Flickr's Camera Phone List

2008-08-19

Ars Technica: iPhone Atop Flickr's Camera Phone List. Remember, quantity does not mean quality.

Ben Franklin Effect

2008-08-19

Ben Franklin Effect. Hey, do me a quick favor?

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Reference Guide

2008-08-19

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Reference Guide. Man do I love that show, wish it was on repeats, I'd actually watch TV again for that. Maybe they'll put it on Hulu.

Reverse IP Domain Check

2008-08-19

Reverse IP Domain Check. Find out how many other websites share your IP address...

GPSMirror: Technology For You To Protects Against Technology From Them

2008-08-19

GPSMirror: Technology For You To Protects Against Technology From Them. Kind of cool that it talks to you at known speed traps.

Welsh Coastline

2008-08-19

Wow, I saw the monkstone point portrait and monkstone point landscape and immediately thought they were taken in California near my shots of California Coastal Sunset and California Coast 2. Imagine my surprise when I see they were taken in Wales!

Coming This Fall: Free Textbooks

2008-08-19

Coming This Fall: Free Textbooks

Book Review - Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration

2008-08-19

Book Review - Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration

McCain suggests raiding Colorado's water

2008-08-19

McCain suggests raiding Colorado's water. He is clearly not taking into account the fact that when the water compact was created it was some of the wettest time ever recorded in the west...

Sunset tonight

2008-08-18

Tonight's sunset. I first noticed the glow and by the time I made it to the end of the street (to have a clear shot at the mountain skyline) it'd gone brilliant red...

the most interesting pictures of CCBImages

2008-08-18

the most interesting pictures of CCBImages, using the "interesting by..." generator.

Using Rsync and SSH

2008-08-18

Using Rsync and SSH, Keys, Validating, and Automation.

Oksana

2008-08-18

Ukranian model Oksana from a shoot yesterday (they are hosting a fashion party soon and needed some promo shots for their fliers):

Photography Composition - An Introduction

2008-08-18

Photography Composition - An Introduction. Some nice examples in there.

Create apple.com-like breadcrumb using simple CSS

2008-08-18

Create apple.com-like breadcrumb using simple CSS.

Grab Color Palettes From Your Current Page In Firefox

2008-08-17

Grab Color Palettes From Your Current Page In Firefox

Dane Cook's Movie Poster

2008-08-17

Hah, even Dane Cook hates his movie poster.

Quickly put data from MySQL to the Web with DrasticGrid

2008-08-17

Quickly put data from MySQL to the Web with DrasticGrid. Worth looking into (I'm dumping a lot of my mp3 data into MySQL...)

Fastest Gun In The West

2008-08-17

Fastest Gun In The West. Wow, and I thought squeezing off 100 rounds in 10 minutes in my Sig was cruising.

Fox News cuts American child for thanking Russian troops

2008-08-17

Fox News cuts American child for thanking Russian troops. That's "fair and balanced" for you...

Humming birds

2008-08-15

Last weekend Jane and I went up to Bailey for a friend's wedding. The wedding was at the bride's father's house and they'd spent months setting out humming bird feeders to cultivate the birds being around for the ceremony. I took my camera along, naturally, but didn't pull it out for the ceremony since I didn't want to offend the hired photographer. After the ceremony however while hanging out on the porch and seeing how close the birds came I finally broke down and got the camera out.

These photos also mark the first shots I've put up on Zenfolio for sale, take a look here: Hummingbird I and here: Hummingbird II for purchase options. I'd like to fill out the Zenfolio site a bit, still trying to decide which shots should go up there.

Revolvers or Automatics for Military?

2008-08-15

Revolvers or Automatics for Military? When I took my concealed carry class I found that during qualification I was much more accurate with the revolver (granted it was only a .22) than with the semi-automatic. For pure fun though at the range (why I own a gun) I much prefer my Sig 9mm semi-automatic...

The ampersands of Linux

2008-08-15

The ampersands of Linux, should help you find your favorite font.

Chase Jarvis RAW: Seattle Flickr Roundup Redux

2008-08-15

Chase Jarvis RAW: Seattle Flickr Roundup Redux. Wish we had a big-name to bankroll our Colorado Strobist meetups...

Greg Proops at Comedy Works

2008-08-15

Cool, just picked up a couple tickets to see Greg Proops at Comedy Works. Haven't been to a show there in years, though I do remember going to see another "Who's Line" regular, Brad Sherwood and had a great time. Based on Greg's improv comedy on the show I'm really looking forward to this one.

Routing in SUSE LINUX

2008-08-15

Routing in SUSE LINUX. My company started shipping Sun Fire X2200 systems with SuSe on them, a big change from the no-name "pizza-box" 1RU systems with an ancient version of RedHat.

