When I clicked the link I got the normal short advertising blurb, gotta pay the bills, then a popup window that very plainly says “Canada Only”!

TSN blocking of video feed

I don’t know what they are saying that is sooo sensitive, or that other countries should’t read, but I find this to be very interesting.  The news in Canada seems to be all about the lack of medals and how the funding for Canadian atheletes is poor and they can’t compete with the rest of the world without some real changes, and maybe the government is getting tired of it and doing a bit of strong armming of the media?

Funny, when the Canadians or Senators or the beloved Leafs are sucking big time in the NHL, the floodgate is wide open in the media about their woes.  I wonder why the Olympics should be any different?

I read a post that someone made in the group about their topic getting sensored and removed. They were talking about the T.s and C.s of the group and how it gave Nikon the rights to your images once you posted them there. Here is what the group rules say;

By submitting your photograph(s) into Nikon’s Digital Learning Center Group (“Group”), you certify that you have full right and authority to grant the rights and permissions following herein, including but not limited to having written authorization from all persons appearing in your photograph(s) and that all such persons appearing in your photograph(s) are over 13 years of age, and further, you agree that Nikon Inc. and its assigns shall have, without further obligation to you, the royalty free, fully paid up, non-exclusive right and permission to copy, publicly display, publicly perform and use, worldwide in any online media now known or hereafter developed, including but not limited to the World Wide Web, at any time or times, subject to the availability of your photographs(s) in the Group through March 31, 2009, your submitted photographs, Flickr username and titles to the photographs (if any) on the Group website, located at www.flickr.com/groups/nikondigitallearningcenter, unless prohibited by law.

Now, in professional photography school 101 you are told, NEVER NEVER NEVER sign or give the rights to your work away. Why you say? Because they are yours and you are giving the rights to ever make a penny from them when you post to these groups. The only saving grace in this is that they don’t say “exclusive” rights, how big of them, they only are requiring “non-exclusive” rights.

I don’t know if Nikon has it in their heads to create a huge database of stock images from users of their cameras or not, but they are sure not going to reap any benefits from my work for free.

Maybe if Nikon gives me the gear for free, but as long as I am paying for it, so will they!

Case in point, the plastic container below, purchased by me dear wife at World Market here in the twin cities.

Now, we won’t even go into the fact that they are imitation flavored, but in fact let’s go with the notion that what you see is NOT what you get. If you were an unsuspecting consumer and bought this item at your local store, you would think you were getting a box full of these candies. But, when you turned over the container you were treated with this sight…

WHAT THE H_LL!!!

We dug in a bit and found out that almost 1/4 of the expected candy was thin air, a hoax, none to be had!

I put it to you world, don’t stand for this injustice. The next time you find one of these bait and switch tactics take it back to the place you bought it from and demand your money back…

And the very next time it happens to us, that is exactly what we will do… only before we eat them all.

My Nikon D50 was converted by Jim Chen and it has worked perfectly since then. Being able to shoot IRs at ISO200 and f5.6 at 1/400th or so is such a joy. No more tripods and guessing what the composition is, now you see it and shoot it, done.

If my Panasonic DMC-TZ5 had not been in the shop for repairs, I may not have taken the D50 along. Thank goodness I did, cuz I would never have had some much fun when I got back home!

Jim charges $200.00 to convert the D50 and a bit more for some Canon’s but I think if you are serious about shooting IRs, you need to have a camera dedicated.

My setup now is the D50 with a Nikkor 18-35mm lens. Not the top of the line lens, but more than sharp enough. I shoot RAW and process through Bridge and ACR, then into Photoshop and either leave them as black and whites or use the action for creating the false color IR look as you see on these. You can download that action from this website.

Happy IR shooting all!

The term used was “panorama nhl” and naturally I had to go see just where I ranked when someone typed this in. Could you believe number 1? ha ha ha.

Sure enough, there I am up on the top of the Google search results page, at least today I am, but when I read the content that drove the result I was amazed again how powerful content is on the web and yet how many people/companies still don’t get it.

It has been written and talked about quite a lot if you go to any web seminars, but the research shows that

• 90% of all adults use search to begin a quest for info on the web and there is no reason to think that number will go down.
• 55% of web users expect to find the top brands in the top few results and
• 55% of all e-commerce transactions originate from a search listing (Booze-Allen Hamilton).

To me the message is clear, make your website clean and coded to standards and have lots of content that users will be looking for that explain what you are and what you do.

Oh, that search term was a hit because of a post I have on my Panorama section talking about the panorama of a NHL hockey game that I did a few years back. To my knowledge it is the only one of its kind around, but the searcher, whomever they were, landed on my website and hopefully found what they wanted.

