Recently in Photos Category

Barack Obama came to Cincinnati on Thursday, October 9th and visited one of our city's most attractive places...Ault Park. On an immaculate Fall day, a crowd of roughly 15,000 people waited, some over 4 hours, to hear this future US President speak. Below are some of the nearly 400 photographs I took at the event.

A Cincinnati Enquirer story gives more details about the rally.

A crowd of about 15,000 on hand.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland revs up the crowd.

Obama takes the stage.

A week-and-a-half ago, I spent all weekend (well, about 34 hours of it) in a habitrail of meeting rooms with about 100 other people trying to do something pretty incredible: invent, build, and launch a new Internet startup in less than three days.

The event, InOneWeekend 2008, was the inaugural entrepreneurial exercise by this new Cincinnati organization, which hopes to jump-start new-venture creation in the technology-based services space (i.e., dot-coms).

After lots of thinking and working and coding and sweating (not to mention eating fast food and swilling highly caffeinated beverages), our concept was outlined and mocked up to a degree that we thought the world should be invited to share in its evolution from beta concept to fully operational service.

I, er, we give you...LifeSpoke.

Go on...click the link and check it out...it won't hurt, I promise.

LifeSpoke is, and soon will be more of, a place to save, organize, and share all your personal memorabilia and life's memories (assuming they come in handy digital format, of course). With an innovative, patent-pending interface (that we're not quite ready to share yet) and a family-oriented content model (that includes loads of privacy, security, and convenience), we're pretty stoked at the idea that moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and close friends will finally have a place to share their intimate memories and most precious media in a rich new environment.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Actually, you're thinking "I'm hungry...I wonder what's in the fridge." Hey, focus...there's just a little more to read here. You were also thinking "But aren't there a bazillion other media-sharing websites out there, like YouTube, most with sharing features?" To that I say of course! But LifeSpoke is different and will be the best solution for families and close-knit groups of friends to share their memories. While those other sites are great for stuff like watching someone's dog ride a skateboard or having anonymous 15-year-olds "friend" you, LifeSpoke focuses on the relationships in your life that mean the most.

So...go sign up for one of the limited beta invitations at LifeSpoke.com and join us as we ride this idea to wherever it takes us. Should be a fun trip.

If you're interested in reading more about the InOneWeekend adventure we had, check out these stories:
• Official LifeSpoke press release (Marketwatch.com)
• Cincinnati Business Courier article (bizjournals.com)

I was going through my phone's photos and uncovered a few that I meant to post but just never got around to it. So here they are:

What time is it?

Time to get a new clock.

In the absence of correct punctuation, maximize redundancy.

Pigeon Forge, TN (shocking, I know)

When Mother Nature just isn't enough

Best "mind your child" sign ever

The Blue Manatee bookstore, Oakley Square (Cincinnati, OH)

Recently retouched...looks OK as B&W, I think.

A few months ago, I upgraded our family room's HTPC by replacing the old Shuttle box with a nice Intel-powered Mac Mini. So far, nearly everything has been hunky dory. Front Row pretty much works as advertised, and that's the computer's main use.

But one sore point with me has been an inability to wrangle iPhoto to display my photos I have on an external drive attached to the Mac so that we can view them through Front Row (which only talks to iPhoto for photo-viewing purposes).

Basically, what I want iPhoto to do is simply index and display photos stored on an external hard drive, in much the same fashion that iTunes handles MP3 files stored externally. You see, I keep all my "original" photos on a machine elsewhere on our network -- the files on the Mini's external drive are merely copies, updated as needed via network backup. So, when I add some new photos to the collection, all I want iPhoto to do is realize I've done so and make the new folder available via Front Row. Isn't that easy?

Yet there's apparently no way to do that. iPhoto wants to be the sole photo-management app and really makes it difficult to interact with photos that aren't "imported" directly through it. In that sense, iPhoto is really an overly egocentric, yet very lame, program.

Anybody have a suggestion as to how to view our photos via Front Row? Anyone? Bueller?

I came across this photo and found it very curious.

What do you think it is? A close-up of a hairy guy with bad skin? To find out, click the "continue reading" link...

Here are 4 more pairs of photos taken recently with the Treo 600 (top) and Treo 650 (bottom):

Two things are obvious:
1) Focus and resolution (not in terms of pixels, but in distinguishing detail) is generally better on the Treo 650 (the blurriness on the one shot is likely due to me -- it was cold and my hand was freezing). It seems that the JPG compression is higher on the 600, which may explain part of this.
2) Saturation and contrast are much higher on the 600 (too high, IMO) than the 650, which may be a tad low. Why don't they add settings in software for this stuff just like they do on $59 digital cameras?

Also, take a look at another website (PhoneCamPhotographer.com) that has some good Treo 600/650 comparison shots.

"Warning: Geek Works Here"

This is the desk of my colleague, Scott Sampson at BYU. Scott takes his
tech very seriously (e.g., check out SNewMail)

Sorry we can't help, but check out our bitchin' WordArt while you're getting mugged/burning alive/having a heart-attack.

I found this photo today and it just cries out for some funny caption/quote/whatever, so leave a comment with your best shot.

As promised, a big hello to ya. :-)

Saw this in the Photos section of Weather Underground

Source

And he says its better than a Treo...whatever.

Guess why it's on sale

the essence of my dad is as pictured (according to my sister): pork, bread, and a root beer

One month old today. And yes, that's my arm.

I do not think it means what you think it means

Le Petit Journal asked if they could use a photo I took, most likely because I didn't ask for royalties.

Interestingly, they used the picture to accompany a story about a new windfarm in St. John's, Newfoundland, yet the photo is actually of an abandoned wind farm on the South tip of the Big Island of Hawaii. Yes, that's Mauna Loa in the background.

Check out the original image in my collection of Hawaii photos.

more Sam pics

somebody explain to me again how this makes sense

graffiti on a truck

best thin-crust pie on the planet

A bit of a step down from DLP TV's, but hey, gadgets are gadgets.