Holga Photography

I love taking pictures and I’ve been taking quite a few digital images, but I do miss film sometimes. One of the fascinating things that I find are the different aspect ratios of different formats. When my 35mm camera and lenses were stolen I couldn’t afford to get set up again, but when I was in Winnipeg I bought a new advanced photo system camera… the film format is smaller, etc. but the camera was a Nikon and it was the aspect ratio that I liked… the native aspect ratio is 16:9 and not 4:3. When black and white film came out for it I shot mainly black and white with it and I like the way it looked. But now I would really like to be using a larger format of film and I like the perverse idea of using a larger format film with a cheap, plastic camera. The Holga is a neat plastic camera that takes 120 film and takes very distinctive looking images. I want to get back into film…

See more progress on: get a Holga and take pictures with it

technorati tags: 43things, photography, holga

AKMA on the Yahoo Flickr Deal

AKMA hits the nail squarely on the head and sums up a lot of things that I've been feeling as he talks about Growing Up. Things have changed a lot around blogging and the web over the last few years and it is a bit sad. I've been remembering all of the other cool things that I've been lucky enough to be around... remember MOOs and MUDs... remember e-mail when you had to know which system people were on... I still have my old black notebook with notes about sites and the numeric addresses of sites and all of the login info for those things. But what AKMA made me realize is that what makes all of this so amazing and wonderful and exciting is not the technology, but the people and the technology is just another way to connect with cool people. It's still happening and will continue to happen.
AKMA also made me remember a time when I was working on a documentary film in New York and we happened to be interviewing someone in the same building where Woody Allen was shooting a film. It was neat to see all of the equipment and people, but what I remember most is how the location manager (or maybe it was someone else) saw our tiny crew carrying all of the equipment in our hands and he said how he missed the days when he worked on films with small crews like that. The web and blogging is kind of like that now... we're growing up and it's changing a bit. It's not really bad or good, it's just different and things are changing.

(Via AKMA’s Random Thoughts.)

technorati tags: flickr, yahoo, akma, history

Holy Flickr!

Caterina confirms on the Flickr Blog that Yahoo Buys Flickr. I had to pause and think about it a bit. I was hoping that they'd stay independent, but with the rapid growth they've been going through I really couldn't see how they would be able to keep going without some sort of change. The slightly strange thing was that I was thinking that Yahoo has been around a long time and they are doing some neat things and are changing and embracing the whole api and sharing thing a lot more. I signed up for Yahoo 360 a few days ago and I was thinking that there is no way that they can have a photo sharing component that will compete with Flickr. Now it all becomes clear and I think that if Yahoo brings the spirit of Flickr into Yahoo 360 it will kick some serious butt. It's exciting and scary and I hope that it turns out well. I think that everyone has learned a lot from other purchases and realize how sensitive communities are when someone else takes over. It's a delicate balance and what is great is that more and more things are becoming easier and cheaper to do. This is probably good news for tagging as well... it's Flickr that really helped me understand how great tagging was. Lets hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
technorati tags: flickr, yahoo

Cory's Life Hacks Live! Notes

More great notes from Cory in Austin. Danny O'Brien and Merlin Mann have great tips for getting organized and you can read the notes from Life Hacks Live! and find out how to be better organized and more prolific as a geek. I can honestly say that the tips from O'Brien and Mann have got me a bit more organized and resulted in me using a notebook a lot more.
(Via Boing Boing.)
technorati tags: etech, notes, hacks, 43folders

Cory's Folksonomy Etech Notes

I'm glad that Cory Doctorow gets to go to things like O'Reilly's Emerging Technology conference and that he takes great notes. It means that I can get a bit of the flavour (well, more of the ideas then the taste) of some of the sessions. His notes on Folksonomy, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mess are from a discussion between Clay Shirky, Stewart Butterfield, Joshua Schachter and Jimmy Wales is fascinating. It brings together key people and ideas from Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Wikipedia and helps you understand all of them and why and how they developed and what they do.
(Via Boing Boing.)
technorati tags: folksonomy, tags, flickr, del.icio.us, wikipedia, etech, corydoctorow

CBC Podcasting

I'm a huge fan of the CBC and listen every day. The only thing that interrupts my listening now as I make the hour long drive to and from work every day are podcasts that I burn onto CD. The CBC started a trial of podcasting some shows and CBC technology pioneer Tod Maffin (who did the ground-breaking Todradio on CBC) who manages to popularize new technology trends on radio and via the web. He's at the centre of our national broadcasters new trial of podcasting and I'm glad to see that Tod reports that CBC's podcasting trial is a hit!. I provided some feedback and it's good to know that people are listening. My biggest request is that the amazing Ideas program be distributed via podcasting as it seems like the serialized flow of thought-provoking audio of that show would be very welcome.
technorati tags: cbc, podcasting, todmaffin

Blink

I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink and I loved it. My review of Blink goes into more detail. Of course I had to take a picture to help link all of my online and offline stuff together. I completed another one of my 43things as well! technorati tags: book, review, blink, malcolmgladwell

Bonne fête Vu d'ici!

