:P

I've just spent a few billion** hours fiddling with the CSS so the font size can be adjusted if you're viewing this with Internet Explorer. I think it works now, but if you're having trouble, please leave a comment.

**When exaggerating in the bad old days I used thousands or millions, but now it's time to upgrade. Billions. Trillions. Zillions. Gimme a bailout, baby.

First I tell them composition is great but how your picture is composed will make other people appreciate your print. Right now we should not worry about that but we should be concerned if the image being printed is suitable for printing. Plain and simply said, this means the image file needs to be large enough for the size you plan to have printed.

For most digital cameras out today, this is not a problem as much as it had a few years ago. As we all know, people measure the power behind a digital camera in megapixels. This is the total number of pixels the camera is able to generate when capturing an image.

These pixels are merely the mosaic light pattern of colors that make of the picture shown on your computer screen. This has a direct bearing on the quality of the print. You see, when ever a digital photo is printed either on your inkjet printer at home or at a pro-lab like ours, the computer has to translate those pixels into a hard copy print. The more color data it has, or the more pixels it measures in width and height, the better the print quality.

Now there are some other issues of course such as camera shake and exposure settings that can wreck havoc on an image and result in what appears to be a poor quality print but the reality is the printer simply prints what is given to it so the print quality may be great but the shot itself might not live up to the potential of the printer.

What this all means is the larger the image file the better print you will get. A 12 megapixel camera shot should therefore yield a better quality printed imagery then a 6 migapixel camera shot when printed at the same size.

Under our hints and tips section at FinerWorks.com we have a chart that provides an general idea as to what a camera is capable of when using megapixels as the guide.

I would like to say thank you to Sulz for starting the thread & taking the time to nominate me as the forum volunteer of the day.

sulz
Member
Oct 8, 2008, 10:26 PM

today my forum volunteer of the day is teck07. he replied to practically all the threads (at time of writing, or rather, typing) that i can't even help out! grrrr. (notice how i fail to point out my lack of knowledge in department to help out in the first place, which is why i can't any thread to respond to. lol.) teck07, keep up the good work!

My extended Thank you to the following wordpress.com forum volunteers

I would also like to take the time to say thank you to the following wordpress members that take time out of the there busy schedule to help other wordpress members achieve a better experience with wordpress.com

The reason I'm doing this is because allot of  times there work & effort goes on notice

These fellow talented & dedicated forum volunteers have spent countless hours helping out other wordpress.com members please note this not always a easy task because they are face with hard questions & some times unruly members. but regardless they have always dedicated them self's to try & found out the answer & have always kept there cool when they we're faced with unruly commentator's.

You may have seen one or more of these volunteers helping you out in the forums if you come across one of them please consider saying thank you, I'm sure that it will make there day!

vivianpaigeImage by josephscott via Flickr
Member

devblog
Member

panaghiotisadam
Member

OK, cela fait plusieurs mois que photobucket et moi, nous nous entendons bien. Il m'aide un peu dans mon aventure bloguesque.

Qu'est-ce que photobucket? A quoi ça sert? Comment s'en sert-on?

Je ne sais plus du tout comment je suis tombée dessus mais cet outil m'est grandement utile. Au départ donc, ce site permet de stocker des photos, des vidéos et de la musique online. Comme d'habitude pour ce type de sites, il faut s'abonner (site en anglais). Photobucket est l'un des sites américains les plus populaires pour ce genre d'opérations (stocker puis partager). Jusque-là, on ne voit pas bien la différence avec Flickr (sauf pour la musique) ou bien avec le stockage sur un blog WordPress.com.

Et bien, il y a jusque quelques petits plus qui me satisfont.

• Quand j'importe un lien via WordPress.com en copiant l'adresse, WordPress va chercher à la source l'image, ok? Mais si l'image disparaît pour X raisons (fermeture du site, suppression de l'image par l'auteur, etc), l'image dont j'ai copiée l'adresse va générer une erreur dans mon billet. Et cela, je ne le verrais pas forcément parce qu'on ne revient que rarement vers ses anciens posts. Vous avouerez que c'est légèrement gênant. En revanche, photobucket me permet de stocker dans mon compte l'image qui aura été téléchargée en copiant l'adresse url originale dans la case prévue, et je n'aurai aucun problème à l'avenir. Je copie juste l'adresse de l'emplacement dans photobucket sur mon blog WordPress.com ou autre.
• Grâce à photobucket, je peux créer des diapos d'images (des slideshows en anglais) préalablement enregistrées sur mon compte et mettre le lien sur mon blog. Cela fait une sympathique animation pour illustrer mon billet comme ici. Et d'autres exemples sont proposés.
• Je gagne 1Gb et c'est toujours cela de gagné, sachant que les blogs WordPress.com accordent gratuitement 3Gb (par la suite, il faut payer une somme à l'année), ce qui énorme tout de même comparé aux 50 Mb proposés en 2007. Pour les autres plateformes non indépendantes, je n'en ai aucune idée.

