My GPS Camera Phone

What we’ve got here is…a bunch of clouds! Yes, no fooling around this week. However, it is two cloud photos merged together with hue and saturation adjusted to make it more blue. Other than that, it’s nothing much really.

Just when you thought it was safe to guess correctly, I pull fast one. Actually, I had no idea that some of you would think I was trying to fool you with this photo. However, Dan’s second guess of waves breaking was correct as well because my initial intent was to do that, but it turned out to be a big blue mush instead.

So technically, Dan is correct twice.

As a result of his dual correctness, I feel obliged to offer him something more than a link. So here’s something better: two links. So please stop by dcrblogs.com and gain some wisdom on making your blog better. Here’s two recent posts I like:

Money for (Almost) Nothing
Mindful Monday: The Value of eBooks

Congrats, Dan.

Now that leaves me with the problem of everyone else. Since I suck this week, you all win, but everyone pretty much guessed the right thing anyway. So, in no particular order:

smarmoofus, dcr, CatSynth, Raven, Pamela, Jan, Rizza, Francine, Kelly, Michelle Gartner, Vixen, Chica and Bill (not Jill).

Thanks for commenting everyone! See you next week!

Thanks to Dan’s blog review by Michael Kwan at Beyond the Rhetoric, I’ve picked up some tips on cleaning out the dead wood. Nothing major, but little things that make a difference.

First off, I’ve moved the RSS feed subscription links to the sidebar and added an e-mail option. I subscribed myself and must say that the e-mail is surprisingly clean and pleasant to look at. So if RSS readers aren’t your thing, then try subscribing via e-mail. I’ve also added a comment feed if you want to keep track of the current conversations.

The next thing up is fixing some annoying IE bugs. Being a Mac and Camino/Firefox guy, sometimes I don’t think about checking the site in IE (mainly because I’d have to get up every minute to check the site on my Windows machine in the other room). Thankfully, Chica hooked me up and told me what was wrong when she viewed it in IE. So if you see any weirdness over the weekend, it’s just me trying to find the right CSS hack to fix the problem. The navigation is apparently off as well in IE, so that will be fixed, too.

After that, I’ll look at the right side of the header and see if it’s worth putting up something or just leaving it as-is. It seems empty with just text. I thought about a well-blended ad, but I don’t want to make it look bad. As for ads in general, I’ll be reassessing ad placement in an attempt to get some more click-throughs. Same goes for affiliates. I also may look at different methods of monetization that may better fit my audience.

If you want a good review of your blog, maybe it’s worth the money to have Michael do one for you. I learned a lot from Dan’s review and I can only imagine how much I could learn from a review of my own. Thanks, Dan, for footing the bill this time around.

Update: It looks like I managed to fix everything, but I’d sincerely appreciate it if you would report any weirdness in the site layout. IE users shouldn’t have anymore rendering issues with the navigation and the content background. On top of that, I also updated the site search with the newer Google Custom Search, which seems a lot more smoother. Suggestions? Let me know via the contact form. Thanks!

Yes, I’ve been away for a bit. Thanks to Dan for checking on my status, which kind of made me feel a little like Abe Vigoda. In case you were wondering, he’s still alive.

Anyway, I’ve been running around like crazy trying to tie up a thousand loose ends before I undergo minor back surgery on Thursday. I’ll be out of work for almost three weeks, so I’m hoping to be around more often, at least for those three weeks. Thanks for being patient (pun intended) with me. On to the good stuff.

I’ve included a video tutorial created by Revver user jennyrusks who can be found at Laughing Lion Design, based in Dublin Ireland. Jenny clearly explains how to create a duotone image, which is just that – an image of two colors. Pay attention, because this is some good stuff. I’m going to be posting my own camera phone duotone (that’s catchy) soon and I’m thinking about taking a page from Chica’s book and asking for submissions.

Enjoy the video and I’ll be back on Wednesday with another Wordless Wednesday abstraction.

The past 12 days have been exactly what you see here. Me passed out on University Avenue, watching cars pass by.

