Ballyhoo Blog

So I’ve been getting into photography lately, and have just recently purchased a entry-level-pro camera. I did extensive research on multiple sites trying to figure out what camera would give me the best bang for the buck.

These 5 cameras here are obviously not the most expensive and feature packed, but excellent digital cameras for under a $1000 dollars.

My first choice is a camera that I bought from newegg for $799.00 a week ago. Now it’s $725!

1. Nikon D80 - info from dpreview.com

2. Canon 400d (Digital Rebel xti) - info

3. Pentax k10d info

4. Nikon d40x info

5. Canon eos30D info

Remember that it’s not the camera thats going to take the perfect photo, but the photographer. If your budget is tight, go with the nikon d40x, or the canon Digital Rebel, and spend the extra money you would have spent on a more expensive body on a more expensive lens.

Remember: A high quality lens and cheap body will take much better pictures than a cheap lens with a high quality body.

So I was rather curious on how some of the ajax programming was done on the popular digg.com. I did a simple “how to make a digg clone site” on google to find out if there was a related tutorial on how to make a voting system. The first result made me laugh.

beta.netscape.com

Just goes to show the power of keywords and how they relate to SERP’s. Go ahead, try it, it’s funny.

This anomily is knows as Google Bombing. A famous example is the search for “miserable failure,” which turned up George Bushes name.

So after seeing several tutorials on “how to create a self vector portrait in illustrator,” (Here and a High Tech version)

I decided to do one for myself. The only difference is that I will show you how to do one in 2 minutes! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have 16 hours to trace each little piece with the pen tool!

Here’s a tutorial on how to create a Vector Potrait using Photoshop and Illustrator. Start to Finish time. 1 min. 24 seconds!

Step 1)

Get a picture of yourself. Here is mine I used.
(Click images to enlarge)

I cropped it down to just include my face.

Step 2)

Open your picture in Adobe Photoshop. Go to the filter menu and select Filter->Artistic->Cutout. (You’ll need Adobe CS2 for the Illustrator part.)

You should see this screen.

Choose whichever settings you like. For my example here I used 8 Levels, 3 Edge Simplicity, and 2 Edge Fidelity. Once your satisfied with the look, run the filter.

Step 3)

Save this newly filtered image as a .jpg or something similar and open it in Adobe Illustrator.

Step 4)

Select the picture or Object by clicking on it. Head to the Object menu and select Object->Live Trace->Tracing Options. You should see the following options.

Change the mode to “color”, increase the color count. I chose 100 colors. Leave the rest of the settings at default, unless you want to tinker.

Step 5)

Finally, click Trace! Let Illustrator do its magic, and WALLA! Done

Step 6)

Go ahead and zoom in as far as you can. Your used-to-be-raster image is now all vectorized! Here is snapshot of my left eye on my vector self portrait.

Update - I really did actually spend several hours hand tracing my picture in Adobe Illustrator. It took forever, hence the reason I wanted a quick n’ dirty way to do it. Here is a snapshot of my hand drawn portrait compared to the “two minute” portrait.

Go ahead, Digg it!

Everyone knows that networks are streaming their content online after the shows air on TV, so after watching a little episode of lost last week via ABC.com, I noticed the online streaming player is embedded in a flash page. You can’t resize the video window to make it bigger. I thought o - well. Then my roomate (who is fairly new to macs) told me he watches them full screen by using a little mac os X feature that I had showed him a couple of weeks ago. Turns out it works beautifully! Here’s how:

1) Snag a mac.
2) This is the kicker step… Open System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Turn ON “Turn zoom on or off.” Then turn on “zoom” shortcuts as well.
3) In case you didn’t already know this sit back and watch the beauty. Apple + Option + Plus Key zooms in. Apple + Option + Minus Key zooms out. Apple + Option + 8 Key turns zoom on or off.
4) Head over to some online stream. zoom your mac way up. enjoy!

Here’s a photo from my cell phone cam showing the video size on my 20 inch iMac.

The only fall back is that the os zooms to the mouse. So you’ll have to drag the window to the very top of the screen, then zoom and try and move the mouse out of the picture range while maintaining the video on-screen. I’ve yet to find a solution that you can hide the mouse with. Anyone know of any solution to this?

Extra Goodness.
There are a few more little fun tricks in the shortcuts menu we just looked at, like Apple + Control + Option + 8 inverts the screen. Just some more wow factor for Mac OS.

I’ve complied a quick list of my favorite addicting games from the Net. I’ll give a quick snapshot and a few thoughts on why I picked them.

1st - Defend Your Castle

Hands down this is my favorite game. It’s sweet. You just have to keep the little stick men from beating down your castle buy picking them up and dropping them from the sky. Once your a way into the game, you can buy archers and other goodies to help you defend against the onslaught of stick men! Also allows for game saves.

2nd - Hapland Series

If you haven’t heard of Hapland, you aren’t living. This is the GREATEST little figure it out game. You just click on stuff and watch things happen in sequence. There are really no instructions but once you start clicking around, you’ll get the hang of it. I’ve figured out Hapland 1 and 2, but still haven’t passed Hapland 3! Enjoy the frustration!

3rd - Xiao Xiao

There is a whole ton of these Xiao Xiao games/animations. 1,2,3,4 etc. This one is number 4. This one you can actually play. It isn’t that hard to pass, but it defiantly worth the 5-10 minutes. The ending scene is sweet. You’ll see what I mean. In the earlier Xiao Xiao’s you simply watch stick figures duke it out in epic kong-fu battles. They are pretty entertaining as well.

4th - Insaniquarium

Feed the fish, collect the coins they drop, kill the evil monsters that try to eat the fish.
Simple yet addictive.

5th - Helicopter

This is the good ol’ classic game Helicopter. I wasn’t going to add this, but I think I remember playing a version of this game on an old atari when I was younger. You have to hold down your mouse to make the chopper fly up, let go and he will plummet. Watch out for the little obstacles. Good times had by all here!

Well thats my top 5 list. After compiling it I thought, “Man, this needs to be a top 10 or 20″ because I hard a very hard time eliminating some other time-burning classics. Maybe for another list.