One of my newer discoveries is Vu d'Ici which translates into English as "Seen From Here" and I like the perspective that she brings in both words and sounds and music (as well as with her art). Her blog is three years old, so it's time to say Bonne fête Vu d'ici!. One of the things that I miss about Montreal (which I haven't visited for far too long) is the great mix of art, culture, languages and food. I can get my Montreal fix vicariously through m-c as well as discovering all sorts of great music. She recently started doing some of her podcasts in French which provides a very welcome shift from the anglophone flood of podcasts. Happy Birthday and many, many more years of blogging, podcasting and whatever is next m-c!
technorati tags: blog, vudici, podcast, birthday, montreal

Interview with Brent and Sheila Simmons

Designing software requires empathy, and so does writing your website and the documentation and, most importantly, communicating with the people who use your software.

One of my favourite (and constantly running) applications is NetNewsWire which I've bought and never regretted. I'm writing this entry with MarsEdit, which is also from Ranchero. There is a neat interview on DrunkenBlog with Brent and Sheila Simmons where they talk about a small software company, developing software for the Mac and the applications that I love.
technorati tags: software, programming, people, ranchero

Creating Passionate Users: Your brain on multitasking

I multitask a lot and I like to think that it means that I'm able to get more things done in the time that I have available, but sometimes I think that it's not as effective as it could be. Creating Passionate Users: Your brain on multitasking confirms this suspicion. Maybe if I more completely focussed on one thing or at the very least multitasked a bit less, I would get more things done in the time that I have available. Usually I'll have several browser windows open and will jump around, answer an email, blog a bit, look at Flickr and then come back. Then I'll have something left or something that I forgot. I need to focus a bit more and multitask a bit less.
technorati tags: multitasking, working, headfirst

south by southwest music

I really wish that I could be there for the film, interactive or music sections of the South by Southwest Festivals, but I've been spending some time listening to SXSW Songs that the festival has made available as a huge (2.6 GB) Bittorrent download. There is some great music there and I wish that I could go. I've already discovered a band that I hadn't heard of, Bedouin Soundclash, who I've fallen in love with. There are still several hundred songs for me to listen to...
technorati tags: music, festivals, sxsw2005

Moleskine Notebooks

The hot new thing for geeks is paper and more particularly Moleskine notebooks. I’ve bought one and I’ve used it a bit, but haven’t completely embraced it yet. Most of my organizing and writing and scheduling is still done electronically, but I’ve always had a notebook, especially for taking notes for projects that I’m working on, so it’s not a new thing. But reading about how people use thier notebooks made me want to get one, so I’ve started to use it. I also got a new pen. I think that I’m not the only person who loves to buy office supplies as a way to get organized… isn’t that the fun part about the beginning of the school year?
I like the way the Moleskine works as it’s well-designed and fits into my pocket, but I still haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to with it (aside from general notes).

See more progress on: Use my Moleskine to take notes

technorati tags: 43things,, moleskine

quicksilver

I've been using quicksilver for a few weeks now and it's become part of how I use OS X. I didn't really understand what it did until I read a bit more about it and then I started using it more and more. What I love about it is that it's very subtle and understated. The only problem is that I don't think that I'm using it to the full potential. I first found out about Quicksilver from 43 Folders which pointed me to some excellent tutorials by Dan Dickinson that convinced me to try it out. Now I'm still discovering new tricks and it makes me say "wow!" (to myself and not out loud) from time to time.
But what does it do?
It lets you type in a few letters and find a contact, an application or web site and then do something with it. You can send or upload or manipulate files, move things around, pull things from recent copying and pasting or do tons of other things. It sits on top of whatever you are doing and lets you do something else with the minimal interruption. Very cool and subtle.
technorati tags: quicksilver, applications, osx

Tagging Tools

I use tags in most of the blogs that I post to and I very deliberately tag my entries on 43things, del.icio.us, and Flickr. When tagging is built-in it’s fairly easy to do but it’s a bit of a pain to tag things without having it as part of the regular workflow. I really hope that Blogger adds support for tags soon and with Blosxom I just have to figure out a better way to get the tags together. I probably wouldn’t be tagging as much as I am on my blogs without oddiophile’s technorati tag bookmarklet. But other things are a bit more challenging such as this entry which I’m making through 43things, but also posting to my bitdepth digest blog. The goal is tagged in the context of 43things, but it isn’t tagged on Blogger. It would be great if the 43things tags (along with a 43things tag) could be formatted as technorati tags in a similar way to the goals that are added in to the post.
What I do now when writing an entry on 43things that is cross-posted is create the entry on 43things, post it, then open it through Blogger or MarsEdit and then use the bookmarklet to create the tag and add it in. A bit more complicated than I want it to be, but then again, I don’t mind adding html tags manual at times, so I guess that it’s all relative.

See more progress on: Use Technorati tags in my blogs

technorati tags: 43things, tags, folksonomy, tagging