Comment faire?

On s'inscrit. On télécharge dessus les images et vidéos via:

1. Un ordinateur
2. Une adresse URL qu'on a copiée
3. Un téléphone ayant un accès au web
4. Un email

C'est relativement facile à utiliser à partir du moment où vous maîtrisez un tout petit peu l'anglais.

HELLO GENTLE READERS,Roger Miller, a singer-songwriter of the sixties, said, "Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet". A dear friend of my says that we are either overcome by the storms of life or we are propelled forward by them.

It's so outrageous I can't even be bothered complaining.

I'll alter the CSS as soon as I can, but if it doesn't work or if you have any trouble viewing anything here for other reasons, please leave a comment and I'll... cry. No, not much.

UPDATE

According to the site I'm looking at - which can't be bothered giving itself a title - pixels (the size used in this theme) are relative (i.e. adjustable). The problem is with Internet Explorer.

I'm sure a person who can't read this text will appreciate that distinction.

HELLO GENTLE READERS,

T.S. Eliot wrote, "People to whom nothing has ever happened  cannot understand the unimportance of events". The life of others often seems appealing to folks, it seems to me, because people often believe that the source of their happiness is tied to the events of their life. The events of their life seem to be worse than those of others. In fact, events are on the outside and problems are on the inside. Events always occur, but the same problems tend to recur. Problems cannot be solved by eliminating events because events cannot always be prevented. Almost all my problems are based on fear, insecurity, anger, resentment, low self-esteem and, yes, even happiness.

This is hoping that the events of your life are awesome and your problems few.

Tom Vickers

Damn Russians! I am getting a lot of comment spam from Russia. All of these have a .ru domain.

So, Russians are officially banned from this website. Interested in how I actually banned the Russians? Here's how I did it.

Inside the Wordpress.com Admin, click Settings --> Discussion. Then add .ru to the area that says Comment Blacklist.

The problem was that the Akismet Spam Filter was missing these, so this fix will actually send all domains with a .ru domain to the Akismet Spam Filter for nuclear annihilation. MAD does not apply here.

That's it! Now the Russians cannot invade your blog! It's not quite as robust as the Missile Defense System, but it'll do.

If you placed an order to have your photos or artwork made into prints during this time, your order was not effected and is on schedule.

Hello Gentle Readers,

There is an old American proverb which states, "There is always free cheese in a mousetrap". It may be no accident that this adage is American. We have, throughout our brief history, bailed out industry after industry. We, the taxpayers, have "bought" the Railroad Industry four times, the Steel Industry once, portions of the Auto Industry once and now the Financial Industry, just to name a few. Of all of these, the latter galls me the most. This industry is supposed to be comprised of the "best and brightest". The "best and brightest" will not only cost me in taxes, but also in the reduced value of my portfolio. Have they no shame?

Industry gets the cheese, we get caught in the trap! Frodo failed...Bush got the ring!

Tom Vickers

Ich habe mir gerade mal angesehen was Google mit seiner JS-Suche zum selbereinbinden so generiert und was das OpenStreetMap/OpenLayers-Projekt so ausspuckt und ich bin erschüttert. Mein Code sieht ja auch nicht immer wirklich sauber aus (jüngst hatte ich noch an einigen Stellen DIVs unterhalb von Ps, was wirklich ungünstig ist) aber wenigstens die ALT-Atribute könnte man zu Bildern schon noch hinzufügen oder?

Wenn es jedenfalls selbst eine große Firma wie Google nicht fertigbringt validen Code zu erzeugen (Von OpenLayers will ich garnicht mehr reden, der Code ist derartig schlecht.. -.-) und damit sicherlich mal eben ein paar tausend Seiten kaputt macht, wie kann man dann von Privatpersonen erwarten dass sie ihre Seiten valide halten? (An dieser Stelle bitte ich auch um Nachsicht was G33KY^2 betrifft, bezüglich diesen miesen Codes dürft ihr euch lieber bei Wordpress.com beschweren.)

So, ich bin jetzt mal weg und suche mit Firebug und dem W3C-Validator nach Seiten die stolz das valid-XHTML-Logo zeigen und irgendwelche externen Javascripts einbinden... Mal sehen was man so findet.

