For instance, telling the world that you can’t really shoot birds with a camera properly unless you’ve got a lens that costs over a thousand dollars. Or that you won’t really be able to do portrait, let alone landscape photography properly without a tripod.

You know what? Every single one of my landscape photos was taken without a tripod. Somewhere around 90% of those were shot using the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens. Before that, I was using my iPhone. Before that I was using my iPod. Before that, I was using a cellphone. A really cheap cellphone: LG VX5500. Before that, I was using a really old 85mm Canon point and shoot, and had no post-processing software to even speak of.

You know what I need in order to properly take photos?

1. My camera
2. Me

I’ve got both of those things.

I started my youtube channel (albeit not very updated these days) with the sole purpose of helping those who were apprehensive about technology in general, and desktop computers in particular, get a handle on it by showing them how difficult it really isn’t. I can tell you without equivocation, that someone who tries to tell you that you don’t have what it takes in order to pursue what you love, is selling something.  At the very least, they’re selling you on the idea that they have what it takes, and that you don’t.  And that’s bullshit.

“This man is going to you because he sees the worst in you, and he’s going to play for the worst. I wanna see the BEST!” -The Last Castle

“Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want. Go for it.” -10 Things I Hate About You

Featured image by me.

I do like true stories, rather than watching movie after movie and speculating on whether or not anything in it could actually have happened in real life.  One such movie that I recently watched is called Touching The Void

In the mid-80′s two young climbers attempted to reach the summit of Siula Grande in Peru; a feat that had previously been attempted but never achieved. With an extra man looking after base camp, Simon and Joe set off to scale the mount in one long push over several days. The peak is reached, however on the descent Joe falls and breaks his leg. Despite what it means, the two continue with Simon letting Joe out on a rope for 300 meters, then descending to join him and so on. However when Joe goes out over an overhang with no way of climbing back up, Simon makes the decision to cut the rope. Joe falls into a crevasse and Simon, assuming him dead, continues back down. Joe however survives the fall and was lucky to hit a ledge in the crevasse. This is the story of how he got back down.

Yes, they made it to the top just fine.  When they got to what they thought might be the highest peak, they even contemplated on whether or not to go further, because they could see a smaller, yet taller peak right above where they were standing.  Without much deliberation, they decided to push on until they reached the very top of the mountain.  During the descent is where the complication ensued.  One partner ties one end of a rope around his waist with the other end tied around the other guy’s waist.  And he starts lowering him down the mountain over the snow and ice.  All this was happening during a white-out blizzard.  Joe, the man being lowered down, ended up sliding down the side of the mountain, moving so far and so fast that his friend Simon couldn’t hear him screaming for him to stop lowering him down.  Joe had broken his leg very badly.  It was his shin bone had actually been shoved up through his knee bone.  Just typing that out and picturing it in my head makes me cringe.  Joe had slid so far, that his body was just hanging helplessly over a ledge on the mountain, so far away from his friend, that Simon couldn’t even hear him screaming.  The windchill very low, you’re both out there ultimately freezing to death.  Simon didn’t know how far Joe was off the ground or anything.  It’s either cut the cord and save one of you or you’re both going to die, if Joe’s not dead already.  He waited for at least an hour and a half in the freezing cold, thinking they were both going to die before he decided that he didn’t have a choice but to do something about it.  So, Simon cut the cord.

His friend Joe fell into this deep crevice, almost two hundred feet below.  There was no way Simon could’ve known how high up Joe was from the ground.  He only knew that he had to do something, because you can’t hold on to that much weight for that long.  Either you’re both going to fall, or you’re going to freeze to death while trying to keep stationary, whichever comes first.

Joe ended up at the bottom of a cave of ice and snow.  He started pulling on the rope, thinking that it was actually going to get tight again with his friend Simon on the other end.  He kept pulling and pulling until finally the other end of the rope fell inside the cave with him.  He picked it up and realized that it had been cut.  And his first thought was that he was glad, because it meant that Simon was still alive.  So, there he is at the bottom of this cave, with a very badly broken leg, no food, no water, no one to help him get out of there.  Meanwhile, Simon climbs back down the rest of the mountain so he can get back to base camp and get warm again so that he doesn’t die of hypothermia.  He’d already gotten frost bite really bad from holding onto that rope with his hands for as long as he did.

