Scott Loftesness

Recommendation: The Pipeline Podcast by Dan Benjamin

I don't have a long commute - but sometimes find myself in the car for trips up to an hour in duration. For those times, I try to keep my iPhone up to date with a variety of podcasts that, depending on my mood, help me pass the time while driving (see my earlier recommendations for photography-related podcasts).

One of the best podcasts I've recently discovered in The Pipeline by Dan Benjamin of HiveLogic.com. This morning I listened to Dan's discussion with Merlin Mann - and it was just great. If you want to stimulate something other than your lizard brain (!), give it a listen. Some of Dan's earlier guests have also been great!

Manfrotto Tripod for Canon S90?

I had an email today asking about which tripod I've been using with my Canon S90.

I've been using the Manfrotto 718B tripod. In my experience, it's a perfect tripod for the S90!

Amazon's currently selling a replacement for the 718B tripod: Manfrotto 7321YB M-Y Tripod with 3-Way Head - Replaces 718B.

Carl J. Loftesness - 1921-2010

We lost my Dad this morning...

My Mom, sister and I spent an hour with him before he passed - in our arms. He was the last of his seven siblings to pass away.

Dad was 88 years young and had a wonderful life. He was much beloved by his family and his many friends.

We felt his love for all of us, as he reminded us of his joy and love for our family. He was a great husband, Dad, GrandDad, and GreatGrandDad! His grandchildren and great-grandchildren especially gave him so much joy - and kept him young in spirit.

Dad's pastor said on the phone to me this morning: "Heaven's an even better place now that your Dad has arrived!" Indeed it is!

We know he's already hard at work in the garden up above, trimming the trees, raking the leaves, shaping things up! We really miss him.

Many, many thanks to the Hospice of the East Bay for the amazing work that they do. Dad - and we - couldn't have been in better hands for this most difficult of transitions.

A Ham Dinner at Wildwood

Earlier this week, my Glenbrook partner Carol Coye Benson and I were in Portland, Oregon for a Private Payments Workshop with one of our clients.

Upon our arrival the night before, we headed for Portland's Wildwood Restaurant - one of our mutually favorite spots in this city of great restaurants.

We both spotted an unusual entree on the menu - ham. Curious, we asked our waiter about it. Turns out the ham is house cured at Wildwood - part of their effort to use as much of the "whole hog" as possible.

We both opted to try it - and were delighted with the flavor combination. This wasn't the usual clove-spiced or honey-glazed ham - far from it! This was just a small stack of sliced pieces of ham on a bed of sautéed spinach and salsify cream with some wild mushrooms on top. Very nice, very tasty.

To accompany the ham, we had the Scott Paul 2006 La Paulée Pinot Noir - a delightful Oregon Pinot!

Another great Wildwood dinner!

Memories

Sometimes you think back to those high points in your life and the memories flood in. One of those times for me was the trip to Oshkosh that my Dad and I made in the late 1980's.

As it turned out, this trip with my Dad was my second trip to the annual EAA fly-in - but it was the first time by air (I'd joined some friends in an RV for my first visit). It was Dad's first time flying with me for any distance - and what a great trip we had! We flew my Cherokee 235 out from California to Wisconsin - stopping to visit relatives along the way in Spearfish, South Dakota.

I'll never forget us departing Spearfish and making a couple of low orbits over my Dad's sister's farm in eastern South Dakota as we made the final leg into Oshkosh that day. We had called ahead (those were the days before cell phones in every pocket!) and gave them our estimated time of arrival overhead - it was such fun to see my Dad's sister and her husband outside waving us on - a big, big treat for my Dad!

Arrival in Oshkosh is truly something to behold. As an in-bound pilot, you're on your tiptoes as the air traffic controllers walk you down the approach and onto the runway. "Red and white Cherokee, rock your wings - you're number 3 for landing..." Truly amazing how many airplanes they handle. Fortunately, we arrived safely!

We stayed in the dorms at the local university while we took in the airshow grounds and sights every day. I think we were there for the first airshow demonstration ever flown by an SR-71 Blackbird - which took off from Beale Air Force Base in California something like 40 minutes before arriving overhead at Oshkosh!

This trip was truly one of those trips of a lifetime - for both my Dad and me. We had great fun together and really enjoyed ourselves. He was a great co-pilot along the way! The memory of this special trip will stay with both of us forever.

California Travels

One of my favorite local blogs is California Travels by San Jose-based Tom and Margaret Husband.

Tom and Margaret do an outstanding job of sharing their adventures around the Bay Area and Northern California. Tune in to their posts for a real treat!

Canvas Print - San Francisco Skyline from Fort Point

I've not had much experience with printing photos on canvas - but recently decided to give the folks at Snapfish a try - due mostly to their Flickr integration.