We live on a horse farm with 22 horses and ponies, 6 dogs, 2 rabbits, 5 fish, 2 teenage boys and about 855 farm cats (at last count), not to mention the odd bear, deer, copperhead, raccoon and polecat.

The following is one anecdote from many true stories we hope to write. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and to avoid lawsuits. The cast of characters for these stories is as follows:

Anastasia- a "horny", 555 pound Blue Butt hog who took unattended walks, searching for her "man-pig".
Shiloh- a Heinz 57 mixed breed farm dog who escaped the evening before his scheduled neutering.
Shasta- a female puppy who was the reason for Shiloh's upcoming vet appointment. Jude- a transexual? hen/rooster known in her/his previous persona as Judy. Jude was assigned the female gender by the seller. Truth in advertising?
Josie- a heterosexual hen who died of fright.
Dagny- sadly, a suicidal goat.
Doozy- Dagny's twin sister whose proclivities included peeing on tavern floors.

It all started on Mother's Day when, upon returning from gift shopping with the family, we brought home a weedeater, lawnmower and a garbage disposal; in other words, 2 goats and a baby piglet. The goats, Dagney and Doozy, were tethered in the front yard and given their assigned task of mowing the lawn. A pen of pallets was built for "Annie" (Anastasia) in anticipation of her coming into season and becoming amorous. Jude/Judy started playing a game with Shiloh in which she/he would entice Shiloh to pull her/his tail. Josie was not into the tail-pulling game and when chased by Shiloh assumed "room-temperature". Deader than a fried mule was Josie. Dagney, not to be outdone by Josie, promptly hanged herself on her tether. Goat stew, was Dagney.

The stars of this story, Shiloh, the dog, and Doozy, the goat, became closer than nature ever intended, even sleeping together on the front porch. This pairing was never fully consummated, as far as we know, but, nevertheless, a sordid affair. Doozy, never the shy one, started escaping to the Tavern across the street. She would walk in, pee on the floor and then make her merry way back  home. A mahem of mixed-up, madcap, mildly-disfunctional, mixed-marriage of a modern menagarie.

Two weeks before his scheduled nuetering, Shiloh, the dog, eloped with Doozy, the "floor-peeing" goat. A "high-and-low" search ensued across the entire ridge! Calling upon Native American tracking skills, we were able to trace their movements. OK, OK! Actually, we asked the neighbors if the "odd-couple" had been seen. They had. Did they really think they could remain anonomous?

About three or four miles from home, Doozy and Shiloh committed the first felony of this spree. They were guilty of "Breaking and Entering" a neighbors home. The lady of the house was cooking dinner when out of the corner of her eye she spotted lifeforms not usually found in a kitchen. After recovering her composure, she fed the desperados. Shiloh dined on Cornish Game Hens while Doozy helped herself to the salad bowl generously laid at her feet. After their four-star dining, the lovebirds slinked off, never to be heard from again. In all fairness, we must attribue some canine loyalty to Shiloh. He did make one more cameo appearance the very night before his appointment with the Vet. We never quite knew if it was an attempt to rectify his behavior or just a final farewell. He left that night to return to his love.

We check the mailbox daily hoping against hope for some word from our missing four-legged family members.

More animal stories to follow.

Tom Vickers and LaVerna Huey

HELLO GENTLE READERS,

There is an old Jewish expression, Make a plan, give God a laugh. Adages such as this have become part of our language for a reason. Yesterday was a day of which axioms are built.

The boys, ages 13 and 15, had been promised a day boating and fishing on the Ohio River. They are home-schooled so, scheduling events in not all that incovenient.

Yesterday dawned blue and clear, mild and sunny and the clouds had all been chased away by our dreams of of pleasant sailing. The boat was packed with fishing gear, safety equipment and enough munchies to feed Peru for a week. Off we rolled to the Marina.

"What no bait," we inquired? "Yeah, they haven't delivered today," said the clerk at the BP Station. "Of any kind," we asked? "Mealworms only," he answered. Well, we can't allow mealworms on the boat, you see. LaVerna refuses to use anything for bait that has eyes. Ok, blind artificial lures and a beautiful day on the river. Not too shabby, really.

Into the water we go. The boat, which was manufactured before The Beatles broke up, started without a hitch. The heads had just been rebuilt and the motor pronounced seaworthy. Our favorite mechanic's nephew made this pronouncement. BEWARE the pronouncements of Mr. Tippet's nephew. Our intuition, ultimately proven right, led us upriver. You can always float downriver back to your starting point, should something go amiss. You can't float upriver. It's a gravitational "thing". Upriver we chugged. Maybe two miles. The motor started smoking more than a Hippie at Woodstock! Rats!! Ok, gravity, your're up to bat. Damned nephews, anyway! Boaters are generally a friendly lot. We got a tow back to the Marina, put the diseased boat back on the trailer and headed home.

