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Big Update Time
Just so you are forewarned, this post is designed to beat Christian’s latest super-post as far as word count is concerned. Here we go.
Philip, I apologize in advance (he doesn’t like lengthy posts).
Light Painting Update:
As I have mentioned many times before, I went through a dry spell as far as new work was concerned during the time leading up to AP Exams when I spent all my time studying and working on the 840 Poster. Well, as the AP Exams are over and the 840 Poster is slowly coming to an end, I have had time to consider and complete new light painting projects. As this post explains, I went to Harbor Island a few weekends ago and took 28 pictures of downtown and the sights of the city from afar. Since that post, I have edited two more images.
I think the first is good, but not spectacular.
I was getting bored with making realistic pictures of Dowtown over and over again, so I threw the “Fill Light” and “Blacks” sliders in Camera Raw all the way to the right, added a few extra crazy adjustments, and got the second image. I have no idea where the halo came from or I would have gotten rid of it (it’s not from “Clarity”).
After the District Art Show, Kyle W, Philip, Christian, Zack, and I went to Tidelands Park in Coronado to take pictures, and we had great success. Read more here and here. After browsing through my images, I counted 24 that were good enough to edit and eventually narrowed that down to nine.
Here they are:
I kind of like this shot of the Coronado Bridge, even though it didn’t turn out as good as I would have liked (I was using the wrong lens – Christian was using the right one).
With these next two images, I decided to listen to Philip’s advice and make them not as warm as the others. This forced me to approach them from a different angle and I think they turned out very nicely (some of my favorites). Thanks for the advice Philip. (But there is a point where cool (blue) turns into unrealistic (too blue/bad).)
This next one was out of focus and I tried to compensate by adding lots of different effects. I don’t really like it.
The next image is my favorite. I really like the contrast between the bluish background and orange foreground (complementary colors), even though the frame isn’t great.
I tried a lot of new techniques on these pictures, including using the “Threshold” Adjustment Layer for the first time. I also ventured deeper into Camera Raw than ever before and used the “Split Toning” panel for the first time.
I was all ready to post this post after three hours of writing, and then I realized I had forgotten to add vignettes to my new images. I had to go back and fix, re-save, re-upload, and re-add twelve images (it turns out the Dip wasn’t up-to-date too). Argh!
With more free time (now that most of my classes have toned done the workload) I should be able to produce more new work relatively quickly. I continue to get better at using the 5D Mark II as well as my Rebel T1i, which has translated into better pictures than ever before. I remember from the beginning of the year how out of two hundred pictures, maybe ten would be good. Well now maybe one hundred would turn out nicely.
The District Art Show:
As you all read here, Superintendent Collins surprised everyone when he awarded my already 1st place Dip picture (named “Night in the Light” for the Art Show) one of the biggest awards of the night. I was surprised my pictures won anything at all because they printed horribly bright (I had tailored them for the big Epson in the Mac Lab and not the small Epson at Mr. Skocko’s house). The actual print from the Art Show is hanging in my living room, and looks just fine in the dim lighting. I gave the “Navy Lights” picture to Kyle R because he hadn’t gotten a print of it yet.
For me, the greatest feeling of accomplishment in the Mac Lab is seeing something of mine being printed, and so to have had eleven things receive that honor, I feel pretty good about my year so far. Oh, and just to set the record straight, the bigger the print the better!!!!!! At only 20 inches by 13 inches, this image looks like a postage stamp next to this one and this one, which are both 30 by 20 inches. (I want my copy of the District 840 poster to be 44 inches by 70 inches, one square inch for every hour I spent working on it.)
