FTP – File Transfer Protocol

Just a few months ago, I was taking a short vacation down in Florida with my wife’s family. It was the first time our little nieces had ever been to the ocean, so I was sure to take lots and lots of pictures. Every evening, after we had gone out to one of the many great places to eat, I would dump all of my pictures from my compact flash card onto my laptop.

A lot of people would stop there, but I like to have several copies of all my important files. So, before turning in for the night, I would open up my favorite FTP program, connect to the FTP server running on my computer at home (600 miles away!), and transfer all of the precious photos I had taken that day. Indeed, FTP is a great tool that anyone with a broadband connection should use.
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What is Focal Length Multiplier

If you spend any time reading through photography forums or blogs, or if you actually cracked open the manual that came with your camera, you may have come across the term Focal Length Multiplier. While this term does sound intimidating, the concept is fairly straight-forward.

Before digital cameras came along, 35mm film was a popular format. The majority of consumer-grade digital cameras available today have sensors that are smaller than 35mm film. The majority of these smaller sensors align themselves with the Advanced Photo System type-“Classic” (APS-C) image format, which measures smaller than traditional 35mm film (36×24mm). Therefore, by nature, these digital sensors are only capable of capturing a portion of the image that 35mm film is capable of. This is where the term focal length multiplier (FLM) comes into play.

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Money Blogs – Make Money With Content: Part Three

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing articles for our Money Blog series. If you missed Part One or Part Two, feel free to check those out before moving on.

This week, I’m going to talk about a few of the ways to get the traffic flowing to your site. Some of my advice is obvious and other parts of it are simply things I’ve found that just plain work. These methods can be separated into three general categories: the old fashioned way, the paid way, and the down and dirty way.
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Midweek Geek Links for 7-24-2008

It’s time for this weeks Geek Links!

• To all my fellow strobists out there, Scott Kelby has found a great strobist lighting kit bag for your portable lighting gear.
• And while we’re talking strobist gear, check out this 15 second DIY adjustable snoot. Great idea, and for under $5!
• This gallery of sawn-in-half cameras is actually really cool.
• Here’s another great idea to turn your bike into a mobile camera tripod.
• And finally, here’s one I’ll be trying out very soon. Make a DIY softbox out of an umbrella!

That’s all for this week. Tune in next week for even more cool links from around the innerwebs!

Professional Portrait Retouching – Comparing Skin Softening Techniques

There are many ways to soften skin inside Photoshop; some methods are more effective than others, but each method typically gives you different results, however slight they may be. It can be confusing and frustrating to try out each of these techniques to find out which works best with your particular photo or photographic style.

This tutorial will walk you through an easy way to setup and compare three of the most popular skin softening techniques inside one Photoshop document while maintaining realism and skin texture. This not only gives you insight into what each softening technique has to offer, but also gives you more flexibility with your images.

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Windows Remote Desktop Connections

Recently, my wife has been considering doing a little computer work for her office from home. Since they don’t exactly have an IT department, I get to help them out from time to time. At first, the folks at her office believed that they needed to buy some specialized software to facilitate the remote connection. I was glad to tell them that they already had all they need: Windows XP Pro, and a static IP address.

Remote Desktop Connection is a utility that comes with Windows XP. It allows a user to connect to another computer remotely via a network connection or the Internet. When connecting from within a local network (like in an office environment), you can use the Computer Name to connect to another computer. If you are connecting to another computer via the Internet, you must know that computer’s public IP address.
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Capturing Catchlights in Photography

Catchlights in photography are simply the specular highlight (reflection) of the light source in the subject’s eyes. This highlight helps give life and that extra spark to a portrait.

Catchlights can be achieved using any light source, even ambient light; though, you will have more control when using a flash or strobe. In these cases, the size and shape of the catchlights will depend on your light source and light modifiers.

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Midweek Geek Links for 7-16-2008

It’s time for this weeks Geek Links!

• WordPress 2.6, Tyner, was released this week. Check out the blog post detailing all the new features on the WordPress Development blog. Just in case you were wondering we recently upgraded to 2.6 and love it.
• I came across a pretty cool set of cheat sheets over at MakeUseOf.com. Seven cheat sheets to help you in your online adventures await you!
• Microsoft recently announced their partnership with Netflix at this years E3. Netflix customers will be able to stream Netflix movies straight to their television via their Xbox 360. I can’t wait for this to go live!
• There’s lots of talk about the new iPhone G3. Apparently, the G3 sold out in 21 states! Geeze. For more information on the new iPhone, check out Popular Mechanics’ G3 comparison to see how it holds up against its predecesor as well as other popular iPhone alternatives.
• Yesterday, Gas2.org posted a really interesting article on the new Air Car. That’s right, a car that runs on compressed air. According to the article, “Compressed-Air Powered cars could take you over 800 miles on a single fill-up, at speeds of up to 96 mph. They should refuel in less than 3 minutes, and at speeds over 35 mph emit about half the CO2 of a Toyota Prius.” Where do I sign up?

Money Blogs – Make Money With Content: Part Two

Last week, I posted Part One of our Money Blog series. Now that we’ve covered all the little things that I think you should learn before diving into the blogging game, let’s look at the next steps you should follow.

This post is going to cover most of “the action.” I’ll talk about planning for and outlining your new blog, installing WordPress, tracking site traffic, and a few ways to monetize your site (finally!).
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Upgraded WordPress to version 2.6

If you noticed the site behaving strangely earlier this morning, it’s because I just upgraded our WordPress installation to version 2.6! If you’re wondering, “Hey, what’s new with the latest version of WordPress,” I’ve got you covered. If you want to go ahead and download WordPress, feel free to do so. I’ll wait.

I’m not going to go into ever little detail about what version 2.6 brings to the table. There’s already an official WordPress post (linked) that’s got that covered. I will, however, list my favorite additions as well as offer the nice little video the WordPress team made.
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