Thursday, August 31, 2006

Make a Bling Ring Out of a Dollar Bill (Plus, the AOL Pictures Beta)

Okay, so one more entry tonight. This one has pictures, in counterpoint to my two previous text-only posts. It's also kind of fun.

Back in December, I blogged about how you can fold a dollar bill into a shirt (complete with collar and sleeves).

You can find the complete instructions on the Money Origami site by Clay Randall; in addition to shirts, you can do a bunch of other designs.

This time around, I focused on rings:

Journals Editor Joe wears origami rings.
They're pretty easy to make once you figure out how big the loop has to be to fit your fingers. Note how a few are a little sloppier than the others.

Journals Editor Jeff suggests calling them "Bling Rings", but I'm not sure -- they aren't really sparkly. Maybe if you use a fifty or a hundy.

With singles, the "one" centers pretty well; I'm not sure how the redesigned bills line up (though they'll still fold the same way, of course).

Journals Editor Joe and his Five Dollar Fist of Fury.
Make me mad, and this is the last thing you'll see -- the Five Dollar Fist of Fury.

Journals Editor Joe and his money rings.
Momma said knock you out.

Like I said, check out the Money Origami site for full instructions on how to make the ring and other cool things.

Next up: Maybe the spider? I'm not sure, it involves five separate bills. We'll have to see about that.

On a photo note, I uploaded the pictures to the AOL Pictures Beta, which is the test site for AOL's social photo sharing service. After uploading the photos to the AOL Pictures Beta, I used the photo's permalink address to put it in my blog.

(I need to talk more in-depth about the AOL Pictures Beta, but I have to use it more first.)

Click on any of the photos above to see how the individual photo pages look (including the tagging), or see all of my public gallery pics (it's only these three pics so far).

Thanks -- Joe

A Really Late (or Really Early) Morning Mix

Here are a few items that I meant to get to this morning. Actually, a few were from yesterday morning or earlier. Does that really matter?

A lot of times, we content programming types worry that a story has gone stale, even if it's only been out for a day (sometimes less). This is because we're always online and watching the news, looking for the next story. No one wants to be seen as covering old news (unless you're doing some in-depth analysis or think piece, which doesn't happen all that much when you're writing for a broad audience). This is especially true because we're really sensitive about the relatively limited inventory of promo space on main screens.

Even in places where I don't have to worry about promo space limitations, like this blog, I still don't want to waste a lot of my own time trying to go in-depth on something that's already been done to death, by people with specialized knowledge or specific insights.

Then again, if I can quickly cover something, why not? If you've already read about it, you can just always just skip ahead, and if you haven't, it's like that NBC summer reruns promo: "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!"

Anyway, that was a longer-than-planned intro for a few quick hits:

* 9,305 Years Wasted Watching YouTube Videos: This was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday -- columnist Lee Gomes "scraped" some publically-available data off the YouTube social video-sharing site and did some number crunching -- in addition to some other figures and anecdotes, he says people have spent a total of 9,305 years watching YouTube videos since it started last year.

That's a heck of a lot of Star Trek/Simpsons-theme theremin/synth mashups right there.

* The Katie Couric Diet Plan? -- Right on the heels of my entry on how photo retouchers alter reality, we find out that a magazine's photo of Katie Couric was digitally altered to make her look slimmer.

* Memo to CNN Anchors About Wireless Mikes: During President Bush's Katrina Anniversary speech on Tuesday, CNN Anchor Kyra Phillips forgot to turn off her wireless mike during a trip to the ladies' room, so you could hear her talking smack about her sister-in-law (among other things).

Many have remarked that the next family reunion should be interesting.

* More Fun at CNN: I actually saw this live earlier today, though I didn't give it much thought at the time -- a link on the CNN.com main page to a story about a speech President Bush gave today read, "Bush 3.0 releases patch for Iraq war."

The phrase "Bush 3.0?" is used as a sub-header in the story, so the headline writer extended the software metaphor with the patch-release thing.

I also note that it looks like the CNN.com folks rolled out a slight redesign of their article pages today.

* Political Sock Puppetry? A City Council member and mayoral candidate in Rochester, Minn. has been anonymously posting extremely complimentary things about himself in the comments area on the Post-Bulletin newspaper's Web site.

If he were identifying himself, this would be a very different story (probably not even a story), but it's a whole 'nother ballgame because he's essentially pretending to be someone else by referring to himself in the third-person.

This last item is from Backstage at Newza da Weird, which is the blog companion to the great News of the Weird newspaper column/Web site done by Chuck Shepherd. It's apparently been around since April, and I want to know why I wasn't informed. Needless to say, it's going into my daily reads list.

Was any of this "new to you"? Let me know what you think of these (or any other) links I feature.

Thanks -- Joe

A Note on the Early Morning Maintenance/Install Window

Hi folks -- as most of you have figured out by now, I'm not a morning person. So, I  rarely experience first-hand a phenomena that some of you early-risers report from time to time: problems accessing or posting to Journals in the early morning hours (like at around 6am ET).

What typically happens is that you'll have a problem with Journals somewhere around 6am; you'll send me a mail reporting the problem; I'll read it at around 10am or so, and when I take a look, Journals will be working fine.

For these kinds of early-morning outages, the most common explanation is that the tech folks were doing maintenance or installs during the install window, which is between the hours of 4am-6am ET.

4am-6am is usually the point of lowest activity for any given US audience -- the West Coast has gone to sleep, and the East Coast hasn't woken up yet, so the least people will be affected if something has to be taken down for maintenance or installs. (Some types of work can be done during the day without affecting anyone, but some things require a scheduled outage. It's kind of like how you can't work on a car engine while it's driving down the road.)

Of course, even if it's the dead of night, an outage will still affect some people -- our International users, as well as those US folks who are up during the maintenance window. It's one of those "greatest good for the greatest amount of people" things and no matter what time you pick, you're going to impact someone, so apologies for those affected.

Now, if the Journals tech team knows that they'll be doing work that's going to cause an outage during the scheduled install window, they're pretty good about letting me know so I can tell you ahead of time.

