Moving house

I’m moving all my activity to http://terrencerandell.com. Please follow me over.

What’s your walk score?

Find out how walking friendly your home address is at http://www.walkscore.com.

Home: 82/100, Work:97/100

No more excuses left NOT to read

So, you say you don’t have the time to read? Well, Daily Lit has a solution for that. Can you spare just 5 minutes a day? In as little as that, you can have a chunk of reading delivered to you via e-mail or RSS on a schedule of your choosing.

You simply browse for a book, select a delivery schedule and Bob’s your uncle, you’re reading. Every day. Now, even the busiest of the busy can’t make an excuse, right?!

Sure, it will take you 675 days to read War And Peace, but you can say you actually read War And Peace! Personally, I’m starting with one of my heroes. Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I’ve always wanted to read it and now I just can’t put it off.

Happy reading.

DIY macro studio work is fun

Building a DIY macro/product studio is really easy and really cheap. Using it is a lot of fun. I put mine together in under 30 minutes and spent an hour or so playing the other night. My subjects were colorful toys from my son’s collection. I’m so stoked by the results that I am thinking up all kinds of subjects to shoot, especially my watches.

Materials List (I’m including this only to show it’s exceedingly easy to find the materials and you do NOT have to go crazy with this)

• Cardboard box for the frame – any old square or close-to-square box will do. My choice was a 14″x14″x14″.
  Suggested sources – Any office supply store, your basement or attic
• Tissue paper or tracing paper for the diffusing windows – I went cheap with tissue paper.
  Suggested sources – Any craft or card store
• Gaffer’s tape – LOVE this stuff. Not a cheap item but well worth it. You’ll use it for all kinds of things.
  Suggested source – Midwest Photo Exchange. Get the 2″ wide black Permacell.
• Posterboard for the seamless background – this is cheap too. I went with a sheet of white and a sheet of black.
  Suggested sources – Any office supply or craft store

Then just follow the pictures on this Strobist post and you are all set to have some fun. I chose some of my son’s colorful toys and did some tests. Here’s a few shots to illustrate how simple this is to setup and the great results you can get. Keep in mind, I am very green with off-camera flash still, so if my results are good, think of what you can do if you have some established skillz.

The ever so sophisticated setup. Single flash to camera right, perpendicular to diffusing window.

Test shot with bugs

Test shot with octagon blocks	Test shot with circular blocks

Check out the Strobist Flickr group for more great examples and inspiration.

Domain name picking service

I found a nifty looking service, Picky Domains, that uses a network of contributors to help pick a domain name for you. You give them the keywords and some background and they give you domain name choices that are available. Best of all, it’s risk free. If you don’t like their suggestions, you get your $50 back.

You can sign on as a contributor and make a few bucks picking domain names for creatively challenged folks like myself.

Hey bloggers! As long as you have an actual blog, one use of their service is free!