The photo I tried was this New Years Day 2010 photo of the San Francisco skyline - as seen from Fort Point down by the Golden Gate Bridge:

I ordered an 8x10 canvas of this photo - and I was delighted with the result. This photo was post-processed using some of the techniques learned from Trey Ratcliff's texture tutorial - and it truly looks superb on canvas!

I've made this photo available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. You can't use this image for any commercial purposes (contact me if you want to) - but feel free to share/remix it as long as you provide attribution back to me here on my blog.

The Quants

I just finished Scott Peterson's The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It, a great read!

Peterson chronicles the evolution of the quants - tracing the evolution from Ed Thorp and his Beat the Dealer book about blackjack. Like many other readers, Thorp's book had a big impact on me when I first read it. It definitely improved my blackjack playing - even if I never was good enough to get kicked out of a casino!

The meltdown of the quant funds in August 2007 is the conclusion of Peterson's book - an engrossing read!

Ghost Ship

I was over in the East Bay yesterday visiting family and while coming back noticed the layer of fog hugging the bay itself. I popped off the freeway, through the tube to Alameda and out to the USS Hornet - which looks like a ghost ship in this thick fog!

More about Aperture 3

I've only had a couple of days to play with Apple's new Aperture 3 - released earlier this week.

Overall, I'm impressed. Aperture's new interface design is much cleaner and simpler than earlier versions - and the new Quick FIx adjustments and the Quick Brushes are great! The full screen browser does a great job on my Mac Cinema Display.

I've only got one frustration so far. Why is there no gradient tool in Aperture 3? For landscape photographers, the gradient tool in Lightroom has been an easy way to bring down the sky in a graduated fashion. It's seems so obvious that Aperture 3 should have a gradient tool - but it doesn't. Huh? How could a gradient tool not have been included in this major update?

A Beautiful Evening at Baker Beach

Apple Introduces Aperture 3

This morning Apple announced Aperture 3, a long-awaited upgrade to its photo management application. I've been vocal about my preference for Lightroom - given the adjustment brushes that Adobe added in Lightroom 2.

From the feature description, it looks like the new brush adjustments in Aperture 3 are a big improvement. I'll be downloading the trial version and deciding on an upgrade over the next few days. (RAW support for my Canon PowerShot S90 is included in Aperture 3 - but is not available for Aperture 2).

Hey, That's Me!

I was surprised to look at Trey Ratcliff's StuckInCustoms.com post this morning - and see a picture of several of us photowalking Stanford last Thursday afternoon. The photo was taken for the Stanford Daily.

Meeting Trey and some of the other photographers was great fun - see my earlier post. By the way, I'm the guy on the right - Trey's the guy on the left. You can barely see my tiny camera (Canon S90) on top of my tripod!

Blue and Gold - Textures with the Canon PowerShot S90

As I mentioned earlier, on Thursday afternoon I went photowalking at Stanford with Trey Ratcliff of StuckInCustoms.com. In spite of the drizzling weather, we had a great time photowalking Stanford - much of it spent inside Stanford Memorial Church (see the full set of photos here).

I've also been interested in Trey's use of textures in some of his HDR photos. His textures tutorial details the process he uses - based upon a set of textures he's captured on his travels around the world.

I've put together two examples of this texture technique - based on the same image - shot on New Years Day 2010 from Fort Point in San Francisco. These aren't HDR - but they were shot using the Canon PowerShot S90. The first is blue, the second is gold!

Enjoy!

Photowalking Stanford with Trey Ratcliff

[Update: Feb 5, 2010: Here's the Flickr group Stuck in Stanford with photos from the group that walked with Trey Ratcliff last night.]

Late today, in a light drizzle, about 50 photographers joined ace HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff for a photowalk on the Stanford campus. Trey's website StuckInCustoms.com is the best resource for HDR photography on the planet. His new book, A World in HDR, is equally great. It was great fun to meet Trey and hear some of his tips for shooting HDR in the real world.

The weather was just mild enough for us to enjoy ourselves - and perhaps the best time was had by all inside the Stanford Memorial Church where we spent the bulk of our time. Here are two shots of mine taken inside the church using my Canon PowerShot S90 shooting HDR. These were post-processed using Photomatix Pro, Photoshop CS4 and the Topaz Adjust and Noiseware filters.

You can also follow Trey's HDR exploits on his Stuck in Customs Facebook page. For my Canon PowerShot S90 HDR setup instructions, see this post.

HOW TO: Setting up the Canon PowerShot S90 to Shoot HDR

A friend has asked how I've been setting up my Canon PowerShot S90 to take the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos I've been sharing.

Here's what I've been doing:

1. Put the S90 into Aperture Priority mode by setting the mode dial to Av. By shooting in Av, you ensure that the camera isn't adjusting the aperture (which could cause focus issues) but, rather, only shutter speed.
   
2. Select a fixed (not Auto) ISO (see p. 76 in the S90 manual). In daylight, choose 80 or 100. You want a fixed ISO so that the camera isn't trying to adjust ISO between shots.
   