However, maintenance done on other systems -- rostering, authentication, hamster wheel lubrication, etc. -- may also impact Journals, and a lot of times, we won't find out about those ahead of time. So, again, apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks -- Joe

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Another Free Photo Editing Program, Plus More Photo Editing Tips

When he's not busy helping to launch new sports blogging networks, blogger Jamie (over at Mr. Irrelevant) passed along a tip on another free photo editing program you can try.

It's for Windows users; it does most of your basic photo editing things (cropping, resizing, color correction, redeye reduction, etc.), and of course, it's free (requires a valid e-mail address to activate): PhotoPlus 6

I just downloaded and installed it (19 MB) -- it seems pretty robust. (Did I say it's free?) I will have to play with it some more, but you can try it out and add it to the roster of other free photo editing programs that I've blogged about: Irfanview and Paint.net and GIMP.

Also, I wanted to show you some of the things I do when I have to edit a photo for my blog or the Journals main page.

Now, I just do very basic photo treatments, and try to keep a very light touch. I'm not a photojournalist, but I still don't want to alter reality -- just make sure that it's accurately reflected on-screen.

For example, outside of straight cropping and resizing, if a photo is overexposed or underexposed, or is clearly color-shifted, I can adjust it so the elements of the photo show up more clearly.

However, at some point, you have to make a judgement call: Did lightening the photo change your hair color? Is this person naturally that ruddy, or did the flash make them look more red? Which is why you can't go too crazy with messing with photos -- it opens too many questions.

Here's an example, using myself. This is the original photo --actually, since the original photo straight off my camera was 1600x1200 (which is pretty huge), I cropped it down to a basic, square headshot, and resized it down to 200x200:

Cropped & resized, but it's basically a raw pic of Journals Editor Joe

For this photo I didn't use a flash, since direct flash lighting can be pretty harsh, especially for close shots. As a result, this photo is kind of dark. In fact, you can't see my hair at all, since I'm in front of a dark background.

Since I use Photoshop, I can use the great Shadow/Highlight adjustment tool, which is a one-step tool to lighten dark areas and darken light areas. If you don't have Photoshop, you can adjust Levels, as well as Brightness/Contrast, to get similar effects. (I also tweaked the contrast a bit):

After adjusting the lighting levels a bit.

Again, I'm just a hack photo editor, so that's pretty much all I'm going to do except adjust the color a bit (fluorescent lights tend to make things look greenish, so I took a little green out and added some red. Similarly, using a flash can make things look more red/orange than they really are):

After color correction and sharpening up a little.

Oh, and as a last step: When you resize photos to make them smaller, a lot of times you lose detail (things get fuzzier or blurrier), so I used the Sharpen tool to sharpen things up a bit.

I made an animated gif to show the differences between the three photos:

Animated gif showing the 3 versions.

Now, if I were so inclined (that is, really vain), I could make a lot of other adjustments to the photo to make myself look better. Offhand, they include:
* Using the airbrush to take some of the shine off my forehead.
* Using the clone tool to get rid of some stray hairs.
* Making the whites of my eyes whiter.
* Reducing the bags under my eyes.
And I'm not even a professional photo retoucher -- those people can go absolutely nuts -- check out this portfolio of what a professional can do (roll over the pictures with your mouse to compare the befores and afters).

If you don't have Photoshop or a similar photo editing tool, there are still options: a News.com item today talks about digital cameras that can retouch photos for you -- they can make you look thinner by stretching out the photo, or hide wrinkles and blemishes with soft focus, or make colors in landscapes pop more (see the article's gallery -- it's very instructive).

But let's say I wanted to push the limits of what I could do to retouch my photo. I'm not particularly skilled, but after a variety of adjustment layers, airbrushing and  prodigious use of the clone tool, here's what I came up with:

Okay, you got me: That's Journals Editor Jeff wearing my glasses.

Thanks -- Joe

Monday, August 28, 2006

One Year Ago: Journalers Blogging About Katrina

So here we are a year after Katrina, surrounded by "one year later" headlines, with plenty of photos to remind us of the physical and human devastation that was wrought (in case we'd allowed ourselves to forget).

How much has changed? The rebuilding efforts continue, though there's still plenty of blame and finger-pointing to go around, not to mention a fresh new hurricane season to worry about.

It's important that we not forget what happened; Journals Editor Jeff highlights a bunch of different blogs that help tell the stories of survivors and evacuees. Over in New Orleans: Rebuilding a City, Craig and Paul have been documenting the reconstruction efforts since October. And at The Second Line, Deborah returned to New Orleans to see how the community was rebuilding. [Update: Over at Blogging New Orleans, Mike is doing a posting marathon, blogging 24 New Orleans posts in 24 hours, each talking about a different aspect of the city post-Katrina.]

What I'd like to do here is take a look at what some Journalers were blogging about a year ago, to try to capture the humanity that regular folks, some in the path of Katrina, others not, showed during the hurricane and its aftermath.

I went back to my blog entries from August 26 and August 29 to take a look at a sampling of regular bloggers who were writing about Katrina's path.

Lamare of Journal Happiness: Yep, Still a choice

Last year, Lamare, over at Happiness: Yep, STILL a choice, was posting an update from Louisiana during the storm. (See his subsequent posts, as well.)

This year, he posts an entry looking back, where he remembers his uncle lost during the devastation, and also asks that we not forget the other areas that were affected.

Erica of Journal Southern Comfort

Last year, Erica at Southern Comfort was posting about getting ready to ride things out in Biloxi. A few days later, she blogged the aftermath: about how her house was damaged (but still standing), how entire neighborhoods were flattened, and how she came to realize that the smell in the air was death.

Dawn, over at Dear Diary was one of the many Floridians who had to head to higher ground; she managed to get missed, though this year finds her going "Oh, no, not again!" at Ernesto.

Coy, over at Dancing in the Rain was similarly missed in South Florida, though with a father in New Orleans, was sweating things for a few days. She's also getting ready for Ernesto.

One thing that stands out about the blog entries by the Floridians (including Bill at My Journey, and Berta over at Bert's World) is relief at missing the brunt of the storm, tempered by the deep and prophetic concern they expressed for the people of New Orleans.

Up the Gulf Coast, Steven, over at The Tension was blogging from Mobile; undamaged save for a blackout, he then focused on blogging about the aftermath, news coverage and relief and rescue operations.

