Norbert Wu's Trips, Product Recommendations, and ...

Reef Photo is the Greatest

2012-01-24T11:47:00.001-08:00

I have a few sponsors (listed on my web pages) of my work. All of them are listed there for good reason -- they provide excellence in photographic gear and services.

I'd like to commend Reef Photo today, and the proprietor and fellow underwater photographer, Ryan Canon. Ryan Canon at Reef Photo is a star. He knows his stuff down to the last millimeter of detail. I am serious; ask him what port extension is needed to fit a 20-year-old Nikon 105mm AF Micro f2.8 lens, and he will tell you. I keep wondering when he is going to burn out since he seems to reply personally to all emails, with a level of detail that is astonishing.

Ryan's been a huge help to me and multitudes of other underwater photographers with his expertise and his retail operation. He's my first source now if I have a question about technique or what kind of gear might solve your problem, and I've been astonished at how much he remembers in terms of past questions. I think he knows what gear I have better than I do. He does take a few days to respond to my emails when he is busy, but I know that he always comes through in tight deadlines. Obviously, his patience is very high since he still answers my emails and questions!

If you are in the market for underwater photography gear, I can't give a higher recommendation than Reef Photo and Ryan Canon.

I Don't Quite Understand

2012-01-21T20:54:00.001-08:00

I don't quite understand how walking 60 miles for the Susan G. Komen foundation will solve the problem of breast cancer. I walk, I will be very sore, I will be very tired. How will that help solve breast cancer?

I don't mean to be mean. I donate to causes that I believe in and that are close to my heart. I did stop donating to the SPCA of Monterey County when the director told me that he would not stop robocalling because "it works."

I'm just tired of constantly being hit over the head with causes that want me to send them money. It's out of control, man! I'd like to drink my coffee without having to think whether I am saving a coffee grower in Africa. I'd like to walk without wondering if I am doing my part to beat breast cancer.

A Great, Inexpensive Cell Phone and Plan That Gives You Voice and Email

2012-01-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for years for an inexpensive (instead of outrageous) cell phone plan that offered me some minutes to talk as well as the ability to see and reply to my emails while I was traveling or doing errands. I mention the AT&T GoPhone plans in previous blog posts, which allow me to have exactly this. With an AT&T GoPhone plan and the right phone, you can have a cell phone and check all your emails for as little as $100 per year. You can even skip a month or two as this is a prepaid plan. Phone calls are $10 per minute, and checking your emails each month will cost as little as $5. I know, I've had this plan on a Blackberry that has the GMail mobile app on it for four months now, and I've gotten by with the $5 per month data plan easily.

I've had this plan for four months now, and if you talk on the phone for about 100 minutes per month and check your emails, it costs $15 per month ($10 for the voice calls and $5 for the data plan). I've now found a phone on Amazon that I can say works well.

One caveat -- if you receive or send text messages, the cost seems to be $0.20 per text message. This is outrageous. You can buy a package for $4.99 per month that gives you 200 text messages per month, or you can pay more for 1000 messages per month, or unlimited. I don't send or receive texts at all, so this is not an issue for me. I am a total email guy. Yes, I am old school.

I don't talk on my cell phone much at all. When I am at home or the office, I use a landline and Google Voice, which gives me free phone calls in the US (and maybe Canada). Google offers anyone with a Gmail free calling also -- just go into Gmail and use the Call feature. You enter the phone number, and Google connects you through your computer just like Skype, only for free. I also use Google Voice for international calls, which are very inexpensive, on the range of two cents per minute for Australia and England.

I have finally found a phone that is relatively inexpensive and will allow you to put the GMail mobile app on it. I did not want to buy another Blackberry -- Google no longer supports the GMail mobile app on the Blackberry, which means that you if you don't have it on a cell phone that allows the web, then you have to log into your web browser every time you want to check your email. The biggest feature of Blackberries, "push email", simply notifies you with a red flashing light on the Blackberry when a new email comes in. I discovered that my unlocked Blackberry with the GMail app on it (not the dedicated Blackberry email service) DID notify me this same way when I had a waiting email. Awesome! But Google went and canceled support for GMail on the Blackberry.

I wanted to find a phone for my wife that let me do the same two tasks -- voice calls and GMail. The phone had to let me install the GMail app rather than having to open a web browser. I've done a ton of searching and reading, and I finally bought a Nokia X2-01 from Amazon for $85. This is a nice phone, seems sturdy, and after much fiddling and research on the web, I got it working so I have the GMail mobile app on it.

I have found that Nokia's email app works nicely with Gmail too. It does not use push email as well as the Blackberry. If the phone is locked (not powered off), it seems that a notice of incoming emails does appear on the screen, but there is no flashing light. I have to test this further and use the phone a bit longer. But this phone has good battery life, good build quality, and once you get it set up, it seems to fit the bill. You won't get a full-fledged web browser or 3G or 4G speed. The Opera browser doesn't do much for me at all; it is very slow and limited.

Here are some important notes if you want to use this phone's email and internet browser on the AT&T network.

There are a ton of confusing and old posts that describe how to set various Nokia phones to use the AT&T GPRS network. If you follow those instructions, then you might get your Opera browser on the phone to work, but will get constant error messages when trying to get GMail and the Nokia email app to work. The error messages will include "subscribe to packet data first" and "you need a working internet connection for this application to work."

Note that the Nokia X2-01 phone runs the Series 40 or S40 operating system. There are not many tutorials out there that explain how to set up this particular phone, so you have to use instructions and adapt them to the instruction set of this phone.

This video is just great. I spent hours on the internet trying to figure out the settings so my Nokia phone could access the internet, and so I could set up Gmail on it. This video provided the answer -- most of the files on the internet do not provide the right or most current information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyTD7GYIWZI

In summary, you want to get to the Settings-Configuration menu on your Nokia S40 phone. Set one access point and call it AT&T Internet or whatever you want. Go into Bearer Setting and set Packet data access pt. to "wap.cingular". Network type IPv4, Authentication type Normal, and User name to "wap@cingulargprs.com". Leave password blank.

If anyone wants instructions on how to get the GMail app on this phone, just leave a comment. However, after setting my phone up correctly so I could use the standard Nokia email app, I discovered that it worked fine for my needs.

Come On, Man! Amazon's Customer Centric Email is Decidedly NOT!!

2012-01-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

Wow. I've had a nightmarish experience with Amazon. If you have a problem with Amazon that falls out of their ordinary customer service abilities, FORGET IT!! Count on being sucked into a 21st-century vortex from which no customer satisfaction will be possible.

Here's my situation, and you have to love the ironic Amazon signature at the bottom of the email:

"Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company"

Basically, I used Amex Rewards points to buy an item on Amazon. It should not have happened, but Amazon withdrew points to make my Rewards balance negative. A $25 purchase on Amazon will thus cost me $75 to clear off my Rewards Balance. I called Amex. They connected me to Amazon. Amazon kept sending me emails like the one below, which said they needed more information from me, but did not give me any way to contact them.

*********
Greetings from Amazon.com.
To process your refund for order 106-xxx-72343-333xx, we require some additional information regarding the payment method that we are attempting to use for the refund.

This refund is for the following item(s):
Item: SDHC card
Quantity: 1
ASIN: ASINBESDXXX
Reason for refund: Item billing error

Here's a breakdown of your refund for this item: Item Refund: $25.41

Thank you for your patience and assistance in this matter.

Sincerely, Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com

Note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

*****
So, Amazon needs more information from me, but does not provide any way for me to get this information to them. That's hardly "Customer-Centric."

Amazon is hell-bent on not allowing customers to call back or hold its representatives or supervisors accountable. It took me literally six calls and two emails to speak to four Amazon representatives and two supervisors to feel like I may have resolved this problem.

I am very hard of hearing, so I rarely answer the phone. Instead, I call someone back when I am at home and can use a special handset that amplifies calls. This presents huge problems when companies like Amazon and Comcast refuse to give ways to call them back. Comcast is the worst, but my experience with Amazon has shaken my faith in them.

Come On, You Can Do Better Than This, Quicken and Intuit!

2011-12-22T10:58:00.001-08:00

I thought I was a dinosaur. I started using Quicken back in the days of the Mac SE in the late 1980's, and even then I was astounded that it had so little functionality. It does very little besides being a checkbook register and generating reports.

Quicken has always been easy to use, but that's because it is so very basic. It has always had bugs and I've taken the time to write Intuit to have those bugs resolved, to no avail. One huge problem (unresolved over 20 years) is that sometimes trying to find a word string or client's name just won't work. At the end of the year, I combine Quicken accounts and some transactions are inevitably missed and passed over. I have to then go into every account and laboriously figure out what the missing transaction is.

I've tried Quicken for the PC to track my investment portfolio. Holy crap, what a waste of time that was. Quicken for the PC's investment and portfolio tracking registers and methods are incredibly frustrating to use.

There was a great web-based portfolio service called Mint.com. Intuit bought them early this year. A short time afterward, Mint.com lost all my account information and became unusable.

Here's a recent notice from Quicken, force-fed to my mail inbox even though I opted out of all mailings from Intuit. Wow, big news -- Quicken 2007 might work for Mac OS Lion users by spring 2012!!!!

Hello, Intuit?! It is the end of 2011!! Isn't it time for you to make Quicken for the Mac and PC into something that better befits 2012? It has not been 2007 for a long time now. The iPhone came out in 2007 for the first time. There were no tablets. Blackberries were still cutting edge. Isn't it time that you made something that is bitching rather than a clunker?

Thanks, Comcast, for Making My Life Hell

2011-12-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Comcast, for making me type all kinds of stuff and then just closing the chat session without answering my questions.

CHAT ID: 28B4ABB1-40F2-4F2A-99E0-556D4A5Fxxxx

The session below has been edited for privacy.

Norbert: My Issue: can't cancel autopay or make a one-time payment

analyst Ronald Louie has entered room

Ronald Louie: Hello Norbert, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Ronald Louie. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Ronald Louie: I understand that you have a concern about your autopay, I thank you for your time. You've reached the right department and I will be happy to help you with your concern.

Ronald Louie: For security purposes, may I please have the full name, phone number listed on your account?

Norbert: gives this information a third time.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for that, please give me a moment to pull up your account.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for waiting, I have the account now. To complete verification, may I have the last 4 digits of your SSN?

Norbert: last 4 digits is xxx

Norbert: I also am trying to figure out what my service plan and the monthly charge. I see the instructions on your website but they do not work!

Norbert: I signed up for $29.99 per month Performance and should not have been charged any kind of installation fee, yet my current bill is for $48.91. Lots of problems, I have had to call many people to get this account set up correctly.

Norbert: First, lets cancel the automatic payments and then let me pay off the current bill!

Ronald Louie: Sure. Please give me a moment to check on your autopay issue.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for waiting, try to remove cancel autopay this time and check.

Norbert: OK, I will do so and hope you can answer my other questions in the meantime.

Ronald Louie: Sure. What are your other issues?

Norbert: I also am trying to figure out what my service plan and the monthly charge. I see the instructions on your website but they do not work!

Ronald Louie: I'm really sorry for all the trouble, Norbert. I see here that your new Internet monthly rate is $29.99.

Norbert: That's great. Can you tell me what the speed is supposed to be? Also, if you check all the bills associated with the startup of this account, you will see a mess. But starting 12-9-11 to 1-8-12, the monthly charge should be only 29.99. Can you credit my account $18 so that this is correct? I believe the $18 charge is some kind of installation or other service fee that surely should not have been charged given all the trouble I have had getting this service started. I can give you a list of Comcast staff who I talked to and promised to resolve the issue but did not.

Norbert: I appreciate it. I have been able to cancel auto APS and am trying to make a one-time payment now.

Ronald Louie: Let me check on this, Norbert. Please give me a moment.

Ronald Louie: I'm sorry for the delay. I need more time, please give me 2 more minutes. Thank you.

The chat session has been closed

Ronald Louie: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

PS -- if you are trying to make a one-time payment on Comcast, it won't work on Safari for the Mac. Try Firefox if you are using a Mac.

Golf Courses Don't Quite Get It Sometimes

2011-12-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Apple Aperture Software for a Great Deal

2011-11-19T11:58:00.001-08:00

I'm still using Apple Aperture to organize my photos. Just spent a week really getting my digital photo library in shape. Spent time at God's Pocket doing this also. Big job, finally done.

They are now selling it for $79 at the App Store! folks who bought it recently for $199 are pissed.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2709758?threadID=2709758&start=15&tstart=60

I bought Lightroom but never have used it. Just started using my Canon full-frame body to duplicate photos. Both Canon and Lightroom have a utility ideal for this -- see the viewfinder, focus, take shots on your computer screen rather than at the camera. Holy moly, much easier.

AT&T’s GoPhone plans offer mobile web and email, Canada and Mexico roaming

2011-10-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

I am pretty impressed with the capabilities and reasonable rates of AT&T’s GoPhone plans:

Here's how it works. Buy a GoPhone (there are phones as cheap as $10 at the local department store, and you can see phones online). I myself have an old Blackberry that is unlocked. Any GSM phone that is unlocked should work on AT&T's network. If you buy a new phone from AT&T, you might want to consider a phone that has mobile web and email along with a full QWERTY keypad. These seem to start at about $50. The GoPhones in a local Fred Meyer were far less expensive than the phones in the AT&T store.

Next, buy $15, $25, $50, or $100 cards so you have time in your phone. The $15 card only lasts 30 days. The $25 card lasts 90 days. The $100 card is good for an entire year. I personally think that the $25 card is the best deal and works best for me.

If you buy another card and renew before the time expires (eg 90 days for a $25 card), then any unused amounts roll over.

Here’s what I did. This procedure will be the same for folks that buy a new AT&T GoPhone:

I already had an unlocked Blackberry that I bought last year on Ebay for $100 (an unlocked T-Mobile Blackberry, which is a quad-band phone that will work on GSM networks around the world). I went to the AT&T store today, and they confirmed that their GoPhone SIM card did indeed work in my old Blackberry. It cost $15 plus tax to activate the card. If I do not keep the phone active (eg buy $25 every three months), then the phone will become inactive, and I will have to pay this fee again.

With the $25 card, I have a choice of buying a data plan also. $5 for 10Mb, $15 for 100 Mb, etc. I chose the $15 plan. This comes out of the $25 prepaid card, leaving me with $10 for voice calls. I chose the $0.10 per minute plan.

If I roam and use the phone in Canada, my calls within Canada will cost $0.39 per minute. I see that there will be data roaming charges of $0.0195 per KB.

Here’s the web page explaining international roaming rates:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/gophone-international-roaming.jsp

As usual, I knew more than the store representatives about their plans. The clerk who initially helped me stated that it was not possible to use a GoPhone in Canada or Mexico. I asked him to check the internet, then directed him to the above page. While he was browsing that page, I picked up a few brochures about the GoPhone. Every single brochure, as well as the very large poster on the wall, explained that roaming in Canada and Mexico was now possible!

I am thrilled with being able to have email and web access on a phone, using AT&T’s GoPhone service, at what could be as low as $25 every three months, which works out to $8.33 per month or $100 per year. I am also thrilled to have a phone that will work in Canada and Mexico at reasonable rates. Awesome!

Please note that I am using my old Blackberry as a simple smartphone for web and email, but at these rates and on this plan, I don't believe that I can use the Blackberry's email and web services. Instead, I am using Opera as my web browser, and Gmail for my email. I am not getting push-email, which is Blackberry's killer app. This is too bad, but for this budget, I am not at all unhappy.

Update 11-30-11:

OK, I've now had the plan for a couple of months, and I've learned the following.

1. Texting and voice calls while in Canada worked, both to and from my phone while in Canada (For newbies, this is "international roaming"). However, even though AT&T's website lists a rate per Kb of data while roaming in Canada, I was unable to get data while in Canada. It may be as simple as calling AT&T and asking them to allow my phone to have international access. I somehow doubt it will be that easy, however. I am sick and tired of calling phone companies and knowing more about their plans and services than the agent that I am talking to.

2. This really is a heck of a good deal for voice calls and email service in the US. There are many options, but this is how I am using and paying for this plan. I pay $25 and this keeps my phone active for three months. Out of this $25, voice calls are 10 cents per minute. I rarely make voice calls so this suits me. Also out of this $25, I purchased a $15 data plan that gave me 100 Mb of data. The first month, I used less than 10 Mb of data. I signed up to automatically purchase $5 worth of data each month, which gives me 10Mb of data each month. By doing this, the extra data that I purchased initially and did not use rolls over every month.

I now have a phone that I can use for voice calls and to check my emails everywhere in the US, for less than $100 per year. Awesome. I don't have the patience to use the Opera web browser much at all, so I am only using this for emails (web access is very slow and frustrating on this phone too).

AT&T GoPhones Seem to Have Good Canada Rates

2011-10-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

I've recommended prepaid, monthly, pay-as-you go cell phone providers and services in the past. I've been using Net10 prepaid phones and services for the past three years and have been pretty happy -- about $15 per month for 150 minutes each month has worked well for me.

It looks like AT&T has quietly introduced a 10-cent per minute prepaid plan. I am not sure, but it seems that you simply pay a flat 10 cents per minute, and the minutes don't seem to expire every month or two like Net10's do.

Another big plus is that the AT&T GoPhones seem to work in Mexico and Canada, offering reasonable rates. Here's a link:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/gophone-international-roaming.jsp

The above link shows rates to use AT&T GoPhones in Canada and Mexico. The rates for Canada are 0.39 per minute. These are AT&T's prepaid phones, pay by the minute.

You can buy a phone for $20 and just keep it for your trips to Canada and Mexico. I think I am going to do so. I have an unlocked Blackberry that I used to use on the T-Mobile network, which is GSM, as is AT&T's network. I ordered a SIM card that will hopefully work on the AT&T GoPhone network in my old Blackberry. I'll post to this blog how things go in Canada with this phone.

My other recommendation for folks who want an inexpensive, prepaid plan with emails is to purchase a Blackberry at Walmart that works with the Virgin Mobile network. These cost $100 now, and the Virgin Mobile network will then work with the Blackberry for only $35 per month for unlimited data and 300 talk minutes. (To get Blackberry email and web browsing, you have to pay another $10 per month above this). Pretty good deal, but if you need to use your Blackberry internationally, you will have to go with AT&T's contract service (like most intl travelers that I know). As far as I know, the Virgin Mobile Blackberry service won't work outside of the US.

A perfect solution would be an AT&T GoPhone service that will work with my Blackberry, is prepaid, and works all over the world.

Showing the Present Folder Location of an Email in Thunderbird

2011-09-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

Here's what I recently wrote my friend and computer expert Michael McFann:

"I have a question about Thunderbird that has been driving me crazy for a long time.

Tbird's find function works great. It will find all emails mentioning "shark" for instance.

But if I am actually within an email message -- I have it open, I can even see the thread (see screengrab) -- I can't for the life of me figure out how to see what folder that message is in. I can move the message to a folder, but I can't see the current folder.

Perhaps you can tell me what I am missing. "

Mike replied, and his answer works!

"The column header bar above the found messages allows customization of the columns displayed. Click on the little icon to the far right on the bar to show a drop-down menu of columns you can display. Choose the one called "Location" to display the folder the message is stored within."

Now this seems fairly obvious.

Thanks, Mike!

Extracting Pages from PDF Files

2011-09-30T21:30:00.001-07:00

I have recently had to do a lot of work with PDF files. One of the jobs is to print emails to a PDF file, but then to separate all of those emails so that they are on separate PDFs.

I do my work on Macs, so the below procedures apply to Macs.

I use Thunderbird to get my emails, and I organize emails into folders. To print all emails in a folder, I have found that if I select a bunch of emails, Thunderbird only prints summaries of the emails. So I've been exporting all emails as a .mbox file, then bringing that .mbox file into Entourage 2004 (part of Microsoft Office for the Mac up to version 2008). Entourage then can print all selected emails as a PDF, rather than just a summary of the emails.

To extract separate emails from the long PDF, I use an old, old version of Adobe Acrobat. It still works on my Snow Leopard machine, which is kind of amazing, but it is old and clunky. Buying a new version seems wasteful since the program is expensive, I don't use the program all the time, and I know that there are alternatives out there. I try not to use or buy Adobe software if at all possible, because I have had so much trouble with their registration and activation of licenses for software, and in trying to transfer software licenses when I buy new computers.

My friend and computer expert Michael McFann suggested this instead:

"If the task is to simply extract pages from an existing PDF file, then OS X's built-in app "Preview" will allow you to extract one or more pages from an existing pdf.

For example, I have included a document on Facebook security and a second pdf that has just one of the pages from the original pdf file.

The trick is to make sure you display the sidebar which displays the page thumbnails and simply drag/drop the pages. You can also combine pdf's this way. "

Keeping Data Charges Down When Traveling With the iPad

2011-09-18T10:39:00.001-07:00

I don't travel as much as I used to. When I was traveling six or nine months out of the year, then having a Blackberry with AT&T was an essential tool. You could get emails on the Blackberry all over the world. The AT&T network is GSM, rather than Verizon's CDMA, so it works in far more countries than Verizon.

It was pretty awesome and relatively inexpensive when I was overseas. I could get emails in the most remote places, like Sorong (eastern Irian Jaya) and off Komodo Island, Indonesia! I saw Eric Cheng do this and went and got myself one. The Blackberry was well-suited for getting emails, but not web browsing, so it was relatively easy to avoid huge data charges.

While I liked the Blackberry, I hated the commitment (I didn't use my Blackberry when I was home). I've been waiting for the last few years for a company that would offer a Blackberry plan with international capability that is around $35 per month (my old rate, but 2-year contract), would work overseas, and could go month-to-month. There's been nothing. Virgin Mobile sells a Blackberry, with a plan that is about $35 per month, but they use the Sprint Network -- which is CDMA and is unlikely to work overseas. T-Mobile is a possibility, but as far as I can tell (and their plans and rates are always changing, despite what the website says, and despite any promises their sales staff in their stores make) the cheapest Blackberry plan is $50 per month (T-Mobile's network is GSM, a good thing, and they do seem to offer prepaid Blackberry plans rather than only long-term commitments). AT&T's Blackberry plans seem to be all expensive and require long-term commitments.