That feeling of being very alone starts to set in for Joe.  I don’t think they really sugar coated any of this for entertainment’s sake.  In the movie, they cut from him down in the cave screaming, to back at the top, outside the cave, where you can hear absolutely nothing but the wind blowing.  Not only are there no other humans anywhere near this place, there is no wildlife out there climbing this mountain, either.  Once he gets out of the cave, he’s still got to climb down the mountain and back to the base camp.  The shocking thing is, he actually did it.  He crawled and crawled.  For a little bit of the journey back, he was using something that looks like metal spike tool that they use to hook into the side of mountains, as a crutch.  It’s only maybe a one to two feet long.  Trying to lean on one of those things in a bed of rocks with a broken leg…I don’t know how he did it.

He ends up lying in the snow, in the dark, alone, and thinking that he was going to die.  I’ve been in places where I felt completely alone, but I’ve never been in the place where I was all alone and thinking, “This is where I’m going to die.”  He said that, out of nowhere, this song popped in his head.

And, I’d have to agree with Joe. That is quite an annoying song and I’d want to do just about anything I could to get that music out of my head for the rest of my life!  He commented and said that he didn’t even like Boney M.  But, he was able to push on a little bit further and get to a point to where he could scream and someone else could actually hear him.  Their friend Richard is the one who finally heard him screaming and thought that there was no way that was Joe.  To them, Joe was most definitely dead at that point.  But, it was Joe.  Richard and Simon both went outside the tent to see if they could hear more of the screaming to see where it was coming from.

As soon as they got to where Joe was, Simon dropped to his knees and put his arm around him, hugging him and trying to warm him up a bit, before they both picked him up and carried him back into the tent.  The first thing that Joe said to Simon when they got him in the tent was that he would’ve done the same thing, had he been in Simon’s position back on that mountain. And, I think that’s important. If you’ve been in a situation where someone had to or maybe even accidentally did something harsh like that, and you were on the receiving end, it’s important to let them know right away that you hold no ill will towards them in any way. You don’t want them walking around thinking that you hate them, especially when you’re the best of friends. Simon did what he had to do, Joe understood that completely, and it was important to let Simon know that as soon as he was able to do so.

I remember Simon grabbing my shoulders and holding me. I remember that. That feeling of being held.

I thought of my friend, Cleta, at the end of this movie. If you don’t know Cleta, two things about her you should know:  She loves music and she loves hugs and thinks they’re part of the lifeblood of civilization.  And I think we can all appreciate how someone might feel when they receive a hug from another human being after being through, quite possibly, the hardest experience in their life, or how a piece of music (even music that you can’t even stand) can play a small role and be somewhat responsible for what saved a person’s life.

Playstation 3 Controller

In Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion, there’s no need to download drivers for a Playstation 3 bluetooth controller to work.  Support comes built in to the operating system by default.  The only reason you would have to go and download something like Gamepad Companion is if the game you’re trying to play doesn’t natively support a game pad in the first place.  Feral Interactive recently released Tomb Raider: Underworld through the Mac app store, and I found out that my PS 3 controller worked right out of the box.  Seriously, the hardest part for me was having to locate the USB cable so that I could pair it via Bluetooth and then unplug it.  There’s nothing to download, no drivers or other software that you need, etc.  It just worked.  After I found that out, I decided to break out my CD of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, since they still haven’t released that one in the Mac app store yet, and give that a try.  Gamepads are also supported in that game without needing anything extra.

I would really like my controller to work in something like Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, or Call of Duty.  But, I really don’t want to have to go purchase Gamepad Companion and start mapping out keyboard keys and trackpad movements to my PS 3 controller.  Game developers should just follow in Ferral’s footsteps and start building support for gamepads right into their games to begin with.  Even for a keyboard cowboy like myself, the keyboard configuration for some games just never seems to cut it.

Why, you might ask?  I’m a different sort of keyboard/trackpad kinda guy.  I’m left handed, for one thing.  So, controlling the trackpad with my right hand has never been my thing.  Even when I had a mouse on the desktop, I was always switching it over to the left side of the desktop because it was just easier for me that way.  Asking me to do it the other way around is like trying to get me to be right handed.  Did you know that can have psychological damage on a kid during developmental stages if their teachers are trying to get them to use their right hand instead of their left just so they can conform them to the rest of the class?  Anyway!  So, the default configuration for controls for most games has you using the A,S,W, and D keys to move left, back, forward, and right?  Well, that’s all well and good if you’re not also trying to shoot people while you’re moving forward.  I use the trackpad to shoot and the arrow keys down at the bottom right hand side of the keyboard to move around.  That’s right!  Trackpad on the left side, keyboard on the right.  And all the other keys on the right side of the keyboard, like the right shift, the period key, comma, backslash, and forward slash are all used for other actions in the game.

