Video Hosting Services Review

With the increasing popularity and discussion of video (we are always hearing about the convergence of photography and videography), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the different video hosting services, and look at their functionality. So, earlier today I recorded a video using Quicktime Pro on the Mac, and tried uploading it to 3 different popular services: YouTube, Vimeo, and Animoto. Here are the videos in that order, followed by my thoughts on each:

YouTube:

Thoughts

Price: It’s free! Nothing beats free in my book, and with the competitive landscape of technology, this is pretty hard to beat.

Quality: The thumbnail does not look right, but that’s a minor nit…on playback it seems pretty good.

Ease of use: Another pro here as well…it was easy (and quick) to upload. It took less than a minute to upload, and adding the video details was also easy. You do need a Google account to do this though, but since that is also free, the downside here is hard to find.

Accessibility: It was VERY easy to find the embed code to copy/paste into the blog. And YouTube/Google is pretty recognizable as far as things go, so it’s going to be hard to compete here. But, let’s look at the other services…

Limitations: The only one I can find is that you are limited to videos under 10 minutes. You can do HD quality, up to 2GB per video (so no data size limit), with no waiting in line for video conversion or anything like that. At first I thought 10 minute limit was, well…limiting, but after looking at the other two services, not as much.

Vimeo:

Review of Video Hosting from Jason Anderson on Vimeo.

Price: It’s free…kind of. You can go the free route, but there are downsides which I will go into shortly.

Quality: It seems on par with YouTube in terms of video quality,

Ease of use: Also on par with YouTube, and the dialogs are very similar, so kind of a 6 of one, half dozen of the other sort of comparison here.

Accessibility: Vimeo videos are just as accessible as YouTube ones are, anyone can see them if you set them up the same, so kind of an interesting dichotomy here…

Limitations: Your limitations with Vimeo are that you can only upload 500MB of data per week.  This may sound like a lot, but when it comes to video, that could get eaten up pretty quick. I didn’t see a length limit on Vimeo, but could be wrong here. Another limitation on the free account is that you have to wait in line for your videos to get uploaded. I uploaded the video 20 minutes ago, and still have another 40 minutes to wait before it will start the conversion for me. If you upgrade your free account to the Vimeo Plus one, you can get 5 GB of content, HD quality, no ads, and for $60/year or $10/month. Not too pricey, but again, in a competitive economy, it’s something to consider…

Animoto:

Not reviewable – as it turns out, Animoto only allows 30 second videos for free – everything else is a paid service. The price is cheaper than Vimeo for the service at $30 per year, and it does seem to have no limitations on video length or things of that nature, but the fact that you can only do a 30 second video on their free service seems rather lame. I realize that we need to be quick and to the point with our content, but 30 seconds? Really? This one gets a major thumbs down from me for this and on that basis would not recommend it.

Self-Hosting

In the interests of being as broad in the review process as possible, I thought it would help to also include the self-hosted option as one worth considering. There are some caveats to this though, as services and limitations would vary from one hosting service to another. I use Dreamhost, and I like their hosting, so figured it would be worth showing that here.(You can sign up from the link or from using the promo code CBPROMO to save 50% on sign-up!)

PlayPlay

Price: Free…kind of. You do have to pay the hosting company for hosting your website, but as far as I know ISP’s typically do not charge additional fees for specific types of content.

Quality: Perfect! Since you are uploading the original video, there is no degradation in video quality – but that being the case, you are solely responsible for quality control…fair warning.

Ease of Use: Again, it depends on your host. For me and the blog, it’s pretty straightforward as I am using a self-installed version of WordPress and I am familiar enough with the functions and formats to handle it, but if you don’t want to be bothered with uploading a video via FTP, then referencing that source URL in your WordPress or website with HTML and all that, it could be challenging.

Accessibility: I hate to beat a dead horse, but it also will be a function of your host, and what format you choose to upload your videos. I uploaded the raw Quicktime video, so it will be dependent on people having Quicktime on their computer. There should be a conversion utility (I think it’s called jwplayer) that converts the .mov format to flash for easier viewing on the web, but this may need to be installed in your version. It is free, but could be a limitation as Flash viewers are more common.

Limitations: You are only limited by your own comfort level here – if you don’t want to deal with all the nitty gritty details, then this could be problematic. For those that enjoy managing all their own content, this could be ideal though, it really just depends where on the spectrum you are. For me, I am okay dealing with it, but if I had my choice between fussing over the details and using a service like YouTube to host it for me so I can go back out and shoot more, record more, and research more content, I’d choose the latter.