So I am going to try my iPad (version 1) which offers AT&T's 3G network. I've heard that using an iPhone or iPad when traveling internationally can result in huge, surprising data charges. I've done my research and hope that the below might help minimize my data charges.

First, I will strive to use my iPad when overseas ONLY as an email device. I will try not to use the web unless I am using a wifi network.

The biggest problem with getting emails is if someone sends you a large attachment. From my experience with the Blackberry and reading about data charges, I can see that downloading a small photograph of my wife and dogs can cost as much as $20!! Therefore, finding a way to NOT download attachments is important.

Here's my step-by-step solution to this problem. I'm going to try this on my trip to Vancouver Island, Canada, coming up. I'll let this blog know if this works or not.

Summary of email settings when traveling with ipad.

First, having Gmail accounts is important. Gmail accounts will forward emails to other email accounts. All my accounts are Gmail accounts, even those that have my norbertwu.com suffix/domain --- these are “Gmail for Apps” email addresses. Setting up an email address that uses a custom domain name like "norbertwu.com" and is administered through Google Apps is great, but should be covered elsewhere.

Create a couple of Gmail accounts in addition to the ones you normally use. Let’s call them mytravel_emails@gmail.com and mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com. Create these accounts on your iPad too.

1. Set your primary email address(es) to forward all emails to mytravel_emails@gmail.com .

2. Set mytravel_emails@gmail.com to filter incoming emails. Emails with attachments are immediately filtered, sent to the account archive, and therefore not sent to my ipad.

This is done under the Gmail settings menus.

Choose main Filters menu: matches: has: attachment and Do This: Skip Inbox.

Emails with attachments are also forwarded to mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com.

3. When traveling and using the AT&T network, check only the email account mytravel_emails@gmail.com. This email account ONLY shows emails that have no attachments.

In summary, here’s what happens. Any emails with NO attachments are sent to my iPad. Since there are no attachments, I will get only emails that don’t use a lot of data. Any emails with attachments are sent to the second email address that I will check when I have wifi.

On the ipad:

It is possible to turn off email accounts so they won’t check emails when traveling. Turn off your primary email account when traveling. Turn off the email account that is receiving attachments. mytravel_emails_w_attachments@gmail.com.

When overseas or when data usage is a concern, check only mytravel_emails@gmail.com which will show ONLY emails without attachments.

There are certainly lots of other ways to do this. For instance, to check for emails with attachments:

The original forwarding email account will show both emails with and without attachments. I coud search for all emails with attachments using a web browser at the original forwarding email account. I could check mytravel_emails@gmail.com’s Archive for emails with attachments only.

There are other things you can do, such as auto-notifications when you are gone, and setting your reply-to address to be your primary email account. You can even tell folks who send you attachments that you are traveling and may not get their email since it had an attachment.

The above is my plan. It has not been tested. I hope that this will help fellow travelers who wish to keep some of their hard-earned dollars from the greedy hands of the cellphone companies, but I must add this cautionary note: Do this yourself at your own risk. I have not tested the above overseas yet and do not know how it will work.

During my research, here’s a question and answer that I came across on the web:

Is there a way not to download attachments in emails in ipad? no, attachments over a certain size are automatically downloaded. Over a certain size, you have to click on the icon to download the attachment. General rule to avoid data charges: Only check using wifi.

Note that in Gmail’s filters, there’s a way to search for emails WITH attachments, but no easy way to search for emails WITHOUT attachments. This is why I had to go through the relatively convoluted process above.

WATCH OUT for this phishing scam

2011-09-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

I would like to think that I am pretty good about avoiding scams. If someone calls me up and tells me that my grandson Timmy is calling, and needs money sent to a Western Union right away, I won't be sending money anytime soon. Nor will I be sending money to the guy in Nigeria who keeps writing me. I have to check and see if I ever posted on my blog the scams based around counterfeit cashier's checks. Quickly -- if someone sends you a cashier's check, and even if your bank tells you that the cashier's check is fine -- don't believe your bank. Wait 3-4 weeks until your bank absolutely and definitely confirms that the funds are in your account. It's astonishing to me that I could take a counterfeit check to my bank (BofA) and that the teller would tell me that the check looks fine but she can't promise anything.

Here's another scam. I almost fell for it. I have a car listed on craigslist for sale. I got this in the email:

Is this your item? It has the same pics. Please check it: http://newyork.craigslist.org/aaa/65200

Thank you.

I clicked on the link, and a page that looked like a normal craigslist page opened up. Except it wanted my login information. That's the only thing that stopped me. Normally, if I am viewing a link on craigslist, I don't need to supply my login information.

I then looked at the link that my browser was trying to open. It was something completely unrelated to craigslist.

SCAM! Watch out!

Is an Offer to the Mill Valley Film Festival REALLY Important Account Information That Customers Cannot Turn Off?

2011-09-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

After reading the below, if any of you would like to call Chase to tell them that an invitation to the Mill Valley Film Festival does not qualify as important account information, here's the contact information:

Here's part of what Bonnie Casper, Email Customer Service Advisor, wrote me when I complained. Her phone is 1-800-436-7927:

Account emails advising account information or rewards
program information are not solicitations. These emails
are sent to notify you of important information regarding
your account. Unfortunately we are unable to stop these
emails from being sent. {Bold put in by Norb}

***********

I keep tight control over my email Inbox. Therefore it really irritates me when companies that I do business with send spam, BS, marketing emails and try to tell me that these are important emails relating to my business with them. Most of the time, the companies take an arrogant attitude to spamming you, and won't even provide a way to unsubscribe from their "important account updates."

I'll be posting some examples.

Here's a letter I wrote to Chase:

Dear Chase:

I got this email from Chase.com, attached and as text below. It is for the Mill Valley Film Festival.

Reading further, this email states:

ABOUT THIS MESSAGE:
This service message was delivered to you as a Chase Credit Card customer to provide you with account updates and information about your card benefits. Chase values your privacy and your preferences.

This is not fraudulent, but it is a serious abuse by Chase. I have gone online to try to turn off this kind of spam from Chase but cannot find a way to do so. There is no way to unsubscribe given in this email.

Please do not abuse your customer's emails and trust in your bank by sending marketing emails and labeling them as service messages or account updates.

If I remove my email address from my account so that I don't get these emails, then that means that I will miss really important emails from Chase.

Don't abuse your customer's email addresses!!

Signed, Norbert Wu

**********************
I got this reply from Chase. Hey folks out there, if you are outraged by this sort of thing, perhaps you can write this Chase guy and let him know what you think about spams.

Date: 09-02-2011 14:21:20
From: Credit Card Support
Subject: Re: General Comments
Message:
Dear Norbert Wu,
Thank you for contacting Chase about your privacy choices.
Your email address has been removed from receiving email
solicitations. However, if offers were prepared for you
before we fulfilled your request; you may still receive
those offers for up to 10 days from the date your request
was processed. If you change your email, you will need to
update your request to include your new email.
Account emails advising account information or rewards
program information are not solicitations. These emails
are sent to notify you of important information regarding
your account. Unfortunately we are unable to stop these
emails from being sent.
If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.
Thank you,
Bonnie Casper
Email Customer Service Advisor
1-800-436-7927
Account is owned by Chase Bank USA, N.A. and may be
serviced by its affiliates.
**********************************************************
**********
DO YOU KNOW AT CHASE ONLINE YOU CAN ....
- Gain instant access to view and download your credit
card information.
- See and pay your bill online
- Transfer balances
- Change your address and much more....
**********************************************************

Today is Septmeber 14. I got another email from Chase about the stinking Mill Valley film festival. But this time, there was a way to unsubscribe. We'll see if Chase really solved the problem or not.

Good on Gander Mountain (not really)! Cancel an Order and Then Send Marketing Emails!

2011-09-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Wow, the customer service and marketing at Gander Mountain is really good. Would you want to place another order with this merchant?

They advertise a good deal on the web, you place an order. The order is confirmed.
Two days later, they tell you that the price was a mistake, and they are cancelling your order.
Then they put you on their email marketing list.

Smart or not so smart?

These guys are not as bad as Staples, who took several orders of mine last year, cancelled all of them, but notified me of only 1 of 3 cancelled orders. They just didn't bother or care.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Your GanderMtn.com Order Wxxx
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:21:57 -0400
From: Gander Mountain
Reply-To: service@gandermtn.com
To: xxx

Hello Norbert -

Thank you for your recent order with Gander Mountain. Unfortunately, the item(s) that you purchased were priced incorrectly on our website and, due to this error, your order for xxx has been canceled. Please click here for more details regarding our misprint policy.

If you would still like to purchase the item(s), please place another order on our website as the pricing has been corrected. Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions, please contact us at 888-542-6337 or email service@gandermtn.com. Thank you.

Regards,

Gander Mountain Customer Service
This email was sent to xxx by Gander Mountain
111 Red Banks Road, Greenville, NC 27858
Forward to a friend | NEW! Manage Preferences | Unsubscribe

Why Photographers Are So Tired of Donating Images to NonProfits Part 3

2011-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

We photographers out here are trying to find time to do what we love and spend time in nature. We did not get into this to respond to rude folks who want something from us, want something in a rush, and are then incredibly rude and insulting if we say no.

In short, we did not respond to several messages from this nonprofit that they sent over the Labor Day weekend. I suppose William's response from our office was snotty, but being deluged by emails when we came into the office on Tuesday was a bit much.

But do I then deserve to be insulted by her reply? Here's her reply, which I consider to be way out of line:

"Many environmental photographers support our
efforts to conserve the species that they are photographing and making
money from. I sent 3 emails last night as I had sent an email to
'office' two days ago and had not had a reply and I am running out of
time to complete this report."

Yo, folks in nonprofits. You pay your printers, your electricity bills, your staff, your janitors, your garbage collectors, the post office for all your mailings. Why are you always asking photographers for free usage of their images? Why not just pay photographers like you pay yourselves.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: License this photo
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:10:51 +0300
From: roberta.dixon@wilderness.org.au
To: stock agent,office@norbertwu.com

Roberta Dixonrequested license for this photo:

Knifetooth sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) saw used for burrowing
and stunning fish

Anoxypristis cuspidata

Please contact this user using this email:roberta.dixon@wilderness.org.au

User's comment:
The Wilderness Society are in the process of writing an icon report for
the North marine bioregion (Shark Bay, WA to NT/WA border) for use in
community consultation and to submit to the Federal Government's as part
of their bioregional planning process. As such, we are trying to source
some beautiful marine images for this bioregion and a photo of
Anoxypristis cuspidata specifically (one of the species we are trying to
protect). I was wondering if you have a special rate for non-commercial,
NGO

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: License this photo
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:12:26 +0300
From: roberta.dixon@wilderness.org.au
To: stock agent,office@norbertwu.com

Roberta Dixonrequested license for this photo:

Knifetooth sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) saw used for burrowing
and stunning fish

Anoxypristis cuspidata

Please contact this user using this email:roberta.dixon@wilderness.org.au

User's comment:
Just sent you an email - I need the file size between 2-4MB. Thanks,
Roberta

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Knifetooth sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) photos
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2011 11:38:57 +1000
From: Roberta Dixon
To: office@norbertwu.com

Dear Norbert,

The Wilderness Society (Australia) are in the process of writing an icon
report for the Northern Australian bioregion (NT/WA border in the west
to the Tip of Cape York in the east) for use in community consultation
and to submit to the Federal Government as part of their bioregional
planning process. The Australian Federal Government are presently
trying to work out which areas in this marine bioregion they will be
protecting - we are trying to encourage them to protect more rather than
the less option they presently have on the table. As such, we are
trying to source some beautiful marine images for this bioregion.
Specifically I was after a photo of a Knifetooth sawfish (Anoxypristis
cuspidata) and found your one on animalsandearth. I was wondering if
you had a 2-4MB copy of this photo we would be able to use in this
report (with full accreditation obviously)? As with most things in this
life, we need it ASAP.

Yours sincerely,

Roberta.

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Knifetooth Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) image
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:07:56 +1000
From: Roberta Dixon
To: office@norbertwu.com

To Norbert,

The Wilderness Society are in the process of writing an icon report for
the Australian Northern bioregion (NT/WA border in the west to the Tip
of Cape York in the east) for use in community consultation and to
submit to the Federal Government as part of their bioregional planning
process (- they are trying to decide what areas of the commonwealth
waters in the NT are worthy of protection). As such, we are trying to
source some beautiful marine images for this bioregion. The Knifetooth
Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) is one of the species we are trying to
source for this report.

SHK0040
Knifetooth Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) saw used for burrowing and
stunning fish

I saw this image on your website. I need the image to be between
2-4MB. I also wanted to check on the use of photos for non-commercial
educational/conservational purposes by an NGO. Do you have a special
rate for use in these circumstances? We will be looking at a very small
print run (>600, mainly for politicians) and some PDF copies of the
report to be made available during the period of consultation. We will
also need it ASAP.

Thanks for your assistance,

Roberta.

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Knifetooth Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) image
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 10:05:41 +1000
From: Roberta Dixon
To: Norbert Wu Productions Office

Dear William,

I did not ask for you to donate the image, I was just wondering if there
was a special rate. Many environmental photographers support our
efforts to conserve the species that they are photographing and making
money from. I sent 3 emails last night as I had sent an email to
'office' two days ago and had not had a reply and I am running out of
time to complete this report.

Thanks for your efforts,

Roberta

On 7 September 2011 00:27, Norbert Wu Productions Office
> wrote:

please find another image. We do not donate images to nonprofits
and particularly not ones that bombard us with emails and are in a rush.

Sorry to be direct. We have a FAQ page that addresses this on our
website.

Signed,
William
------------------------------__----------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA
www.norbertwu.com

On 9/5/11 10:07 PM, Roberta Dixon wrote:

To Norbert,

The Wilderness Society are in the process of writing an icon
report for
the Australian Northern bioregion (NT/WA border in the west to
the Tip
of Cape York in the east) for use in community consultation and to
submit to the Federal Government as part of their bioregional
planning
process (- they are trying to decide what areas of the commonwealth
waters in the NT are worthy of protection). As such, we are
trying to
source some beautiful marine images for this bioregion. The
Knifetooth
Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) is one of the species we are
trying to
source for this report.

__>SHK0040

Knifetooth Sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) saw used for
burrowing and
stunning fish

I saw this image on your website. I need the image to be between
2-4MB. I also wanted to check on the use of photos for
non-commercial
educational/conservational purposes by an NGO. Do you have a
special
rate for use in these circumstances? We will be looking at a
very small
print run (>600, mainly for politicians) and some PDF copies of the
report to be made available during the period of consultation.
We will
also need it ASAP.

Thanks for your assistance,

Roberta.

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

--
*Roberta Dixon*
Marine Working Group Convener
The Wilderness Society
Tel: (02) 4385 9893

If I ask a favor of someone, I don't try to take advantage of that person.

2011-09-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

If I ask a favor of someone, I don't try to take advantage of that person.

As an example of a nonprofit organization requesting my office to donate an image, but then presenting my office with an outrageous contract, here’s an email exchange between myself and a photo editor at Conservation International. I am putting this here so that other photo editors at nonprofit organizations don’t make the same mistake.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Request for use of image for non-commercial media use
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:52:51 -0400
From: Sarah Hoyt
To:

Hello,
I work for Conservation International’s Global Marine Division in media and communications. I am assisting in media outreach for an article to be published in PLoS ONE in the coming weeks titled “Global Conservation Priorities for Marine Turtles.” The paper is a unique global priority-setting analysis that lists the most endangered and the healthiest sea turtle populations in the world based on thousands of data points and input from dozens of experts.

To coincide with the release of the paper, we will be sending press releases and posting blogs and slideshows to raise awareness about at-risk populations of sea turtles and also to highlight conservation successes.

Ideally, this will include at least one image from each healthy and each endangered population. We would like to request permission to : 1) use the attached image on CI’s website to promote this story; and 2) make this image available to media for use in connection with this story.

The license agreement for the desired image is attached, along with a low-res JPEG of the image. I would be very grateful if we could get your and the photographer’s permission to use this image for the purposes described above. If the terms are agreeable, I would appreciate it if you could please send a high-res JPEG along with the signed agreement.

I look forward to hearing from you. And thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
Sarah
Sarah Hoyt| Global Marine Division
Conservation International | 2011 Crystal Drive | Suite 500 | Arlington, VA 22202
Phone: 703-341-2505

COPYRIGHT LICENSE

For good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, I, Norbert Wu, hereby grant to Conservation International Foundation, including all subsidiaries and affiliates thereof (hereinafter referred to singularly and collectively as “CI”), a royalty-free license, including the right to sub-license, to exercise all rights of whatever kind or nature now or hereafter protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all foreign countries in and to the photo titled “PNG0031_Hawksbill turtle”, for the sole non-commercial use to promote an online story of the published paper “Global Conservation Priorities for Marine Turtles” on Conservation International’s website and other press outreach.

I represent and warrant:
(i) that I am the sole owner of the Photographs;
(ii) that I hold the complete and undivided copyrights in the Photographs;
(iii) that I have the full right and power to make this license;
(iv) that there are no rights outstanding which would diminish, encumber or impair the full enjoyment or exercise of the rights herein granted to CI;
(v) that I have obtained any required releases from any person or for any property depicted in the Photographs; and
(vi) that I have no knowledge of any objection by any person or entity, or other third party acting on behalf of the depicted subjects, against the exercise of any of the rights granted hereunder; I hereby bind myself to advise CI immediately if any such objection comes to our knowledge in the future.

I understand and agree that if any of the above representations and warranties are found to be false or inaccurate, that I shall indemnify and hold harmless CI and its officers, directors, members, employees, and agents, from and against any and all claims of third parties, including losses, damages, legal fees, and all other expenses.

It is understood and agreed that CI, as well as any sub-licensee of CI, shall submit to me a copy of the specific application and credit me, Norbert Wu, as the copyright owner of my photos:

© Norbert Wu

I represent to CI that I am 18 years of age or older and legally capable of binding myself to this license and release agreement.

Signature: _____________________________________

Name: _____________________________________

Date: _____________________________________

**************
From: Norbert Wu Productions Office [mailto:office@norbertwu.com]

Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 1:02 PM

To: Sarah Hoyt

Subject: Re: Request for use of image for non-commercial media use

Dear Ms. Hoyt:

I had a good laugh when I received your email and looked at the contract language (which I converted to a PDF and have attached). I am assuming that CI is not offering to pay for the use of this image. So my assumption is this: CI wants to use my image for free. CI expects me and my office to spend the time to peruse, understand, and approve the legal language in your contract. If I sign this legal document, it seems that CI then acquires the image and can license the image as it wishes.

Why in the world would I allow this? More to the point, why would CI ask for a photographer(s) to donate their hard-earned images (which have required thousands of dollars to acquire) and also saddle the photographer with a predatory contract that has this onerous legal language that might slip by less-informed photographers?

I am offended by this request and its accompanying contract. I've already sent it to a couple of colleagues. They've both found the contract language to be objectionable and disrespectful to photographers. I am bcc:ing a few more colleagues on this email. Perhaps some of them will chime in on this issue.

Here's the language that I find most objectionable (bold emphasis added by me):

...{I, Norbert Wu, hereby grant to Conservation International Foundation, including all subsidiaries and affiliates thereof (hereinafter referred to singularly and collectively as “CI”), a royalty-free license, including the right to sub-license, to exercise all rights of whatever kind or nature now or hereafter....

If I ask a favor of someone, I don't try to take advantage of that person. If I need a ride and ask to borrow a friend's car, I don't have him sign a document that then gives me ownership of that car or lets me make money by renting the car out to the end of eternity. If CI is going to ask photographers for their help in publicizing its causes, then CI will hopefully reconsider this sort of onerous, predatory contract and instead draft a simple, clear, easy document that will make a photographer happy that he/she has helped.

Sorry to be so direct.

PS -- the image that is on the PDF is not my image. The image that you attached to your original email to me is indeed one of my images.

Signed,
Norb
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA

Subject: RE: Request for use of image for non-commercial media use
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:09:33 -0400
From: Sarah Hoyt
To: Norbert Wu Productions Office

Hi Norbert,

I apologize for the confusion. I am not a legal expert and was given this release as a template to use. I will certainly take your concerns to CI’s legal department and see what we can do to fix these issues. We are incredibly grateful for any donation from photographers and of course do not want to upset you or the photographers we have built a
relationship with in any way. We do not sub-license, it was in the language that was approved by my superiors. We only use images for non-commercial and media uses to promote CI’s work and achievements. We never receive money for others’ images and we always credit the photographer. Where possible, we purchase rights to use images, however
we are a non-profit and have great budget constraints so we cannot always do this.

I appreciate your directness. I am sincerely sorry.

All the very best,
Sarah
*Sarah Hoyt| Global Marine Division*
*Conservation International | 2011 Crystal Drive | Suite 500 |
Arlington, VA 22202*

Nonprofits Never Treat Photographers Well

2011-09-07T16:43:00.000-07:00

Almost all of the wildlife photographers that I know are dedicated to their subjects, are strongly in favor of conserving nature, and are generally green in their outlook. Yet ask any photographer about the issue of nonprofits asking to use images for free for their uses, and just about every photographer will give you multiple stories of being abused by these nonprofits.

I'll post a few letters from nonprofits along with my reaction and some fellow photographers' reactions. Here are a few of my thoughts first.

> I am working on a non-profit endeavor, and I would like to use your images for free. Is that possible?

We make our living from photography, plus it consumes work time to administer and negotiate the use of photographs for nonprofit organizations. Therefore there are costs and considerations involved that must be negotiated and found acceptable for everyone involved.

