Saturday 12 April 2008 at 09:54 am
When I can't decide on a creative issue on a website, or if I have to write something, I procrastinate. Don't you? This morning, my procrastination led me to review the photos I'd taken while on holiday in Paphos, Cyprus, in April last year. I rather fancied the idea of entering the Creative Challenge at Webshots Blog and thought there might be something suitable in the Paphos folder, but there isn't. I had a very handy, small Nikon camera with me on holiday, but the light was very bright in Cyprus and the camera tended to over-expose.
However, I thought I'd try making a panoramic shot of Petra tou Roumio Bay in Photoshop CS3. The individual photos aren't anything to shout about, but the view as a whole is breathtaking. Photoshop has enabled its users to assemble panoramic montages in several earlier versions, and has provided more scope with this facility in its latest CS3 rendition.
Open Photoshop. Go to File > Automate > Photomerge. A dialog box opens offering you five editing options, depending on how much control you want to take over the process. There's Auto, Perspective, Cylindrical, Reposition Only and Interactive Layout. Rather than my trying to explain what each of these options do, I think you would get a more intuitive grasp by going through the process. You are able to choose the photos that you want to include, either by having them already open in Photoshop, or in a folder, or by using Control + Click on a PC (presumably Apple key + Click on a Mac) on the particular files within a folder.
Make sure that there is an identifiable feature at the edge of each photo which can be matched to the next one, and you should have taken each of the photos with the same camera settings from the same spot for the process to work most smoothly.
Click OK and Photoshop goes into action building the panorama. Depending on the amount of RAM in your computer and how big each individual photo file is, this could take seconds or minutes. I have a lot of RAM on my PC, but it still took at least 10 seconds to build my panorama of Petra tou Roumio.
The delay might have been caused by the fact that Photoshop simply couldn't match one of the photos at one end. There wasn't enough of the recognisable feature for the program to work on. In this case, I cropped and saved the panorama image as a psd file, then expanded the canvas, making sure to stretch it to the right, added a new layer, opened the offending photo, selected and copied it, and then pasted it into the new layer in the panorama.
It wasn't a perfect match but the clone tool used on the top layer helped me smooth out the obvious joins. Since most of the join was sky and sea, this was fairly easy. You'd have a hard time of it with something detailed. Alternate between the underlying panorama image and the top layer to adjust your clone tool settings. Then I cropped the photo once more.
I had to resize the image and save it for the web to be sure that it wouldn't overload bandwidth and might actually have a chance of displaying in its entirety on a web page. Click on the image above and it should open in a pop-up box.
What's the story behind Petra tou Roumio? Cyprus has been a centre for the worship of Aphrodite and fertility and her earlier incarnations since even before Greek times. There's a magical quality about the light at Petra tou Roumio, which lies at the southwestern point of the island. The bay is backed by white chalk cliffs. The whiteness of the chalk stretching under the sea gives the colour of the water a milky quality and also enhances the blue. The light is very bright.
The legend is that Aphrodite/Venus rose out of the sea here at the rocks, where the seed of her father Uranus fell into the ocean. For a most wonderful representation in art, see the Botticelli painting held in the Uffici Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Sunday 23 December 2007 at 2:01 pm
At the beginning of November, I received a phone call from someone working at
Public Service Events, a quasi government body which organises promotional events such as conferences and workshops on behalf of government.
I had, apparently, been identified as an SME too small to bid for government tenders. Aware of the discrimination this caused, certain elements in public service were examining measures to enable freelancers, such as myself, to bid on local and central government projects not exceeding £140,000 (or similar figure) in budget. Various bureaucratic hurdles in the tender process would be waived.
I had come to somebody's attention as a practitioner of accessible website design. The caller asked if I would be prepared to speak at an event to be held in London on 6th December. As it happened, I had a prior engagement, playing Dandini in the East Leake Amateur Players' pantomime that week, so I had to decline.
If you look on the PSCA website you will find that the meeting was entitled
'Skills for the Future –Leadership and Management in the Public Sector'. It's not quite how I interpreted my caller's explanation, but is, presumably, the same event.
In the meantime, I have built two more small websites according to accessible principles, for a client in Oman. In Oman note, not UK.
See them at
Oasis Tours, Oman, and
Music Awards Oman.
Sunday 28 October 2007 at 09:34 am
It's not that I've been doing nothing, but that I have been doing a lot which has prevented me from updating my news. It didn't help when I discovered that I wasn't able to log in to write an entry. This was finally resolved when I worked out that the web host had changed security settings on my site.
Gothla happened in June. I wrote originally about the positive interaction we were having with
Internet marketing and social networking back in February.
The event itself was a great success, and we are looking forward to repeating it next year, this time in a specialist performing arts venue in Leicester. Over 100 people thronged to the hafla on the Friday evening. The workshops were fully booked, such that Sashi repeated her Gothic Tribal Bellydance workshop on the Sunday afternoon, and even that was over-subscribed.
The website has been updated with video and
links to a photo gallery on Flickr.