OK, maybe not, but it certainly felt like time flew by. My kids were out of school on Spring break and away for the entire time. My wife and I had a quiet house to ourselves. The days came and went. The kids returned safely home. Nancy finishes the Spring semester in about two weeks.

I’m not sure how this happens, but it feels like a time warp. Maybe Dan could explain it, since he’s a sci-fi writer and all that. Maybe I need inertial dampers to slow things down. Maybe I should quit my job and support my family as a pro blogger. LOL! Double LOL!

Either way, time is what it is and all I know is that I’m one year older as of the 6th of this month (gratuitous birthday mention) and I feel so much better for it. Go on and pass birthday wishes to Rolando as well, as he just turned 24 (again). If you have a birthday and I don’t know or didn’t remember, let me know and I’ll give you props.

As far as the site is concerned, you’ll notice the neato cool Revver widget thingy on the sidebar that contains the hundreds of video tutorials I’ve produced. OK, it’s only four, but the magnitude of their quality makes it seem like hundreds. I’m working on another one, so stay tuned.

Future improvements:

• putting back the top commentators widget as soon as it gets fixed for Wordpress 2.5
• adding some other cool widget that actually serves a purpose – suggestions are welcome
• opening a Cafepress shop so you can buy magnets and thongs with my photos on them…nah, too much work, but maybe in a year or ten
• asking you to send me your fab camera phone photos so you can be the next guest poster on this awesomely popular PR3 blog (pending me setting up an e-mail address for it)
• Strive to be like Joeprah, even though that is nearly impossible – at least his wit and humor can inspire me

Stay tuned for more exciting camera phone photos, like a cloud or a rock or maybe even a tree. Yeah man, breakin’ the rules.

That’s how I roll.

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This was the weekend of building the winter wonderland in my front yard. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. To mark the occasion, I decided that a photo was appropriate. Enjoy.

News and Stuff

I’m stoked that the video tutorial went over so well. Thanks for all of the positive comments. Next up is an easy way to achieve an aged photo look by applying a few simple effects in Picasa2. I hope to have this posted by the end of the week, but paying gigs take priority. Of course, if someone wants it posted tomorrow, I can always give you my Paypal address…

Special thanks to Opal Tribble at Vegan Momma for making me her guest RSS feed last week. I haven’t looked at the incoming traffic yet, but I’m sure I’ve gained some new readers from it. Thanks, Opal!

If you haven’t seen Dan’s totally cool Lucy in the Sky with Dragons image yet, you should. It rawks.

If you’re into street fighting, sullicom is now accepting votes for the final round of the Food Network Battle Royale. It is bound to be explosive, with cold and calculating Alton Brown facing off against the “Everyday Italian,” Giada De Laurentiis. If Alton is not lured into complacency by her hotness, he will destroy her. It will be an uphill battle, for sure. Cast your votes (Alton Brown) now!

Featured MGPSCP (My GPS Camera Phone) blogger, Shiera, is finally going for a custom domain name! On the flip-side, she really misses her kid. I couldn’t imagine working so far away from my kids. Go visit and say hello.

I finally took the Monetizer’s advice and made my first Squidoo lens. It’s easy and could potentially send traffic my way. Check it out if you want, then set one up yourself. It only took me about 45 minutes and it’s free.

Finally, voice-talent mega-star Heather Dugan is back from a computer failure with audio blog posts. It’s like listening to NPR or a television commercial without being sold anything. Totally awesome.

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After crossing my fingers, I’ve finally managed to upgrade WordPress to 2.3.1 from 2.2.2. It was scary, but everything seemed to go well. That is, until someone left a comment that kicked off a series of undeliverable e-mails.

Apparently, there’s this php mail thing that doesn’t allow WordPress to send mail with “nobody” as the sender. That means when a comment is left and people are subscribed to that post, the subscribers don’t get the comment e-mails. Why? No clue. It worked fine before the upgrade. I think I may have to go back a version on the plugin. Hopefully, this works.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and thanks to Dan for making my day by announcing that I was the closest guesser in his latest installment of Filtered Foto Friday. More good stuff on the way.

edit: OK, I give up for the night. If you subscribed to any posts, you will not be getting any e-mails because I’ve deactivated the subscribe plugin. Nighty night.