The District 840 Poster:
The third thing I want to give an update on is the District 840 Poster. It is currently on its fourth version, which is two more than it was on when it was submitted and mass-printed. After a marathon Skype video conference and some last-minute tweaking the day before it was due, this is what the poster looked like. We (Kyle W, Philip, Mr. Skocko, and myself) all agreed that the sky was just awful and needed to be replaced, so I added some Photoshop clouds that night, which is version two. At that point, we had no choice but to submit the poster but we vowed to make it better. The poster was mass-printed 11 by 17 inches and distributed around the school and a 44 by 70 inch giant was printed for in front of the office. However, as time went on the sky looked worse and worse, so I began the process of finding somehow to make a new one. I decided to look at old photos and try to find one with an acceptable sky (we realized that the idea of making a sky from scratch in Photoshop proved futile). I turned first to the pictures in this post, and combined the skies from the two images (one, two) in Photoshop. Because the stars in the two images are different sizes, the result had a feeling of depth. I liked this third version, but had to agree with Philip when he said that it looked too peaceful. Also, adding a night sky created a different problem: night means the buildings need lights. Making that happen proved impossible with our current skills, and so I continued my search for an image that could work. I stumbled across this one while going through some old files and knew instantly that it was the one. Unfortunately, two problems arose: first, it was a JPG and second, it was VERY noisy. We had no choice but to live with the first problem, and the wonderful noise reduction features in Camera Raw beautifully solved the second. Instead of trying to add the new sky to the same file with the other two skies, we went all the way back to the beginning, to the version two trips through Camera Raw before this version: the big 1.38GB main file with all the components on their own layers. This made adding the new sky a piece of cake and also allowed some problems with the edges of the buildings to be solved relatively easily. However, this also meant that we had to repeat the Camera Raw steps, but in the end that proved to be a good thing too. After a week of work, Kyle and I managed to get the new fourth version looking much better than its predecessors. A few last-minute fixes made for a truly great poster, but since the Mac Lab is out of paper it will remain solely digital for now.
Looking at all the versions of the 840 Poster side by side, I think that the buildings in the final version need to be darker. That’s an easy fix, but I need to run it by the group first.
Photoshop Update:
Over the past couple of months when I couldn’t go out and take pictures because I was supposed to be focusing on my other classes, I turned to Photoshop. I learned dozens of new skills and have become truly great at using Photoshop. The District 840 poster taught me a lot about image correction and the healing tools, which gave me a new appreciation for a different side of Photoshop.
Also, instead of trying to push my images to the brink of destruction, I have really tried to reign in my enthusiasm and not over-process my images. When reworking the Dip and Cars images, I took special attention to this and ended up decreasing the vibrance on both images quite a lot. This took the edge off the bright and somewhat blinding colors and created two images that were pleasant, not painful, to look at. The main thing I fixed in the Dip image was severe over-processing, and it was only through some creative Camera Raw-ing that I was able to same the image. I experienced a moment of desperation and hopelessness while working on that picture, when I ran out of ideas and felt the pain of failure. Then I reached for the Adjustment Brush and blurred/desaturated/darkened the over-processing away. Miraculous, in my opinion anyway. Just look at the road in these two versions (one and two). See the difference? In this post I called the previous version a masterpiece, and now I feel foolish for doing so. There is a point when too much of a good thing (like Photoshop) can be a very, very bad and very, very destructive thing indeed, and that is something I have been trying to avoid in my latest images.
The new tools in Photoshop CS5, like Content-Aware Fill, the Content-Aware Spot-Healing Brush, Puppet Warp, Lens Correction, and the new blending modes have come in extremely handy and have changed the way I work with my images. The new skills that I have learned through thousands of hours in front of my computer have truly transformed my skills as a digital artist in the past six months. (Example: in three days I was able to capture, edit, and print a District Art Show-worthy picture. Unfortunately, when Mr. Skocko learned he could only submit eight things, he had to cut it, leaving only two of my images in the Art Show) Now I feel like whatever the challenge, I have the skills to overcome it.
Also, I have been using Camera Raw on a scale I would never have imagined before. I was just starting to really appreciate the power of Camera Raw 5 in CS4 when Camera Raw 6 was launched with CS5. The new version has a totally new engine that allows for better edits than ever before. The new noise reduction features may be my favorite, but then again the new lens correction software in the 6.1 update just may be cooler. I never realized just how distorted the images straight out of the camera really were until I tried out this new feature!