Due to our staff time in tracking these kinds of permissions, we cannot carry on long, tortuous conversations about usages and images. When we donate our images to nonprofit organizations, these transactions generally take three times more time than our regular business. This is because folks at nonprofits and academic institutions usually do not understand standard business practices that graphic professionals do, and we end up having to spend significant time explaining such practices.

1. If we grant you the use of an image, particularly at no charge, then common courtesy and professionalism demands that we get a copy (a xerox copy or a scan via email is fine if that is all you can afford) of the page in which our image is used.

I will always remember a researcher whom I considered a friend asking to use one of my images. I allowed her to use it. She never sent a copy of the paper (we asked), never said thanks -- nothing. A few years later she wrote to ask to use the image again. I initially gave her the same treatment she had given to me -- no response. Her requests became more and more urgent. My office finally replied to her with a "no." She was upset and asked what she had done to deserve such treatment. The question that remains in my mind is why she assumed that we'd continue to allow use of the image in more and more publications, when she never even bothered to say thanks, and never sent us a copy of the use of the image, even though we asked several times.

This is a situation I encounter a great deal with scientists (and other photographers): they ask for favors, don't say thanks, don't follow up with a copy of the use of the image, and often don't even respond if I ever need something from them. Why should my office be the only party that responds and is professional enough to take care of all necessary details?

2. Publishers like these university presses fib routinely to get what they want. SCIENCE, the magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, wanted to use my image on the cover of their magazine once. We asked if they normally paid for the use of images, and they said that they never did. I went to the library and looked up some past issues, saw an image by a stock agency that I knew, called them up and verified that they had been paid. I was appalled that an organization like the American Association for the Advancement of Science would lie about something like that.

3. It frequently happens that when we try to do a favor, the favor turns into a nightmare where we have to spend an inordinate amount of time with logistics of delivering an image, the publisher is not quite happy with the image supplied, the publisher wants exclusive rights to use our images for the rest of eternity throughout the universe, etc. Our patience for such situations has worn thin.

We will supply a JPG color image that we know works well for publication. It is up to the publisher to work with that image, and we hope that their level of expertise is professional, they don't leave things to the last minute, they don't ask us to sign 10-page-long contracts that give them the rights to use the image however they want in whatever media in the universe in perpetuity that their lawyers want. Faced with any kind of long or unreasonable contract, my office will have to withdraw our offer for the use of our images. We don’t have the time to review or approve such long and onerous contracts.

It is usually far easier for our office to work directly with someone from the publisher to negotiate the rights to use our images, rather than working through a researcher. We will always need the publisher to send a contract that outlines the terms needed, and to accept an invoice from us that outlines the terms needed.

4. Our normal rate for usage of photographs in books is on the order of hundreds of dollars for a 1/4 page use, with print run limited to 40,000.

All this kind of information -- print run, size on the page, etc is what our office routinely asks for when granting a license to use one of our images. We must ask and receive confirmation on all such details as we do keep track of such things. It's business. Our business is licensing the rights to the use of my images, and we have to be as meticulous in the licensing and rights granting as scientists need to be in collecting and analyzing data for their papers. Thanks for understanding.

5. For some researchers and nonprofits, we are willing to allow the use of up to three images for the fee of $75. We feel that this is generous and it barely covers the cost of our time in tracking rights and giving permissions.

6. I hope that the publisher and any folks who we are donating the use of our images for the low rate does not take this for granted, and word does not spread that our office is granting rights to images for the low rate of $75. This would destroy what existing business we have.

TODAY ONLY - Adobe Lightroom 3 Software $149.99 (normally $299.99)

2011-08-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

TODAY ONLY - Adobe Lightroom 3 Software $149.99 (normally $299.99)

Adobe is offering the full version of Adobe Lightroom 3 for $149.99 (normally $299.99) today only. Tax in most. [Compare Prices]
An intuitive digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. Easily manage, edit, and showcase all your images. Get the absolute best from every shot using state-of-the-art nondestructive editing tools, including sophisticated overall color and tone controls, advanced sharpening, and new noise reduction technology.

http://www.adobe.com/special/offers.html?PID=227502

Asus WL-330gE repeater/access point/Ethernet Adapter: Buy One!

2011-07-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

(Alert -- I describe this unit below. It is selling for $34.99 with a $20 rebate at newegg until July 31. Sorry for the short notice. )

I've had one of these sitting in my supplies area for a while, waiting for me to get around to testing it. I finally got around to trying it out yesterday, and I was well and truly impressed with how well it works and how easy it is to set up.

What exactly does this do? First, it can serve as a wireless router. Most of us already have a wireless router, which takes the internet signal from a cable or DSL modem, and then broadcasts that internet signal to your wi-fi equipped computers and printers.

This device also serves as an Ethernet adapter or bridge, where it receives a wifi signal from my existing wireless router, and serves up the internet signal to a computer without a wifi receiver. For instance, in the basement, I have a 10-year-old Mac that I use to create prints on an old but still good large-format Epson printer. This Mac has a wired Ethernet port to connect to the internet, but it does not have a wifi card that would allow it to connect to my wireless network. This Asus unit, when set up as an Ethernet adapter (which was as simple as connecting it to a computer and selecting a button telling it to work as an Ethernet adapter), receives the wifi signal from my router upstairs, and transmits the internet signal to my old Mac, through the wired Ethernet port. Voila -- the old Mac now has internet and is now part of my home network, so I can transfer files easily to and from it.

I've tried devices in the past to make wifi/Ethernet bridges work, and it would take hours and hours of my time to figure out. I'd figure the thing out, spend another two hours documenting every step of what I did, then the power would go out or the device would stop working. I'd have to spend another hour going over my instructions and getting the bridge to work again. Not with this unit -- it took less than two minutes.

This device can also work as a repeater, where it will accept your wifi signal and then transmit it again, extending the coverage of your wifi network.

It's selling for $34.99 with a $20 rebate at newegg until July 31. I just bought myself another unit. Sorry for the short notice.

Quick Guide to Using a Canon 7D in a Nauticam Housing

2011-07-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been shooting with a Canon 7D in a Nauticam housing for several months now. I am a longtime Nikon user, so using Canon gear has required me to relearn some habits. I’ve been very impressed with the Nauticam housing, as well as the prompt service and skilled and knowledgeable staff of Reef Photo. Being able to shoot video as well as stills with the 7D is wonderful.

Physical Setup:
Remember to remove the eyepiece from the camera (I am told by Reef Photo that this should not be necessary).
When mounting camera on the bottom plate: remember to align the pin on the bottom plate to the hole in the camera body.
Mounting zoom gear on the Tokina 10-17mm lens: the first piece, the plastic C-ring, goes on first. There is a lip on the front of this C-ring. The lip should face the front of the lens. Put the C-ring so it controls the zooming of the lens. Then put the zoom gear over the C-ring with the gears facing the back of the lens. The gear will stop at the lip of the C-ring. See the diagram and PDF from Nauticam.

When installing the port extension – turn CCW. BE sure to lubricate the O-rings so that they slide in easily and don’t get pinched.
Getting the extension ring off: use a strap wrench from an automotive store. If you have a strap wrench on the extension ring and are holding the larger dome face down on a table, you want to turn the extension ring CCW, until the dash on the extension ring aligns with the circle on the dome.

Camera settings:
Set color space to Adobe RGB
Set image review to 8 seconds

If shooting wide-angle subjects like whales and sharks in blue water, it is better to prefocus before the shot and to disable autofocus. Trying to focus on, say, a dark sperm whale in blue water can lead to a situation where the autofocus hunts back and forth, never able to lock on the subject. Deactivating the shutter-released-based autofocusing and setting prefocus at about 3 feet is the best way to get shots of big animals.
To do the above,: in custom menu, disable AF when shutter release is half-depressed. Remember to turn this back on for most other kinds of shooting, such as macro. .
Focusing on your fin sets the lens to 3 feet or so –and in 99% of situations, that focusing distance will be fine to photograph animals that are anywhere from 2 feet to 40 feet away. Look through the viewfinder and set your focus on your fin. Since you’ve disabled autofocus using the shutter release button, you must focus using the AF-On button. On the Nauticam housing, this is the first lever on your right. I prefocus when I am getting ready for an animal to approach, and I also use the AF-On lever to focus on an animal if conditions are right for autofocusing.

I strongly recommend autobracketing all images. With the Canon 7D, a custom setting allows you to keep the autobracket setting even after the camera is turned on and off again. I keep my camera set permanently so that it autobrackets my exposures.

Seeing the remaining shots left on your card is a bit difficult with the Nauticam, since you cannot see the upper LED panel on the camera body. In the viewfinder, you can only see remaning “burst shots” left, which is not an indication of how many shots you have left on your card (far more important to me, since I need to know how many shots I have left before I have to get out of the water and change cards).
There are two ways you can have an idea of how many shots you have left on your card. I use 8Gb and 16Gb cards in my 7D. I know that in general, without any video shooting, I have about 250 shots in an 8Gb card. If I do an image review, the image number shows up on the last image that I just shot. If I am on image 150, then I know that I have about 100 shots left.
The better way to see how many shots you have remaining is to activate Live View shooting. Just press the start/stop button to activate Live View shooting, and the number of shots remaining on the card appears in the lower part of the screen.

When shooting large animals in blue water without flash units, I usually set the camera to shutter priority mode, with the shutter speed 1/125 or more. I set the exposure to –1/3 stop, with autobracketing set around this point, so that exposures range from –2/3 stop to 0 stops from the automatic exposure recommendation. This generally renders blue water a nice rich, deep blue and slightly reduces the tendency to overexposure in blue water shooting. In clear tropical water, with the sun out, I’ll set the ISO speed to 160 or 320 rather than using the automatic ISO mode, since the 7D’s sensor has been proven to have much less noise when set at multiples of 160 rather than intermediate settings such as 250. I’ll review what I just shot to make sure that the exposure looks fine, and that my aperture is generally being set to f5.6 or higher. I do all these settings through the Q menu, which allows all these settings except changing the mode from, say, S to M.

I use a Tokina 10-17mm lens behind a 100mm Zen glass dome to shoot large animals. I’ve been pleased with the results. Note that you do not need an exension ring to use the Zen dome with the Tokina 10-17mm lens; I bought my Zen dome from Reef Photo and they made the dome with the Tokina lens in mind. They have a different model of the Zen dome that is customized for other lenses like the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens. Ryan Canon at Reef Photo writes about this: “We have a different model for 10.5 that uses a shorter extension ring. If you were to switch back to Nikon we could convert the port back to the correct length for 10.5, but it is more difficult than you'll want to do yourself. “

When shooting video:
I first set focus by using the AF-ON button while in “stills shooting mode.” When video is working properly, a live view mode will come on. If you are recording, be sure that the red dot in the upper R-hand corner of the frame appears. This is difficult to see when the camera is in the housing. .

When shooting video, AF works, but it takes a good three seconds. Make sure when pressing the AF-ON button that the AF sensor is focused on a good point. See the manual for an explanation.

Nikon and Canon refurbished stores

2011-07-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the refurbished lenses section of the Nikon store. Some good deals, some not-so-good deals. I just bought a 14-24mmf2.8 lens for a good deal.

http://shop.nikonusa.com/store/nikonusa/en_US/list/categoryID.43897200?resid=4VVC@woBAiMAACtYZQQAAAAU&rests=1311355608405

The Canon refurb store has good items for Canon shooters:
http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/subCategory_10051_10051_-1_29751

I am buying a lot of refurbished stuff these days, from woot.com to the Canon refurb store, to other places. Never a problem except perhaps for my Western Digital media players. I would recommend against buying refurbished hard drives.

Book recommendations part 1

2011-07-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

A good book recommendation is a great gift. There are so many bad books out there. Here are some of my favorite authors and books:

Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors. He is revered by SF fans but is much more than that, more of a historian with a science bent. A quick read (very much SF) is Snow Crash. Cryptonomicon is an absolute masterpiece. I've not been able to get through his later very dense three-part novels. Not sure if his newest, Anathem, is good either.

Mystery/crime novels, not serious reading: anything by Michael Connelly. Start with The Poet, and you may likely want to read the rest of his books.

Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barret: History of the Franklin expedition but actually interesting.

Anything by Michael Lewis (Moneyball) or Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers). They write nonfiction about things that you would normally take for granted or not think about.

I like the books that I’ve read by Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men (which the movie follows very closely).

Get iPhone-like service everywhere less expensively than through AT&T or Verizon's commitments

2011-07-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

If you want to save money on cell phone service and still get Iphone-like service, here’s an inexpensive option.

cell phone: Net10 service at $15 per month if you don't talk too much ($15 will get you 150 minutes per month under their $30/300 minutes/2 month plan).

Buy any old iPod touch. This will run your iPhone apps, the same as an iPhone but no voice calls. It will run on wifi. For instance, $150 for Refurbished iPod touch, 8GB (previous generation) at the Apple Store now!

Then buy a Virgin Mobile USB modem from Walmart (must buy from Walmart to get their special one month, 1Gb data plan) which will work on your laptop. It also works with a Cradlepoint portable wifi router.

Plug the Virgin Mobile USB modem in the Cradlepoint, and you get a wifi signal! $20 per month for 1Gb of data. You can use your laptop, ipod touch, an ipad, etc on the wifi router. It's portable and has a battery that lasts three hours.

monthly charge:

Net10 cell phone $15

Virgin Mobile data 20

Total monthly only $35 per month!!!!

Upfront costs:

ipod touch $150

Net10 phone free, from Norb, or I can point you to the website

Cradlepoint router $65

Virgin USB modem 70

Total upfront equipment costs: $285

No early termination fees. Month to month, prepaid. Out of town for a month -- no problem. Just don't pay, and restart the service when you are back.

I am using the above, and have been extremely happy with the Virgin Mobile service. It is just about anywhere I have been.

Another option to the above is the Virgin Mobile Peel, which attaches to an iPod touch and provides a wifi signal to the iPod touch, thus transforming it into an iPhone. Add voice capabilities with a Skype application.

You can also buy a Blackberry from Walmart for $99 and get unlimited data and voice from Virgin Mobile for $35 per month.

Google Maps Takes Me on a Ride in Seattle

2011-07-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

When the sun comes out in Seattle, all these pear-shaped, shabbily-dressed, pale white people come outside from their caves. Some of the men take their shirts off, which is not a good thing to see. The city becomes crowded with people who walk in the streets instead of the sidewalk. Folks who should not be driving decide to take their car out for a spin. Perhaps even the computers that serve up directions on Google Maps get a little heady. I was the recipient of this stuff from Google Maps.

I asked for directions from Google Maps, from a friend's house to the Seatac airport. Attached are the resulting directions.

The directions aren't bad at first glance. I drove following the first 8 lines just fine. When the directions said "turn L at Mercer Street" then I started to get into trouble. Mercer Street was closed for repairs. I don't blame Google Maps for this, and the city had posted detour signs.

However, trying to follow the detour, I ran into a huge traffic jam. Seattle drivers do not know that they should leave intersections open with their cars. As a result, even if a light turned green, no one could move. I threaded my way for about an hour to get to a street where I could finally get onto I-5.

I had been to Seatac several times before, but I was not confident, so I followed Google Maps. If you look at the directions, you will see that Google Maps must have wanted me to see different parts of the city before arriving at the airport. It had me get off I-5, get onto I-90 East, then exit at Rainier Avenue and then take a leisurely loop tour in the North Beacon Hill area. This took another hour or so. I went through all kinds of small streets, having no idea why.

I was finally directed back to I-5 after this side trip, and I made it to Seatac airport, about 2 and a half hours after leaving my friend Dave's place near Ballard Locks.

I checked the same route for Google Maps today, and I could not re-create the route it gave me yesterday. The directions put me on I-5 and kept me on I-5 until I reached Seatac, very direct, very easy, 30 minutes rather than 150 minutes. WTF?

Thanks again to my friend Dave for inviting me to his wedding party, the only social event I've been invited to in about 4 years.

Ways to Extend Your Internet Wifi Signal in a Large House

2011-07-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who asked me how to get his internet signal to the far parts of his house.

Here are some ways to have your network go to various parts of your house.

First, the internet signal comes into your house via DSL or cable internet modem. I alternate between the two. Once in your house, internet signal is internet signal. No difference.

From the modem, internet signal goes to a wifi router. This is what you have already. The wifi router has a switch, likely 4 ports that you can string Ethernet cables to various computers. But computers within your wifi range will just use wifi, not Ethernet.

Use (if your wires in the house are on the same circuit), what are called Ethernet over Power, or Powerline adapters to get the internet signal from one side of the house to another, if your house is large. For instance, we get our internet signal at the guest house in Crocker. Deanna's office is 100 yards away, in the main house. She cannot get a good wifi signal there. So I bought two POE adapters. I put one near the router, connected by an Ethernet cable. The other one is on an AC outlet in her room, and an Ethernet cable goes from the POE adapter to her computer. Very easy to set up. Some of the AC outlets in her room did NOT work. Some did.

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Powerline-Wireless-N-Extender-XAVNB2001/dp/B0046SQ8VW/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1310399607&sr=1-3

I've seen these or similars sold for $25 each, $50 a pair.

Some POE adapters come with a switch so you can connect four devices to one POE adapter. You can also put a wifi router on the POE adapter to become a second wifi base station. Any router can do this but it can take a lot of hassle. I think that products called wifi bridges, repeaters, or access points do the same thing.

Wireless AP / Bridges / Repeaters
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=335&name=Wireless-AP-Bridges

You can also get wifi range extenders. I have not tried these. You just plug these into an AC outlet that is far away, but within reach of your wifi signal, and it provides a strong signal from there.

http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-Universal-Range-Extender-WN3000RP/dp/B004YAYM06/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1310399607&sr=1-2

Getting Sound on Your HDTV using HDMI from a Windows 7 Laptop

2011-07-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

I bought an inexpensive MSI laptop a few months ago, and I've been impressed with it and Windows 7. It does just about everything I need it to. I forgot my power supply for my MacBook Pro on a recent trip and was forced to use the MSI laptop to do everything.

There's less and less difference now between using a Mac and a PC. Firefox browsers work the same on both platforms. I use (and like very much) the Thunderbird email program for the Mac; the PC version is much the same.

The great thing about this new Windows 7 laptop is that it comes with Windows Media Player software installed as part of the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. I can use the laptop as a DVR, to schedule and record my favorite television programs. This is a remarkably good and easy-to-use software package.

The MSI laptop comes with an HDMI output. I simply attached an HDMI cable from the laptop to my HDTV, and voila! I had a great picture on the television that mirrored what I saw on the laptop screen. I initially had sound that came over the HDMI cable and came out through the TV speakers, but I lost that once I plugged headphones into the laptop.

This is where the old Windows took over, where you had to spend hours fiddling with the machine to finally get things working again. Luckily for me, there was a web post that explained the solution to this problem. I am pretty dumbfounded that the solution was so hard to find and that Windows makes this problem so hard to solve. I guess that Macs are still better than PC's!

Here's the solution:
Go to the "manage audio devices window" in the Control Panel (or right-click on the "sound" icon in system tray). On an empty or blank part of the window, right-click and check the box which comes up saying show disabled devices. On my laptop, an option to enable my Panasonic TV appeared, and I had to enable it to allow sound to go to it again.

This worked on Windows 7. For more information on how to do this in Vista, which is very similar:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/143447-audio-device-enable-hidden-devices.html

I hope that this helps some folks.

Ebay and Paypal Are Astonishingly Unfair to Sellers

2011-06-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

I've been selling some things on Ebay. If you ever plan on selling on Ebay, here are some things to watch for. Yes, they are good for getting rid of stuff you may otherwise never sell. But Ebay seems hellbent on emasculating sellers. For instance, buyers can leave negative feedback for sellers for any reason whatsoever, and sellers CANNOT leave negative feedback for buyers!

This is a less visible, but far more serious problem. Ebay and Paypal will force any seller, at any time a buyer complains, to accept the return of an item and eat the shipping cost to that buyer. Anytime, for any reason, EVEN IF YOUR LISTING STATES "NO RETURNS ACCEPTED"!!!

Let me state this again: Even if you list an item on Ebay and choose the option "no returns accepted", Ebay or Paypal will still override you and force you to accept returns. You will be forced to accept the return and will LOSE the cost of shipping to the buyer. The buyer will have to pay the cost of shipping the item back to you. All the buyer has to do to get his money back is ship something with a tracking number; it could be a rock. Once Ebay/Paypal sees that a package has been delivered, they will refund the buyer.

Why do they even bother giving sellers the option of not accepting returns!? Giving sellers the option "no returns accepted" when listing an item for sale is an illusion. It seems downright fraudulent.

Here are some communications from Paypal and Ebay as an example. I listed a Net10 phone on Ebay which clearly stated that the phone was a manufacturer-refurbished item, and no returns would be accepted. The phone was still covered by a limited one-year warranty by Net10. The buyer still had and has the option to return the phone to Net10, but he instead chose to force me to accept his return of the phone. Paypal is forcing me to accept the return AND pay for my cost of shipping to him.

Subject: Status Update - Case #PP-001-xxx
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 07:27:28 -0700

Hello Norbert Wu,  As you know, we've been investigating a recent
transaction involving items that were damaged or significantly not as
described.
-----------------------------------
Transaction Details
----------------------------------- 
Buyer's name: paul xx
Transaction ID: xx
Transaction date: Jun 10, 2011
Transaction amount: $35.00 USD
Your transaction ID: xx Case number: PP-001-xx
Refund amount: $35.00
USD

We've determined that the buyer should receive a $35.00 USD refund
if they ship the merchandise back to you. The merchandise will be in the
same condition as when the buyer received it and the buyer is
responsible for all shipping and handling costs.



6/17/2011 10:54 PDT - PayPal: Seller escalated this dispute to a Claim.

6/17/2011 10:54 PDT - Seller: The buyer is unhappy because he purchased a manufacturer-refurbished item from me, and he claims that the item does not work. The item was purchased on Ebay (item 190540788767) and the listing option states that no returns will be accepted, as well as the following text in the listing: "No returns accepted; contact Net10 for any issues. " The buyer's claim that the item is not as described is incorrect.

