The Design of a Mouse

Here's a great video of the design of a bendable mouse, from the engineer's point of view. Fascinating!

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Contact Sheets to Slideshows

As most of us know, Adobe's Photoshop is the premiere tool for editing photos. However, how many of us know how to create slideshows? This video, by Richard Harrington, shows how to use Adobe's Bridge tool, which comes with Photoshop, to create both contact sheets and slideshows. The only drawback - you can't see Flash slideshows on your iPhone!

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Non-Destructive Image Editing

Photoshop has a tool called Smart Objects, and it is able to preserve the image quality as one edits, or transforms, the photo. Watch this Adobe TV video by Michael Ninness to see how it's done:

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Drupal Dreaming

Today I came across a website I'd like to use as an idea-template for our narfe65.org website. Believe it or not, the site belongs to - the White House! What I especially liked was the navigation setup at the top. It's the same type of navigational functionality I've admired at the Business Week site. So, naturally, I decided to explore the code behind the scenes, using "View Source" from the Web Developer module added on to my Firefox browser. Lo and behold, I found the undergarment was built with Drupal. Hummm - I've come across this before. In fact, there seem to be two contestants in the help-me-code contest. Offhand, I forget what the other one is - but both are supported by Blue Host (where I think I'll move my webs and blogs).

What I noticed about Drupal is that, in spite of it's odd-sounding/looking name, it's written in "plain English". The code seems less-Greek-and-Geeky than so many web languages. Which means - I think I can do this! So, for now, I've become a Drupal Dreamer, waiting to dive more deeply into this mysterious-sounding, web-authoring-assistant tool.

The video that follows shows how Drupal handles photo galleries. It's a bit over my head as of now, but not TOO far out of reach such that I don't think I'll ever be able to do it. Again, the nice thing is, notice how many options one has, and how understandable they are. They're written in ordinary English. Indeed, I'm ready to explore more...

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How to Buy a GOOD Laptop

Here's another version of the same thing: a 2011 British video telling us what to look for when we purchase a laptop. The six areas to focus on are: 1) performance, 2) size, 3) battery life, 4) connectivity, 5) hard disk size, and 6) operating system. So, give it a whirl!

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How to Buy a Laptop

Here's an old video (2010) titled "How to Buy a Laptop". Even though technology has changed a lot since then, this information is still relevant! My interest, of course, is a little late. I just recently purchased not one but TWO laptops. Well, it's never to late to learn how the process should be done...

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Smart Objects

This week's class in Deigital Media Skills is on "Editing Graphics". I can't wait! This following video is just a small taste of what lies ahead. It tells how to make non-destructive transformations using Smart Objects. Take a look:

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The Street Corner

Here's an EXCELLENT example of a classic sociological study of urban design. This one-hour digitized movie by William Whyte shows "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces".

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Music Worldwide

Hey, this is fun! I can get music from around the world. Check this one out (and then tell me what it says!):

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Music from the Web

Downloading music from the Web is something I haven't done very often. However, in light of the class I'm taking (Digital Media Skills), I'm beginning to explore my options. Today I discovered this song on the website Jamendo. What do you think?

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HP Tests Laptops

Here's a video that says it shows workers in China (Chongqing?)testing HP laptops. The reason I'm interested? I just got notice that the HP laptop I ordered from Costco is shipping from CHONGQING, CN.

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Here's what the blog poster wrote:

i noticed something wierd. The computer were already installed and ready! I didn't need to make any choices or wait for it to install anything, it was already done. I looked around among the documents and files in the computer and found this funny clip! Its some kind of video recorded from the HP factory when they are testing the webcamera software. You can here a wierd opera singning lady in the background and watch the very focused worker testing my computer. He must have forgotten to reset the computer after the tests!

Whether it's a bonafide video of HP laptops being tested, it is interesting enough to realize this computer connects me to the world - in more ways than one! Here's the original article I came across: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/08/10/video-appears-to-offer-peak-inside-hp-factory/. For more recent news about HP in China, check this out: http://www.simic.net.cn/news_show.php?lan=en&id=129720.

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