*****

So, that’s the top three reviewed for your consideration. If I had to vote on one, I would say YouTube gets the nod. Ease of use, lack of expense, and visibility is just unbeatable. But, keep in mind, that’s just my thoughts. What are yours? Anyone have any particular favorites or preferences for video hosting? Any I missed? Benefits and downsides? Sound off in the comments!

In other blog news, don’t forget, the post from Saturday (yes, I made a Saturday post!) allows you to embed your own photos to the comments! Share your own thoughts on the best photos of 2009 – they do have to be online (embedded via URL) but it’s a great way to share your favorites with the community at large.

Finally, time is ticking away on the December Giveaway. Over $400 in prizes including books, prints, paper, and software are up for grabs so make sure you get your “Giving” themed photo to the Flickr thread before the end of the year!

PlayPlay

Flickr Plugin for Lightroom

While recently participating in a Photowalk group outing to Rocky Mountain National Park, with the fellow local photogs, I learned about this great little plugin for Lightroom that allows you to export your photos directly to Flickr…all within Lightroom!  It’s a pretty cool little plugin, and as you know, when I learn something new – so do you!

This plugin comes courtesy of Jeffrey Friedl, and one of the greatest features of it is the cost – absolutely free!  Well, that’s not exactly true, you do need to spend one cent via Paypal, but for a penny, check out what you can do:

I started off downloading the ZIP file (and it works for Windows or Mac) and expanding the archive.  Then I moved the plugin to the root of my Applications folder on the Mac (you can choose where ever you want to store plugins, you just have to tell Lightroom – and for me this is an easy place).  The icon for it looks like this:

Flickr Uploader Plugin Icon
Flickr Uploader Plugin Icon

Nothing too spectacular yet, and there’s a little bit of installation and customization needed.  Your needs may vary based on how you want to use the plugin, Flickr, and Lightroom, but the cool thing is that Jeffrey has put together a plugin for most online locales including Smugmug, Zenfolio, Facebook, Photobucket, and many more.  So, if you use another resource, it’s worth checking out.  I’ll continue here for the Flickr plugin and you can decide for yourself if it’s worth adding this tool to your workflow.

Next up, I went ahead and configured the plugin from inside of Lightroom to use my Flickr account.  Here’s what I did. To start, click on Export, just as if you are exporting to disk or some other resource

Open Export Dialog
Open Export Dialog

One the export dialog box is open (and here’s the tricky part), look to the far right of the gray bar across the top that says “Export to Disk”.  You’ll see two little arrows which means there are menu options:

Files on Disk
Files on Disk

If you click on those arrows, you’ll get a new dialog box (bet you didn’t know that was there – did you? 🙂 ), and the Flickr option will show up.  Select the Flickr dialog one for our purposes here:

Flicker Exporter
Flicker Exporter

Once you select the Flickr Exporter, you will get a new dialog box that will start the authentication process that Lightroom will use to log into Flickr.  If you have multiple Flickr accounts, or specific authentication methods you prefer, these steps may change a little based on your needs.  But here, I am doing things the most straightforward way:

Flickr Authentication
Flickr Authentication

Next up, if you are logged into Flickr already, the plugin will open a page that will grant access to the plugin.  So, it helps if you are already logged into your Flickr account on the internet.  So, you’ll get a dialog box that looks something like this from the plugin to that effect:

Warning Notice from Plugin
Warning Notice from Plugin

On clicking the OK button, it will take you to the grant access page, and you’ll get another dialog box that grants the plugin access to post photos to your Flickr account (which, after all, is the goal, right?).  The one notable difference you will see in yours is that my face won’t be staring back at you like here.  That is the avatar for my Flickr account, so your screen should show your avatar – if it shows something different, then you are in the wrong account (but I guess that goes without saying)!

