PShizzy: The Blog

Tomorrow, November 18th, starting at 6am PST, you can get a free copy of Zonealarm 2009 Pro for free. Lifehacker, a favorite site of mine, has more info. As soon as the link is available, I will edit this post and include the direct link. For now, check out the article at Lifehacker, or the Zonealarm site.

Note, this is Windows only, which makes me a sad Mac. Not really though, because I have a PC laptop.

EDIT: Link is up. Click on the links above, or HERE.

Tags: business, general by PShizzy
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First, Instant JPEG from RAW has been updated to version 1.1. Added support for new cameras (50D, anyone?) and some bugfixes make it a worthy update. Click on the image to head on over to their site.

Next up, I thought I’d test out a photo gallery. Photoshelter has recently updated their site to offer Flash based photo galleries. I think it’s pretty cool because it’s so easy to set it up. In fact, it’s retroactive, so I can set up a Flash gallery for any galleries I’ve already made. Creating the gallery itself isn’t too hard either, but this has further motivated me. So, I’ll give it a test run after the jump.

Oh, and I’ve been playing with a few D3’s lately. I really like the cameras. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from users over at the FredMiranda forum on a few posts about the D3 and my opinion on it. Link to that after the thread. It’s been a long couple of weeks. Preseason NBA, NCAA and high school football, even a local kids soccer game, plus other non sports shoots (wedding, and two schools) have kept very busy lately. It’s been great to be so busy, but it’s also been time consuming. And of course, it’s my favorite time of the year, with the NBA season finally starting. More after the jump! [Read more →]

Tags: photography by PShizzy
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One of the most common sources of frustration I have on a regular basis is that of filesharing. That’s because while everyone has the internet, how we have it and how we use it is so unique to each of us, that we often end up with a few incompatibilities.

Let’s take email. Everyone’s got an email address. But not everyone supports the same file size for attachments and downloads. I can send 20MB files (thank you GMail), but you might only support 5-10MB (like my Cox account supports). Now what?

How bout IM’s? Excellent. I use AIM. You use MSN? How are we even friends? Ok I use Adium. What? Ya, it lets me use AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Great. Wait, does it let me share files across? Yes. But crap, I’m on a router, so now I have a firewall. What, you’re on a router too? But it says the file is sending. Of course, it’s said that for the last 10 minutes. And ya, I’m just trying to send you a small jpg, so this should have been done nine minutes ago.

Ok how bout FTP? Great. I have one. Do you have a server? What’s your ftp address. What, that’s private. Ok. I’ll post the file on my webspace. Wait, now it’s too public.

Using a common protocol is tough for sharing because we may not have any in common. Making a file public is bad because now the file is public. It’s funny because the answers we seek end up being their own problems. So what if I had a place where I could store files, make them public or private on a file or folder level, share them via email, a special link, or otherwise, and generally have the ease of use of a download for our users, while we have the security of using a service with its own protocol on our backend.

Oh ya, what if it were free too, unless you want to move single files that are over 100MB (which at the rate cameras keep upgrading the sensors and megapixels might be next year)? Keep on reading! [Read more →]

Tags: general by PShizzy
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So there you are, in the middle of or after a shoot. You have a small pause in your day, and you decide to start downloading your files. If you’re like me, you let the card download while you go get a snack or attend to something else. You wait for that familiar “ding” sound. Except this time, your download starts off with the “error” sound. It doesn’t kick in just yet. You figure it’s a forgotten setting or you had a hidden window asking you if were you sure you wanted to do what you just tried to do. So you set it up again. Ready to leave the computer to it’s chore, you get the error sound again. It’s starting to kick in: You may have just encountered your first (and unfortunately not last) corrupt card.

You panic, of course. It’s an important shoot. It’s a memorable family gathering. It’s an image of you with Charles Barkley. Whatever it is, it’s lost. You think it’s unfair. You always backup (you do, right?), having two or more copies of a file, offsite (so both copies don’t burn down in a fire or short out in a flood), perhaps online (so that you always have access to it), and in different mediums (DVD so you can’t overwrite a file incorrectly). But how can you backup something that’s corrupt before you even get to a computer? Forget that. How can you at least get back a single copy of all your images? Oh God, what’s it going to cost?

We’ve all read about those companies that will recover your files for you. They often have engineers in bunny suits (cleanroom outfits, not the mall kiosk gig). Those bunny suits ain’t cheap, and neither is the service fee for file recovery on any sort of disk.