Steven's now in DC, blogging primarily military topics over at The Tension (new version).

Jen of Jen's Journal was another Floridian blogging on battery power -- on subsequent days, she and her family packed up food, generators, fuel and more supplies, and headed down to help Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a town that was devastated by Katrina.

All these are just a sampling of what Journalers and bloggers were writing about last year -- regular folks, telling their stories. It's important that we not lose sight of that, and it's one of the reasons why blogs are such a powerful tool.

If you have your own story to share from Katrina, or thoughts about the intervening year, please let us know in the comments.

Thanks -- Joe



Wanted: Your Katrina Followup Stories

Since we're coming up on one year since Katrina (something made all the more vivid since Ernesto is bearing down on Florida right now), I was looking at some of my Katrina entries from this time last year: Hurricane Katrina: Blog Update, 8/29; Storm Stories: Blogging Hurricane Katrina, 8/26.

I want to try to highlight some AOL Journalers who were blogging about Katrina last year, especially those folks who were directly affected, so if you're interested in being featured, please e-mail me at journalseditor@aol.com or leave me a comment with a link to your blog.

If you'd like, you can do a followup entry talking about the intervening year, but you don't have to.

Thanks -- Joe

Weekend Items: Award-Winning and Embarrassing Blogging

Hi folks -- hope you had a good weekend. Here are a few items from over the weekend:

* As you know, there was a big entertainment industry awards show last night. What you may not know is that congratulations are in order for our own blogger John, who brought home a a big award.

I am, of course, talking about the Hugo Awards (not that other awards show).

You can see blogger John onstage with the other winners -- sad to say, he was not the best-dressed, most-glamorous or hottest person on stage, as actress Morena Baccarin was on hand to accept an award for the movie 'Serenity', on behalf of writer/director Joss Whedon.

You can see more photos here, where you can play a fun and really easy game: "Who's Not a Science-Fiction Writer?"

* On the political blogging front, the Washington Post had an item (last item) about Mike McGavick, Republican candidate running for US Senate in the state of Washington, who used his blog to make a couple of personal revelations regarding potentially damaging incidents, including a DUI conviction and an earlier divorce.

Presumably, he did this to pre-empt any potential attacks by his opponent.

It's kind of interesting to see the different reaction to this episode, compared to an earlier attempt in 2000 by Massachusetts Senate Candidate Jack Robinson at a similar pre-emptive revelation, also using the Internet.

Robinson's disclosure was seen as kind of bizarre, though it didn't help that he was also kind of notorious for getting into a car accident while on his cell phone, doing an on-air interview.

While making personal disclosures on a blog is still somewhat out of the ordinary for a politician, it's moving closer to the realm of the expected as candidates and politicians try to get more mileage out of social media.

Thanks -- Joe


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Friday, August 25, 2006

Late Links From Weblogs, Inc.

We get a daily e-mail roundup of interesting blog items from all over the Weblogs, Inc. network of blogs; here are a few tidbits from earlier in the week that
I didn't get a chance to blog about before (when it would have been
useful):

* From Slashfood (they cover food & cooking), we had Weenicello (Hot Dog Infused Vodka). It's pretty much what it sounds like. I IMed this link to a few of my friends, and they universally went "ewwwww", so you know it's gotta be good.

One of them also wondered what would happen if you tried to cook the hot dogs. She's kind of weird that way.

* Over at Luxist (conspicuous consumption), here's an item on how to Wallpaper a Room With Cash.

If you didn't know, you can buy sheets of uncut currency from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (moneyfactory.gov -- what a great domain name).

A while back I'd read a story online (that I can't find, of course) about some guy's wacky uncle (isn't it always a wacky uncle?), who used to buy sheets of uncut currency, make little booklets out of them, and when it was time to pay a cashier, cut off the correct amount with some sort of remark like, "Ooops, forgot to cut this batch."

Pretty expensive way to tell a joke, if you ask me -- right now a sheet of 32 $1 bills sells for $50 (plus shipping).

* Over at Autoblog, they talked about the new, 2007 Land Rover Defender. Sure, I know it's basically a Ford, and I hardly ever (okay, never) go offroad, but I always thought the Defenders were really cool.

* The Wireless Report says that the Smithsonian will deploy free wireless internet access to the National Mall by 2008, which is also neat.

* Finally, another Slashfood item (though it could just as easily have been in Autoblog): How does this sound -- In-car coffee makers?

Fortunately, one's just in a concept car, and the other is a back-seat retrofit some guy did, so don't look for rolling baristas swerving into your lane any time soon.

Thanks -- Joe

Two Musical Obits

Hi folks -- two musical obituaries in the news today. The first I saw in the Style section of the Washington Post: Bruce Gary, drummer for The Knack and the guy on the skins for "My Sharona," died on Tuesday at the age of 55.

The Post article takes a look at the signature sound he created -- it involves surf stomps and  flams.

This next one a jazz-loving hepcat friend of mine tuned me on to: jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson passed away on Wednesday.

In addition to a long big band and jazz career, he also is known for "Gonna Fly Now" (from "Rocky").

Powerline Blog, which more typcially covers conservative commentary on politics and current events, has an item on Ferguson's career, including an embedded video from YouTube:

Maynard Ferguson on YouTube
Click to go to the blog entry with video.

In other news, Journals Editor Jeff has posted this week's Guest Editor's picks in his Pixel Pusher blog (as well as to the AOL Journals main page and to the Journals Message Boards), so stop by and check it out.

Shoot, you might as well subscribe to Jeff's new entry alert while you're at it.

Thanks -- Joe

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Photo Shoot Followup: You and Your Cameras

Hi folks -- in this week's Photo Shoot, I (filling in for the mostly-vacationing blogger John, I asked you all to take a self-portrait that featured you with your camera. Here's how you responded:

Pat's Two Camera Fury

Here, There, and Everywhere showed us some two camera action (above, with captions).

Musings from Mâvarin featured a few variations, including a ghoulish turn.

Ellipsis...Suddenly Carly gave us reflective dragonflies.

Adventures in Park Hopping introduced us to the Jamie Infinity.

