Bill Blevins

Put a Weiner Dog On Your Website

2008-05-01T21:54:00.002-05:00

Two of my friends just launched this site:

http://putaweinerdogonyourwebsite.com/

BillBlevins.com is Launching, Focus on 2.4mR Sailing

2008-04-11T11:36:00.002-05:00

Blogger has worked well over the past year or so, but I'll be starting to record my sailing adventures on my new Norlin Mark III International 2.4 metre sailboats over at BillBlevins.com so click on over and check out that site as it comes together.

FYI - I'll be posting very infrequently on this site, at least for the summer months.

/b

More Schwag

2007-12-19T06:34:00.000-05:00

This month, StartupSchwag sent a t-shirt from imeem and other schwag from TripAdvisor, DocStoc, FeedEachOther, MapGroove, Mikons, ScribbleWiki.

GateHouse Media video commercial

2007-12-04T14:48:00.000-05:00

Startup Schwag

2007-11-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I bit. I signed up with StartUpSchwag.com. Here are this month's sites that sent goodies:

A shirt from Reddit.com. Other sites included in the grab bag: BuzzPal.com, ClutterMe.com, Disqus.com, Fuser.com,
PropertyMaps.com, WeDigTv.com

Maxine, Mar. 2005 - Nov. 2007

2007-11-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

Maxine, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

View photos of our Border Collie, Maxine.

Western New York Fly Fishing

2007-11-09T06:54:00.001-05:00

Little brown trout, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Winter has started to creep in to the Western part of New York and the 'Browns' are thinking about grabbing their last meals before slowing down for the winter in the creeks near Rochester.

We had a our first little flurry of snow yesterday. The temps are dropping too but wearing layers seems to be working just fine as I actually got too hot the last time out - except for my fingers! I have to figure out what to do about gloves. Any suggestions are appreciated. My next approach will be to take several pairs and when the first pair gets wet, switch to dry ones.

The bass boat is getting winterized next week. I may take it out once more to mix up the Stay-bil in the tank before shutting things down for the cold weather.

Tracy just bought me a 8'6" 3 wt. Winston Boron IIx fly rod for my 40th birthday, so I'm now walking the area's freezing creeks hunting for fish.

I might be addicted to fishing.

Special forces

2007-10-17T06:02:00.000-05:00

I watched an episode of "The Unit" last night on CBS.

The first story line involved three members of the Army's secret Rangers unit going into a foreign country to rescue workers at an American embassy that was under fire.

Bullets were hitting the building and breaking out the newspaper-covered windows as the group was exiting to a waiting bus.

The ambassador and some of the workers were not following orders and were very resistant to leaving.

One of "the unit" members was hit by a bullet in the arm in the first scene because of a delay by the ambassador.

After several other embassy workers were killed because they weren't listening to the instruction of the experts there to help them escape, my wife said, "I couldn't do a job like that where the people I was helping didn't want to be saved".

I responded, "It is all in a day's work."

Tracy finishes her first half-marathon

2007-09-16T10:20:00.001-05:00

Tracy finishes her first half-marathon, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Her 2007 Preferred Care Rochester Marathon, Rochester, New York, September 16, 2007 photos are on my flickr.com page

Spindle by Dustin Shuler (1989)

2007-07-16T15:31:00.001-05:00

Spindle 1989 by Dustin Shuler, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Artist Dustin Shuler's "Spindle" located in the parking lot of a Berwyn, IL strip mall in the Western suburbs of Chicago may be removed permanently and replaced by a Walgreens according to a story published by the GateHouse News Service.

“The ‘Spindle’ may or may not be maintained,” said Michael Flight, president of the management company. “The current ownership would have to spend a tremendous amount of money if they relocated it. The current ownership is not sure what they would like to do with it at this point.”

Back in February, I was heading into the western suburbs of Chicago from the city when I saw the sculpture off to my left and I slammed on the brakes, did a u-turn and shot a few photos.

To be replaced by Walgreens. Hrm...

Tracy's old iPhone

2007-07-01T09:48:00.001-05:00

Tracy's old iPhone, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

One of the reasons we waited to get the iPhone is that Tracy runs with a rubber band connecting her old flip-phone and her iPod Shuffle (minus the cap and strap.

Friday night, we each picked up an 8 Gb iPhone. I came home and set mine up immediately. Tracy was afraid to run in a 10K here in Rochester on Saturday morning while carrying the new phone, so we waited to set up her new iPhone.

We connected her phone to iTunes on Saturday morning after the race. Sunday, 10:45 a.m. and we are still waiting for activation. We did get a order number in an email from AT&T. I guess AT&T never had this quantity of people swamp their set-up process before.

Mine is working fine. Calls are clear. The keyboard is getting easier to use with each attempt. The phone is very intuitive to use. The Safari web browser is amazing once you figure out that you can turn it sideways and double-tapping zooms the text.

More updates to follow, I'm sure!

(Oh, yeah, Tracy finished 12th in her age group in the Furry Scurry 10K - her first race!!)

