I have actually been putting stuff online since before 2004 but alas, those articles and content have pretty much been lost after moves into and out of various blogging platforms over the years. I’m pretty sure I could probably locate them if I really tried and perhaps I will someday. But for the moment, I’m content to have this blog’s starting date be in June of 2004.

In the interest of fun, though, let’s step into the Wayback Machine and see what I was thinking on that first fateful Summer day in June of 2004. From that first post it seems like I was talking about a mix of tech and politics and also managed to throw in a quote from Chris Rock too. Not a bad bunch of content at all.

Although, I’m not sure why I felt the need to say “later” at the end of the post. It’s almost as if I didn’t know what I was doing then. So weird.

Anyway, now that I’ve evolved into the highly skilled professional that I am (hey, if you get or got paid to do it, you’re a pro) I can safely omit any of that kind of stuff and just talk directly to the audience. You know, you and you out there reading this.

Yes, there’s probably only two of you but that’s okay, we know something that others don’t know, right? We’re the cool kids now. Suck on that nerds. . .

But, I digress.

Nostalgia and self-affirmation is great but it doesn’t help me figure out if I should keep my Flickr Pro account or not. See that there, that’s what they call a transition. Although, it wasn’t a great one. No, not at all.

My Flickr Pro account expires later this month and my dilemma is that I haven’t been uploading photos to it at all. In fact, I haven’t used it for many months. Granted, it’s only about 25 bucks a year but if I don’t use it at all, why bother? Plus, maybe there’s something better out there with more features, more interaction and the like?

I’m also considering that I have pretty much unlimited bandwidth, space and server power with the Media Temple servers we use for The Flickcast and other sites (including this here blog) that I could just host my photos myself and skip the third party stuff. That’s why you now see a “Photos” tab up there at the top of the screen.

I’m trying out various photo gallery plugins for WordPress to see which one looks the best. Right now, it’s one called NextGen Gallery and I kinda think it’s the best of the bunch. We also use it at The Flickcast so I’ve got some experience with it. I think I will leave it in place for now and see how it goes. I will add more photos I’ve already taken and perhaps some new ones soon too.

I also know that I’ve invested a lot of time and effort over the years to upload stuff to Flickr and it has a lot of photos of mine. It would be a lot of work to start completely over somewhere else. In fact, I’m not sure exactly how I would bulk download all the photos at Flickr and upload them somewhere else. I would need to look into that more.

Given the potential pain in the ass and time involved, I would instead probably want to have Flickr serve as an archive for my old photos and would start anywhere new, like SmugMug, from this point on. However, because of the large number of photos I have (too many for the free Flickr account) I would end up having to keep paying for the Pro version just to maintain the archive.

So I guess that pretty much answers my question, doesn’t it? Yahoo will be getting 25 bucks from me this month. They can probably use it.

Thanks for playing along. Always fun to see the decision making process at work, right?

The truth is no service, free or paid, is going to motivate me go out and take pictures. That motivation has to come from within.

Now where did I put my camera?

That’s right, it works like a champ and every time I have some of that exceptional liquid, I’m more convinced I made the right choice. If you have the means, I definitely suggest acquiring one.

Also, as I’ve tried to do as often as I can, I’ve got a couple photos for you today. I’m including one of the new coffee machine in action in my very own kitchen. Yes, that’s not a granite counter top, get over it.

Two I took myself and one I found online and it made me laugh. That’s pretty much the only criteria for photos that I don’t take to go up here on Fridays. They need to make me laugh out loud or otherwise have some other type of emotional response.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you? Here you go:

I am going to remedy that now. In fact, as I said previously, I’m going to try and post a few photos here on Fridays. Yes, I know it’s Saturday already, no need to write in.

Let’s just pretend it’s Friday for a minute and say I got these posted a couple hours ago, okay? Thanks. You’re a sport.

Also, I don’t know what any of these photos mean. I just took them when the mood struck. Plus, I’m always trying to improve and take photos using pretty much only the iPhone 4S.

Oh, on that subject, I picked up one of those lens attachments today (Friday) for the iPhone 4S. It’s the one from Olloclip. Haven’t had a chance to use it much but will be over the next few days/weeks. Stay tuned for a full report and the resulting photos.

In the meantime, enjoy.

So far, it’s going well. I’ve managed to be more productive and also managed to enjoy some quality time doing as little as possible. I’m well on the way to achieving that balance I was looking for.

Another thing I would like to do more of in 2012 is take photos. With the iPhone 4S it should be very easy. The camera is great and there are several apps that help to make the pics look cooler. One is Instagram, which is what the pic above is.

I highlighted some of those apps and some of my latest photos in an earlier post. Now that 2012 is here, I’m going to be doing more with these apps and trying to take a few photos each day.

I’ve done this experiment before (taking a photo a day for thirty days I mean) and it seemed to go well. I will try to make it last longer this time around. We’ll see how it goes.

How’s your 2012 going so far?

It’s just that the iPhone and iOS 4 are cooler. Case in point is all the great applications you can use to take some really cool photos with your iPhone 4.

I’ve been using quite a few of them and in particular Hipstamatic, Instagram, Plastic Bullet and Camera Bag. These apps, and the included Camera App from Apple on the iPhone, allow me to take and make some pretty cool photos. Sure, I can still take “normal” photos as well, but using these Apps is way more fun and the photos often turn out way different and better than you expect.

To demonstrate, I’ve included a few here from the new iPhone 4. Some are taken with Hipstamatic, some were taken with the iPhone’s native Photo App and then processed in Plastic Bullet or Camera Bag and some are just normal. Check ‘em out.

As I get better at taking pics and discover more of what these Apps can do I will post some more here as well as the usual places like my Facebook and my Flickr.

However, all is not lost. Part of my plan for the new year is to start taking more photographs. I’m going to be exploring my photography skills and trying to improve them. I will be posting the results here and, of course, over at my Flickr page.

So, stay tuned for more from this site. I haven’t forgotten it and will get back to it soon enough. Until then, all the best for 2011.

At the moment, as I’ve tragically never met either of them, I can only admire them for their looks. Which is one of the main reasons I feel like sharing these pictures. I’m sure, if I met them and got to know them better, I would find that in addition to their stunning looks, they are also both intelligent, funny, generous and all-around fantastic human beings. Until then, I’ll just have to be content to think they just both look fantastic.

Also at the flickr page.