Summary: "This is my brother and his girlfriend," writes Robert Gaddy. "With camera in hand, during a lull in conversation, I quickly raised it and took this grab shot just as they began to give me their look of disapproval. My wife said it reminded her of the American Gothic painting." Robert captured this classic shot with a Canon 30D, ISO 800 in Aperture Priority mode (f-2.8 @ 1/25th sec). His focal length was a relatively close 31mm. Flash was off. If you have a candid you'd like to share, take a look at our Submissions page, then send us...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Grab Shots
It is about 10 years since the first time I participated in a project using daily stand-up meeting. I was immediately fascinated. Since then I have always encouraged development teams to do daily stand-up meetings and to get rid of the traditional weekly status meeting.
Modern software development is about taking advantage of the fact that most often you have a group of very intelligent and capable individuals working together as a team. Given accurate information developers will know what is the right thing to do for the project to succeed. Given enough freedom (this is often forgotten) the developers will also be able to do the right thing. The daily stand-up meeting is an effective mechanism for making sure that everybody on the team have enough information to do the right thing.
There are a lot of formats for running the daily stand-up meeting (ref). But common for most of them is that everybody on the team should answer three questions in this particular order:
1. Did?
2. Will Do?
3. Impediments?
Sometimes I observe stand-up meetings where the third question is skipped. Nobody in the team mentions anything about problems, hindrance, obstacles or anything that impedes their work. It is very unlikely that this is true. In a software project there is always something that can be improved to speed up the team.
Actually, of the three questions, the third question is by far the most important in a daily stand-up meeting. The “Did?” and “Will do?” question is also important, but the information is often also available in the software repository and the task bord. Apart from the daily stand-up meeting, there is often no formal mechanism for making sure that everybody knows about what slows down the team.
Therefore, I propose that we should order the questions according to their importance. Allow me to suggest that in the daily stand-up meeting the team members should answer the following questions:
1. Any impediments in your way?
2. What are you working on today?
3. What have you finished since yesterday?
Summary: Dominique James has posted an interesting piece on Viveza's U-Point technology. I'm also a big fan of the work going on over at Nik Software. This latest plug-in for Aperture -- which is also available for Photoshop CS3 -- makes localized editing a snap. If you're not a huge fan of channels and masks in Photoshop, take a peek at what Nik is up to. It might change the way you work. Oh, and one other thing. If you buy Viveza for Photoshop, the registration number works for the Aperture plug-in too, and the other way around. It's like...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: The New York Times has published an excellent photo gallery of the earthquake aftermath in China. If you haven't followed the coverage, there are some powerful photographs here. Image in screenshot by Color China Photo, via Associated Press. Technorati Tags: digital photography, Technology, The Digital Story...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: Eye-Fi Explore looks like a typical SD Card, but it's actually a 2GB storage and wireless device that can add geographic location labels to your images. In other words, maybe we finally have an easy way to geotag our images. I haven't tested this yet, so I'm not sure how it works. But I am interested. If anyone has additional info, please post a comment. Events! See the TDS Event Calendar for photography workshops, speaking engagements, and trade show appearances. Technorati Tags: Derrick Story, digital photography, Eye-Fi, Technology, The Digital Story...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: Keywording has become the photography equivalent of being told to eat your vegetables. But really, who cares about keywording? And more importantly, why should you care about it? Personally, I have given up on the notion of becoming a thorough keyworder. I'm not going to cozy-up with a Coke Zero and keyword a thousand images for the evening. Just not going to do it. But thanks to some innovative tools in Aperture and Lightroom, I can add basic keywords on import, and believe me, that really helps. In this episode, I talk about different approaches to keywording and some...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Show Notes
Summary: Ring flashes can produce great lighting for portraits, either by themselves or part of a multi-lighting scheme. Expo Imaging recently released the Ray Flash: The Ring Flash Adapter that "creates a three-dimensional shadow-wrapped look around the subject. Because ring flash light originates from a circle around the lens, it produces a virtually shadowless look on the front of your subject, while producing a soft even shadow around the edges." To put this new device through its paces, Strobist recently published a full review of the Ray Flash. The bottom line? "...if you are mobile -- and especially if you...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: Adobe just released an update to Photoshop Express that includes integration with Flickr and "Save As" functionality. Plus, there's a new embedable player that allows users to post their Photoshop Express slideshows to sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and personal blogs. You may have caught wind of this update earlier in the week when some sites reported about it. But Adobe had to pull it back on May 7 because they discovered a bug. By Friday, May 9, they had everything cleaned up and ready for users. Now Available! The Digital Photography Companion. The official guide for The Digital...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
As I write this JavaOne 08 is being wrapped up and I am horizontal in bed. I somehow managed to get pleurisy and pneumonia a few days before the event so missed it completely.
Luckily, the awesome Guillaume Laforge delivered
my talks on Groovy and Grails instead of me, but sorry to those who were expecting to see me there, health comes first in this case.
It seems to have been another successful conference from what I could infer from the
twitter feed and various blog postings. Was nice to hear
Groovy in Action was 3rd and
The Definitive Guide to Grails 6th of the best seller list after day 1.
On that topic of the books, being bed bound for a couple of weeks has given me the chance (when I'm not sleeping and feeling too ill) to spend some time planning and writing the second edition of the "The Definitive Guide..".