3. Select Large format JPEG or RAW (see p. 72 in the S90 manual). (I find the Large JPEGs are the easiest to post-process while purists say to shoot in RAW. The S90 does a superb job of processing in-camera, so just choose Large JPEG when you're getting started.)
   
4. Turn on Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB mode - see p. 93 in the S90 manual). Chose the middle option - "Takes 3 different shots at different exposures". While still in that setting, press the DISP button and turn the dial to select +/- 2 stops. This ensures that the camera takes 3 shots: one properly exposed, one underexposed by 2 stops, and one overexposed by 2 stops. These three photos are what Photomatix Pro then uses to create the HDR image.
   

Now, the S90 is ready to go.

For best results, mount the S90 on a tripod to prevent any movement as the three shots are being taken. If you don't have a tripod, you can try handheld HDR - just try to brace your arm against a support to minimize any camera movement. When you hit the shutter button, the camera will take the 3 shots - about a shot per second. After 3 seconds or so, it's done.

I post-process in Lightroom - using it to import the photos from the S90. I then use Photomatix Pro and just point it to the 3 shots in the file folder to begin generating the HDR image. Once the image has been generated and tone mapped, I save it back into the same folder and then import that image also into Lightroom - telling Lightroom to just add it to the catalog but not to copy it as the image is already in the folder.

For the best overall tutorial on HDR processing, be sure the see Trey Ratcliff's Stuck in Customs HDR tutorial.

Canon PowerShot S90 HDR - Continues to Amaze!

I've continued to be very pleased with the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos I've taken using my relatively new Canon PowerShot S90 camera. See my Canon S90 HDR Flickr set for some recent examples of some of the photos that I've been shooting!

For my S90 HDR shooting, I've been using a lightweight Manfrotto tripod that, frankly, I was about to get rid of because it's just not substantial enough to support my Canon 5D Mark II. But, as it turns out, this tripod is absolutely perfect for shooting with the Canon S90! I've been getting a bit of a kick out of walking around with this tripod - with this little tiny camera mounted on it!

If you're looking for an entry-level digital camera that shoots RAW, includes auto-bracketing suitable for HDR, and almost disappears in your hands, be sure to checkout the S90 - it's an awful lot of digital camera in a tiny package - and continues to amaze me!

A New Header Graphic Image

Once or twice a year, I change the header graphic image on my blog - to something new that I find fresher than the old image! Over the last couple of days, I've been playing with some new Photoshop plug-ins and learning how to use them on some older photos in my library.

Earlier this afternoon, I picked a shot of the Blue Angels over the Golden Gate Bridge from last November to play around with - and was pleased with the result. The original photo was shot with my Canon 5D Mark II shooting in RAW. The photo was tweaked using PhotoMatix Pro and then adjusted in PhotoShop CS4.

Hope you also enjoy it! You can see the complete history of my earlier header graphic images here. To view more of my photography, see my Flickr photostream here.

A Passion for Nukes

For the last few weeks, I've been auditing a seminar titled "EE190: Nuclear Weapons, Risk and Hope" that Stanford Professor Emeritus Martin Hellman has been teaching this quarter.

This is a subject that Marty is most passionate about - see, among other references, his website on Defusing the Nuclear Threat. Coincidentally, Marty and I had lunch a couple of weeks ago on the day he was going to hold the first class in the seminar - so I tagged along. I had recently re-watched Thirteen Days - one of my all-time favorite movies - where the US and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. I'm glad I have attended these seminar sessions of Marty's - in the process learning much more about both the history, the technology and the issues surrounding atomic weapons.

Earlier this month, an obituary in the New York Times caught my eye - Tsutomu Yamaguchi died on Monday, January 4, 2010, at age 93. According to the Times, Yamaguchi was "the only official survivor of both atomic blasts to hit Japan in World War II." He was present both at Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the atomic bombs went off. Can you imagine? I couldn't.

On Monday afternoon, I attended the lecture "Working Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Sidney Drell and George Shultz in Conversation with Philip Taubman" held by CISAC at Stanford. It was especially interesting to me to hear George Shultz's description of the meeting in Reykjavik between President Reagan and Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev in which they talked about eliminating nuclear weapons.

Yesterday, I happened across this NPR story about the book The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by Charles Pellegrino. NPR included the first chapter from the book - which begins by describing in minute details what actually took place during the first few seconds following the Hiroshima detonation. It's very powerful in its description of that day - but still is something very hard to imagine beyond the sheer devastation that resulted.

Let's hope, for all of our sakes, that - through the work of Hellman, Pellegrino and so many more who are trying to get us back to a nuclear zero world - that this is not something we ever have to experience ever again.

A Good Week

It's late on Friday evening - after what turned out to be a very good - if long - week.