8, 9 & 10 = 8 GB iPhone

2007-06-29T19:54:00.000-05:00

Emily, Tracy and I went to the mall at 4:30 p.m. this afternoon and saw the very long line at the Apple store so we cut through the FYI store to the other side of the mall and found only 7 people in line at AT&T, all waiting for the new iPhone this afternoon. (We were numbers 8, 9 and 10).

At six on the dot, the doors opened. Ten minutes later we walked out with the last three available 8 Gb models at that store. The people behind us were not happy. The store got 10 of each type.

(They were planning to place orders for the rest of the people in line, they said.)

Anyway... now, after owning this thing for 3 hrs, I've got a new phone number, I've surfed the web and read the press release from my company tonight, SMS'd with a vendor, called Tracy (first) and then my Dad, answered a call from Howard, found Pizza in zip code 14450... and I can safely say this thing is amazing.

More to follow I'm sure.

NuHull boat cleaner is simply amazing

2007-06-15T07:27:00.000-05:00

I've been messing with boats for over 17 years. I'll spare you the full story and just say that if you have a boat with stains on the gelcoat, NuHull is the only cleaner you need.

I'm rarely 100% satisfied with anything. This stuff is amazing. Before I could wipe off the spray, the stain had already disappeared.

The cleaner has a slight rotten egg smell and you need to wear a pair of rubber gloves.

I ordered a gallon jug online and used about 15% of it cleaning a stained white hull on a 20 foot boat and the full job took about 30 minutes. Last week, I spent 3 hours trying to clean the hull with other marine and household cleaners, scrubbing while laying on my back getting soaked in the process.

If you order a bottle of NuHull, you won't be disappointed and I bet you won't go back to regular cleaners for your boat.

The instructions also talk about diluting the solution in water and using it for all type of cleaning situations. I'll give that a try at some point and report back on that as well.

One note - rinse your driveway really well if you are on pavement because if not, you'll have a large clean spot underneath the area where you were working.

Oppressively hot

2007-05-22T08:42:00.000-05:00

We finally got packed up and moved out of AL last week. This pic was shot from the front porch at my in-law's house one day when we weren't packing. 98 degrees!!

iGoogle ate my homepage

2007-05-01T07:39:00.000-05:00

My personalized Google home page just reverted to defaults with an old zip code from Birmingham, AL and in the process lost all of my additional tabs, rss feeds, bookmarks, etc. Everything except for my gMail and some old stocks that I used to watch. This was probably 40 regularly used bookmarks and a dozen or so RSS Feeds from bloggers I watch and friends who bookmark using del.icio.us regularly. Not good. I have faith that Google will fix the problem and I'm sure they know what used to be on my page. The logo and new name for the Google personalized homepage changed to iGoogle last night.

Canton Repository Building HDR Photo

2007-04-26T06:15:00.000-05:00

I'm still trying to figure out this HDR photo process. Here is a shot of the front of the Canton Repository in Canton, Ohio. Howard and I drove over for a visit on Tuesday and the light was really nice when we arrived. I had my tripod in the car so I figured I'd try the process where PhotoMatrix combines multiple exposures. Maybe I'm not picking the right scenes to get the extreme effects I see on pics tagged with HDR on Flickr. On the other hand, this is about what the building looked like in real life. The other thing I think will help is a cable release because at these long shutter speeds using a high ISO, I'm sure camera shake is still happening when pushing the shutter release, even on the tripod. Stay tuned...

Rumor has it that there a gold Pulitzer medal, won for coverage of a crime scene a year earlier, embedded in the cornerstone that was placed in 1927 for the Canton Daily News, the first paper to work out of the building.

View from my office window

2007-04-23T11:37:00.000-05:00

I went sailing today

2007-04-21T16:13:00.001-05:00

Went sailing today, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Took my RC Laser out for a sail today on the Erie Canal behind the house here in Fairport, NY. The water is not all the way back to normal summer height, but it has been full enough to sail this winter when there was no ice on the top. Not much wind today.

26.2 miles in London

2007-04-19T04:49:00.000-05:00

My parents are in London so that my dad can run the London Marathon this weekened, continuing his quest to run the world's top 5 marathons.

My dad ran Boston (#5) last year, missing the rainy day there last weekend. London is (#1) this weekend. The Berlin Marathon (#2) is in September and next year, New York (#3) and Chicago (#4).

Good luck!!!

Looks like our house is selling

2007-04-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

We've formalized a contract on our house in Birmingham, AL. The final price is significantly less than we were initially asking, but considering the current market worries and the fact that we are already half-way moved to NY and renting a townhouse for a few more months, we took the offer with few changes. To boot, it's a cash deal closing in 30 days. A doctor and a former Miss Alabama are going to move in later this summer. There will be three doctors and two Miss Alabama winners on our little cul-du-sac now.

Nice car

2007-04-14T20:46:00.000-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

2007-04-12T05:20:00.000-05:00

I was just telling Tracy that she should read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

He died last night.

