Recently I got a telephoto lens.  It wasn’t an expensive lens.  But the reviews were pretty decent and I went to the not-so-local camera shop to try it out along with some others.  I was more impressed with the low end model over the higher cost versions.  So I happily started taking my longer distance photos.  It’s not the greatest lens for inside photography, but I wanted it for outside work anyway.  The lens I got was a Quantary AF LD 70-300mm.  It has a nice macro mode on it and is very smooth to use.

As some of you may know I love astronomy.  I wish I had a really nice tracking telescope.  But the other night the moon was full and I decided to take some shots.  A month ago I tried some moon shots but had a difficult time dialing in the settings required.  So I looked up how to photgraph the moon on the Internet and got lots of possibilities, but none of them were exact for my camera.  But they were a great starting point.

The Moon is actually an extremely bright object in the night sky.  Especially the full moon.  So you don’t have to take really long exposures like one would think.  Here’s my best photo (actual size coming out of my 10.1MP camera) from my last shoot.  Even tho the exposure was 1/640 I still used a tripod and the timer so I didn’t introduce any extra shake into the image.  I’ll try again at other times to refine my technique.

The Moon

It’s not as sharp as I would have hoped for but it’s a pretty decent start.  F/5.6 1/640 ISO 100

While I was outside I played around with some low light shots.  This is my neighbor’s house.  I left the settings the same for my moon shot, but I just took it to 30 second exposure.  It’s really neat how the one light creates enough light over time and the bouned light from the grass and trees casts a eerie green glow in the picture.

House at Night

As an aside, I do have the ability for you to subscribe to my blog.  Just click the register link on the right sidebar.  Happy shooting.

Can a 2 year old make it as president? I can definitely understand my son and his points of views better than the current candidates. News 3 has covered his meteoric rise to the highest office in the country.

I had a great time at the Photo Walk yesterday. We had 13 people on the walk wandering through Old Salem. A few even came down from Virginia to be part of our walk. Old Salem reminds me of Williamsburg, without the crowds. Afterward we stopped off at Mary’s of Course Cafe for lunch while we looked through our photos to compare results and share tips and techniques. We did get a group photo with the people that didn’t have to head out early. There was some talk of getting together again for another walk… maybe in October.

The photos we took for the contest can be seen on our Flickr Page.

I’ve been doing a lot of updating my website the past couple of weeks. I’ll explain how I did a number of the nifty things on the site starting with the CSS I used to do the image popups on my page labeled “Web Devigner.” It’s best if you create two images, one large and a thumbnail. Technically you can just use a single image, but the thumbnail doesn’t look as good as a properly resized image.

First here’s the CSS:

.thumbnail
{
position: relative;
z-index: 0;
}
.thumbnail:hover
{
background-color: transparent;
z-index: 50;
}
.thumbnail span
{ /*CSS for enlarged image*/
position: absolute;
background-color: #cbb2f2;
padding: 5px;
left: -1000px;
border: 1px dashed #666;
visibility: hidden;
color: #000;
text-decoration: none;
}
.thumbnail span img
{ /*CSS for enlarged image*/
border-width: 0;
padding: 2px;
}
.thumbnail:hover span
{ /*CSS for enlarged image on hover*/
visibility: visible;
top: 0;
left: 60px; /*position where enlarged image should offset horizontally */
}


And now for an example of the html that uses the above CSS:

<a href="#thumb" class="thumbnail"><img src="images/NCMBRP_thumb.jpg" border="0" height="50" width="75" /><span><img src="images/NCMBRP.jpg" /></span></a>


Scott Kelby initiated a world-wide photowalk.  As an avid reader of Scott’s blog and the wonderful resources they have at photoshopusertv I felt compelled to sign up as leader for the event.  I’m no stranger to setting up photowalks, but the ones I’ve done in the past were for the amateur photographers who don’t have more than a few controls on their cameras.  After all a photowalk is a social event.  A way to meet people or to get to know your friends better by finding out what they like to photograph.