Granting Access from Flickr Side
Granting Access from Flickr Side

A second confirmation screen from Flickr will also let you know that this is a 3rd party application, and just acts as a security measure to make sure you are aware of what that means.  Click the button that says “OK, I’ll authorize it”, as shown below.  Again, while it goes without saying at this point, your dialog will look a little different different.  If it doesn’t and you see my avatar in your Flickr account, I am gonna be calling soon! 🙂

Authorization
Authorization

Finally, you will get a confirmation screen on Flickr, noting what you’ve done (they make it pretty clear what you’ve done, and how to delete it if needed on the Flickr side):

Flickr Confirmation
Flickr Confirmation

On return to the Lightroom interface, you’ll get a confirmation screen there as well – just click it to continue:

Lightroom Confirmation
Lightroom Confirmation

On granting access, you’ll get an authorization code, which for obvious reasons I am not going to post here, but make a note of that code and enter it back when you return to Lightroom.  On completing that you will be presented with the Flickr Uploader Dialog.  Here I am going to show you a few key ones that you have to scroll down to be aware of in making your uploading preferences.

Screen shot 2009-12-14 at 9.06.37 PM
Your Flickr Account login in Lightroom

This first shot (above) shows the top part of the dialog, and shows how you are authenticating on Flickr.  Now, use the scroll bar on the right side to move down through the options.  First stop, the Photo Set.  On authenticating, the plugin will pull your complete list of photo sets from Flickr.  If you don’t have any photo sets built, then none will be here.  Since I do have photo sets, it will default to the first one alphabetically.  You can change the sort order, and specify what photo set (if any) you want the uploaded image to be added to, as desired.  For this example, I did not add the photo to an existing set, or create a new one.

Photo Set Choice
Photo Set Choice

Pretty straightforward, but let’s keep scrolling through a few more key items you will want to think about utilizing or disabling depending on your work flow.  The next one I think warrants mentioning here is the groups.  One of the ways you can increase the visibility of your photos on Flickr is by participating in groups.  More people look at them, you’ll get more feedback, and sharing our photos with others is the goal anyway, so go ahead and add the appropriate groups here.  I selected the group “CanonBlogger” for obvious reasons! 🙂

Screen shot 2009-12-14 at 9.09.00 PM
Publishing to a Group

Only a few other options that I think are useful from this plugin, so we’re almost done.  Next up, is another social networking one that I tend to use fairly regularly – Twitter:

Twitter posting
Twitter posting

Last but not least are the meta tagging options you have available to you from the plugin interface.  The options are just to diverse to go into detail here, and I prefer to tag photos on Flickr differently than in Lightroom, so I leave these blank, but in the interests of full disclosure, here are some of the tagging and naming options in the plugin dialog:

Tagging Photos
Tagging Photos

If you think about it, for a penny, this is a pretty good deal (I went ahead and made a donation, which I would also encourage you to do as well – Jeffrey has clearly put a lot of time into developing these plugins, and he needs to eat, just like the rest of us).  So, there you have it – the process of finding, downloading, installing, configuring and using the Lightroom Flickr uploader.  As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, there are other uploaders available as well, and I am going to probably go get the one for Smugmug as I have an account there too.  It just makes the sharing of your photos that much easier.  (Who knows, the Facebook one may also make its way into my utility belt at some point once I get more comfortable with it…)

If you have questions or problems with the installation or the uploader itself, Jeffrey has a good FAQ page here that should answer most questions for you.  If not, I am sure he has an email address available somewhere for specific questions not addressed online.  For my work, I think this plugin totally rocks!  It’s going to become a staple in my work flow, and if you are into social media at all, I would highly recommend it for those purposes as well.

In talking about all of this, it bears mentioning that some of us are not fans of Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook, and while I can understand the hesitation of some, it’s really a matter of personal preference, and maximizing the time you spend on your computer.  if these outlets aren’t your cup of tea, that is totally fine.  But if you have the Flickr plugin – it is that much easier for you to participate in the Monthly Giveaways here at Canon Blogger/Learning Digital Photography!

With those thoughts, I’ll leave well enough alone as this post has gone on long enough for one day.  Happy shooting (and uploading) and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow.

Geek Factor Alert

Today’s post comes courtesy of a comment posted to Twitter from a friend (who shall remain nameless) asking about whether a particular camera was compatible with their computer.