I'm co-authoring with
Scott Davis, so the book should be bigger badder and more impressive this time. Target release date is the end of the year. Lets hope the codene doesn't make my ramblings to incoherent!
Summary: I've just heard from Mikkel Aaland, director of the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adventure 2008: Tasmania, and he shared that there are still two weeks left to enter the Win a Trip to Tasmania, Australia Sweepstakes. Here's the official blurb: Follow in the footsteps of the Adobe Lightroom Adventure Photographers or create your own adventure on the beautiful island of Tasmania! Here is your chance to win a trip for two to experience the natural beauty of Tasmania first hand. Winners receive roundtrip economy airfare for two on Qantas Airways from one of their North American gateways - Los Angeles,...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
JavaOne is a really great conference: some many great people, talks, and discussions about innovation and latests Trends.
JavaOne also has it's own bookstore, the "digitalGuru". On Wednesday, the second official conference day, they published the top sellers so far and guess what:
Groovy in Action has finished #3 !
The only sad side of the story is that digitalGuru didn't order enough copies in advance, so they
ran out of GINA copies by Wednesday noon. They take orders, though...
It is certainly great that they have sold all their copies but they could have given so many more attendees the chance to buy a book with 20% discount on site. Also, since no more copies can be sold, GINA will certainly drop in the top seller list at the end of the conference.
The really good news is that people show so much interest in Groovy and you hear on the floor that Groovy is now considered the "
default choice for dynamic programming on the Java platform".
Now I'm off to prepare the talk that Sun has chosen to present a second time because it has been so successful on Wednesday: "Going mobile with JavaFX, Groovy, and Google Android". The repeating session is scheduled for Friday, 1.30 pm in room E 302.
Exciting times
--Dierk
Summary: "Saw your post about making the most of scene modes," said Eric Marin, "and had to send some shots from my trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York." "As you'd guess, I had my compact Fuji in "museum" mode, and I was pretty happy with these results. This first shot is a ceiling view of a light installation by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. A large ring in the middle of the room gradually changed colors, and I caught a glimpse of the green end of the cycle." Eric recorded this beautiful shot at 1/200th @ f-2.8...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Grab Shots
What is the secret to happiness? Surprisingly, this question can be answered more and more definitively. I want my work to be conductive to the happiness of myself and others, and I believe agile methods can help me do that.
Summary: According to a report on the Stock Artists Alliance web site, "Orphan Works is back. Last month, the U.S. Congress held Hearings, making clear that the wheels were again in motion. Last week, it became official when new versions of the Orphan Works Act of 2008 were introduced by both the House and Senate." If you're not familiar with the Orphan Works issue, it essentially means that if your copyright information gets stripped out of the metadata of your photo, and someone wants to use that image, they may be able to do so if it is determined to...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
I am trying to find just a list of lessons, I joined a little while back and I see you're making great improvements in the layout of the groups page, but I'm still a bit lost.
The dojo-howto tag doesn't contain just a list of lessons. http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/1262
The "lessons" tab lists events and other things in the lessons list: http://groups.drupal.org/node/2191/lessons
And http://drupaldojo.com/lessons/ has 9 pages of lessons... is there maybe one spot which has all lessons listed by category? with just titles, and links, instead of the long summary and big header pic and stuff?
I'm actually trying to figure out if there is a "My First Module for Drupal Noobs" video somewhere.
Thank you!
Drupal Dojo
Summary: I'm replaying this show from Dec. 2006 (originally podcast 61), because I'm noticing in my workshops that many people are still not taking advantage of the handy scene modes they have on their cameras. Scene modes serve as a shortcut for a combination of camera settings tailored for a specific shooting situation, such as a night portrait where you want to retain some of the background information. When you go to a scene mode, your camera sets the shutter speed, aperture, white balance, drive mode, and sometimes even adjusts exposure compensation or metering pattern. The trick is to learn...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Show Notes
Summary: Digital Story readers have a terrific new sponsor supporting our virtual camera club -- Red River Paper. And they've created a special landing page for TDS members where they'll offer promotions on their excellent inkjet photo stock. One of the things I like about Red River is that they sell directly to photographers, and they have an excellent customer service attitude. Plus the prices are fantastic! And they are one of the leaders in creating photo papers that are made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled content. This is a winning combination for TDS members. Be sure to check out...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: David over at Strobist might be able to light circles around me, but one thing we share in common is our passion for the Canon PowerShot G9. David wrote in the article, New Canon Powershot G9 Makes My G7 Feel Like Unloved Stepchild, "I don't write about specific cameras very often on this site, but this one bears a closer look. The G9 is of particular interest because of it's flash-friendly features, among other things." One of those "flash-friendly features" is that you can sync a Canon G9 up to 1/2500th. This is very handy for high speed flash...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Photography
Summary: "I took this while on a photo outing with the Denver Photographic Society," writes Mark Castleman. "I found the pattern of the old wheels stuck in the ground interesting, and the texture lent itself to something more artistic. I converted the image to B&W in Apple's Aperture and used the red filter to bring out the texture more while increasing the contrast some." Mark used his Pentax K10D in aperture priority mode, 1/30 @ f/5.6, with the ISO set to 100. His lens focal length was 55mm. If you have a candid you'd like to share, take a look...
dstory
dstory@gmail.com
Grab Shots
