2008
Get a Monopod and Improve Your Home Movies
Do you have a video camera? You need a monopod!
This Christmas I got the Bogen-Manfrotto Pro Black Monopod with Swivel Tilt Head. This item has been on my wish list for a long time and after having it for just a couple days I wish I would have pulled the trigger on it a long, long time ago.
I had thought that I would use this for photography, and it will be great for that. Particularly if you are going to put a really long telephoto lens on and take a lot of shots. The monopod will help with stabilizing and framing the shot, as well as just keeping your arms from getting tired of holding the camera rig. Great for a photo trip to the zoo or arboretum.
However, the video side is the unexpected killer application. I popped my Panasonic PV-GS400 on the monopod and started to take some footage. The difference in the shot was amazing and immediately noticeable. Even with the video cameras optical image stabilization you always get a bit of shake when shooting handheld. With the monopod I was able to just lock the frame.
A tripod just wont work in this mode. That is the brilliance of the monopod. You still have the freedom to tilt, swivel and twist the camera around under full control. Then, just lift it up and walk around. No hassle. Really, go buy one.
Another cool use I found today when shooting with Mazie was to flip the video camera screen over and turn the camera back on yourself. Mazie and I took some video together just by swiveling the camera 180 degrees and then pointing it back at ourselves. I never could have done this hand-held. Very cool!
Get a Gravatar and Be Cool!
If you have commented on my blog you have likely noticed this blue Gravatar image appearing next to your post. This is the default image that appears if you have no avatar, and you really should get one. I’ve been on a total avatar kick lately. I had my own custom avatars made. I think that this is part of keeping the Internet personal and “connected”. I love to fill in my OS X Address Book with pictures for people so that when they call or I get email from them I get to see them.
A gravatar is a globally used avatar. It’s a service that takes your email address and creates a key to map it back to your gravatar. Automattic now owns Gravatar and is embedding it into WordPress. Now there is a plugin for the OS X Address Book that allows you to pull Gravatars into the Address Book.
So, why wait? Go to Gravatar and personalize yourself. It’s cool!
Defensive Domain Names
I purchased thingelstad.com in April 1999. Iām a little surprised that it took me until 1999 to buy my own last name. It seems odd to me now that I didn’t buy it in 1995 or so, when I clearly knew that this whole Internet thing was real. Luckily I beat a Thingelstad in Norway who had to settle for thingelstad.org in June 2000.
I recently filled out my personal domains and grabbed thingelstad.net as well as thingelstad.name. These were imminently obvious. It also seems to me that if you care to own your identity on the Internet you should make sure to own your full name. As such, I also own jamiethingelstad.com, jamiethingelstad.net, jamiethingelstad.org and jamiethingelstad.name.
Lastly, I have to deal with a name that is long and not easy to spell. The most common misspell of my name is to transpose the e and the l. So, I also now own thinglestad.com, thinglestad.net, thinglestad.org and thinglestad.name. These all just do a permanent redirect to the real domain.
GoDaddy really loves me. š