Is this story finished, Gentle Reader? Oh no, not by a long shot! To make a long story "endless" (Gotcha'! You thought I was going to say make a long story short, didn't you?), we decided to park the boat at home and go to a nearby lake fishing. So, take that you evil motorboat gods! We finally found some nightcrawlers, transferred the munchies to the truck and headed to the lake. Wet lines, flavored water, lively worms, sodium, sugar, corn syrup and yellow dye #4 were to be our guides for the day. Uh-huh, so we thought.

"I'VE GOT ONE," shouted John-John! "IT'S A BIG ONE , I THINK," he announced to half of Cabell County! "HOLY SHIT, IT'S A FUCKIN' SNAKE," he cussed. John, such language! "HOLY SHIT, IT IS A FUCKIN" SNAKE," I agreed! Not a water snake or a garter snake but, a COPPERHEAD! No lie! He caught a freakin' copperhead on a nightcrawler!

We cut the line and I held the end with the snake attached while LaVerna tried to call the Dept. of Natural Resources for guidance. With today's laws, it pays to be sure which animals to destroy. A copperhead on a leash. God, I hate snakes. They're not finished; no eyelids, limbs or personalities. What was God thinking? DNR told us to back off, leave the snake to nature and choose our next fishing spot with extra care. No Shit!

A lazy day on the river.

Tom Vickers and LaVerna Huey

When I signed up to the site the other week I decided that I would create a separate blog for NaNoWriMo and publish what I write online straight away plus wordpress.com makes it very easy to do. As I set up the blog I also created an 'About' page listing things I had written or contributed to in the past:

• Started creative writing with short stories aged 10.
• Won a yearwide competition year 7 out of 130 entries with my short story based on a mystery surrounding an old chapel.
• Carried on writing a novel, completed roughly 20,000 words, but never completed it.
• Was part of the school newspaper for four years.
• Attempted writing another novel aged 17/18. Completed about 150,000 words until losing interest.
• Three years experience as news and feature writer for several gaming websites.
• Two years as the sole writer of two gaming related columns.
• On and off blogger since 2004; as of 2006 on my personal blog carocat.co.uk.

Now that all sounds quite good, doesn't it?

Well, it may sound good, but it's not so much. When I was younger and still living in Germany, I wrote a lot and everything from letters to short stories and more. And of course that was all in German. My one year in the UK when I was 16 didn't stop me either and I carried on just like before when I returned. Ever since coming back to the UK, however, I've been unable to do any kind of creative writing. My German is beyond rubbish these days and my English just not good enough.

I have the same imagination, but I can't put any of it into words in either language and instead of gaining another language to a very high standard I've lost what counts in both. Sure, my English is good, my spoken English is excellent and I haven't got much of an accent, or so I'm told! I can write news, simple blogposts, communicate with people and have a better written English than some English people.

But there's always something that I don't know or need to look up; Leo Dict is one of my most visited sites. Words today included verbose, implacable and plicate which some may argue are uncommon words, but nevertheless I would have known them in German many years ago. Or grammar, simple things like punctuation or rather lack thereof compared to the German laws in punctuation!

As for German, I am unable to carry on the simplest conversations these days; typing not only takes me an eternity, but speaking is even worse. After a few weeks in Germany I am able to hold a conversation, but can't do sarcasm for example.

Two languages, neither of them perfect, neither of them able to put my imagination into words. NaNoWriMo will be fun..

stick em up

Copyright Law: 12 Dos and Don’ts - Click the title link and find 12 Do’s and Dont’s that will clarify what you can and what you can not do as an online publisher.

As the blogging phenomenon expands, copyright concerns become quite important. Technology makes it really easy to copy, modify and share information, whether we talk about text, images, audio or video. The problem is that the vast majority of people do not have a clear understanding of the Copyright Law, which might result in illegal and costly mistakes.

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Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators.

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved.

[caption id="attachment_1583" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="cc spectrum"][/caption]

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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MyFreeCopyright.com - protection for Literary Works Visual Arts Performing Arts Sound Recordings

How does the MyFreeCopyright process work? Registering with My Free Copyright is instant and can be proven in a court of law. MyFreeCopyright provides a third-party, non-repudiation, registered dating of your original digital creation. By using this service, you publicly associate your digital copyright and defined rights to you.