The item is definitely as described; the listing clearly states that it is a refurbished phone from Net10 and that the seller should contact Net10 for any issues.

The seller filed a dispute on this transaction with Ebay, who refused to allow the claim. He is now filing the dispute with Paypal.

I wrote the seller after he contacted me for a refund as follows: "Hi -- Sorry that you are having trouble with your phone. Unfortunately, my listing stated the following: No returns accepted; contact Net10 for any issues. The item is definitely as described; the listing clearly states that it is a refurbished phone from Net10 and that you should contact Net10 for any issues. This phone comes with a 1-year limited warranty from Net10. There should have been a card in the box showing the warranty and how to obtain a return authorization number. I am happy to email you a scan of that card (but I will need your direct email address) along with my receipt for the purchase of the phone from Net10, which was made last month or so. The warranty states: To obtain a RA# and shipping address, please contact Net10 Direct sales customer service at 1-877-836-2368. If your problem cannot be remedied over the phone, our Net10 technicians will provide you with a Return Authorization Number, which you will use to send your phone or accessories to the designated Net10 service center for repair or replacement at Net10's option.

6/17/2011 09:10 PDT - Buyer: This item does not work and I am very unhappy. I bought this item thinking it would work but net 10 said there is something wrong with the phone. I want a full refund since they sold me a non working correctly phone!

Install tracking software on your Mac or PC before it gets stolen!

2011-06-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

The local news station ran a story about a guy who had his MacBook stolen. He went to the police, who of course were no help. He had installed tracking software called Hidden on his Mac. This software, like others, will allow you to track your PC or Mac's location, and also take photos remotely -- showing the person who is using your stolen Mac.

He went to the police with photos of the suspect, along with the exact location of his laptop -- and they finally got his computer back for him.

I myself have been using the product undercover for my Macs for several years now. It provides basic tracking information, and a new feature takes photos. I believe it is only for the Mac, and it costs a flat $45 for five Macs. There is no annual or recurring charge.

Hidden costs something like $15 per computer per year.

I recently discovered Prey for Macs and PCs, as well as Android. It is a free open-source software that provides the same capabilities that I describe above, and more. I will likely be installing this on my computers in the future.

New Square Up service allows small businesses to accept credit cards directly!

2011-06-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

Check out https://squareup.com/

be sure you use https and not http.

This is a great new service that lets small businesses like mine accept credit cards. My office can now accept credit cards over the phone or email, or with a swipe. The card-reading equipment is free; you do need an ipad or iphone. In the past, small businesses had just one way to accept credit cards -- Paypal, which is a confusing service (not to mention being very unfair in the way it handles disputes or problems). Square Up does take a commission of 2.75% if swiping with a credit card, and 3.5% plus 15 cents if entering a transaction manually, with no physical credit card available. Frigging amazing! Very simple to use.

Facebook doesn't get it!

2011-05-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

I've recently been getting tons of emails from a group on Facebook. It appears that anyone can add you to a Facebook group. Then it is up to you to opt out of that group or opt out of the emails from that group. This is opposite of what it should be. This is why I don't like or use Facebook much.

More:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/10/facebooks-new-groups-feature-stirs-controversy.html

If Smart Meters are so smart, why can't PG&E just turn them off?

2011-05-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

If Smart Meters are so smart, why can't PG&E just turn them off for those customers who don't want them?

I've been following PG&E's near-criminal heavy-handed installation of their smart meters. In the Monterey area, hundreds of their customers have objected to having these smart meters installed. In other areas of California, dozens if not hundreds of customers have complained that their electricity bills went up once these smart meters were installed, even though they did not have any change in their electricity use habits. Both PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission dismissed the claims of these customers. PG&E always treats customers like we are idiots.

Now, in just the last couple of days, PG&E has admitted that 1600 of their Smart Meters were indeed defective and have been transmitting incorrect information, resulting in overcharges to those customers. In today's San Jose Mercury News, there's a story about a couple who has been refunded $1400 for the overbilling by their Smart Meter. The husband has a technical background and was able to prove that the Smart Meter had overbilled them.

In the Monterey area, hundreds of their customers have objected to having these smart meters installed. PG&E has only recently backed off a bit from force-feeding these customers. Their latest solution, however, is pretty ludicrous. If you don't want a Smart Meter, then you can opt out, but only at a very high price -- $135 up front and $20 per month after that.

If Smart Meters are so smart, why can't PG&E just turn them off?

Here's a thought. If PG&E is paying so much to install these things, and they have the ability to wirelessly transmit data -- why doesn't PG&E do something good for a change, something that gives back to their communities? Why doesn't PG&E help bring free wireless internet to their communities that also helps them collect the data that these Smart Meters purportedly collect?

I am a fan of La Quinta and Hampton Inn hotels

2011-05-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of La Quinta hotels, because of their friendly service and policy that allows dogs of any size at no additional charge. La Quinta is a truly pet-friendly hotel chain, as opposed to other hotels that advertise themselves as "pet-friendly" but then surprise you by allowing only dogs that are under 25 pounds. That's hardly truthful advertising.

Ever try to check into a hotel, and it takes the staff 30 minutes to get you into your room? I find that incredibly annoying, particularly since you've just spent 12 hours fighting your way through airports. You are tired. The better hotels already know you from your frequent guest program, and they check you in quickly.

Ever stand in line at a hotel while the clerk chats on the phone, or perhaps the clerk helps you, but then answers the phone while you are waiting? Find that incredibly rude and annoying? I have a story with a good ending for once. At the Lacey, WA La Quinta one evening, I arrived after a long drive. I had spoken on the phone to the clerk, who reserved a room for me. When I came through the door, she was on the phone, and I groaned inwardly, expecting another long wait to get my room key. Instead, she looked up, and handed me the key and the folio. I did not have to give her my drivers license, passport, birth certificate, fill out any form, etc. She had gotten all that information from my La Quinta Rewards information. Not only that, but this hotel had put out freshly baked cookies and chocolate-dipped strawberries for their guests! I was impressed.

I'm also a big fan of Hampton Inns, because the rooms are almost always in good shape (no mildewy shower curtains), the rooms are generally spacious and clean, and the staff is generally professional.

I've stayed in Motel 6 motels in the past for a couple of times, and they are generally what I call "suicide" rooms. Stay in a room like that, and you want to commit suicide.

PayPal violates its own rules for web security!

2011-05-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

I don't understand. I don't get it.

One of the biggest warnings that Paypal and other financial institutions puts out is "never click on links that are embedded in emails." To do so is to invite the possibility that you click on a fraudulent email with a fraudulent link.

Yet, PayPal has been sending me this email, telling me that I should click on an embedded link to verify my account. This is a valid Paypal email and the link is also valid. But what the heck?!

Cell Phone Plans for Thrifty Folks

2011-04-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

I have had voice plans with Verizon, and a Blackberry plan with AT&T in the past years, and I was always stunned at the monthly costs. $60 minimum plus all the taxes.

After much research, I've been using Net10 phones to keep my cell phone costs down.

Since using Net10 for voice, I pay $30 every two months for 300 minutes. This is enough minutes for me. You can now even buy web-enabled phones from Net10 that have web browsers, which let you check your email (however, these kind of suck, nowhere near as good as a Blackberry for email). I've gotten all my phones basically for free from Net10 through promotions that have gotten less generous. One of the things I've noticed is that when you buy more airtime through Net10, you don't get killed with so many more taxes and surcharges. Net10 uses the T-Mobile network and is a division of Tracfone. I've found the coverage to be just fine. The plans are month-to-month. You aren't locked into a 2-year plan.

I've been using a Virgin Mobile USB modem that lets me use my laptop in most areas that I've been, to get my emails, browse the web, etc. If you buy the USB modem at Walmart, then you can buy a special Walmart plan for $20 per month that gives you 1 Gb of data downloading. I've been very impressed with this. I have cable internet at home, but everywhere else such as airports or while driving, I use this USB modem.

Walmart is also selling a Blackberry for $169 for use with Virgin Mobile. You'd need a voice plan at $25 and a Blackberry data plan for another $10 per month, and that will give you voice and Blackberry email for $35 per month. And if you are traveling for a month or two out of the US, you won't get dinged since the plan is month-to-month. You aren't locked into a 2-year plan. The only downside to this is that I doubt the Virgin Mobile Blackberry will work outside of the US. My AT&T Blackberry worked just about EVERYWHERE for sending and receiving emails. I am talking everywhere -- even off Komodo Island, Indonesia. Of course the data costs were very high.

Lastly, if I really need my emails while traveling in the US, I have Gmail forward my emails to my Net10 phone. Any cell phone that allows texting can get emails sent as text. In my case, Gmail forwards my emails to: phone-number@tmomail.net. I never get complete emails, but I can see the gist of things. And I also admit that my current phone doesn't work with this. I am going through Net10 phones that were basically free and this one doesn't work, but my last one did; and I have about 12 more phones to go through. After that, I am going to get a Virgin Mobile Blackberry.

SMWBR14S-N Wireless Router Had To Be Destroyed

2011-03-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

SMWBR14S-N Wireless Router: don't buy one of these. I bought two at woot.com and they were terrible. Buying a bad product like these is just awful; the time you spend trying to figure out what is wrong and how to make them work is incredibly wasteful. This is the first electronics product that I've taken out and destroyed with a shovel and pickax.

Pro Video Gear for Underwater Shooting

2011-03-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

Lots of folks have seen me shooting recently with a Canon EOS 7D in a Nauticam housing and asked me the same question: should I buy one of these systems to shoot professional underwater video? Here's my attempt to answer the question.

These are both great pieces of gear. The 7D camera is capable of shooting nice 1080p video at a few frame rates. I've been using it at 1080p at 30fps and 24fps, and the results are pretty nice. Stunning, really, for such a small and relatively inexpensive package. Being able to use my Tokina and Canon wide-angle lenses underwater for really wide views, behind a decent port such as the Zen glass port, is astounding for both the ease and the price. In the past, I had to buy a $5500 Fathom lens for my Gates HVX200 housing, or a $30,000 Fujinon lens behind the dome of a custom-built Cranston Sony HDCAM housing, which cost $40,000. The Sony HDCAM camera cost $90,000 when it first came out, and the entire system weighed 70 lb and was a huge unit compared to the 7D and Nauticam housing.

I am now able to put together a still camera housing, swim around with it shooting stills, and then switch to get crisp HD video anytime I want. It is a dream come true.

That said, I am not planning on shooting a film with this setup or running to National Geographic Television or the BBC Natural History Unit to tout myself as a cameraman with this gear. I will still have to use my HDCAM and $50,000 camera packages, unfortunately.

The Canon 7D and any HDSLR simply does not give me professional video quality. If you compare the footage on a technical basis with the footage from my old Sony HDCAM F900 and the new RED One cameras that most professional shooters are using now, the difference in quality is very large. If I got a shot of a sperm whale eating a giant squid with 7D footage, I could probably get it used. But shooting an entire film with this camera is simply not professional enough.

The links below are a few months old, but can help answer questions about why I am saying the above, and what video cameras besides the RED One might be acceptable to NGTV and the BBC these days.

If I were starting out fresh today, I'd buy one of these instead of what I see many newbie cameramen are trying to do to break in. Or be a real pro and buy a RED. I've seen some shooters' RED footage and it is astounding when sued correctly.

Here's a great website about BBC's judgment and tests on video cameras:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/production/delivery/hd-production-delivery.shtml

Hope this helps.

I Love to Travel

2011-02-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

Why does every airplane flight turn into a 16-hour ordeal? Every time this happens, you say NEVER AGAIN. The waits are interminable. Your butt starts hurting. The food choices are awful. The bathrooms have piss all over the floor and the seats, and the toilets are full of piss, shit, and toilet paper. You have been on the road, in the air, or sitting on your ass on a bus or airplane or shuttle for 16 hours now, for a rinky dink 6-hour flight. Your skin is all oily and you have BO. Your clothes stink and your balls are clinging to your thighs. The seams in your clothes are starting to cause rashes and pimples at certain choice locations. Your hair is greasy and oily. Your feet are hot and your shoes stink. Your feet have swollen and your gout has attacked. You try washing your hands, but the soap in the dispensers is crap and the water either doesn't turn on or gushes, splattering your pants so you look like you've pissed yourself. You have become a sheep. Sheep.

All this for what?

Bad, Bad, Bad Corporate Websites

2011-02-17T18:41:00.000-08:00

How many times have you gone to register at a company's website (something they try to force you to do), only to have to fill out the website's forms with all kinds of information, only to be told AFTER THE FACT that your username, password, etc has to be in a certain form. Ridiculous.

Here's an example from an insurance company. They tell you to type in your policy number exactly as it appears on your paperwork. When you do that, you find that you can't enter all the digits! Only after a few more minutes of research and trying do you find out that, in fact, you should not type in the dashes. So why tell the user to "type in your policy number exactly as it appears on your policy" if that policy number includes dashes?

FIRST:

THEN:

Arrgh.

Yo, corporations wanting surveys -- make it easy

2011-01-31T19:41:00.000-08:00

Yo, corporations wanting surveys -- make it easy.

What, I have to find a black pen and then spend hours filling in ovals, like I was back in high school? I don't think so.

AARP is not with the times -- is this a surprise?

2011-01-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

I just turned 50 years old, and tried to apply to AARP. Twice, using my Mac Firefox and Safari browser. Turns out that the good old AARP is still stuck in the days of accepting only folks using Internet Explorer on a PC. I finally realized this, applied using IE on a PC (using VMWare on my Mac, a really cool solution to the whole Mac/PC thing), and successfully applied. But now I seriously doubt that AARP is going to have much benefit for someone like me, if they can't even get their website together to allow folks with Macs to apply for membership without a huge hassle.

Error screen attached.

Corporate Nonsense from United Airlines

2011-01-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

Airlines continue to be a source of unintentional humor. Here's an example.

Finally, an affordable and reasonable mobile data plan!

2010-11-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

I am truly excited about a product and data plan that Virgin Mobile and Walmart just came out with. The two-year commitments that cell phone carriers require are ripoffs. When I had a Blackberry plan with AT&T, there were months when I was not traveling at all, and I did not use or need my Blackberry at all. AT&T would not let me suspend the service during those periods of non-use. My mother has an iPhone, and she is paying something like $90 per month for it. Even now, AT&T will not let her suspend the service – this time, she is headed out of the country and will not use the iPhone in the slightest because it gets so expensive to use internationally. Paying $180 for something you will not use is pretty unreasonable.

In this economy, more folks agree with me. There are voice services out there that make sense for thrifty folks like me – I have been recommending Net10. With Net10 phones, I’ve bought a refurbished LG300 phone that works perfectly well with voice and receiving texts. I pay $30 for 600 minutes of voice calls that last two months. Since I (and from what I hear, the younger generation) don’t make many voice calls, those minutes last me the full two months, and then they roll over. I pay an equivalent of $15 per month for my cell phone that gives me the voice capability that I need.

And here’s a tip that I unearthed on a cell phone forum. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it works enough to be useful when I am traveling: you can forward emails to your Net10 phone (and likely any other phone that receives text messages) by using your phone’ email address! My Net10 phone uses the T-Mobile network, and its email address is in the form “dddxxxyyyy@tmomail.net” where “dddxxxyyyy” is my cell phone number in the form of area code and local digits. When I leave for a trip, I have Gmail forward my emails to my cell phone, and it works well enough. For my particular cell phone, my emails are truncated, but I am able to glean enough to know if the message is urgent or not. I can then call the person or whip out my laptop to send an email – as long as I am in a wifi zone, which brings me to my new discovery.

Since giving up my Blackberry, I have been waiting for a carrier to come out with a data plan that made sense. What makes sense? I want a data plan that is month-to-month, does not require a longterm commitment that penalizes you if you don’t want the plan, and does not cost a huge amount of money. I want a plan that is priced competitively, gives me enough data usage so I can get my emails and browse my websites when traveling, and works in the places that I travel to, within reason. Most of my business requires emails that are longer than can be reasonably typed on a Blackberry. And I admit that I am wordy.

As far as data plan usage, I can live with a monthly cap of 250Mb. That’s probably the lowest cap per month that would work for me, and would probably get me through a month of traveling and accessing emails and web pages. It’s a bit low, however, and I travel less than the typical businessman (but I consider myself an average guy and not a power user guy in a business suit, who has an unlimited budget anyway).

With the iPad, Steve Jobs seemed to have forced AT&T to offer a reasonable data plan. I have been on the verge of buying an iPad solely for the reasonably priced and month-to-month, no commitment, data plans. Kudos to Apple and Steve Jobs (and perhaps AT&T) for offering such a reasonable data plan for the iphone. However, the cost of the iPad (do I really need yet another device when I already have a netbook, a laptop, and a couple of desktop machines) has made me hold off. And I’ve also been holding off and waiting for E-Trade to send my $500 Apple Gift Card, which is a few weeks overdue! After my recent convention show, however, where I was stranded at the airport and needed web access (shame on SFO for not having free wifi!) to book rental cars and hotels, I was ready to buy an iPad immediately for the 3G access.

T-Mobile used to have a prepaid, 200Mb per month plan with no commitment for $24.99 per month. They have recently revamped their website to solve the problem that I describe below; they offer $30 and $50 monthly prepaid plans now for 300Mb or 1Gb of data respectively. Congrats to T-Mobile for finally getting their act together.

The problem is that if you try to buy this plan, the T-Mobile website forces you to buy a USB data modem also, at $150 to $200. OK, let’s say I buy the modem. Let’s say that I use the plan for two months and then don’t need the data plan for a few months. I cancel the plan. I try to start it up again. Well, if you try to start it up again using T- Mobile’s website, then you will be forced to buy another modem and pay another activation fee! And if you call T-Mobile’s ridiculously awful customer service, they know nothing about this prepaid plan and don’t even have the web resources to look it up! If you go to the store, they will tell you that T-Mobile does not have such a prepaid plan and will try to sell you the data plan that has a two-year commitment! I tried all the above. I even let myself get talked into trying out a data modem on a two-year plan by a store representative who promised me that if I cancelled within 30 days, I would not be charged a dime. It turns out he lied to me, and T-Mobile charged me over $60 for activation fees and usage fees even when I returned the items within 30 days. Yes, I am arguing wth T-Mobile, but of course their awful customer service is suspiciously and sufficiently awful to never credit me the amount promised. I am talking HOURS on the phone.

So forget T-Mobile and its treacherous, two-faced, deceitful offerings. Let’s move on (and by the way, don’t let the cell phone agent at the Costco booth tell you that there will be no charge whatsoever to try out the ridiculously expensive Verizon data plan for less than a month. Verizon will renege, you will discover that the guy in the Costco booth is just some guy that has no training and doesn’t know all the rules of all the plans for all the carriers that he purportedly represents , and you will be billed by Verizon for $100 just for trying out their modem for a few days).

This takes me to my recent trip to Las Vegas for a convention and being stranded at the airport. I have had my eye on a Virgin Mobile data plan, to use it until E-Trade sent me my Apple Gift Card. It cost $40 for month of unlimited service (or $10 for 10 days and something like 100 Mb of data), and it uses the Sprint network. This was still a bit pricey for me, considering the iPad’s $15 per month plan – but I was interested in it. After being stranded at the airport and realizing that I needed internet access while traveling NOW – I rushed over to Walmart after finally getting home and looked for the item: a Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go USB modem. I noticed that Virgin Mobile offered a special $20 per month (for 1Gb), no commmitment plan for those customers who purchased their modems at Walmart. This plan is perfect! Hip hip hooray for Walmart and Virgin Mobile for offering such a reasonable and usable plan. I am happily using this modem now to post this blog to my site.

Setting up the Virgin Mobile USB modem (which is a Novatel U760 modem) is not always simple and easy. I tried installing and uninstalling the Broadband2Go software on my MacBook Pro several times to no avail. I finally fired up VMWare and Windows XP on my laptop and activated the modem using the Windows environment. I was then able to go to the Virgin Mobile website and get my MDM account number, MSID number, and choose my Account PIN. Armed with that information, and still on the Windows environment, I paid for a month’s access on the Virgin Mobile website. Summary: when activating and starting up the Virgin Mobile USB modem, I highly recommend using a Windows XP machine (or emulator) to activate the modem.

Now that my modem was activated, I spent another hour trying to get the Broadband2Go software to work on my Mac using OS X. I finally decided not to use the Broadband2Go software and instead, went into Network Preferences. Here’s a rough description along with two screen grabs:

Go to Network Preferences.
Select the Virgin Mobile modem.
Click the Advanced button.
Under the Advanced page, change the modem from a phone modem to “Novatel Wireless and CDMA.”
You’ll then see green connected and sent/received bars.
When you want to connect to the internet, simply hit the Connect button, and you should be good to go.
Don’t bother using the Broadband2Go software in the Mac environment. It repeatedly asked for my system password but never connected me. Do run the Mac installer, however, to install the modem drivers. Do use the software in a Windows environment as it seems to work just fine.

I am a happy camper! Thanks, Walmart and Virgin. No thanks to you at all, Costco, T-Mobile, and Verizon! I’ll write more about my experience with Costco’s kiosk that markets cell phones. In short, why are we Costco customers, who pay for a good premium shopping experience, having to tolerate Costco’s phone kiosks, who do not offer Costco customers the best deals, do not offer prepaid services, do not offer agents that are knowledgeable, and do not offer the same service and return policies as Costco?

These Companies Suck: T-Mobile and Citibank

2010-09-30T07:47:00.001-07:00

Citibank: if you apply for a credit card, expect a call at 7AM in the
morning asking to verify your social security number. Why? And the
last time I applied for another credit card, the amount of phone calls
and credit checks was staggering. Then they started denying our credit
transactions, stating that they were "protecting" us from fraudulent
activity. I told them that we were already covered by federal law from
any fraudulent activity on our credit cards, so we weren't being
protected by this policy -- Citibank was protecting itself. They did
not argue with me.