LRB Graduated Filter Presets

2008-08-15

LRB Graduated Filter Presets . Under $10 for a set of filters to simulate the graduated neutral density filters you can buy for your camera.

Jello Dashboard

2008-08-15

Jello Dashboard, an add-on for Outlook to improve your "daily Outlook" view. I usually just stick to the email view, but I may give this a try and see if it helps manage my work life.

Scotts 20-Inch Classic Push Reel Lawn Mower

2008-08-15

Just ordered me a Scotts 20-Inch Classic Push Reel Lawn Mower. I'll be keeping my powered mower for those times when it's too tall to knock down with this, but hopefully that won't be very often. Free shipping to boot made it a decent deal, at 20" it's wider than all the push mowers I saw at my local Ace store.

Feather & Hammer Drop on Moon

2008-08-15

Feather & Hammer Drop on Moon, remember they are in a vacuum (all objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum, high school physics...)

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer

2008-08-15

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer. ModelMayhem discussion with a good list of books to pick up.

Blockquote: Then and Now

2008-08-15

Blockquote: Then and Now. I use them all the time but I didn't realize they had a cite attribute.

The Energy Detective

2008-08-15

The Energy Detective. I have a Kill-A-Watt meter but that doesn't work on things like my stove-top (220v). I'm also considering adding solar to the house and it'd be really nice to track my usage along with my generation.

Taming the Sun When Shooting Tethered

2008-08-15

Taming the Sun When Shooting Tethered. I like that platform, even if I usually don't carry a laptop to a shoot (just having someplace dry and stable to set the camera down can be very helpful.)

Rob Gruhl - How to Buy a New Car - Ignite Seattle 2007

2008-08-15

Rob Gruhl - How to Buy a New Car - Ignite Seattle 2007. I never did understand why it takes so damn long, even after I signed the check on my last car it took almost 3 hours to get out of the dealership (and mine was a fixed price, my uncle works for GM and I was using an employee list...)

The Google Black Hole

2008-08-15

The Google Black Hole. Nothing good comes from an acquisition?

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too

2008-08-15

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too. Picked up the DVD for Jane when the swimming lessons at the local rec center didn't work out (instructor couldn't be bothered to actually show up, or care, or respond to phone calls...)

EV Pusher Trailer

2008-08-15

EV Pusher Trailer, a pseudo-hybrid by virtue of having the front half of a gas-powered front wheel car helping push the electric vehicle along.

Traditional or Photojournalistic...a good read!

2008-08-15

Traditional or Photojournalistic...a good read! Discussion on ModelMayhem about photographic styles for wedding use, based on the link here: .

Why I switched from Elinchrom Skyports to Pocket Wizards

2008-08-13

Why I switched from Elinchrom Skyports to Pocket Wizards. Because of peer pressure, what a joke. I have the cheapo ebay triggers from Gadget Infinity and am extremely happy with them. Heck, they've saved the day since they came with a couple different sync cables, I was able to trigger some studio lights remote that people with their vaunted Pocket Wizards couldn't (since they didn't have the right cables with them.) Use what you can afford and what works for you, never mind what "everyone else has".

TaskPaper

2008-08-13

TaskPaper 1.0.3 To-Do List for the Mac, Web, and More. Looks cool and like something I would use but the Windows version (ToDoPaper) is a blatant knock-off and costs 50% more than the Mac original. So it looks like I'll be using the Taskpaper.vim setup (or tossing the Taskpaper.web setup on one of my virtual hosts...) They are free and put out by the original developer. It's either that or I take a closer look at Todo.txt.

Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future

2008-08-13

Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future. I have to admit I use LinkedIn about as much as I use any of the other social networking sites (not very often...)

Abuse.net Relay Test

2008-08-13

Abuse.net Relay Test. Find out if your mail server has an open relay set that will let it spam the rest of the internet.

It Only Rains on the Inside...

2008-08-13

It's Only Raining on the Inside. A concept I've had in my head for a while now. I've got some ideas to improve it but since the weather is starting to change (fall is coming!) I may hold off until next summer to revisit.

Another Spider Macro

2008-08-12

Yet another spider macro, this one best viewed large and on black.

Opt Out Google Cookie

2008-08-12

Opt out of the cookie for the Google content network and DoubleClick ad serving. I've been blocking DoubleClick for so long I forgot that Google bought them (which means the need to opt out of another cookie...)

PayPal donation form with CSS and jQuery for WordPress

2008-08-12

PayPal donation form with CSS and jQuery for WordPress. Could be adapted for other things besides just WordPress.

Universal Cruise Control for Motorcycles

2008-08-12

Universal Cruise Control for Motorcycles. I've noticed I wish I had one of these on longer rides, the price is pretty decent, I may pick one up.