On Monday, my shoulder surgeon was pleased that, 12 weeks after rotator cuff surgery, my right arm had 170 degrees of movement - and cleared me to begin - slowly - physical therapy on the right shoulder.

Later that morning, my dermatologist inspected the results of the Mohs surgery I had just before Christmas to remove a relatively large basal cell skin cancer (2 x 2.5 inches) just under the surface of the skin in my right temple area. He (and I) are both pleased with how well that wound is healing. Amazingly, it seems that I'm almost to the point where folks may not notice it.

On Tuesday, I had an all-day client meeting over in the East Bay with a colleague. That session proved to be a lot a fun - in spite of the weather difficulties! Afterwards, I was able to combine my East Bay visits - meeting with a venture investor just across the street who was considering an investment in a good friend's new startup.

Wednesday and Thursday were Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp days - always a lot of fun and especially with the group we had for this session.

And, today, I actually had my first physical therapy session for my shoulder - with much good news about how well things seem to be working already in spite of my 12 weeks of "downtime".

That was followed by a working session with another payments-related startup that's well on it's way to closing an initial financing round - and then of to lunch with an old friend.

Mid-afternoon, I had my annual physical exam with my primary care physician - and came up with no new surprises. After 2009, I'm hoping 2010 will continue to be a year of no new medically-related surprises!

Capping the evening, we had a great dinner with good friends at Donato in Redwood City.

All in all, it was a great week!

Re-Entry

Every couple of months, I'm involved in teaching one of our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camps as part of my "day job". We always get a great group of folks from across the payments industry attending our Boot Camps - and teaching is always a lot of fun. Over 3,500 folks have attended one of these sessions since we started them over four years ago.

As anyone who has taught a subject knows, there's nothing quite like teaching a subject to force you to stay current on what's happening in a particular industry! My partner Carol Coye Benson leads our Payments Education efforts - and does a superb job at keeping out presentation material up to date!

This week's Boot Camp was a particularly good group - very interactive, wanting to probe and better understand, and full of great questions. Ironically, we had no bankers in this session - just the innovators!

While I'm in "Boot Camp mode", I tend to disconnect from the rest of the world - as teaching ends up becoming such a central focus of my attention. Emails get overlooked, I don't return phone calls - you get the idea.

Tonight, I'm in "re-entry" mode - trying to catch back up with what I've missed - and struggling to do so. Fortunately, tomorrow is Friday - and a weekend awaits around the corner! It can't come soon enough! See you on the other side!

Really Enjoying Photography Podcasts

Twice a week, I ferry the family dog to a session of "doggie day care". The round trip gives me about 45 minutes in the car to listen to anything I want. I could just listen to the news on the radio - but that often puts me in a cranky mood. So, I look for something better.

Increasingly, of late, I've been using that travel time to listen to photography-related podcasts on my iPhone (plugged into the Aux input in my Honda Civic Hybrid). These podcasts have proven to be quite interesting - and have introduced me to some things I otherwise might not have learned about. They are MUCH more fun than listening to the often depressing news of the day!

Today, for example, I listened to two podcasts by Frederick Van Johnson. He's the host of the ”This Week in Photography” podcast - which I sometimes listen to - but I am finding his individual podcast interviews to, frankly, be more focused and interesting than the group chat that takes place on TWIP.

On today's drive, I really enjoyed his podcast interview with Michael Corsentino - who, as it turns out, is a master at marketing his wedding and portrait photography simply by his choices about client presentation.

Coming home from our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp in Santa Clara tonight, Frederick's interview with Trey Ratcliff of StuckInCustoms.com was especially great! Trey is one of the great HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographers - a technique that I'm also enjoying a lot. If you're into HDR, you've got to listen to this podcast!

Yesterday, while driving over to Oakland for a client meeting, I was fascinated by Dave Warner's LensFlare35.com interview of Jasmine Star. Dave knows how to ask the right questions - his 1:1 photography podcasts are another favorite of mine!

If you're into photography like I am - and have the time to listen - be sure to check out the rich treasure trove of great photography podcasts available on iTunes!

A Bit of HDR - Canon S90 HDR

Yesterday, a day with some dramatic clouds here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I took the opportunity to head up to San Francisco and shoot a few HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos using my Canon PowerShot S90 - here's a link to the slideshow - and below is one of my favorites taken at the Palace of Fine Arts.

The San Francisco Chronicle

Today, the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle print edition arrived on our doorstep - as it does every morning.

But today, on the front page - and a few other section front pages - the Chronicle highlighted stories/columns that were only available in either the print edition that we had received - or in the so-called e-edition.

According to the Chronicle print edition, those stories/columns would be added to the SFGate.com edition in a few days - but they're not available there today. Ironically, one of the front page articles behind the new "print wall" was by Benny Evangelista about how companies are listening and responding to complaints from their customers on Twitter!

Since we're subscribers - and have been for years - to the print edition, I thought there would be an obvious option for us to get the corresponding e-edition for free.