Being the eternal geek, I jumped right in (figured the water was warm), and suggested that it shouldn’t matter because they are using a card reader…right?  As it turns out, they were not, instead tethering the camera to the computer to transfer files.  While this method is needed for instant viewing (see the tethering via Lightroom post using Canon here and Nikon here), it’s not recommended for transferring of your photos and video off a card that is in your camera.  I tried to find a post on this to point the person to and realized that, son-of-a-gun, I had never really discussed this in detail.  So… here we go! 🙂

There are a number of reasons why it is a good idea to use a card reader and not connect your camera to your computer for transferring images and video:

  1. Data loss/corruption – The chances for losing data is so much higher because you are relying on the computer detecting the camera, and the proprietary interface between that and the computer (with drivers and software and all that jazz).
  2. Battery drain – Unless you have an AC adapter, using your camera to transfer pictures to your computer can be a serious drain on batteries…even with rechargeable batteries.  And, if you are transferring images to your computer and your camera batteries happen to die, guess what can happen…(see #1 above)!
  3. Software installation – When connecting your camera to your computer, often times you will need to install software in order for the computer to recognize the camera.  Easy enough sure, but do you really want to bog down your computer with unnecessary software?  What if that software is written to preload whenever the computer turns on?  Now computer performance is decreased, you have less space for other things.  Sure, hard drives are increasing in size and decreasing in cost all the time, but consider whether you will ever use the software for anything other than image transfer.  If yes, then absolutely, use it.  But if not – why bother?  From an IT perspective, if there is a way to do something without installing software, that is always preferred to adding another layer because adding that layer adds a breaking point (or point of failure), and it’s just another item that needs maintenance and updates.  After all, let’s face it.  Software is not as cleanly written as it used to be…
  4. Transfer speeds – Seriously.  Many don’t realize it, but data transfers happen a lot faster when you don’t have a camera sitting between you and the computer.  What may taken upwards of 3-5 minutes with a camera acting as the medium can often take less than 2 minutes with a straight connection to the media card.

So, there you have it, 4 reasons to use a card reader!  Need any more?  Got any of your own?  Think I’m wrong?  Please feel free to contribute your own experiences and share your own thoughts in the comments.  Until tomorrow, happy shooting all!

The Beauty of Bokeh Revisited

I know – the blog has not gotten much attention lately.  My apologies – but after the job loss, and pounding the pavement, my schedule has tightened up considerably, so the “planned posts” have pretty much been exhausted as I let myself get behind.  The good news is that with several opportunities on the horizon, I am a little less stressed about “real world” economics, and can dedicate some time back to the blog.  A few items of note:

#1 – The Year End Blowout Bash is underway – and LDP/Canon Blogger is giving away a ton of goodies.  I posted details about this last week, but in the interests of giving it a little more “face time”, I would encourage everyone to start thinking about their “giving” themed photos – could mean some seriously cool prizes coming your way to start the new year off right!  More details on the prize package and such here:

#2 – The 3rd edition of the LDP Newsletter is forthcoming – with some little known tidbits about the guests on most recent podcasts, including nuggets from David DuChemin and Andie Smith, as well as the monthly roundup, great quotes and christmas/holiday ideas for the photo buff in all of us.

#3 – With many things under way both professionally and personally for this time of year – the posting schedule that I had been adhering to for most of the year (hardware, software review, composition, podcast, etc.) is likely not going to be followed as strictly as things will be done more on a “catch as catch can” sort of thing.  If you like tuning in for one thing or another – keep on reading because the stuff you like will be there, just maybe not on the schedule you are accustomed to.

#4 – Last up, I’d like to point out that the donations tab is still active, and all are welcome to contribute via that conduit – but in the interests of getting some tangible things back to the reader and listeners that have been so encouraging, I am going to be coming out with some short eBooks (5-10 pages max) and there is a new link for the website to bookmark for that content:  https://canonblogger.com/store  While I am getting a fairly good idea of things readers and listeners would like to see/hear, feel free to send in questions, comments, suggestions and the like for store content as I am open to input.

So, with the vegetables out of the way, I’d like to delve into the “meat and ‘taters” segment of today’s post and that lies in the title:  bokeh

For those of you that may not be aware, bokeh refers to the blurred portions that are out of focus behind your subject matter.  The quality and nature of that out of focus portion can really enhance a photo, and can even become the subject matter itself when looked at creatively.  Now, I‘ve talked here on the blog about bokeh in the past, but in the spirit of the holidays, I thought it would be fun to share some samples of images where I actually forced the entire scene out of focus, to basically make the bokeh the subject:

The Beauty of Bokeh #1
The Beauty of Bokeh #1

The Beauty of Bokeh #2
The Beauty of Bokeh #2

The Beauty of Bokeh #3
The Beauty of Bokeh #3

The Beauty of Bokeh #4
The Beauty of Bokeh #4

The Beauty of Bokeh #5
The Beauty of Bokeh #5

As the samples show, you can make some pretty fun use of blur and bokeh.  Shapes lend themselves well, and varieties in colors, as well as monochromes too.  Another thing – when getting bokeh and blur – don’t worry too much about noise and crank the ISO if need be – it’s all about your creative mind.  You can remove noise if you must, but the idea is to capture something in a new way and getting bokeh this time of year specifically can be a lot of fun.  A few suggestions though:

