Photo Resources

The Internet can be a wonderful thing.  Oh sure, there’s a lot of spam, malware and general lameness online, but I’m awed by how much it has added to my personal wealth of knowledge!

When I returned to photography after what now seems a millennium, the entire field of digital photography baffled me.  After realizing that basic concepts about light, composition, depth of field and so on, still held, the how was still a bit of a mystery.

Enter the Internet.  There are videos galore on YouTube and Vimeo.  A plethora of web sites, both professional and amateur, exist to lend guidance, support and inspiration.

Here then, is a brief list of web sites I find useful for a wide range of photographic information:

  • Photography Life – one of the first sites I found. It covers reviews, tips, news, and more.
  • Digital Photography School. As the name suggests, mostly tutorials and tips.
  • Picture Correct. Techniques and tips. There’s always an annoying pop-up when you first visit, but dismiss it and enter the site.
  • iPhotography, an online (for pay) course in digital photography.
  • ON1 Tutorials. ON1 makes the nifty Perfect Photo Suite of photo processing software, but these tutorials are free for all (with an emphasis on PPS, of course).
  • Light Stalking. Tips, downloadable tutorials, more.
  • Camera Labs. Camera and lens reviews.
  • Digital Photography Review. Camera and lens reviews. Very popular.
  • Snapsort, compare cameras (features, prices, capabilities).
  • Ken Rockwell, a professional photographer reviews and opines.
  • Photzy – sign up and receive a “digital locker” where you can download and store free (and paid) content.

And of what value would these sites be without a place to store and view our photos? Here are some sites and programs I use:

  • Dropbox. A free account (which includes photo syncing) of about 5Gb. Pay for more.
  • Copy. Like DropBox, with a 20Gb account.
  • Flickr. Owned by Yahoo! Gives you 1 terabyte of storage and an online photo editor.
  • PictureLife. Much like Flickr. Maybe some developers left and started this?  You gain space by referring others.  Contact me.  🙂
  • Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Yes, you’ll need to be a subscriber, but at US $9.99/month for full, current versions of PhotoShop and Lightroom, this is a pretty sweet deal: 1 TB for your creative efforts.

There are many, many more.  I may revise this list from time to time, or add another. For now, this is a quick “bookmark” for ones I use frequently.

gEeeking Away…

It must have been nearly six years ago that the “netbook” craze came into vogue.  This was before the iPad and tablet computing.  As one who travels frequently, I bought into the craze, looking for something lightweight but powerful enough to carry with me and allow me to check email, browse the web, review work, and generally keep me online.

So I bought an Asus Eee PC 900A.

Asus Eee PC 900A

Asus Eee PC 900A

Admittedly, it was underwhelming.  Powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270, 1 GB RAM and a meager 4 GB SSD, it was plain from the beginning that this machine wasn’t going to replace even a bulky laptop in the long run.

It ran a custom version of Ubuntu Linux called Eeebuntu.  At the time, it was a serviceable OS on a miniaturized laptop.  The keys were tiny (even for someone whose fingers aren’t that large to begin with), but everything worked.

Then the death knell began to toll.  The first sign of the end was that Eeebuntu was discontinued. Well, there was an attempt to evolve it into something called Aurora OS, but to my knowledge, a finished product (even an alpha or beta) never saw the light of day.

As tablets came into prominence, I relegated the Eee PC to storage.

About eight months ago I came across this little machine while I was renovating my home office.  After doing some research on DistroWatch and other sites,  and having a plethora of USB sticks, I decided to use the thing as a ‘sandbox’ to try out light, nimble Linux OSes.

By this time, even most Linux distros had become large (bloated, some might say?) and would not install on the meager 4 GB internal drive.  Fortunately, I came across Puppy Linux.  It was perfect!  It installed entirely on the internal SSD (Asus included 3 USB ports and a SDHC card reader for additional storage).  It was loaded with utilities, links, and features.  However, it was not without bugs:  many windows would not size to the somewhat abnormal screen dimensions (1024 x 600), and while useful, some of the programs and utilities were just downright ugly!  Help was also confusing.  So, while I used Puppy for a while, I always felt there must be something “better.”

I let things rest to let life get in the way, and just recently returned to this “project.”  Once again, I searched and researched.  I downloaded numerous 32-bit lightweight Linux distros, such as Lubuntu, Bodhi, LXLE, Mageia. Manjaro and Peppermint OS.  None of them quite fit—they either didn’t load, or the interface just wasn’t to my liking. Finally, I came across Simplicity Linux, which is a Puppy derivative.  What makes Simplicity Linux appealing to me is that

  1. It’s currently being developed and supported (Puppy’s original creator discontinued work on it)
  2. It has an interface I like.  In some ways, it’s Mac-like, in that it has a configurable “dock” on the screen that contains shortcuts to frequently used programs.

The version I’ve been using is a beta:  15.7.  As such, there are still some rough edges and bugs.  But it too, installs on the internal SSD, loads into RAM (for faster execution), and may just keep my Eee PC alive for a while longer!