No, no, no! The folks at the Chronicle have decided that we should actually pay extra for that privilege - near as I can figure. You'd think they'd offer an easy way for current print subscribers to also get the e-edition. But, it looks like they've outsourced the e-edition to a third party - who complicates the whole process significantly.

Frankly, after being treated this way, I'm tempted to just cancel the print subscription and walk away! After all, all we really want to read on Sunday is Willy Brown! One of these days, he'll have a blog and will ditch that "old media" column of his!

A Deadly Day

Today was one of those days you hear about as you grow older - but that you never want to experience.

I heard today that two good friends of mine - one exactly my age (my best high school friend) and one about 3 years younger (a long-time colleague) - had passed away over the last two weeks.

As often happens, I had drifted apart from these two good friends over the last few years. One of their deaths was quite sudden, the other apparently a prolonged affair over the last several months.

Hearing about both, on the same day, was particularly poignant for me - especially given the proximity of their ages to mine.

I remember looking up a life expectancy chart a few years ago and seeing a stunning 20 or so years in the column for me. I remarked to several friends at the time that the male life expectancy chart should be posted over the men's urinal in every bathroom as a reminder to just how fleeting life is - after all.

Hearing today about my good friends' passing brought all of that back into focus - once again.

InMenlo.com - Our Hyperlocal Blog about Menlo Park, California

For the last several months, we've been incubating InMenlo.com - a "hyperlocal" blog about Menlo Park, California. My partners in this endeavor are Linda and Chris Gulker - active bloggers in their own right.

We started InMenlo.com on a whim, after a chat about hyperlocal news blogs over coffee last summer. Since we started, Linda and Chris have really managed the near daily cadence of blog posts for InMenlo. It's been great fun to watch it grow - and to learn more about the people and places of Menlo Park in the process!

Today, the Almanac - the local newspaper for Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside - ran a story by Sean Howell titled "Menlo Park blog captures local life, people, vignettes" about what we've been doing with InMenlo - noting that "InMenlo sketches the community, and the people in it." Indeed - that's what we try to do. Explore what's interesting and fun about the people and the community that is Menlo Park.

If you have suggestions about things we should cover, please email them along to tips@inmenlo.com!

More Canon PowerShot S90 HDR Photography - Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

I had such fun on my brief excursion to Stanford yesterday shooting HDR photos for the first time on my new Canon S90 that I got going early this morning for a trip over the hills to Half Moon Bay and environs.

I have several favorite spots for taking shots in Half Moon Bay and I visited each of them in turn this morning while the light was still good and low over the winter horizon. But, of all the places, the best shot of the day came from one of my favorite walks among the cypress trees in the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. See what you think - view it larger here!

The sun glow in this photo is amazing - especially considering that the sun was actually a bit beyond the upper right corner of the photo. Today, I again used a tripod for the S90, shot three JPEG images at 0 and +/- 2 stops in aperture priority, f/8, ISO 80, and post-processed using Photomatix Pro and Lightroom 2.6. (Here's a link to a similar shot taken last July with my Canon 5D Mark II.)

Shooting HDR with this superb tiny little camera is turning out to be a whole lot of fun! Throw the S90 on a lightweight tripod (it looks so tiny up there!) - and you can go almost anywhere and take some really superb HDR shots - without the weight of a big camera and lens! After all, the only reason I bought the Canon S90 was because of my rotator cuff surgery in my right shoulder about 10 weeks ago which made shooting with my Canon 5D Mark II impossible for a period of time. The S90 has kept me in the game - learning new things about using compact "point and shoot" cameras to make some great photos!

My First HDR Shots With the Canon PowerShot S90

Lily and I took a quick trip over to the Stanford Quad this afternoon to get a bit of exercise and to try out my new Canon PowerShot S90 on some tripod-based HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. I was very pleased with the how well it all worked!

Here's an example of the results - my full Flickr set is here.

PS: This tiny camera looks a little silly up on a tripod - but it sure took some great photos! Next time, I'll try some handheld HDR as well - we'll see how they turn out. I also need to remember to shoot the HDR shots in Aperture Priority - at least that's how I do it on my Canon 5D Mark II!

New Years Day 2010 at the Golden Gate Bridge

We had a quiet New Years Eve last night at home - beginning with a delightful pasta dinner - see the recipe on Scott's Kitchen!. We worked a jigsaw puzzle while watching Hulu.com's excellent coverage from Times Square in New York City - conveniently three hours ahead of our own clock. Couldn't get into the weird Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin coverage on CNN. Hulu was a great, high quality HD alternative - delivered, as they say, "over the top"!

This morning, we had this wonderful light overcast that seemed might make for some interesting pictures - so I slid my Canon S90 into my shirt pocket and headed north to San Francisco - initially to Inspiration Point at the Presidio (appears to be a great place for a wedding but photographically a bit of a disappointment) but then on to Fort Point, the overlook off Langdon Drive above Battery Boutelle, and an old favorite, Baker Beach. As these things go, it was a quick trip - a bit over 2-1/2 hours roundtrip.

