« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
September 22, 2006
Squirrel Photography?
I ran accross this photo on Flickr and thought I would fall off my chair laughing. This guy photographs wildlife and comes up with some really creative stuff.... Click on the photo to learn more about him and his subjects!
Photo: Copyright 2006 Scott Alan Johnson and blogged through flickr.
Posted by Lana at 9:10 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2006
Press Release:
New Photoshop Elements Provides Easy Editing and High Impact Options to Showcase and Share Photos
Adobe’s No. 1 Selling Consumer Photo Editing Software Offers Fun, Creative Possibilities for Consumers to Showcase and Share Photos in Engaging Ways
London. — Sept. 12, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 5.0 software, a major upgrade to the No. 1 selling consumer photo editing software*. Available for Windows®, Photoshop Elements offers new and more flexible ways for consumers to organize files, edit images with ease and share photos in engaging and innovative ways. Adobe Photoshop Elements allows for quick, one-click fixes to photos with the option of exploring more sophisticated editing techniques.
*Source: The NPD Group (April 2002 to April 2006) based on units sold.
snip
Showcase and Share Photos in Entertaining Ways
Photoshop Elements software makes it easy to share photos with themed and customisable layouts, multi-page document options for albums and scrapbooks and over 100 framing choices. With drag-and-drop simplicity, photos can be moved and resized within these flexible layouts. The new Map View allows consumers to drag photos to any location tied to an online satellite map to relive memories based on locations where photos were taken.
snip
Experience Superior Editing
Innovative editing functions give consumers new ways to tackle common photo edits. The new black-and-white conversion tool adds a dramatic and elegant look to photos, instantly converting colour originals to a variety of rich black-and-white photo styles with deep contrast. The new Adjust Color Curves controls allow consumers to achieve the perfect exposure for every image. Photoshop Elements also allows consumers to easily correct camera lens distortion.
For more information, read the full press release at www.adobe.com.
Posted by Lana at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)
Online IQ tests
"Congratulations, Lana!
Your IQ score is 141
This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.
Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results."
____
Hmmm. Well I wonder what the folks at "tickle" are using for a control group. Is it other online users who take the test? Or is it a random group of people that have been tested in a variety of environments....
I think that I blew one or two of the math questions, but who knows? Without ordering a more indepth report, they don't really give you a sense of what questions were not answered correctly. The summary of my "intellectual type" is accurate, though. I am generally far stronger in the linquistics/spatial categories than I am Math. I generally don't put a lot of stock into standardized I.Q. tests because I think that there is so much more to "Intellegence" than being able to answer questions on a form. I'm thinking of people who have little formal education but are able to do amazing things with their lives. I wonder how Peter Jennings would have scored....
Posted by Lana at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2006
September 11, 2006
Lights illuminate the sky above the Pentagon in Arlington, VA on the fifth annversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. I have other shots that were taken from my back yard not far away, but they don't include the view of the U.S. Capitol. Standing there tonight taking these photos brought back some of the feelings from that day in 2001, but I think that five years has allowed time for a lot of healing.
Posted by Lana at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2006
Kathleen Debold, Randi Miller and Suzanne Westenhoefer at the Mautner Project Gala
Each year I am the official photographer for the Mautner Project Annual Gala, which is a huge D.C. event that supports a national health organization for women who partner with women. Kathleen Debold (left) is the Executive Director and she is a true contemporary hero. Many of the women who use the services of Mautner have cancer and do not have the "typical" support services that heterosexual women with supportive families might have. They also face descriminatin in the health care system when partners are denied visitation or the right to make/assist with healthcare decisions. Kathleen gives her heart and soul to this cause, and her tireless efforts have helped thousands. We are graced to have her on this earth.
Another one of my heros in the entertainment world is Actor/Comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer (far right). Suzanne has *always* been out. She has refused to remain in the closet, even though doing so would have surely led to greater career opportunities for her. She is a stitch, and cracks me up every time I hear her. This is about the 4th time that I have photographed her and each time is a blast. Thanks, Suzanne!
