Firsts | Backpacking and Hammocks

I was typing a post over at the Hammock Forums when I started to get lost in nostalgia. It was my first official backpacking trip out in the Mojave Desert and my pack was 60+ pounds… OUCH! Read more

Flash the double-edged sword | How to remove Flash pop-up ads

Are you like the rest of the population and sick-n-tired of all the popup ads when you are browsing? Do you wonder why you still get popup ads even though you have set your browser, Safari, Firefox or Chrome to “Block Popup Ads”?

So…double-edged sword huh? Yes, There are a lot of nice things flash has done to the web experience, however there are also some bad things as well. Ads and security issues versus pretty.

All ads are annoying, however, animated or pop-up ads are the equivalent of someone ramming a dead, dry and golden christmas tree branch into your eye. You know what I am talking about. You thought you took control of this blinding experience and chose to “Block pop-up ads” only to find that your browsing experience is more and more riddled by pop-up ads. Let me let you in on a secret… it is Adobe Flash. that’s right. the ads are added into the ad (he he). let’s look at an example shall we…

The annoying popup

http://backpacker.com and a reason I hated the site until now. When you load their page you are greeted with what seems a normal magazine theme website and then all of a sudden… BAM!… your hit with a “subscribe to our magazine”ad. This is a slap in the face to those of us who already subscribe, and the reason I stopped visiting the site. The following screen shot shows what I mean (There are also non-pop-up ads that are Flash animations as well out there).

There may be hope. There is a program I found out about on the TUAW blog called “ClickToFlash”. Basically, this is actually a plug-in for your browser… and if I am not mistaken, only for Safari. You can turn this little sucker on and CHOOSE, yes YOU choose whether or not you want the Flash to display. The settings page and an example of how a page will be viewed are shown below.

All you have to do is click the little gear icon in the corner of the Flash content and you will get an options menu similar to the on in the image titled What it will look like.

I also wondered if this would stop the stupid pop-ups within the YouTube videos themselves. Since I have my settings set to view the H.264 versions, that is the choice I am given to open. So I clicked on the little “H.264″ text (as opposed to the “Flash” text) in the middle of the RANDOM video I chose. Low and behold, the pop-up ad that played in the Flash version of the video did not show up in the H.264 version. That is sweat!

So, where do you get this tasty morsel filter? Right HERE.

As a side note, I am told there is also a healthy dose of security risks through Flash

Aperture 3 Feature for Backpackers and Photography

Here is a feature in Apple’s Aperture 3 that I ALWAYS wished I had…visual map reference of all my outdoor and backpacking adventures tied to all my images and GPS tracks for cataloging my adventures. I take Landscapes as part of my love for backpacking in the wild. Not only that, but as I journey around the backcountry I come across places I really want to remember AND find again. Aperture 3 makes that possible. Read more

Photographer on top of the Empire State Building

I am always amazed at the great heights and lengths photographers will go to to create that image they see in their minds eye… their art. I found this video on Syl’s site, Pixsylated.com. This crazy guy, Joe McNally, working for National Geographic, climes up the needle on top of the Empire State Building. See joe’s AMAZING pictures and story on his blog here.

Aperture 3.0.1 Update Available

Today Apple came out with an update to Aperture 3 via Software Update that fixes a lot of items. Note that if you are currently testing Aperture 3 in Demo mode, the update will not show up in Software Update, or at least it did not for me. I used the method below to get the download, however it will not work. It says, “Aperture 3.0 or later is required to install this update.”

demo users are outa luck

Standalone Installer

• Apple Downloads offers a standalone installer that you can use instead, if you wish.

More information is available here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2518

What I had to do was remove the demo version of Aperture 3 and install the demo version Aperture 3.0.1 in its place. What a headache.

UPDATE 2/25/2010:I was over at the Flick Aperture group and found a very simple way to do the upgrade, I haven’t tried it, but user Theoden said, “Go to Library > Preferences and delete “com.apple.AECT.plist” then re-run the installer.” This is WAY easier!

Changing The Oil

I was heading home after dropping my son off and needed to add some oil to my thirsty International Scout. I pulled over and while I was waiting for the oil to pour in I saw this image. It was as if the the oak tree had a magnetic field drawing the lightrays down from the sky.

Will the iPad be useful for photographers

The looooong awaited Apple tablet has been announced. The iPad. So, what will this device mean to photographers if anything? Read more

Easiest Way To Download YouTube videos

For all you Mac users out there, here is the simplest way to download videos from YouTube. All you need is Safari, a YouTube video and a double click of the mouse. Lets check it out.

Open YouTube and pick a video. Once your video has started playing,

1. open the Activity window (Command-Option-A, which shows the Activity window), it is under “Window” in the pull down menus.
2. Now look for the YouTube website listed. When you find it you may need to expand it by clicking the flyout triangle next to it.
3. Look through the listings under the YouTube website and find the largest file size. The file size should be larger than 5MB.
4. Double click that link and Safari will download the file, probably called Video.flv.