I almost forget to talk about the wonderful Adobe Digital Negative file format that I discovered a while ago but only started using with CS5. The Digital Negative format allows for increased compression without data loss (which is great when taking high-quality 30MB pictures) and does away with the old XMP sidecar files that CR2 files had. I especially like how if I start editing an image in Camera Raw but don’t finish, I can save the image directly in Camera Raw as a DNG without loosing any edibility (or the edits I just made). Basically, if it’s a picture and it’s not a PSD or a web-ready JPG, it needs to be a DNG. It’s that simple (in my opinion). DNG’s are smaller, store more information, and are more versatile that CR2′s, so why not use them?
Blog Update:
I haven’t done much to CRDESIGNLAB in the past months except remove all of Kyle R’s work. That means all the Digital Art pages are looking quite empty, which is likely how they will stay for the rest of the year (along with the 3D pages). I have been searching for a new blog theme, but have not found anything intriguing yet.
I think I will hold out on making new tutorials until summer because I don’t see myself as having any time before the end of the year. I plan to make dozens of new tutorials over the summer (on light painting, Photoshop, and photography) in order to build a wonderful student resource for next year. Speaking of next year, I will be a Senior but I will not be taking any Mac Lab classes. Don’t worry though, I will go periods one through five and spend six and seven in the Mac Lab anyway helping students and working on projects. I hope to be a resource next year both through my direct aid and the tutorials on this blog.
By the way, this is the 72nd post on CRDESIGNLAB. That’s a lot of posts. (Other stats: 550 comments, 6,736 hits)
Current Projects:
I am continuing to make final changes to the 840 Poster, but as soon as the Mac Lab gets paper it is ready to print.
Also, I have volunteered to set up fifteen new iMacs for Mrs. Ormsby and the SAGA. I have been working on just one of the computers and plan to build a master disk image that I can then transfer to the others. After some initial difficulties with InDesign, which is the primary program the journalism students use, Mr. Skocko suggested I bring the computer down to the Mac Lab for the setup process instead of working in Mrs. Ormsby’s room. Having access to a reliable internet connection allowed me to download the required updates to make InDesign work, and I was able to complete the installation of all the applications Mrs. Ormsby needs. Now I just need to here back from SAGA on what specific files need to be standardized across all the computers. Hopefully I should be done with the setup and ready to create the image using Carbon Copy Cloner within the coming week. That means that hopefully all fifteen new computers should be up and running and ready to replace the ten year old Macs in room 322 before too long.
Plans for the Rest of the Year:
Well, I have only 2 days left on my trial for CS5, so my plans for the next few weeks must include buying the CS5 Master Collection. Mac Lab Media needs to produce a video advertising next year’s Blood Drive, which I will be very involved in. I need to learn more about Final Cut Studio in preparation for leading Mac Lab Media next year. I need to continue to learn how to use the new audio/video equipment, which will be invaluable for all future video projects. I hope to work with Christian on a stop-motion light painting video, but that might get pushed until summer. The District 840 poster needs to be “finished” and printed for in front of the office. I need to finish setting up Mrs. Ormsby’s new computers. I need to edit my newest light painting pictures and capture new ones. The Mac Lab iDev Team has yet to get off its feet, but I hope that in the next few weeks I can put my iPad to good use and start working my way through the tutorials. And that’s just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head. There’s a lot more, but I think my subconscious is not letting me remember it.
Oh, I almost forgot: Kyle W and I have to assemble the Mac Lab iBook for the Final Exam. That’s going to take a while and teach us more about InDesign than we will ever wanted to know.
Sunday night I will attempt this challenge, which will help me appreciate the skill required to be a photographer before the invention of digital cameras. Plus, getting a free print isn’t bad either. My strategy is to pick four shots and take nine picture of each with different settings hoping to get something good. I will probably work with Kyle W and create some light painting masterpieces the old-fashioned way.
On Monday I have to film a group English project, but because my group didn’t want to step up to Mac Lab standards I am not allowed to use Mac Lab cameras. That’s too bad because I was really hoping to make a phenomenal video, but it looks like I am going to have to settle with what the group want, which isn’t phenomenal.
