DSI (www.DigitalSilverImaging.com) continues to do amazing work. Today I turned over six very large prints to an art buyer. Client loved the prints and I expect to get more work from them. I was going to do another sale as I only had one order during the last week, but out of the blue three good sized orders came in. So I’ll let it go.

Right now I have orders for about 9 large files (I put up very large sizes for some of the prints the other day) to prepare for DSI.

Other notes: switching to Wideband with Time Warner Cable and using CrashPlan for backup is working out fine.

My operation is humming along nicely now. I actually spent $60 for the Mets ticket (and that was with a half off discount for being 60 years old) – first senior discount I ever got. I like it In other words I had a $120 seat.

I didn’t buy any food while I was there… just two waters… I could have but frankly I feel like I’m being totally ripped off to pay $6.75 for a soggy hotdog. I don’t think I’m exactly frugal – but I’d rather buy a decent cigar with that money.

Even though we were at field level – every time we saw a three empty seats that were closer to the field we scooted down there. Eventually I think we were three rows from the field. The Mets were playing the Reds. We were in a Reds section. Apparently I grazed a Reds fan with the lens shade of the telephoto lens. At least that’s what they said. But I had this feeling that they were annoyed that we had taken seats right behind them – like we didn’t belong there.

I think I would have noticed if I hit someone’s head with the lens – but okay – they were very nasty about it. I mumbled something not very nice about them under my breath – and I think they heard me because one of them got up and stared at me like he was going to do something. But fortunately he was a squirt. And anyway – I had apologized. But those were the only bad vibes during the game.

I really enjoyed just sitting in the sun, and being somewhere that the horizon was almost visible. Except for going to the park, we spend so much of our lives with our vision hemmed in by buildings.

I had my telephoto lens and it was a perfectly beautiful sunny day – but not too hot. And I took about 400 pictures of the pitchers, and David Wright, and I was very excited showing the pictures to my comrades on the back of the camera, and was absolutely certain that i was getting great photographs.

When I got home I imported them into lightroom, and looked at them eagerly and they looked just as they did on the back of the camera, and I flagged about forty of them… And then I took a nap.

When I awoke, I returned to the computer and began to work on some of the photos which seemed so exciting at the time, and after a few hours of working with the best photographs I became bored with them. I used all my tricks to make them interesting – and even though I had gotten good action shots of players stealing second base, and stealing third base, and I had a perfect spot to shoot from… there wasn’t a single photo that I felt like showing.

For fun, I went back to two days before when I had been in Central Park and immediately shots jumped out at me. Simple things like a twig on a dirt road, or a tree against the sky.

This has always been the way that photography has been for me. I had a similar experience traveling to the southwest and shooting nature out there. How sure I was that I was getting beautiful shots; and how excited I was to see what I had; and how disappointed I was when I really studied them closely.

I don’t have any real explanation for this. I enjoyed myself at the game. I was concentrating very hard and thinking about the compositions, and what I could do that would be different. But nothing pleased me.

So instead of posting an image of David Wright stealing third base, here’s a tree and a twig. Either one of them (and they’re not that great) is more appealing to me than anything I shot at the baseball game. Go figure.

Ah, after about a month with the Nook Color Reader (the model before the tablet) I must pay my compliments to the chef. It remains my single favorite gadget. That’s not entirely fair since I love to read and it’s a little bit like saying that my favorite gadget is a library. But let’s put it this way, the ereader simply stays out of the way.

It doesn’t take long before you are engrossed in your books and not thinking at all about turning pages or how do I find the next book or anything like that.

I go back a pretty long way with the ereaders — back to the SONY PRS 505 (I think that’s what it was) which was ink on paper technology with no touch screen and a row of metal buttons along the side. And as much as that was great because it allowed me to bring a library with me to bed, or wherever I was – it was always annoying to have to press buttons – and of course it wasn’t backlit. I do most of my reading at night, and I’d keep a light on to read.

And when I got my first iPhone I found myself – much to my surprise – reading long books on that little device.

So when I walked into the B&N shop I really had a lot of decisions to make. They had come out with the glow ink on paper reader which I looked at – and I’m sure it’s fine – but there were going to be times when I wanted something just a little bit more.

I wanted to be able to have a couple of apps on the thing. And I had gotten used to reading on the iPhone screen – and so the need for a night light or a glow from behind light wasn’t necessary with the NOOK COLOR.

I had gone to Best Buy several times and picked up each eBook Reader they had just to see what it felt like. And the NOOKs always felt more substantial. I also like the more open ePub format for ebooks – which makes it easier to share them – and to know that what you are downloading will work on other devices etc. There was (and still is) something about the Kindle Book format being proprietary that rubbed me the wrong way – but not because I wanted to go out and steal books – but it seemed like there should be a common eBook format. I know that’s sort of a crazy idea, but it’s the old programmer in me I guess.

I use and have been using a program called Calibre since the SONY PRS days to convert books from one format to the ePub format, and to organize my library. I don’t rely on the NOOK store for much. And there is no doubt that the one weakness of the NOOK and B&N is not the reader but the shopping experience. Amazon vs. B&N in terms of finding what you are looking for. No comparison.