I met him once. Great writer.

Thumbs-up

2007-04-11T06:58:00.000-05:00

In my 13 years of building sites, I don't think I've ever had the time to keep an eye on details to the point where my site validated "green" according to W3C rules.

Throughout today and tomorrow we are converting 174 of our sites to version 2.0 templates in our CMS and the coding for every single page using the new templates is validates XHTML 1.0 Strict!

Great job Nick, Jonathan and Howard!

One-for-Ten Rule

2007-04-11T06:04:00.000-05:00

I don't think I'm a messy person. In fact, there's this odd behavior where I pick up things found in the wrong place, and when I'm finished, I end up putting whatever it is back in the same wrong place.

My wife has been out of town for ten days, tending to our house that is still for sale in Birmingham, AL and visiting with her parents.

Maxine and I have been buddies in and around the house for the past week-and-a-half. We walked to Fairport several times. We went to the park several times. We climbed a small mountain in a snowstorm to go take pictures on Sunday. We've tracked in dirt, birdseed, snow and what appears to be about a half-bale of straw. As far as I can tell, we've only killed one house plant.

I've accumulated a pile of dirty clothes and two loads of dishes (surprisingly, I did not order pizza one time).

I've figured that it takes me about one day to clean up for ten days left on my own.

Hyper-local

2007-04-11T05:53:00.000-05:00

Uncommonly individualistic.

Everyone else is doing it

2007-04-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

follow SailorBill at http://twitter.com

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging

2007-04-07T13:47:00.001-05:00

I finally bought a tripod this morning and now I have the ability to make multiple images of the same scene. This allows for experimentation with the HDR tools in Photoshop. It seems somewhat weird that my first experiment was of the Kodak building in downtown Rochester, NY which I happened to pass on the way home from the camera store.

Google Desktop for Mac (beta) download available

2007-04-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

You can find the download link for Google Desktop for Mac on the Official Google Mac Blog: Google Desktop for Mac as of this morning. I'm a frequent user of Spotlight, but have not been totally satisfied with it and was eagerly awaiting the Leopard release for OS X to see if it improved, but for now, I'll try Google Desktop.

Carolina Tigers NC AAU baseball team site launches

2007-04-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

I've been helping my sister and brother-in-law put together a site for my nephew's baseball team. He's #2 :)

They have photo photo slide shows and videos from the games and practices.

The site was put together using Plone, a CMS built using Zope and hosted at Interlix.

Using various permission levels, the coaches and managers can update the site (mostly without my help) and the team members can log in to participate in forums hidden from the public view.

Check it out and let me know what you think. And check back to cheer on the Carolina TIgers at carolinatigersbaseball.com!

Bye-bye Podcasts, Hello vLogs

2007-03-27T11:33:00.000-05:00

Yeah, my AppleTV arrived Friday. Well, actually since I wasn't home Friday I had to go and wait at the door of the FedEx office until they opened Saturday morning.

Anyway... I got it hooked up via the device's HDMI port to the TV's component video inputs. Running short on inputs, I had to switch my HDTV to the DVI input because I couldn't play PS3 Tiger Woods Golf 2007 on anything less than the best quality settings.

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

I just told a co-worker that I've already deleted all of my favorite podcasts from iTunes - Slashdot, NPR Tech, podcast411.com (I'm sorry Rob, I'll still listen on my iPod) and started scoping out video blogs.

Rocketboom looks great on the wide-screen though my wife hasn't quite appreciated this yet. (She says it is no wonder their demographic show that only 8% of their audience are female.)

We did agree on Reuters "Odd News" videos, but that one only comes out once a week. I bet that is all about to change.

Apple Airline Adapter, meet my CueCat

2007-03-22T06:46:00.000-05:00

I've been to California twice in the past four weeks. Before the first trip I purchased the new Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter thinking that I'd get some work time in during the flight.

On the first trip out, after being upgraded to what is referred to on United as "first class", I thought I'd be in luck to use my new gadget. Not so. There were plugs under the seat, but none looked anything like the two adapters on the end of my power cord - one looked like a USB port and the other looked like some sort of Ethernet outlet.

Back to reality in the back of the plane for my next three multiple-leg hops across the country, there was not an outlet to be found.

Last night on the flight from Sacramento to Chicago, while reading MacWorld, I saw mention of the Apple Airline power adapter and in the article a small mention of a site called SeatGuru.com where you can do your power outlet research before booking flights. After browsing the two airlines I travel most frequently - Delta and United - I don't expect to be using my new cord any time soon.

I guess I'll keep it in my computer bag for a little while, but soon I'll probably introduce this device to it's new neighbor on my office bookshelf that is filled with gadgets I got that never worked.

MagSafe, meet CueCat. CueCat, meet MagSafe.

2007 Bassmaster Classic

2007-02-27T07:07:00.000-05:00

My mother-in-law called this past weekend to say, "There are a lot of boats on the Lay Lake today". Well, the story is that the 2007 Bassmaster Classic was held on Lay Lake in Shelby County, AL last weekend.

