Everyone Wants Our Membership!

Of Course You Want to Make Up Another Account.

Have you ever noticed that no matter what you want to do on the Web someone is asking you to register? In the very least they want you to enter an email address.

Having created and managed Boards, Blogs, Forums, and Groups I can understand some of the necessities for this. I have a Board actually for general socializing and discussion called "The Gnome's Garden" which there is a link to in the Links area of this Blog and I actually had to change its URL -- Web Address -- because I had too many "Spambots" calling and trying to make accounts on it or post in areas that unregistered members might make posts. I ended up spending a half hour a day simply sorting through the Spam posts and Spammer accounts before taking any enjoyment from the board -- and there were less than a dozen actual members on that Family oriented board.

Anyway requiring registration and confirmation with a valid email address was the only thing that could be done at first... but that was not even enough as even with optical character recognition there were problems. So I created a screen door to screen out the spambots. It did work but the only members I attract are friends I directly attract.

Still... I am constantly searching out interesting topics on the web and that means finding places to comment in and things I just really want to comment on. I know some places just want an email address and never use it. I mean many Blogs looking for comment and many have it set so that the owner has to okay any comments before they are published.

But still, it seems every day there are one or two sites that want me to register. Probably 90% of those places I might never come back to and perhaps only want to ask a simple question of the person who made a post or comment. But it adds up to over 700 sites registered to a year... Those might be places wanting a password too and how many passwords might a person use. I guess a person might have "throw away" passwords just like they might have "throw away" email addresses.

I know that some of these places might actually be farms wanting to harvest lists of email addresses to sell... it makes me consider misspelling my name in different ways so that I can tell just who is selling my name to who. But my name is in enough places and in actuallity... I really do not get tonnes of spam... I think perhaps only 5%-10% of my email is Spam... that includes both what is caught by my spam filter and that which isn't.

I don't sign up nearly so often... I am tired and burned out a bit. Perhaps that is why I get less Spam? Can you wear out your Spamworthyness?

Later!
~ Darrell

124.

Live or Photoshop

Only the Photographer Knows for Sure

I have frustratingly discovered when surfing the web and finding interesting photographic images with places for comment that more and more frequently someone will make the comment, "It’s Photoshop!!!". They will do so showing conviction as if no more need be said and that by only saying so few words what they say will carry great weight.

There are a great many masterfully modified images on the world wide web. I know, I am versed in doing photo editing and modifications or "faking" as it is known in some circles. It can be as little as fixing the contrast and brightness on a photo to make up for bad exposure and lighting in the original. It can be as much as removing an offending telephone pole from an otherwise perfect picnic picture... or ex-boyfriend from a family photo. If you do it properly, nobody should know you did anything.

But, when people cry "It's Photoshop!!!" at the drop of a hat, it insults some great or very lucky photographers who have managed to catch something unusual enough that it is hard to believe or that someone doesn't want to believe... or that it isn't politcally appropriate to believe.

What brought me to bring this up was looking at this interesting photo on "8in.org". (image below -- image from 8in.org)

The image is a composition apparently from Beijing during the current 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The title of the image is "Beijing Olympics, One World, One Dream... This Is Sad [PIC]". There are a number of comments to the photo and I think perhaps I have seen it elsewhere. It was posted Saturday, August 9th 2008 -- a week ago.

Personally I do not think it is "Photoshopped". I could be wrong of course, but I think that it is just a good piece of photographic composition. I also think there is some sadness to it, but not necessarily the great sadness or travesty that some see -- at least not directly from the picture.

I watched some documentaries on Canadian News -- I believe on the CBC -- about preparations for the Olympics and the future. One of the things being done for the Olympics was the preparation of the routes to be taken by the long distance races -- the Marathons and Cycling events including Triathlon and the like. Businesses which were deemed unseemly were hidden behind screens which would hide them from view of cameras. In some places houses have been taken down and I recall that a buffer zone of freshly laid sod and shrubbery was laid down their on the now vacant lots with screening fencing behind to hide the now being renovated districts behind. I am assuming that this image was taken in one of those later districts. the grass on the left being some of that fresh turf and the bricks on the right left over from some of the demolition.