Back to the choice. Coming from the iPhone app world to the NOOK app world is shocking. Apps for the NOOK are (by comparison) non-existent. And many of them are pure junk. And since the NOOK is a hybrid Android – don’t even think about taking Android Apps for it unless you “root” the NOOK which is a whole ‘nother story. And if I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have gotten the COLOR NOOK to start off with, nor would I have gotten the NOOK TABLET.

Once you are in TABLET world – get a real tablet. It’s a steep jump in price, and whether it’s an ANDROID TABLET (yes, there may be a good one by the time you read this) or the Steve Jobs model — I stood there in B&N and said, buy something to read books with, and it would be nice to get your email (which is does) and look up stuff on the web once in a while (which it does) – but don’t confuse the reader with the TABLET.

There were two reasons I didn’t just go for an Apple Tablet: 1) I can’t afford it. I’d still rather buy that wide angle lens I’ve been hankering for ($850) before plunking down money for the iPad and 2) I actually don’t want a full-sized tablet. I know that’s against all the Steve Jobs rules, but I want a mini-iPad. Lots of apps. Smaller screen. Easy to use as a reader. etc. etc. And I am going to bet that such an item will come appear, and when it does I’ll be getting one.

So, back to the COLOR NOOK. How’s typing on this thing? It’s sort of weird. I’m used to double-tapping the space bar at the end of the sentence and having the iPhone fill in the period. There may be a way to get the NOOK to do this but I haven’t found it.

It is much easier to make typos since the software for auto-correcting — it may be there and I’ve seen it in the options but I haven’t seen it pop up much if at all.

Given the size of the thing compared to my iPhone, typing should simply be easier – but it isn’t.

So what do you type anyway? I will respond to email on the NOOK. It is a bare bones email program. It gets your email. It lets you delete it. But not a lot more than that. And of course it’s wi-fi based. Oh yeah – remember that. If you are going to get books you’ll need to be near a hot spot or near your computer with a USB cable.

Another plus for the NOOK – you can give it more storage with a micro SD card. I’m sorry but every reading device should have one of these. I don’t care whether you have 3G, 4G or 5G. There will be times when you can’t get to the CLOUD. I like to have my books with me and with a cheap 2GB card I can take most of the books written in English that are in public domain (FREE).

Which brings me to my final point which has nothing to do with the reader itself: why do eBooks cost so much? Can you tell me that it costs as much to produce an eBook as a physical book? Of course not. I’ve published my own eBooks. Stick it in a PDF file and have it turned into the appropriate format and have it hosted somewhere.

The production and distribution of an eBook – nothing. Pennies. What does cost money? No, not what the author is paid. It’s the publicity. That’s my theory. But whatever the reason, I still refuse to pay $8 for a short story by Agatha Christie.

Actually, I may refuse – but I did just that. I thought that Witness for the Prosecution (since it was a feature length film) was a novel and bought it only to find out that it was a short story. Believe it or not – B&N tells you everything about the eBooks in their store except how many pages the books contain! More skullduggery.

And yes – there has been collusion between the publishers and the distributors to keep the prices jacked up. So that’s my pet peeve and it will change or people will be in jail.

But back to the COLOR NOOK. It was the perfect choice for me, and until Apple comes out with a mini-iPad – this will do the trick.

I can’t go through the whole workflow again – I know I’ve attempted it in different posts – but I thought that for those of you who question whether the image you are looking at “is real” this would show you what it looks like straight from the camera, and what it looks like when I’m finished with it and you can decide whether it’s real or not.

You might want to start by reading the G+ comments: The google plus post and writing a brief summary of user reaction.

CENTRAL PARK LAKE RAW INFRARED

central park lake - after processing

So what you can readily see is that the first image is simply a sketch, or a blueprint for the final image.  Coloring could have been done a million different ways.  In that way, it’s more like a painting than a photograph.

I found out (thanks Markus) that Time Warner Cable has an internet option called Ultimate, which can give you 50MBs download and 5MBs upload.  Had it installed yesterday, and it’s working.  So in conjunction with CrashPlanPro for backup, I’m getting there.

The Modem / Router you get is from Motorola – and is a nice juicy gizmo that also has wireless, so that’s one less thing on my desk.  I had had a modem and a wireless router.

Anyway – I’ve been very busy.  Orders have continued to come in.  I’ve got the last orders from the big sale and will ship those to customers today.  In the meantime, I’ve uploaded two or three other orders (some from designers) to DSI (digitalsilverimaging.com) and they continue to do a wonderful job for me.

In short, I have pulled myself up by the bootstraps over the last few months, and find that I have time to do something relaxing for a change – like read my glorious Nook Color.  I have to be careful with that thing because there are a bunch of books I’d like to get and it’s just a little bit too easy to buy them.

After lots and lots of planning and comparing and going back and forth about what to get for my ebook reader (I was using my iPhone for a very long time) I went into Barnes and Noble with the intent of getting the new Glow in the Dark Ink on Paper Whisper thing.