My in-laws have their waterfront house for sale on Lay Lake, so hopefully one of those fisherman noticed the sign out front!

Now, if there were only some sort of sporting event in the northern part of Shelby County where I know of another "for sale" sign!

(The photo is a shot of my mom, sister, my nieces and nephew on my boat where we were getting ready to head out for a ride on Lay Lake last summer.)

The New York Snow Derby

2007-02-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

As published in the newspaper this morning, Rochester, NY has seen 39.9 inches of snow in February, 20 inches higher than the month's norm of 19.4 inches.

74.9 inches of snow have fallen on the Rochester area so far this season which is within a half-inch of the normal to-date totals.

The snow derby compares our two neighboring metros on the East and West of Rochester. So far this season, Buffalo has had 86.3 inches of snow and Syracuse has seen 105.4 inches of snow.

The normal snowfall for Rochester, NY for the entire season is 100.3 inches. More snowfall is in the forecast for tonight.

Let's get going Rochester... We still need another 30 inches in order to reach "Normal". Let's shoot for 50!

Who wants to be just normal?

It will be fine

2007-02-23T05:48:00.001-05:00

People I work with (mostly Howard Owens) have been giving me a lot of grief over the fact that I must have said, "It will be fine" more than a thousand times since December 6. That is the day we turned on the first of (now) more than 160 new community sites.

Ice Man

2007-01-21T22:38:00.001-05:00

Ice Man, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

One lens at a time, I'm rebuilding my camera bag! Here is a shot with my 70-200 f/2.8 that just arrived.

I also noticed that the Flickr to Blogger Beta crops the images, so you'll have to pop over to my photo gallery to see the full frame.

Words of Advice for Small Newspapers

2007-01-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

Steve Outing writes in Editor and Publisher about 10 things that publishers and editors of small newspapers should be doing to keep up with the times and resist the industrywide trend of flat or declining print readership and loss of advertising dollars to new forms of media.

Copy and build from the industry leaders
Don't hire print-focused employees
Hire a hot-dog programmer, one way or another
Find (free or cheap) help and go crazy with experimentation
Make a class assignment.
Join forces with other small papers
Develop lots of localized online communities
Utilize the camera-toting army
Mix up professional and citizen reporting
Play off of what else is available online

If you are quick, you can read the insightful comments on each point from Steve on the E&P site before they put it behind the paid archives wall.

UPDATE: I'm adding Steve's blog link to my blogroll. I've read Steve's columns for a long time but for some odd reason, forgot to check his blog. I did just that today and now I'll be a regular reader.

You can eat cash flow

2006-12-29T04:09:00.000-05:00

If you invest in great people, you have a good chance of making money. In the current market there are gifted entrepreneurs that will benefit and thrive. These people will start disruptive companies that look for what will be hot rather than what is hot. They won't be lumped into the Web 2.0 category; they will define their own categories. This is what will separate the few winners from the many losers. - Todd Dagres

Check out the interview on WSJ.com with David Hornik and Todd Dagres on whether or not Web 2.0 is "another bubble" along with perspective on where we are today.

I really hate my Nikon Coolpix S9

2006-12-28T19:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've given my new Nikon Coolpix S9 digital camera a month of constant use and I've decided that I really don't like it. I've had a lot of cameras over the past 20 years since I first began a career as a photojournalist. A Nikon fan since my first FM (which I still own and it still works), this model doesn't cut it.

Here's a picture shot in "Auto". It was the third in the sequence of six blurry shots.

Sad. That was a funny moment.

(If you have to know, my wife and I traded photos of our Christmas presents instead of the gifts because we were visiting in Alabama and traveling by air. I photographed and gave pictures of the wrapped gifts instead of the unwrapped gifts. After the laughter wore off, I gave her the pictures of the unwrapped presents.)

Here is a photo taken on "Auto" outside at about 3 p.m. in the afternoon. I was standing still. The little sailboat was moving, but not that much!

I'm going to keep the camera because it is very small - my top feature at the time I bought the camera - and based on confidence in my experience, in cases where I absolutely need a good photo, I'm pretty sure that I can adjust the settings and hold still enough to make a usable image. However, I wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone.

When I want a digital image and it counts, I'll stick to my Nikon D200 or my wife's old Canon Elph.

RC Laser sailing in Alabama

2006-12-26T08:39:00.001-05:00

RC Laser sailing in AL, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

I checked my RC Laser on my Delta flight last Friday night and sailed it for the past 3 days on Lay Lake in Alabama. Winds on Saturday were very light, giving me a first chance to get the hang of all of the controls and rigging on the boat.

On Chrismas day, winds were in the low 20's with gusts to 30. The flattened "C" rig did great! The effects of the sail trim seemed more pronounced with the small sail and big wind. What fun!

Now I just have to figure out how NOT to turn the boat into a submarine going downwind in that heavy air!