Having lived in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia for many years I started my photowalking there and quickly learned that the Military Police don’t know what to think of a bunch of people walking around a military base taking pictures.  Fortunately some quick talking and the offer of full disclosure of all images taken made them relax their stance.

So I really wanted to participate in this photowalk and I wasn’t about to wait for someone else to pick a city too far away from me, so I signed up as a leader.  I was chosen as leader even though I clearly stated that I consider myself an amateur photographer, I just know how to walk and talk and pick a path.  Winston Salem isn’t too far away and  I knew of 2 really good choices for the walk: Wake Forest University and Old Salem.  I’ve only briefly seen both of these areas and wanted to take pictures, but not from a moving vehicle with singing/screaming kids in the backseat.

In the end I chose Old Salem for several reasons:  Adequate parking.   Easy route choices.  A very disparate choice in architecture.  The presence of both a park and a cemetery.  And most important, what I would consider the perfect cafe as an end point.

So here are the details of the walk.  The current site for the walk is: http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk/city/winston-salem.html But I don’t know how long this site will stay up after the walk so here is a google map of the path we intend to take:

Google Map

One thing I have learned in the past is you don’t want to try to spend most of your time walking. This isn’t a marathon, so I try to keep the walk to 1.0 - 1.3 miles per hour.  This gives you plenty of time to socialize as well as setup close-up shots.  I also have a list of must bring items:

• Camera (it’s amazing how many people actually have to go back to get their camera)
• 2 lenses (One wide and one telephoto)
• Hat
• Ultra compact umbrella (Great for cutting out lens flare as well as protection from rain)
• Water
• Map
• Name Tags
• Leave tripod at home (flash is optional)
• Memory cards/extra film
• Fully charged Batteries
• Sunscreen
• Business cards
• Good shoes and socks (no sandals, you may be going off road a bit)

That’s about it.  Sign up and I’ll see you there.

I ran across this video today. It’s too inspirational not to share.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

There is a bunch of fancy ways to hide and unhide content in HTML. But nothing beats the simple approach. Sure, AJAX can make things slide nice and smooth for an extra level of polish, but there is something to be said for the simple approach. On one of the sites I maintain, I had to make a combined form. The content of the form needed to change based on the answer to the first question. But a lot of the information was the same between the forms. So, instead of making 2 forms I combined them and made the information “dynamically change” based on the answer to the first question. The page I’ll refer to is here.

So first thing’s first. You have to setup your elements in such a way they can be easily edited. For Forms I set both a class and an ID tag. I use the class for styling the look and I use the ID tag for changing the style in validation or in hide/unhide for those dynamic forms:

<span class="mainForm" id=”fieldBox_4″>
<label class=”formFieldQuestion”>Credentials/Degrees:</label><br><input class=mainForm type=text name=field_4 id=field_4 size=’50′ value=”><br></span>

One important thing to note is that all line spacing tags <br> are within the <span> tag. This way you don’t end up with ghost line breaks on your page.

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
<!--
function ShowInd()
{
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_4′).style.display = “block”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_16′).style.display = “block”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_17′).style.display = “block”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_18′).style.display = “block”;

document.getElementById('fieldBox_5').style.display = "none";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_6').style.display = "none";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_7').style.display = "none";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_19').style.display = "none";
}
function ShowOrg()
{
document.getElementById('fieldBox_5').style.display = "block";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_6').style.display = "block";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_7').style.display = "block";
document.getElementById('fieldBox_19').style.display = "block";

document.getElementById(’fieldBox_4′).style.display = “none”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_16′).style.display = “none”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_17′).style.display = “none”;
document.getElementById(’fieldBox_18′).style.display = “none”;
}
//–>
</script>

Now you need to set your beginning state for all of your id tags. I do these right on the page. If you do them in a separate style sheet you can run into problems if you use the same names over and over. I use the display element since it has a more universal appearance across the browsers than the visibility element. Setting display to block makes it visible and setting it to none, makes it disappear.