No other credit card company has hassled me so much or made me call them
so many times.

T-Mobile: all customers in California get a 30-day trial period to test
out if a cell phone company's products work out for you. Return the
phone or SIM card within 30 days, and you should legally not be charged.

Not with T-Mobile! They are obviously trying to hoodwink folks who
don't have the time or the knowledge to combat this evil corporate
entity, which uses standard evil corporate tactics. Here's how they
work: you try out a SIM card for a service. You return that card within
30 days, in which case you should not be charged at all. T-Mobile then
sends you bill after bill each month, each month charging you for
another month's service. You call. You tell them that you cancelled
the service before the first 30 days. You tell them that you returned
the SIM card. They say that they cannot do anything. You yell and
scream, and finally one of their representatives, after putting you on
hold for 15 minutes, tells you that the best they can do is take $10 off
your now $150 bill. You ask to speak to a supervisor. He finally comes
on and understands that you know the law and are not giving up. He
finally does the right thing (we'll have to see) and says that he is
cancelling all charges and all the bills.

I won't even go into how difficult it is to order a SIM card for a
month-by-month plan, which is clearly visible on their website, but
impossible to order without ordering a $200 USB modem as well. It's
always amazing to me when I know more about a company's products (that
are featured prominently on that company's website) than their
representatives. I spent hours on the phone a month ago trying to order
a SIM card for their month-to-month data service. I already had a USB
modem that would accept their SIM card and just wanted the SIM card and
month-to-month service. Guess what? Impossible to order. If you
already have a USB modem from T-Mobile and just need to have data
service for one month, you have to buy another modem from T-Mobile for
that month? Use the data plan for two months, and you have to buy the
modem for sure. Now you have two modems at $200 each. Stop the plan
(it is month-to-month, by the way!) and you have to pay the monthly rate
of $24.99, the activation fee of $35, and buy another modem all over
again!!

After hours of speaking to T-Mobile sales and customer service reps, a
supervisor told me that the only solution around this was to order a
smartphone SIM card, then to call and change the service. Guess what?
The smartphone SIM card didn't work in the T-Mobile modem that I already
had. It was super slow. And then T-Mobile charged me over and over
again even though I returned the SIM card.

I wish a cell phone company would offer a simple data-only,
month-to-month data plan that is actually under $25 per month, lets you
stop and start service when you need without having to pay activation
fees each time, and will let you use the SIM card in a Blackberry, smart
phone, or USB modem for a laptop. T-Mobile is close, but watch out for
the above scenarios. Virgin Mobile's new plan is close, but requires
you to buy a Blackberry for $300 rather than allowing you to use your
old Blackberry. BS!

New Product Recommendations

2010-09-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

I'm laid up with a giant bruise that turned into a bacteria-eating flesh wound of some sort. It's been six weeks now and looks like six more weeks before I am able to go diving again.

I'll recommend a few things below.

1. Western Digital Live Media Player: this little unit is fabulous. I held off on buying one since I figured that an existing PC could hook up to my TV and do everything I needed. After getting a $300 electricity bill the last two months, I am on a mission to reduce the power consumption of my devices. Anyway, this little unit does indeed read Mac-formatted disks, and it does indeed play back files recorded by a Media Center PC! It plays back just about every file that my Mac does. Incredible little machine.

2. I finally gave in a bought a hot tub (made by Sunshine or something like that). The thing costs $100 to $150 per month to use! Granted, I am using it on 110V. I will be putting a 220/240V outlet for this and this should reduce the energy consumption, but still -- this is a lot of money to run a hot tub. Regardless, I've experimented with keeping the water crystal clear. Besides using the shock chemicals about every 4-5 days rather than once a week, I HIGHLY recommend a product called Spa Bright and Clear. I had a problem with cloudy water, and despite keeping the water chemically up-to-date and the filter cleaned, I was still getting cloudy water. One treatment of Spa Bright and Clear made the water completely clear for a good three weeks. The product seems like little more than soap, but it is inexpensive and supposedly binds to small particles in the water, so that the particles can be captured by the filter.

Shame on Software Companies That Make It Hard on Users

2010-08-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

I have been a long and loyal customer of Cradoc Software for 20 years. Every time they've come out with a new version of Fotoquote, their great and useful software to help photographers determine what fees to charge for the licensing of their images, I've immediately purchased a copy.

Regrettably, I will have to think long and hard before purchasing another copy of Cradoc Software's fotoquote software, and I've been putting off upgrading my version of Photoshop CS3 because of all the problems I've had with the activation of software.

These companies just don't get it. They are so concerned about the misuse of their software that they are willing to waste the time of their users. Here's a typical email dialog that I just had with Cradoc:

Norb:
I had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall all software on the computer used in our office by my office manager. It is a laptop but we use it as a desktop. Now FQ6 tells me that I have too many computers registered! This is the second time I've had problems registering my FQ6 sofware. I use FQ6 on my laptop and this office computer and spoke with someone there in the past and got the OK to use FQ6 this way. Of course, I rarely use FQ6 and rely on my office manager to use it. I am quite disturbed because my office manager has stopped using FQ6 for months now (without my knowledge) since she had so much trouble just getting the program to start. Very uncool.

I am not a happy customer particularly since no one seems to be in your office
to help with this stuff.

Cradoc:
Changes to your hard drive can alter the computer’s ID which is used to verify the activation of the software. When you “wiped the hard drive” your computer ID probably changed making the program think it was a new (3rd) computer resulting in the maxed out error message you received.

So that we can verify which computer ID to reset, please provide us with the computer ID from the machine that the program is still successfully activated on. To obtain the Computer ID follow the steps below.
....

Send the computer ID to me so that I can reset your activations allowing you to then activate on the other computer.

We recommend that if you plan on making significant changes to your computer such as installing a new hard drive and/or reinstalling the operating system, you first deactivate the program.

After these changes are made you can activate the software again to continue use. This helps prevent your activation from being affected by these changes and needing to rely on customer support to manually reset your activations.

Norb:
You guys fail to understand the needs of the customer. We are not
idiots. We would, if we could remember, to go to all the programs
needed to deactivate them when there is a problem with the computer.

Unfortunately, when there is a problem with the computer is precisely
the time that we would NOT remember to deactivate a program. And asking
a computer user to remember to deactivate a program is pretty ludicrous
if you think about it.

Come on Cradoc folks, live in the real world. YOu've got software that
folks out here appreciate, but you are pissing off your best customers.

Thanks for your software, but no thanks at all for wasting so much of my
time and not understanding the needs of your customers.

Norb

A last comment:
Cradoc wrote:
This helps prevent your activation from being affected by these changes and needing to rely on customer support to manually reset your activations.

Cradoc is ticked off (and says so on their website) that customers forget to write down the serial numbers and activation codes for their software. They now charge a fee to look up a lost registration code!!! So, a customer buys their software. He puts it on his laptop. He changes a laptop and loses his registration code. He has to pay to get that code back, when that code benefits Cradoc only, not him!!

Here's what Cradoc says on their site:

looking up lost registration codes was becoming a real problem. There is now a $10.00 charge for replacing lost registration codes. There is also a $10.00 service fee to send you a download link if you lose your program and have not backed it up.

Does anyone else agree that this is back-asswards customer relations? I buy the program, have to replace a laptop or otherwise service it, and then I have to pay to get a registration code, or I have to remember to deactivate this program beforehand? Who is going to remember this, seriously? And how messed up is Cradoc's attitude when they say: This helps prevent your activation from being affected by these changes and needing to rely on customer support to manually reset your activations.

These guys make life hard for their users, put in controls that waste their customers' time, and then they have the gall to say that they are unhappy that the customer has to rely on customer support to get the product working again?

WTF?

Paypal accounts: personal and otherwise

2010-08-13T19:45:00.001-07:00

I don't like Paypal's sneaky business practices, but I do use it a lot. I've paid many folks now using Paypal personal accounts. Link to a checking or savings account. Don't link any credit cards and never accept a credit card payment. Do the minimum. If you accept a credit card payment or perhaps if you confirm your address, you get converted from a Paypal personal account to a premier or business account, whereby any funds you receive get hit with a 3% commission.

The thing I don't like about Paypal is how they hide this sort of information from you. Also, if you pay with Paypal rather than a credit card, you lose the edge in disputes. My credit card companies always take my side and have always refunded my money in full in disputes where I was clearly in the right. I used Paypal once, foolishly, to buy a camera on a fraudulent website. Paypal took weeks to investigate and would not refund $25 or so. One call to my credit card company took care of that. The credit card company told me that Paypal was a middleman and by using them, I gave up my right to use Amex/Visa directly to resolve disputes. Not a good thing.

But without Paypal, my small business would lose money accepting credit card payments. At least Paypal makes it easy for small businesses to accept credit card payments. But I'd like Paypal a lot more if their policies were much clearer, and they went to bat for folks using them as much as the credit card companies do.

The Perfect Online Image Database Software: Summary

2010-06-21T21:33:00.001-07:00

After years of searching, I have finally found a near-perfect solution to my needs: Stockbox Photo Software, made by a company in Canada (http://www.Stockboxphoto.com/). I was able to get this software up and running to service all my images in one day. It took only a few hours to customize it, and I am even able to put video clips on the database -- something no other leased software package has been capable of doing. Stockbox Software is both affordable and reasonably easy to install and administer, and it offers just about everything that I have ever wanted or needed for my website's image database.

It’s currently up and running at: www.norbertwu.com/lightbox/index.php

As far as I know, Stockbox is the only software platform that allows users to display any file formats that are viewable in a web browser, such as . gif, jpg, au, avi, aif, htm, html, mid, mp3, mpg, mov, png, ra, ram, rar, swf, wav, zip, wma, wmv and pdf. If the file format is not viewable from within a web browser, the system provides a link for users to download other formats and files so that the user can view or play them locally in the associated application.

Stockbox Photo is not perfect. The documentation is not great, and I encountered some obstacles that left me scratching my head until their technical support folks clarified things for me. Their staff seems small, which is reflected in their email response time. .

Movie files display in the gallery, but it is not possible to edit the movie files from within the system. The user has to choose the video frame that will serve as the preview frame of the video clip. Automating this process would be helpful. Because I do not have the time for all the steps that have to be taken to get video clips into the system, I have gone back to using Filemaker to show my video clips to clients.

My Search for the Perfect Online Image Database Software

2010-06-21T21:24:00.001-07:00

An essential part of any photographer's kit of marketing tools -- particularly nature photographers -- is the searchable database of images for a photographer's website. This database allows clients to search a library of images to find an image or create lightboxes of their favorites for future reference. It took me years to find the right software for my needs and those of my clients.

Developing your own software:
I’ve had an internal database of my images since 1988. It began as a text file where I kept and printed out caption information for my best images. As personal computers and databases developed over the years, my database changed from a simple text database to a Filemaker database that included a visual of my image. I am still using that Filemaker database in my office.

Filemaker is known for its ease of use. I use it for invoicing, maintaining contacts, tracking submissions, organizing footage, recording timesheets for my staff, and several other office needs.

Because Filemaker is customizable, I can create databases to suit my needs. Off-the-shelf photographer-friendly software packages have the capabilities to do many of the functions I need but offer neither flexibility nor control. Microsoft Access is another popular database program worth considering.

Get the Database Online

If you are in business to license the usage rights to your images and have a fairly large library (more than 100) of saleable digitized images, you will want to get them online. One way to do this is to use static web pages. There are dozens of great programs that allow users to organize and search their image collections in-house. Examples are Aperture, iPhoto, Extensis Portfolio, Lightroom, ACDSee, and others. These programs will create static galleries of images that can be posted to the web, but once posted they cannot be modified, nor are they responsive to individual client needs.

To get more customizable results, you’ll need software that allows your clients to search for images by typing in keywords. There are several available, but many of them might not suit your needs.

Filemaker and other database programs

Filemaker offers a fairly easy way to post images to the web in a searchable database. You can see an example of this “Instant Web Publishing” method at:
http://norbcrocker.homedns.org:591 (log in as a guest, no password required). I’ve posted the best of my HDTV footage at that URL.

Filemaker is a fine database for internal use and can easily put images and video clips on the web. But to modify it to allow clients to create private lightboxes will require $20,000-$50,000 in development fees. And even at that price, there’s no guarantee you’ll get what you want. Price is determined by how much time and work is involved. One developer quoted me $250,000 to recreate a site he had produced for an advertising photographer– it did exactly what I wanted but was way beyond my budget. Yikes!
Could we change the above to something like: I saw one site that did exactly what I wanted. The developer told me that it had cost $250,000 to develop that particular site – way beyond my budget. Yikes!

Leasing Existing Software.

I have leased web-driven database software from Aurora & Quanta Production’s Independent Photography Network (IPN), Digital Railroad and most recently, PhotoShelter.

These are all web-based services that, for a price, allow you to upload your images into their system, include a web gallery to show off a “home page” using one of their pre-designed templates, and offer image search capabilities for your library. Clients can login and create private lightboxes of your images.

All of these companies have developed software that does a decent job. The problem is that once the companies have developed the software, they often try to increase their fees. Many companies form agencies or collectives based on their subscriber base, and strongly encourage their photographers to join the collective agency. Sometimes that requires giving up a percentage of your sales in return for their increased “marketing power.” I have always refused to give up this percentage.

IPN was purchased by the conglomerate that publishes Photo District News. I did not choose to join the new collective, even though the publisher admonished me with the line, “But you will missing out on all the sales to the advertising market. You don’t want to make money?” (The publisher left or was otherwise replaced from his position at PDN before the year was out).

Digital Railroad (DRR) had a great software platform, and I was with them for a couple of years after leaving IPN. They went bankrupt even though they had a base of a few hundred paying photographers. I was concerned that I had paid an annual fee rather than a monthly fee every September, and the November bankruptcy of DRR meant my entire annual fee (in the order of $600) would be lost. Thankfully, however, my credit card company resolved the dispute in my favor and refunded me for the remaining lost months. I learned a few lessons from this experience – always pay with a credit card that stands behind you, and try to pay these types of companies monthly rather than annually so you don’t get stiffed.

PhotoShelter made offers to stranded DRR clients, and I signed on with them. They have a nice program, but I have found a few problems with it. One of the biggest concerns I've had with PhotoShelter, is that thumbnail images are not presented with captions. As my images are editorial and usually require explanation, not including the caption could result in missed sales.

When I complained, I was told that PhotoShelter made the choice not to show captions below thumbnail images because captions would detract from the design of the web page. I had had a similar discussion with the folks at DRR, who finally allowed this feature two years after I requested it.

The ironic part of this is that I called PhotoShelter shortly after they sent me a mailing stating what designers and clients wanted to see in a photo search engine. One of the points was that clients wanted to see caption information associated with images, including thumbnails!

In summary, while putting your images with a company like IPN and PhotoShelter is a viable way to get your images into a searchable online database, getting into bed with these companies comes with frustrations. Natural history photographers need captions below thumbnail images so the clients will know what they are looking at.

The captions are all-important. I was shocked to learn that one of my online software providers did not even include captions in their search base -- only keywords. My office had to spend hours putting our caption information into the keyword field for our 6000 images in the library.

Off-the-shelf software

After years of searching, I have finally found a near-perfect solution to my needs: Stockbox Photo Software, made by a company in Canada (http://www.stockboxphoto.com/). I was able to get this software up and running to service all my images in one day. It took only a few hours to customize it, and I am even able to put video clips on the database -- something no other leased software package has been capable of doing. Stockbox software is both affordable and reasonably easy to install and administer, and it offers just about everything that I have ever wanted or needed for my website's image database.

It’s currently up and running at: www.norbertwu.com/lightbox/index.php

Because I have had experience setting up my own web pages, getting Stockbox to work was relatively easy. The folks at Stockbox Photo installed the software on the servers at my website hosting company after I supplied them with my username, password, and other information. A consultant I hired spent about three hours getting familiar with the software and showing me how to work with and modify the program; after that, I have been able to tweak the system with few problems.

Any photographer who decides to use Stockbox software will want to find a web hosting service that has enough expertise to help install the software. You can find web hosting services advertised in magazines such as PC World and MacWorld. Some will host your site (including specialized software) and give you email for less than $20 per month. The only thing you’ll need is high speed internet access (DSL, cable, satellite, etc from your home or office, so that you can access the software and images.

It is entirely possible to host Stockbox on a Mac, Linux, or Windows computer (server) in your office or home. The software requires specialized, but free, programs such as PHP 4.31 or later, My SQL 3.23.58 or later, Apache 1.3 or later, and some others. Most remote hosting services provide these software programs as part of their monthly fee.

As far as I know, Stockbox is the only software platform that allows users to display any file formats that are viewable in a web browser, such as . gif, jpg, au, avi, aif, htm, html, mid, mp3, mpg, mov, png, ra, ram, rar, swf, wav, zip, wma, wmv and pdf. If the file format is not viewable from within a web browser, the system provides a link for users to download other formats and files so that the user can view or play them locally in the associated application.

Stockbox Photo is not perfect. The documentation is not great, and I encountered some obstacles that left me scratching my head until their technical support folks clarified things for me. Their staff seems small, which is reflected in their email response time.

Movie files display in the gallery, but it is not possible to edit the movie files from within the system. The user has to choose the video frame that will serve as the preview frame of the video clip. Automating this process would be helpful. Because I do not have the time for all the steps that have to be taken to get video clips into the system, I have gone back to using Filemaker to show my video clips to clients.

Other Choices to Suit your Needs

Photographer needs vary depending on what you do with your images and with whom you are dealing. Filemaker or other programs can certainly work for a photographer who only needs to provide the most basic search capability of his library. If you only need to make submissions of static web pages of images to clients, then almost any imaging program can help you do this – examples in the Mac world include Photo Mechanic, iPhoto, Aperture and Extensis Portfolio. I use all of the preceding programs (except iPhoto) when static web pages are sufficient for my clients.

There are a world of alternatives out there for photographers. Extensis Netpublish is a software package that provides online search capability for a library of images. Extensis also makes the program Portfolio, which helps photographers manage images on their Mac or Windows computers – but offers no internet search capabilities. The AGPix online platform will host your images; and photographers can create lightboxes on this platform for clients.

My office handles the pricing and actual delivery of images to clients. All of our images are unique, and we price our images according to the usage, how difficult and expensive it was to obtain the image, how unique the image is, etc. The ecommerce capabilities of these software packages would not work for me. My office delivers high-resolution images via email and FTP once a fee has been agreed upon, and I do not rely on the above software to do the job, even though it may be capable of doing it. I strongly recommend that high-res images be sent only to trusted clients and only after they have paid for usage.

Making a Choice

Choose a program or service that is designed to be used over the web using a standard web browser. If you have a broadband internet connection, you can sit in your RV on the beach, upload images, and manage just about everything you may need. Once you’ve learned how the software works, it is quite easy to upload new images and make those new images available to clients. You can create a lightbox for a client to see, and clients can create their own lightboxes by searching your image database.

The 6000+ images on my website take up about 25gb of hard drive space. They are all saved in high-resolution 1-6mb JPGs. My existing web hosting service provides me with 30gb of space for under $15 per month. I can store my entire library of high-resolution images on their servers along with the Lightbox software .

Photoshelter hosted these same files and the same amount of space, charging a few hundred dollars annually to host the images, while providing their software for me to use. PhotoShelter will take a percentage of any online sales you may consummate with their service, but if you do not allow e-commerce sales on the site, this point is moot.

If your images and software are hosted by a remote server, you don’t have to worry about your server going down. However, you must still backup your images, software, and software settings. My web hosting service allows this to be done automatically. Regardless, I always have at least three hard drives with all my images backed up at my office, home, and a third location. I always input captions, keywords, and other metadata into the original, master images that I have in my office and not into any remote servers. This way, the metadata always stays with and travels with the original, master images – and is transferred to lower-resolution versions if needed. If I change services or software, none of the metadata is lost in transition.

Conclusion

There are some pluses to leasing software as opposed to owning it. Whenever a leasing company comes up with new capabilities, you will benefit from them immediately. If a purchased software program is upgraded substantively, you must pay for the new iteration. For photographers who are fairly new to the business, don’t have much experience administering photo databases and websites, or who want a relatively painless solution to putting their images online, then services such as PhotoShelter are probably the best choice.

If you have a fair amount of computer expertise, are tired of services making choices for you, and know exactly what you want in an online searchable database of images, then a software package that you own, such as Stockbox Photo, might be the perfect solution.

No matter your choice, keep in mind that getting your images online and searchable does not guarantee that people will see them. That requires marketing skills and hard work.

Hunt for Giant Pacific Octopus and Wolf Eels, God's Pocket Resort, September 5-12, 2010

2010-06-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Alan Studley and I have put together a special trip at God's
Pocket Resort, at the tip of Vancouver Island, home to some of the
world's best diving. Pt. Hardy is home to some of the best diving in the world, and God's Pocket resort is a real treasure. The rooms are all land-based, very comfortable, with their own bathrooms and showers. The food was absolutely great last time.

Why is this special? First, God's Pocket is home to some of the world's
best diving, and God's Pocket is home to some of the best meals in any
diving lodge that we've experienced. Second, there's a place called
Dillon Rock that we have found gives the best wolf eel and giant
Pacific octopus encounters we've ever seen. See our video and still
images as an example of a friendly giant octopus encounter at Dillon
Rock (soon to be posted on Norb's website).

Some photos of the resort and the diving, as well as a giant octopus encounter, can be seen here:
http://gallery.me.com/astudley/100100
http://gallery.me.com/astudley/100114

For this trip only, we will have the use of God's Pocket's Hurst Isle or
Shoal Searcher, a houseboat or dive boat that we will anchor over Dillon
Rock for three days. This will give a select group of eight divers (per
day unlimited diving at this haven for wolf eels and giant octopus.
Rebreathers are welcome.

This is a rare opportunity to spend unlimited time on a fantastic dive
site with the world's most unusual underwater animals.