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting Into an RPG

2008-08-12

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting Into an RPG

Honor the Stop

2008-08-12

Honor the Stop. I'll honor the stop when the ass-hats that try to hit me everytime I have right of way start honoring it. I can't count the number of times I've gone to cross a street with the white hand on my side and nearly gotten crushed by some idiot making a right turn and only looking left, never realizing that someone *might actually be using the cross-walk*.

LAST CALL: Project H Will Fund a Lifestraw for Mumbai for $25

2008-08-12

LAST CALL: Project H Will Fund a Lifestraw for Mumbai for $25. Twenty-five dollars is pretty cheap to give a family clean drinking water for 2 years, I kicked mine in.

National Geographic Daily Dozen

2008-08-12

National Geographic Daily Dozen, reader shots.

Shooting Tethered From Your Camera Into Lightroom (Canon Version)

2008-08-12

Shooting Tethered From Your Camera Into Lightroom (Canon Version). Someday I may give this a go (need a much longer USB cable first though.)

Star Trails

2008-08-12

Star Trails. Interesting, he takes a series of 20 second photos and then combines in Photoshop. The one I took a while back was one continuous shot, over 20 minutes long:

I was thinking with the meteor shower going on this week it'd be a good time to try again.

The Power User's BlackBerry Guide

2008-08-11

The Power User's BlackBerry Guide: 121 CrackBerry Tips, Hacks and Resources. Appreciated someone took the time to build the list but really that's about 115 too many to keep in mind at any given time.

Fuelly - Fuel Mileage Tracker

2008-08-11

Fuelly - Fuel Mileage Tracker. I've been using PFuel on my Palm for several years now. Looking at it now I see I have been keeping track of my truck's fuel mileage since 3/30/2005. In that time PFuel tells me my overall average is 18.23 MPG and an average cost of 0.142 $/mile. This is for a 2000 S-10 pickup (with the V6.) I've made it something of a game lately to see if I can consistently turn in numbers higher than my overall average (thus raising it ever so slightly).

My motorcycle tells a better story, I've been tracking it since it came off the lot on May 21, 2005. In that time the overall average is 50.85 mpg with a cost of 0.058 $/mile. I could get this average way up (one tank was 56.88 mpg) if I'd lay off the throttle a little bit but on that motorcycle that ain't gonna happen, I ride it for fun. This is for a 2005 Yamaha FZ-6 (600 cc engine).

All things considered I could move to a car that gets better mileage (or ride the motorcycle more) but I rarely drive anywhere these days. In the summer especially it's all about the bicycle...

Evernote. Why it will make it & 20 Awesome Ways to Use It.

2008-08-11

Evernote. Why it will make it & 20 Awesome Ways to Use It. I had signed up for the private beta but barely used it, maybe I should take another look.

Epocrates Online

2008-08-11

Epocrates Online. Find out if the new drugs you picked up have any known interactions or side-effects. Or use the Pill Finder to figure out what's lurking in the back of your medicine cabinet.

Decay

2008-08-11

Recently we've seen a couple of small birds in the back yard that appeared to be on their last legs. I'm thinking they come here since it's a pretty safe place to be (we feed and water the animals and have no pets yet.) This little birdy apparently didn't make it, but it makes for a morbid and interesting photo (still playing with the 50mm f1.8 lens...)

YouTube File Hack (and Others) Download Clips to Your Desktop

2008-08-11

YouTube File Hack (and Others) Download Clips to Your Desktop. I usually don't care about downloading very much off YouTube but some of the longer things like the Google Talks that can run an hour or more would be handy to have as a local copy to watch when I get a chance (without being network connected, say on an airplane...)

Reverse Snowflake Joins

2008-08-11

Reverse Snowflake Joins. "A tool that parses SQL Select statements and generates a diagram. The diagram shows parts of the underlying SQL directly in the diagram."

CD and DVD Recycling

2008-08-11

Over the weekend I was close to pitching quite a stack of old data CDs and DVDs that I had lying around (some almost 10 years old). I wondered if I could recycle them instead (recover the plastics somehow?) and it looks like this is the place Back Thru the Future Technology Disposal. Just need to come up with a box and get them shipped off...

Yahoo Alert: True's Biggest Crisis Ever

2008-08-11

Yahoo Alert: True's Biggest Crisis Ever. I've noticed that at random times email from my domain gets blocked (or chucked directly into the spam bin) from Yahoo, MSN, and even Google. I've never spammed a person in my life so I have no idea wtf I did to get on their lists nor do I know how to get off the things.

PDFTK Builder

2008-08-11

PDFTK Builder, a Windows version of PDFTK. Lets you merge, split, and otherwise manipulate PDF files.

