For me, 2010 started off a strong photography year. I signed a year contract with Yerba Buena Center for Arts (YBCA) to cover their opening events through the year. I made a connection with the Institute on Aging (IOA) as well, and covered a few shoots for them. On a personal level, I started a new photography project, The Dying Breed.

Around the middle of the year, I slowed down with photography and keeping up with this blog, mostly due to a higher demand at work, traveling for several weddings, as well as purchasing a new condo. From there on, I was a bit sporadic with blog updates and have been bringing my camera with me everywhere I go a bit less.

As the final quarter of 2010 came around, I found myself concentrating more and more on beefing up my development skills, particularly with WordPress and PHP. At work, we were relaunching our website on WordPress and I found myself with a desire to learn more and wanting to help others utilize the power of WordPress. Along with the launch of my company’s website, I also launched DRS650.com and Love2LiveCare.com on my own time. And that leads me into my next adventure…I do not plan on dropping photography at all, however, I do expect 2011 to be more concentrated on development work. Within the first month of 2011, keep an eye on TheContractingPost.com, my first big solo project.

It has certainty been a great year and I’m looking forward to 2011.

Happy New Year!

Till next time…

It’s been a fun 2 years and I look forward to another 2 more!

Till next time…

Today marks the 7th day I have been walking around with the HTC Incredible in my pocket.  With everyone that is switching from an iPhone to an Android based device sharing their opinions about why they did it and what they think about their new device, I thought, “Why not share my thoughts?”  Perhaps I’ll bring some light to someone else out on the interwebs…

First, I want to make it clear, the below is based on my experience with the iPhone 3G for the past 2 years and the HTC Incredible over the past 7 days.  This is not a review, but rather my initial thoughts on my experience so far.

Why did I make the switch?

Like almost everyone else, I was sick and tired of AT&T dropping my calls or being in places where reception did not exist (most importantly, my home and office).  I was on Verizon before and switched over specifically to get my hands on an iPhone and was very happy I did.  But, after 2 years of crappy service, it was time to consider moving on.

Further, I can’t stand being held hostage by iTunes.  If I want to upgrade by iPhone’s operating system (aka iOS), I need to connect my phone to my PC, open up iTunes and sync my phone, which, over the last few months, never would complete successfully.

Lastly, my entire online world is Google: Gmail, Voice, Calendar, Docs, etc.  It only makes sense to give the Google based phone a try.

My Experience (So Far)

As my last point mentions, my entire online world is primarily Google and sure enough, the HTC Incredible, running Android, integrates right into my Google life.  During the initial setup, I tell the phone my Gmail account details which sets up my access to email and all of my calendars.  If you read my previous post about the woes and work arounds I came up with to sync all of my calendars, you can bet I don’t have any of those issues anymore.  Not only can I sync every calendar from my Google calendar account, but I can easily pick and choose which calendars I want to show on my phone.  Sweet!

Next, after making a quick visit to The Market, I installed Google Voice and made it my default manager for all my phone activity (calls, voice mail, text messaging).  With the correct options set, when I make a call, my Google Voice number is displayed as the Caller ID number.  It was a seamless and easy setup.

With my personal Googlesphere in place and active, my smartphone is already making my life more productive and easier to manage than the iPhone ever did.

The HTC Incredible is fast and snappy, a complete 360 from where I was with my iPhone 3G.  Granted, the new iPhone 4 is supposedly snappier than it’s predecessors, so I won’t hold this in favor of the new phone.

The camera on the phone sports 8 mega-pixels of photo goodness, which is only .2 mega-pixels below my walk around camera, the Canon 20D. Though I havn’t played with the camera all that much yet, that is quite amazing!  I will probably never give up walking around with my 20D, but just knowing I have such a high number of mega-pixels in my pocket is quite impressive.  We’ll see if the camera can actually produce as I play with it more.