Now you can play it with VLC or with QuickTime (only if you have Perian installed).

Spotify

Have you heard of Spotify? You have had to of by now if you listen to music at all and aren’t an oldster.  Spotify is the bomb! Have you ever wanted to listen to a song by an artist you never heard? how about listening to an entire album? How about listening to over 6 million songs in there entirety? Spotify rocks! Read more

Apple Updates Logic Pro and Mainstage

Apple has just updated Logic Pro to version 9.1 and Mainstage to version 2.1. There are a number of numerous fixes and updates to the programs. Finally Apple has added 64-bit support. Not only has it fixed and updated, but there are also a number of things that are no longer working due to the 64-bit.

According to user “shivermetimbers”, at the Logic Pro Help forum, the following features are not currently available when using Logic Pro 9.1 in 64-bit mode.

Firewire streaming of video
Digital Cinema Desktop
AAF import and export
EuCon control surface support
Automap of parameters with control surfaces
OMF import and export
Conversion to MP3
Recycle (REX) file support
ReWire support
Vienna Symphonic Library Tool
Logic Node processing
AKAI format sample import

Interesting, to say the least.

Not sure how this is going to work for me, since Mainstage 2 had already doubled the resource usage on my Macbook Pro. Hopefully all goes well. I will keep you up to date in the comment section on what I find in my use of the new release.

The Eponymous Album Update #6 | A Blessing

My prayers for a miracle have been answered!

Well, as you may know from recent posts, I had a hard drive crash. The hard drive circuit board fried and it caused some damage to the physical disc. I sent the drive to DriveSavers because I get a discount for being a Professional Photographers of America member and they offered free shipping both ways as well as a free estimate.

Once DriveSavers had gone over the drive, they called and gave me a quote. My oh my, I could not afford the cost they quoted me…$1700. That is a lot of clams for me. So, how important is the data on the drive? That data was irreplaceable. The hard drive was full (320GB) of images and audio. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money, so I told them to send it back. Some one from DriveSavers called me back later and said they will not ship it back until I call PPA. The guy said that PPA may have a program for me. So, I called PPA.

It turns out that as part of your membership to PPA you are covered for hard drive failure. You are allowed a certain amount per year (contact PPA for details). All you have to do is come up with the $200 deductible and they cover the rest, up to PPA’s specified amount. I had no idea I had this coverage. My data was saved! I was instructed to call PPA’s lawyers, who told me this was an indemnification case, and they dealt with all the issues.

I finally received my hard drive, as well as the backup drive I sent. Everything all intact. If there is ever a lesson to be learned, it is backup, backup, backup. With Apples Time Machine, there is absolutely no excuse for loss of data. You can seamlessly and effortlessly backup your main drive and any connected drive without even having to think about anything. I have found nothing like it anywhere.

The only challenge is finding a large enough reliable storage configuration. That is a topic all its own, however, I am eyeing the Drobo product line.

Happy New Years 2010

Tomorrow is the new year and I wanted to wish every one a Happy New Year. May your year be blessed and full of increase.

I have many things to do this new year. I need to redesign some of our website, design a few Album layouts for the purpose of offering wedding albums, offer a more focused Senior Portraits package, find a space for studio work, utilize social media more efficiently and more.

Once again, thank you to all of you,

Heath

The Eponymous Album Update #6 | The Verdict

I thought I would offer an update on the situation since I just received word on my drive situation.

Well, I just got word back from DriveSavers. The hard drive had electrical failures and damaged some of the disk. They said they were confident that they could retrieve all of the data for $1500-$2160. Unfortunately I am an artist and can’t afford such a price at the moment.

I guess my only option is to RE-record everything I have ever done…Every track, every EQ, every plugin setting, every crossfade, every automation, every master, every spontaneous song, everything. It really changes the importance of data management and backups in particular.

Looks like I will NOT have the album out by December 31st.

I am now thinking of recording this album live if I can find some “work for pizza and liner note attribution” musicians… any takers?

The Eponymous Album Update #5 | The Crash

Today I set up the gear as usual to begin recording the last couple songs. I plugged in the external drive to the power supply but didn’t hear any startup noises.  I thought it was strange.  I tried a few thing and decided to investigate. I unplugged the eSATA wire and tried it… nothing.  I then tried a different power supply… nothing.

I was beginning to worry now.  You see, that was everything I had ever done. It had live sessions… it even had Pro Tools sessions-I stopped using Pro Tools years ago. The drive was basically my backup of all musical data. I had been feeling the need to back up lately, however, I am an artist, I have no money for things like that-or so the thoughts went. I then popped open various other external drives and put this drive in…dead! nothing. There is no sound, nothing. As you can imagine, I just about crapped soiled my pants.