Wi-Fi Phone for Skype from Belkin

2006-12-22T06:53:00.000-05:00

Mobile phone roaming costs getting to you when you travel?
Here's a Skype phone from Belkin that lets you make free unlimited phone calls over Wi-Fi networks using your Skype account. Purchase the Skype phone at Amazon.com.
The list price is $179.99 but this unit is currently on sale for $159.99.
Comments from customers:

"My ROI is about 6 months so its not so bad."

"...it's cool and I've bragged about it to a few people, which hopefully enhances my reputation as cool phone guy."

"...if you are always on the go, and a wi-fi network is available to where you are going, than this phone is for you!"

"I am in love with this Phone!!"

Related: Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone.

IYP searches gain substantial ground in 06

2006-12-20T07:46:00.000-05:00

I've added Dick Larkin to the list of people that have blogs I'll watch regularly. Actually, Dick has been sending out such a great newsletter, that I have only infrequently visited his blog but have read every word of the newsletter for the past few years, since I published the Star Directory in Fredericksburg, VA.

IYP searches are growing rapidly. Dick's top two rules for advertisers in IYPs:

1. Make sure you are at the top of the list for your primary search terms in your service area. Internet Yellow Pages are linear in nature, meaning that users start at the top and work their way down. They also tend to be much more structured than typical one box search engines.

If you can't afford to be in the top 3 search results, don't waste your money.

2. Users of IYP sites tend to be further along the buying cycle. So a click or an impression on an IYP is inherently more valuable than that of typical web search.

Pay more, get more.

If you are advertising in or selling into a local IYP ("I" for the "Internet" version, not necessarily the "independent" version), visiting the YPCommando blog regularly is a must.

Blog Tag: 5 Things You Don’t Know about Me

2006-12-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

Oh great! Jay Small just blog tagged Howard Owens, Jack Lail and me. Just what I needed after a night of Christmas shopping!!
Here goes...

In the early 90's, I was an "expert" source on several stories published in the Weekly World News.

My iPod has nearly 8000 songs and I actually own almost every CD including all of the titles by Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan.

I was a frequent flyer on the Trump Shuttle.

I've owned a lot of vehicles in my life including 3 jeeps, 2 TranAms, 5 pickups, 1 SUV, 7 cars and as much as I hate to admit it, a minivan.

I programmed my first computer game 25 years ago on a VIC-64 and saved it on a cassette tape drive.

Tag: Melinda Gipson (link to follow shortly), Jason Young and WickedLocalGirl (WLG, I'm emailing this to you so you have to tell us your blog url now :)

Crocs Islander

2006-12-18T06:58:00.001-05:00

Crocs, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

I'm not sure I'd wear my new Crocs Islanders on the wet deck of a boat because they are super-slippery on wet floors and pavement, but man, they are comfortable!

Maiden Voyage

2006-12-17T17:12:00.001-05:00

Maiden Voyage, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Well, I'm a proud owner of both a one design remote control Laser model sailboat (above) that is a quarter-scale of the "real" Laser sailboat I raced 15 years ago AND now an Adventure 14 (pic is the 16 foot version) built by Mad River Canoe.

Here's the short version...

My wife and I drove down to Mendon, NY to check out a kennel where we'll be boarding our dog Maxine this coming weekend over the Christmas break and after the visit we decided to ride around the park directly behind the business. In the park we found a lake called the Hundred Acre Pond.

I had my new remote control Laser model sailboat in the back of the truck and after checking the depth of the water, I decided to give it a quick dunk in the drink. This was the model's first sail.

The wind was blowing steady at about 11 knots. There were few waves. It was barely raining. The temperature was in the mid-50's.

I checked the water depth, then set everything up after choosing the "B" rig and then tested the transmitter and servo, tuned and trimmed everything and set the boat off in the water at the end of the floating boat dock.

Man that boat is fast on a broad reach!!!

The bad news is that she did not respond to any commands from the transmitter at all. She sailed directly across the pond and got hung up in the cattails on the other side. For several hours, we attempted everything including brief contemplation of wading through about 200 yards of muck and brush to get the boat. That wouldn't have worked.

Emergency plan #1 - go rent a canoe for a few hours. We left the boat and headed back into town. The problem with this plan is that it is December in western New York and no canoe rental place is allowed to rent canoes because they don't carry insurance for people in the winter months when usually there is ice and snow all around.

Always have a backup plan. Plan #2 called for us to quickly head home to Fairport and pick up our foul weather gear then drive over to Oak Orchard Canoe and Kayak on the south end of Irondequoit Bay and bought the Adventure 14 and a couple of wooden Loon paddles. A quick stop by West Marine for two PFD's and we were on the way back to the lake.

After about 4 hours of running around and collecting all of the emergency gear and finally paddling for about 20 minutes to get to the sailboat, we retrieved it and headed back to the truck.

Everything and everyone is in one piece, but just like our first "real" sailing adventure on our Alberg 30, Sabrina years ago, we now have a tale to tell about our first remote control sailing experience!

