First Place

I won first place in the photography category for 'Water and Light' at the Women's Civic Club of Katonah Fifth Annual Beaux Arts Exhibit! It is on display through May 17th, 2008 at the Katonah Library. After that, I will enter it in the Beaux Arts Finale.

Water and Light

Katonah Art Show

The Women's Civic Club of Katonah is holding the Fifth Annual Beaux Arts Exhibit at the Katonah Library. The show runs from May 12th through the 17th. The reception will be on Saturday May 17th, 2008 from 2pm until 4pm.

I have three works in the show:

Umbrella in the Sun

Water and Light

Book of Good Part One

Cognitive Surplus

What a concept, worth 16 minutes to watch. I think Clay Shirky might be a little optimistic, but still a fabulous piece of thought. I hope I am just being pessimistic, watch this (or read it if you prefer) and decide for yourself.

Via Daring Fireball of course, where all quality links come from.

Cheap Digital Cameras for your Sister

Edit: The digital camera world is an ever changing landscapes, camera models live for six to nine months before being replaced, so the cameras I list below are already out of date. There is still a lot of good information in the following article, just ignore the specific models. Instead, I have setup and mini Amazon store front with new models. Check it out here.

My sister asked recently for some advice on buying a new (cheap) digital camera. This is what I told her, the same advice I would give anyone:

Here are a few cameras to look at:
Canon PowerShot SD870IS - $250 - very small
Canon PowerShot A720IS - $200 or less - the one I have
Canon PowerShot A590IS - $150 - pretty close the the A720, like a little brother

'IS' at the end of the model number means it has 'Image Stabilization'. It steadies the camera to minimize blurry pictures. But it only works with still subjects, not running children.

The A720 has a very nice 6X optical zoom, the other two have 4X and that's pretty good too. There is a new bread of cameras out now called 'Super Zooms', some of which go up to 14X. But those are stupid. The further you zoom, the steadier you have to hold the camera to avoid blurry images. Also, the quality of the lens is compromised to accommodate such a wide zoom range.

'Digital Zoom' is junk. If it is possible in the menus to disable it, you should. Camera manufacturer's should be ashamed of themselves for adding this 'feature'. But they all do it, so I guess they will be able to console one another when they get sent to hell for this sin.

MegaPixel count is the other area of pure marketing hype. Anything over 6 MegaPixels is stupid on a point and shoot because the sensors are too small to really handle anything above that. The new 12 MegaPixel cameras use the same small sensor and create larger but much noisier images

Buying used does not make much sense for digital cameras, they are too delicate and you never know what you will get.

The SD 870 has a lithium-ion battery which is great, it takes more pictures on a charge and the flash cycle time between shots is much faster. But, if you have only one battery you can get stuck with a dead battery when you want to use it. So get two batteries and always have the second one charged and ready.

Flash cycle time is the amount of time between shots when using the flash. It takes time for the battery to normalize and have enough current to fire the flash again. With the flash off, the time between shots it only a second or two.

Both the A720 and A590 use AAs. Standard AAs don't last long and the cycle time between flash shots is incredibly long. Using good rechargeable batteries will work much better, but flash cycle time will still be rather long.

I hear good things about Sanyo's Eneloop rechargeable batteries.

They all take great video, but are limited by the size of the memory card, a 2gig card can store up to 15 minutes of video.

Other things you will need are:

• Batteries
• Camera case
• Memory Card (SD Card) 1 gig would probably be OK
• SD Card adapter
  
• Picasa

The last two are optional, but it lets you avoid having to install the camera's craptacular software. I don't ever install the manufacturer's software, it is always junk that hurts more then it helps. Instead, I take out the memory card from the camera and stick into a card reader attached to my computer. The computer will treat it like an external hard drive so you can go in and manually transfer your images to your computer. Some computers have SD Card slots built right in, so you may not need that and Picasa is free, so no worries there. It's a program for organizing, viewing, and editing digital images. I have much more powerful image editing software, but I always start with Picasa and use it for cataloging my shots.

The other main difference between the the SD870 and both the A720 and the A580 is that the A series (A720 and A580) are designed with a lot of manual controls that are easy to access. The SD870 does not have as many manual controls and they are harder to get to. The SD870 really is for pointing and shooting.