The triptych below captures shots from each of those locations - a way for me to remember this New Years Day from each of those locations! Here's my Flickr set for these shots.

Hope you had a wonderful New Years 2010!

Some Musings on 2009

Looking back at my late December 2008 blog posts, I made a wish about simple and beautiful HDR photography becoming super simple - unfortunately, it hasn't yet. I'll restate what I said last year: "But it still feels like we're living in a 1995 world when it comes to HDR photography."

On the other hand, on this day last year I wrote about Walking with Chris - Chris Gulker to be precise. In mid-2008, Chris, Lily and I began a twice weekly 1.5 mile walking regimen every Tuesday and Thursday morning when our mutual schedules permitted.

We had a great time continuing our twice-weekly walks throughout 2009 - solving the world's primary technology and political problems along the way - and very much look forward to resuming them next week - on the first Tuesday in 2010!

Just Getting into Web Analytics

Over the holidays, among other things, I've been doing a deep dive into web analytics - led mostly by Avinash Kaushik in his new book Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity (Amazon affiliate link) - a book that I'd highly recommend if you're into this kind of thing.

At Glenbrook, we've got three primary websites that address who we are and what we do:

1. Glenbrook.com - our partnership's home page, describing who we are and what we do - our payments education program (Payments Boot Camps and our new webinar series) and our strategy consulting and research practice.
2. PaymentsNews.com - far and away our busiest site, PaymentsNews.com is our edited version of the news of the day of importance to payments professionals - who we consider our primary audience.
3. PaymentsViews.com - launched earlier this year, PV is where we share our rants and opinions about the news of the day and about other learnings we've had in our recent work.

It's been interesting, using some of the techniques in Kaushik's book, to take a look at how these three websites behave based on a deeper exploration of user interaction.

For example, when looking at new visitors vs. returning visitors over the last six months, PaymentsNews.com skews significantly to returning visitors (70+ percent) vs. new visitors. Obviously, PN has a regular readership among payments professionals - many of who either subscribe via email, or to the RSS feed, or who have just bookmarked PN in their browser.

On the other hand, both PaymentsViews.com and Glenbrook.com have just the opposite skew - with almost 70 percent of visitors to both of these sites being new visitors.

On PaymentsNews.com, we run Google AdSense ads to help support our costs in providing the service. It turns out that almost 70% of the AdSense revenue comes from new visitors - mostly coming to PN from searches - while returning visitors seem to be much less likely to click on any of the ads.

We're fascinating by the segmentation opportunities as we study further the interaction of users with our websites. Look forward to learning more and sharing some new insights!

Y2K is Way Too Gone!

Hard to believe that we're rolling up to the end of another decade - the "aught's".

Ten years ago we were all sitting around wondering (and working) whether the clocks would all roll over and the world would still function - after spending years on computer-related Y2K projects!

That whole experience sure feels like a lot more than 10 years ago - to me anyway!

A Very Pretty Afternoon in Sharon Park

See my post "A Last 2009 Sunday in Sharon Park" over on InMenlo.com, a "hyperlocal" blog about Menlo Park that we started about six months ago with a couple of very good friends.

Today was a mixed day weather wise - some drizzle and some spectacular sun. I took Lily for a late afternoon walk at Sharon Park and caught the low sun angle reflecting on the pond and fountain - taken with my iPhone 3GS using the BestCamera app.

A Christmas Eve Juxtaposition

Today, Christmas Eve, was my grandfather's birthday - Dec. 24, 1879 - he was born 130 years ago today at a place named Garretson, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)!

His Dad (my great grandfather) was 57 when my grandfather was born. His Mom (my great grandmother) was 40 when he was born. Together with their children (but before my grandfather was even conceived), his Mom and Dad had emigrated from Norway on the Bark Columbus leaving Bergen, Norway on May 5, 1856 and arriving in Montreal on July 2, 1856. 137 passengers were on-board. They eventually settled in Garretson in 1873, six years before my grandfather's birth.

Today is also one of my granddaughters' birthdays - Dec. 24, 2008 - she was born one year ago today.

Fascinating juxtaposition. Makes me think of one of those "dinners you could wish for". Wouldn't it be great fun to introduce one to the other? Great-great-grandfather to great-great-granddaughter! What great fun they would have!

We shared a lot of those feelings at our family's Christmas Eve celebration tonight. Yesterday, we shared a special treat as the Berkeley Rotary Club honored my Dad with a Paul Harris Fellowship.

Hope you also had a wonderful Christmas Eve tonight with your family and friends! And, a very Merry Christmas tomorrow.

Merry Christmas 2009

A good friend once told me:
Slow down, get into the moment, and hold them close.