<style>
#fieldBox_4, #fieldBox_16, #fieldBox_17, #fieldBox_18
{
display: block;
}
#fieldBox_5, #fieldBox_6, #fieldBox_7, #fieldBox_19
{
display: none;
}
</style>

Now we need to setup some javascript to turn these on and off. One function for each state. Make sure you turn off and on all fields that are affected for both states.

And finally add the trigger on your initial question to call the functions.

<span><input name="field_1" type="radio" class="mainForm" id="field_1_option_1" onMouseDown=”ShowInd() ” value=”an individual” checked=”checked” /><label class=formFieldOption for=”field_1_option_1″>an individual</label><br><input name=”field_1″ type=”radio” class=”mainForm” id=”field_1_option_2″ onMouseDown=”ShowOrg() ” value=”an organization” /><label class=formFieldOption for=”field_1_option_2″>an organization</label></span>

It seems to me there is a simple way to determine if you should believe the claims of any particular person or group.  At the moment I’m thinking about people or groups that endorse products.  And it boils down to a few simple questions.  You will quickly realize that I’m stating the obvious.

1) Does this person or group have a monetary stake in your decision to buy this product?

If they do, I’m extremely skeptical of their claims.  I like to have as unbiased opinion about a product as possible.  If someone has some sort of stake in in your decision, they are likely to spout anything to get you buy.  This is especially true of any store or any person that is selling a  product.  They obviously have a stake in your decision to purchase.  I’m reminded of one time I went to a car dealership and the salesman was telling me about the “Rack and pinion struts & the McPherson steering.”  Even I knew he was trying to sound impressive, but he had no clue what he was taking about.

2) What does this person or group do for a living?

Should you trust the word of someone who doesn’t deal with the product on a regular basis?  If Tiger Woods recommends a particular brand of golf club or Scott Kelby a certain type of camera lens, I’m more inclined to listen to their claims.  I know they may be paid to endorse that product, but if they actually use the product on a regular basis, there is some validity to their claims.

On the flip side, if an actor or actress endorses a product, I never believe the claims. The reason is simple, what does an actor and actress do for a living?  They pretend.  So they are professional pretenders.  Do you really want to listen to any advice from someone that pretends for a living?  Now if they are endorsing acting products, then they are definitely in the know.

 3) Are the claims too good to be true?

You know the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Or should that say “it probably isn’t true.”  Either way extreme claims should be taken with a grain of salt.  You should especially look for weasel words in the claim.  Terms like “may help” or “boosts” and even the word “improves.” Statements like “improves engine performance” or “boosts the immune system” has no meaning since they don’t directly equate to a measurable claim.  The claim sounds good, but how can you actually tell how much improvement or boost you will receive.  They are empty claims.
4) Is the claim based on personal experience or on a real world double blind study?

I like hearing about peoples experiences with a product, but before I try that product, I want to know the hard numbers.  An acquaintance of mine recently told me about how the “miracle juice” made his back feel better.  Interesting claim, but how much of that was his desire for that outcome.  There are so many things that affect our senses and how we feel that it is difficult to take a single person’s experience as a measure of the claim.  A recent double blind study on the effects of the juice showed no measurable benefits.  It was just over-priced bad tasting juice.

 So why did I feel the need to blog about this?

I don’t know.  It seems like there is a need for a bit more critical thinking.

I recently gained a number of web clients. Most of my day to day work is maintenance and add-on information to the sties. But some of the sites need an overhaul. So not being one to think I know everything, I decided to research and research. I want to make sure I keep in mind the most important things about web design while I work on these new designs. I can boil my research down to some common sense rules as well as a number of commandments. The rules are things you can break from time to time if necessary. If you don’t follow the commandments, however, you will lose visitors.