Over the first 2 days, I complained about the battery life of the HTC Incredible.  I would unplug the phone from the charger and it would begin complaining that it needed another charge within 4 hours!  A friend of mine passed on a few links and I did some further research and found that to be a normal way of life with most Incredible owners.  However, I did find out that the preinstalled Facebook app (Facebook for HTC Sense) seems to be the major culprit for the battery drain.  So, I took some of the advise in the forums, reset the phone to factory defaults and ignored the Facebook setup at the beginning of the setup.  Hesitant to install anything else right away, I only installed the basics (Google related products) to test out the battery life with nothing foreign on the phone.  Sure enough, on the first day the battery lasted the entire day and still didn’t need a charge when I was going to bed.  With that, I begun installing more applications and keeping a close watch on the battery life.  So far, battery life is much better and still lasting a full day.  Matter of fact, last night, I still had half the batter life left.

Moving icons around on the screen is not exactly easy and can become quite frustrating.  To move icons around, you hold you finger down on the given icon until the rest of the screen fades out and you are allowed to move it, very similar to the iPhone.  However, unlike the iPhone, you need to continue holding/pressing your finger on the icon until you found the spot you want to drop it into.  If you let go, the process starts over.  Further, the icons don’t just automatically rearrange themselves as you decide where you want to place the icon.  If you want to keep the icon on the same filled screen, but just rearrange where the other icons sit, you have to physically remove the icon you are moving or move it to another screen, rearrange the current icons one at a time, and then bring the other icon back.  Not exactly simple and probably my biggest complaint about the system to date.

As of yet, I haven’t noticed any major bugs or issues that some people have mentioned they experienced.  I wonder if those issues are caused by certain ‘unproven’ applications?  Personally, I typically don’t install any application that is not referred to me, has several positive reviews, or is published by a known entity.

Applications

After exploring the Android Market, it was clear there were plenty of apps available to do anything you’d want.  I’ve already installed everything I had on my iPhone, including different applications that produced the same results.  Here is a list of some of the apps I have already installed:

• Google Voice
• AnyPost – syncs with Ping.fm for posting to multiple networks
• PDANet – used for tethering
• Astro – file manager (not something you can do with iPhone)
• Advanced Task Killer – manage running task
• AccuWeather  Quick (better weather tool with a nice widget)
• handyCalc – every possible calculation you could possibly want to do
• Gmote – to control the computer I have connected to my TV
• Strawberry – great photography tool
• Surise Suset – gives details about, you guessed it, the sunrise and sunset
• Photoshop Mobile – in phone photo manipulation tool
• Pandora – listen to online music
• Shazam – tells you what song you are listening to

Final Thoughts

The integration with Goolge Voice and other Google products is the biggest selling point for me.  Because of the closed culture iOS is part of, it will never be able to match the experience provided by Android.  To boot, there is an app for that in the Android Market, and if there isn’t yet, there surely will be soon.

I’ve mentioned it to my friends and family, so I think I’ll make my opinion publicly known, I see a strong correlation between what is happening today in the phone market compared to what happened 20+ years ago in the computer market.  Apple is still Apple, but now they are facing domination by Google instead of Microsoft.  If Apple doesn’t adapt and learn the lessons of the past, history is surely to repeat.

What are your thoughts?  Have you made the switch?  Are you going to?  Is Apple repeating history for themselves?

Till next time…

In the past, I have always had  a second copy of my data, however, it has always been on a server within my house.  This is just poor practice.  Sure, I was backed up during a hard disk failure, but any sort of natural disaster (fire, earthquake, etc.) would have wiped me out.  Once I purchased a Drobo and my photo library started growing exponentially, I even stopped copying data to a secondary source (Drobo does provide hard drive protection).

So, I finally did it, I finally did my research and found a backup plan that allows me accomplish everything I wanted. Here was the main criteria I was looking for:

1. Offsite
   • Backups needed to be outside of my house
   • Backups needed to not be prone to the same natural disaster that might also affect my home
2. Large Capacity
   • I have over 400 GB of data (350 of which is photos) and growing fast
3. Easy and Reliable
   • I don’t want to have to think about backing up, I just want it done
   • When/if I need to restore, I want my data available
4. Ability to backup all files on my Drobo
   • One of the most difficult requirements since the Drobo is seen as a network drive via my DroboShare

After a few weeks of testing a few different services, I typically kept getting snagged on requirement #4.  Most online/cloud backup sites do not support or specifically do not allow backing up of a network drive.  After a few searches, I found CrashPlan and their ‘unofficial’ way of backing up a mapped network drive.

