Take a look at some of my pictures from this year's trip to Ireland:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1660822&w=425&h=350&fv=host%3Dpicasaweb.google.com%26captions%3D1%26RGB%3D0x000000%26feed%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fpicasaweb.google.com%252Fdata%252Ffeed%252Fapi%252Fuser%252Fkarlhbeckers%252Falbumid%252F5217592439356811857%253Fkind%253Dphoto%2526alt%253Drss]

Btw. I wish I already had my new DSLR.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6xli5_coran_music

Coran Lu en Français par Marie Kettani.
Que Dieu la Bénisse.
صدق الله العظيم

Lecture Française du Coran,
par Marie Kettani,
une voix magnifique,
Que Dieu l'accueil dans son immense paradis
et nous avec elle...
إن شاء الله

Ja atmetam malā visus tehnoloģiskos pričendāļus un pievēršamies tīri cilvēcīgām lietām tad noteikti bez pieminēšanas nedrīkst palikt jaunā iespēja atpazīt fotogrāfijas cilvēka seju un vaibstus.

I'm on Facebook, too, and that seems to be more active. More adult, more mature, rather. MySpace has been filled with kids who post surveys (I used to fill them out) and self-shot pictures of themselves. Facebook seems to be more of a community where you get to know people by their views from the articles and videos they post. That newsfeed thing is great because you don't have to click on everyone's site to find out about them.

In some ways I agree with my friend that email is a better way to stay connected. The way I disagree is that sometimes you don't know what to say and seeing something on their Facebook helps start a conversation. In fact, a lot of people on my Facebook I don't have direct email addresses for.

But I've also thought about what happens after I have my baby. Will I post pictures of him on my MySpace and Facebook? Probably not. Definitely not in MySpace. Probably not in Facebook...not until he gets a little older. I don't know why either...

Then I wonder about PicasaWeb. My current photos are unsearchable, but if you know my username you could find my pictures. I don't believe that bothers me. And I don't know why I'm so weird about posting pics of my new son. I'm sure he'll be up in Picasa for all my family and friends to see. But Facebook and MySpace is another story.

I read this handout from my birth preparation class that said, basically, not to advertise the fact that you just brought home a baby. For instance, no signs in the front yard, no welcome home banners, no birth announcements in the paper. David thought the idea was ridiculous. Why do you have to hide? Then I remembered a news article I read awhile back that some psycho lady killed a woman who was 9 months pregnant. In fact, she killed her and then (sorry for the squeemish), cut the baby out of her. I guess some crazies will stop at nothing to have a child.

The things you think about...

I just tried it just now and it's like amazing ah! What it does is that instead of manually tagging faces of people on each individual picture à la Facebook, Picasaweb automatically scans all the faces and sorts them based on the similarity of the faces. And then all you have to do is type the name which belongs to the face and voila you have tagged ALL your pictures with that name!

Of course there is bound to be cases of mistaken identity (It's so funny! Suf, yours appears next to mine a couple of times!! And also in Sofi's pictures!! We are really twiiiins!) but Picasaweb makes it easy to remedy these glitches, and it is always funny to see who the computer thinks look alike. It's also hilarious seeing it sort faces based on a particular pose (like my diva pose gets its own set).

Picasa 2 (the software) is also getting an upgrade to Picasa 3 and I am really really envious of Windows users because Picasa doesn't work on a Mac. If I were to switch back to Windows, Picasa will be the only reason why. Picasa does a better job at managing pictures than iPhoto, in my humble opinion. I like Picasa's "Watch Folders" feature and how the interface reflects where the pictures are being stored in the hard drive. But iPhoto isn't all that bad, and it does has its perks.

If you are still looking for a free image hosting site, I really do recommend Picasaweb. Not only does it do an awesome job hosting your pictures (from convenient albums to zippy picture load time), it also integrates well with Blogger and Gmail using a single Google account. Plus it gives you 1GB worth of storage for free.

On a side note, Google also has a new web browser "Chrome" which is a thing to look out for.

I'm not really a Flickr fan, because the free option only allows the first 200 pictures to be seen and the loading of pictures take forever. The only thing I love about Flickr is its community.

Of course SmugMug is my weapon of choice, but membership is a bit pricey (they raised the price, but I get to keep the old rate).

And then there's Facebook, amazing at sharing, but really not one for you to store your images.

I've never really tried Photobucket, but the countless adverts on the mainpage itself is a major turn off.

Go give Picasaweb a try! Name Tag feature is fun!

Interestingly, Google pumped in millions into the Mozilla Foundation for development of Firefox 3.0 and then came out with their own browser, which in all probability is only going to eat into the market share of Firefox, assuming there is a dedicated community that continues developing it.