I called DriveSavers ( being a PPA member gets me a 20% discount).  They were nice enough until I got the quote… $700-$2700. Yikes!  The fella said that the evaluation is free. He said they would send a box via Fedex Next day. He informed me that they pay for shipping to and from, even if the free estimate is rejected by you.  All you do is put the drive in the box, add a drive to have them put the data on in the box as well, and send it off.

I really can’t pay the kind of money they quoted me.  My prayer is that it will be something simple enough in the inspection that there is no charge. It really sucks, but basically you need two spare drives for every main drive. the two drives should be rotated and one kept off the premises. That is expensive, especially considering the rate I fill up hard drives with data.

I have learned enough to have my main Mac (Macbook Pro) set up with Time Machine.  It is so simple!  The problem is every time I dig into either of my MacBook Pro’s and change the hard drives to a bigger size, I have to change the Time machine drives to a bigger size.  It is a crazy thing… data.

It was suggested I take donations to help ease the pain of the repair. Should you choose to donate to the recovery, an account has been set up for “Hard Drive Recovery”, you can do so here:

The Eponymous Album Update #4 | Recording Workflow

I thought I would post an update on the status of my Eponymous album. I have been working really hard on getting this project done before the end of the year – completing at least one song per day. With this schedule I have recorded 10 songs so far and have three or four more to go.  The album will be available worldwide in stores like iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, LaLa, etc. I am trying to find a reputable disk maker and am wavering between Oasis and Diskmakers (any other suggestions?) for the disks which will be available at my website, CD Baby and a few select stores.

For those that have asked for more details on my workflow I will give a quick numbered list of what’s up with that.

1. I use Logic Studio 9 (Logic Pro) as my DAW of choice. I absolutely love it!
2. I create a new session and name it. I also make sure that it stores absolutely everything, from impulse responses to sample files to notes in the project folder.
3. Next comes the tracks…
   1. I set up a drum track with Ultrabeat as a metronome.
   2. I setup three tracks for the acoustic guitar
   3. I take a split stereo signal from both of my guitar pickups, using a stereo-to-dual-mono cable and record them on two separate tracks
   4. I create two VOX tracks… one for melody and one for the BV if any.
4. I set the bit rate and tempo
5. Everything in items 1-4 are set up in a template so all I have to do is open the template, arm the tracks and record.
6. I then will setup my marker text so that the lyrics are on screen and change as per verse, chorus, bridge, etc. I really like this feature.
7. I then begin hardware routing
8. Vocals go through a Mojave Audio MA201-fet Microphone
   1. The mic plugs straight into a MOTU Traveler – I don’t have the funds for the Universal Audio mic pre I want, so, unfortunately, I must plug straight into the Traveler.
9. The acoustic guitar is recorded by a AKG c1000s and fed straight into the Traveler.
   1. I also have a sweet stereo pickup system on my acoustic that I record at the same time. I use an L.R. Baggs iMix internal mixer that mixes an M1 and a iBeam.
   2. This signal is split at the stereo end pin jack, where I plug in a stereo-to-dual-mono cable. The cable is then plugged from the guitar into the LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI, which is fed to the Traveler.
   3. as a side note… this custom pickup system cannot be beat for live playing. It far surpasses Taylor’s Expression System or any other system I have tried.
10. The MOTU Traveler is connected to an Alesis HD24XR for track backup ( I use it as main recording media for all my live playing) and to a MacBook Pro via Firewire.
11. The sessions are recorded to an external hard drive via an eSATA Expresscard.
12. I lay down the tracks
13. comp the best takes if needed
14. create a rough  balance/mix
15. Send an MP3 to iTunes with all the ID3 tags set and title it [Title]-[mix#]-[date] so that I can check it out on different listening devices.
    1. For those that don’t know, there is a huge difference between mixes and listening environments.  What sounds good in your headphones will not sound the same in the computer speakers, which will sound way different than the home theatre or car stereo.  This is important.  Not every one listens to music solely on an iPod through earbuds.
16. Use the “Notes” window in the project, for the project (not the track notes), to enter the date recorded and what needs to be done next, which is mixing.

This has been my basic workflow/setup for the last 10 songs.  The next step, once I feel I have all the tracks that are candidates for the album recorded and roughed mixed. I will begin the mix down process, which is another topic all together.

The Eponymous Album: Update

Just paid the fees…It’s Official… The album will be available worldwide on all download services. Now to choose which songs are added to that album.

The Eponymous Album: Update

In an attempt to actually get my material out, I have opted to offer an album that the songs are not so much stripped down versions as they are the beginnings of each song… How they started… Each song has began with an acoustic guitar and an Idea (or spontaneity). I tried to capture that feel of “beginnings” on this album.

