It doesn’t take long for many to realize the power of instant social networking, and en-masse information gathering. It doesn’t matter that people aren’t interested in life’s mundane activities. What’s important is finding the precious nuggets of information mixed in the sea of chaff.

As Twitter grows, the information being passed from person to person through the service becomes more diversified, universal, and specific. People are tweeting about a huge variety of topics, and through various websites you can see which topics are popular, or “trending.”

TwitterFall is a great example of the power of Twitter in keeping up to date with current trends. TwitterFall shows you a live feed of all tweets, as they happen. You can see the top trends on the left, or if you want to see what people are currently saying about a new album, website, tech device, or news event, you can add a custom filter. TwitterFall’s limitation is its relation to the present.

Twazzup allows you to search for past and present tweets on a specific topic. It also shows you featured and popular tweets. Search engines like this, including Twitter’s built in search, demonstrate the power of twitter aggregated information. Practically every topic imaginable has, at some point, been tweeted about.

Unfortunately, both of these services also show the biggest problem with en-masse aggregated information – tweets on popular topics are not always important, relevant, interesting, or of any use. This is why it is important that you follow people you are interested in hearing from.

Twellow, a yellow pages for Twitter, is definitely the most popular people search. This is a great first step in finding people working in areas that you are interested in, and for building a network.

wefollow.com is another popular people search, focused on self-selected topical tags and popularity. This is a great way to find popular twitterers who tweet often and with relevance.

Added together, you begin to see the power of twitter. Follow a number of  people in different industries, relevant to your interests, and you will start to see trends and ideas weave in and out in the mass of tweets – you’ll have your nuggets of information in the sea of chaff.

So, why do I Twitter? Access to a wealth of relavant, timely information is too precious to pass up.

I’m fortunate to have studied with photographers Roger Mertin and Bruno Chalifour. Both well respected photographers in their own right, they each taught me invaluable lessons on photography, critique, self-expression, and art. We studied the works of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and many other photographers. What stood out to me most in studying these artists was how the message of their art impacted me.

The work of Diane Arbus always makes a compelling example. If you aren’t familiar with her work, take a minute to study it. It’s shocking, moving, and sometimes very difficult. She is exceptionally good at expressing her thoughts on a topic through photography.

A Flower Girl At A Wedding, Connecticut - Source: artnet.com

A Flower Girl At A Wedding, Connecticut is a stark portrayal of marriage. The coarse grain and high contrast create a sense of darkness that is amplified by the child’s darkened eyes.

Christmas Tree in a living room, Levitown, L.I. - Source: masters-of-photography.com

Christmas Tree in a living room, Levitown, L.I. present us with quite a scene. The tree overpowers the room, its decoration gaudy and excessive in comparison to the surroundings. The abundance of gifts a reminder of the commercialization of the holiday.

Viewing these images, you instantly get a sense of what Diane Arbus is saying about marriage and Christmas. The range in technique that Arbus employs is another example of her talent – but what makes her work powerful art is the expression she is capable of exhibiting through her photography.

Artwork that lacks expression isn’t art. This isn’t to say that technical ability isn’t important. Technique gives the artist the tools necessary to express meaning. However, technique alone does not make art – all art is expression.

The BU Bridge

Last weekend I took advantage of the beautiful spring day and captured a few more images around Boston. This time I went to the BU Bridge, which has a train bridge that runs on an angle below it. There I found some geese and plenty of graffiti. I also set up my telescope along the Charles River and took a picture of the gold dome of the capitol building. In addition, there are two images that show the distance I was working with for the dome shot, and just how much magnification the 1250mm telescope allows me.

Raw Therapee

Working with RAW image files can be an extremely rewarding experience. Yet, many feel intimidated by a file format that often comes out of the camera drab and lifeless, software that can feel foreign, and a general sense of “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Thankfully, there is an excellent application called Raw Therapee that makes working with RAW files very easy. For me, it has almost entirely eliminated my need to use Photoshop for image processing. Best of all, it’s free!

I’ve put together this tutorial to show the basic steps in working with RAW using Raw Therapee. I do not claim to be an expert, and this is not a definitive tutorial. My goal is to show others how easy RAW can be, and to help them get started. To learn more about working with Raw image files in Raw Therapee I recommend reading the Raw Therapee User Manual.