So how about FREE, and Mac/PC friendly. Link after the jump. [Read more →]

Tags: general by PShizzy
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Luminous Landscape is an interesting site. While it may not be the common fare for a lot of photographers, because of the niche the site caters to, it’s still a great read. I especially like James Russell and his views. In the latest LL, he discusses a commercial shoot for Phase One, the digital back company. Think sensors the size of LCD screens. Think 40 plus uh, make that 60 megapixels. Think 30 plus thousand dollars. Ok ignore that last part, because it’s depressing.

I love how honest James is. He goes into the somewhat gory details of the commercial shoot, including the pros and cons of doing the shoot (I love how he mentions the low profitability). Later he talks about the adventure of getting to the shoot, and how unglamorous it is, which is refreshing. Often we may think of some photographers, especially at the higher end, as making a large sum of money and living it up, jet setting across the world in private jets and Maybach whips.

Not James apparently. He rolls to Paris (ok that IS cool) in a truck with his friend who doesn’t know that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and drinks coffee that apparently is heated by a small nuclear reactor.

Oh, and he does actually talk about his steps in getting it all done, from start to finish. It also helps that James is a kick ass photographer. So, great read.

He has another article, about the D3 and his use of it for sports. Again, great read.

Two last tidbits: First, I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently. X Games was great, but upon my return, I’ve had to play catch up with the rest of my life. Secondly, the video of me cracking open an Airport Security bag like a camera piñata is on it’s way to me. I plan to post it as a mediafire download and a youtube video. If its treated like the Minitrekker video, I may end up dying in photographic infamy (again).

Tags: business, photography by PShizzy
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Most businesses owners are familiar with their Federal Employment Identification Number, or FEIN. What they aren’t familiar with is that this number does not give you any license to be in business. It only identifies your business with the federal government, similar to a social security number.

Most cities require businesses to have a city business license. Think of it as a license to drive your business within city boundaries. If you drive your business into other cities, you will need a separate license for each. You pick up most license applications at the city’s Planning and Zoning Department. [Read more →]

Tags: business by JTames
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I have a Mac Pro desktop, recently acquired, but my laptop is a Dell running XP. Yes, networking allows them to talk and share files, but it’s not always that easy. I like to consider them digital acquaintances. I need to connect to the network and sometimes enter my username and password to conect to the other computer. Not a big deal.

But it gets worse. What if I have a document, image, or file that I need on my laptop (which I worked on while I was out of the home/office), and I turned off the laptop. When I get home, I now have to get that laptop, boot up, log in, connect to the network, check to make sure my Mac can see the laptop on the network, then pull the file. Fun, huh? Even if I left the laptop on, I’d still have to log in, connect, check the connection on the Mac, etc. It’s not so much that it’s difficult, but it is tedious, and a waste of time, which I value very much.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just put my files on my laptop or Mac in a folder, and have that get pushed to the other computer? And I’m not talking about running a program, and putting a file in there, or uploading to an FTP. I’m talking about opening your standard Windows or Mac folder, and dragging and dropping your files in, and that’s it. Now you check your other computer, and it’s there. Better yet, what if I put the files in the folder, and then turned off the computer, but it doesn’t matter, because the other computer can still access the file? And what if I’m at a different computer altogether, and I need to access it via a web interface.

Enter Dropbox. They do exactly what I said, and more. Of course, this kind of timesaver is something I regularly find over at Lifehacker, and they are running a poll comparing five different file and folder sharing applications, which Dropbox is winning. The problem is that Dropbox is so popular that it’s now in closed beta. You can sign up at the Dropbox site, but only to be notified when they open the beta up to the public again. Or, you can be invited, if someone (cough cough, me) has invites to give.

Read on to find out more about dropbox, including a video that shows the features (oh, I forgot to mention, the file syncing is just one of MANY features Dropbox has), a chance to get in on the beta, and how I use it.

[Read more →]

Tags: business, general by PShizzy
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There is no clear-cut answer. The answer is depends. It depends on your knowledge base. It depends on you business experience. It depends on you comfort level.

Most people believe they can setup their Sole Proprietorship or LLC by themselves; install, setup and implement their QuickBooks program by themselves; properly account for all monies in and out by themselves; and transfer such business information to the proper tax forms to accurately reflect, “under the penalties of perjury”, their individual tax liability.

If you can do all of these, you do not need an accountant. If you need help with any of these, you might need an accountant.

The question then becomes not if you need one; the question is how often. [Read more →]

Tags: business by JTames
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