In Waiting On The World To Change..., Rachel showed off her pink RAZR.

MyPhotoJourney went underground at Con Agra.

My Day, My Interests PhotoBlog goes negative.

Creativity--Bits and Pieces looked into a blue ball.

Aurora Walking Vacation showed us a tripod, timer and mirror combo.

Waffle and Whinge used some photo editing magic to get the photographer into the camera. (literally)

And, finally, Notebook Arizona wears a pink hat into her blog's first entry.

Thanks to everyone for participating! Go check out the shots, leave some comments and remember -- it's never too late to try a few of your own.

Thanks -- Joe

Newsflash: Planet Pluto Destroyed!

Hi folks -- It's been all over the news today: Planet Pluto is no more.

Before you start panicking, screaming and running around in circles with your hands in the air, it's not because of alien destroyers, a wandering black hole or other cosmic cataclysm -- Pluto has simply been stripped of its status as a planet.

Why? Steroids.

Actually, it's because astronomers have changed the definition of "planet" -- if they hadn't, they would have had to consider giving 3 other big chunks of rock out there in the solar system planet status.

With the loss of Pluto as a planet, that leaves us with the eight "classical" planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Qo'noS and Sneezy.

[Update: I am told that the above is incorrect; Qo'noS is, of course, the Klingon homeworld, and Sneezy is one of the Seven Dwarves, not a Dwarf Planet, which is the categorization under which Pluto now falls. The other two outer planets are Uranus and Neptune. We regret the error.]

Also from the article:
"It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets."
I think it's pretty safe to say that they're not going to turn the thing around.

Now that the solar system is 12.5 percent smaller, we'll have another item for the Beloit College Class of 2027 Mindset List: "There have always been eight planets in the solar system."

Thanks -- Joe

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Quick Wednesday Plugs

Just a few quick blog plugs for today:

* You've got about a week to submit an entry to this Cat Community Cat Show

* The 2,996 Blog Project still needs a few hundred bloggers to help commemorate each of the victims of the September 11th attacks (suggested by Gull and previously featured by Kathi)

* Research & Learn's Environmental Editor, Dan, over at the Down to Earth Blog, wants to see your best nature photos, so send them in.

That's it for today, talk to you later.

Thanks -- Joe

Young People = Don't Know Nothin'

Hi folks -- late August means the college kids are heading back to school, so there's the usual spate of college articles. Such as this Washington Post article from Sunday: 3,000 First-Years, All Searching for a Connection.

Yes, besides all the usual move-in hassles, hovering parents, hauling boxes up steps, meeting the roommate, etc., new frosh and college admins also have to worry about how to get everyone's laptop computer up and running on the dorm-wide wireless network.

It's an interesting article, if only to show that for today's young people, internet access is like oxygen -- they can't imagine life without it.

(When I moved in, I think I had a hot-pot, a clock radio and a mini-fridge. I'd read about interconnected computer networks, but never thought I'd be bothering with one.)

Speaking of new frosh, the Beloit College Class of 2010 Mindset list is out -- it's a tongue-in-cheek guide for professors about what the incoming freshmen, mostly born in 1988, have "always known."

Cherry-picking the list:
  1.       The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.     
  6.      There has always been only one Germany.
16.      DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court.
63.      Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.
67.      Disposable contact lenses have always been available.
There are 75 items in all. It's meant to stimulate discussion, so don't be one of those humorless folks who nitpick what "always" means ("Hey, German unification didn't occur until 1990!").

[Link via fark.com and all the usual social link sharing sites, which means you'll be hearing it on the radio and on the TV news tonight or tomorrow]

For all the stuff that young folks don't know -- or at least, don't "get" (and just because you've seen pictures in books, doesn't mean you know what it was really like to dial a rotary phone) -- there are plenty ofthings that they do know, leaving us fogies in the dust.

For example, the kids entering college now don't know a world where people weren't getting online, but they'll eventually be generation-gapped by the kids who are growing up with social networking and online video sharing sites, etc.

It's always instructive to do the math -- for people growing up in 2006, 1986 is as irrelevant or far away to them as 1966 was to folks in 1986. And so on, and so forth.

If you've got an item that you think should be on this year's list, leave a comment below.

Also, all you kids: Get offa my lawn!

Thanks -- Joe

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Sophie's Story: A Tale of Pet Rescue

Here's a story from a friend and former cow-orker, Kristin, who now works over at MSNBC. She and her husband rescued a dog (a German Shepherd), who was given up by her owners in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The dog, Sophie, had some medical issues, as well as a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress, so Kristin tells her story of getting Sophie on the road to recovery and not biting people. Sheep are involved.

She also talks about animal rescue efforts a year after Katrina, so check out the article.

(I also note how Kristin also uses this article as an opportunity to mention her beloved and now-deceased three-legged cat.)

Thanks -- Joe

Discriminating Camera Buffs Choose...

Hi folks -- here's a quick entry to complement this week's Photo Shoot (My Camera & Me); the Yahoo Shopping Blog has a list of the Top 10 Cameras on Flickr (the social photo sharing site, which Yahoo just happens to own).

You can see the full list of the top 100 cameras here (by model and manufacturer).

[Link via digg -- the digg item points to an intermediary site.]

It's pretty interesting, and a lot different than what I would have imagined. For starters, the list is really top-heavy with more-expensive digital SLRs (big honkin' things that have interchangeable lenses).

I would have expected to see more inexpensive compact point-and-shoot cameras. As some commenters speculate, though, without numbers, it's hard to say what's really going on. With compact cameras, they put out new model numbers every year (or more frequently), so it could spread out the field. Or, some photo editing programs may strip out the camera data. 

Then again it could be that people who buy SLR digital cameras are real serious amateur photographers; the people who are hardcore flickr users, who flock there to commune with other photographers, and to get exposure for their photos.

You know, attention whores.

(Pre-emptive apology: No, I'm not calling all flickr users, or people with digital SLRs attention whores. I guess I just have camera envy.)

Anyway, for those folks who aren't flickr users, the AOL Pictures folks have a social photo site currently in beta; I'm pretty far behind in my list of topics, so I haven't given them a full writeup yet, but if you want to play around, check out the AOL Pictures Beta.