The dive boat or houseboat will be limited to eight divers per day,
including the trip leaders Norbert Wu and Alan Studley (actually, the boat will be limited to only seven divers, since one of Alan’s pals is coming for hiking/kayaking but will not be diving) . We will return to God's Pocket each night for their fantastic meals and comfortable rooms. We will be the only group of divers; where the boat usually holds up to 16 divers, we will have only 7! We will be able to go wherever we want to go.

The trip will be a six day, seven night trip. You will need to arrive in Pt. Hardy to meet the boat to the resort on September 5 evening, and the boat will get you back to Pt. Hardy on September 12 at 9AM. Trip cost includes all diving, meals, accommodations, shared land room for two. More logistical details will be coming if you sign up.

Information on the resort itself can be seen at:

http://www.godspocket.com/

Hope you can make it!!

Norb

Announcing Trip to California's Channel Islands, August 20-23, 2010

2010-06-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Join professional photographers Jason Bradley, Kevin McDonnell and special guest Norbert Wu on board Truth Aquatics' vessel Vision for 4 days of diving and photographing California's Channel Islands. Space on the boat is limited, so sign up today! Diving, accommodations, air fills, food, slide shows and seminars are all included.

I will be on this trip as a guest, but will be there mainly to heckle my friends Jason and Kevin as they lead the trip. The trip dates are August 20-23. Trip cost is $890. San Clemente Island, one of my favorite dive spots in the world. Clear water, fairly warm (not Monterey cold!), kelp forests, garibaldi! What more could you want?

Here's what Jason has written:

We are limiting the boat to 23 people not including staff. It will be a limited load, southern islands, underwater photography workshop. We are going to San Clemente island, but will likely do ship rock and black sea bass at Catalina. If conditions are good, maybe we can go to Santa Barbara--unless that messes with the fuel charge. As people sign up on the site I will immediately contact them to take bunk assignments.

More information and the trip flyer:

http://bradleyphotographic.com/workshops.html

2010-06-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm often asked what dive gear to bring on a trip. I have dove a great deal in cold waters, and I have most recently gotten very interested in the great diving at the tip of Vancouver Island, at a place called God's Pocket. In fact, I am leading trips there this year and next, the first trips I've led in a long while. Below are my recommendations on dive gear, which apply to California waters as well:

What Diving Gear Should I Bring?

Question:

> It looks great. I'm very interested... Having the opportunity to dive> there with you and Norbert would be fantastic. The "warm water wimp" in me still needs to know -- water temps? 45-47 degrees? I don't have dry gloves. Do you think I'd be okay in a drysuit with thick undergarments, thick hood and thick wet gloves. I didn't have any problems last year but the water temp was low 50s.

Answer:

I don't think that I am that unusual. I get cold just like anyone else. The gear has come a long way in the last 15 years, to the point where diving in 45-50 degree water means very little. I do dive Monterey, but not much these days -- not because of the cold, but because I've dove it so much that it is boring to me now.

However, Alan Studley is far more of an explorer and has some GREAT dive sites there that awed me when I went out with him. They are a bit more work, more wild and wooly, than I am comfortable with, however.

Diving with God's Pocket is easier since they have the boat and knowledge of the currents. I hate to say it, but the animal life is more prolific, colorful, and interesting too.

Anyway, back to getting cold. The best undergarments aren't necessarily thick. I have found, and Studley and many others will agree, that the Fourth Element two -piece Arctic drysuit undergarments are the best. They are not too thick so you have lots of flexibility. If you combine the Arctic with the Drybase thermal bases (basically, thick polypro long johns) then I think that you will be toasty. I used this combination in Antarctica and I was fine.

I believe that Fourth Element has a dealer on the East Coast.

You won't need dry gloves, nor particularly thick gloves. I find thick gloves very difficult to put on and just use fairly thin, flexible neoprene gloves. I don't like gauntlet gloves or gloves with big velcro bands around them; they are just harder to put on.

As for hoods, the absolute best, warmest hood I can recommend (I just used ONE of these hoods in Antarctica last season and was fine; I used to use an ice cap under a hood in past seasons) is the Henderson Hyperstretch Hybrid Dry Suit Hood.

I also like flexible drysuits. I really like the DUI TLS 350 drysuits and have always used them since day one. They are lightweight, durable, dry out quickly, and are a shell. I do not recommend the rock boots and prefer the standard booties. I do have latex neck seals and latex wrist seals. I have Sitec rings put on the suit; latex wrist seals fit into them, and if I am diving Antarctica, cheap rubber concrete mixing gloves fit over them to create dry gloves. No Zipseals (too expensive for me but I have heard good things about them). You might find the Sitec rings to be too big. They do add bulk and do get in the way sometimes, but I am very used to them. They allow the changing of wrist seals in the field very quickly. Then I just use thick wool socks and I am fine.

I hope that this helps. In Antarctica, I use much the same gear except for drygloves, which I can describe if anyone asks.

Duplicating the New Transponder Car Keys

2010-04-26T08:07:00.001-07:00

If you buy a newer car, you'll find that having a spare key for the car made at your dealers will cost $150 to $200. Ouch! This is because the newer cars require transponder keys. The keys need to be cut as before, but they also have electronics in the fob that communicate with the car itself.

I read about getting transponder key "blanks" in a newspaper column a few months ago, and I ordered keys for our cars. One is a 2008 Toyota, and the other is a 2010 Subaru. The newspaper column made it seem that the process was easy -- just go to the internet stores that the column recommended, buy the transponder keys, and you are basically done. I'm here to tell you that it is not so easy.

Getting a blank transponder key is only the first step. Once you have a blank key (the one for my Toyota cost $15), you have to find a locksmith that has the proper programming tools and program for your car. No locksmith in the Monterey, California area where I live could do this for me. The dealers, of course, refuse to do this. I called the internet store to ask for a solution and they recommended that I consult a web directory to find auto locksmiths in my area. I did so, and I found the names of a few auto locksmiths in the San Jose area, about a 2 hour drive from Monterey.

Out of four auto locksmiths that I called, only one person was remotely friendly or helpful. All the others quoted a price of $150 or more, or acted like they did not understand what I wanted to do. I drove up one weekday on other business and stopped off at Schwenk Lock & Safe, near Valley Fair shopping mall in San Jose. The owner, Yevgeny, was a jovial, very nice and helpful person. He berated be (nicely) for buying a transponder key on the internet, and then spent a good 30 minutes getting my key to work. He warned me continually that it was possible that after all his work, that the key would not work. In the end, it did work, and he charged me a measly $35 for all his time. I highly recommend these folks. I also recommend that you call them first, find out if they can get the transponder key for you ahead of time, and then bring in your car for a spare key. This will be the most efficient and painless way to get a spare key for your newer model car mde.

My 2010 Subaru is too new for the auto locksmith. I'll be returning the key to the internet store, and I'll post here if they do or do not honor their "no questions asked, no time limit" return policy.

Here are the vendors I used:
For the transponder keys: www.autotransponder.com, 1-866-595-9596. This internet store supplied me with the key "blanks." I do believe that their FAQ page was a bit misleading. It states, among other things: "New keys can be cut from a spare original. Transponder key comes with complete instructions, which require a second working programmed key. "

The truth is, my keys came with no instructions whatsoever. Creating a working spare key from the transponder requires that the actual car be present along with a working programmed key. If I had been told this first, it would have saved a few hours of driving around looking for locksmiths and visiting the car dealer in Monterey.

To find an auto locksmith in my area: www.autolocksmithfinder.com

The auto locksmith that programmed my Toyota key: Schwenk Lock & Safe, 60 N Winchester Blvd #4, San Jose, CA. yevgeny@locktools.com, 408-978-0403.

holy cow, Creative Cow? Why so hostile to a newcomer?

2010-04-17T20:46:00.001-07:00

Dear Ron: (and for my web-savvy friends whom I have bcc:d on this, let me know if I am out of line here, since I am gasping in disbelief at the acrimony arising from my using my email address that says "temp1@****.com"):

Holy cow! I can't believe the acrimony arising from my using my email address that says "temp1@****.com". So, here's my explanation.

I have three addresses that I use a lot.

spam@****.com is one of them. It happens to be an email address that I give out to friends and which I use for personal correspondence and for things like forums, Amazon, etc. I sometimes travel for weeks at a time. I have a Blackberry that can cost me a lot of money to get emails when I am in, for instance, Indonesia. So, for urgent work-related emails, I have an address that my office and business uses. I check those when I am overseas.

My "spam@****.com" email address is for personal stuff that is not usually urgent. The name is something I chose waggishly since it is one that I give to friends. I usually don't have those emails forwarded to my Blackberry. That's the background behind the "spam@****.com" email. Emails coming to any addresses that are spam are filtered out anyway before they reach me, largely.

Now, I do use email addresses beyond those. Anyone who is worried about spam and values their email privacy would do so. My "temp1@****.com" address forwards into my "spam@****.com" address. Using a "temp1@****.com" address doesn't filter emails for spam any more or less than my office and work emails might. It actually is a permanent email that just happens to be named "temp1". I am shocked that doing something as simple as this would irritate a forum manager to the point where he sends a irate message to a new member.

You are making a ton of assumptions about me based on something as innocuous as the email address I used to register on your site. Wow. It's almost like being labelled a nerd just because my name is Norbert and I am Chinese in descent.

Holy cow again!

--   Norb

On 4/17/10 7:04 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:

Norman,

Yes, I work hard and I wrestle with high blood pressure and so sometimes I get bitchie.

But as I said: we take offense at "temp" addresses that are used in our site.

You take offense that someone MIGHT send you something from here and so you use it.

If you don't like our site, don't use it.

I will gladly turn off your account as I am always ready to cull the herd, even when it's someone whom we own one of their books in our library. (Your Antarctica title.)

You DID say our work was spam, by using the temp address -- you even admitted it was used to avoid spam.

We got the message.

Dear Ron:

Wow. Maybe you have been working too hard. I have that problem often, but I try not to flame new clients or new contacts.

Sorry for the email that voiced my concerns, but perhaps you can take it as constructive criticism rather than bringing in the three irrelevant responses you gave:

1. We spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way.

How much you've spent on the site was not relevant to my email to you. I am actually impressed by the site, but obviously it is not welcoming to new members.

2. We weren't impressed by you, either.

How could you have been impressed or unimpressed by a brand-new member of your site?

3. we are offended by people who think all our work and effort is spam.

Now, where did I ever say this?

Holy crap, creative cow. And Ron.

On 4/17/10 12:41 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:

We get lots of these temporary email account sign-ups, Norbert, and we turn them off.

Yes, we are indeed autocratic and we also don't apologize for it. We spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way.

Weren't impressed by us? We weren't impressed by you, either.

This site isn't on auto-pilot. And just as you are offended by autocratic site admins, we are offended by people who think all our work and effort is spam.

Please don't feel the need to contribute if you don't want to, we have over 2 million people a month that do. We keep the serious ones who sign up for real and we toss the others. We call it "culling the herd."

What?
What kind of message is this to send to a new user?
Has an email sent to temp2@****.com bounced yet?
Is there a reason to give a new user this negative feeling of having joined some kind of autocratic organization?

I am a 25-year veteran of photography and filmmaking. I have multiple email addresses to avoid spam. I have a lot to contribute to a forum, but this message, and the incredible amount of administrative governance that I've encountered so far make me far less inclined to contribute to this forum or to even visit it. Just posting my first thread and getting a warning every time I posted a reply that it would be monitored, as well as the arrogance exhibited by one of your "experts", has left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Wow. I am not impressed with Creative Cow.

Norb

On 4/17/10 11:16 AM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:
Hello Norbert,

I wanted to point out that the account using temp2@****.com will be deactivated the first time that the email bounces.

That is our policy.

Best regards,

The COW Team

*********************
Parts of my original post to the forum and a surprisingly hostile reply:
For the full thread, read:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1081667

Note that each time Norb posted to the forum, he got a warning message that his message was being moderated for quality or substance before being released.

digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:06:47 pm

Hi folks:

I am hoping that I can get some suggestions from folks here. Thanks in advance.

I have a library of about 250 HDCAM tapes that I hope to digitize to the ProRes422HQ format. Here is my plan, and I wonder if anyone sees any glaring errors in it or has suggestions to go this more efficiently or cheaply. Am I missing anything?

1. I will buy a used Sony J-H3 HDCAM deck to play back the tapes. This will give me an SDI output. I plan to sell the J-H3 deck after digitizing my tapes. I could also buy a J-H1 deck which outputs component HD, but I’ve heard that SDI will give a cleaner signal. It does seem that J-H3 decks sell more quickly and there is more demand for them than the J-H1 decks.

2. I’ll take the SDI output from the J-H3 deck and feed it into a Matrox MXO2 LE box.

3. My Mac tower will do most of the computing work. I will take the output from the Matrox box and convert it using Final Cut Pro version 6 (the latest I have), I will convert the footage to ProRes422HQ. My Mac is a 2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with 3Gb RAM.

4. I have a MacGurus Burly Firewire 800 enclosure. My Mac will feed the ProRes422HQ footage into a Hitachi 2Tb hard drive using Firewire 800. I have heard that I should use RAID to avoid dropped frames, but I am not sure what flavor of RAID to use. Instead, I plan to capture footage to a drive, then clone the drive as backup. I’ve heard that Firewire 800 will be just fine to capture my footage.

I’ve heard this statement: “You can capture ProRes to a single drive, but it may be safer to capture to a RAID to ensure there are no dropped frames.” Can anyone tell me what flavor of RAID I should use and how that would avoid dropped frames? My enclosure will allow me to set various RAID settings (software and hardware based, but I am told that the software based RAID is superior: Performace is superior using software RAID with OSX Disk Utility … and not the firmware RAID configured using the bridge RAID configurations).

5. Most of my tapes were shot in 1080i, but about 25 tapes were shot in 23.98. I shoot with an older F900 camera and after digitizing all existing tapes, I hope to sell the deck, and to use the camera to digitize any new tapes. Since the Matrox box has component HD as an input, I believe that I can simply feed my footage using the F900 camera to the Matrox box and use the procedure outlined above. Am I correct?

6. I’ve heard this statement:
The only other issue needing research is monitoring the video levels for capture. I don't know if the signal can get messed up during capture.

If anyone can explain the above and how I can solve any possible problem thereby, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions on the above. I am looking for a used J-H3 deck and a Matrox box to buy if anyone has one.

Norbert Wu

Norb
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Shane Ross on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:31:19 pm

HQ is overkill. HDCAM is an 8-bit 3:1:1 format. IF it was HDCAM SR, you might choose HQ. But all that does for HDCAM is take up more space.

That is a LOT of footage. 75GB per hour, so I hope those tapes aren't 1 hour tapes. Even if they are 30 min tapes, that is about 9.6TB of space. 14.1 TB at HQ.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD...don't miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by David Roth Weiss on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:45:07 pm

[Shane Ross] "75GB per hour"

Interesting, my Digital Heaven VideoSpace widget said 62.04 per hour.

Must be because it defaults to 2-channels of audio, when HDCAM actually has 4-channels.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist - UP IN THE AIR - nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Shane Ross on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:39:17 pm

According to my AJA iPhone App, it is 75.3GB, with 2 CH of audio.

Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD...don't miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Arnie Schlissel on Apr 5, 2010 at 3:45:54 pm

[Shane Ross] "According to my AJA iPhone App, it is 75.3GB, with 2 CH of audio."

Yes, but what does your iPad say?

BTW, did you see Stephen Colbert chop salad with his?

Arnie

Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:45:55 pm

Thanks for the speedy replies regarding hard drive space. Hitachi 2Tb drives are $150 or so -- so I am not concerned about buying up to ten hard drives, and I believe my library of about 170 hours should only fill up 6 to 8 Tb, or 3 to 4 drives. That is a tiny amount of money compared to the cost of buying or renting a deck.

Anyone see any glaring errors in this process otherwise?

Thanks.
Norb
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by David Roth Weiss on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:01:47 pm

[Norbert Wu] "Anyone see any glaring errors in this process otherwise? "

Norbert, two of the forum leaders have already given you the same answer. What additional info could you really need?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist - UP IN THE AIR - nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

*******
Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process
by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:12:06 pm

Well, I did have some other, perhaps more difficult questions in my post other than the hard drive space required. I do appreciate any answers to those questions, and I thank the two experts for their answers about hard drive space.

Norb
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA

there's more to the forum thread, all of which was helpful.

David Roth Weiss, Creative Cow: why so hostile? We're all just out here trying to get along.

creative cow community for video folks -- dang, weird place

2010-04-17T16:14:00.001-07:00

On 4/17/10 12:41 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:
> We get lots of these temporary email account sign-ups, Norbert, and we
> turn them off.
>
> Yes, we are indeed autocratic and we also don't apologize for it. We
> spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way.
>
> Weren't impressed by us? We weren't impressed by you, either.
>
> This site isn't on auto-pilot. And just as you are offended by
> autocratic site admins, we are offended by people who think all our
> work and effort is spam.
>
> Please don't feel the need to contribute if you don't want to, we have
> over 2 million people a month that do. We keep the serious ones who
> sign up for real and we toss the others. We call it "culling the herd."
>
>
>>
>> What?
>> What kind of message is this to send to a new user?
>> Has an email sent to temp2@***.com bounced yet?
>> Is there a reason to give a new user this negative feeling of having
>> joined some kind of autocratic organization?
>>
>> I am a 25-year veteran of photography and filmmaking. I have
>> multiple email addresses to avoid spam. I have a lot to contribute to
>> a forum, but this message, and the incredible amount of
>> administrative governance that I've encountered so far make me far
>> less inclined to contribute to this forum or to even visit it. Just
>> posting my first thread and getting a warning every time I posted a
>> reply that it would be monitored, as well as the arrogance exhibited
>> by one of your "experts", has left a very bad taste in my mouth.
>>
>> Wow. I am not impressed with Creative Cow.
>>
>> Norb
>>
>
>
On 4/17/10 11:16 AM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:
Hello Norbert,

I wanted to point out that the account using temp2@***.com will be
deactivated the first time that the email bounces.

That is our policy.

Best regards,

The COW Team

EyeTV hybrid product causes problems

2009-07-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

My webmaster had a problem a few weeks ago where Quicktime clips that he was putting on my website had green poster (preview) frames.

I noticed this also. It was random. Today, however, just about every single video clip in my library on my Mac Pro started turning green.

I found this solution on the web, and it solved my problem.

> I too can confirm this, though I am using iMovie HD and showing green thumbs.
> After moving the "eyetv mpeg support.component" out of the folder and
> re-importing the video clip, thumb shows up fine. bummer eyetv affects it like
> that.

All my clips are fine again. I did not even have to reimport them.

I am not at all happy with EyeTV-- not only this problem, but many others. Admittedly, I have an older EyeTV Hybrid stick that has seen its share of use, but still - too many problems for a Mac product.

Why should this software affect all my video source files? That's terrible in and of itself.

I could not believe how clunky the EyeTV software was. It was terrible. If you moved the resulting recorded TV segment, the software would follow it. It usually would not record correctly as scheduled due to conflicts that you would never see. The quality of the recorded picture is terrible, far worse than what I get with a similar setup on a PC. The Titan TV schedule was OK, but for the past two years, I could never see what was on ABC! It always said "local programming" for that channel.

An Open Letter to the Marine Conservation Community

2009-07-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

Note to readers: Norbert Wu was selected as a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation in 2001. He spent the next three years traveling the world, documenting marine conservation issues. At the end of his fellowship, he sent the following letter to many of the marine scientists that he had encountered at the Pew Fellows meetings.

I am writing this to a few of you who seem to have an interest in working with the popular media to get marine conservation messages out.

The overwhelming messages that I heard at the recent Pew Fellows meeting were:
1. Things are getting worse, not better.
2. Scientists need to get their message out.
3. Scientists are terrible about getting their messsage out. They need help.

If the Pew Fellows program is serious about solving marine conservation problems and recognizes that the popular media is an important part of the solution, then it needs to enlist the help of the popular media in a fundamental and integral way. It needs to marshal the expertise of the few Pew Fellows that have experience or interest in working with the popular media. It needs to enlist the participation of freelance filmmakers, photographers, writers, film producers, directors, and programming executives. It has to extend its effort well beyond the selection of scientists who are understandably absorbed in their culture and their areas of expertise and cannot direct their attention and energy to effective communication in the media.

The Pew program and its Fellows need to develop a mutual working respect for those in the popular media. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to recognize that getting stories in the popular media takes a professional, committed, time-consuming approach. Getting the message out will not be effective if delegated to "afternoons after I've finished my morning writing." The Pew program needs to fund and support those Fellows who can tell or present media stories, and the Pew Program should make "getting the message out" a top priority.

Here's an example. A recent article in Time magazine discusses how the hit CBS drama, CSI, has dramatized and popularized forensic science. Forensic scientists are rolling their eyes about the dramatic license taken in the series, but this show has increased awareness of forensic science. Forensic science schools report a dramatic increase in interest and enrollment. This is part of what we need: a new series about the oceans, with compelling characters. The series will certainly will hype and over-dramatize science.

Any scientist watching such a series will roll their eyes and cringe in embarassment, as DNA is analyzed in minutes rather than weeks, and the characters encounter adventure after adventure and make definitive statements like "the bluefin tuna fishery is crashing!" rather than "if we look at the attached reports and graphs, there is a 90% probability that tuna stocks are in serious decline. We recommend further study."

There needs to be a push to get marine science into all aspects of the popular media. There should a computer simulation game called "SIM Coral Reef," just as there is a "SIM City." There should be several television series on marine science, featuring buff women and men who would otherwise be on Baywatch, and having plots that are only a small cut above Baywatch (which was the world's most-watched series in its day). We need to continue to preach to the converted, continue to hook up scientists with the media, but we need to take a far more proactive approach to getting our stories out in far more outlets. We need to realize that we have compelling stories to tell and sell to the popular media. The Pew program is ideally situated to help marine conservationists do this. In my opinion, however, it has failed miserably and spectacularly so far in getting any kind of message out to the masses.