Part of the issues involved had to do with how fair the settlements were with the people being evicted. They were paid for their property -- or were supposed to. According to the news report there were some issues of corruption which made it difficult for some of the people to protest to low a settlement. The people were being relocated to apartments on the other side of the city. Often they felt they were being spread too far from their friends and extended families.

The image though is one that could be taken in very many cities in very many countries where older neighbourhoods are being demolished to put up higher density housing -- which is worth more and probably costs more to live in. East or West; First World or Third World -- facades are put up to hide what is deemed unseemly. How many scrapyards do you know without a 2 - 4 metre tall white fence surrounding it. True it is for security, but it is also a facade that hides the mess. It is done in other places too. I know that often for construction they put peepholes in for people to have a peep into the site to see what is going up... but the fencing around a major construction site also hides the mess.

Cities also put fences like this around things when there are major events... it isn't just some place like Beijing.

But that photo... it is just the words on the sign and the worlds apart it seems between the Olympic ideal clean road and the messy slightly run down look of the poor neighbourhood right beside.

Is the image "Photoshopped"? Click on it to go to 8in.org to see the original and decide for yourself. I think that if it was "Photoshopped" it was only to perhaps brighten the colours or something of that nature and adjust the size. I think it is just an example of a good photographer capturing the moment.

Later!
~ Darrell

119.

Gnomestead Stump: Coming of Age

Have We Come of Age? -- First Spammer in Comments

I wonder if "The Gnomestead Stump" has come of age? We had our first Spammer come and Spam us with an unsolicited advertisement in our comments section for one of our articles! Now I could like a good adman make you search for the article with the comment in it -- that way you would have to look over more of the articles -- but instead I shall provide you with a link to the article which will open up on its own page. That way it will show you the comments section right away too as a bonus. It is in the "Tickets Please - Fair Transit Fares" article from July 13, 2008.

I was tempted to immediately delete the ad and perhaps in future I shall do so. I did add a comment of my own afterwards. I am leaving it in place for a couple of reasons. The first is that I planned on writing this article I am posting here, and it is an example of what I am writing about. It is also fairly innocuous other than wasting bandwidth for you and blog-space for me. The Spam also wastes server space for Blogger/Google and resources for the whole Internet community.

The advertisers are obviously not paying for the advertising space and while Blogger does offer free space, the purpose of it is not for third parties to make use of -- unasked for -- for advertising their wares. If I chose to I can have advertising on "The Gnomestead Stump" which actually would pay "Me" money when people followed the links advertised.

Someone I am sure is getting some sort of remuneration for the ad -- possibly based on each click on the links in the comment unless you have a script blocker in place. I actually do cruise the net with a script blocker in place. To allow for safer surfing I use the "NoScript" Application for Firefox, even though it means I have to activate scripts when I determine I trust a site.

If I could, I might disable the links in the comment so that nobody would be tricked to follow them to the travel site they link to. If someone did want to use their services... I can not say that they are bad... they could follow the links. I don't recommend it personally. I can say that if this is the sort of advertising technique they use, I would not want to do business with them.

On-the-other-hand there are people who pretend to be someone else just to discredit them. Someone might be pretending to be them. I have gotten sever emails purporting to be from MSN lately saying they are about some news reader service or some such... But I know the email does not originate from MSN. It is just another one of those Viral emails that say they are one thing when they are another. They even use return addresses that are not their own. I think in a way they are spoofing and phishing for information or trying to hurt MSN's reputation?

If someone has decided to try to Spam this column, I guess that means we have "made it". Now of course I also have seen them Spamming Forums with only a dozen members... If they send out 1,000,000 pieces of bait and get one nibble, those responses have paid for themselves many times over -- for they pay next to nothing to go fishing.

But, does that mean "The Gnomestead Stump" has passed a right of passage?

Later!
~ Darrell

113.

A Hunting We Shall Go - Looking for stuff on the Internet

Looking For Artists

Often when I find pictures on the World Wide Web there is very little information on who created the image or where it was originally found. I'm very curious and would like to know who is due the credit for the artwork and if they have done other pieces of work. If I might want to use the piece of artwork I would like to know who to ask for permission or if that permission might even be granted already. Some pieces of artwork have had that permission granted for use under certain circumstance - for instance under non-commercial circumstance.