The only time this configuration gets complicated, is when I’m playing something like Tomb Raider and I’ve absolutely got to be using the “roll” maneuver in order to dodge an enemy’s attacks.  It’s not easy when I’ve got my right hand in the regular home position so that I can keep hitting that “K” key in order to kick them.  This kind of control is much easier for me with the PS 3 controller.  I picked that baby up and turned on the game and was kickin so much ass…I just had to see if it would work with Anniversary.  And it did!  It’s not like I really needed it for Anniversary though, as there is no kicking in that game.  But still, it was nice to be able to hold that old controller in my hands and start kicking some tail like back in the day.

I guess I’ve always been a gamer at heart.  I wish Ubisoft would get with the program and release at least one update for Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood on the Mac to add native gamepad support.  Not like I really need it in those games, either.  But it would still be nice to be able to play those games with the controller as well.  Plus, I like using the joystick to look around and view the landscape in these games.  I like doing that little trick where I just move that joystick to the left or to the right just a  hair and have the camera automatically pan around without me having to do anything.  You can’t really get that kind of camera view with a trackpad.  There is no, “Hey, hold your finger here and the camera will pan around so you can look at everything” trick on there.  It doesn’t work.  It does with a gamepad, though.

I just hope Ubisoft releases the latest Assassin’s Creed in the App store, or wherever they want to release it, just port it to the Mac!!  And I hope the next Tomb Raider that’s slated to be out the first quarter of next year ends up coming to the Mac as well.  And will Square Enix please get it together and release at least ONE Final Fantasy game for the Mac?  Why haven’t they ported FF VII or VIII to the Mac, yet?  Get with it, already!  Please? o_o  With sugar on top and everything? ……. DO it! >.<

The Smile creator
Look carefully in each picture for the cat as it makes it’s way down to the dog…..

Then, check the explanation at the end .. …

Live, Laugh, Love
Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way we cope with it, is what makes the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never look down on anyone, unless you’re helping them up.

Be sure to click the image to get a proper view of it.  The main content div for this theme needs stretched out a little bit, which I will do, eventually.

This is an easy one. And, yes, people still use QuickTime 7. In fact, pretty much anybody who has had anything to do with editing videos on the Mac for the last five or so years has been using QuickTime Pro for this purpose and they will continue to do so until QuickTime X actually gets updated like Apple “promised.” Rather than sit around and wait for it, though, we’ll just keep using QTP instead. Saves us a lot of time, grief, hassle, etc. Besides, other than recording your screen and a little bit of trimming capability, there isn’t much appeal for professional or even novice video editors with QTX. Thanks, but keep trying.

Keep trying, Mrs. Florick. You’ll hit on it. -The Good Wife

I’m always using the zoom feature on the Mac to zoom in to a Flash video on the web, rather than going in to full screen. It helps save on processor power and possibly extends the life of my computer. I used to be able to do this by zooming in and then hitting command+L to and the Escape key to hide the cursor. However, after youtube changed their keyboard shortcuts on videos, the L key skips ahead ten seconds on a video, so I had to get a little creative in order to circumvent this issue. Rather than continue typing about it, I’ll just let my video do the talking. And, as always, thanks for watching.

You’d be surprised how many times this question gets asked all across the Web.  People even download and install software specifically written to add system tweaking functionality to your system from a GUI perspective, such as the Secrets Preference Pane or Onyx.  But, if all you want to do is hide the desktop icons on your Mac, this bloatware is highly unnecessary. Just a few seconds at the Terminal, and you’ll be off to the races.

This is my first tutorial video on youtube in quite some time, so don’t be too harsh with the criticism.  I didn’t even talk on this one cause I’m so out of practice.  I see and hear people ask about this more often than you would think.  It’s an easy task, really…getting all those desktop icons off of your desktop.  Just follow the tip outlined in this video, and you’ll be good to go.  One thing not mentioned in the video, is that when you make the icons disappear from the desktop and then start adding new icons, then go to make the old ones unhidden, you’ll have a cluttered mess of icons overlapping other icons.  An easy fix for this would be to just right click on the desktop and click “Sort by” and pick your poison. I find myself sorting by “Date Modified” quite a bit, lately. But, that’s just the way I roll. There really isn’t much else to say with this one, so I’ll just let the video do the rest of the talking.