Thanks -- Joe

Monday, August 21, 2006

Your Monday Photo Shoot: My Camera and Me

Monday Photo Shoot

Hi folks -- since blogger
John
is on his well-deserved
vacation
, I'm doing this week's Monday Photo
Shoot.


Since I wasn't so good with the
planning-ahead part of this, I had to come up with a topic and a photo
from around the office (I could have dipped into my already-taken
photos, but that's no fun). Here's what I came up
with:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a photo
that shows you with your camera.
A mirror or other
reflective surface
would probably help
here.

Also, tell us a little about your camera, and
how you use it. (This isn't a sneaky marketing survey,
incidentally.)

I got the idea from a previous entry
where
I talked about my camera.
I won't repeat myself, other than
to say that it's a Canon SD200, and I like that it's the size of a deck
of cards, though I think the small size makes it easier for me to
smudge the lens without realizing it.

I mostly use
it for snapshots, though I like to pretend I'm a real photographer.
Luckily, I have access to Photoshop -- it works wonders and lets me
continue my delusions.

As to why mirror
self-portraits?
A lot of times, when people post pictures of
themselves on blogs or profiles, they grab their camera and take a
picture of themselves in the bedroom or bathroom
mirror.

Since most digital cameras come with
self-timers (including cell phone cameras), I
honestly don't know why people do this. Granted, it may take some
trial-and-error, but self-portraits where you don't see the camera
generally look better. Plus, setting the camera down and using the
self-timer eliminates camera
shake.


So, I thought I would turn it
around -- try to take an interesting shot of you with your camera in a
mirror. (If you're shy, you don't have to show all of your face, but
please do try to include some part of yourself. Um, above the waist
and/or neck, please.)

Since I'm in the office,
finding a big enough mirror was kind of a problem. At first, I tried
taking a shot in the bathroom. Outside of, um, other considerations,
the lighting is pretty bad. Plus, I was trying to take an interesting
photo. Here's the heavily treated outcome:

Camera on Joe
Note
how the weight of the camera is making me cross-eyed.

So, I went around and stole a bunch of freebie mirrors from
my cow-orkers,
and that's what you see there. Since I never miss a chance to post a
photo of myself, four photos (sort of) should be even better,
right?

Anyway, enough of my blather: Take a photo
showing you with your camera, add
the picture to your blog
, then leave a comment here with a
link back to your blog.

And even though it's called
the Monday Photo Shoot, you have pretty much until Thursday to
participate.

Thanks -- Joe

Celebrate the AOL Journals Three Year Anniversary With a Tasty Snack

Hi folks -- hope you had a good weekend. Today, being August 21, 2006, is the official Third Anniversary of AOL Journals, so huzzah, huzzah, huzzah and all that.

Check out Vivian's 3rd Anniversary Journal for a round-up and links to all the Anniversary festivities and activities, including Journaler Andi's chat guestbook from last night; Krissy's blog activity for today; and more.

And even though he didn't tag his entry with the AOL Journals Anniversary tag, I will point out blogger John's Anniversary entry, too.

If you're in the mood for a celebratory treat, why not try a Bacon Snack Bar (via Fark.com). Mmmm mmm, that's good eatin'.


Thanks -- Joe


Friday, August 18, 2006

Journals Editor Joe's Third Anniversary Blog Picks for 8/18/06

Hi folks -- as you can see, I'm doing this week's Editors Blog Picks, but it's going to be short, sweet and straightforward (well, maybe not so short), because it's not about me -- it's about all of you -- specifically, what you're doing to celebrate the AOL Journals Third Anniversary, which happens on Monday, August 21.

As I've been saying all along, the great anniversary activities are coming directly from you folks, so I'm just trying to stay out of the way, provide an anniversary graphic or two, and promote what you're doing as I can.

Now, I'm going to be pointing out six or so of your Journal entries and Journals that you've set up for the Anniversary festivities; I know a lot of you are participating, and I can't link to you all, though if you use the tag, it's an easy way for people to find your Anniversary content. (See how to add the anniversary tag to your blog entries.)

With that said, here are some of the movers and the shakers behind the Third Anniversary:

Dianna, Donna, Betty and Andi of the Journals Anniversary Committee
Pictured here: Dianna, Donna, Betty & Sugar. Or at least, 49-pixel wide slices of them.

* First off, Journaler Vivian is maintaining the 3rd Anniversary - AOL Journals blog, so it's a great place to stop by and see everything that's going on.

(On a side note, I was just looking at Vivian's public Journals list page -- she's got 20 Journals. I'm not sure, but that could be some kind of record.)

* Journaler Sugar has set up a Memorial for the Beloved Pets of J-Land, for people to remember the pets that they've lost over the past 3 years.

* Speaking of loss, Journaler Dianna at Dianna's Mindless Musings has blogged a memorial to Journaler Pamela, who passed away this year.

* Over at It's Raining Photos, Journaler Steven has put up a bunch of anniversary-related albums, using AOL Pictures, Woohoo, Flickr and every other means at his disposal (and also managing to fit in a CSS Float Tutorial and more).

* Donna over at This, That and Hockey is managing a contest to caption the lighthouse graphic that they've put together to celebrate the anniversary.

* Betty of My Day, My Interests Photoblog will be helping to host the Journals Anniversary AOL Chat, Sunday, 8/20 at 8PM ET. (Stevie will be hosting a chat for UK Journalers, also Sunday, 8/20 at 8PM GMT -- this is the same Stevie who did the great J-Land 3-Year Tribute Video, check it out).

That's 6 Journals already (well, 7), and I still haven't even scratched the surface of what's going on:

* As I mentioned previously, Andi of She Said WHAT? will be managing the red carpet on Sunday.

* Krissy of Sometimes I Think has an activity planned for Monday where you do an entry on the theme, "My Past Year in J-Land."

* Shelly over at XX Roxy Mama XX is working on her Memorial Quilt.

And of course, lots and lots of people are posting the outfits they're going to be "wearing" for the gala event on Sunday.

Apologies to anyone I've left out -- as I said, the best way for you to keep up with what's going on with people's Journals for the Anniversary activities is to see Vivian's 3rd Anniversary - AOL Journals blog, and keep tagging your entries so that other people can find them easily.