I've started doing reviews of artwork with a friend of mine, Mags Alden on another Blog, "Blended Realms" and while using some material for reviews is acceptable "fair use" a person really needs to have an artist to review when reviewing the art. So I have had to play detective when seeking the name of the artist and if they have a site or where their art might be found. I have learned a few tricks.

The trick I will share here is a site called "deviantART".

"deviantArt" is a web site where artists in all sorts of genres whether electronic, text or traditional can come together to share their work with each other and the world that is connected by the Internet. I have found that often I can find pages for artists I might not find elsewhere on the web. Sometimes all I have is a name or a signature along with a description of the work and the media of the work whether oil, watercolour, photograph, manipulated photograph, sculpture, story, poem, prose, or mixed media or...

A recent piece of artwork I was looking for was an image of the moon sitting in a field*. (image to left -- image from deviantART) I actually could find a number of representations of that image on the internet, but none with any clue on the artist. My good friend Mags came to the rescue and suggested "why don't you try deviantArt?".

It never really crossed my mind as I am used to researching and looking for other things using a number of other techniques and resources and they have allowed me to dig up a great many artists of various works I have found uncredited on the Web.

So I went to deviantART's front page. Knowing it was a matter of computer photo manipulation I chose to look under Digital Art though I considered Photography. Under that there was a subsection for Photomanipulation. There were further subcategories and I might have chosen Fantasy or Landscapes & Scenery, but I thought I might try my search in just the Photomanipulation category. So I decided to simply enter the two keywords "moon" and "field".

The results of that search were 421 poplular "deviations" submitted in all of time in Photomanipulation for "moon field". (Of course the results of this search probably will change over time, but this gives an example of the results.) The first page had 24 of the 421 images -- perhaps the most popular? In any case the image of interest was on that first page and actually categorized in "Surreal". It is called "World of Sleepers" by ~Karezoid Sep 28, 2007 and there is a link there for it. "World Of Sleepers". Anyway, it was that simple for me to find the artist and image when all I did have was an anonymous picture on the Web.

There are other ways to search for sure and other tools I can use and do use. But this is one I wanted to share. It is true that I might have gone through all 421 of those images and not found it. Then I would have tried something else. Or I might have tried other key words. I might have tried landscape. I might have tried moon and whatever that greenish colour is or maybe landed moon? I did have luck in other searches with "moon in field" though, but only finding other copies of the image.

So if you are seeking an artist, you might like me try looking through deviantART.

BTW, can you find me there?

Later!
~ Darrell

111

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* "World of Sleepers" by Michal Karcz (Karezoid) Review of this picture is on "Blended Dreams".

Blended Realms -- Not Just Pictures

Realms of the Imagination From Across the World Wide Web

You might think I have enough to chew on with this column and my other writing, but I have undertaken to collaborate on another web column. This one is "Blended Realms" which I suggested to my friend Mags Alden because she is constantly finding interesting art and artists on the Internet and wanting to share them. She also has an interest in writing and I have found has a pretty good eye for interesting artwork. Much tends to be Fantasy, Science Fiction, Space Art, or Surreal Artwork so after talking about it she came up with the title "Blended Realms".

We plan on regularly taking an image we find on the Internet and writing a short review of it and giving a bit of information on where you can find it and other work by that author. We might expand into biographical pieces as well, but for now we will just showcase individual pieces and say a little bit about them leaving you to follow the link to the site hosting the artist's works.

Mags and I noted that very often we have found that people on StumbleUpon will review a picture and it is only the picture. They will say "What a cool and beautiful picture!" -- but stripped of any identifying marks as to where it might have originated before it got into the collection it was found in or who the artist is -- it is impossible to find other examples of that artists works. We intend to make sure that we are including links to collections of an artists works and if we find a great piece without any indication I'll try to hunt down the artist. I have succeeded more than on a few occasions at that.

The Image to the right is the first one reviewed: Elements IV by Frank Melech, hosted on fotocommunity.

We will not be posting any images stripped of identity... except maybe if we get a large enough audience as a wanted poster in case others might be able to identify the artist for us.

I hope that if you have an interest in this sort of art -- or perhaps are curious -- that you will stop by Blended Realms.

Later!
~ Darrell

102.