I could say a lot more, but this is sufficient for an initial communication. I am happy to discuss these issues and ideas with anyone.

Norb

Norbert Wu
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA

Problems, problems with Paypal

2009-06-19T21:14:00.001-07:00

You have a point, but I am not sure how much Paypal stands behind its customers. Off the top of my head, here are things I've experienced with Paypal that I have found pretty negative:

1. As a buyer, I purchased a camera from a web storefront almost a year ago and paid using a credit card through Paypal. The web storefront proved to be fraudulent and never sent me the camera. Now, if I had paid using my credit card directly rather than through Paypal, I would have been completely protected without much of a hassle factor. All I would have to do is call my credit card company, enter a dispute, and the transaction would have been immediately voided and all money returned. I can attest to this as I know the law regarding credit cards (at least up to now). You as the consumer are always protected from credit card fraud by law for anything beyond $50. And just about all credit card companies will cover that last $50 also. (I was even refunded four months after I made an annual payment to Digital Railroad, a company that I leased software from for my website photo search engine, which got greedy and went bankrupt. The credit card company investigated the matter and refunded me the remaining eight or nine months out of the amount I had paid, which I thought was very cool).

Now, back to the above ripoff -- Paypal is just a middleman between the customer and the credit card. They took weeks to investigate the matter, kept asking me for more information, treated the matter in their usual incredibly impersonal (computer-phone tree) way that makes everyone but the most dedicated give up, and they finally refunded most of my money but kept something like $22 with no explanation.

I then called my credit card company, explained the situation, and boom -- all my money was credited back.

2. I have no idea what will happen if I, as a seller, am paid by someone who then lies to Paypal to get their money back; if their transfer of funds proves insufficient, etc. I have a strong feeling that in such cases, sellers will get hosed by Paypal. After all, Paypal is owned by Ebay, who seems hell-bent on favoring buyers rather than sellers. Sellers can't leave feedback for buyers. If a seller makes a mistake in listing a price in a buy-it-now auction and someone jumps on a too-good-to-be-true deal within 15 minutes of the listing, then the seller is forced to sell the item, or endure a negative feedback from the buyer as well as full forfeiture of the Ebay auction fee and commission. If I get stiffed by a buyer, however -- no problem. I can't do a dang thing.

I once sold an item to someone who had a problem with it. The item was fine, my return policy stated that I accept returns but the seller would have to pay shipping costs both ways unless the item was DOA. The buyer contacted Paypal, who disregarded my return policy and basically favored the buyer over the seller in all instances. Sellers don't have a chance if they get defrauded by buyers. Not a chance.

3. Paypal does all kinds of sneaky stuff to get you to withdraw funds directly from your bank account as opposed to using your credit card for transactions. I believe that this is because they make a bit more money if you use your bank account rather than a credit card. But you also get more protection if you are using your credit card. If you buy something on Ebay and use your Paypal account to pay, you are automatically paying by a direct withdrawal from your bank account. You have to be savvy enough and curious enough to hunt down the option to use your credit card. That option is often completely hidden, with no explanation, if you have any funds whatsoever in your Paypal account. You have to stop whatever you are doing in such a case, go to your Paypal account, withdraw any funds in your Paypal account, then go back to buying whatever it was on Ebay that you were using your Paypal account for. Only then will you even be able to see an option to pay for the item using your credit card.

4. I am not sure if anyone has seen ads where Blockbuster or Tiger Direct offers something like $20 or $25 back if you buy something from them using Paypal. I've been hooked by offers like this twice in the past year and have never been able to get Paypal to pay me back. It is a total scam because Paypal will never issue the rebate, and unless you have documented the offer with screen grabs, you have absolutely no proof and no recourse. Also, when you call Paypal, they tell you that the merchant is at fault. When you call the merchant, they tell you that Paypal is at fault.

Well, I actually did get some money from Paypal for the above instances. I called the Paypal phone number which I give below as a reward for reading so far into this diatribe. Feel free to pass this on.

If you have the above problem, here is a "secret" phone number to get to a supervisor.
Paypal: call this phone 402-935-7733, at some point just enter #47550 and that seems to be a magic number to get to an operator and supervisor. Both times, I talked to a supervisor about the above situations, and without asking for paperwork or anything else, the supervisors issued me the promised rebate to my account. Unbelievably, the credit to my account actually did come through. The above phone number and extension was given to me by a supervisor there. You have to ignore the constant phone tree runaround that this number gives you and keep entering the above extension. At some point, the phone tree robot will get overridden by the extension above, and you will get transferred to a supervisor.

Your consumer advocate.

renting a car in New Zealand

2008-12-20T21:02:00.001-08:00

I recently rented a car in Christchurch, New Zealand. I checked Pegasus, Hertz, Avis, and Thrifty. Hertz was the best deal and was only NZD$50 per day for a little Mazda 3 hatchback. The great thing about New Zealand car rentals is this -- the main insurance is included in the price. So you can decline all the insurance they may offer you -- the most you will pay in case of an accident is what they'd call the "deductible" here of $2500 (NZD), which they call something else there.

Be careful of the smaller car agencies. Pegasus charges by the km after you reach 150km per day. Hertz and Avis gave unlimited miles.

Lastly, if you stay in Christchurch the first night back and rent a car, Hertz and Avis have offices downtown. I saved the airport pickup fee for rental cars of $30 by picking the car up downtown and returning it to the airport.

One tip is that car rental agencies take your reservation on the web, but they will not charge you if you never show up. I don't abuse this, but I do sometimes make two reservations for different times with different car rental agencies if I am not sure of my times. I do try to cancel in advance but it is not a big deal if I do not. In the US at least -- and in New Zealand - I decline all the extra insurance that the car agencies ask for. In the US, my existing car insurance covers liability and all other stuff, and my credit card covers the deductible.

Surf housings

2008-08-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hi folks:

I got interested in surf photography years ago but the technology was not quite there for someone who was a only a serious amateur. My first surf housing was for a Canon EOS-1N film camera. It was a nicely done Watershot housing made by a man named Steve Ogles, who has since moved on to doing housings for Hollywood. He is no longer bothering to make housings for us little folks.

The Watershot housing worked fine, but what a hassle! You would put the film in the camera, screw on 12 bolts with an allen wrench, swim out through the surf, take 36 shots, then have to come all the way back to the beach and reload your film! It was so exhausting that I shot about two rolls with this housing before giving up.

With the advent of digitial cameras and the ability to shoot 400 RAW images on one battery, surf photography became viable for me again. So I looked around to find a surf housing for my Nikon D200 cameras.

I do not wish to take my usual underwater housings into the surf because:

1. they sink, and the surf will often rip your housing away from you even if a lanyard is attached. Something that sinks in the surf is basically lost forever. Iâ€™ve lost two treasured ScubaPro frameless masks in the surf in the past year.

2. The sand in the surf will quickly ruin your underwater housing. Sand grains will embed themselves in your O-rings and glands, and this is probably the absolutely worst thing you can do to an underwater housing.

Surf housings have a minimum of controls, and they float. My present housing for my D200 camera is has shutter speed, and thatâ€™s about all I need. I preset focus to about 3 feet, aperture to f8, and the shutter speed is all I need to control. I also set the viewing options on my LCD screen so that it only shows overexposed highlights as blinking white. I donâ€™t want any more complexity than that when in the surf.

I was astounded by how hard it was to find a surf housing manufacturer. So I have been urging wetpixel and Eric Cheng to get a surf photography forum up and running.

Hereâ€™s a list of housing manufacturers I have found in my research, listed in alphabetical order.

AquaTech Water Imaging Technologies, USA
18685-A Main St, #359
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
phone number: Office: 714 968 6946
email: jesse.aquatech@mac.com

Erik Hjermstad
Delmar Housing Projects
4051 Riverton Place
San Diego, CA 92130
phone number: 858-259-5830
www.delmarhousings.com/

Chad Stickney
handcraftedvideowaterhousings
669 Bolsana Dr
Laguna Beach, Ca 92651
phone number: 949-200-7658
email: handcraftedvideowaterhousings@hotmail.com

SPL housings
8535 Arjons Dr. Ste N
San Diego, CA 92126
phone number: (858) 349-9037
email: info@splwaterhousings.com
These are very popular housings judging from what I have seen on the North Shore. Perhaps 8 of 10 photographers has an SPL housing.

Hope this helps. Thanks to Phil Colla for his help in my initial stages of research on surf housings. Please note that these manufacturers range from largish companies to one guy in a garage. The above is only a listing of sources; I cannot guarantee the accuracy nor the honesty of any of these operations. I have heard from more than one other photographer that at least one of the manufacturers on this list does not have a great reputation for timely delivery of housings and even returning borrowed cameras and loaned funds! Be careful before sending a camera for a housing. Hopefully the talk on this forum will help keep manufacturers honest!

Norbert Wu
www.norbertwu.com

Bad Commercials

2008-08-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

"...Of course, officials could call a Flex Alert at any time. If they do, start saving energy immediately."

Gives me the impression that all of us should stop whatever we are doing and take a nap immediately. Start saving energy immediately? How about, "turn off all unnecessary appliances" or something like that.

Fair Play from Photo Researchers to Photographers

2008-06-15T10:10:00.001-07:00

My office received an email the other day. My heart sank as I read it. Here it is:

> Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 10:42:00 -0400
> To:
>
> Dear Mr. Wu;
>
> XXX Company is revising a chemistry textbook by XXX Authors.
> The authors would like to show students an example of a nudibranch
> which uses a chemical defense to keep predators away. The attached example
> of Tritoniella belli is one possibility, but could you suggest another
> nudibranch which would be a more colorful example of this defense mechanism?
>
> This will be a chapter opener sized 3/4 page in our student book. I would
> like to see a digital delivery of low resolution files to show the authors.
>
> Thank you,
>
> XXX Photo Researcher

Why was I disappointed to read this? There were a few clues that this photo researcher did not understand unwritten rules of the business. One of those unwritten rules is that if you take up a photographer or photo agent’s time, then you should try as much as possible to give business to that photographer or photo agent.

If you have found an image on a stock agent’s website, then you, as the photo researcher, should direct any questions to the agent – not the photographer; and vice versa. In this instance, the image in question clearly came from one of my stock agent’s websites. Yet the photo researcher came to my office, expecting my office to give her the benefit of our time and expertise, to help her.

In almost all such cases, where the photo researcher does such a thing, the time that the photographer spends will be wasted. What often happens is that a photo researcher finds out that the photographer’s office has a great knowledge of our subjects and starts asking lots of questions about our images. We are willing to do a certain amount of work to facilitate a sale and answer questions, but there is a limit beyond which we charge research fees.

Regardless of my bad feeling about this email and request, I had one of my staff respond:

> Hi Sharon:
>
> I've attached two images that illustrate this point and are more colorful.
> In both cases, the nudibranchs pictured are tropical species that are
> feeding on sponges or ascidians. Their prey contain poisonous compounds
> that the nudibranchs then store within their own bodies.
>
> I've attached the images. Hope this helps. IND0034 is a particularly good
> example as the nudibranch is actually in the process of feeding, with its
> mouth extended.
>
> Norbert Wu Productions

Guess what? The photo researcher did pretty much exactly what I expected her to do. She did not respect the fact that we sent two images that were exactly what she was looking for. Nope, she came back with another question. This time I gave up.

Here’s her reply:

> Thank you William for sending two examples.
>
> What about the attached nudibranch from Borneo by Norbert Wu/Minden?
> Beautiful colors, but would the caption be accurate if we say it's
> poisonous?
>
> XXX
> Photo Editor

We are willing to do a certain amount of work to facilitate a sale and answer questions, but there is a limit beyond which we charge research fees. We have to charge research fees, because otherwise, photo researchers like this person will take up so much of my and my staff's time that we will go bankrupt.

The below is from my FAQ page, and explains my thoughts on using my small photo agency at the beginning of your projects rather than a large one:

Many publishers are calling our office with requests for rare,
hard-to-photograph animals. I am discovering that these publishers are using
large stock agencies for the initial stages of their project, and are
calling me with requests for the photographs that these large stock agencies
cannot supply. The problem is that these publishers expect to pay the same
low price for my rare photographs as they have paid the agencies, who have
sold them hundreds of easily obtainable photographs.

As a photographer who specializes in marine life, I take great care with the
documentation and coverage of my stock library. I’ve
found that no agency can match the expertise that I have gained from my many
years in marine biology. For these reasons, I believe that the practice of
going to agencies in the initial stages of a photography project is
detrimental to the health and well-being of both of us. The publisher
doesn’t get the best material that it could get, and specialist
photographers such as myself are left filling those extremely hard-to-get
photographic requests, at prices which are not worthy of the time that it
takes to obtain them. This means that my bread-and-butter shots, those shots
which are easier to obtain, are not subsidizing the cost of my more
difficult photographs. In the long run, this will mean that specialist
photographers will not have the money to pursue more difficult subjects.
Inevitably the quality of photographs that publishers need to stay in
business will deteriorate.

Our office puts together submissions by going
exhaustively through our files and filling your photographic request. This
is in contrast to large stock agencies, which perform quick keyword searches
of their databases. We are able to provide a level of expertise on our
subjects which no stock agency can match. As an example, if you request a
subject like a “zebrafish,” we will ask you if you want one of the
Dendronotus species, sometimes called the zebrafish; or if you are instead
looking for a photograph of a lionfish or turkeyfish (also called zebrafish)
Pterois volitans, which is a common, popular,venomous, and beautiful fish of
the Indo-Pacific. If you ask for a submission of venomous marine animals, we
can provide you with photographs of stonefish (the most venomous fish in the
world), scorpionfish, jellies, cone snails, blue-spotted octopus, and more.
Few other stock agencies are able to provide such exhaustive and expert
submissions.

Fedex are great thieves

2008-02-20T13:31:00.002-08:00

I am forced to use Fedex in my business. They are great thieves.

Fedex charges for picking their nose or getting dirt on their shoes!

Go on their website to get a quote for a shipment. You get a quote, then ship the item. Later you get a bill with a myriad different surcharges which they should have included in the quote:

Examples:
fuel surcharge: Fedex: $1.90
Residential delivery: $4.
Rural delivery area surcharge: $4.60.
Oh, you wanted someone to sign for this? $6

I can only wish that I could pad my bills like this and get away with it.

note to nonprofits and researchers asking for free use of our images

2007-12-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

We receive many requests for the use of our photographs from nonprofits and researchers. I've explained, in exhaustive detail on the FAQ page of our website, the time and expense that it takes to supply images to any cause.

If we’ve been kind enough to donate photos in the past, please realize that it takes significant staff time and expense to track usage of any photos. If we’ve donated photos in the past, please do not assume that we will automatically donate the use of photos going forward.

One researcher asked us for photos of schooling fish. We donated the image, and we never heard back from her again. We even had to contact her office to get a copy of the use – the image was published in Science. When she asked to use the photo again, we refused. She asked “what have I done wrong to deserve such treatment?” Her question should have been, instead, “what can I do in the future to make you WANT to donate photos.” A note of thanks, a copy of the usage, etc. will go a long way to making us want to take the time and effort to allow continued use of our images.

spammed by Photo District News and IPNStock - Shame on You!

2007-12-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

IPNStock is a service that I used to subscribe to, whereby I leased their software to run my web-based image search engine. They morphed into a stock agency, then they were purchased by the publishers of Photo District News.

I got a spam about a photo contest from nielsencontests that told me to unsubscribe, send UNSUBSCRIBE to support@nielsencontests.com. I did so, and got the below failure notice. Seems that the people behind nielsencontests are IPNStock! Seems that the person at IPNStock is gone or has an invalid address.

I am upset that IPNStock is running a contest and disguising this fact. Along the same vein, I once purchased a subscription from Photo District News and stupidly gave them a valid email address a few years ago. They sold that email list EVERYWHERE. I am still getting blasted by photo-related spams from this one error. I've complained bitterly to PDN about this several times.

------ Forwarded Message
From:
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:10:08 -0600
To:
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

KCotlier@IPNstock.com

Reporting-MTA: dns;vnu001schmsx02.enterprisenet.org
Received-From-MTA: dns;nawinmsx013.enterprisenet.org
Arrival-Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:10:08 -0600

Final-Recipient: rfc822;KCotlier@IPNstock.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.2.2
X-Display-Name: Cotlier, Keith

From: Norbert Wu
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:09:52 -0800
To:
Conversation: UNSUBSCRIBE
Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE

UNSUBSCRIBE

------ End of Forwarded Message

United Airlines' discount coupons -- why bother?

2007-11-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here's something that the airlines do that seems to have the sole purpose of angering the customer. I am a frequent flyer with United Airlines and try to fly them as much as possible. I've generally had good experiences with them, although every frequent traveler has horror stories. Mine might be the time on my way to Japan in November 2001 when a male flight attendant came by with a flashlight to make sure our seatbelts were fastened. I was watching a movie, it was late, and frankly I did not want to be bothered. He shined his light on me, and I did not hear him at first. When I finally understood what he wanted, I grumbled under my breath and put on the dang seatbelt. He leaned over and said in my ear "If you want to get arrested, just keep it up." Now, I admit that this was in the months after 9-11. It was interesting to watch the flight crews' reaction in those days. If you flew in the first few months after 9-11, the flight crews treated every passenger like a criminal. They threatened you with arrest if you did not listen to their every command immediately, and flying was more like being in prison than ever before.

After a few months of this, the airlines realized that this attitude and treatment of their passengers would probably drive the passengers away. So I saw the needle swing all the way to the other side. On a flight a few months after being threatened with arrest for not buckling my seatbelt immediately (and not having great hearing, and being a bit tired at 2AM) -- I was in the first class/business class cabin on a flight to New York. The captain came out, thanked all of us for flying United, and introduced himself by name to all of us and shook everyone's hand. That was a bit much. I didn't appreciate being threatened with arrest, but on the other hand, I have no need or desire to shake the captain's hand. I wonder why the airlines can't just do things with moderation and good common sense.

On to my present complaint: why does United send you these $25 paper discount certificates when these paper things cause nothing but trouble and wasted time? Here's the deal, and I've tried enough to use these that I am an expert. As a frequent flyer or a user of one of their airline's credit cards, you get a paper discount coupon for $25. However, you can only use this coupon if you call in and reserve your flight with an agent on the phone. And if you book a flight through an agent, then they charge you a $15 fee for using a live person rather than the web. On top of this, you have to either mail your certificate in, or hand the certificate over in person to a ticketing agent, which costs another $10. Voila! Your $25 certificate has just cost you a huge hassle and saved you absolutely nothing. If you mail the certificate in, you have to spend a great deal of time getting the instructions just right, and you run the risk of losing your seat and even your flight if the certificate is mishandled, late, or lost in the mail.

My advice -- tear these things up as soon as you get them. They will cause you nothing but aggravation. I have never, EVER been able to use one of these things without realizing that I was a fool to even try.

United seemed to have solved this problem. I forget how I got this (probably by getting hosed by the airline at some point), but I have an electronic certificate number good for $50 off now. Here are the instructions:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is your electronic certificate number.
To use your e-certificate, go to united.com and enter your origin and destination, along with your travel dates. Next, click on "More Search Options," enter your e-certificate number under the "Electronic certificate or Promotion code" box and then click on "Search." All flights selected must be designated with a green star to receive this discount. Select your flights and your discount will be calculated automatically. Ticketing and travel must be completed by 6/30/2008(mm/dd/yyyy).

Here's the problem. I've now booked two flights through United for the next three months. On a trip to Maui, the e-certificate could not be used. On a trip to Orlando, the only flights that had the green star were $200 to $500 more expensive than other flights. Another great example of how airlines these days are pleasing their customers.

miscellaneous product recommendations

2007-09-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

Net10 and Tracfone phones rock, especially if you don't talk over 200 minutes per month on your cell phone -- and you won't pay all those extra taxes and surcharges that drive your cell phone bill from $60 per month to $66 per month. GrandCentral rocks and lets you answer and receive calls at any numbers you tell it to ring; so when someone calls, you can answer either your cell or home or office line, as they all ring. Skype rocks; pay $30 annually and make all the outgoing calls you want for free to the US and Canada.

Autopage 420 car alarms give two-way remote alarms so you know up to a mile away if your car is being broken into. That way you can run to your car and get shot by the thief.

Those nice-looking Apple Cinema displays that my friends were drooling over a couple of years ago proved to have lots of problems; the HP 24" LCD that I ended up buying instead of an Apple is just as good in my opinion (I used both over a period of six months) and was less expensive. I am up to my fourth Powerbook since they came out with the present Titanium/Aluminum design and they have been completely reliable.

If you are green or thrifty, then using anything other than rechargeable NiMh batteries is ridiculous. They hold a charge for a long time now and have more power than alkalines.

If you want to get email addresses for your small business, group, family, whatever, in the form "xxx@commandoes.com" -- such as norb@norbertwu.com, office@norbertwu.com -- it used to be a bit difficult, and now it is easy. Google Apps will do it for you. I moved my entire office's emails to Google Apps Mail, and it works just the same as when I had to pay a web hosting service to administer my emails. Far less problems so far; Google's spam blocking is better, and I have no instances where mail just disappears and I do not receive it (a huge problem with my other service, which just junked emails with invalid return address like "noreply@xxx.com"). I can access my emails using a standard email program like Outlook or Apple Mail, or use Google's web-baseed interface. I forward all emails to another Gmail account so have an archive of all past emails.

If you invest, then Bank of America is not a bad second place for an account. If you have $100K in assets in an investment account, you get a free American Express Accolades card, which supposedly lets you get into all kinds of airport lounges and has other benefits. If you have $25K in banking accounts (be sure these are not accounts that sweep funds into an investment account), then you are a Premier customer and get a Premier banking officer. This allows you to get 30 free stock trades per month. Also, BofA's investment arm has many mutual funds that are NTF (no transaction fee) such as SLASX and T. Rowe Price funds -- mutual funds that I was interested in, but had transaction charges through my main brokerage.

