WordPress 101
Below are the slides for a presentation I prepared for Portland Community College’s Multimedia Club. The general topic was an intro to blogging with my presentation being specific to WordPress. The slides are in PDF format.
A 1 and a 2 and a 3-D.
Last spring I took a photoshop class from the ever effervescent Daniel Johnson . We covered some of the basics of photoshop, but also learned a few cool things you could do including smallgantics (coming soon to a blog post near you) as well as creating 3-D images( utilizing the old school blue and red glasses). Near the end of the term I had the good fortune to go to San Francisco for a Google technical conference. After the conference I took a day trip over to Yosemite. Inspired by what Daniel had shown us in class I decided to try to make my own 3-D images. The best way to create a true 3-D image is to take two images at the same time of the same object which are offset approximately the same distance as your eyes. So that was my first challenge. The second problem involved brining them into photoshop and working combining them into one image, which when viewed using the afore mentioned glasses produced a 3-D image.
First up - The Original: My first task was to create a way to to take two pictures at the same time from slightly offset positions about as far apart as a pair of eyes. Using two tripods caused to much spread between the images in addition to being impractical. So my solution, some masking tape and two Kodak fun cameras.
Raw material for a 3-D camera.
Now it was trying to figure out the best way to connect the two cameras. Taping them side by side would place the lenses to far apart. made the best option taping them side by side. This also meant that the shutter buttons were on opposite each other. This actually turned out to be a happy coincidence as holding the cameras to take a shot also helped to study the camera. So now with my new 3-D camera in hand I headed of to Yosemite for a beautiful day and what I hoped would be some great 3-D photos. In my next post I’ll talk about using Photoshop to put it all together.
Completed 3-D camera using some Kodak fun cameras.
To Boldly Go…
So this is one of those times when something is so cool I just have to post it even thought it’s not mine. As a life long Star Trek fan I have been eagerly awaiting the new film. Needless to say I was surprised to see the trailer below when I went to see Quantum of Solace:
Blog, blog, blog!!! What is blog!!!
So…what is a blog? What do I do with it? What should I call it? Why do I need one? What is the meaning of life? Those are questions I asked myself early on when I was toying around with the idea of starting a blog. Sadly after months of searching and meditation on the subject I only have two answers: webguypdx and 42. But for me the remaining questions were important. There is so much noise out there already with so many people trying to rise above the fray that I wondered what I would be able to add that is unique and worth not only my time and effort, but your time and bandwidth. Fortunately I knew a few things I didn’t want it to be. I’m not looking to become a rolling list of links to other people’s content. There’s already people out there doing that far better than I could probably do. That’s not to say I won’t link to something I find compelling or just plain cool, but it does mean when you come here you will, to the best of my ability, find original content. What might that be? I don’t know. It could be video of some Wii hack I’ve done, or the code for some Processing project I’m doing. Or maybe it’ll be about my experience with an Acer netbook, but whatever it is most of the time it will be mine. Also this isn’t a blog where I will be airing my personal beliefs in the arena’s of politics and or religion. It’s not that I don’t enjoy or want to discuss such topics, it’s that I feel those types of conversations reach their full potential when conducted in person. Finally this blog is not a resume, or a demo, or a cover letter, or a reel. I am not doing this to get a job. In the end this is a selfish endeavor that’s all about me. Hopefully in a healthy and interesting way. As will always be the case comments are welcome but will be moderated by me before being published. And of course you can always contact me directly at dean@webguypdx.com
Hello World!
Hey everyone!! Welcome to WebGuyPdx!!
My name is Dean Martindale and currently I am a multimedia student residing in beautiful Portland, OR. I have a wide ranging set of interests which, when added together, can be safely summarized as geeky. They include but definitely are not limited to programming (Objective-C, Cocoa, Processing, HTML/XHTML/CSS/, JavaScript and ActionScript), electronics( A new area for me. ), Lego Mindstroms, Wii Hacks, and blogging. As much as I love all this geeky stuff I find it rewarding to mix in some analog things into my life. Those include rowing (aka crew), cycling ( Yet another new venture for me.), volunteer work ( At Free Geek of course), and reading (I found they have these things called books. They have pages with words and even pictures sometimes, no video though. I think they stole the idea from the internet. But I digress) As if that wasn’t enough I currently work as an artisan bread baker at a small Italian bakery in North Portland. There’s a lot more than this which I am sure will come out thru various blog posts in the future. For now, welcome and I hope you find something cool enough here that you’ll add me to your RSS feed. Please feel free to leave a comment (they will be moderated by myself) or contact me directly at dean@webguypdx.com
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