Rule 1

Keep it simple. Create a web site that has a well defined purpose. Don’t be afraid to break pages up to ensure that each page has a singular focus. Don’t be afraid of white space in your design. And don’t be afraid of simple navigation.

Rule 2

Every page is a home page, treat it that way. With the way search engines catalog sites, potentially every page can be the first page a visitor sees. You need to make sure that the purpose of the site is well communicated on every page.

Rule 3

Make the site appropriate for your audience. This means don’t use too many colors or design something just because you think it’s cool. The site has to stand on it’s own with out you trying to explain why you went a certain design direction. The same goes with the use of cool fonts. I like using cool fonts as well as the next person, but don’t use it unless appropriate, and don’t expect your visitors to have the same fonts loaded on their system. There’s a reasons there is a standard set of fonts.

Rule 4

If you are designing for a customer, make sure all of your source files are available for someone else to take over the site. I know that this goes against everything you have been taught about protecting your work. But face it, there is nothing you can create that someone else can’t re-create or improve on. So make it easy for you and your customer to make changes to the site. I have a directory on the server where I put all of my source files. You never know if you are going to suddenly have to stop supporting a site due to illness or injury. It also gives you the perfect place to keep your files so they aren’t wasting space on your hard disk.

Rule 5

Make the site accessible. This means don’t use the latest plugins. Design for the web browser and machine you used at least a year ago. Not everyone is going to have the latest and greatest hardware or the desire to upgrade plugins just ot view a page. Also don’t expect everyone to have a large screen or have the exact browser you have. So test your design on smaller screens and older browser versions.

Rule 6

Make your site printable. People do want to print pages. This doesn’t mean that every page has to be directly printable. You can create a special style sheet for printing tasks if your pages aren’t directly printable. Either way, people do print pages, don’t make it difficult to print.

Commandment 1

Pages must load fast, fast, fast. Do every thing you can to optimize your pages without sacrificing quality. Slow loading pages is the #1 way of losing visitors. This means you need to optimize your images, break up content into multiple pages, and don’t make media the only focus on a page. If the visitor wants to see/hear the media (video, flash animation or music) let them choose to start it when they are ready.

Commandment 2

Content is king. If you don’t have content, don’t post an “under construction” place holder page. The Internet by its very nature is always under construction. Telling someone that the page isn’t there isn’t necessary. The site is about content, not wishful thinking. This doesn’t mean that you can’t announce the direction of your site and the features it will have in the future.

Commandment 3

Respect your visitors and the search engines at the same time. You can design a site for both. Learn how. Doing both is a necessity in the web design world.

Commandment 4

Easy navigation is your responsibility. Visitors shouldn’t have to try to figure out how to get from page to page. It should be obvious where the visitor needs to click to go to another page. Also you should use standard names for common pages on your site. There are words people looking for to go to certain pages, don’t be cute. Cute in navigation is confusing and will just make you lose visitors.

Commandment 5

The most important part of your page goes in the upper left corner. That’s the most visible portion of the page when it first loads. Don’t make your visitors hunt. Really, the design of the page is very important. Squeeze your browser window down from time to time to make sure the most important information on your page can be easily seen.

Commandment 6

Proofread and spell check. And when you are done with that proofread and spell check. Then get someone else to proofread and spell check. Then you do it again. One thing that helps me is to read everything out loud. I find more misused words that way.

And finally I like to leave you with what I consider the single most important commandment of web design:

Commandment 0

Your reputation is the most important tool you have. Protect it above all else. Once you have a bad reputation, you can never get it back to good. People talk and word of mouth is the way you get customers. A web designer with a good reputation will have more customers than they can handle.

I’ve been busy. That’s my excuse for not updating my blog. Of course that’s my all-around excuse at the moment. And really it’s a pretty good excuse since I have actually been busy. Well, I intend to map out some weekly topics and start working on updating once a week, probably on Fridays since I have O-So-Much free time. But it’s a start and we’ll see how I do.