I have to finish and post this entry, after which I will post the picks to the Journals Main Page and in the Journals Message Board (the new Message Boards are having problems with embedded URLs, though, so keep that in mind) and the Editor's Picks Alert.

As always, please leave a comment in the Journals or blogs that you read. Also, don't forget, if you want your own chance at being a Guest Editor, send me an e-mail at JournalsEditor@aol.com.  (Please include a link to your blog.)

Also, if you have an anniversary activity you're doing, feel free to leave a link in the comments below (be sure you tell Vivian, too).

Have a great weekend.

Thanks -- Joe


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CNN's Tips for Taking Better Photos, Audio & Video

Hi folks -- sorry, working a little slowly today; I'm still digesting what must have been a half a sack of onion rings from lunch. We'll get the Editor's Picks up later this afternoon.

In the meantime, here's a useful article that was linked off the CNN.com main page; they have a citizen journalism thing, CNN Exchange, where they're looking for user-submitted content ("I-Reports"): photos, video and audio.

In their I-Report Toolkit, they have a Tips Section that's a pretty useful summary of how to take to take better photos, video and audio, even if you aren't planning on submitting anything.

It's pretty simple but fundamentally important stuff like:

* Using the Rule of Thirds when composing photos and video shots.

* Avoid complicated backgrounds ("And don't forget to make sure your subject doesn't have anything sticking out of his or her head, like a tree or a utility pole.")

* When editing video, don't go crazy with pans, zooms and dissolves. ("An overuse of dissolves tells viewers that there just wasn't enough material to make the story work.")

* When you're recording audio, wear headphones ("...always wear headphones to make sure you're noticing exactly what your microphone is picking up.")

Like I said, useful stuff, even if you're not trying to be a citizen journalist (which, after all, is just gussied-up storytelling, and we all want to be better storytellers, right?)

Thanks -- Joe

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Journals Anniversary Update

Hi folks -- quick update on the Journals 3-year anniversary activities; I updated the 200x150 promo on the Journals main page (slide 2):

Journals Main Page Promo for the Anniversary

The neat little Anniversary banner on the 200x150 image is something that cow-orker Jason put together for me, so thank him for that.

At 200x150, it's a little too wide to fit cleanly in your All About Me sidebars, but if you want to use it for your own nefarious purposes, here's a blank .gif version that you can grab:

Journals 200x150 Anniversary Burn Graphic
200x150 Anniversary Graphic Burn

It should be transparent, so you graphic tagging folks should be able to layer it onto any 200x150 graphic and add whatever text you want in the blue bar area.

Update: Okay, fine, here's a 135x150 version that should fit in your sidebars without going too far over:

Journals 135x150 Anniversary Burn Graphic
135x150  Anniversary Burn Graphic

Also, I think all you folks involved in the Anniversary activities are going to like tomorrow's Editor's Picks.

Lastly, for blogger John's latest Weekend Assignment ("Funny Guys [and Gals]") we're using a photo courtesy of blog celebrity, CardSquad contributor, Guitar Hero II rocker and big/small screen star Wil Wheaton... and we're using the photo to feature the other dude.

That amuses me.

Thanks -- Joe

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Make Your Wallet Lighter (in a Good Way)

Hi folks -- here's a link that was on Metafilter this morning. It might make your life a little easier -- at the very least, it can make your wallet a little thinner (and not in a bad way).

It involves streamlining the number of buyer discount/loyalty cards that you carry around -- you know, the barcoded cards or keychain tags that you use in stores in order to get the advertised savings.

For example, here are some of mine:

Some of Editor Joe's Discount Cards

Well, there's a fancy-schmancy online tool for taking all of your other discount club cards, and mashing them together into one mega club card -- Just One Club Card.

It's basically a glorified bar-code generator -- you pick the company you want from the drop-down menu, type in the number off your card (it won't validate the number to see if it's valid, but it will check to see that you've got the right number of digits), and when you're done, you can print and laminate the card, and carry one card instead of 8 (4 on front, 4 on back):

Mega Discount Club Card Sample

Pretty nifty. Have I done it yet? Well, no, but I'm lazy.

Now, as usual, if you try this, Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV) -- I can't guarantee, for example,  that this isn't some elaborate scam to collect discount club account numbers (though I can't see how this would be particularly useful to anyone).

As with most things in life, shopper discount/loyalty cards involve a trade-off -- when you use one, you get a discount or gain credits or whatever... in exchange for a little bit of your privacy: Giving the store information about your purchases, so they can better target their advertising or marketing strategies or what have you.

(This assumes that you're not giving them a fake name or address when you sign up. Not that I would ever advocate doing anything like that.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Links I Didn't Get To Today

Hi folks -- been working on other stuff, so just a quick entry on a few interesting links from today, before they go stale:

* News.com has a gallery of pictures that lie -- photos from the media and other sources that were altered (digitally or otherwise) to tell a story that was something other than the full truth.

* The success of video sharing site YouTube (which I note was down for most of the morning and afternoon) has people re-evaluating Current TV (at least, according this story) -- Current TV is VP Al Gore's cable network/Web site that features user-generated content.

(link via Obscurestore.com, which went over to blog format a few months back -- I also note that after an earlier experiment with open commenting that proprietor Jim Romenesko pulled pretty quickly, it's now taking comments -- quietly, and without fanfare.)

* 18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work -- title pretty much says it all.

* Interactive Geography Test: This is a grade three geography test -- can you place the lower 48 states on the map within the time limit? I scored 48 out of 48, though I have to admit, I had to use the process of elimination for some of the square states. Also for Vermont and New Hampshire. And I still mix up Wisconsin and Minnesota. Good thing they don't penalize you for incorrect answers.

Try it and report back how you do.

Those last two links via Digg.

More substantive stuff tomorrow.

Thanks -- Joe

Monday, August 14, 2006

Blogging Anniversaries

Hi folks -- hope you had a good weekend. It being Monday, we are now a week out from the AOL Journals 3-Year Anniversary (August 21, 2003), so expect to see more blog entries (in my, Jeff's and John's blogs), AOL Journals main page promos and maybe even a few mentions on the People Connection main page, all showing off what you folks are doing to highlight the historic date.