But here is the thing, a good photographer can get a good picture regardless of the camera because he knows how to manipulate the camera to get the best results. All these cameras can create OK images in the Auto mode, but if you know something about photography, you will be able to get better images with the A series cameras.

What is DPI

Dots Per Inch. Whether it be on paper or on a computer screen, the idea is the same: the paper, or screen, is broken into a grid, like graph paper. Each square is one dot/pixel. These dots/pixels then are used to build an image. In most cases, the pixels are too small to see and allow the image to blend together smoothly. All computer screens display images this way, so everything you see on a computer screen is broken down into these small pixel or dots.

A good visual representation of this is the painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. Seurat created this painting by applying the paint in little dots, much like pixels. This painting could be thought of as a low resolution image blown up to the point where you can see each pixel. Much like in the two examples below. The first is normal resolution, the second is the same image, but blown up so we can see the individual pixels.

In either case, the more pixels you have, the finer the detail. But, pixels alone only make up half of the equation. The other half is the physical size of the monitor or paper. For instance, if you have a one inch by one inch square and pack it with 300 pixels by 300 pixels, then you get 90,000 pixels and a very finely detailed image. And that works out to be 300 DPI. That is about as dense as would ever be necessary.

But, if you take those same 90000 pixels and stretch it out over a three inch by three inch square, then the resolution is lowered to 100 DPI. That is still not bad, but if you look closely, most people will be able to see the individual pixels and so the image will not be as sharp.

Most computer screens are somewhere between 72 and 90 DPI. A good quality print requires somewhere in the range of 150 to 300 DPI.

Note that a good quality print out has to be about double the resolution of a computer screen. Why then do the lower resolution images of our computer screens look so good? Because we are used to seeing it that way. Since we started watching TV, our eyes have grown accustomed to seeing images on screen at a low resolution. Standard definition TV is in fact, very low in resolution with a total of 480 vertical lines of resolution.

Why America is going down the tubes

"By some estimates, half of American children have a television in their bedroom; one study of third graders put the number at 70 percent."

Sorry to be so blunt, but if you are a parent of an eight year who has a TV in his room, you sir or madam are an idiot.

No whining, you're an idiot. Shut up.

How to create a thinking child, start with "Toy Book"

There is no lead paint in these toys (unless you add it yourself) and they are all 100% made in the USA (unless you live outside the USA). Steven Caney's Toy Book introduces your child to the world beyond prefabricated 'play modes'. If you don't like the idea of you child becoming a mindless automaton in a consumerist society, show him/her a world of his/her own making.

OK, so I'm being a little dramatic, but I like this book. I'm a designer so I am probably predisposed to the idea that your own imagination is better then the latest Spiderman toy. What is important about this book is that it not only gets some simple yet creative toys into your child's hands, but it also shows them that the world is not made up entirely of preconfigured blocks that have to be consumed as is. This book shows them they can deconstruct the world around them and remake it to suite their imagination.

This book has a series of simple instructions on how to make basic toys. One of the compelling things about these toys is that many are scientific or musical in nature, allowing you child to begin to 'play' with science or music. What a great way to get them interested in learning. The "Water scope" and "Water Lens" are two example of this, if you have a small bucket and some other household items, you can start to learn about optics and maybe demystify the pair of glasses your son or daughter just got.

I was quite excited when I saw this book, and bought it on the spot. I had Steven Caney as a design professor while I attended RISD. He had more impact on me then any other design teacher, he truly taught me to think outside the box. And yet, also how to deal with the practical side of business. After reviewing the book, I can safely say that a lot of Steven is in this book. He has a voracious appetite for invention and you can start to see the glimmer of that mind in this book. Two other great books by Steven Caney: Steven Caney's Invention Book and Steven Caney's Ultimate Building Book.

Free RAW Editor: Raw Therapee

Raw Therapee (THe Experimental RAw Photo Editor) is a treasure for digital photographers who shoot in RAW. It supports many RAW files types from the most popular Digital SLRs, details on supported cameras can be found on their site.