My other life is that of a web designer and these conferences really help keep one up on the latest and greatest and it is always good to network with others in the same boat as you.

I took the opportunity of the great weather to walk around after dinner and grab some shots of downtown Chicago and hope to do some more tomorrow.  I have not spent any time in Chicago in the past, but I think the family will have to make a trip here in the near future.

(view all the photos)

My only Chicago experience was a one day tour de force.  I bought a mono stand on ebay from a guy in Chicago.  I didn’t want to pay shipping so I left early on a Sunday, like 6:30am, and drove straight arriving around 12:30-1:00pm.  I paid the guy his money, loaded the mono stand in the back of our van and headed back, arriving around 8pm or so.

It is much nicer this time to get to spend some “real” time walking and soaking in some of the sights and sound of this great city.

Here is a shot and if you want to see all the unpacking shots, and who wouldn’t right? then go to the flickr page and view them all in detail.

(click image to view the gallery)

This thing is supposed to get 55-60 mpg and hit a top speed of 70mph, so freeway drivers look out, Cory is getting in that lane.

I of course have to take the behind the wheel test to get my endorsement, so for now it is no passengers, night driving or freeway, but soon, very soon…

I will post more on this and how it works out for me and just what sort of savings I see. Even if I don’t see a huge savings, it will make going down the street for that pack of batteries or lightbulbs a lot more fun.

Well, let’s all take note.  Of the 8 different series in round 1, here is how even they were:
 

Eastern

• 1 series won in 4 games
• 1 series won in 5 games
• 2 series won in 7 games

Western

• 3 series won in 6 games
• 1 series won in 7 games 

One sweep in the first round is pretty even I would say.  And, out of the all the games in the first round, 48 games, 21 were won in O.T. or by one goal.  That means it could have gone either way.

I don’t know about you, but this parity thing, like it or not, seems to be working just as the NHL hoped.

In the first games of round two, all 4 games either went into O.T. or were won by one goal

I say today I passed because yesterday I failed. Yup, I blew it big time. I did go over the manual and skimmed the pages thinking it would be a cake walk, but I found out just how much I didn’t know after getting only 29 right out of 40 (you could only miss 8 to pass).

Today I tried a different method.

1. First I found this great website that allows you to take a practice test over and over until you get it right. You can choose the state and what type of test you need, very cool and helpful.
2. Next I re-read the manual from the State of MN, really read it, and found some of the answers to the questions I missed the other day. I must have done it right this time as I got 32 right out of 35.

The only glitch this time was the State of MN dept of motor vehicles that I was at in Plymouth didn’t take bank cards, only cash or checks. HELLO!! Let’s get with it here MN, who uses checks anymore? Not me, that’s for sure. Other than paying bills monthly I don’t carry around a checkbook. Bank cards rock and should be the preferred method of payment accepted worldwide… there, had to say it. I feel better now.

I did leave a guy hanging though as he leaned over and asked me to help him with a question. “Dude” I muttered under my breath as I moved away to show my disgust at the thought of helping him cheat, only to see him pick the wrong answer and fail his test.

Oh well, I am sure he will be back tomorrow just like me, but maybe a bit wiser.

The big one for me was the Cache setting and what you should do to make it work for you environment. I won’t go into the tech side of it too much, but instead try to make it easy to digest.

You will find your Cache Setting preference in:

Edit/Preferences/Memory & Image Cache

Once there you will see that the default is set to 6. You will want to change this to 1 or 2 and this is why.

(setting your cache preference)

When Photoshop opens a file you have selected, it looks to see how much RAM you have. If you don’t have enough, it looks out at the hard drive and uses some of that as a RAM DISC and then opens the file. Everyone knows that RAM is much much faster than a hard drive as far as memory goes, so the more HD RAM that Photoshop has to use, the slower and less efficient it is. Speaking of efficiency, it is a good rule of thumb to check the drop down in the open window and see what efficiency PS is telling you your machine is working at and adjust the Cache setting to compensate.

(how to view your efficiency rating)

So, to wrap this up

• Go into your preferences and change the Cache setting to 1 or 2
• Quit Photoshop and relaunch it so the new settings will take hold
• Open a file size you normally work in and after it opens, go to View/Fit on Screen
• Go to the drop down in the bottom of the window to Show/Efficiency to see how efficient Photoshop is working . If you are from 95-100%, you are good to go. If you are under 95% you may need to bump up the Cache setting one more level.

There it is. A tweak here and there can help in the time you spend waiting for your files to open or save, and we can all use more play time, right?