Computer and Photography Tips

Where To Order Online Flowers for Valentine’s Day

Let me give you two words of advice:

1. Don’t get married.
2. If you ignored #1, don’t get your wife roses for Valentine’s Day.

Now, please let me explain. Both of my points here are a joke (kinda…mostly). However, there is a reason behind #2. If you buy flowers for your spouse or girlfriend one year for Valentine’s Day, then she will expect them the following year (or something of greater emotional value or importance). Even if you both “mutually agree” beforehand that flowers aren’t necessary, she will expect them.

So, I’ll assume that since you’re reading this article then you’ve ignored my advice. I know what you must be going through at this point; you’re worried that you’re a horrible husband/boyfriend and you’re scrambling to find the best place to order flowers.

Rest easy, because I’ve done the legwork for you. After nearly 5 years of marriage I’ve tried a variety of different flower shops and florists and I will now rank the top 3. Each flower shop is judged on the quality of the flowers and of course the general level of excitement of my wife.

Who needs a cable subscription?

As the web continues to evolve I find myself asking questions like, “who needs an encyclopedia?” or, “why do I still have this Blockbuster card?” With the rise of streaming media, I think it’s time to ask the question, “who needs a cable subscription?”

Note that I’m referring to the cable subscription that we use to watch television with. I guess this also applies to satellite users, though it seems that not as many people are disgruntled with them and many rural customers don’t have a choice. So, just to be clear my focus is on those companies like Cox Communications and Comcast.

My argument leans firmly on services offered by Netflix, Amazon’s Video on Demand, and Hulu. With just one of these services, namely Netflix, I can watch just about all the television I can handle. I name Netflix above the others simply because I get so much for my money. About $15/mo lands me around 8-10 DVD rentals and the ability to watch streaming movies at no additional cost.

Midweek Geek Links for 6-11-2009

It’s time for this week’s Geek Links!

• If you’re in need of a good laugh, check out Awkard Family Photos.
• Very cool concept photography from Martin Wilson. No Photoshop here; he creates montages by piecing together frames from an entire roll of film. Very meticulously done.
• Got a hankering for an Amazon Kindle but aren’t ready to fork out the cash? Search for a used Kindle at UsedKindleGear.com.
• MacUpdate Promo is a good resource for getting quality Mac software for a discount price. New deals running weekly!
• ColoRotate is a very cool way to come up with custom color themes for your designs.

8 Things to Know Before Hiring a Web Developer

Last week I was brought into a project for my wife’s boss, a local dentist, who wanted to freshen up his existing site. I was glad to offer my services for free, as I have had more than one dentist visit that was “on the house.” So I sat down, eager to study his existing site and come up with a plan.

Things went from bad to worse as I learned more about his site and the company he had chosen to develop it. Frankly, I was surprised the company he used, Internet Dental Alliance, was still in business.

Building Websites with Master Pages (Visual Studio)

Last week I was tasked with building a site from scratch with a very short deadline. Normally, I’d accomplish this with a Wordpress install and a few theme tweaks, but my bosses didn’t want to go that route. I thought I was going to have to do things the old fashioned way (Dreamweaver, lots of typing, lots of coffee) until a friend of mine told me to take a look at Master Pages in Visual Studios.

Adobe Lightroom Workflow – Part 2 – Flag, Rate, and Filter

In the previous article of this series we took an in-depth look at importing your photos into Lightroom. Now that your photos are imported, let’s take a few moments to go through them and tag them with a flag, rating or color so we can easily filter through them during the editing process.

It’s sometimes easy to underestimate the importance of a good tag and filtering process. If done right this can be a huge time saver. It’s also handy for archiving; when you return to these photos after weeks, months or years have passed you are immediately able to see the original tags you applied.

Digital Photography Tips – White Balance with a Gray Card

One thing that often gets overlooked by amateur photographers is getting accurate color in your photos. The first step to getting good color is making sure you have paid attention to your white balance. White balance, sometimes known as color balance, is basically making sure that white appears as white in a given lighting scenario.

Many people deal with white balance by simply setting their digital camera to Auto White Balance (AWB). While cameras do fairly well at achieving good white balance automatically, there are a few steps you can take to insure more accurate depiction of colors.