I put it to the test and sure enough it worked!  I was amazed.  I took full advantage of their one month trial of CrashPlan Central  and eventually signed up for a one year subscription.  After about 60 days, I am fully backed up in the cloud. Had I opted, I could have seeded my backup for $125, but I decided not to.

CrashPlan also offers several local backup options, including, backup to a friend.  Though I haven’t tried this feature out yet, I’m guessing if you and a friend (or family member) have decent upload/download speeds as well as enough hard disk space to back each others data up, this might be a great way to skip the $4.50/month ($54/year) fee and backup for free.

The one downside I’ve found with CrashPlan so far is they do not offer access to my backed up files on the go via their online tools.  In order to access my files online, I would need the CrashPlan application (which is free) installed on the machine I’m working on.  They do, however, offer a CrashPlan+ feature, which is a one time fee of $60 which allows online access to my backups as well as a few other benefits.  One of the other key benefits to having a CrashPlan+ subscription is continuous, real-time backups.  $60 is just barely out of range for me to say, “sure, why not.”  So, for now, I think I can live without these features and see how the service treats me.  Plus, I already have a possible plan to get around the online access restriction…use a PogoPlug.  More on that soon.

Till next time…

I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus and it looks like it is going to be that way for another few weeks.  I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things come June.  To give those that are interested a bit of an insight as to what I’ve been up to…

1. March 30 – closed escrow on a new condo
2. April 9 – moved into new condo with my special lady
3. Rest of April – complete chaos with getting the new condo all set-up
4. April 30 – May 2 – San Diego, California
5. May 7 – 10 – Las Vegas, Nevada
6. May 14 – 16 – Grandparents in town
7. May 26 – 31 – Savannah, Georgia

To top it all off, work has been quit busy.  I received a promotion mid-March and have been dealing with a few projects that have taken up quite a bit of time.  So, needless to say, I’ve been busy.

Hope you don’t miss me too much, I certainly miss you!

Till next time…

Upon migrating over, I wanted to be sure to take advantage of the shared SSL BlueHost provides in order to keep my WordPress login and admin area more secure. Little did I know, it was a bit more daunting to figure out then I expected it to be. Since it took me nearly 2 days to figure out the solution, I wanted to share it the “interwebs.”

First of all, the Admin SSL plugin that pops-up everywhere on Google when searching for using WordPress with shared SSL doesn’t work and the author seems to have stopped supporting the shared SSL functionality of it. So, that was a bust.

So, after playing around a bit, I added the following to my wp-config file, replacing USERNAME with my BlueHost user name and BLOG_DIRECTORY with the path to where I installed WordPress (note: this is specific to BlueHost):

define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~USERNANAME/BLOG_DIRECTORY');

From there, I needed to insure my ‘wp-content’ folder stayed intact, so I also added the following to the wp-config file (this can be altered in the “Miscellaneous Settings” section as well):

define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://blog.justinkorn.com/wp-content');

These two changes seemed to make everything work properly. When I attempt to login via wp-login.php, I am redirected to the shared SSL url and when I upload new content, everything goes to the proper place with in the wp-content directory.

The only caveat that I have seen so far is after clicking around within the admin area a few times, I receive the following message:

Too many requests received. Please wait a few minutes and try again.

Eventually the message goes away and I’m able to work again, so it’s not the end of the world, but it is a bit annoying.

In the end, however, I have a secure WordPress Admin area and I’m not shelling out the $30/yr for the dedicated IP or however much it is for the private SSL certificate. Hopefully this setup will prove to last; only time will tell.

Till next time…

So, are you using Google Buzz yet?  Are you looking to get your fix of images and interact with some photographers rather than get the typical tech mumbo jumbo?

After Thomas Hawk announced that he would start sharing his favorite photographers on Buzz, I wondered how many photographers were already on AND active on Buzz.

So, I posted that exact question and since, have wasted a good few hours compiling this list in a readable format for everyone to enjoy.  I do apologize if I missed anyone, the thread got a bit out-of-control.  Of coarse, as Google Buzz continues to grow, this list will NEVER be complete, so feel free to leave a comment with a link to your Google profile if you consider yourself an ACTIVE Google Buzz photographer (I will filter the links posted in the comments).