This year has been much more that I envisioned it to be. My first year in the Mac Lab (as a Freshman) was quite uneventful and, honestly, I expected this year to be the same. When I enrolled in the Mac Lab a year ago, I had no idea that I would have five things on the Wall of Fame (I think it’s five), have eleven beautiful prints hanging in my house, or have stood alongside Danny and Christian and received the ROP Champion of Champions Award (and then that totally unexpected follow-up award from the California Legislature). And as a math and science guy, becoming one of the most decorated recipients at the 24th District Art Show was something that I would never have expected in a thousand years (me, winning art awards, you can’t be serious!!!). This year has been more fun than I could have possibly imagined, and I plan to end it on a high note. I have learned so much about myself and grown so much as a person in the past year that I would not trade my time in the Mac Lab for anything.
And the crazy thing is that something tells me that next year will be even better.
Christian, I cut down the length of this post by over a thousand words because the general consensus seemed to be that I write too much. But at 3014 words this post stills claims the trophy.
The Keyboard and Other Stuff
I just used my Apple Wireless Bluetooth keyboard to type up some history notes on my iPad, and I have to say, Apple knows how to make some smooth technology. I have never typed up anything with less effort and more pleasure. Having such a simple, elegant, and easy to use workstation (just my iPad and keyboard) made even something as boring as history notes fun! I could easily see doing away with my laptop altogether in favor of such a setup. Technology has reached a level where the focus has shifted from function, which has evolved to an adequate level, to form and the user experience. Apple has become a master of this, making their technology not just the most powerful, versatile, and stable but also the most pleasurable, elegant, and simple, which are three traits that the computer industry has seen much too little of. This tiny mobile computer gets better every day.
When I powered on my MacBook Pro yesterday for the first time since the release of the iPad, I felt like I was working on an unfamiliar and slightly obstructive interface. The power and stability of the iPad (and it’s spelling correction) quite simply blow all my other technology out of the water. My dad just came up to me and asked “why aren’t you using your computer,” which was sitting right next to me, and I replied, “because the iPad is cooler.” And it is. It really is. I have apps to access all the content across both my Macs and the three Internet servers I have allocations of, which is such a streamlined feature that I don’t know quite what to say. I can update all three of my WordPress blogs from my WordPress app. I can do basic image corrections with my Photoshop.com Mobile app. I can type up documents and presentations with Keynote and Pages. I can play a host of games that are so well made and responsive that I feel like I am on a computer. I can do everything that my Macs can do on my iPad, so in reality, I see no reason to even have a laptop. I need my iMac for my graphics apps (CS4 and FCS), but everything else I can do from my iPad. That is how the future will look. There will be uber-powerful desktops like my iMac that are for the processor-intensive media applications and then there will be ultra-portable web-based smartbooks like the iPad for everything else. Or at least that’s what all the people whose job it is to research that stuff say.
I meant to just say how great the wireless keyboard worker, but got a little sidetracked. Oh well, I like expressing how I feel on the subject of the iPad.
I downloaded the iPhone/iTouch/iPad SDK yesterday, so I am good to start developing apps, which will be easier than I thought. I have been an official Apple developer for a while, I just haven’t done anything yet because I never had an iPhone or an iTouch, but now that I have an iPad there is no reason I shouldn’t kick this whole app development thing into high gear.
I think I will stop rambling for now. This started out as a really long comment on this week’s post on the Mac Lab blog, but when it got to be essay-length I decided to move it to a new post.
Gosh, where did all the time go! I got so absorbed in writing this that I didn’t check the time. Time to go watch TV.
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I have to say, technology never ceases to amaze me. I just found a WordPress app for the iPad, and it is SOOOOO cool!!!!!! This iPad really is a technological marvel. Man, this is cool! I might as well just sell my laptop, because I am never turning it on again. The iPad has almost completely removed my need for a laptop. I have my iMac for processor-intensive media stuff and my iPad for everything else. Apple killed an entire bread of computers when they released this device. Well, that’s all I have to say for now. I just HAD to try out the WordPress app.