There are a great number of reasons that you should be working in RAW. The main difference between a RAW camera file and a JPEG file of the same image is that the RAW file is a lossless format (no compression) that contains all of the camera data – allowing you to make changes to the image in processing that you could have made in the camera when shooting. JPEG images are processed by the camera, often brightened and sharpened. While you can work with JPEG files, there isn’t the same amount of control that you have with a RAW file.

Original raw image

Let’s use this image as an example. This image is under-exposed, and the white balance is incorrect. I know this because I balanced the camera for direct sunlight – this is all shadow – and I purposely darkened the exposure. Using software like Raw Therapee you can make changes to the exposure and white balance as if you were still taking the picture. If this were a JPEG I’d practically have to dismiss this image as lost.

Raw Therapee

The layout of Raw Therapee is pretty straight forward and well thought out.

1. Image display area.
2. Directory list
3. The histogram – it’s good to keep your eye on this while working with the image
4. Image thumbnails – the first time you load a directory it will take some time to create thumbnails of each image. You can see the image I’m working with is highlighted.
5. This area has all of the tools you’ll be using to edit your image
6. And finally, output.

Adjusting white balance

The first step when working with a RAW image is to adjust the white balance. You can see in the image above that I’ve selected the color tab and slid the Temperature slider to the right. The more I move it to the right the warmer the image becomes. Moving it to the left makes the image cooler. You can see the original inset for comparison. Make fine adjustments to the tint.

Spot white balance

You can also use the spot white balance tool for selecting an area in the image that you feel is balanced – typically something white or gray. I’ve turned on the detail option, which I’ll be using to look at image details during the rest of the process. You can see the white balance selector tool in the middle of the detail area.

Rarely is anything perfectly balanced in nature. In fact, most whites have a good amount of blue in them and can actually throw off the white balance a bit. If you’re persnickety about your white balance you can purchase a professional white balance card to use with your pictures. They are easy to use – you just have to remember to use them.

After white balancing, I do any Transform operations (resizing, cropping, rotation, etc). However, this is not the time to downscale the image for other uses – websites, email, etc. – you’ll want to do that last. If you were going to upscale, now would be the time to do it.

Adjusting the exposure

After adjusting white balance I return to the Exposure tab to adjust the exposure. The image was fairly dark, so I’ve raised the exposure a little bit. This had the effect of washing out some of the detail in direct light under the bridge. In a JPEG file once an area is washed out the detail is lost. In RAW the information in the washed out pixel still exists and can be recovered.

Highlights, shadows, and local contrast

To recover information from an area that is washed out enable the Shadows/Highlights tool and adjust your highlights – the higher the number the more the highlights are reduced. Here you can see that I’ve recovered the area that was being washed out by direct sunlight without darkening the whole image. You can also reduce the shadows, but be careful, the image can become void of black or white, which can look very weird.

Then I adjust the Local Contrast. This is a very useful tool and has a subtle effect. It sharpens the image, gives it a three-dimensional feel, and can reduce atmospheric haze or the fog of shooting through a window. This will not effect the overall contrast of the image like the contrast slider in exposure.

In the image above I’ve enabled the clipping indicators, and you can see where the blacks are being clipped. Clipping indicates that information is being lost, either blacked or whited out, and may be an indication that an image has been lightened or darkened too much.

Curves

You can also do similar work with the luminance curve. By lightening the dark areas or darkening the light areas you can regain lost information within the image.

After I’m finished making adjustments to highlights and shadows, I make final adjustments to the exposure, brightness, and overall contrast of the image.

Sharpening

Once the image has the color, exposure and contrast that I want, I go to the Detail tab for the final step – sharpening the image. The Unsharp Mask tool in Raw Therapee works the same as in Photoshop. I set my Radius to 0.70 and my Threshold to 2, then adjust the amount until it looks sharp, but is free of halos (solid black lines around details). The halo control tool eliminates halos when you’ve sharpened too aggressively, but you shouldn’t need to use it – if you’re seeing halos then you’re sharpening too much.

That’s it, you’re done! Now, these are just the basic steps. There is so much more to this program, and so much more you can adjust – I’m just scratching the surface.

When you get the image how you like it you can export it to another format (TIFF or JPEG, etc), or, if you need to make other adjustments (like dodging or burning) you can send it to your editing software.