    1. Look for shapes, as suggesting what the subject might really be can catch visual interest by teasing the eye – you know what it is by the shape…
    2. Look for light, because without much variation in light or bright spots, the bokeh will end up looking like just some smudges of a limited tonal range
    3. Use your best lens(es) as these produce softer bokeh – less angular edges, and more rounded or smooth textures, which is usually better for bokeh (“better for bokeh”, did I just say that?)
  1. Shoot wide open, then switch to manual focus and intentionally blur – push the lens further out of focus for variations on your bokeh elements.   Watch what happens and adjust to taste.

So, there’s a few ideas for you – there could be an eBook coming out on this later with more samples and suggestions so let me know if this whets your appetite.  Do you like the idea?  Want to see more?  Get more tips on shooting for the abstract?  Do the photos above help or hurt the idea?  Do you like them or think there are better samples?  Got any of your own?  Feel free to post links to your own libraries of bokeh and blur for everyone to enjoy – there might even be a newsletter mention in it for ya! 🙂

That’s gonna do it for today – coming up later this week, the aforementioned newsletter, another podcast, and much more, so keep on shooting, until then, may your batteries be charged and your memory cards filled with lots of photos this holiday season.  Now get out there and shoot ya some! 🙂

December Giveaway News

A few days late, but the year-end giveaway is quite exciting as there is just a ton of good stuff going into this giveaway.  Here’s the inside skinny on what the winner is going to walk away with in December:

  • A free copy of the “Within the Frame”, the wildly successful and great book donated by David DuChemin!
  • A free copy of “Visionmongers”, the latest book from none other than David Duchemin!
  • A free copy of Photomatix, the software known for its HDR processing, donated by the folks over at HDRSoft!
  • A free 16″x20″ gallery wrap of a print of your choice, printed (and donated) by the folks over at MPix!
  • and as if that is not enough, the folks at Red River Paper have also expressed interest in joining the gievaway frenzy, so it looks like there will be a paper bundle in the mix too – (more details on the bundle specifics as those come in!)

With over $400 in free stuff, this is surely going to generate a lot of interest, so this go around, the guidelines are a little stricter than normal.  Here they are:

  1. Limit of one photo entry per person.
  2. Also, please make sure your photos are taken during the month of December.  I know – there’s a few days missing, so it’s less than a full month to shoot, but the theme is somewhat appropriate…more on that in a minute. Just remember, no archives!
  3. The  longest side of your image should be no larger than 800px or shorter than 600px.  Don’t confuse this with a 800×600 aspect ratio – the second side of the photo can be any length you want – just make sure the longest side is no larger than 800px and no shorter than 600px.  All entries should be posted in the Flickr Contest Thread.
  4. All entries must be live before midnight December 31st.

So, the theme is all that remains.  Since it’s a season of holidays far and wide, we’re going to go with the theme of:

GIVING

That’s it – interpret however you like.  Just tie in that theme somehow, and enter your best photo in the Flickr thread.  Good luck all, and may the best shot win!  Happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!  Many thanks to David DuChemin, Mpix, HDRSoft, and Red River Paper for their generous contributions.  Now, let’s wow them with some amazing photography!

P.S.  Just a little reminder that the blog is still taking donations to not only help offset the cost of maintenance, but also now to help pay the bills – the “curveballs” referenced the other day was an abrupt notice that my position was being terminated.  So, please help to keep things alive and online through the holiday season!  I am going to try to get some extra special content out there for everyone so you can also get some use out of this feeble old mind for any donations (or purchases…) but no guarantees there yet.  (Special thanks to Rob Jones from Towner Jones Photography who has already donated very generously to the cause though…)

December Calendar and blog alert

Happy Tuesday folks!  A few curve balls have been thrown my way recently, so the content may shift a little and be more sporadic as I make some adjustments both professionally and personally.  However, in the interests of keeping things positive, the December Calendar is ready for download!  Enjoy the Christmas-themed desktop:

December Wallpaper
December Wallpaper

Here are the dimensions available:

1600×1200 px

1280×1024 px

1024×768 px

And for those of you that know the specifics of the curve ball – there’s a donation button on the sidebar!  If you like the desktop calendar download, feel free to help off-set the curveballs from there directly!

