Lazy Afternoon Thoughts

Lolcatz!

Even if you hate cats, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hate the “lolcat.”  And if you truly hate cats that much, the website ICanHasCheezBurger.com has found a way to accommodate most, if not all, people with a sense of humor.

What are “lolcats?” They are a combination of cat photographs with humorous captions. The great thing about these pictures is that they are capable of inducing every kind of reaction known to humanity.

The first “lolcat” dates back to 2005 by anonymous user and was dubbed the name “Lolcat” on June 2006. The domain name “LOLcats.com” was established on June 14, 2006 and soon became a bizarre web phenomenon on “I Can Has Cheezburger?” by Eric Nakagawa.

Now, people are taking pictures of their pets and posting them to be “lol-itized.” Seriously, who would have thought your picture of Fluffy would become even more famous than that breathtaking landscape picture. (Photo source: lolcats.com and icanhascheezburger.com)

YouTube Hidden Features

Childhood feelings were awaken today after discovering I could add an image of asparagus to my favorite “cat jumps on ceiling fan” video. Those feeling were quickly crushed after finding out that it didn’t work.

On Collegehumor.com, a web video series called “CH Labs” features a geek-a-zoid named Patrick who uncovers the latest tech news; just yesterday he uncovered how the use of codewords like “sideoveggies” and “addascream” into the YouTube URL can create various video effects.

 In the following instructional video, Patrick demonstrates how each of these codewords work:See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Here are my notes. Just enter these at the end of your YouTube URL:

— “/” and video time — Start viewing from that point in the video

— “/sideoveggies” — Asparagus appears in the middle of the video

— “/yaketysax” — Speeds up video and adds background song

— “/addascream” — Creepy girl and scream added at a random point in video

— “/vocoder” — Adds vocoder to audio

— “/japanesegameshow” - Small version of a Japanese game show on the left

— All of these codes can be added together to achieve these effects simultaneously

I was dismayed when I tried the technique myself. I giddily added “yaketysax” to watch “ceiling cat” spin in fast motion only to get an error message, “The URL contained a malformed video ID.” I even tried using my friend’s Mac, and still encountered the same problem. Trying other videos didn’t help either. Boy, Pat got us good.

New photo app for your iPhone

Amvona Blog       02 Aug, 2009 | by stephanieluz  

DS photo—a creation of Synology America Corp.—is a free iPhone and iPod Touch application that allows you to remotely upload and browse photos from a Synology Disk Station. Now if they could only create something to stop my flip phone from breaking…

You can simply download DS photo from the Apple App Store, free of charge. Once downloaded, you can edit, create, and add to existing photo albums on your disk station with your all-powerful iPhone or iPod Touch. Once uploaded, photos are made available instantly through the web-based Synology Photo Station 3, which can then be viewed with a computer, iPhone, or Windows Mobile phone.

Now all I need to do is work on getting an iPhone and a Synology Disk Station.

The Hand-Knit iPhone

Here’s a hand-knit iPhone by Loot Ninja. This technology can do a lot more than your average iPhone 3G. It’s intricate knitted frame makes it a perfect foot and hand warmer. There’s even a pincushion and emergency absorb app!

blog-alicious

Free publicity on Squidoo

Are you a photographer seeking costless ways to increase your business? There’s a social media site out there called Squidoo that wants to give you a knee up into the spotlight.

Squidoo offers people—or in your case, photographers—the opportunity to create their own personal “lens.” Of course, creating a lens doesn’t mean that you’ll be customizing an actual piece of glass. “’Lenses’ are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic or interest—and snap it all into focus,” according to the site’s “Getting Started With Squidoo” lens.

“Seshu’s Tiffinbox: Feast your eyes” outlines the steps to creating a successful photography lens on Squidoo. Of course, if you want to just go on and see for yourself, check out one of their 900,000 published lenses. Maybe you’ll want to start one of your own.

Some things I found interesting:

— Squidoo’s fun facts were published on February 1st, and it was stated that there were already 900,000 “hand built” lenses. That’s a whole lot of camera parts for a site that was founded in 2005.

— “2.5 We call our pages “lenses” because each is one person’s focus on something that she’s interested in, something that matters to her.”

…Who’s her and should I know her?

— Squidoo was ranked one of the 300 most popular sites in the US.

— In 2008, Squidoo grew a whopping 91 percent.

— They generate hundreds and thousands of dollars in annual royalties to charities and to users.

— There’s a Squidoo cookbook.

— Lensmasters earn more than $1,000 a year from Squidoo. Some make $10,000. Others are happy with $40 or $4.

— Lensmasters are people that own lenses on Squidoo… and are apparently masters at it.

My blogs on Amvona.com

Induce jealousy with your pics

Simple things you can do to take decent looking landscape pictures:

— Get down! Get down! (As Schwarzenegger would so gallantly put it.) Stop being so egotistic. Get a different perspective for Pete’s sake!

— Focus already! Try focusing on something close to you while keeping the rest of the landscape in view.

— Take some pictures through the grass, flowers, or branches. You can create the effect of being apart of the landscape. I would recommend finding a place without many poisonous animals or judgmental people.

— Look for contrast, shadows, and different lighting. Although doesn’t Photoshop already do that?

— Find a way to naturally frame your picture using windows and different openings. See, now you don’t have to buy a frame!

— Not the nature person? Buy something a little more artificial like our gemstone inspired muslin on sale.

(Source: ACDSee Community & Photonhead— Alternative Lan

And more blogging…

Kodak cranks up the easy

Amvona Blog       29 Jul, 2009 | by stephanieluz

Today, Kodak released yet another EasyShare camera because their 30 or so other models weren’t already enough. According to the Kodak website, they are “the #1 selling digital camera brand.” They had to be doing something right.