Away from the excitement surrounding chrome, a very nice feature of picasaweb went online, name tags to photos, where all the face detection is done by itself rather than asking users to manually tag photos. Decently done, it is just an indication of the things to come which computer vision + google can do.

P.S. : Is anyone actually using chrome full-time ? I guess I am too dependent on the Firefox plugins.

Alguém aí gosta de abóboras? A questão não é bem essa. Mas a partir de um celular com GPS e câmera fotográfica, você instala um programa que, ao capturar a imagem, já carrega as informações de onde a fotografia foi tirada.
O Location Tagger pode ser baixado gratuitamente no site da Nokia. O fotógrafo sai por aí, clica e na foto ficam registradas as coordenadas.
Logo em seguida, ele pode enviar diretamente do celular a imagem ou via computador para postar no Flickr, no Picasa ou em outros serviços.
O internauta interessado vai ao mapa e localiza até de que modelo de celular a foto foi capturada. Vê no Flickr, sem muita precisão uma foto de satélite. É o tal do geotag.

Seria o auge do Big Brother? Ou uma necessidade de compartilhar a esmo o registro da imagem?

Nada melhor do que Andre Lemos, da UFBA, que anda esquadrinhando o Canadá, fazendo suas pesquisas, rastreando, refletindo, pensando para poder discutir sobre o assunto.
Leitura obrigatória é o seu blog Carnet de Notes http://www.andrelemos.info/, com documentos, ensaios e informações.

A dica do Location Tagger é do Cardoso, do Contraditorium e MeioBit.

[Update]

Ternyata Firefox saya yg error.  Pas saya buka di IE kok bisa? Saya clear cache,  saved form dan authenticate session di Firefox. Abis itu bisa jalan normal lg Picasaweb di Firefox.

The upload went quite smooth, except for some odd server errors now and then which didn't let me upload 400 pictures in one go. The upload would just bail out sometimes and a retry wouldn't mend it. Restarting a new upload to the same album from the first picture not yet uploaded successfully, however, worked around that for me. Eventually, I uploaded the album in around 6 chunks.

The downside seems to be, the picasaweb slideshows do not work with wordpress.com, though there seem to be plugins for wordpress.org. But then, you can always do this:

Watch the pics here!

Friendster
http://m.friendster.com/

Facebook
http://m.facebook.com/
http://iphone.facebook.com/

MySpace
http://m.myspace.com/

Twitter
http://m.twitter.com/

Wordpress
http://m.wordpress.com/

Google Reader
http://www.google.com/reader/m

Flickr
http://m.flickr.com/

Picasaweb
http://picasaweb.google.com/m

Pownce
http://m.pownce.com/

Linkedin
http://m.linkedin.com/

Multiply
http://multiply.com/m

Gmail
http://m.gmail.com/

Plurk
http://www.plurk.com/m

today one of my teachers actually said “half the stuff you learn in high school you will never need again in your lifetime.” if only i had gotten it in writing. we were working with imaginary numbers in math recently. so when it came time for the test i raised my hand and asked “if we’re working with imaginary numbers, can we have an imaginary test, with an imaginary grade” (i’m a wiseass, i know). i think might have lost points for it (me losing points on the test has nothing to do with the fact that i’m terrible at math).

if i’m never going to use half this stuff in real life, please remind me why i go to my classes? i guess it’s a good idea to have a basic understanding of a variety of topics, but honestly is it truly necessary for me to have a thorough understanding of the insides of a squid (i dissected one in biology today)? i love my biology class, and i find (some of) it interesting, but there are other areas i’d rather focus on.

so something’s been bothering me lately. i’m a member of a lot of different sites on the web. facebook, bebo, yahoo, flickr, picasaweb, Vazzar, WeeklyShot, and just about any free webhost you can think of: i probably have an account there. plus not to mention a few student sites and gay forums. anyways a lot of people seem to think they know me because they’ve read my profile. someone actually messaged me on facebook the other day saying i was kind of whiny on this blog sometimes. no kidding? you mean i’m actually a human being, who can feel a variety of emotions? most of the time i’m a pretty happy person, and often i chose to “whine” on here rather then subject someone to it. honestly this is just silly. first off this blog is here for me. i share the link by choice, for anyone who might want to connect with me. i read a bunch of other blogs, and people want to read about you, when you read about them. it’s a great way to meet people.

i certainly share a lot of personal information here, i’m not going to deny that reading this is going to help you understand me better. there’s a difference between understanding someone, and knowing them. anyways if you want to get to know me, you’re going to have to talk to me.

i don’t allow comments on my blog because people always want you to “sub4sub”. it’s like on youtube, it drives me crazy. people “subscribe” to your blog, and ask you to do the same. i want to subscribe to someone i find interesting. not to be mean, but i don’t want my blog to become some portal for someone who wants subscriptions. there’s plenty of others who are willing to do that. i still see the comments you write though, i just never publish them :) thanks all of you kind enough to write in.