The easiest way to see the first entry in any particular Journal is to click "View Archives" in the header, then hit the link "First Entry in This Journal":

First Entry in Your AOL Journal

In my case, my Magic Smoke anniversary entry is May 13, 2005, which makes me a relative newbie among Journalers at just over a year.

However, for those who remember, I also started the Expressions Factory blog, back on July 27, 2004.

Personally, I've had a blog in some form or another since Sept. 2003, though a lot of that was just playing around with testing different blogging platforms -- I didn't really start blogging for real (updating on a regular basis) until January, 2004.

Of course, blogfather John makes blogging noobs of us all; he started blogging September 13, 1998.

I wasn't sure that he wasn't pulling my leg, or that there even were blogs then (though Wikipedia says blogs date back to 1994), but both John's book jackets and Wikipedia entry confirm it. (And you know, no sketchy info has
ever made it into book jackets or Wikipedia.)

So, from now on, in honor of that, and playing off one of his book titles, I will be calling  John "Old Man Scalzi."

Anyway, to bring this all back around to you folks, check out some of the entries tagged with "AOL Journals Anniversary" (find out how to tag your own entries, plus grab the anniversary badge in my earlier entry about the anniversary). Remember, you don't have to have been around since the beginning in order to participate in the festivities.

Also, if you were Journaling in 2003, I'd like to feature some of your photos and blogs -- if you're interested in being featured, send me an e-mail with a photo and I will get back to you with a photo release and all that good stuff.

Thanks -- Joe

Friday, August 11, 2006

Reminder: New Entry Alerts Only Go Out Once Per Entry

Hi folks -- got kind of a non-entry entry here; Editor Jeff and I are each working on some different Journals tutorial/how-to entries for next week. They cover some blogging basics and more advanced features, so please stay tuned for that.

If you have any Journals or blogging topics that you'd like to see us cover, please let us know via comments or e-mail.

There was one thing I wanted to address -- in case it's not 100% clear: Journals New Entry Alerts only go out when you publish your entry the first time.

I'm told there was a period of time where every time you updated your entry, a New Alert went out, but that was a bug, and it was fixed before I even came on the scene.

The first couple of times I got asked this, it was kind of a head-scratcher for me; believe me, if you got an Alert every time I fixed a typo or tweaked an entry after I published it, you'd probably start sending me dead fish or something.

Changes you make in your entries will get picked up in your blog's feed, but they won't trigger a new Alert. I subscribe to my own Alert for testing purposes (it involves subscribing to your New Entry Alert from another screen name and sending yourself the "Send to a Friend" link), so I know of what I speak.

So don't be afraid to edit your existing entries -- you won't be bombarding your readers with new Alerts.

That's about it for this week. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Thanks -- Joe

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Amanda Is Looking for 99 Hot Men

Hi folks -- I was just browsing the Journals Message Boards (as I do regularly -- I don't post as much as I should in there, I'm working on that), when I came across a post from Journaler TrickeyTricky.

Amanda's looking for nominations for 99 hot guys (pictures a plus), as her response to a Top 99 Women of 2006 survey done by AskMen.com.

Check out her blog entry for details -- it's titled (no lie): GET YOUR DROOL RAG READY.

If you've ever got your own blogger participation feature going on, tell people in the Journals Message Boards and drop me and Editor Jeff a line -- we can't feature everything, but we'll take a look.

Thanks -- Joe

Liquid Terror? (Don't Panic!)

Hi folks -- so, as you might guess, the media (both old and new) and the big ole sphere o' blogs are buzzing about today's arrests in Britain, disrupting a terror plot to blow up US-bound airliners.

According to reports, the plotters planned on using liquid explosives in their carry-on luggage, with detonators disguised as common electronic devices (like the ubiquitous iPod).

As a countermeasure, British authorities are not allowing any carry-on luggage, except for barest essentials like passports and wallets, in clear plastic bags.

Here, the TSA has banned liquids and gels (except for essential medicines and baby beverages -- juice, breast milk or formula) from carry-on luggage:

Journals Editor Joe Is Not Holding a Bomb
This is not a bomb component. Or is it?

Now, at first, I was going to play this entry completely straight and serious. I was going to link to blog search results on Technorati (Heathrow and "bomb plot") and Sphere (Airline Plot) so you could see what other bloggers are writing about.

I think the first indication I was starting to lose it was running down the list of banned liquid and gel-like substances, which from news stories and my inferences include:
Bug spray, perfume, hot sauce, souvenir maple syrups, wine, toothpaste, bottled water, shampoo, conditioner, shampoo with conditioner, hair gel, contact lens solution, sunscreen, condiments, lip balm, pomades, clear deodorants, self-tanners, distilled spirits (both brown and clear), body glitter, blood and blood-products, salsa (including picante sauce), pre-treat stain sticks, correction fluid, personal lubricants, milkshakes (even ones that don't bring all the boys to the yard), spreadable butter, tooth bleaching kits and human or animal fat.
Yeah, I'm definitely starting to lose it.

(Random thought: Instead of throwing out all those banned fluids and gel-like substances, maybe they could have a big bin outside the sterile areas -- people on departing flights could drop off stuff, and people on arriving flights could sort through and take what they needed. It'd be like a big take-a-penny/leave-a-penny tray. I hear some people do this with baby strollers in airport lost-and-found offices.)

Folks, I am not making light of the threat of terrorism or the victims of terrorist attacks. It's a very serious thing -- American Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon on 9/11, left from Dulles Airport, which is right down the road from where I sit right now, and you might recall the series of Dulles-to-Heathrow British Airways flights that kept getting cancelled in 2004 because of terrorism fears. I think about it every day when I see the signs to the airport.

However, you have to remember, that as scary as it is, the threat of actually getting killed in a terrorist attack is exceedingly rare, in comparison to mundane, everyday ways of dying -- getting in a car accident, falling in the bathtub, or even getting hit by lightning.