Finally, Randi Miller (Center) deserves mention. She is a local DC celebrity after winning DC Metro Transit Authority's "Voice of Metro" contest. Randi is the women who millions of people hear each day say "door opening" or "door closing" as they board trains. In the LGBTQ community, she is known as the "gay voice of metro".... She was pretty funny at last night's event.
Hat's off to these women for being willing to be honest about who they are in public, and for making a huge difference in the lives of many women.
Posted by Lana at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2006
Dancing the Night Away
Two women dancing at the Mautner Project Annual Gala in Wahington, D.C. The annual gala is one of D.C.'s largest annual glbtq festivities for charity, with attendence in the area of 1,600. The Maunter Project is the only National Lesbian health organization and serves to educate lesbians and the health care community about health-related concerns for women who partner with women.
Posted by Lana at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
This looks pretty cool....
Very Early Look at Synthasite’s Ajax Website Builder
South Africa based incuBeta will soon launch a website builder called Synthasite to help people build webpages entirely online. It will include a lot of the functionality of desktop applications like Frontpage and Dreamweaver (think Writely or Zoho Writer v. Word).
Like Sitekreator and Google Page Creator, Synthasite will be an entirely online application. The service, which is in private beta testing, won’t be launching until later in the fall. However, we’ve had a chance to test it.
Synthasite is going to be very popular. Like Sitekreator it has a wide variety of templates to choose from, and the team has a few ideas on how to help site creators integrate with third party web services as well. It has significantly more functionality than Google Page Creator. However, the beta product is only working currently in Internet Explorer (Firefox will be released soon), and we had a lot of trouble with the site repeatedly crashing and closing down. When we persisted, the results were good, though, and we assume that there will be no public launch before the the site is completely, or at least mostly, stable.
We’ll have a detailed review just as soon as it’s available on Firefox (and therefore Mac) and compare/contrast to Sitekreator.
Posted by Lana at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)
September 6, 2006
Why not Washington, D.C. ? ? ? ?
Man-o-man, would this make life easier for the photogprapher on the go or what?!?!Silicon Valley to become one ginormous WiFi hotspot
Filed under: Networking
Silicon Valley can't be shown up by, say, Singapore, now can it? That's why the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force has selected the Silicon Valley Metro Connect, a tech consortium that includes IBM and Cisco to build a giant WiFi network for the region. When built, this massive WiFi hotspot will span 1500 square miles (nearly 3900 sq. km), from the city of South San Francisco to Santa Cruz, a distance of over 60 linear miles (96 km). The plan, for now is to have free access for local residents via advertising, but higher bandwidth applications like VoIP or streaming video would cost extra, reports The Associated Press. No word on how GoogleFi fits into all of this, given that Mountain View is part of this territory. Perhaps Google will use its other stronghold in San Francisco to make a power play for the rest of the Peninsula -- creating one giant battleground of free wireless internet access. Still, WiFi for the SiVi is superfly.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsPosted by Lana at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
MT Upgrade
Since I am so into blogging these days I really should create a category for technology that is other than photographic. Perhaps tomorrow.... I really just wanted to test out the new pluggins in the lastest version of MT. The interface seems a little clunky, but that is probably just because I haven't had time to look around much. My hosting service, Living Dot, is great about doing upgrades as I request them and providing technical support. I had an Ajax WYSIWYG editor installed nd it sticks when one wants to save the post without previewing it first. Not a big deal, but somewhat annoying.
On another note, I am going to miss a special tour of the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow due to a scheduling conflict. Of course I will go through on my own, but getting a special tour affords one the opportunity to discuss the curatorial aspects of this amazing museum with people in the know.... Oh well, perhaps another time.
Posted by Lana at 9:59 PM | Comments (0)
MacRAM
How to install RAM in your Mac (and save big $$$)for those that don't know, here's a quick walkthrough (with video) on how to install third-party RAM inside a Mac.
Posted by Lana at 2:10 AM | Comments (0)