Extraordinary satellite images

2008-08-11

Extraordinary satellite images show an ordinary day in Britain - as seen from space

SliceHost Docs

2008-08-11

One of the things I really liked about the idea of using Slicehost was their very nice documents related to virtual servers section. Even if I don't end up using them I'm still planning on mining the heck out of this archive for my own knowledge.

Tell Congress to Rein in DHS Travel Abuses

2008-08-11

Tell Congress to Rein in DHS Travel Abuses. Handy form from the ACLU to try and get the morons to back off.

SliceHost

2008-08-11

SliceHost, another Xen-based web host. Looks like prices are settling at around $20/month on the low-end for these options. Makes me think about switching away from my current host (I am paying significantly more than that right now.)

Adobe Lightroom 2.0 - First Impressions That Impress

2008-08-11

Adobe Lightroom 2.0 - First Impressions That Impress

TSA Gangstaz

2008-08-11

TSA Gangstaz. Funny, sad, and true all at once.

The Price of Deregulation

2008-08-11

The Price of Deregulation, on airline pricing and the effect of deregulation.

Easy Rounded Corners with Border-Radius

2008-08-11

Easy Rounded Corners with Border-Radius. Doesn't work in IE (naturally) but does anyone care about that horrible browser anymore?

PROJECT: Just A Second

2008-08-11

PROJECT: Just A Second. Submit your best photo that had exactly a one-second exposure.

ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!!!

2008-08-08

ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!!! heh, funny.

CULEBRA: Beyond the gate of the only private 14er in the country

2008-08-08

CULEBRA: Beyond the gate of the only private 14er in the country

Subversion Cheat Sheet

2008-08-08

Subversion Cheat Sheet, another cheat sheet worth the download.

Slow-Motion Lightening Video

2008-08-08

Stunning: Slow-Motion Lightening Video

When Google Owns You

2008-08-08

When Google Owns You, and a follow-up: Google Gets Back to Nick. And people wonder why I maintain my own domains, email, web server, etc?

Water World

2008-08-08

Yesterday was our annual adult trek to Water World. A good time was had by all and some people (*cough* me... *cough*) managed to get sunburned even after using sunscreen and picking the coolest day of the summer (Colorado set a record of 23 straight days over 90 degrees and then the day I set for the event was a high of 76...)

A Quick Tutorial on JavaScript Bookmarklets

2008-08-08

A Quick Tutorial on JavaScript Bookmarklets

The Luminous Landscape Guide to Adobe Lightroom 2

2008-08-08

The Luminous Landscape Guide to Adobe Lightroom 2. I just ordered my copy of Lightroom 2 today, and I noticed the new Scott Kelby book isn't due out until January of next year so I may look into picking this up.

Working With Artists

2008-08-08

Working With Artists. They have a gallery not far from me in Bel-Mar, went in for the first time last week to see a print hanging that a friend had made. They also have classes and partnerships around town with studios, other galleries, etc.

How-To: Find files on your computer with find

2008-08-08

How-To: Find files on your computer with find. I use find constantly for work but rarely with some of the advanced options, it's worth learning more about.

Preparing for the Biggest Organized Event of Them All: The Olympics

2008-08-08

Preparing for the Biggest Organized Event of Them All: The Olympics. From a photographer's perspective, what gear to choose and how to get it there.

Mountain lion snatches dog from owners' bedroom

2008-08-06

Mountain lion snatches dog from owners' bedroom. Maybe keeping a sliding glass door open at night isn't such a good idea.

Hang On Outlet by Paulo Oh

2008-08-06

Hang On Outlet by Paulo Oh. Great idea except it can't handle the wall-wart stuff (like so many things have moved to these days...)

Why Doesnt Our Library Check Out Tools?

2008-08-06

Why Doesnt Our Library Check Out Tools? That would be kind of awesome.

Grunge Borders for Lightroom

2008-08-06

Grunge Borders for Lightroom

Smart collections for controlling your workflow

2008-08-06

Smart collections for controlling your workflow. In Lightroom.

Striped Icebergs

2008-08-06

Striped Icebergs. My mom sent me this via an email but it's a lot easier to just post the link...

Reader Question: Do You Collect Rainwater?

2008-08-06

Reader Question: Do You Collect Rainwater? It's something I've thought about but the rain here in Denver is sporadic at best. Of course I do have room in the crawlspace for a big water pillow like that so maybe I should look into it...

Adjustable LED Desk Lamp : Chain Lamp

2008-08-06

Adjustable LED Desk Lamp : Chain Lamp. Love the design but not the price. That thing costs more than my desk and most of the things on it right now.

Ask Sunday Free Trial

2008-08-05

Ask Sunday now has a "Free Trial" to get a personal assistant and see how it works out.

VirtualBox

2008-08-05

VirtualBox HowTo for Ubuntu Linux.