Okay, on to the list!  Names with a * denotes the person either mentions “Photographer” or “Photography” under their name on their Google profile, their Google profile picture is of them taking a picture/holding a camera, or their Google Buzz stream consists of mostly photography or photography related topics at the time I checked it.

Enjoy…

1. Justin Korn *
2. Thomas Hawk *
3. Scott Kivowitz *
4. Brian Sullivan
5. Chris Luckhardt *
6. David Thomas *
7. Calvin Heinly
8. Jeremy Hall *
9. Kol Tregaskes
10. Benjamin Heath *
11. Dan Figueroa *
12. Sam Scott *
13. Tyler Wainright *
14. Anne Petersen *
15. Ignacio Pulido
16. Alexander Couey *
17. Aaron Hockley *
18. Daniel Kreger *
19. Mike Connell *
20. Keshav Khera
21. William Burrard-Lucas *
22. Daniel Peckham *
23. Cliff Johnson *
24. Nathan Smith
25. Ingo Meckmann *
26. nixter retxin
27. Colt Seavers
28. Russ Scheid *
29. Victoria Klum *
30. Squid Vicious *
31. Griffon Walker
32. Glenn Euloth *
33. Heather S
34. Steven Rose
35. Michael Wimmer
36. Gordon Reece
37. Karsten Behrens
38. Bruno Raymond *
39. Brian Auer *
40. Alan McBride
41. Robert Kenney *
42. Mike Baker *
43. Matthew Field *
44. Mark Forman *
45. Christopher Boffoli *
46. Edward Barnieh
47. Sean Davis *
48. Nate Lanier *
49. Jim Kirkpatrick
50. Mike Hellers
51. raf sanchez *
52. Mark Krynsky
53. ghill tochon *
54. Michael Hocter *
55. resiros M
56. Stephen Miller *
57. Ben Staley
58. Vincent Gearhart *
59. Gary Denness *
60. Michael Leggett
61. Paul Segal
62. Matt Penning *
63. Damien Franco *
64. Chris Martino
65. Nan Anastasia
66. Nick Fisher *
67. Pedro José
68. Dane Deasy *
69. Arianys Wilson *
70. Cathy McArthur *
71. Karthick Ramachandran *
72. Tom Harrison *
73. Kim Martin
74. Kenton Smith
75. Vicki Kadow *
76. Sameer Kumbhare
77. Jeff Henderson *
78. Morris Maciver *
79. Todd Heckert *
80. Dave Cohen
81. Stephen Dickson *
82. Mahdi Abdulrazak
83. Damien Pattrick *
84. Daniel Lashua *
85. Vando Nascimento *
86. Gary Thom *
87. Nir Alon *
88. Kevin Trotman *
89. Kim Thibodeaux *
90. Chris Nixon *
91. Henrik Johansson *
92. Jason Castillo
93. Carlos Ayala
94. Håkan Dahlström *
95. Lourens Rolograaf *
96. Jason Kravitz
97. Eric Booth *
98. Randal L. Schwartz
99. José Betancur *
100. Jeremy Brooks

And the list continues to grow HERE.

Till next time…

After doing a little investigation last night, I finally figured out how to get this blog automatically posting to Google Buzz.  For all those that might be struggling with the process, I thought I’d post a little how-to tip.

The first and most important thing you need to do is have a link somewhere on your blog to your Google profile with a relationship attribute (“rel”) equal to “me”.  For example, you can add a link to your Google Profile page like:

<a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/your.username" rel="me">My Google Profile</a>

or, like so within the head:

<link rel="me" type="text/html" href="http://www.google.com/profiles/your.username"/>

Once you have this relationship between your Google Profile and your blog, you are ready to add your blog to your Google Profile.  If you don’t already have your blog associated with your Google Profile, now is a good time to do that:

1. Go to your Google profile page:  http://www.google.com/profiles/USERNAME  replacing USERNAME with your Google ID.  Mine is: http://www.google.com/profiles/justin.korn If you are not logged into Google, log in with the “Sign In” link in the upper right corner
2. Once logged in and viewing your profile, click on the link in the upper right corner titled “Edit Profile”
3. Scroll down to the section titled “Links”
4. If your blog is not listed already in the “Add Links” section, right below it you can add it manually with the URL and name.  Click the “Add” button and your blog should now be listed on the right side under “My Links”
5. Once added, make sure the “This is a profile page about me.” check box is checked.  You can double check by clicking on the “Edit” link next to your new link.
6. Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Save Changes” button.  If you don’t, these changes will not be saved.