There are two more processing steps that I do in Photoshop before an image is complete.

Levels

First, I adjust the Output Levels by subtracting 2 from each end. I do this for printing purposes – it prevents odd pixelization in the absolute blacks and whites. This is unnecessary if you aren’t printing, and even then it may not be absolutely necessary, unless you notice such a thing in your prints.

Adding a blur layer

This next step is a tip I picked up from my friend and fellow photographer Alex. Copy the image into a new layer, then select Gaussian Blur from the filter menu. Blur the image until it looks soft, but details aren’t lost, usually around a 15 pixel radius.

Adjusting soft light level

Then, select either soft light, hard light, or vivid light, etc and adjust the opacity. I like the look of soft light, and typically adjust the opacity to around 40%. This has the effect of adding more depth to the image. It also removes digital noise by softening the image without losing detail. It’s a great effect.

Final image

So, here’s the final image. It’s quite a change from where we started. Best of all, everything was done without losing detail or information. If I wanted to go back and start over I could do so. More red, more contrast, darker, lighter – all of the image information is still contained within the RAW file.

Before and after

By shooting in raw you are able to correct incorrect white balance, change the exposure, regain information from bright or dark areas, sharpen, increase contrast, and give images more three-demensionality. The reward of working with RAW is that it allows you, the photographer, to concentrate on composition, focus, and message when shooting – three things than can’t be adjusted by software.

Meade ETX 90

I took advantage of the fair weather and clear sky Tuesday night to make an attempt at getting some pictures of the full moon with my new Nikon D90 and Meade ETX 90 telescope. Due to the scope’s enormous focal length – 1250mm – I am able to get some very clear, detailed shots of the moon – if I can keep the camera shake under control. Unfortunately, all of these images are blurry.

I used a timer to reduce shake; however, at the time I wasn’t aware of the ability to add a delay to the mirror. The D90 does not have the option to lock the mirror up prior to exposure, and even the little movement of the mirror can cause shake on such a large lens. Turning on the delay causes the camera to wait 1 second after the mirror moves before making the exposure.

The camera does not support non-cpu lenses, so I had to experiment with exposure time. There is no auto-focus either, so I’m left using the view finder and review screen to make fine adjustments. Next time I’ll be sure to use the delay feature, as well as enlarge the image on the LCD screen to check focus. That should help me capture a clear, detailed, and focused image of the moon.

Nikon D09

In August of 2007 I decided to purchase a small, lightweight point-and-shoot digital camera. In a post about the camera I said, “…I’m a purist… I would never give up my film camera for digital….” Over the past year and a half I learned quite a bit about digital photography. I also learned how to eat my words (they just need a little salt), and recently decided it was time I make a digital SLR my primary instrument. Last week, after many weeks of reading, research, and thinking, I purchased the Nikon D90.

First, let me be clear, I’m not giving up my film camera. However, at this point it is no longer my first choice for photography. That may change when I have access again to a darkroom, but for now the old equipment is going into the closet.

After a year and a half of shooting with the Leica D-Lux 3, I decided that I enjoy digital photography enough to make a small investment in higher-end equipment. The Leica takes great shots, and I’m not giving it up – it’s perfect for travel, days when I don’t want to lug around a big camera, and long walks on the beach. But, more and more, I’ve found that the Leica isn’t meeting my expectations as a photographer.

I found it too difficult to use the LCD to judge things like focus, depth of field, and composition. Making adjustments to the focal length of the lens is too clumsy, it’s handling in high contrast situations poor, and its low light abilities lacking. It is a fabulous point and shoot camera, but it doesn’t give me the control I have become accustomed to from shooting with a SLR camera.

That being said, it was a great introduction to digital photography. I found that I love the instant feedback that a digital camera gives. I love being able to make on-the-fly adjustments to exposure, white balance, color tone, saturation, ISO, etc. More importantly, I found digital photography to be a wonderfully useful communication tool.

I picked the Nikon D90 for a number of reasons and am thrilled with the results. I won’t go into all the details, but the D90 is a full featured prosumer DSLR. I’m still in the process of putting together my kit, but I had a great time taking pictures over the weekend with the inexpensive Nikkor 50mm prime lens.