Evolution and the Death of the Computer
Today, the world changed. Well, the technology world anyway. I say this as I look back on the past from the new era of personal computing. I write this from my Apple iPad.
This afternoon, at around 2 pm, my Dad, sister, and I drove to the Fashion Valley shopping mall and walked into an Apple Store. We were there to see the new iPad, just like the hundreds of other people there. My Dad was determined to wait for the 2nd generation model, which will likely be released around Christmas. We left the Apple Store with a piece of the future, and a case to store it in. We were stunned by the simple beauty and elegance of the iPad and the ease with which it emphasized the relationship between man and machine. We paid the $700 because even though there will be a better version in six months, what we experienced with the iPad was so revolutionary, so unprecedented, that it clearly represents a milestone in the evolution of the computer.
Everything about the iPad screams cutting edge. Everything from the lightweight but robust aluminum and glass enclosure to the shockingly responsive multi-touch display and beautifully slick interface represents the future of the computer. Apple has once again found a way to fundamentally alter and improve the way we interact with the digital world.
As all those people who had the honor of trying the iPad before it’s launch said about their own experiences with the iPad, when I walked into the store, I thought, “what would I ever use this thing for?” And yet after just a few hours with this ultra-cool device, I say, “just you try to take it from me!!! I can’t live without it.” I can’t remember the world before it.
One thing I was especially unprepared for was the web. The iPad revolves around the Apps, but the Apps revolve around the web, so the iPad revolves around the web. And it is the web which the iPad does best. Safari is by far the most important of the many thousands of Apps in the Apple library. All I can say is that the future of communication and personal computing is in the web and portable devices that offer a window into the web effectively will dominate the future. The iPad is one of those devices, and the first real mobile computer.
The last thing I want to mention was the last thing my Dad and I tried while setting up the iPad. The Apple Sales Rep said that the standard Apple wireless keyboard would work with the iPad, and so we decided to give it a try. We turned on the Bluetooth, and as my Dad powered on the keyboard, he said, “If this works, it will be the death of the computer.” The keyboard worked, and just the way a keyboard should work. He pushed the iPad’s box and wrappings away and positioned it and the keyboard on the desk. While surveying his new workstation, my Dad said with a smile, “This is the death of the computer.”
The iPad is the death of the home computer as we know it. It is the first computer that lives on and for the internet and in a world where people live through the internet it will overpower and replace the old home computer. It will not replace the powerhouse workstation that is needed to edit videos or run Photoshop, but even Photoshop is going online. The rest of the software world will either follow in Photoshop’s footsteps or be replaced by something that does. The leading technology researchers and analysts have stated that the future is in the web, in cloud computing, in the internet. Apple has accepted this and embraced it. The other computer companies will either follow in Apple’s footsteps, or be replaced by someone who does.
My iPad is amazing. It is the future. It is Apple.
New Tech
So today I walk into the Mac Lab at lunch and what do I see? Three large cardboard boxes. In those boxes are the first of the new 21.5 inch iMacs that will be replacing the old white computers. During lunch, Kyle and I unpacked one of them and right now (during 7th period) I am in the process of transferring the data from my old computer, as I get the honor of receiving the first of the new iMacs. According to the computer, in 35 minutes the data transfer will be complete and the new Mac will be up and running. Everyone who sits at computer #14 is going to have the best computer in the room, at least for a couple days.
I have been working on those 22 pictures that Mr. Skocko was given and have finished about ten of them. I would be working on them right now, expect that my computer is off the network and so I can’t get to the files. Overall, they are good pictures from a content point of view, but are very small and in some cases distorted. I have been trying my best to bring out the best in them, but it has been rough going. Wish me luck.
That’s it for now. Don’t forget to check the “This Is How We Do It” page for the new tutorials I made yesterday.
