The first video is the actual comercial. The second video is how it was done. Take a look, it is awesome to see how they played with each scenarios.

In preparing for my upcoming interviews I realized that I didn’t have a business card. I have cards that I made for photography, but nothing for my profession. Last night I rectified this little issue. I spent a few hours before I went to bed, and made some financial business cards. I had some ideas of how I wanted my business cards to look like. I didn’t want to just use the free templates that vistaprints.com offers. I wanted to have a personal touch.

A fes days ago I was fooling around with Wordle and created a couple Wordle graphics and posted to my blog here Financial Buzz Word Bingo . I mentioned that I was going to use them for a project. I decided to use them for my financial business cards. I downloaded the photoshop .psd layout file from vistaprints.com. I used photoshop to put my business card layout together. Next, I uploaded the finished file to vistaprints.com and added the text. The next step and most important step, I had my wife prof the card before I finished. This is what my business card looks like. If you notice I didn’t add an address, because I am looking for a job in the Greater Bay Area and in Orange County. I didn’t feel that the address was as important. My wife had made the suggestion of putting my Securities Licences on the card instead. I agreed that this was more important since I worked so hard to get them during my career.

This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take

Hello, Earth! Can you believe that this photo was taken by a man who attached a digital camera to a balloon? Madness. There’s actually not too much involved here. You take a helium-filled, high-altitude balloon, strap a digital camera to it, and off you go. The camera goes up (that’s 22 miles above the surface of the planet), takes a photo every five minutes, then it comes floating down to Earth on a parachute. A simple GPS, not too different from the one in your car right now, gives the location of the camera when it comes back down.

It’s the space-photography equivalent of macaroni glued to construction paper.

Total cost? Around $750. That’s less than what I spent to build the PC I’m writing this post with. Clearly Robert Harrison, the UK chap who put all of this together, is cooler than I’ll ever be.This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take

Every year they day they start to hatch I arrive with my travel studio equipment and set up a little studio. Over the years a I learned a few tricks.

1. Take paper towels to clean up the poop.
2. Use a seamless background (paper) so you can throw away fouled paper
3. Take images within the first day of hatching. Chicks are easier to manage when the are a day old. Any older and they are hard to keep in the same spot.
4. Don’t drop them off the table, they break.

Here is a slide show of some of the images I took in the past. Yes, I have a warped sense of humor.

I still have a ton of reading to do, but I need to order a copy of Dreamweaver to continue my construction.

Learning a new Language

I have been working on a new website. When I got my MacBook Pro, I also bout a year subscription to Apples Mobile Me. I built a small website in iWeb ’08. I know that iWeb ’09 has many more features then iWeb ’08, but I didn’t feel it was going to produce what I needed. The UI or user interface is great. Drag and Drop, easy setup and easy to post, as long as you had an active Mobile Me account. Like I said, iWeb is a great little program, but it was limited to what I thought I needed. Stuff I wanted to do to on my site was beyond the capabilities of iWeb.

So I am working on a new design for my website. I am using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I downloaded it free from Adobes website. They offer a 30-day free trial. I have used Dreamweaver before.

A few years ago, a friend and I would drive to Kearney Mesa (San Diego) twice a week to attend this free Dreamweaver class. The version we used was the Dreamweaver MX that was Macromedia product. The new version of Dreamweaver is easier to use and not as clunky, even though I thought that Dreamweaver MX was the bomb back in the day.

So if you look at my site you would say I haven’t gotten very far. Well you would be correct. This is why I have left the old website under my current domain name www.KiHoPhoto.com.

I have not done much to the new site because; I spend a tremendous amount of time reading. Dreamweaver isn’t like iWeb, you have to know a little html to get going, plus you need to have a little understanding of how the w3c works. Here are a few books that I am reading Dreamweaver CS4 The Missing Manual, and Creating a Web Site The Missing Manual. The Dreamweaver CS4 book has almost 1100 pages. So you can imagine its not light reading.

I have been going through the web looking at different photography web sites to see what I like and what I don’t like. I have been keeping notes so I can keep track of what I like and don’t like about different site.