Alright, with your Google Profile now all linked up to your blog, all you need to do is get Google Buzz to recognize it.  You have two choices, wait for Google to re-crawl your site, or force Google to re-crawl your site.  Did you even consider option one?  I didn’t think so.  So, to force it:

1. Check out the Social Graph API
2. Once logged in, you should see all of the links you’ve designated as “profile pages” in your Google Profile
3. Find the link to your blog and click the associated “Recrawl” button

Finally, it’s time to hook up your blog to Google Buzz:

1. Bring up Google Buzz (within Gmail)
2. On the main page, at the top, next to your name, you should see “X connected sites” where X is the number of sites you have connected to Buzz.  Click on that link.
3. You should now see your blog as an available site to connect.  Go ahead, click the “Add” button and then the “Save” button at the bottom.

That should do it!  Good luck!

Till next time…

[UPDATE] Just discovered the Google “How-To” page that explains this MUCH better than me.

What I DO want to do is remind those using all of these networks (or even only 2 or 3 of them) that those following you pay the price when you do not pay attention to how you manage your social network flow.  Feeding all of your networks into each other is NOT a good idea.  You end up with duplicate data all over the place and sometimes in formats that don’t make sense for the platform displaying it.

At this point, if you connect Twitter and/or FriendFeed into Buzz you’ve probably either lost followers or pissed them off.  Twitter feeding into Buzz is not currently real-time and if you post to Twitter often, it causes a flood of tweets to flow into your Buzz feed at once, overwhelming your followers.  FriendFeed feeing into Buzz is ugly and redundant to say the least.  Don’t even get me started on those feeding Twitter to FriendFeed to Buzz.  It’s a mess.

(This post/image is not aimed at anyone particular.  This is just what I had up at the time of taking the snapshot.)

So, if you don’t want to lose your followers, here is my simple suggestion for you, manage your social network flow NOW!  Here is how I am attempting to manage my flow (keeping track of comments is an entirely different ball game):

1. Setup a Ping.fm account posting to your Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook accounts (others as you wish).
2. Within Ping.fm, make sure email is enabled and take note of your special email address.
3. Within Buzz, disable your FriendFeed and Twitter accounts from flowing in.  Yes, remove them!
4. Within FriendFeed, remove Twitter.
5. Now, when you want to post something that goes to all of these services, send an email to buzz@gmail.com and your special ping.fm email address.  That’s it!
   1. For posting an image or other media, you can send an email with the media attachment to the appropriate email:
      • FriendFeeed: share@friendfeed.com
      • Buzz: buzz@gmail.com
      • Twitter: Use your personalized TwitPic email
      • Facebook: Use your personalized Facebook email

Remember, this is specific for sharing updates and other information across all networks in one shot.  If you feel the need to share something directly to any given network, it should be tailored to that network and will not propagate to the others.  I realize this is not perfect, however, at this point, it’s the best I have come up with for the time being.  If you have other thoughts or ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Till next time…

I am extremely excited to announce my first attempt at providing some of my fine art images for sale.  I have integrated FotoMoto into the blog portion of the site (Korn on the Blog) so that with only a few clicks, anyone can be a proud owner of one or more of my photographs.  I am pretty sure FotoMoto will not be my only source for providing prints, but since it was so easy to get up and get running, I thought I would give it shot.  Please note that prints through FotoMoto will not be signed and are open editions (unlimited prints).  I do have plans to provide some Special Editions on select prints with my signature of approval in the near future.

So, without further ado, here is what the new links look like:

If you are viewing this post directly on the website (not via RSS reader or Email), you should see a “Buy Print” and “Buy Card” link as well as an option to “Send as E-card”.  Almost all of the images within the Photo Share Category should now be available and ready for printing.

And, as a special offer, I have setup a discount code for 10% off, but the code is only available to the first 10 people that use it.  So, what are you waiting for?!?!

Discount Code: 1DBD7D

Till next time…