Maxine says, "Are you serious?"

2006-12-08T07:44:00.001-05:00

Are you serious?, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

No, I'm not going to write about every snowflake, but last night was our first measurable snow. In the Village of Fairport, NY we received about 4 inches and they are calling for 2-4 more. Lake effect snow, "they" say.

Popular cameras used with Flickr

2006-11-29T22:15:00.000-05:00

Use the Camera Finder on Flickr to see which cameras are being used to post to the popular photo sharing site. The Nikon D200 is starting to get some traction. The Nikon S9 is really taking off. Christmas season may put it at the top of the Nikon list!

JPG Magazine

2006-11-20T10:22:00.000-05:00

My friend Howard Owens pointed me to Scott Karp's blog which has a link to a $5 off special offer for subscriptions to a print magazine called "JPG".

What? A print magazine? Absolutly. The print edition is the counterpart to the online site at JPMag.com where visitors submit their photography work.

I bit. I now have a tripod and a custom box coming along with the next 24 printed editions.

Yotophoto searches free-to-use photos

2006-11-20T09:38:00.000-05:00

Yotophoto is a search engine for free-to-use stock photographs and images. These are images that are either in the Public Domain or released under generous Creative Commons, GNU FDL or similar licenses.

Originally an experiment to facilitate easier image searching of the Wikipedia, Yotophoto eventually expanded to index other well known free image sites. The index includes over a quarter million free images.

The image index can be searched by color by using a color picker or by entering hex values!

Yahoo! Forms Strategic Partnership with Newspapers

2006-11-20T07:51:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! Inc. today announced a strategic partnership with more than 150 daily U.S. newspapers to deliver search, graphical and classified advertising to consumers.

The partnership begins with recruitment advertising where newspapers will be using and feeding employment classifieds to Yahoo! HotJobs.

In addition, the newspapers plan to work together with Yahoo! to provide search, content, and local applications across the newspapers' Web sites.

Initial participants:
Belo Corp.
Cox Enterprises
Hearst Corporation
Journal Register, Co.
Lee Enterprises
MediaNews Group Interactive
The E.W. Scripps Company

A conference call and Webcast, with participation from Yahoo! executives, will be held at 1:00 p.m. EST today. To access the listen-only conference line, dial 1-866-812-0403.

A live Webcast of the conference call, together with a presentation, can be accessed through the Belo Web site.

Following the conclusion of the conference call and Webcast, a replay will be archived on the websites of Yahoo!, Belo, Journal Register, Lee, Media General and Scripps beginning at 6:15 p.m. EST on November 20 until 11:59 p.m. on November 27.

First snow of the season in Fairport, NY

2006-11-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

Well, this post makes it official... it just started snowing at my house here in Fairport, NY tonight marking the first snow of the season!

Nikon Coolpix S9 Sub-Compact Camera

2006-11-19T21:13:00.000-05:00

I bought a Nikon Coolpix S9 on Friday. I wanted a very small camera to carry in my pocket. Though the camera has impressive features, I'm not sure I'm happy with the purchase. Here are a few notes...

First off, the battery only lasted for about 25 shots. Now, in the spirit of disclosure, this it is a new camera for me and I was playing with the menu features quite a bit. I had fully charged the battery on Saturday morning and was conscious throughout the day that I was trying to conserve the battery for a party that night. There was no indication the battery was going low until the display showed the low battery symbol with about 25% remaining. (I can't imagine why anyone would bother buying a 2 Gb SD card because simply shooting without viewing and editing I couldn't imagine getting off more than 250 shots. The 2 gig card holds over 2500 full shots.)

Second... SD cards formatted in the camera don't work in my card reader that I use for all of my memory cards and plugged into Mac's OS X 10.4.8. Other SD cards (from my Canon Elf and my Canon Elura) do work in the same reader. The Nikon SD formatted card did work when attached directly to the computer inside the camera.

CAN YOU SAY RED EYE? Every single indoor shot had the problem. I don't want to be spending my editing time after every indoor shoot fixing red eyes. I know sub-compacts have this problem and I understand all of the science of why this happens however my old Canon Elf isn't that much larger and it does not have the problem.

Fourth - Even in a well lit room, photographing a friend opening presents from a distance of about 12 feet, the pics were horribly lit. Using no flash, the shutter speed was so slow that everything blurred.

Finally, if you hold the camera with one hand, the surface of the camera is so smooth, you almost pinch it out of your finger grip when pressing the button. Holding it with two hands, you need to be very, very careful to not get your left hand in front of the lens because of where it is located on the top front corner of the camera.

It takes video. On my card, it could record almost 2 hours of video and sound.

There is an option for using it as a digital audio recorder too. You can annotate your photos with a voice caption too. (I did not try that).

Overall, and after one full day of use I am not impressed.

