Category: Technology

August 29, 2018 / Photography

It’s Not Relevant

Instagram sucks.

It used to be a great way to network with great photographers and friends. It has evolved from a creative community into an abomination of memes, unoriginal work and advertisements.
When Facebook purchased Instagram everyone knew that it would change drastically and not for the better.

Shortly after, ads were popping up with no regard for anything. Nothing was relevant because Facebook hadn’t yet figured out your likes, dislikes, friends. It still hasn’t figured me out. I am seeing ads for candy, ads for salt. Yes, salt. Ads for a house flipping seminar by some faux celeb on a DIY channel. Ads for paint etc etc. What the hell does salt have to do with photography? This is a photography platform…or it used to be.
IG has added video features, photo/video stories, IGTV for longer video stories. All laced with ads.

FB and IG both have shitty algorithms that is distracting what we want to see. Their shitty algorithms have also destroyed the order in which we want to see our friend’s photos by assuming they know best. But FB and IG don’t know me at all. They’ve stopped caring and allow any advertiser to show whatever they want, relevant or not and then have access to our data.

How pervasive are these irrelevant advertisements? It averages one ad for every four photos in your feed. Four, maybe five of your colleague’s images and then you get a “sponsored post”.

Think these offered options matter?

Why don’t you want to see this ad?

It’s not relevant

I see it too often

It’s inappropriate

Think again.

Deleting Facebook was easy. I never took it seriously and my friends appreciated me mocking everything that they enjoyed about FB.

Speaking of deleting…I just accidentally erased my whole last paragraph and don’t have the energy to recreate it. Anyway, IG sucks and I am getting real close to pushing that “delete account” button

August 29, 2018 / Photography

It’s Not Relevant

Instagram sucks.

It used to be a great way to network with
great photographers and friends. It has evolved from a creative
community into an abomination of memes, unoriginal work and
advertisements.
When Facebook purchased Instagram everyone knew that it would change
drastically and not for the better.

Shortly after, ads were
popping up with no regard for anything. Nothing was relevant because
Facebook hadn’t yet figured out your likes, dislikes, friends. It still
hasn’t figured me out. I am seeing ads for candy, ads for salt. Yes,
salt. Ads for a house flipping seminar by some faux celeb on a DIY
channel. Ads for paint etc etc. What the hell does salt have to do with
photography? This is a photography platform…or it used to be.
IG has added video features, photo/video stories, IGTV for longer video
stories. All laced with ads.

FB and IG both have shitty
algorithms that is distracting what we want to see. Their shitty
algorithms have also destroyed the order in which we want to see our
friend’s photos by assuming they know best. But FB and IG don’t know me
at all. They’ve stopped caring and allow any advertiser to show whatever
they want, relevant or not and then have access to our data.

How
pervasive are these irrelevant advertisements? It averages one ad for
every four photos in your feed. Four, maybe five of your colleague’s
images and then you get a “sponsored post”.

These are the offered options when telling IG you don’t want to see their ads:

Why don’t you want to see this ad?

It’s not relevant

I see it too often

It’s inappropriate

Deleting Facebook was easy. I never took it
seriously and my friends appreciated me mocking everything that they
enjoyed about FB.

Speaking of deleting…I just accidentally erased
my whole last paragraph and don’t have the energy to recreate it.
Anyway, IG sucks and I am getting real close to pushing that “delete
account” button.

**Update** It is gone.

August 23, 2018 / Technology

iA Writer

After several free trials, beta tests and tribulations I have chosen iA Writer as my tool to help me create stories I want to tell (not calling myself a writer or author yet).

The software for me had to pass several standards such as:

Cross-platform (Windows, iOS)

Inexpensive

Clean, simple and aesthetically pleasing.

No overwhelming amount of tools that I’ll never use

Mission accomplished.

August 10, 2018 / Photography

Progress

Time to get serious and disciplined regarding digital asset management (DAM). As I type, I am transferring files off of the various external hard drives to a master file on my computer. Then I will use Lightroom to remove the duplicates, sort the wheat from the chaff, sort by year/month, geotag, keyword and then maintain this archive. After this I will upload to my photo hosts. On backup drives, Flickr and Smugmug. Speaking of..I’ve redirected my Photo Denbow web domain to Smugmug. (above)

With my new camera, I am considering this all to be a clean slate. Way overdue.

August 10, 2018 / Photography

Photo Archeology

My very first digital photograph back in November 2001.

When I was away at college I borrowed my father’s Olympus C2100. I loved the zoom and bokeh it produced. This had helped solidify my photography enthusiasm.

I discovered this when sorting through the archives and organizing the digital assets (DAM). Yeah, it’s simple, but we all start somewhere.

April 4, 2018 / Technology

Coding Misadventures

Or another working title: what a tangled web I weave.

Delving back into coding but this time with some basics like javascript (finally).

August 29, 2015 / Technology

2-For-1

Now that I have Windows 10 installed on the laptop, I can not leave well enough alone. I have installed and am running Linux 15 inside another virtual machine. Running smoothly. Two machines inside one. Brilliant!

July 29, 2015 / Technology

Win-Dohs!

The last Microsoft Windows 10 Preview build has made my laptop almost useless. The public release was today and still unable to download due to memory issues with the beta program.

It’s slowing me down. Grr.

June 25, 2015 / Journal

The Purge

As long as I am purging tech, I am also weening off of Google Plus and Twitter.

Being so embedded into Google for so long I cannot fully detach just yet but it will be a slow process. For now, Plus is not installed on my devices. I haven’t updated it in months.