Reaping In The Benefits
Well, as Christopher mentioned in the previous post, we spent over 8 hours in the Mac Lab last Friday, during our day off from school, cleaning and revamping the lab. Within that 8 hours we not only installed Snow Leopard on all the computers, but we also created an awesome work station, mostly due to the fact that there are two screens to work with. It is powered by an older Power Mac G5 and is connected to two very large displays. Today, being the first day of second semester, we got to work at our new and improved work station. Although it is not our primary computer, it is still quite fun to work at, with the two displays and all.
The only con to the newly set up work station, currently “maclab47,” is that the computer is still running Tiger, Mac OS X v10.4. The only thing preventing us form installing Leopard (Snow Leopard is only supported by an Intel processor) is Pro Tools, with parts that cannot handle the already 3 year old operating system.
After today, the first work day back from the end of first semester, I thought I would try and make a final copy of the “red flower,” something that has been hovering over our heads for days. Using the G5, I created this image, which is featured on this post.
On a different note, I have decided to apply to the Marine Technology Society Summer Internship Program this summer. I believe it would be a great experience and quite interesting. Although I do not have any interest in pursuing either of these fields as a career choice, it will be something worth having under my belt as I enter college and “real” world in just over a year. The best part of applying and being accepted into the program, is that after 6 weeks of work you receive a check for almost $2,000. Not that money is the most important thing in life, but that part will be very nice!
Anyway, enough for now!
8 Hours of Fun in the Mac Lab
Well, yesterday was quite the day. Kyle and I spent eight and a half hours in the Mac Lab, and it wasn’t even a school day. In the last post, I talked about our plans to install Snow Leopard on all the Mac Lab computers, as well as new fonts, and set up a new workstation. We met these goals, and it took us from 8 am to 4:30 pm to do so.
We arrived at school just before 8 am and Mr. Skocko took a break from a teacher meeting to let us into the Lab. The day before, we had updated all the computers, so as soon as we were in, we were ready to go. Kyle and I started with Snow Leopard. It took us the better part of two hours to install it on the 44 remaining computers (we installed it on #8 on Thursday as a test). During the time we spent waiting for the installation to be completed, we took the opportunity to continue our work organizing the lab. We started on the corner where the projector is, and basically tore it apart. By the time it was finished, nothing was left, but two things were added. Those two things are two new computers, maclab46 and maclab47. The first is an old PowerPC G4 that is quite a few years old, but still powerful enough to be useful. It once was the server for most of the Grossmont Union High School District. The second of the two computers is a newer PowerPC G5, which on the exterior looks like a Mac Pro (we opened up the computer to clean it, and found out what it was that way). Both computers are hooked up to very large screens, but I am not sure what the actual measurements are. The G5 has a also has a second screen, which is smaller. The two other computer we found on Thursday, another G4 and another G5, are broken beyond repair and so we sent them to be disposed of by the district. Due to legal issues, we are not allowed to dispose of them ourselves; the district has to do it, as the computers are GUHSD property. We also set up the $2,500 scanner that Mr. Skocko bought, which will be accessible from ANY computer in the room (once we finish the setup).
After the Snow Leopard install was done, we updated the Adobe products on every computer, as well as Perian. We also disabled the automatic login to the admin account. Last, we installed the fonts, but I am not sure exactly how many. These last steps were completed a long time after the Snow Leopard install, because we were so busy setting of the computers and organizing that we didn’t have time until the very end.
By the time it was 4 pm and Skocko was ready to leave, the Mac Lab was a very different-looking place. The corner with the projector (where we spent the majority of our time) is completely different, and very much better. The two new computers are not completely finished being set up, so they are not yet open for business, and are still running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. We will update them to Leopard as soon as we find out if the software they have is compatible with Leopard. Their processors, PowerPC’s, do not work with Snow Leopard. They are more likely just new work stations rather than new high-end work stations, but it is still good to have two new computers in the room, and having two screens is really cool.
Take a look at the before and after images to see what we did for yourself. It doesn’t look like we did a lot, but we really did.
(I had to go back and edit the after image, because the serial number for the CS4 Master Collection was written on that paper!)
The Illusive Snow Leopard and Other Stuff
Today, Kyle and I stayed two hours after school and prepped the Mac Lab for a much-needed update.
