Today was a draining day for me. The other days before this were draining as far as personal drama goes. None of that happened today, thank God! Today was only draining as far as work goes. I’m under a lot of pressure right now, this time of year. I’m taking it well (sometimes venting to Twitter, hehe!) and at home, I always take some time to de-stress and think and be alone with my mind for a bit before doing anything productive or online. Photography always helps me with stress lately. So, here I am, with another attempt at a portrait pic.

The pic was shot with a Fuji Finepix S2000HD, edited using iPhoto on Mac and PhotoFX iPhone app.

My 365 Project is going well so far. One picture (anything relating to the day or whatever), one short video, and one blog entry. Sometimes, two of any of these keep me in the habit. You can see my progress here: http://chrisw357.tumblr.com/

Speaking of photography, check out the collection of pics I did in the last two days: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisw357/collections/72157623140974758/

If you want to, tell me what you think. Give some criticism, or whatever.

My love of photography, along with my addiction to Dailybooth, led me to download a few photo-enhancing apps from the App Store. I’ll post more comprehensive reviews of these later, but one that impressed me lately is Photoforge. It’s essentially the closest I’ve come to seeing an iPhone app do some semi-convincing, Photoshop-esque editing. I may look around for some more photo-editing apps that do more or less the same thing, but I may stick with this one for a while!

Look for a more complete review soon…

With my Dad’s birthday and Father’s Day both just around the corner in this part of the year, I wanted to take this time to thank him in advance with this blogpost.

I came across this little blast from the past recently: an article on the Timex/Sinclair 1000! This is what my Dad gave me waaaaay back in the day to get me interested in technology. I must have been 9 or 10 years old at the time, since it was manufactured back in 1981. As I sat there, after hooking up the little computer to the TV, holding the manual in my hands, he told me to read that manual and do everything it says, cover-to-cover. I certainly did just that, my young mind soaking it all in and spitting out code for the machine to use. This thing only had 2k of RAM, which back then was certainly do-able for the average kid-user.

I had a lot of fun learning how to program on that little Timex. Little did I know that my Dad had given me the tools to exceed my future high-school classmates when it came to programming and computer knowledge. Even though I didn’t stick with it for long after high school, I still dive into coding when it suits me, because I have the background. I’m also much more computer-literate than the average user because of what Dad helped to instill in me. Even more so, he taught me the value of, not just education in general, but self-learning and discovery.

Thanks, Dad, with love!

I didn’t mention this over the last several months, but my trusty Fuji A350 camera hasn’t been what it should be. Specifically, the video function acquired some nasty recording malfunction. You may recall that I recorded some videos of the house before and shortly after moving into our home. That was probably the last time it was working properly. When recording, it skips frames every couple of seconds. Sure, it still takes great photos and I have been using it mainly for that purpose, but I also like to do videos of the birds and other neat things.

As per the title, this isn’t the first time I’ve had camera trouble. Back in 2005, I had an older model Fuji A303 that crapped out on me right before a vacation. When I took it to Best Buy for an exchange, they said their policy was to try and get it repaired first. Result: I had to endure a two-month wait before the “unrepairable” verdict was made and I could get my exchange, resulting in the A350.

Today, I finally took it to Best Buy to go through the whole process again. I figured that I should have a fully functional camera, especially for our upcoming Germany trip. This time though, the clerk who handled my trouble ticket said the turnaround time from the repair center is now much faster. I’ll be getting a call in about a week or so. Now I’m hoping that I’ll get it back within a good time frame. Better yet, I wouldn’t mind getting something like one of these jems. Although the Casio cameras seem like a win, I might stay with Fuji since I’m so used to the way those cameras handle. If you’ve been clicking on the links in the post, you’ll see what I mean; they get lots of good user reviews, and they’re well-deserved IMHO because I’ve been very happy with the picture and video quality. Anyways, we’ll see what comes of this.

At least I have my cellphone’s camera, which still takes halfway decent pictures, for what it’s worth. Comes in handy when the need arises!

Cheers!

50 Reasons to Switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple’s Mac OS X ~ Chris Pirillo

I highly recommend this article for any Windows user who wonders why more people are switching to the Mac OS. Or is wondering why they themselves should make the switch.

This, by far, is one of the best “switcher” articles I have read lately. The piece is even more grounded than other PC-to-Mac articles for a couple of reasons. One, Chris Pirillo is a noted tech writer and reviewer who has done more than his fair share of working with and troubleshooting the Windows OS. Two, because of this, he has written the article with a completely unbiased standpoint. He’s had the opportunity to slowly slide into the world of the Mac OS over the past year or so and, just recently, he took the plunge and got himself a Mac Pro (the roaring beast of all Macs!).

Enjoy!