Raw Therapee opens and edits RAW files. Just point it to a directory of RAW files and it will generate thumbnails of RAW files (and JPEG files) from that directory. Double click on a thumbnail to bring it into the main editing window. Now you can make a wide range of modifications:

• White Balance
• Exposure
• Highlight Recovery
• Shadows/Highlights
• Sharpening
• Color Boost
• Color Shift
• Luminance Curve
• Luminance Noise Reduction
• Color Noise Reduction

These are the main options on the right hand side of the screen. On the left is a history panel listing each change you make. This is very handy, it allows you to simply click on an earlier action to see what the image looked like at that stage. And if you want to revert to that point, simply click on that action and continue working.


It is not a great way to manage your photo collection, Picassa does a much better job of that, but it is substantially better at making adjustments to an image. My work flow still starts in Picassa to quickly review my photos. I then delete the hopeless images and pick a few for further editing in Raw Therapee. Once editing is complete in Raw Therapee, I save the photo as a PNG. This is easily done with the "Save Image" in the lower right corner of the application and can be customized in the program options.

My initial response is that it is at least as capable as Photoshop (I have CS2), but probably better for 'developing' and image and certainly a lot faster. But it's not a fair comparison, Photoshop is designed to do more then develop a photo. Raw Therapee is really in the same league as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. I can not speak to how it compares to Aperture because Aperture crashed the first time I used it and I decided I did not need that in a photo editor and ended my evaluation there. I did use Lightroom during a 30 trial and really fell in love with it. I would purchase that Lightroom if it were not so overpriced. It is especially annoying to know that Lightroom was based on a free application.

The million dollar question: how well does Raw Therapee compare to Lightroom? I would prefer to use Lightroom, it has a broader set of tools. But, I use Raw Therapee because of the price. It's free, but a program of so much value, I am glad to give the developers a 'donation'. It is still under development so it might well become a threat to Lightroom.

Raw Therapee is available for Windows and Linux.

Texas Furniture Makers Show - 2007

Last week was the eight annual Texas Furniture Makers Show in Kerrville Texas. Another successful show with strong work and great judges. This year the judges included Charles Kegley, Rex White, and Thomas Moser. Rex White has had work in the show several times and had won numerous awards in the past. Thomas Moser founder of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers is well respected and was really a great choice of a judge. I don’t know anything about Charles Kegley other then that he made for a good judge and was quite affable, yet direct when fielding questions about his decisions.

From left to right: Charles Kegley, Rex White, and Thomas Moser

As always, Jim Derby did a master job of running the show.

Jim Derby at the awards ceremony

I was asked again this year co-lead a continuing education seminar and this year I was with Alton Bowmen and Frank Stazza. It was a round table discussion this year and I think that worked out quite well. I had a number of photos I took at the ICFF this past spring and I had a little slide show of these. Frank did a great demo on handtools.

Frank Strazza’s handtool demo

I thought the judges first place choice for the show was a little odd, but generally I was in agreement with their decisions, including Frank winning second overall for his Jewelry Cabinet.

Frank Strazza - Jewelry Cabinet

This has become a strong show and it is always remarkable how a show limited to state wide entrants can draw such strong work. But then, Texas is a large state.

Jim Derby will start working on the Ninth Annual Texas Furniture Makers Show in short order, I look forward to seeing it!

HTML - Definition List - My New Favorite Thing

It is sad when one gets so excited with such a trivial bit of obscure code. That is what has happened to me… again. This time I stumbled across the Definition List tag. It operates similar to other types of lists, you start with a containing tag <dl> and populate it with a list of items. But, where it differs from ordered and unordered lists is that there are two item types in the list; Definition Term <dt> and Definition Definition (or Data Definition) <dd>. Most all browsers will render the two lines differently, typically indenting the <dd>, like so:

farm

a place to grow food

school

a place to grow knowledge

The code looks like this:

<dl>
<dt>farm</dt>
<dd>a place to grow food</dd>
<dt>school</dt>
<dd>a place to grow knowledge</dd>
</dl>

But, what got me so excited was the prospect of being able to seamlessly style to different types of data in a list. It is when you add CSS to the mix that things get interesting. Rather then showing you what can be done by adding CSS, I encourage you to go give it a whirl.

You might ask how I got this far without having learned anything about this before. That is one of the pitfalls of being self taught, and rather haphazardly self taught at that. I tend to wonder around HTML learning little bits here and there, I took no structured course, just learned what I needed when I needed it. It is a process that works as everything I learn gets puts into action right away and the chaff gets dismissed. But, it also leads to holes in my knowledge of HTML and CSS.