I have heard about RSS, and clicked on an Icon months back, but did not really know what it was all about. The video provided by Common Craft is excellent. Its done in a low tech manner but really gets to the heart about RSS feeds. Considering my background in presentations, in my opinion, all the fancy special effects is just eye candy if the message is not understood by the audience. I thought the video was was very well thought out and easy to understand. After it was over, I was excited to start setting up my own RSS feeds.

My first venture into RSS feeds was disappointing. After the video, I was thinking who would be my first RSS feed? Why Photoshop user magazine of course! I type in the URL, I sign in with my user name and password, eagerly waiting for my little orange icon to light up. It never came. What is wrong with this? A high tech graphic magazine not on RSS? I was really disappointed.  I do sign up to get tutorials every day or week on my yahoo email account, but most of the time I just dont have to view them. If I could get it coming to me when I have the time aside to read/view them- what would be the way to go. I even typed why no RSS feeds on the site?, they are not offering it at this time. So here I was rare’n to go and I hit a speed bump. Off to find another site to see if all this RSS hype is really true.

I then meander over to Layers Magazine and wait a moment, soon my little icon is glowing orange. I was so excited!!! I click on it and followed the directions to subscribe. Now, I was on my way. I RSS from my church and am trying to think if other sites I can link. Then I wondered- where do the RSS’s go? I found my list on my internet explore nav bar under favorites, if you click on that icon, your feeds will appear.

This is so cool.!

I feel like this journey is only as good as the people who join you. Its like going to the gym, you are excited at first, then after a while you get stagnant and not want to program the elliptical trainer to a more difficult setting. But, if you join with a group, (and our library site provides wonderful examples with links it is much easier to dive first into the pool. ) I probably would not be diving into RSS’s without them. Thank you so much.

My biggest challenge is to remember to look under favorites and read my RSS feeds. I will check into my yahoo display to see if I can get it to automatically display on the screen, otherwise I might miss it. And now I need to search more sites to see if I can expand my orange icon’s territories.

Now that I have my photos to flicker, what else can I do? I took at look at fd’s flicker toys and created a motivational poster. It was very easy to do. If you do want to create one entirely in Photoshop, there is an example in the book, The Art and Deisgn of Photoshop by Steve Caplin by Focal Press.

 The montager, was pretty cool, but to use it effectively, you need a good contrast in the original photo for the mosaic to work. The sample they provided was a man standing in smoke. When the montage was completed, it was difficult to see when he began and the smoke ended.

 Week 3 #5 Flickr

I knew of Flickr and had the chance to take a closer look at it again on Friday night. After I logged in with my yahoo account, I noticed a few photos already there. I did not remember that I had created an account. I checked the date and it stated 2005, then I realized that I did post some photos up there for a project that I was working on. I never thought about going back and removing those photos. 

Soon I was trying to see what can I post. Most of my photos are of family and friends so that limited me to what I wanted to share with the world.

I received a new camera for Christmas and used it in San Francisco right after the holiday. I was really surprised how clear, and crisp these photos taken from Pier 39 on December 26th 2008. I posted them on flickr and posting here as well.

I took a look at the Creative Commons video on Youtube, I thought it was a good intro but lacked a lot of detailed information. There is an old adage, “If its created, its copyrighted” that I have heard for years. But then I read an article that the medium is under a seperate copyright then the content. For example, you have a letter that was written by President William Jefferson, you may own the letter, but the content in the letter is owned by the Jefferson estate. If you try to sell the letter, there may be litagation on the ownership. Recently, I found an article in Photoshop user magazine that stated, you may have created it, (taken a photo)  but if you did not pay the $35.00 fee and officially registered the copyright to the photo, you may be out of luck if you need to go to litagation to prove you were the offical copyright holder. Now, I was confused. The who -owns- what -copyright- sounded like “Who’s on first?”

 I checked out the next video, Creative Commons, lets get creative, made much more sense what they are  trying to build a bridge of between artists and the rest of the world.

I added tags to my photo. When folks say “Did you tag it?” I thought they met something else entirely. A few weeks ago I was “tagged” on Facebook and had to come up with 25 facts or random thoughts about myself and send to 25 friends. I have always used the term “meta data” as keywords for search engines. Now, I understand what tagging photos means.

 By participating in this project gives me a chance to learn new terms and I may not have this blank stare across my face some of the time. 

I have been using Photoshop since version 2.5 ( that’s way back in 1992). I consider myself an experienced user, but not an expert. Its a constant evolving medium that has always fascinated me. The geek that I am, I look forward to my 30% coupon from Borders in my email box.  If I- know -now -what -I -know- then, I should have bought stock in Amazon and Borders, (evidenced by the volumes of books that I have collected).

I picked  a new book called The Art and Design of Photoshop by Steve Caplin. Its a how -to- guide special effects on poster, book design and other effects. Once I get moving on this, I will post some of my work to show you what you do in the program. But until then…

Here are some resources you might find useful if you are interested in graphics: National Assoication of Photoshop Professionals, www.photoshopuser.com. Layers magazine, http://www.layersmagazine.com/. The Web 2.0 conference is coming, here is the link: http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2009/public/content/home.

I also picked up a magzine and its feature article is web 3.0- Already! I was just getting into 2.0. Better get moving…

 Yes, I could modify my avatar to look more like me, I may do that in a later post, but I think I will keep her figure.