It was $139.  But when I got to B&N they had a sale on the Nook Color for $149.  Couldn’t resist that.  Sure I could have gone up a bit more and got the tablet but at that point I’m getting sort of close to the iPad territory and I didn’t have the dough for one of those babies so I got the Nook Color.

Got it home.  Couldn’t get the wi-fi to work.  That could have been something I was doing wrong.  But after a long time with support on the phone, they came to the conclusion that I should bring the device back and exchange it.

I’ll tell you – don’t know what was going on in that store yesterday but just about everything that could go wrong in terms of making the sale went wrong.  It was just one thing after another.  Maybe I’m just not used to shopping in stores.  I get just about everything through the web.

Everyone at the store began by telling me that it must’ve been something I did wrong.  I explained with my usual lack of patience that I had already been on the phone for an hour with tech support. That I just wanted to make an exchange.  But something was wrong with their register and it kept wanting to give me back an extra $5.  Something to do with that it thought I was in the B&N club or something and I was due an extra rebate.

In the meantime, while I was in the middle of trying to get this taken care of a woman interrupted the process because she was due an extra $20 rebate on the color because she had a coupon and was a member of the B&N club but the register wasn’t giving her the extra rebate.  And the two sales girls were just rolling their eyes at the customer and the customer was saying that she – being a customer – was always right and no one wanted to make a decision.

And eventually the manager came over and the register didn’t want to give the extra $20.  And one thing lead to another until finally I got back into the service stream and they did all sorts of tricks and stuff to get the register to zero out for my exchange without luck and the manager came by and eventually straightened it out after I told my story for the tenth time.

No high blood pressure here – but could feel my blood starting to heat up.

And then they told me that the previous one prob. didn’t work because I hadn’t registered.  And I told them that I was just following the four steps that the Color said to do when you got it and that registering came after step 3 – the connect wifi – and since I couldn’t connect with wifi I didn’t register.  Just following the instructions.

The manager said that was probably wrong and I should have registered first.

And so there was an hour on the phone, and then an hour in the store, and I finally registered the new device and created a Nook Account and was able to connect with wifi in the store.  I got on the escalator to leave and as I was going through the two lucite things that beep if you’ve got stolen merchandise they beeped.  And a guard that looked like he was friends with Barney Fife went through each item and found that they didn’t add up correctly because of the exchange… oh it’s a long story.

I told him that it was okay – it was just an exchange… but I had brought along one of those screen plastic things from my first time and it wasn’t on the — he wouldn’t let me go.  I was very close to pushing him down the escalator when he called for security and an armed cop came by.  A friendly armed cop because I told him that I had just been in the store getting this deal fixed up for over an hour and didn’t want to wait for –

But in the meantime Barney Fife was on the walkie talkie calling in a ten-ninety to the Nook department and so I was there waiting… again… and finally one of the sales girls came up the escalator to see what the problem was and I told her that I was getting close to exploding and she asked if I had the original receipt.

No, I didn’t have the original receipt.  She had the original receipt.

Oh, that’s right.  Okay – hold on.

Can’t you just tell this guy that I can leave.  In a minute I’m going to throw this package down the stairs and get a refund.

No… just hold on…  And she went down the escalator and I waited…

The armed cop asked if anything was wrong… just chit chat and whether he needed to stay.  I told him he’d better stay because if I couldn’t get out of the store with my package there was a good chance he was going to be needed.

And the sales girl returned – all flustered – followed with two other associates – like something from that fairy tale about the goose that everyone is stuck to – and she presented the original receipt to the guard, telling me that I should have had this receipt as well.

Really, is that true?  If so why didn’t you give it to me?

Barney checked it off and gave it back to me and said it was okay to go.  The sales girl tore it from my hand and said she needed it.

So who is supposed to have it – you or me?

Don’t ask she said.  I might explode.

And with that I went home.

The new one is working fine.  It’s just what I wanted – but I suspect I should have ordered it over the web.

After a few weeks, Carbonite hit about 60GB and was only adding about 1 GB per day.

A real shame.  Maybe the business plan is different, but there was no doubt that it was throttling back on the backup.

So now I threw away my $59.  Spent forever doing uploads and looking for another off-site backup cloud / plan.  Anyone using or like CrashPlan.  I’ve read good things about it so far.

In the middle of the night, I saw that the thing wasn’t backing up at all anymore…  even after a reboot which I almost never have to resort to on the mac…

So frustrated, and after reading a bunch of stuff about Carbonite and what they really offer – I trashed the app and started looking around for something else.

I came up with CrashPlan.  I read many comments from users who said that they actually gave you what they offered – and that they didn’t start slowing the backup etc. at some point…

And so I installed the trial of CrashPlan in the middle of the night… and it has a lot more features than Carbonite.  If they do what they say they’ll do – then they should be okay.

I’ll do a brief writeup about how they work on my mac once I’ve had some time with them.

Here’s the link for you guys — www.CrashPlan.com

And goodbye to Carbonite – you have ripped me off – so no more business from me.  Too bad.  Had you simply said upfront what you were offering – that would have been one thing.  Or if you have a plan that offers a steady throughput – that’s another thing – but it should be spelled out upfront.