Tales of Seven

Photography Site: Take II

The search for a photography website builder continues!

Following my initial trial of SiteWelder, I just finished review of another option called FolioLink. Upsides are great templates and more sophisticated image customization options (sizing, thumbnail choices, etc) than SiteWelder.

Downsides are no ability to offer framed work in a way that fits logically in the site, a slightly rough administrative interface that requires a lot of clicking back and forth to create and preview pages, and the need to shrink file sizes before uploading images. More experiments to follow!

(A version of my site built in the 7-Day Free Trial of FolioLink)

 

Minty Fresh....... Finances?

Having worked over 15 years in Product Management, I love to see new tools that are simple, clean, easy-to-use and infinitely useful. Bonus points are given for giving more than what I expected and creating a little 'wow' factor.

I'd like to introduce Mint.com, my new favorite website, and the 'breath mint' of personal finances. I input minimal information (5 minutes) on my bank accounts and it immediately became my finance 'buddy'. It warns me, in a friendly way by phone or email if my account balance gets low. It tells me when payments are due just so I don't forget. And it put together some insightful graphs on my spending in just moments, recommending 'tweaks' that might help me save money.

Trident, anyone?

 

Bedtime

This one brought a smile to my face --- just had to share.

 

150th Member

I'd like to welcome my 150th member through the MyBlogLog community! 'Himalman' has created several sites dedicated to adventure in and around Nepal, and I'm happy for the opportunity to connect with anyone who has a love of travel and adventure! See EverestMyDream, for some of the stories and pictures himalman has created and gathered.

Photography Site

I'm in the process of experimenting with photography site builders that allow display and sale of art and my first attempt was made using a tool called SiteWelder. Using the demo version, I found it offers professional layouts, is easy-to-use and supports sales through PayPal with little additional effort. On the downside, it's difficult to show framing options, and the layouts, though professional, appear limited.

I'll be trying out at least a couple of additional options to see what works best and hope to have a basic starter-site up soon! Believing that art is more meaningful 'in context', I hope to offer photographs accompanied by short stories about each image.

San Francisco at Night

It's a beautiful, clear night with a near-full moon in the sky. With just a tiny nip of cold in the air, this seemed a perfect night to try taking a few shots of San Francisco at night.

(Below) This is an old pier in the industrial district. The pier itself was nearly invisible in the dark. I left the shutter open about 20 seconds to get enough light and love how movement of the water made the water seem 'soft'.

The Bay Bridge. I snuck onto a 'Private Property' Pier for this one. A few others were out there having beers and playing music out of their cars.

View of Golden Gate Bridge from the Marina shoreline. The 'candy stripes' that lay in the water under the bridge are my favorite part of this shot. Because I left the shutter open quite a while, there was opportunity for the water to move, creating a stronger show of light.

Dead end road and shadow play. Bright lights of the baseball park are in the background.

While most of San Francisco is cleaned and primped, there are some areas that still feature old brick warehouses and falling down factories. I took this down a back alley in an old, industrial area of San Francisco. A large brick smoke stack and factory were just behind me. Once again, it was very dark, but leaving the shutter open allowed the red of the brick to show.

And Then My Ship Sank

A few years ago, I headed down to Antarctica on a boat, for a 2 week adventure to the 7th continent. There was some real trepidation about the 3-day journey across Drake Passage. It was renowned for having some of the worst waters in the world, and our trip would take us far away from civilization and rescue boats.

The second day of our trip, a storm whipped in and brewed up 40+ foot seas. The water was ice-cold and prospects of rescue should anything go wrong weren't high. We all pushed that aside and focused on trying to just manage the day-to-day existence in this foreign and violently turbulent world.

Today I read an article about one of those ships going down. It struck something, and a small, football sized hole capsized the entire ship. All 150 passengers were put into lifeboats, with the good fortune that a nearby ship was able to rescue all of them successfully.

It turns out that the boat that went down was The Explorer owned by Gap Adventures and the very same boat I took to Antarctica. There's something to cause a moment of pause!

23andMe

An amazing new service, now available to everyone...

23andMe is a web-based service that helps you read and understand your DNA. How does it work? You submit a saliva sample using a home kit, pay $999 and get information about yourself, based on your DNA, in 4-6 weeks. Results tell you...

• What do your genes say about you (your traits, predisposition for certain diseases, etc)
• Who your ancestors are
• From which parent you inherit various traits

Exciting is the opportunity to get a window into the very foundation of ourselves. Unsettling is what might show through that window and how that information could affect how we walk through life. In either scenario, it's still amazing to see technology like this come to our own doorsteps. To think that the double helix of DNA was only first discovered in 1953, and we now have home DNA testing available to all individuals... what other amazing things are to come?

Living in a Foreign Language

Following my recent post, A Week in Tuscany, I found a wonderful book that brings a flavorful taste of life in the Italian countryside. Living in a Foreign Language speaks of the food, lifestyle and culture of nearby Umbria, and makes me once again consider a lingering stay in this beautiful area. -- a nice read to inspire dreams of travel!

"[They] have a way of making breakfast into a full length play which unfolds in long, slow, Chekhovian acts - from yogurt and peaches into the cheese, prosciutto, tomatoes and panini, into the biscotti dipped in chestnut honey, all washed down with tea."

Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars

Unmanned Vehicle 'Bored Out Of Its Mind'

Check out this wonderful account of the Mars mission from the perspective of the very jaded and entirely disallusioned rover -- compliments of the Onion.