On a positive note, it sure it a compact camera! The menus are easy to understand and adjust. It doesn't have many options, so it isn't hard to understand. One feature I'd like is to be able to reset to "default" every time you turn it off and back on. It seemed easy to set options and then forget they are on or where to go to change them.

My parents just bought the Nikon Coolpix S7 which is about a half-inch larger and noticeably heavier. I may wait to see how their snaps turn out after their trip to France later this week and consider that upgraded model.

Sample video clip:

High Dynamic Range Imaging

2006-11-19T21:08:00.000-05:00

I'm really fascinated by photos on Flickr marked "HDR" which stands for "High Dynamic Range" imaging. I have not spent enough time figuring out how it is done yet, but the photos are wonderful. Wikipedia has an introduction and links to sources for more information. I'll be researching!

Not so fast

2006-11-14T05:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I needed to ship back a gift for repair to the manufacturer that happens to be in Canada. I packed up the gift, printed my label and headed off to the U.S. Post office.

After waiting in line, the nice lady behind the counter apologetically explained that Canada requires labels to be typed in ALL CAPS. Canada also requires a form that explains what is in the box in addition to the shipping form that the U.S. Post Office requires and the third form that U.S. Customs requires (no hazardous materials or food, etc.)

After all of that, I find out that for my $23, it will be delivered to the company in 6-10 weeks. I walked out.

Five minutes later, I walked into UPS (with the same box) and the guy behind the counter typed up the packing slip on the computer from my nice and neat label, then printed it, I signed it, paid my $17 and walked out a few minutes later.

The package will be in the repair shop on Friday afternoon.

Firefox 2 spell-check solves CMS problem

2006-11-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

The new spell check feature in Firefox 2.0 is wonderful! Like Jay Small writes in his blog, this feature has been a welcomed addition to the software from the discussions around our office too.

I noticed yesterday that some of my favorite plug-ins are now being upgraded for the new version. Yeah!

Buy my house II

2006-11-01T07:07:00.000-05:00

Howard Owens, a friend of mine who is much more experienced in this whole social networking and marketing business than I am, told me, "The best way to market your house is to put it in your blog". Here goes...

Please, please, please buy my house in wonderful Birmingham, AL so I can get all of my "stuff" (and Tracy and my dog and my piano) to Fairport, NY.

I'll leave a can of Country Time Lemonade in the cupboard and if you ask nicely, a few white rocking chairs might stay on the porch.

A bag full of digital goodies

2006-11-01T06:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Halloween and I didn't get any candy, but UPS delivered an early birthday package from my wife. The box came from B&H Photo Video and contained a wide-angle Nikon zoom lens. Wow! This gift is now the highest priced item in my arsenal of photo equipment!

My last camera was a Holga and I bought it for $22. I've been told, and I've been repeating, that back in the 1940's Holgas sold for $2 at five and dime stores as toy cameras.

I decided last year I wanted to move up from the plastic camera, and get away from dealing with loading medium format film and dealing with electrical tape in the dark. (The tape is used to stop the light leaks). It was time to go digital.

My digital camera bag is filling up one piece at a time. It now includes:

Nikon D200
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR ED-IF 17-35mm 1:28D lens
Nikon AF ED NIKKOR 50mm 1.8 lens
Nikon SB 800 speedlight (wireless flash)
Nikon MB-D200 Multi Power Battery Pack (vertical grip)

I've been posting photos to flickr.com but I've slowed down a little since I started using Apple's Aperture because I still have two books to finish reading on what I'm doing. Adobe Photoshop and Apple's iPhoto were working just fine before. (The recent photos all look desaturated and flat coming out of the new program).

I'm also recording RAW files, because I heard that is what Sports Illustrated does and figure they know what they are doing. Right? The RAW files on this camera are 15 Mb each, so my little 2 Gb card only holds 120 images at a time now.

I have two more items on my camera wish list. I would like to save up for a Nikon 105 mm f/1.8 micro, a Nikon 400 mm f/2.8 and a Nikon 70-200 mm f/2.8 VR zoom lens. Oops, that was three things!

Now that I think about it, while I'm at it, I may need an extra body to hold one of those new pieces of glass and probably a mono-pod!

Management superpowers

2006-10-30T07:11:00.000-05:00

Sean Michael Kerner writes about Mike Shaver, co-founder of the Mozilla project, who recently presented on the topic of how people contribute to open source projects.

Here are two quotes that could be broadly applied to management in general:

To an employee (sic): "Think about what is the thing that you do best. Whatever it is, that's your X factor, your superpower. Think about how you can you use that."

On being the manager: "I help people match those things up. That's my call to action."

Election day help on 'Earth'

2006-10-29T18:23:00.000-05:00

The Google Earth folks have been preparing for Election day, Nov. 7, by gathering information on every candidate running for office from all 436 congressional districts. If your addicted to "Earth" like me, then you can find the "2006 US Election Guide" folder in the 'Layers' sidebar.