[wp_cart:Calendar:price:2:end]

More content is coming soon for all too, so be sure to stop back regularly!  Enjoy the rest of the week and keep on shooting! 🙂

The Best Lens on the Planet!


Adobe Lightroom 3

Imagine the following lens:

    1. Can capture wide angle panoramas
    2. Can capture detail as close as one inch away.
    3. Can capture detail as far away as 300 feet in most cases.
    4. Can adjust to extreme low light scenarios in an instant
    5. Can adjust to extreme bright light scenarios in an instant
    6. Can capture HDR imagery with no post processing
    7. Can capture 3-D in the truest sense of the word
    8. Can capture images with no pixelation
    9. Can capture the widest tonal range available in the visible light spectrum.

How much would you spend on these lenses? How much would you protect, treasure, and cherish them? We all love our high quality optical glass whether we be Canonites, Nikonians, Pentaxians, Olympians or whatever. Across all brands, we know the value of high quality optics, and also know that such optics do not come cheaply.

We also know that owning such gear requires regular maintenance. I know people who take a lens out of it’s case, place it on a camera, take a picture, and when done, replace it right back in the case. When the lens costs upwards of $5000 or even $10,000 for the super zooms, it’s understandable. Many would say that even the most expensive lenses in the market today do not meet all of the above 9 criteria. So, it’s kind of hard to put a price on such a hypothetical lens.

However, we are all given two of these lenses by default – even before we got into photography. What are these two lenses that are priceless? OUR EYES!

Think of all the time we spend cleaning our lenses, wiping them down, avoiding scuffs, chips, and keeping away from dust and dirt as much as possible. Then compare that to the amount of time we spend maintaining our optical health. It’s kind of ironic, eh?. So many of us take our eyes for granted. The moral of the story?

GET YOUR EYES CHECKED REGULARLY!!!

I just got back from my annual eye exam the other day, with some good and bad news. The good news is that the glaucoma and macular degeneration which runs in the family (both sides) has not reared its ugly head yet. The bad news is that apparently I am getting to an age in my eye health where I need a little assistance at both the near and far end of vision – in other words: bifocals! *shudder*

While it’s not the end of the world, and I certainly can swallow my pride, accept the fact that my eyes will see better and get the glasses, it is just another anecdote where a little education can come from it – to take care of your own lenses (your eyes).   After all, without your own lenses, the rest of the lenses in the world won’t make a difference!  On that note, let’s get out and use our eyes to capture the world around us!  Happy shooting, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

In the interests of full disclosure…

It recently came to my attention that the FTC commission has taken an interest in the reviews that bloggers provide as unbiased information on the products.  I guess this came about due to some people that gave reviews of products that were actually paid endorsements, and did not disclose this information to their readership.  The FTC is now apparently requiring that all reviewers release and disclose their relationship with the vendors of the products for which they are reviewing by December 1st.

So, in the interests of full disclosure, I have compiled a page to disclose exactly what I get for the review of products written here.  As most of you are already aware, the answer to that is nothing, with a few notable exceptions.  The products that I have reviewed here on the blog are entirely done via donations from vendors (where the products are then put up for giveaways in the monthly contests), or on loaner programs where the products are reviewed and then returned to the company.  The rest of the products I have reviewed are of my own gear which I have already purchased with my own money!

For those interested in viewing the page, it’s titled “Supporters of the Blog and Podcast and is displayed in the sidebar.

*****

Okay, with the legalities out of the way, just a couple other blog maintenance things to mention:

  • The next podcast is going live tomorrow!
  • The latest contest is underway over at Flickr (you can win a free copy of Noise Ninja from PictureCode – the theme this month is Fall)
  • The 2nd issue of the monthly newsletter is also under construction, so if you are interested in being a featured artist, let me know!

Wow – what a bunch of “official” sounding stuff – so unlike me!  Let’s change that up – share with me your thoughts on the FTC position.  Do you like it?  Agree?  Disagree?  Think they are off their rocker?  Call me the fence sitter, but I can see why they are doing it, but I think they’ve taken it too far.  What do you think?  Got any of your own bureaucratic wonders to share?  Sound off  – maybe if we get enough feedback saying that no one likes it, they will reconsider their position on “all bloggers”! 🙂  (Kind of like “rocking the vote”!)

Anyway, that’s about it for today, so Happy Shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!