As a BofA Premier client, all banking fees are waived -- I never pay any account fees, monthly minimum fees, wire transfer fees, etc. But you do need to keep a $25K minimum in a CD, checking, and/or savings account.

Airlines love to anger their customers

2007-09-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Extra charges at Hilton Hotels not appreciated

2007-08-23T11:21:00.001-07:00

Hilton Hotels are fine, offer a reliable place to stay, but they sure do tack on the extra charges. I guess most people don¹t care, but I do. I decided to go without paying the extra $5 or $10 for internet access at the Seattle Airport Hilton last night. When I got to my room, I was able to get the wifi signal from the Holiday Inn which looks like it is a good half-mile away!

Insuring Your Camera Gear

2007-07-14T17:42:00.001-07:00

Insuring Your Camera Gear
A Partial Guide
by Norbert Wu

I didn't use to like insurance companies. I didn't like the way that they could raise your rates whenever they felt like it, I don’t like the way they could cancel your policy whenever they felt like it, and I didn’t like the way that they seemed to be able to weasel their way out of claims by quoting fine print which no normal person has the time or expertise to read. So I must include a disclaimer with this article: use the information in this article only in a general sense. Insurance companies and policies change frequently. It is your responsibility to read and understand your specific policy. This article cannot possibly substitute for a careful reading of an insurance policy and the advice of a good insurance agent, lawyer, and accountant.
I like my insurance agents very much, however. I like my agents because they are honest, reliable, and professional. They are patient with my questions, give me honest answers in simple language rather than jargon, and have helped me find insurance for my film productions. Without a good insurance agent, I could never have gotten my first film production off the ground.

What to Look For:
If I am insuring my cameras, I want them to be protected against all risks, including any kind of theft and damage, worldwide. If I lose a camera, I want the insurance policy to replace the loss so I can buy another camera that is of equal or greater value. For instance, if I lose a Canon EOS-1 camera, I want my insurance policy to pay enough so I can buy another brand-new EOS-1 camera. This is called replacement value. The alternative, actual cash value, will only pay you the value of your EOS-1 camera minus the depreciation value. If you lose your five-year-old EOS-1 camera, the insurance company may well only pay you a cash value of $500 (what they say the depreciated value of your five-year-old camera is) minus the deductible. The deductible is simply an amount ($250 or $500 are common amounts) which is applied to a loss and deducted from the payment you are to receive. In our above example, with a $500 deductible and a loss valued at $500, you would receive nothing for your loss. The greater the deductible, the less your insurance should cost.
Perhaps the most important items to look for in an insurance policy are exclusions. Exclusions are situations in which your insurance does not cover your gear. For instance, one photographer recently had his gear stolen from a rental car. His insurance company refused to pay, stating that the policy excluded theft from a rental vehicle! The more exclusions in a policy, the less likely it is to cover you when you need it.
When you sign up for insurance, you will need to make a list of your gear which includes the serial numbers, the date purchased, the price paid, and the present-day value of the gear. In the event of a loss, you will have to provide a proof of purchase, such as a receipt or the page from the camera manual. At that point, the difference between a replacement or cash value policy becomes very important. Some companies actually call a stated-value policy a replacement policy, which is a misnomer. A stated-value policy will only pay you the value that you have listed and paid for. In fact, most “replacement” policies are actually stated-value policies, which seems fair to me. For instance, if you listed the value of your EOS-1 camera as $1500, and you have been charged an annual fee of 2.5% to insure that camera, it seems only fair that the insurance company will pay you $1500 for that camera if it is lost.
In summary, the main things that I look for in an insurance policy are all risk, worldwide, replacement or stated value, low deductible, and few exclusions. Any situations in which the gear is not covered lowers the value to you of the insurance policy.

Floaters:
If you are not a professional photographer and you do not use your cameras commercially, you can insure your personal camera gear on your homeowner’s policy under a “floater policy.” Some insurance companies have floater policies for renter’s insurance. A floater policy allows you to insure your gear by paying an additional amount per $100 worth of gear that you are insuring. It is a “listed” policy; that is, gear is not insured unless you have specifically listed it on the policy. You can also list jewelry, computers, and other gear on this policy as long as you do not use the gear for business or commercial purposes. Be careful that the floater policies cover use of your gear worldwide and against damage. Some policies only cover loss of the gear while in your home! For instance, if a camera is stolen out of your car, a homeowner’s floater policy may not cover it.

Commercial Policies:
If, however, you use your gear for business, you will need to look for another policy. Many companies offer an “Inland Marine Policy.” These policies are not popular with insurance agents, since they are so far-reaching. However, with persistence and the right agent, you will be able to find one of these policies. The Hartford Inland Marine Policy is a good one. It is an all-risk, worldwide, stated-value policy that can cover any type of camera gear. Hartford’s rates are very reasonable, but they do increase substantially if you make a claim. One photographer’s rates went from 1.41% to 2.5% of his stated value ($250 deductible) immediately after he made a claim for gear stolen from an airport.
If your insurance agent cannot, or is unwilling, to set you up with the Hartford Inland Marine Policy, try an insurance broker. I found my agent through the Yellow Pages; he handled policies for many different companies, and he eventually was able to set me up with a Hartford Inland Marine Policy after a bit of searching. He stated that Hartford was reluctant to issue these policies since they were so broad.
If you are a member of a photographer’s association, then you may be able to benefit from the association’s insurance package. For instance, American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) members have the option of purchasing commercial insurance from ASMP’s insurance partner, Taylor & Taylor. However, as a nature photographer, I have found the rates from most association companies to be more expensive than I need. The problem is that these companies may include other sorts of mandatory types of insurance for photographers who own or use studios--which I, as a nature photographer, have no need for. Such types of insurance include liability, office equipment, lost or damaged film, or employee liability. For whatever reason, I found Taylor & Taylor’s policy to cost nearly double what other companies offered. Taylor & Taylor’s representatives were also the rudest and least customer-service-oriented among the companies I called; I had to call them three times to get answers to my questions, and they never once called me back despite promising several times.
I was also sorely disappointed in the National Press Photographer Association’s insurance partner, Gilbert McGill Insurance, who offers an Inland-Marine professional camera equipment floater through St. Paul Fire & Marine. This policy only covers equipment losses in the US and Canada! The deductible is a high $1000 for theft and $500 for all losses other than theft; and the insurance premium is higher than other policies which offer far broader coverage and lower deductibles.
Kudos goes to the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the Advertising Photographers of America (APA), who offer insurance policies which offer the lowest rates surveyed. PPA’s insurance partner is Alfred P. Wohlers Company. They offer a plan with a low $100 deductible and among the lowest rates among the companies surveyed. The downside is that you have to pay for PPA membership, which mean you must pay the annual $225 membership dues and have to put up with the magazines and junk mail directed to PPA’s members, who have traditionally been wedding photographers. APA’s insurance partner is Fireman’s Fund, which offers a $500 deductible, reasonable rates, and other insurance such as $1 million liability location, $100,000 fire and legal , $3000 portfolio, and $5000 property of others.
After reviewing many different companies, I’ve gone with the camera insurance offered through the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). Their insurance agency is Rand Insurance, and the policy is offered by Chubb Insurance. The contact information is below.

Questions to Ask:
After researching nearly ten different insurance companies and policies, I developed the following list of questions to ask.

1. All risk, underwater? Is the policy an all risk, all perils policy? I use the gear professionally as an underwater and wildlife photographer. Will my gear be covered if it is flooded, lost, or damaged underwater? Will it cover my camera if it is flooded underwater from my mistake? From causes other than my mistake?
Some answers that I received were enlightening. For instance, the representative at Taylor and Taylor mentioned that my gear would not be covered from flooding if the flooding was caused by lack of maintenance. In this case, she stated, I should just drop the camera in deep water and report it as a loss. The representative at Hoffberger Insurance stated that they simply do not cover underwater gear.

2. All types of gear? Will the policy cover my professional still camera, video, and motion picture gear? APA's policy would not cover my video and motion picture gear.

3. Worldwide? Will the policy cover my gear if used in my home, office, and all countries in the world to which I travel?

4. Replacement value? Will the policy cover my gear for replacement value, agreed value, stated value, or actual cash value (which takes depreciation into account)? There seem to be different definitions of replacement value. Will replacement value pay more for an item that it was listed for?

5. What is the deductible?

6. Covered while being transported? The gear will need to be covered under all circumstances and locations in which it is being used, carried, transported, or delivered. Are there any circumstances in which gear might not be covered if it is being transported by a courier service, while flying as checked baggage, or carried in a taxi, plane, or boat? Will the policy cover my gear if it is stolen out of a rental car, my car, or someone else’s car? Are there any exclusions, such as travel in non-commercial vehicles such as private planes and boats, aerial or watercraft photography, theft from unattended vehicles? What if I put my bag down at the airport and it is stolen?
APA’s insurance had a strange exception, apparently because it was an inland marine policy: gear being carried in a boat in the ocean would not be covered if you were simply traveling on the boat. If, however, you were working on the boat as a photographer, then your gear would be covered. Does this policy have any such exceptions?

7. In case of burglary from a car, will coverage require signs of forcible entry? It’s easy for a burglar to open a car with no sign of forcible entry. If your insurance company requires signs of forcible entry, then you are out of luck if a thief has opened your car with a door bar tool.
The representative of APA’s insurance, Jim Aquilina, first stated that their insurance would cover theft from a vehicle even if there was no sign of forcible entry. Later, however, he stated that the company has recently put an exclusion, requiring a sign of forcible entry.

8. Does the policy have a glass-breakage clause? My camera lenses are composed of glass, so I would want to strike any glass-breakage clause.
None of the companies surveyed had this clause.

9. Are loans of my equipment to friends covered? What if I rent my gear to other parties?
Most companies did not cover my gear if it was rented out to other parties. Hartford covered gear which was loaned to a friend, unless the friend stole the gear dishonestly. For instance, if I loaned my gear to a friend and the gear was damaged, it would be covered. If I loaned my gear to a friend and he steals it, this is considered fraud and is not covered. APA’s insurance does not cover loans of equipment to friends unless they are a legal partner or spouse.

10. Are loans of gear to me covered? What if I rent gear from a store, or borrow gear from a camera manufacturer?
Most companies require you to purchase a set amount of insurance to cover gear that you rent or borrow from other parties.

11. Please let me know of any situations in which the gear would NOT be covered.
Most companies send you a written policy in which all exclusions are listed.

No one likes insurance or paying insurance. However, it is a necessary evil. Hopefully this article will help you compare and find the insurance to fit your needs. Remember to read the fine print, to purchase only the coverage that you need, and to consult with your agent, attorney, and accountant before making a final decision. The right decision -- and the right agent -- will give you peace of mind that is hard to find.

Glossary:
Actual cash value: will not pay to replace the cameras completely, but will pay the cost of camera minus depreciation.
Agreed value: will pay only what is listed on my schedule. I need to submit a list of my gear and the replacement cost value each year. If this is not updated each year, then the insurance company will pay only what is listed on my sheet.
Replacement value: The best, and what you should try for, will replace your camera gear with like kind and quality. For instance, if I buy a Nikon N90s at $1000 and it later costs $1500 to replace the N90s or get an equivalent camera, then the insurance company will pay $1500 rather than $1000.
Stated-value basis: not as good as replacement cost. This seems to pay only up to what is listed on a schedule.

For more information:
APA/Fireman’s Fund:
Jim Aquilina
Tom Pickard Company
820 Pacific Coast Highway
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
phone 800-726-3701, fax 800-318-9840,
or phone 310-379-7788, fax 310-379-8946

NANPA:
www.nanpa.org

Rand Insurance
Rand Insurance
50 Locust Avenue
New Canaan, CT 06840
phone number: 203-966-2677
fax number: 203-966-7355
email: nanpa@randinsurance.com,

PPA Insurance:
Wohlers and Company
800-323-2106

Coolers for Traveling

2007-07-14T16:45:00.001-07:00

> Subject: Coolers for traveling
>
> Glad to hear that the airlines still accept coolers as
> check-in luggage. Any ball park idea how much the 100-
> gallon cooler weights whenloaded?

I, and many professionals, use the larger Coleman and Igloo coolers. I jokingly state that these coolers offer the highest volume to weight ratio of any container that offers the necessary stiffness and rigidity to protect your gear. I’ve been traveling with these for years. I have never been able to tie knots, so I traveled with two or three of these coolers in the early years by taping them up with duct tape. However, after 9/11, I had to devise a method by which TSA could easily and quickly open up the coolers. I stole an idea from my friends Howard Hall and Bob Cranston (something I do routinely) and have one eyebolt bolted into each end of the cooler. The eyebolt goes through the cooler, and there are washers on both sides of the eyebolt. I then bought long aluminum bars from Orchard Supply Hardware, had them bent 90 degrees so that I ended up with a “U” shaped bar that fits snugly over the top of the cooler. A hole in each end of the bar allows the bar to fit over the eyebolts. I then put locks in the eyebolts to keep the bar over the cooler, but now, I just use hitch pins so that TSA can get into the coolers easily.

These coolers weigh and cost very little compared to conventional camera cases, I use the coolers in 100 gallon sizes for checked baggage. I store my tripods, dive gear, underwater housings, some camera gear, and clothes in these. One advantage of coolers for diving gear and underwater cameras is that you can just fill them up with fresh water for rinsing, then drain from the bottom after your trip. I have traveled with these for 20 years now, and have never had a problem with an airline not accepting them. They just barely fit under ( or perhaps just barely exceed) the standard airline dimensions for checked baggage. Any cooler larger than 100 gallon (like the huge ones at Costco) might be too big for airlines.

My favorite Pelican case is the 1620 with padded dividers. This is a large, deep case that carries just about all my still camera gear for any shoot. The extra deep case has two tiers of modular padded dividers. I keep one of these cases by the door of my office, so that I am ready to travel at a moment’s notice. On an assignment with little notice, I just snap the case shut, roll it out the door into my van, and know that I have everything I need for a stills shoot.

I pack my coolers so that they weigh no more than 70 lb when traveling overseas. This is because airlines that fly to/from an international destination and to/from the US are required to allow two bags at 70 lb each at no additional charge.

When you fly within the US, however, the rules have changed. I know United Airlines’ policy the best. They used to allow the above. Now they allow two free bags at 50 lb each. Anything from 51 lb to 100 lb costs $25 per bag. I therefore bring a copy of United’s baggage rules (from their website) and try to pack my bags to 100 pounds. This is not difficult since I often bring copies of my books on my trips and talks to sell or give away, and the dang books weigh 8 lb each. I get charged $25 per bag. This is my personal revenge on the airlines for surreptitiously changing the domestic baggage allowance from two bags at 70 lbs, to two bags at 50 lb, and saying that they were doing this in order to save their passengers money! Don’t you get tired of companies lying like this?

Back when United announced this and several other changes, I wrote a bunch of colleagues asking them to write to United to protest this change. United had proposed several other changes, and had backed down after receiving barrages of protest from their customers. I asked my friends and fellow photographers to write United about their upcoming baggage policy. Almost all of them were too lazy to send a letter, and a few of them wrote me, saying “Forget it, Norb. United is hurting, and they won’t change their policies.” These guys would rather write me saying “forget it, give up” than write the airline saying “please don’t change your policy.” That’s when I realized that most people, at least photographers, would rather whine and complain among themselves than take the time and trouble to write a letter. I’d also say that most photographers would rather whine and complain about how hard it is to make a living licensing the use of photographs than will actually take a stand on the business of photography with a client.

How Skype works, Internet plans

2007-07-14T08:18:00.001-07:00

> What's the deal with Skype? How does it work? Does it work well?

Skype is great. Here is how I use it.

I have a Mac laptop. It has a microphone and headphone jack built in. I went onto Skype's website, downloaded the Mac software, and paid the $15-$30 for the unlimited calling to anywhere in the US plan. I was all set. I can call any number in the US, be it cell, Skype, or landline, and it is free. I can be sitting in Singapore at an airport lounge with a wireless Internet connection, fire up Skype, plug in my ipod earbuds, and talk into my MacBook Pro to anyone in the US for free. I don't have a Skype-in number or any of that stuff. Just the Skype software on my laptop and the annual "unlimited calls to anywhere in the US plan". When I am home, I have a Plantronics USB headset that I use for making calls. The headset has a mic. But you can get great quality by using any laptop that has a microphone for you to talk into, and a headphone jack so you can hear the conversation. You can use any headphones at all -- like those you would use in listening to an ipod or stereo. The laptop or computer just has to have Skype software installed along with an Internet connection.

Skype quality is generally excellent. In fact, I used a landline and MCI card to call Poland last week to yell at an editor who had not paid. She could not hear me, so I called her back using Skype and it was clear as a bell. She told me to stop yelling at her.

> > Is there a good cheap phone system (Skype?)
> > What's the best way to do this and still get quality?

So here's my phone system. I use a phone card that I bought from Costco for my international calls, which I can use to make calls from Indonesia to the US, or from the US to Indonesia, if I need to. I rarely use it these days, but it is there for the occasional call. I have a landline with AT&T, basic service at $11 per month. The long-distance on this landline is with a company called TTI, which used to be Costco's long-distance provider. It's about $.05 per minute in the US and gives good international rates also. With the advent of Skype and cell phones, our long-distance bill on our landlines (three of them!) is about $1.50 per month.

I have a cell phone, which I will soon change to a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, either T-Mobile, Tracfone, or Net10. Did you know that most of these pay-as-you-go plans have rates as low as $0.10 per minute if you buy enough minutes at one time?

I signed up for a free service called GrandCentral. It gives me one phone number. Anyone calling that one phone number can reach my cell, home, office, whatever numbers I want. So it is going to be my "permanent" phone number and I only have to give the one phone out. Voicemails to my GrandCentral phone number are delivered to me by email and I can listen to them on my email or web browser.

One of the reasons I am keeping my landlines rather than discontinuing them is because I still send faxes once in a while and have a machine at both the home and the office. Lastly, if I keep my landlines, I can get DSL service through AT&T for very cheap. If I get DSL service through AT&T, I can sign up for their Freedomlink wifi service which costs only $2 per month, and lets me log into wifi hotspots in various places like Seattle and Denver airport, McDonalds, UPS Stores, etc.

> > Anyway, that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing because I want to cut my
> > phone/internet bill. Is there a good, cheap high-speed internet
> provider?

I am a frugal bastard and hate paying much. In the past, I was able to switch services every six months to a year and pay about $20 per month for internet access. I'd sign up for six months of cable internet access through Comcast at $20 per month for six months. They'd give me a free cable modem and a $75 rebate. When the rate went up to $42.95 at the end of six months, I'd cancel the service and switch to AT&T (SBC) DSL service for a year, ranging from $12.99 to $19.99 per month. They'd give me a free modem. After the rate went up after a year, I'd go back to Comcast. I think I may have gotten my internet service for basically free after selling all the modems on Ebay.

Oh, I kept basic Comcast TV service ($15 per month) at my house which allowed me to get that $20 intro rate. And all cable TV now have to put high-def signals on their services, so I am renting a Motorola box at $5 per month at home to get several stations in HD for free. This is truly awesome as I get ESPN and Discovery Channel in high-def for free.

AT&T has given up on making you commit to year-long contracts and special intro rates. I am just sticking with their $19.99 DSL plan and it works fine for me at the office. At home, I've gone with a slightly higher-speed plan at $25 per month.

And if you get a Google Mail address, you don't have to use email addresses from Comcast or SBC. Your email address remains free and the same no matter what your internet provider is.

Ridicule me for my frugality if you wish. I hate being screwed by the utilities and feel like I am winning in my small way

Skype is great, easy to use

2007-01-27T21:34:00.001-08:00

I like Skype so much, and found it so very easy to set up and use, that I am recommending it to lots of folks.

Basically, all you need is a headset with microphone and Skype software, and an internet connection.

There are tons of headsets out there. You can even use standard stereo headphones and the mike built into a MacBook Pro. I am using a Plantronics headset recommended by Eric Cheng which is great. $40 at Amazon.

Plantronics DSP-400 Digitally-Enhanced USB Foldable Stereo Headset and Software

You then download Skype software and follow the instructions. Easy. I signed up for the unlimited plan to call any numbers in the US and Canada for $15 per year. I can call out to anyone, any phone number, and no longer worry about long-distance charges. I believe that the rate was going to double very soon.

I did not sign up for any other stuff like the ability for people to call me, etc.

Since signing up, I've called home and other places in the US -- for free after the initial $15 annual charge -- from Singapore, England, and other places where I've had a wireless Internet connection. People think that I'm a bit strange talking into my laptop, but it works great!

First product recommendations

2007-01-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

I live in a property that has two houses -- one main house (basically a cottage), and one guest house that I use as an office. My wife has a small office in the main house, and for years now, she's had to put up with the wireless internet connection there. I've been using a Linksys wireless-B router (B because of its greater range), and she has had a variety of older Macs in her office. Right now she has an older iBook that does not have a wireless card installed. I've had her using a D-Link wireless Ethernet bridge for two years now, but that died. The main house and the guest house are about 100 feet apart.

I had squirreled away Walter Mossberg's excellent article from the Wall Street Journal that recommends the newish Powerline adapters to get an Internet signal around homes. He recommends Netgear XE104 Powerline adapters. I bought a couple of these from one of my favorite computer-supply online suppliers (newegg.com) and sure enough, these Netgear Powerline adapters solved the problem. My wife now has a fast, reliable Internet connection as opposed to the stunningly slow wireless connection that we used to have. This was a stunningly easy way to set up another Internet connection in a separate room. The only problem I had was that these were fairly expensive, at $60 per unit -- and you need at least two units.

A few weeks later, I noticed that Fry's in the Bay Area had some Airlink Powerline adapters for sale for $25 each. I bought two and installed them in my parents' house. My mother now has a consistent and reliable Internet connection, too. The Airlink Powerline adapters were just as easy to install as the Netgear ones, and they cost less than half the price!