Expect to see my first Nikon D90 gallery up in the next day or two.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars (many times)
3. Played in a band (for years)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower (with a telescope!)
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (and Disney World)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm (Heat lightning)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (Weaving is an art… right?)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (I got a chicken sandwich at a fast-food chain. A bad choice.)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (All 354 steps)
18. Grown your own vegetables (Tomatoes and sweet and spicy peppers)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (To Washington D.C.)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when youre not ill (Not recently, of course.)
24. Built a snow fort (Recently, of course.)
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community (Practically lived there.)
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (only in a swimming pool)
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (Only to heckle the movies)
55. Been in a movie (Nothing Hollywood)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (Several, including Voltron: Defender of the Universe)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (Not for anything I did, of course)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someones life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a mobile phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Google Analytics (GA) works by doing two things. Passing information from a cookie to GA and by downloading a small image file from GA.

Because GA uses Javascript you can’t simply add the code to your RedBubble site. However, you can link to an image file on another server, and that opens the door to using a file on another server to pass information through to GA via the image download function.

I found this post that explains how it’s done. The post also provides php code. I’ve created this brief walk-through for RedBubblers.

Here is what you need to use this method:

1. A server where you can add a php file, a directory, and image files at will.
2. The ability to redirect on that server
3. A new GA urchin number. (You don’t want to corrupt the statistics of another site)

Here’s the idea.

Joe Visitor loads up your redbubble page. On that page there is a link to an image file: !http://www.yoursite.com/tracker/main.gif! (This is the code RedBuble uses for inserting images into text.) The tracker directory doesn’t exist, instead there is a command to redirect that image file to a php file called track.php. Track.php passes along the file that’s being loaded to GA and gives Joe the new image url, which is http://www.yoursite.com/imagedir/main.gif

Okay, here’s the technical stuff:

In .htaccess you need to add the following line:

* RewriteRule ^tracker/(.*).gif$ /track.php?url=$1&filetype=gif

This is what causes Joe’s browser to load track.php instead of /tracker/main.gif

Now you need to edit your php file. Copy the following code into a new text file.

<?php
$var_utmac=’UA-0000000-0′; //enter the new urchin code
$var_utmhn=’www.redbubble.com/people/yourname’; //enter your domain
$var_utmn=rand(1000000000,9999999999); //random request number
$var_cookie=rand(10000000,99999999); //random cookie number
$var_random=rand(1000000000,2147483647); //number under 2147483647
$var_today=time(); //today
$var_referer=$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']; //referer url

$var_uservar=’-'; //enter your own user defined variable
$var_utmp=’tracker/’.$_GET['url'].’.’.$_GET['filetype']; //this example adds a fake file request to the (fake) tracker directory (the image/pdf filename).

$urchinUrl=’http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=1&utmn=’.$var_utmn.’&utmsr=-&utmsc=-&utmul=-&utmje=0&utmfl=-&utmdt=-&utmhn=’.$var_utmhn.’&utmr=’.$var_referer.’&utmp=’.$var_utmp.’&utmac=’.$var_utmac.’&utmcc=__utma%3D’.$var_cookie.’.’.$var_random.’.’.$var_today.’.’.$var_today.’.’.$var_today.’.2%3B%2B__utmb%3D’.$var_cookie.’%3B%2B__utmc%3D’.$var_cookie.’%3B%2B__utmz%3D’.$var_cookie.’.’.$var_today.’.2.2.utmccn%3D(direct)%7Cutmcsr%3D(direct)%7Cutmcmd%3D(none)%3B%2B__utmv%3D’.$var_cookie.’.’.$var_uservar.’%3B’;

$handle = fopen ($urchinUrl, “r”);
$test = fgets($handle);
fclose($handle);

switch ($_GET['filetype']){
case ‘jpg’:
header(’Content-Type: image/jpeg’);
break;
case ‘gif’:
header(’Content-type: image/gif’);
break;
case ‘pdf’:
header(’Content-type: application/pdf’);
break;
// add your own content types where needed
}

$imageurl = fopen (’http://www.yoursite.com/directory/’.$_GET['url'].’.’.$_GET['filetype'], “r”); //this is where the real file should be located
while (!feof ($imageurl)) {
$image = fgets($imageurl, 4096);
echo $image;
}
fclose($imageurl);
?>

There are three lines you MUST update for this to work:

1. Line 2: $var_utmac=’UA-0000000-0’; (Enter your urchin code)
2. Line 3: $var_utmhn=’www.redbubble.com/people/yourname’; (This needs to be the same address you used when you signed up for GA)
3. Line 32: $imageurl = fopen (‘http://www.yoursite.com/imagedir/’.$_G…… (Change the address to where the images are actually located)

After you’ve edited it, rename it to track.php and upload it to the root directory of your Web server.