So I was looking through photography news of the day and there was nothing that interested me. Then I stumbled upon Kodak’s new 12-million-pixel Z950 ($279.95), M381 ($189.95), and M341 ($159.95) cameras and I was even less interested than when I started. So why should you be interested? They’re pretty decent cameras, or so I hear..

It doesn’t take a genius to snap a photo and upload it on your desktop but it doesn’t hurt to use equipment that makes it easier. Although, some of us still have trouble making a camera function — so much so, I probably would’ve been offered cheese if I hadn’t smiled so much.

 
I think that an easy-to-use, high-quality camera is a major plus for people like me. Even professional photographers don’t like to read instruction booklets. I’m personally a fan of trial-and-error.

Three new additions to the Kodak EasyShare family:

Z950 - $279.95

— 10X Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon (whatever that is) Optical Zoom Lens with optical IS

— Quality prints with 12 MP

— Kodak’s Smart Capture feature

— Fast click-to-capture speed (< 0.3 sec.)

— HD picture and video capture

— Li-Ion rechargeable battery and charging solution included

M381 - $189.95

— 12 MP for prints up to 30 × 40 in. (76 × 102 cm)

— 5X optical zoom

— Smart Capture feature

— Blur reduction

— Li-Ion rechargeable battery and in-camera charging

— Easy upload to YouTube™ or KODAK Gallery

M341 - $159.95

— 12.2 MP for prints up to 30 × 40 in. (76 × 102 cm)

— 3X optical zoom

— Smart Capture feature

— Li-Ion rechargeable battery and in-camera charging

— Easy upload to YouTube™ or KODAK Gallery

Days of the blog @ Amvona.com

Twitter for Dummies

It’s no wonder Twitter is revamping their entire home page.

Is it just me, or were you also bewildered after sign up? If it’s too much of a hassle, I’d say forget it but who can afford missing out on 32 million users (that’s like everyone and their mother). I know, I’m sick of hearing about it too, however it’s the new white bread of self-promotion and advertisement. You just can’t live without it; at least not in the business world.

Here are some reasons why Twitter boggles me:

— People actually tell you everything they are doing.

— The “at” symbol is placed in front of almost everything.

— I can’t message someone unless they follow me too?

—What the heck are trending topics?

— Uh, what’s “RT” mean?

Because so many of us were flying around in circles, Twitter is not only making the front page simpler, but they are publishing a “Twitter 101: A Special Guide.” I look forward to when they make guides about raising your newborn through Tweets. You think I’m crazy? A professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has already used it to “tweach” a class.

We can expect these changes to kick in sometime next week. Until then, you can cry over the loss of your spam followers. So what if they were porn spammers, at least they listened. So long xxsexyvideolover345xx.

Amvona.com - My blog postings

iPhone users stink

Stupid iPhone applications with their music recognition technology. You make me sick.

Yea, I’m one of those people that want an iPhone but cringe at the idea of a dropping $199 and getting AT&T. But what makes me woozy are all these insane apps. It reminds me of those never-ending ShamWow commercials. Didn’t that guy go to jail? So how did he land “Slap, Chop Bust?”

ShoZu — who’s logo reminds me of Mozilla Firefox — and Touchnote, banded together to make your lives even more convenient. In only 1,440 minutes you can have pictures in your phone, printed and mailed anywhere using the Shozu application.

There is one little string attached to the Shozu application: you must have access to Touchnote’s service. So if you really want to use your Facebook photos to send that personalized postcard of the new birthday suit (huh?), sign up at Touchnote.com.

So there you have it iPhone users, one more thing to brag about. And for all of us that don’t have one, leave a comment. I’ll be creating new features for my banged-up flip phone. It’s in serious need of a makeover and it’ll be a while until my contract is up.  I was thinking along the lines of a Pez dispenser. Try to outdo that Steve Jobs!

When I blogged… (Amvona.com)

Hate privacy? Today’s your day!

Have you ever gone somewhere and noticed video cameras and think, “I hope I wasn’t doing something stupid.” I’m not talking about the ones in WalMart; those are totally fake (hey, don’t come crying to me if you get caught). I’m talking about Big Brother, that horrible movie Eagle Eye, and photo software created to identify your face. Yea, that’s right, there’s a new service that can actually recognize you as an individual. Be afraid!

Well, don’t be too afraid. We all know how Facebook has an application to tag your buddies. Just click, type, and hit “done.” BAM! Your buddy is totally going to hate you after posting that picture of him falling asleep on the toilet. Oh look, now it’s on Failblog.org! Nice.

That’s beside the point though. Face.com has created “Photo Finder” and a sidekick called “Photo Tagger.” If you couldn’t already guess, they both identify and tag photos. Photo Tagger is an application exclusively made to work with Facebook.

Here’s how they work:

First, the software scans the selected photos or album and frames each face. Then, the software searches government data banks to find a match (actually this sentence is a complete lie, but wouldn’t that be crazy!) Anyways, the user must then tag the identified face and presto! The software will recognize and tag matching faces.

Photo Finder finally went live after scanning over 1 billion photos and identifying 400 million faces. Photo Tagger followed suit this past week. These services are only in the Alpha stage, so don’t set your standards too high. If you’re identified as Fighto, don’t be offended.

Thus far, the product has received positive feedback with the exception of one user I found on Photo Finder’s Facebook Page. Reviewer Jake says, “It found me in most of the pictures within MY OWN photo albums.” This user is obviously upset that this service has successfully identified him which brings me back to privacy.

While facial recognition software is convenient and pretty awesome, is it just the next step to Big Brother? Employers, law enforcement, and other entities have already been using Facebook to scope out people around the world. I guess my question is: how will the internet community take Photo Finder? What do you think?