Get Social Around Video

2006-10-29T14:51:00.000-05:00

This week, Bambi Francisco wrote a wealth of information about vendors and sites working in the online video space. She interviews tool providers for connecting video users too. You have to jump back and forth between her MarketWatch column and her personal blog to put the pieces together. I'm not being critical, I realize that posting to the one probably pays more than the other! In the Marketwatch piece she states the takeaway nicely at the end of the article: "The online world is just waiting to get social around video."

RAS heads to Denver in December

2006-10-29T08:50:00.000-05:00

My friend Tim Rasmussen has just announced that after spending four years heading up the photography staff at the South Florida's Sun-Sentinel, he will be heading to Denver. Starting in December, he will lead the photography and visual efforts as the AME of photography for the Denver Post. Tim is a great journalist. It won't take Denver long to appreciate that! I know he will be happy to be out in the 'Wild West' again and I wish him and his family all the best.

Dow Jones sells 6 papers to CNHI

2006-10-29T08:06:00.000-05:00

Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. (CNHI) is buying six newspapers from Dow Jones. Two of the papers are in New York, The Daily Star of Oneonta and the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh.

Those two are just over an hour drive from my house. Chris and Wendy, you better stop by and say hello when you come up this way!

VideoBlog software for OS X

2006-10-28T19:12:00.000-05:00

One morning in late 2003 I walked in to the newsroom at Fredericksburg.com and said, "We need to use this iSight. Do something fun."

Brian Baer and Alex Russell recorded and posted "The Baer Facts" videoblog within hours. They continued on somewhat regularly and invited in guests to comment on sports, features and weather reports. Volunteers from the FUG community, ("FredTalk Users Group") were regulars on the show.

"The Baer Facts" was recorded on most mornings through early 2005. Someone decided that it was too much work and killed the idea. Today, the only remaining evidence I can find are a few videos which include a few classic outtakes.

We hacked together freeware for the recording and taped scripts to the side of the monitor. Just this week I was reminded of that show when I was pointed to a video recording program that would have been perfect.

If you are contemplating a simple videoblog, check out VideoCue 2 from Vara Software. There are two versions and prices. One comes with a full-screen teleprompter.

I'm downloading a copy now. I'll let you know how it goes. Next week I'm going to walk into my office and say, "We need to use this software for something".

Janina Gavankar, 'digital librarian'

2006-10-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

Greg Sterling introduced Ms. Dewey to his readers today. Gavankar acts for a hokey search site that will amuse you for about three searches and according to John Battelle is part of a Microsoft project.

I stumbled upon...

2006-10-28T18:44:00.000-05:00

I was searching the web tonight for "Zope" (something) and I stumbled upon a site called StumbledUpon that records interesting pages that other users have stumbled upon and lets you sort the web accordingly using a browser plugin that works in IE and Firefox. It turns out that a whole lot of other people have also stumbled upon this site because a search result of pages tagged with the word 'zope' gave me back comments from at least 20 other "stumblers".

Magic and illusions

2006-10-28T18:11:00.000-05:00

My friend Chris Muldrow listens to Penn Jillette's podcast regularly and today I stumbled across it (on the bottom right of that site) and decided if Chris thought it was worth 45 minutes of his time, I should give it a try too. I would give it a B+ as "pretty good". Funny, but not too funny. Not too serious, but serious enough and to boot, he had a good guest and they both made a lot of sense.

Now that I'm not traveling and sitting on an airplane as much as I was this past summer, I just don't seem to regularly have 45 minutes for a anything, much less a podcast that requires listening attention for that length of time.

On a somewhat related topic (at least my brain linked them together)...

Here is an illusion from Mark Levinson's site that will waste a few minutes of your day.

How do you manage 7000 songs?

2006-10-28T13:32:00.000-05:00

My iTunes library has over 7000 songs. Sometimes, simply due to the quantity of music and the lack of effort I've put into organizing it, creating a set of music to simply enjoy is a real chore.

The other day, I found a little site called MyStrands.com that has a very neat feature if you sign in and download their application. The "Playlist Builder" takes a song suggestion from you, then it looks at the network of users who are members of their service and compares your library to each of those user's libraries and sends back a suggested playlist. It hooks up to iTunes. If you don't mind sharing your library with the site then you'll love it. One day, I'll figure out what they are trying to do with the social networking part, but for now, the play list feature is enough for me.

This time, I'll follow through

2006-10-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

Over the years, I've started at least a half-dozen blogs but have let them all die the slow and painful death where after 3 weeks of not posting... You know the story. (My favorite was one called "Tactfully Sarcastic" where I seemed to always knock on stupid buzz words that the media industry seemed to be hyping at the time.)

In bursts, I seem to go and avidly post to del.icio.us and/or Flickr. But both of those sites, as great as they are at what they do, lack something. Maybe adding a blog to the mix will create a trio of sites where a bit or piece here or there will be useful to someone. So... I'm going to commit myself in this space to occasionally write about everyday things I run across during the course of a day.

I am in the online publishing business but I won't be writing specifically about my work here. I'm sure you understand.

Here goes...