Mike Cohen

California may have cost Florida the election

by

I must be the only one who isn’t happy about California legalizing gay marriage.

We have a marriage ‘protection’ amendment on the ballot here in November. This decision in California is a dream come true for the amendment’s supporters. It will energize their base with the fear of it happening here and help them get out the vote. This means a much bigger Republican turnout.

Although Obama is already expected to lose Florida, this will almost certainly guarantee it and by a much bigger margin.

California could have done us (and the entire country) a big favor if they had waited until after the election to make this decision.

links for 2008-05-15

by

Focus & Depth of field

by

One of the best things about DLSR cameras is that they give you a lot of control over focus, exposure, and depth of field, allowing you to choose exactly how you want your picture to look.

When I photograph flowers or plants, I usually like to use a very narrow depth of field to emphasize the subject. By shooting in Aperture Priority mode on my D40x, I have full control over the depth of field. Large apertures give a narrow depth of field, while smaller apertures put more of the picture in focus. In Aperture Priority mode, you can lock in a particular aperture setting while the camera chooses the appropriate shutter speed for the proper exposure. With most zoom lenses, the maximum aperture depends on the zoom settings. In that case, if changing the zoom level reduces the maximum aperture, it will reduce the aperture automatically to the maximum setting at that level.

For maximum aperture size, nothing beats a 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 prime lens. The zoom lenses I own only go up to f3.5 or f4.5, so I usually use my 50mm f1.8 if I want to work with depth of field.

After the break are some pictures I shot today illustrating different aperture settings.

Read more

Fired up & ready to go

by

I really love this song.

‘Fired Up & Ready to Go’ is by Fojeba, a musician born in Cameroon now living in Canada. His song is a Central African makossa. Fojeba uses samples from Obama’s speeches in the music including his signature “Fired Up, Ready to Go” as a refrain.

Via Calabash Music’s blog, which also features other music inspired by Obama.

Daniel's new venture

by

A very nice article in Mercury News mentions Daniel Brusilovsky and his new venture, Teens in Tech. Daniel is a 15 year old podcaster and blogger, who I’m proud to say is also on MacMegasite’s staff.

Daniel and his 14 year old business partner Richard Escobedo gave a talk at SDForum’s Teens Plugged In forum yesterday.

Daniel is the President & CEO of Teens in Tech, a community that hosts blogs, podcasts, video podcasts (vodcasts), or live streams for teens and by teens.

links for 2008-05-14

by

Macintosh users won't be crying

by

Microsoft has released a beta of World Wide Telescope, the application that made Scoble cry. They claim to support the Mac, but if you look at the system requirements, to run it on a Mac, you need an Intel Mac with Windows XP or Vista installed in Boot Camp.

WWT System Requirements
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work with VMware. Here’s the result of attempting to run it in VMware 2.0 beta with DirectX 9.0 accelleration enabled.

WorldWide Telescope 2014 WindowsXP
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

It looks like Microsoft’s idea of Mac support now is simply telling people to install the Windows version and run it in Parallels or Boot Camp. Instead of making a real Mac version of Expression Pro, Microsoft has licensed Parallels Desktop to sell with their Windows product as a Mac version. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they do that with the next version of Office, despite the talk of bringing back VBA.

In fact I haven’t installed Office 2008 for the Mac, since the combination of iWork and Office 2003 running under VMware is better. Instead of something sort-of compatible with Windows Office files, I have 100% compatibility plus a nice Mac application when I don’t need full compatibility.

HDR plugin for Aperture

by

Creaceed has released a new version of Hydra, which includes a new HDR plugin for Aperture 2.1.

It doesn’t offer as many options as Photomatix, but the results are very nice. These were created with the same source images I had previously processed with Photoshop and the Photomatix plugin. The results look very natural, although it can’t produce some of the more extreme effects.

Hydra HDR

HDR Aperture Plugin

New Sponsor

by

MacMegasite has a new sponsor, Mac Poker. I’m not too thrilled about it, but their site isn’t objectionable and they paid in advance. Thanks to their payment, I increased the memory & cpu allocation for my virtual private server, which should make all of my hosted sites faster.