Merry Christmas!

[Photo by Scott Loftesness - Dec. 2007 at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, San Francisco]

Goodbye Saab! Thanks for the Memories...

Sad to read this week that we're at the end of the line for Sweden's Saab - as GM failed to find a suitable buyer and decided to shut the company down.

My first new car was a RED (!) 1968 Saab 96 V4 Deluxe - which my folks helped me buy new from Leif Lindzen Motors in Berkeley. I've still got one of the brochures for Summerflight (1969 edition) - which bundled in a trip to the factory in Sweden to actually pick up the car, drive it around that country and then leave it behind for shipment back to San Francisco. Cost (car + trip): $2,770.

Lots of fond memories of that trip - and, I suppose, I must have photos from it somewhere (!). I remember the flight over - it was mid-June, we took off in daylight, landed in daylight, the sun never set the whole way over. I went to sleep and woke up with the sun outside, didn't know what time it was, look out the window at a clock tower across from the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, saw it was 3:45 and thought I'd missed a whole day of events. Turned out it was 3:45 AM, not PM!

Continue reading "Goodbye Saab! Thanks for the Memories..."

What a Difference a Day Makes!

On Wednesday, I had Mohs surgery to remove a nasty basal cell carcinoma from underneath the right temple area on my forehead.

Over the last few years, I had had several basal cell's removed from this area - all with "clean edges", etc. But, they kept coming back. When I had the last one removed earlier this summer, my dermatologist suggested that there might be something more serious going on - worthy of Mohs surgery.

I expected this might take an hour or two - but, instead, it took all day on Wednesday to finally get a clean removal of the basal cell tumor that had been living underneath a roughly 2x2 inch section of my right temple area.

After the tumor's removal, I got a half "face lift" as the skin on my right cheek was pulled up and stitched to cover the wound. Fortunately (!), my puffy cheeks had plenty to give - and stretched just enough to cover it.

My doc, Dr. Jon Starr, was superb and did an amazing job with a "difficult patient" (me!).

Continue reading "What a Difference a Day Makes!"

Wirelessly Shooting

Chris and I had fun on our morning walk this morning. Here's a shot of him taking a picture down low of one of our favorite Menlo ponds! Click here to see the photo he took!

I do agree that Linda's photo taken on the Stanford Golf Course is the best of the bunch!

Duck and Cover

Last night and tonight I've been watching one of my favorite movies - Thirteen Days. While there's a lot of fiction in this story of the Cuban missile crisis, there's also a lot of history.

A few years back - after seeing the movie the first time - I read Robert Kennedy's book about the crisis. It brought more of the facts into focus - but much of the impact was the same. We - this country and the world - edged right up to the brink of nuclear war on those fateful days in 1962. Had anyone pulled the trigger, I wouldn't be writing these words today.

Watching the movie again tonight, one appreciates the value of restraint. Of playing chess - and playing several steps ahead. Sometimes ignoring the "best advice" of others as they push their agendas.

It's a crazy world out there. Discerning the right path in the face of evil is an almost impossible task. But, let's hope that it's still possible, that we still have the discrimination to understand and apply force when it's appropriate - and when it's not.

At a dinner earlier this week with a very good friend, we talked about Obama and his administration. We talked about the stresses and strains - but we agreed that we can't possibly understand the full burdens he bears - the daily intelligence briefings, the face of evil. His Nobel speech this week was remarkable. What's appropriate use of power? Not just from America - but from the world.

The responsibility is so enormous that we can't fully comprehend it. We struggle to even understand it.

Till Dad Comes Home!

The December 14th issue of Newsweek happened to by laying on our dining room table tonight - face down. On the back cover was a wonderful ad for the Canon PowerShot S90 titled "Can I Stay Up Till Dad Comes Home Mode" featuring the S90's f/2.0 lens. It's a great ad - for a great camera!

I picked up a new Canon PowerShot S90 a couple of weeks ago as a way of dealing with the rotator cuff surgery in my right arm. Today, I ended six weeks of my right arm being in a sling - but, as it turns out, I have another six weeks to wait (allowing the pins to set further) before beginning serious physical therapy to rehab my shoulder muscles.

Meanwhile, I can now just barely deal with the S90 in my right hand - but it's made much more manageable by last week's addition of Richard Franiec's S90 Custom Grip. Highly recommended!

Falling Back from Google DNS to OpenDNS

So, I gave the new Google DNS a whirl over the weekend - see my earlier post on Remembering Alexa.

But, if anything, Google's new DNS appeared to be more sluggish than my prior and very stable setup using OpenDNS. Nothing scientific on my part - just how things felt - and they didn't improve.

So, I fell back to my original OpenDNS configuration late this afternoon - seems like things are back now to working as expected.

Remembering Alexa!

