Categories
internet photo wordpress

Photo Dropper, et al.

unplugged
Creative Commons License photo credit: billaday

Amy over at informing MUVEs is trying out a WP plugin called Photo Dropper, and it looked like it might simplify my inclusion of photos on ye olde blog, so I thought I’d give it a try as well. Honestly, I’m not sure what I think of it. Up until now, my current process for posting photos has been to: a.) Find a photo on Flickr, I try to use my own photos whenever possible; b.) download the photo to my desktop; c.) resize the photo so that WP can display it at actual size; d.) upload the photo using WP’s file upload function; e.) insert the photo into my post at full size with a link to the photo creator.

It’s not the most straightforward process, but it has the benefit of hosting the photos on my site, so that I’ll know as long as the blog is here then the photos will be here too. Photo Dropper turns my five-step process into a two-step process: a.) enter something into the search bar; b.) insert a picture using a given size. Simpler, sure, but the photo remains hosted over at Flickr, and if the user ever deletes it, or their pro account expires, or for any other reason the link degrades, my post is all of a sudden minus its visual element. In certain cases this could really damage the function of the post, assuming the content revolved around the photo itself.

Also, and feel free to call me Web 1.0 for this, I still like going to my content. I like reading blogs on their native sites when possible, instead of aggregating them, likewise webcomics, and I like looking at Flickr photos on Flickr. Surely I’m not the only one?

Time will tell if I stick with Photo Dropper, but right now I’m thinking I probably won’t. It’s just not that tough to open a new tab over to Flickr and find a quick image, a process which has a lot of benefits. Since I’m on the topic, though, I thought I’d mention some of the WP plugins and Firefox add-ons that I do like and use.

I tend to be a minimalist when it comes to WordPress. I abhor the WYSIWYG editor, and I try to keep my plugins to a minimum. That said, I find the following essential:

I’m a Firefox minimalist too, but I couldn’t live without FireFTP for my file transfers, and I find ColorZilla super useful from time to time.

Are there any that I’m missing? What WordPress plugins / Firefox add-ons can you simply not live without?

Categories
photo

What Am I?

hermes 3000

Photo Friday: What is that?

Johnny does these every week. I did one, once, but I often forget. This week’s theme is “What is that?” So I figured I’d pick a photo that answers its own question. I haven’t used it much, but I love my little Hermes 3000.

Categories
photo

Insurmountable Odds

toughodds

Sometimes this is what life feels like.

Categories
photo

Photo Friday: Sky

sky

My first Photo Friday entry ever! This was taken flying over the great lakes on the way to D.C. The only thing that can make a redeye flight worthwhile is getting to watch the sun rise from the air.

For Photo Friday: Sky.

Categories
montreal photo

Fire and ice

fire and ice

I was rudely rousted from slumber at two in the morning by the building’s fire alarm. Ten minutes later, four fire trucks showed up outside my window. Fifteen minutes later, they were gone and I was back asleep. It was worth it for the lights and the snow.

Categories
game photo school

A propensity for procrastination in publishing

And in writing, for that matter. But I’d like you to know that even though I haven’t blogged much lately, i.e. lately in the last two years except for in spurts and I’m very aware of it, that I DID have a conversation about blogging today with someone in my class, and that that has to count for something.

So as to not just blog about blogging, which is what bloggers do when they start to feel bad about not blogging because they feel like something is better than nothing even if it is just autoreflective and uninteresting tripe (something I do try to avoid, dear readers) — I’ve begun to play World of Warcraft again and I’m having a grand old time. Sure, it can be difficult to juggle WoW time with, oh, let’s say, homework time, but I’ve actually found a very simple compromise. Just don’t do your homework. I find that by avoiding the conflict altogether I not only save time by not doing homework, but I also save time by not even feeling conflicted! How cool is that!

No, really though, I’ve actually been both keeping up on my work (which is so far just a lot lot lot of reading), and rapidly gaining levels in WoW. My goal is to catch up with my friends who play, which means just a few levels to go, and then I can adjust myself to a more leisurely playing schedule (note that I say that as though I can control my gaming proclivities, hah!).

Oh, right, and I’ve also been swing dancing a lot, so go me! Last but not least, here is a goose:

duck duck goose!

Categories
montreal photo

Weather Update

winterweather

Sufficiently snowy.

Categories
libraries montreal personal photo school

Sunny with a chance of winter

McGill GSLIS

Today I can feel the first gusts of winter, flush with cold, though I’m sure that it’s a meager herald of the coming ice age. I’m a rain-baby, you see, born and having lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest, I know fancy words like “rainshadow” and I’m used to more green than white, even in the winter. Granted I spent quite a bit of my youth in eastern Washington, where there is a real winter, including temperates well below zero and snow up to your belly-button, at times. But it’s been awhile since then and from what I’ve been told the winter here will be make eastern Washington seem a tropical paradise. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Tomorrow marks the end of my first two weeks of classes. They’ve been going well so far. My classmates are – so far in my experience without exception – intelligent and interesting people, and though I wouldn’t say that I’ve made any “fast friends”, I’ve made some nice connections and shared some good conversations and conspiratorial smiles. We’re all in this together, after all, for the next two years, which means plenty of time to conspire, work, and share this experience called grad school.

The GLIS at McGill is modeled to resemble real-life work in a lot of ways. It’s considered a professional degree, so the studies rest much more on the practical than the theoretical, which I think is reasonable and very useful. The graded work in most of my classes is based almost entirely on group projects. Much as a real work environment, you have a project, people to work with (or you work on your own), and a completion date. Much as a real work environment, you generally have multiple ongoing projects at the same time, and you have to schedule the projects around other aspects of the job, in this case lectures and labs (which one could equate at work to time at the reference desk, or cataloguing, or other daily tasks). This is a good model for me because even though I’ve gotten much better at working in groups over the last couple years than I used to be, I consider it an essential part of effective library practice and it remains an area where I feel like I could still grow and learn. Working with people is always the most difficult, and most rewarding, part of the job.