Earlier in the week, BoingBoing had some commentary inspired by a white-paper done for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

In the paper, "A False Sense of Insecurity?" [PDF download] -- which no-one's going to read because it's dry and analytical and annoying because people don't like being told we're irrational about what we're afraid of (even if we are) -- researcher John Mueller argues that the true threat of terrorism lies not in the damage that attacks cause, but the immense overreaction and diversion of resources to combat the perceived threat:
"Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Dpeartment began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts."
To really boil it down, it's a variation of "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Like I said, it's an annoying argument that only economists and risk-management types use, so it never really gets any traction, because people are afraid of whatever it is they're afraid of, and rationality always takes a back seat to emotion with these sorts of things.

For example, I like to think that I'm a pretty rational guy -- during the DC-area sniper shootings, I knew that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting shot by the sniper (and I don't even play the lottery), but you still saw me stutter-stepping through the parking lot.

Anyway, I think the author of the study realizes it's kind of a quixotic cause, so he takes a step back and just asks that every once in a while, we stop to take a look at the actual risks and not run around like chickens with our heads cut off (or Chicken Little, for that matter) when it comes to the threat of terrorism.

For my part, if I don't publish pictures of myself looking as dorky as possible (see above), then the terrorists have won.

If you think I'm completely off-base or whatever, please let me know in the comments or in your own blogs.

Thanks -- Joe


Wednesday, August 9, 2006

When Vacuums Attack! (UnCut Video)

Hi folks -- a comment from Journaler Lori of Lori's Laurels reminded me that I wanted to highlight one of the videos she uploaded to UnCut Video. It shows what loyal dogs do when vacuums attack family members:



You can see all of Lori's posted UnCut videos here.

If you want to embed UnCut videos in your own Journals, it's pretty easy -- on each  video's page, there's a link that says "Snag an embeddable player."

Clicking that link will pop up a window with the video player code -- just copy and paste that code into your own Journal entry -- just make sure you're in HTML editing mode -- the drop-down menu in the editing toolbar says "HTML", not "Text."

(Note that if you click the "Blog this" link on the video's page, it will put a hyperlinked thumbnail picture in a new entry, not an embedded video.)

Journals Editor Jeff will be doing a follow-up tutorial entry on how to embed UnCut Video in your Journal, with step-by-step instructions and pictures, in his Pixel Pusher blog.

As always, when you see a video you like, show your appreciation by leaving a comment and rating.

If you have your own UnCut video that you'd like show off (like Lori's), send me or Editor Jeff an e-mail, or leave a comment with the URL, and we'll take a look.

Thanks -- Joe

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Just Causes? (Or, We've All Got Issues)

Hi folks -- in my Journals
Anniversary badge entry
, I got a comment that pretty much took me to
task
for mentioning a Journals Anniversary feature, the J-Land
Pet Memorial Journal
, but then not also highlighting Our
Beloved Angels
, which is a pet loss support and pet prayer
circle blog.

I don't mind criticism. But it got me
thinking.

I get a lot of requests
to feature people's blogs, every day. Some of them are just regular
people's personal blogs, from folks who just would
like some more visitors.


However, some of
the requests come from folks blogging for a particular cause, agenda or
issue.

There are a lot of causes
out there.

Some are good; others... not so much. I
try not to judge the individual merits of someone's cause, though
I will say that having a clean, coherent, legible, literate and currently-updated
blog will go a long way (and not just with
me).

Causes that folks are passionate about come
from all over the map; some are for special events, like 9/11
Victim Memorial Bloggers.
Others are for ongoing efforts,
like reform
of the San Diego Juvenile Justice
System
.

There are Prayer
Rings
.

There are also people fighting
persecution, solicitations for charities, seekers of missing children,
victims of crime, conspiracy theorists, political crusaders from across
the spectrum, proselytizers for religions big and small, advocates for
every disease and medical condition you could ever think of, and people
laboring against injustice of every stripe.

(We're
all doomed, by the way.)

Oh, and
petitions. Don't forget
petitions.

Now, please don't get me wrong: I'm not
trying to dismiss people, or the causes they're passionate about. And
I'm not trying to paint people with the same brush. People are also
looking for all sorts of different things when they send me their blog
to look at. Some are just looking for a few extra
eyeballs
; other folks are convinced that if they get their
cause out in front of enough people, things will snowball, public
opinion will be mobilized, and wonderful things will
happen.

As a programming person, Lord knows that
I've seen (and I admit it, pitched) more than a few projects -- some of
dubious worth -- that we very earnestly felt would take off if we
just got it in front of a few million people on the
Welcome Screen or something.

The cool thing about
all this Web 2.0 and social media noise is that it isn't all about
using a shotgun, mass audience approach to try and cover as many people
as you can, hoping you hit a fraction of a percent of interested people.


Instead, we have the opportunity, using tools like
search, tagging and, most of all,
finding like-minded people (in blogs, boards, forums
or whatever) and really engaging them to try to
build a constituency for whatever it is we're doing -- promoting a
cause, or just trying to meet a few other cool
people.

Anyway, all that's just a lot of sound and
fury, signifying nothing (or in my case, a long-winded
apologia for why I haven't put your cause blog out
in front of the world, using the awesome powers at my disposal, which,
trust me, aren't all that awesome).

I'll still be
highlighting people's blogs and Journals, and we're always working on
new ways to feature people's blogs. And I promise that if you send me a
blog to look at, I'll look at it -- after all, that's part of my job.
However, I make no guarantees after that.

Just
please keep in mind that, just like there are a lot of sets of eyeballs
out there, there's a lot of content and causes out there, too.


(Heck, maybe we take one day a week and just bundle up the random "promote my blog" requests and put them out there, with
no guarantees of anything. The problem with that,
though, is that the value of doing it could get diluted awful quick.)

Fortunately, there are a lot of different methods
to get your message out, too, and most of them don't depend on some
knuckle-dragging, stick-in-the-mud information gatekeeper like
me.

Thanks --
Joe



Monday, August 7, 2006

Get Bloggy

Hi folks -- sorry, been catching up on a bunch of stuff from over the weekend. Here's a quick hit from Sunday -- a blog-theme (of sorts) from cartoonist Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy:

Sunday, 8/6 Get Fuzzy

See? Even Satchel is getting a blog. Sort of. You have just under 30 days to click through and see the comic.

Thanks -- Joe

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