nickshontz » Web Finds

Dusting

Nick — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:29:53 +0000

Dusting, originally uploaded by nshontz.

Obsurdity

Nick — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:52:29 +0000

goofing around in Illustrator.

Dessert Creations

Nick — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:31:58 +0000

Recently i ordered some Cool Shooters Ice Shot Glassesfrom ThinkGeek, actually I used my geek points. We experimented freezing water, root beer and cranberry juice. The water froze well, but it's not very exciting; the root beer's carbonization and high sugar content didn't freeze well (but the crumbs were very tasty); not surprisingly the cranberry was my favorite. The cranberry shot glass with vanilla ice cream is mighty tasty. Jessica also discovered they are oven safe so we made some cupcake batter and came up with a new twist on cake and ice cream. Today we picked up another set at Rockin Rudy's in Missoula.

Cake & Ice Cream

Oh Happy Day…

Nick — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:32:47 +0000

Just got this email from google. what a nice way to end the week.

Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

Trying Yoga

Nick — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:31:01 +0000

"YOGA in nature's way" photo by Tony George

Restorative Yoga for Body and Mind
A sequence to relieve fatigue and stress, promote well-being, and bring healing balance into your life.
-Liz Owen

My first yoga experience went pretty well, it was more focused on calming the mind and gently stretching the body than strength and flexibility. A good place to start I think.

Helena, MT (more…)

Nick — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:01:22 +0000

After my original Helena, MT post, I realized that I had forgotten two of the most important (and most photographed) pieces of Helena's history, the fire tower and the Cathedral. The fire tower is one of Helena's most celebrated historical sites, note the coffee shop of the same name. The Cathedral photo below is from a distance taken from behind my parents house, here is a closer (and amazing) photo taken by *Jeff*.

The Fire Tower
The Helena Cathedral

Helena, MT

Nick — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:09:21 +0000

I got a chance to walk around downtown Helena for an hour this afternoon and take some photos. Helena is a city founded by four gold miners who have striking it rich one last chance. Most of these photos are of Last Chance Gulch. Many of these buildings were built during the days of the gold rush by the millionaires that had made their fortune. Helena at one point had the most millionaires per capita than anywhere in the US.

Eddy's Bread, good...
The Power Block, My dad used to work in this building
The Atlas Building
The Parrot Confectionery
The Montana Club
The Montana Club, It's different in Helena
A giant mural

Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM IF Lens

Nick — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:24:32 +0000

Sigma 18-250mm and Canon XT

I've received the new lens and taken a very view photos with it (mostly because it's too cold out), but I've been playing with it, trying to get the hand of this fancy new piece of equipment.

Pinecone
The 'M' shot from near the tennis courts on campus
It's a little off kilter, but i like the photo anyway
Another light in The Break

Zoom Vs Magnification

Nick — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:45:56 +0000

Recently I've been in the market for a new lens for my Canon XT. I want something to replace the kit lens that came with the camera and I wanted something that would do the same and more (in terms of magnification). And so I've been reading and researching and a lot of the forum posts i've come across start with someone asking how to convert "zoom" (i.e. 12x) to mm (i.e 250mm), and the next several posts are generally along the lines of "zoom" is a verb, you can't convert the zoom factor to a focal length" by people with an over-inflated sense of self because they are forum admins (thus the reason i hate forums).

It seems that it comes down to a couple of simple things.

First the answer most folks are looking for is this: a normal field of view is (generally accepted on the internet as) 50mm, thus a lens with a focal length of 250mm will have a magnification rate of 5 times (250/50 = 5).
Second lenses that are generally labeled in terms of mm of focal length are often advertised as having a zoom ratio (i.e 12x) which is not the same as a magnification ratio. So a lens that is labeled as 18 to 250mm will magnify at 5x but may be advertised as as having 13.8x zoom ( thats 250/18 = 13.9).

All of that being said, I've procured a new Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM IF Lens, It's not actually in my hands as of yet but I'm quite excited to give it a try as it will have me a lot more reach and flexibility than the kit lens, some of the reviews on Amazon also said it was sharper between 18 and 55 which is all the kit lens allows.

Here are some photos I've taken recently:

Nemo
Whitefish train station, 2009
Flyover
A dog named Grizzly
The light

Things to read and consider

Nick — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:58:23 +0000

A friend of mine recently asked me to give some suggestions on print material on the topic of internet and computers. here is what i've sent him. if you have anything to add please do!

The World is Flat - it's about how outsourcing is changing the world as we know it, and how India is becoming a Tech Hub.
The Tribe - the author of this book is Seth Godin and he is a popular marketing and social internet Guru, he has a blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Groundswell - About the way the internet & social media is changing the way we live and do business
Presentation Zen - not sure who recommended it to me or what it's about. could be good, could be a how-to design websites etc that look and work good.
Free Culture - This is a book by a lawyer who helped legally solidify the concept of open source. I'm a pretty big fan of his tho I've not read this book (it's available for free download on his website: http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/)

I would definitely go to a bookstore and thumb through these before buying, i also have one more book that was a free download that i made into a real book i'm going to attempt to remember it when we come it's Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Richard M Stallman is a crazy guy but a pretty smart one.

another cool place to learn about things is on http://www.ted.com it obviously requires a computer, but the videos are pretty sweet. some cool ones are: http://www.ted.com/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html (Wiimote Hacks) & http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html (Laurence Lessig)

some magazines that might be of interest: http://www.pcmag.com/ and http://www.eweek.com/ (free subscription) and the Technology Review