I found out that almost every one of the ways you write a web site has it’s own language. Language known as code. All these different codes are unique to themselves.

Most sites are built with HTML, DHTML, XML and CSS. I have found some that are built using Flash or have flash components in them. Other sites use Java Script for fancy and smooth looking features. And then you have some sites that have a pseudo Java Script function JQuery. JQuery is a simple way of writing Java Script. Also, you have website that use MySQL and or Php. Then I have found some sites that use a little of everything.

A few days ago I was trying to add a slide show to my banner. The banner is held in my #header. One of my biggest resources I use to learn about building a web page is YouTube. I watch YouTube videos and the try to duplicate what I have learned. You know when someone says if you can’t figure out how something works on your computer ask you young son or daughter? Well I found out how true that is. Some of the videos that I have watched have been done by someone that is 12 years old or younger.

I found what I was looking for after I emailed one of the authors of a Dreamweaver tutorial. Her looked a the examples that I sent him and suggested that I do a google search on a JQuery Gallery. I knew JQuery was a form of Java Script. What I didn’t know is how it worked.

I tried to do some research on it and man did it look really confusing. So I found a place I could download the HTML, CSS, JQuery and JS (Java Script) and appropriate images. Trough trial and error, lots of errors, I was able to figure the jQuery out. I choose the Simple JQuery Image Slide Show with Semi-Transparent Caption. This seemed to be the simplest to start with and it proved to be easy enough to figure out. However it did take about three hours just to get to this point, with three images Mock Up Page 2. I was so spent mentally when I was done I needed to take a break and go for a walk. I really had a feeling of accomplishment.

I moved those files over to my Test bench. My test bench is under the domain name of www.SmokingDiaper.com. This is where I post all test pages. Before I move them to their permanent home.

I was so confused yesterday with all the new languages that I was learning. I thought to myself “I might as well learn how to read and speak Chinese or Japanese it would be easier”.

Now I need to figure out how to take my Mock Up Page 3 and convert it to a WordPress Template for my blog. Does anyone know how to do this or where I watch a good video on this task. I have been to YouTube and they didn’t have any good video. If anyone has a thoughts on converting a HTML/CSS web page into a WordPress Template leave a comment in the comment section below.

Here are some of my test pages:

Mock Up Page

Mock Up Page 02

Mock Up Page 03

These pages are still a work in progress, but you get the idea.

Cheers-

25/365 Cayenne Chicken, originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

Image 25/365

Today on this rainy Monday, I made in the Slow Cooker or Crock-Pot a Cayenne Chicken. It’s a take off of Grandmas Chicken and Rice. I could remember what the real recipe was, so I improvised.

It was very tasty…

(4) 1/2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (frozen or thawed).
(2) Cans of Cream of Mushroom soup (condensed).
1 cup of brown rice or white rice.
1/2 of medium white onion (sliced).
1/2 of whole red bell pepper.
1 Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper. (optional)
2 1/2 cups of water.
Salt
Black Pepper

In a slow cooker or crock-pot layer all the ingredients. Fisrt pour the water in, then the rice.

Next place two pieces of chicken ontop of the rice water mixture.

Next add one can of cream of mushroom soup. Add onion and bell pepper.

Add the last two pieces of chicken, pour the last can of soup and add the cayenne pepper.

With a spoon lightly mix the soup up with the cayenne pepper.

Last turn on the slow cooker to low and let it cook for 6-8 hours. You can cook it on high for 3-4 hours. The slower the chicken cooks the more tender the chicken will be.

To serve:
Remove chicken from the slow cooker. Scoop the rice and place it on a plate. The add some of the onion and red bell pepper on the rice. Place a piece of chicken on top. Scoop some of the soup and pour it on top of it all, Serve warm.

Follow along with his detail DIY project. I would like to get feed back with anyone who actually makes a rig for themselves.

My fist attempt of using a cut out to create bokeh. I think I only needed one star in the center, not the five or six I used. I will get better as time goes on… Blue Christmas light were the target of this image.

Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.

When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh. Click… here.