It all started three weeks ago, when Kyle offered to organize Mr. Skocko’s cabinet. For extra minutes, he offered to come in during MLSS™ and revamp Mr. Skocko’s organization system. I tagged along. That Saturday, we spent four hours going through the camera cabinet and completely reorganized it. We also vowed to do the same to the adjacent tables and the corner with the projector.
Three weeks later, we have made a small amount of progress, but we have also accepted another task. Tomorrow, we will arrive at the Mac Lab at 8am and install Mac OS X v10.6.2 Snow Leopard on all the computers. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Snow Leopard is the newest and greatest operating system for Mac. Mr. Skocko has the software disks, he just needs to install them. That is where we come in. We will spend many hours updating each computer to the latest and greatest software from Apple.
Back to today. We spent two hours after school installing all the software updates for the current operating system, Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard,which are required before installing Snow Leopard. We also ran a test install to see how long it would take (1 hour 20 minutes). We took all the pen tablets from the computers and packed them in a box for us to organize tomorrow. Also, we took all the headphones from the computers and are going to sort through them as well.
Lastly, we found two Mac Pros and two old G4′s. We plan to set these computers up into a high-end work station with even more professional tools. With any luck, we will be able to salvage parts from the old G4′s to make the newer Mac Pro that is missing a hard drive work. The other Mac Pro works just fine. With any luck, by Monday, there will be an extra high-end station or two for people to work at.
And so, tomorrow we will update the Mac Lab to the latest and greatest operating system from Apple. After that, we will install some extra software including new fonts, which will definitely come in handy. Hopefully, we will also make good progress on our reorganization of the clutter that is literally piled throughout the Lab.
As for my other plans this weekend, I hope to do some more light painting, but without Kyle (he is going to Orange County) it will be less fun. I borrowed two lenses (10-22mm wide-angle and 18-200 telephoto), a remote shutter release, a gorillapod, and a 58mm Circular Polarizing filter from the Mac Lab, and will try to put them to good use. I own a Rebel T1i, so I didn’t need to take a camera, although I was tempted to take a 5D Mark II anyway. Also, I bought a tripod for myself today, so I don’t have to fight with anyone for the only remaining Mac Lab tripod with a mount piece. Last week, I bought the 50GB expansion for Dropbox, so I will have plenty of room to keep my photos updated across five computers.
On another note, we hope to print some of our images tomorrow. Whether or not they will go on the wall or will just be for our own enjoyment is yet to be determined.
Everyone in the Mac Lab should appreciate what we will do tomorrow.
Well, that’s it for now. I don’t have any image for today, as I have spent so much time studying for AP Chemistry, that I haven’t had time to edit anything new.
Analytics and CSS
Last week, I signed this blog up for Google Analytics. The next day, I found out that you need the CSS Styles upgrade in order to access the blog’s code and make Google Analytics work. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a type of coding language used to govern the appearance of the a web page. Basically, it tells the browser what to show, dealing with everything from the fonts to the colors, formatting, and even the background image(s). I had only been briefly aware of CSS before.
Today, I bought the CSS Styles upgrade and have started going through some tutorials on how to write CSS code. So far, it is fairly simple, and the possibilities seem endless, but I have a long ways to go. In a few weeks, I hope to have completely overhauled the blog’s appearance, but I won’t apply the changes until I am completely done, and I certainly won’t be done in time for the presentations next week. Also, I won’t be able to set up Google Analytics until I have made progress on the CSS code. If anyone wants to know how or why, ask me. Wish me luck!!!
What we use…
Here I sit, surrounded by a 12 inch Wacom Cintiq, a 15 inch MacBook Pro, and a 27 inch iMac. Behind me, I have my Canon EOS Rebel T1i, its standard 18-55mm IS lens and the Sigma 70-300mm Marco lens, that I borrowed from school, along with a whole bag of camera accessories and goodies. These are just a few of the tools that my friend and I use in our quest for success. Life is good when you live in a world of technology.
And by the way, just to make it clear, we are Mac people.