So, how does MyFreeCopyright date register my copyright? Every digital file has a unique makeup of bits and bytes which is its fingerprint. MyFreeCopyright captures your original creation's fingerprint, stores the fingerprint in a database and sends a copy of the fingerprint to you in an email. The email contains the verified date; the fingerprint verifies the digital creation, and your email address verifies it belongs to you. (NOTE: You must keep the email with this fingerprint. This email is your date registered copyright proof and protection for your copyright.)

[caption id="attachment_1584" align="alignleft" width="145" caption="mfc protected"][/caption]

MyFreeCopyright stores the fingerprint as well, which allows you and others to return to this service and verify the copyright.

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creators.icopyright.com - protection for Literary Works Visual Arts Performing Arts Sound Recordings

If you care enough about your content to add a copyright notice to it, then an iCopyright ©reator tag is for you. ©reator tags are like domain names and email addresses, they are one-of-a-kind. Your tag will resolve to a unique webpage that displays your rights and permissions. Simply affix your personalized interactive ©reator tag to your works, whether they are published online or offline, to preserve your copyrights, promote your reputation, track who is using your works, and extend licenses and permissions to those who wish to use your works. Your works will never be orphans if they have a ©reator tag.

[caption id="attachment_1585" align="alignleft" width="42" caption="icopy-w"][/caption]

Your FREE ©reator tag enhances the traditional copyright notice. It serves as a virtual rights manager. Wherever your content goes, your personalized ©reator tag goes with it, communicating that the content belongs to you. It provides three powerful benefits that a traditional copyright notice alone does not provide: rights, reach and revenue.

Related posts found in this blog:
Content theft: The come and get it solution
Splog Off! Dealing with content theft
SplogSpot: Dealing with content thieves
Copyright: Fair Use Limitations
What is copyright?

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Is the act of sexual congress funny, or what? In, out, repeat if necessary, goes an old joke. All lifeforms are at a very vulnerable state when engaging in procreational activities. The very act of creating new life often ends it for the creators. Flowers die, prey animals often are so distracted that they end up on the value menu, predators, at great peril, continually have to fight for dominance and even the lowly amoeba, when dividing, can expose itself to danger. All life pays a price. Of course there are exceptions to this vulnerability. My soon-to-be ex-wife, for example, could tell me the ceiling needed painting while engaged in sex. No vulnerabilty there, huh?

Humans are no exception. Why do we pay such a dear price for sex. Many studies have been done on the subject and, guess what? It feels good, dammit. Yeah, sometimes we do it to start a family but, I wonder how eager we would be if the sex act were painful instead of providing pleasure? I can just hear it now; "God, what an awful night. The wife and I want to start a family but, I just didn't realize what a toll it would take on me to engage in sex!"

The sex drive is one of the strongest forces on earth. Humans give up safety, money, position, relationships and many other advantages for a thirty second orgasm. Tell me God has no sense of humor!

Yeah, it's true. Men have nipples too.

Tom Vickers

Okay, back to the roots, back to Connection. Ein besseres Theme gibt es hier halt nicht. Ende der Durchsage. (Und erinnere mich jemand daran, wenn mich mal wieder Anwandlungen von Renovierungsgelüsten überkommen. Danke.)

In an ill-spent youth, I used to hang out a lot in bars and taverns. One of these was Ma'Ha's Short Snorter. Ma'Ha's was not your mahogany-paneled, brass-railed, Manhatten Ice Tea type of establishment. Ma'Ha's was a red-eye whiskey, Stroh's Bohemian Style Beer kinda' place. Cheers it was not, nor, did it wish to be. It was one of those places where "everybody forgot your name", assuming they knew it in the first place. It was very entertaining, though. It was like belonging to a "Fight of the Night" club. But, I met some very interesting people there and, that's the subject of this post.

One of those folks was Sally. Sally was a Caterer by trade. She "catered" to the sexual desires of all who had the itch and the jingle with which to scratch. I met her when she sidled up to me at the bar and said, "Mister, for fifty dollars I'll do anything you want"! So, I asked her to paint my house. She threw back her head and laughed, filling Ma'Ha's  with that rich, whisky-stained voice. She allowed as how she'd never been asked to do anything quite that kinky but, maybe I'd buy her a drink while she thought it over. I did. She declined.

Sally had lost her left leg in an automobile accident and wasn't the least bit self-conscious about it. It never seemed to hurt her trade either. This was one happy hooker. I got to know Sally (not as a customer) and she makes my top 25 list of people to admire. She accepted life as it was presented to her. Was her choice of occupation unfortunate? I don't know. All cultures put value on a woman's sexuality. We seem to get queasy, though, when that value is expressed in money. She was not the "whore with a heart of gold", she was just another person providing for her family. Quite well, thank you.

God bless you, Sally.

Tom Vickers