Testing!

Add a gif file to http://www.yoursite.com/imagedir/ called test.gif (remember, the redirect is setup to work with gif files).

Then go to http://www.yoursite.com/tracker/test.gif you should be redirected to http://www.yoursite.com/track.php?url=test&filetype=gif and you should see the test.gif image shown. If the image is shown everything is working! If you get php errors then there is something wrong with your php file. If you get a 404 error your redirect isn’t working.

Test two: Add !http://www.yoursite.com/tracker/test.gif! to your RedBubble profile page. Reload your profile page to see if test.gif appears.

If you pass both these tests then you know your redirect and php file are working.

Now, you’ll want to add a transparent 1×1 gif to your directory so that you can load an image that isn’t intrusive to your profile.

Add a link to that clear image to every page you want tracked.

You should notice redirections from redbubble.com immediately in your redirect log file. However, GA information won’t show up for at least a few hours. (The date defaults to yesterday in GA, so to check that you are getting results set the date to today.)

It’s important to note that using this method will only tell you which image files on yoursite.com are looked at. Every single visit will come from the server where yoursite.com is hosted. You won’t get any referral information, visitor location information, etc.

If you use the same image file for every page you’ll simply get a list of how many times that file has been viewed. If you create a different image file for each page you want tracked you can see how many times each page is viewed. You will also see what days and times of day the files are viewed.

I’m looking into ways of getting more information passed from Joe to GA to make this more useful. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please let me know!

This post covers specific hacks that increase performance of Ubuntu and MythTV, but I wont go into all the basic configuration of MythTV and Ubuntu. For general ubuntu configuration I recommend checking out Ubuntu Guide, which has configuration tips for each release. For MythTV check out the MythTV wiki.

Swapiness

Swapiness defines how much the system will utilize the swap space over memory. The range is 0 to 100, 0 being no swap usage. The default for Ubuntu is 60. For desktop machines with more than 512MB of RAM you will probably want to adjust this. I set it to 10 for my system. Servers, or machines that are acting as a backend only may want this to be higher than the default.

You can use this command to temporarily change the swapiness:
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10

To make the change perminent add the line vm.swappiness=10 to sysctl.conf:
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

Preload

This program preloads the most common libs and programs and helps with application startup.

sudo apt-get install preload

Disable IPv6

I don’t need IPv6, yet, and disabling it has given me some improvements to networking

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases

Change the line:
alias net-pf-10 ipv6
to:
alias net-pf-10 off #ipv6

Now comment out all the lines that has to do with Ipv6 in your hosts file.
sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Grub and fstab

If youre using ext3 as your files system, adding noatime and data=writeback flags will help with system performance. Make the following change:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

# /dev/md0
UUID=f4d4d73d-4141-4701-a7e2-ec41664483a7 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

into this:

# /dev/md0
UUID=f4d4d73d-4141-4701-a7e2-ec41664483a7 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro,noatime,data=writeback* 0 1

Add writeback to the grub defaults.

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

And add rootflags=data=writeback to defoptions and altoptions:

# defoptions=quiet splash rootflags=data=writeback
# altoptions=(recovery mode) single rootflags=data=writeback

Save and close, and type the following command in the console:
sudo update-grub

Next time the system boots the changes will take effect. You can also enable writeback without rebooting, but to make the changes permenant you’ll need to make the changes to fstab and grub.

sudo tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/md0

XvMC NVIDIA

The biggest performance enhancement for MythTV is enabling the XvMC nVidia library.

sudo gedit /etc/X11/XvMCConfig
change the line to libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so.1

In the mythfrontend setup choose Standard XvMC and BOB or linear blend for deinterlacing.

Nvidia Settings

Lastly, a few nvidia options. This often helps with buffering and screen splitting

sudo nvidia-settigns
disable “Sync to VBlank” in three locations.