Image courtesy of iconarchive.com

Organizing Your E-Mail

Say you’ve been away from the internet for a few days (anything’s possible) and you come back to find your inbox completely flooded with messages and you don’t even know where to begin. Or you’re subscribed to quite a few mailing lists and the messages have just been piling up over the last few days. Or you’re really internet popular and everybody and their brother has been trying to get in touch with you about something “really important” since you’ve been gone, or whatever the reason. You’ve got to get this organized somehow.

There are a couple of different ways to get this done in the Mail app on the Mac. You could use Smart Folders to search for keywords, senders, subject lines, etc., and organize your mail that way. I don’t like doing this because instead of just reading the email and deciphering where it needs to go, your Mail application has to search through everything new every time you launch to try and find out where everything goes. This can be quite taxing on the hard drive, and that’s not what you want. To circumvent this issue, I set up Mailboxes (or folders, rather) in Mail, and then set up rules in the Rules preferences dialog box that correspond to those folders/mailboxes.

Like so:

You can also do something very similar to this using Thunderbird. So, if you’re in Linux or Windows, you can also have this same kind of convenience added to your mail application.

So, I was hanging out over at IndieNation the other night listening to Brian Aldridge talk about people getting their financial information stolen from a website like youporn (no, I’m not linking off to that trash.)  I am still quite amazed, even given my own idiosyncrasies, that people would hand over their financial information to a website whose sole purpose is to provide people with the trashiest, nastiest videos and images on the web.  And youporn, as ugly as it may be in my mind, is still probably one of the mildest places you could go on the internet to get a fix of…whatever the hell you need a fix for.

But, and I still can’t get over it, if you’re going to give a site like that your personal, financial information, why don’t you just cruise on down to your local crack den or “corner drug store” and hand them your credit card, social security number, home address, phone number, etc?  Yep, that’s rhetorical.  I really gotta wonder this stuff because I don’t smoke crack, snort coke, toke weed, drop acid, bang heroin, pop pills, or anything like that.  And I’m not really coming down on anybody who indulges in such activities.  But, I really gotta wonder just what the hell you have to be on in order to have a mindset of thinking that something like that is actually safe, wise, or even practical.  If you’ve really got money to burn, why not drop some cash on your own XXX domain name?

Some people wonder why there’s such a fight to keep the xxx domain name or to a rush to register your own domain with a triple X extension on it.  My answer?  Because it’s big business.  As much as it shocks me that people would not only pay for such things but also fork over their own personal, financial data on the web to gain access to it, they’d also spend thousands just to get something like that set up, after which they’d rake in millions.  Same with drugs, guns, prostitution, and gambling.  Pretty much everything you’re going to see when you sit down to indulge in yet another episode of Law & Order.

It kind of makes me think of MyDamnChannel over on youtube when he tells his viewers to just “strap on yer stupid and let’s get at it.”

So, yeah…let’s strap on our stupid and go on over to them internetz and give them all our info and see what happens then. “Hey, fellars, watch this!!”

Cuddy: Are you being intentionally dense?!
House: HUH? O_O

Cleta told me this was a “touchy” subject. She’s a funny…..hey! I see what she did there! >.>

It actually takes a lot of pressure off of me knowing that I’m not going to be “the guy” that everyone’s going to be looking to for great pictures from the wedding.  I’m an amateur photographer at best, and have never been relied upon to be in charge of photographing such an important occasion.  Though, I have been complimented quite a few times for the good eye that I do have when it comes to capturing a scene in a way that people might not normally think about when just giving something a quick glance.  I’m inspired quite a bit by professional photographers and even movie photographers who can make something as simple as a wasp (something I’m deathly afraid of) look like a work of art.

Up until a couple of months ago, I’d been using nothing but my cellphone and my iPod Touch for basically all of my photography.  I’d never owned a digital camera in my entire life.  Though, I did get to use one once when my mother and I went to one of our local museums.  The caretakers there, who are all volunteers, did give me a few funny looks, (not sure if photography’s allowed there) but they never said anything to me, so I just kind of kept on shooting.  I was using my mother’s Canon PowerShot SX 110 IS.  I’d never held it before, so all of the pictures definitely didn’t turn out the way I would’ve wanted them to, but given that it was my first time with the camera, I don’t think I did too bad of a job.

I’m actually really excited to be going to a wedding with my camera.  That’s going to be a lot of fun. Considering that I’m not going to be the only one there with a camera, and I’m also not “the” photographer responsible for getting all the important shots.  Sure takes a lot of pressure off of me.  I look forward to it and hope it’s going to be a good time for everybody.