The same for Twitter. I’ll keep the account open but will not be an active user.

I’m not receiving value from either one of them like I used to nor do I have the time/desire to blurt out anything of interest to anyone but myself.

I have my website for that.

June 25, 2015 / Journal

Convert

A month ago I made the decision to convert to the iPhone and iOS. Thanks to some software issues with the Samsung Galaxy S6, I was allowed to jump over to the iPhone 6 Plus a few months early.

After years of Android support, I grew tired of the way the software was evolving.

The iPhone’s hardware, including the 8MP camera, are solid. And of course most of the apps I want to use are developed exclusively for iOS not Android.

Adios, Android. It’s been good but not good enough.

**UPDATE** 2024-09-04. And I have never looked back!

June 19, 2015 / Technology

Jump

As soon as I am able to jump from my Samsung S6 this summer, I will probably go back to an iPhone. Why? The tech specs for Android phones are superior for sure but if I’m honest, I’m switching for the apps. Google Play apps or so limited, buggy and poorly designed. Why so many cartoon-ish logos? Their app store doesn’t change often and suggests the same crap but a different week. The screenshot could have been taken two weeks ago because it hasn’t changed. BORING. Compare with the iTunes store. New apps every week. New apps I would purchase. Very well designed apps. I still don’t like the fact I cannot customize the iOS interface. I have to admit that after a couple weeks, I didn’t even notice. So unless Google completely wows us with their new stuff at the I/O conference next week, I will drop my long time Android support and go back to iPhone.

January 22, 2015 / Technology

My iOS App List

This time last year I was still a die-hard Android fandroid and submitted my favorite and most-used apps for my devices.

Now that I have converted to Apple devices it is time to update this list.

No, I won’t state which operating system I prefer at this time or answer why I switched or will I switch back. Okay, I will but not in this post.

I’ll be breaking down the top apps from the categories as shown on my home screens. This is not an exhaustive list.

It should also be mentioned that a lot of these apps are on both platforms but the user experience, design and even features are more developed for the iOS user. I hate this. But I am enjoying the extra features that are not provided for Androids.

InfoDenbow

Mailbox: Now a part of the Dropbox cloud storage provider, this minamally designed tool allows me to combine email addresses into one location.

Any.Do or Wunderlist: Gorgeous apps that help me stay on track of my my to-do’s. They both offer web browser tools. Tough choice here but I lean to Wunderlist because it allows me to use folders.

Feedly: This is where I get my daily news feed.

Instapaper: This is where I can save my news feed articles to read later.

Evernote: If you don’t know what Evernote is by now…

TechnoDenbow

Ok, so they are just the usual social media suspects. Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

GeoDenbow

Waze: I drive around the city for most of the day and just LOVE to play in traffic. 10 miles in one hour? Why not. Waze is a social creature. Other drivers ahead of you alerts you to traffic conditions, accidents, police whereabouts and other road issues. Bought by Google and integrated into their Maps.

Google Maps: Duh.

Geocaching: Treasure hunting and all the world has a cache for you to discover. Get out there!

Ingress: A virtual reality game but played in the real world. Get out there!

Dark Sky: The best and the best looking weather app out there. Scary how accurate it is.

GoDenbow

Again, the usual suspects here like Runkeeper, MyFitnessPal, Fitbit but with one exception, Carrot. I just discovered it. Carrot will insult and playfully shame you into working out and tracking your progress. She is artificial intelligence and she looks down on us poor meatbags.

PhotoDenbow

What’s in my digital camera bag? Procam takes advantage of the iPhone’s excellent sensor and then throws in the tools that control it. It has a DSLR interface with DSLR controls. Brilliant.

Also used are Hipstamatic for the retro cameras, Reflex and Instant that replicates the Polaroid cameras.

Snapseed: In the darkroom to process and edit the images I use Snapseed as my go-to. Nothing else beats the processing controls.

Facetune: Sometimes we all need help with those pesky face or teeth issues. Wrinkles, warts, zits, stained teeth be gone.

VSCOcam: Forget Instagram, EyeEm and the rest. This company has taken over with their first class camera, editing, filters and web displays.

AudioDenbow

Overcast: Podcasting client with the same features as the basic podcasting app but looks so much better.

VideoDenbow

Hyperlapse from Instagram. Yeah, it is a fad, but I like silent vids that have been fast forwarded like the old Benny Hill chase scenes.

The End

Okay, now what should I add to my devices? Go.

January 1, 2015 / Technology

Back! Yes, I Was Gone

Due to a denial of service (DoS) attack and suspected breach of my personal website security, I was contemplating just wiping the slate clean and start fresh with my entire web presence.

No more chrisdenbow.website, new social media accounts, new accounts on the iTunes and Google Play which would force me to lose my digital media purchases, setup new accounts, passwords and all the rest of the inconvenient hassles.

But I’ve worked too hard these past few years building my web server, email server, content, web accounts and more to just walk away from it. With the support of my web server host support and enterprise software providers, etc, I think I’ve rooted out the issues and am staying put.

So what has changed? Nothing on the surface. All my systems have been secured as best as I could.

The content here still stinks but I’ll still crank it out. So yeah, I’m back.

October 20, 2014 / Technology

Android To Apple

I’ve decided to go all in on Apple mobile products. I purchased a mini iPad back in May for my daughter and ended up keeping it when it was discovered she already had one purchased for her.

Then, I pulled the trigger and got the new iPhone 6.

I’m still formulating my thoughts on the conversion process from Android and will post later on it.

October 19, 2014 / Technology