The Eponymous Album: Update

Spent the day recording a song called Refreshment for the new album.

Track your Tweets with Google Analytics

I came across a great article on tracking Tweets with Google Analytics tonight and thought I would share it.  Check it out here: http://www.epikone.com/blog/2008/09/02/tracking-twitter/

I have implemented the suggestion on my tweet of this post.  We will see how it fares, if at all. I used URL builder for the URL.

National Federation of the Blind-Oregon State Convention

on October 9, 2009, I joined with Carla McQuillan to play Irish Drinking songs one evening during the convention.  To tell you the truth, I did not know what to expect.  I didn’t know if there would be 1,00 people or 10 or anything else for that matter.  It turns out that we were playing at a dinner auction.  The guests would eat and we would play.  They would then auction off a few things and we would play again and so on.  It turned out to be a great evening. Carla and I sang a few of our favorite Irish tunes separately while both of us played guitar and then we both sang on a few.

All and all it was a very fun and high-spirited evening.  The people were awesome and I look forward to the opportunity to do it again next year.

Thanks NFB Oregon!

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BBQ and a Shoot

I got the opportunity to shoot some friends of mine during a BBQ we had this month. They just had a baby not to long ago and wanted to get something to send to family. It for the kickin’ it at home” look and Things went pretty well. We had a great time. We grilled some shrimp and fish and had the most amazing fish tacos. Oh man… these were the best fish tacos I had ever had, thanks to Erin’s special sauce. Mmmmm!

At one point in the evening one of us asked if I could shoot his art.  He is a very talented artist and is worth looking up should you like ANYTHING artistic.  Anyway, he had some new project he was working on that was wire guys (that is some of his paintings in the back).  I began shooting, seeing how things began to flow, getting inspired, when all of a sudden it was time to get everyone home to bed. Here are some of the images from that night.  We also discussed a couple band portrait ideas. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Snow Leopard out on Friday

As you may or may not know, Apple will be making Snow Leopard OSX available on friday.  The upgrade operating system is only $29 bucks.  What does Windows cost for an upgrade… once you figure out what version you need? The family pack runs $49 bones which includes, I believe, 5 licenses.

For all the latest check here.  

Free Song Download-Beautiful

This piece is a spontaneous song that came under an incredible atmosphere of His presence in the room. There was a long stretch of silence after this where all were in a state of awe of  Him, face down.
[wp_eStore_free_download:product_id:2:end]

Changing Colors In A Black and White Image

There was a little dialogue on my Facebook about my images. The friend was wondering what type of camera I was using. On their last comment, I decided to make a quick screencast to show what I meant by the colors in a RAW black and white image using Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

Friend: “These are great pics. What kind of camera do you use”?
HM: “It really isn’t the camera”!

“You can take awesome pictures with a point-and-shoot (as some of these are) or an OLD oatmeal tub with the right size pinhole (as I have done before)”. “What matters is 1)your eye to see the shot, 2) the technique to get the shot and 3) knowledge in the details needed to produce the final image”.

“That being said, my main camera is a Canon Rebel (for now)”. “I love the layout of the controls on it”.

HM: “Here is an example (both examples are in this album)”:

“This is a shot that is nice because it has my family in it, other than that, it is in no way an “artsy” image” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2308627&l=9b0df11833&id=557537005

“This is the same shot, except getting up at 5:30am in the morning just to find premium shots (the watermark doesn’t count as part of the shot) at the premium hours (dusk and dawn)”. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2312519&l=20bfe0ad63&id=557537005

“I will say that SLR’s are way more configurable than a point-and-shoot… and, for me, it is a must to shoot in RAW as opposed to JPG”.

“My Longwinded answer that, I hope, will inspire others to create with what they have”.

HM:  ”Last comment”… ”As an example of #3 as you mentioned from my list… I deemed that this final image had to be B&W”… “I think it works, although I would love to play with the clarity, contrast and move the colors (they are still there) around to totally change the shades of B&W, I figured a lot of that would be lost in the Facebook compression they use on my images”.

“Here is the link”: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2313651&l=c7193eabe1&id=557537005

Friend: “Ok, I saw the pic, B&W, but it is interesting that I did not see that the colors were still there until you mentioned it”. “Very creative”.

HM: “here is a link to a video I made for you on what I meant by changing the colors in black and white”.

Scandinavian Festival-Junction City-Oregon

This weekend is the Scandinavian Festival in Junction City.  The festival runs from August 13-16th this year and is quite popular.  My son and I went in the afternoon on Thursday and had a great time.  He has gotten to the point were he accepts the fact, that no matter where we are, I will be taking pictures.  It didn’t seem like there were as many booths as previous years, but I could be wrong.

Here are a couple of images from that trip.