photo editing

Having online editors can be useful, I suppose. There would might be situations where you'd need or want one. To that end, I compared Pixlr and Picnik.

Some thoughts on Pixlr - since saying "it sucked" would be rude and counterproductive, I'll go with "If I wanted something that complex and hard to work with, I'd go with GIMP." The controls were difficult to use, the response time was poor and the thing locked up IE twice. None of those are things to recommend a picture editor to me. Your mileage may vary.

On the other hand, Picnik was simple and easy to use. And I mean simple. There were fewer options there than I'd ever seen in a photo editor. However, for my purposes that is not a bad thing. It did what I wanted it to do easily and quickly. It also undid things just as easily and quickly.

Unaltered image
















Picnik altered image (more deserty)















No image from Pixlr because I found it just too damned hard to manage.

Not a dramatic change, but I messed with for as long as I was comfortable spending on this project. Picnik could do some things that worked for me. Will I use it again? Probably not. The software I have access to on my computers does what I need it to do (and does everything Picnik and Pixlr can do).

Oh, I realized I didn't address the social media sharing aspect. Honestly, I didn't look as I have no intention of using the online editors. And if I did I'd save the image to my pc and load it that way. Sorry.

24 Things - Digital Music

Well, that was a tad interesting.

A larger number of videos on You Tube than I would have expected. Searching Gary Allan and Sawyer Brown turned up a number of their videos, which played pretty seamlessly. Standard You Tube.

Creating an account on Last.fm (and I so love coming up with yet another password) was simple and fast. Interestingly, I created a Gary Allan channel that didn't play Gary Allan. I like the other artists they recommended, but I would have thought they would at least start with the artist that was selected for the channel. That wasn't the case no matter how many times I restarted the channel. I don't suspect I'll be returning to Last.fm, though I'll keep it on a back burner in case I get stuck for something to listen to.

I suspect that I'll stick with my streaming local radio stations. That is a change from years ago. It's handy to have local stations that stream online since my basement office stands no chance of receiving the actual radio broadcasts. This is the music I typically listen to, if I'm not listening to the radio. I don't have an iPod, MP3 player or any of those new fangled devices, so I'm left to pretty much the old style of listening - radio, CDs and, lately, online radio stations.

But I'm happy that way.

24 Things - Digital Downloads @ your library

Well, there was good and bad.

The searches on ebook/eaudio website was relatively painless. I was disappointed, however, that I could not easily find, on the site, a way to narrow the subjects down by format. I had to slog through, looking at titles and then if they were the format I wanted. There may be a way to do it, but it wasn't apparent or intuitive. This is a negative in my book.

Also, and this as been a gripe for a long time, I have never quite worked my head around why digital editions can be "checked out". That's the point of digital, right, to make them more available. So why limit the number of copies. I'm sure there's a very good reason, to someone, somewhere.

Anyway....Listening to the audiobook on Overdrive was simplicity. I didn't even have a problem with the Overdrive player. Yay. On the other hand, the Adobe Digital Editions would do nothing with the PDF book I downloaded. Wouldn't open it, wouldn't acknowledge it, nothing. Wouldn't let me update it without Systems assistance, so I didn't bother. Easy to get, impossible to use. Not impressed by the PDF books.

Delicious and RSS

A very simple assignment for me, as I've done both already.

Thanks to Elaine E and Jan M, I have created a Delicious account and have way too many links crammed into it. I'm still in the process of sorting and tagging them. But it's nice to be able to access my interests from anywhere.

As for RSS...did that some months back after a class from Garry C. Currently I subscribe to the library's Adult new non-fiction, three webcomics (Least I Could Do, Order of the Stick & Looking for Group) and two wargaming (A Year of Frugal Gaming & Tabletop Gaming News) feeds. I'd subscribe to news, but I don't like news, so I don't.

Whistle pig

Happy Whistle Pig Day!

Seems the little bugger saw his shadow after all. Now we're in for umpteen more weeks of winter. My kids think that's great. They seem to equate winter with snow. I equate winter with "why he hell won't my toes thaw out?" Different strokes.

Is it fair to blame the lowly whistle pig? The ending of winter and the beginning of spring all hinges on them. Where do they get this kind of power? I mean, they're obviously not smart enough to alter the weather on their own. I've seen them roadside, in the wild, down in lower Boone County...you know, the sticks. They just sat there and stared at passing cars. They just aren't bright enough for weather manipulation.

So does that make them Mother Nature's dupes? They're the fall guys to cover her hiney when she decides to dump more cold and cold on us? Someone's got to be the blame, so why not those pudgy little rodents? Is that it?

There are, of course, wilder and more conspiratorial theories, but you already know those, right? Of course not!! If you did, you'd have been disappeared by the black helicopters and Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. At the very least, you'd have been reprogrammed. Take my word for this, it can be done. I've read about it! You know, on the interweb! The source of all truth and goodness!

I...I....um...where was I?

Oh yes, the varmints. Someone must be to blame. Might as well be the varmints.