right now i’m at that point where you’re on the tail end of a crush, but you can’t just be done with it. i’ve liked this one guy for a long time, of course he is (i hope) clueless to this fact. then again he doesn’t really know me that well, so i doubt i’m a second thought to him. normally i get really sad at this point, when i start to figure out they’re straight, but for some reason i’m not that sad. i really like him, it’s just never going to happen.

for a while i’ve been bumming out (okay... really frustrated) that i don’t have many “options” in this quaint little town. it really makes you feel incredibly isolated when you realize just how few people are like you. plus i’m not exactly the spitting image stereotype (though quite frankly i should probably stop walking into school looking so scruffy), so finding someone has been that much more difficult. it used to eat at me, and yeah while it’s frustrating, i’m starting to realize that it’s not the end of the world. the next three years are probably going to be a little rough in that sense, but i’m going to try not to let it phase me. i’m pretty lucky that so many people have been so great about this. i think that’s enough for now.

there’s this great song by a woman named meghan tonjes that’s been stuck in a head for obvious reasons for a while now.

love letter by meghan tonjes

[audio http://Dryan93.googlepages.com/LoveLetter.mp3]

you can check her out on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/tonjesml

she’s also quite funny, here’s one of her vlogs

peace ~ dave

Bilder från Hästensdag i Humlamaden

Alla bilder har väl inte högsta kvalité, men glädjen och farten kan man inte ta fel på.

This is my favourite shot from the Scratchy Apache Sunday Social at the Oakford last weekend. I feel responsible for showing how the spectators view the bands, because they see them differently than I. Here's me running about, one eye shut, in your face, not even able to listen to the music you produce as I'm concentrating to hard on "the shot". So here are the people you play for, intent, quiet, listening, laughing even talking sometimes, but always enthralled.

And you - the singer songwriter, technical wiz, rambling and headining groups - here you are in all your glory.

Megan Henwood

Dexter's Friends

The Midnight Rambler

The Wookies

As always these are the teasers, more fine shots can be found of these beautiful people on my Flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/adamreading

This weekend should be interesting - Sid's Velocity gig on Friday - at Rising Sun Arts Centre with Midimidis and 60 Watt Bayonet. The Hoosiers on Saturday night, and I hope Vivacity for a promo shoot on Sunday, Marathon permitting. So here's to an interesting set of shots!

What I am referring to is, when the bands that are playing join in and dance and have fun at the front during the other sets - so that every band has an audience and they're all enjoying each others music. Such a night was Velocity's Plug N Play outing on Saturday just gone. Most noticable was the rapport and goodwill between Diamond Lines and The Noyze as you will see from the Spectator shots.

This caused a really good night to turn into one of the best Reading nights out in ages - and I loved every minute!

Joey Ultra started the night with a bang - literally as they broke their drum pedal halfway through their set. Its the first time I'd seen them, and thought they started the night well, getting everybody warmed up for Diamond Lines.

There's not much I can say about these Thug Rockers I haven't said before, I love what they do, how they sound, how Bailey performs and carrys the stage - and I think that they compliment The Noyze superbly.

The Kicks are a polished rock band, very tight and together - and they are extremely photogenic for which I thank them!

I love The Noyze as much as I do Diamond Lines - and I really love the fact that Ross was right in the thick of it during DL's set. To be honest I'm just counting the days til they go bigtime and I'm buying their CD in HMV.

I have exhausted my wordage for today - so here come the pictures!

The Noyze

The Kicks

Diamond Lines

Joey Ultra

Spectators

So here's the madnesss of Saturday night in pictures - you know that the rest are on flickr for your perusal. http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamreading

Zeros

Devil Trigger

Second Storey Ruin

Heels Catch Fire

Fox Cubs

Spectators

Diamond Lines I've seen before and really like their musical style - its somewhere between the Jam and The Streets - but nothing like either. You'll have to go see them for yourselves.

Anyway enough guff from me, I'm a photographer not a music Critic!

Check out my website:

Midimidis

Diamond Lines

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The Tricoteurs

 
Somebodys Mind

The Zeros
 
 
Scratchy Apache

Aubrey Dye

Six Nation State

Along the Line of Ruin

Kamikazi Test Pilots

 
The Colours

 
 
White Sunday

 
Spectators

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So here are some of my snaps from The Rivermead - there are many more on my Flickr which you can access through www.flickr.com/photos/adamreading. See the original version of my blog at http://blog.adamreading.com and check out my website www.adamreading.com

The Bishops

James Blunt

Once I have waded through the 300+ pics from the Fez I'll post another blog here.

If you want me to be at your gig - get in touch.

Adam