I have some exams as well, and term tests, and individual projects to work on. I have plenty to work on, indeed. I’m not too stressed. Yet. Give me a couple weeks.

I’m working on creating a bibliographic database with a partner in a program called InMagic. We create fields – author, title, keywords, etc – decide how we want these fields to be searchable – term search, word search, both, or neither – and then enter records using the field information. We also have to identify our purpose and audience, and pick a subject, which for us is French Poetry. So far it’s been the most daunting of the projects assigned, though hopefully once we put some elbow grease into it then it won’t seem so insurmountable. For the moment, I’m just having trouble wrapping my brain around it.

Other projects involve creating a diagram describing how information flows within a library, which I’m working with two other people on, as well as creating original card- and MARC-format descriptive bibliographies for three books and comparing my records to records for the same books entered in other libraries. Like I said, I’m quite busy.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my Flickr photos (I added some new ones on Sunday and now there is a link over to the right), and check back here when you can. I’m going to make an effort, now that my life here in Montreal is solidly underway, to be more bloggerish. No, really!

Categories
internet montreal personal photo

Flickr Powr!

Hy hy, I'v got m som Flickr powr going on!  That includs picturs from my trip across th country!  Chck 'm out, and b sur to chck back for updats.

Pics from th Montral trip

Categories
montreal personal photo

Keep on truckin’

Dear friends,

My bloggish silence is due to the fact that I have been laboriously moving, by automobile, across the country.  I left Tuesday and arrived in Oberlin, OH yesterday afternoon for a short reprieve.  The final destination is, of course, Montreal, and I will probably arrive on Friday after hanging out with Tim in Vermont.

Rest assured that I'll be sharing my adventures with you once I've landed, that I've taken some fun pictures of my travels as well, and that I'm even considering making a small, amateur music video, if I can find the time.  Does anyone know a nice, free program I could use to edit together some video footage and throw music behind it?  If so, do tell!

'Til then, love and truckstops.

Ahniwa 

Categories
art photo tech

Saturday Round-Up

Riya is a visual search engine that lets you upload, tag, and search your own photos or any other photos in their index.  Pretty normal, right?  The neat part is that it has some capacity for recognizing objects, including individual faces (with some margin of error).  Once you've taught it to recognize your friends, it will automatically tag your photos that those friends are in with their names, making it easier to search for them later.  Riya can also breakdown searches into related tags, letting you jump to similar interests or narrow down your search.  The main downside right now is that all large images are automatically resized to 800×600 pixels.  And let's face it, in today's digital photophile age, that's a pretty big downside.  Adult pictures are removed, though it appears that they may rely on user-policing to mark "adult content", and I was able to find some without much effort.  In the name of science, of course.  All in all, it's a neat idea, definately in beta, but worth keeping an eye on.

The ButtKicker LFE Electromagnetic Transducer has a fancy name and a fancier purpose: to make sound move you.  Without creating any additional audio, it can be placed below or attached to your couch or chair to make you feel the bass.  At $200, I seriously need to get one of these.

Table of Malcontents is a daily read (when I have the opportunity), and has enough good stuff over the past few days that you should really just hop over there and check it out.  But if you need my encouragement, I particularly enjoyed: Pirates and TreasureModern Living/Neurotica Series (though it's super-creepy), and 787 Cliparts.

Categories
news photo

Pictures for the Press

Michele McNally, Assistant Managing Editor for Photography at the New York Times, has an enlightening Q&A involving equipment, use of photos in the news, and advice for young photographers (among other things).  Even if you're not that in to photography, it's pretty interesting from the news standpoint.

(from Boudist

Categories
photo poetic

Hermes and the sunset.

The wind bites at the heels of clouds as they gracefully crest the distant rolling green. Behind the trees the sky blushes, turning the clouds to fire.


I think of the snow this morning, large, white, damp flakes that coated the world so briefly before melting. Inside and warm, Hermes and I dance to the steady beat of wordplay.

Categories
photo

The Life of Pie

I don’t cook often, and that may be for the best. I’m not a bad cook, I’m just unmotivated. Besides, my talent has always lied more with baking. I believe I may have mentioned, previously, that not only did I make the BEST PIES IN THE UNIVERSE, but also that I had photographic proof. Well, behold! These were made from scratch, in case you had any doubt. And they taste divine.

Three cheers for blackberry pie goodness!

I hope you all had equally yummy treats over the holiday. 🙂

Categories
photo

Belated DC, part 1

The flight over Lake Michigan as the sun rose, and the architecture of the Smithsonian.





Categories
art photo

Belated DC, part 2

Outside the Modern Art Museum, then inside. A strange argument. Hand-outs. Men are not for burning. Miro for Emily. The dog casts a shadow.





Categories
art photo

Belated DC, part 3

I AM modern art. So is this warrior-bunny dude. The “No Exit” sign appeals to my Sartrian side, which is most of me. I am having so much freakin’ fun on the carousel. Two artsy carousel pictures. Spin, spin, spin!






Categories
photo

Belated DC, part 4

In the botanical gardens. I felt a little indecent taking the first photo. A flock of flowers. Feed me Seymour! Cactus climb.




Categories
photo

Belated DC, part 5

The Zoo. Two prehistoric looking bastards, one of which tried to eat my head. Turtle = whimsy. Strange bedfellows. Definately a “shanx”.





Categories
photo

Belated DC, part 6

Back home, a nice cup of tea and a day of relaxation.