Christian Nielsen's Blog

I changed the header for the blog last night and tonight I got my old logo out that Rok made for me. I had to change the background because it was white before and looked bad.  I added some blur to soften the harsh 2-d look because I don't know HOW to do drop shadows or 3-d effects with Photoshop or Fireworks yet... and please don't comment on my graphic ability short-comings: I'm not a designer, but maybe before I turn 70 I will get some of the basic skills. Maybe I will take a photoshop class at the senior center someday... NOT! I'd rather take a class at a community or technical college and blow dem punks mind. Hey, this geezer rocks. How cool is that?

Anyway, the blog header image was taken with my new GE digital camera. An 8 Mega Pixel wonder that only cost $5 per megapixel because it was on sale at Midwest Micro. I always thought I would buy a Kodak digital camera way before I would buy one with the GE name, but the price was right and this China-spawned puppy is much nicer than I expected. The only problems is the display is sucky compared to my wife's 5MB $100 Canon. That has a 3 inch display and is really nice for a munchkin screen. Mine has icons that would fit nicely on the head of a pin and even if you could see them the images are not always intuitive. For example, would you think the icon of a wet dog in the rain means your RAM card is almost full? Or the dragon head indicates you are facing the sun? Me neither.

Anyway, the header image was an image of a sunset and is much less retouched than you may think. I had to mess with the size to get it down from 3,000 pix to about 400 pix. Before I did that I went to Google images and searched for eyes. You see as the sun was setting it took on an oval shape, but it needed an iris. No way was I going to try and draw one! So I found a LOT of nice eyes, took out a sharp virtual scalpel and lifted one I liked. A little playing with image size and I had perfect fit! Spooky, huh? Then I darkened the image and upped the contrast a little for a little more intensity which gave it even more of an eye shape. Then I needed to make room for the Title and slogan of the blog, so I cut a thin section of the right side of the image, when I moved it to the right I used the keys that leaves a trail of the side of the image. THAT was not intentional. I was just going to lop off a chunk and paste it on the right side, but I left a trail and decided that I could work with that even if less than perfect.

Did you hear about the video of two old people talking about using the computer while they were taking a computer video of themselves and weren't aware of it? Yeah, seniors can be a good time, I know I can be. After having the Canon for almost two years we just figured out it can take videos! Yike, I should have figured out that one. After all my $20 Blink digi cam could do that 4 years ago...! Anyway, The GE also can take videos (this time it only took me 2 months to figure that out) sooo I am planning to do some recording using both cameras and my Zoom Handy Recorder. The Zoom is like a portable stereo recording studio. That is, it will record directly to MP3 at different bit rates you can choose. The sound quality can be very, very good and much better than your average camcorder, much less your digital camera that just happens to have been a camcorder in another life.

Aside from the grandchildren I am not sure what I am going to record. And there is still the open issue of what software I should use to edit two videos and different audio into something that doesn't look like 30% of what you find on YouTube.

Currently listening to: Progressive - D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D - house, techno, and trance beats for your mind! http://www.di.fm using Screamer Radio player.