Where do you stand on Ninjas vs. Pirates? Isaiah knows ninjas have the upper hand, and has already started practicing. He was running around outside in his pajamas, picked up a stick, and I snapped these shots with my iPhone. I had to make a comic - he looked like a little ninja master:
Have a look at the standalone shots: these were cut out of the iPhone photos, then passed through a watercolor filter to give them a gravelly dark comic feel.
PS - If you have a better idea for use of these images in a comic let me know - this is a barebones version just to get the idea out.
Isaiah is very proud of having his own laptop. (I picked up an OLPC for him off a fellow Googler who was done playing with it). Tonight he sat in my lap while I helped him open it up. He turned it on, and smiled when it chimed. He then picked it up and walked over to the black rocker, put it down, and sat by himself pinging away on the keyboard.
Photos, photos, photos. Isaiah is loving getting wet in the sprinklers and the pool (as well as the Long Island Sound). As happy parents we take occasional bursts of photos, so enjoy these documenting his laptop and recent sprinkler / pool fun.
Check out this collage of Isaiah. It contains all Isaiah photos we have taken to date (about 1,000). It’s generated using the Shape Collage software I recently stumbled upon. This goes into my suite of cool photo tools (which also includes Rasterbator for hugified posters). Click through to see the full size image (5MB) which is a lot of fun. A detail of the 2nd “a” is shown below.
Problem - Phanfare is shutting down. This means my images are not loading all the time, as I used them for photo sharing and hosting. (Phanfare isn’t shutting down, they’re just changing business models, and their new model precludes image hosting & sharing).
Solution - moving to Flickr, slowly. So far have only updated my recent art posts, will have to work backwards through the other posts bit by bit. Upside: Flickr is cheaper ($25/year vs. $50/year for unlimited storage). Downside: Flickr sucks more (navigation / UI, slideshows, video support are all worse, less customizable). Integration sucks, but so did Phanfare’s.
Rant - why is there still no good solution? Why can’t I use an image management tool of my choice (Picasa, iPhoto, etc.) with the hosting / sharing service of my choice? Why don’t updates in the cloud automatically sync with my local instance? Why don’t iPhoto tags, filenames, and other metadata automatically percolate to Picasa Web? to Flickr? Why does Flickr not provide an iPhoto plugin? There are a lot of startups in this space, but they all miss the goal by a mile. I smell opportunity, I’m just sad that I’ve smelledthisopportunityfor years and it still hasn’t been filled.
Franny and I just discovered Comic Life, which came bundled on our new MacBooks. For those not in the know, it is a brilliant application that makes it easy to compile photos and more into comic strips, complete with word bubbles, etc. For those of us who love documenting memories but hate typical scrapbooks… this is a god-send. It is also fun for all kinds of neat little projects. We created a fun little adventure comic starring our nieces and nephews - some teasers are included below. Click on them for the full comic at phanfare.
Update: switching over to Flickr, until then photos unavailable
Francesca and I splurged - new MacBooks! This is our last capital expenditure prior to the baby’s arrival - Franny’s laptop (Sony P.O.S.) was dying its final death, and my Dell 700m, which was a trooper, was killing my hands (tiny keyboard) and eyes (tiny screen). The MacBooks fit the bill - beautiful machines. Franny’s has 2GB RAM, mine only has 1GB . Small hard drives - we’ll need to upgrade in the near term (only 60GB… almost full already). We’re running OS X, no problems switching our lives (though we have the windows desktop left for special cases).
James the Rocketmonkey got us Techshell covers - they are very cool. Helps us figure out which laptop is which. Actually, he ordered us 1 Techshell, and they sent the wrong one, so we got to keep a free pink one. It worked out perfectly, and they were very good about it. When we were looking into these, we couldn’t find any good photographs of what they actually looked like - for some reason the website itself doesn’t have close-ups. So after setting up our new MacBooks and getting the covers on, we took some photos to share with the world :
Update: switching over to Flickr, until then photos unavailable
We grievefor the loss of our two good friends and goldfish - OJ and Goldie. OJ died on the first true hot day of this summer, and Goldie followed him a few days later. These fish were centerpieces at our wedding, and we loved them dearly. I took this video of them a few short months ago, and am sharing it with you all so that they might be remembered as they were - playful, happy, and beautiful patterns of life.
Update: switching over to Flickr, until then photos unavailable
. Small hard drives - we’ll need to upgrade in the near term (only 60GB… almost full already). We’re running OS X, no problems switching our lives (though we have the windows desktop left for special cases).