I was thinking last night about Google's new DNS offering - and realizing that, among other benefits, Google will be gaining some real intelligence into the popularity of web sites based upon the DNS lookups from all of who choose to use them as our DNS provider.

The old distributed toolbar approach of Alexa gathering this kind of web site popularity information seems so outdated - when you can capture it instead by offering DNS services.

By the way, where's Amazon.com's DNS service?

Sobering Words

The two concluding paragraphs from President Obama's speech tonight on Afghanistan:

It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united – bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. I believe with every fiber of my being that we – as Americans – can still come together behind a common purpose. For our values are not simply words written into parchment – they are a creed that calls us together, and that has carried us through the darkest of storms as one nation, one people.

America – we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes. Thank you, God Bless you, God Bless our troops, and may God Bless the United States of America.

More on the Canon PowerShot S90

If you're looking for a couple of great reviews on the new Canon PowerShot S90, be sure to check out these reviews by MIserere (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) on the Enticing the Light blog. I found them very helpful in learning how to use my new S90!

I'm also learning a lot from the Flickr Canon PowerShot S90 group. One of the posts there pointed me to the custom grip for the S90 developed by Richard Franiec. I've ordered one - looks exactly like what I need to better grip this very small camera! I will report again once I've had some time with it in the field!

Recovering from Stupidity

So, yesterday we went off to our family's Thanksgiving celebration. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - it's just about getting together, sharing, and enjoying our company. No obligations, no gifts, just us.

Anyway, with my right (camera!) arm still in a sling, I headed off without my trusty Canon 5D Mark II and glass. No way was I ever going to be able to shoot any pictures of Thanksgiving with the big DSLR!

Anticipating this, last week I picked up a new Canon PowerShot S90 - and headed off to Thanksgiving dinner with this delightful new (think left hand!) point and shoot camera! We had a wonderful dinner with family - and I took lots of shots along the way.

Some 150 shots later, I came home and began uploading the photos from the S90 to Lightroom. Somewhere along the way I decided the upload had completed (it hadn't) and I pulled out the USB cable to the camera and - then - proceeded to format the SD card in the S90. Oh my goodness - why did I do that? Beats me - but I did.

Continue reading "Recovering from Stupidity"

Happy Thanksgiving!

A wonderful bouquet of flowers at the Gulker home this morning - shot with my new Canon S90 and tweaked in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. You can find the original in my Flickr S90 set!

First Time in the Field with a Canon PowerShot S90

Yesterday, I walked with my friend Chris Gulker on the Alpine Trail in Portola Valley. I was sporting my brand new Canon PowerShot S90 camera - trying it out for the first time "in the field". Chris took a shot of me shooting and posted it over on his blog.

Here's an example of my initial results - shot using the S90 in basic Auto mode in large JPG and tweaked just a bit in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 (mostly vignetting):

This camera was designed for the serious photographer - providing almost every control imaginable in a size that's just about the same size as my iPhone.

I'll have a lot more to say about the new S90 as I learn more about it - along with some more pictures to share. You can see more of my S90 photos in my Flickr S90 set.

And you can read more about the S90 and (even order one!) on this Amazon.com page (affiliate link).

VeriSign's Email Certificates Work!

Last week I posted - in frustration - about Thawte's decision to exit the Personal E-Mail Certificate business. They did so for pretty obvious reasons - why give away free certificates - as they had done for years - while bearing the costs of supporting them, etc.

As part of the transition, Thawte offered a 1 year free VeriSign Class 1 Individual certificate - and I had grumbled that the VeriSign issuance process didn't seem to work well on my Mac. I was wrong.

Looking at my Keychain, the new VeriSign certificates were issued correctly and installed in my Mac's Keychain. To use them, I needed to "untrust" my Thawte certificates and, once I did so, they started working fine for signing and encrypting in my Mac's Mail.app.

Bottom line: I'm sorry to see Thawte exit this business but I understand why they did so. I appreciate VeriSign's generosity in making a 1 year cert available. But I still think all of this secure email stuff is way to hard.

If only my friends at Voltage would step up to fully supporting the Mac, I'd be a very happy camper, I'm sure!

Thawte/VeriSign Play Hardball - Need a New Certificate Source

For the last several years, I've used a Thawte Personal E-Mail Certificate to digitally sign and, where appropriate, encrypt email to my correspondents who are similarly situated. It appears that VeriSign, the parent of Thawte, has decided to abandon this personal certificate "business" - most likely because it had been provided for free for years and wasn't contributing any revenue.

I tried to go through the VeriSign alternative that was offered - but, naturally, it doesn't seem to work well with the Mac. Why can't they get their act together?

So, that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. What are you doing to acquire a suitable certificate in the future?

The F-22 Raptor in Action!

A friend of mine sent me this link to a demonstration flight of the F-22 Raptor at Farnborough - really an amazing flight. I've yet to see an F-22 in an airshow - looking forward to that one day!

How about you - have you seen the F-22 in flight?