No sooner had I finished, temporarily, with Gothla, then I was organising the John O' Groats to Lands' End bike ride on behalf of my son and four of his friends. Seventeen year old lads have the energy and fitness levels to do the ride, but lack the organisational know-how. More sombrely, we discovered that they did need adult backing anyway to be able to make bookings at campsites. Several campsites demurred at the age of the boys and only accepted them when they knew that they would be accompanied by adults. I was surprised to find out that most campsites will not accept bookings from same sex parties.
Notwithstanding, the ride went ahead and was hugely successfull and fulfilling for all involved. I have
written up the story of the JoGLE on the web, which we hope will be a useful resource for anyone else wanting to undertake the journey. Furthermore, the boys raised sponsorship of £1180 in aid of Cancer Research. The cheque presentation took place last week during half term.
Finally, I researched, scripted and starred in an entertainment at The
Richard Attenborough Centre in Leicester at the end of September, entitled,
How to Get On in Society! John Betjeman revealed in his poetry and song. I had fantastic support from friends and was pleased that we managed to get around 60 people in the audience, including members of The Betjeman Society. Again, I'd had to trudge the streets of Leicester to distribute leaflets and talk to media outlets. It's not enough to send press releases by email. You have to get on the phone as well or meet people directly.
And I took my Open University exam in Economics a week later.
Friday 01 June 2007 at 2:51 pm
I was awarded a job late last year, to produce print-ready copy for The Intrepid Repairer, the magazine of the National Association of Musical Repairers (NAMIR).
Although I've developed web-building skills over the last few years, I hadn't actually worked with page layout software, other than Microsoft Publisher. A job like this deserved the right tools for the task. So I bought QuarkXpress 7, and taught myself double quick. I really do have to acknowledge the online video tutorials at Lynda.com, a US company which specialises in teaching use of software I couldn't have done it without those tutorials, if only because print production is so very different from web-building software.
It took me a while to discover the resources for obtaining certification in using QuarkXpress, from a Florida-based company called Against the Clock. If I ever get the chance, I shall work through the documentation.
I produced my first issue of the magazine successfully, and was gratifed when members told me that they liked the clarity and readability of the layout.
My skills have also been pressed into use at Shepshed Town Cricket Club, for which I am producing Inside Edge, a 4-page newsletter, at regular intervals this cricket season - view the photos. Not only that, I also wrote all the copy with the exception of the captain's column! If you'd like to see more examples of my print work, please download the files to view as pdfs
Inside Edge no. 7 (360 Kb) and Inside Edge no. 8 (490 Kb).
My first print catalogue using QuarkXpress can be seen at a client's site, Blazewear Heated Clothes. (1Mb)
Please contact me if you would like a quotation for print-ready work.
Tuesday 20 March 2007 at 9:17 pm
My father Percy, died of asbestosis three years ago yesterday. Donations made at the time of his funeral were used to set up a 'Breath of Life' fund by the British Lung Foundation. I have supplemented this over the last two years with proceeds from my recital in October 2005 and sales of my CDs to friends in 2006. If you visit that page, you will see a photo of Percy giving the thumbs up, just 36 hours before he died in his sleep.
Speaking to a representative at the British Lung Foundation, I decided that the money collected in Percy's name should go to asthma research.
Asbestosis is a terrible disease. It crucifies the lungs, making them stiff and rigid so that they can't move to breathe air in and out. Some days when I visited Percy in hospital during his final weeks, he would say that he'd had terrible mornings, but would never explain why. I think his lungs must have just stopped. Even the constant oxygen supply wasn't enough to get the muscles working. It was almost as if he had to be primed like a pump.
Why did Percy get asbestosis? He worked for firms in the 1950s and 1960s which used asbestos as fire-proofing materials in partitions. The workers were told to use masks, but probably didn't because it was held to be namby-pamby. We think that one of Dad's favourite friends, Len Watkins, also died the same way.
But I hope that asbestosis will be a disease on the wane, now that society is aware of the dangers.
Therefore I agreed that the funds collected for Percy should go to asthma research, since the incidence of asthma is actually increasing. My daughter Rosie has asthma. Asbestosis is a disease of the past, I hope. Asthma is a disease now. I think that Percy would have wanted it that way. He was always looking forward, while remembering the past.
It's awful to know that he was told in 1979 that he had pleural plaques on his lungs which would probably lead to asbestosis and his death. But he never told us, and he never let it get in the way of enjoying his life.
Here are some words from the British Lung Foundation about their work.
"The British Lung Foundation is the only UK charity working for everyone affected by lung disease. The charity focuses its resources on providing support for people affected by lung disease today; and works in a variety of ways (including funding world-class research) to bring about positive change, to improve treatment, care and support for people affected by lung disease in the future.
Asthma is probably the UK's most common lung condition, affecting about five million people in the UK. Although the causes of asthma are unknown at present, we do know that various factors contribute. The airways of someone with asthma are inflamed, which makes them more likely to become narrow and so making it harder for air to get in and out of the lungs. The symptoms of asthma are shortness of breath, wheezing and a tight feeling in the chest.
Certain factors - known as "triggers" - are known to make asthma worse. When asthma gets worse for no apparent reason, this is known as an asthma attack. Some of the triggers include the common cold, allergies such as grass pollen, house dust and animal fur, irritants like tobacco smoke or a dusty atmosphere, strong emotion and pollution.
There is no cure for asthma, but with treatment, most people can lead normal lives. Many treatments are available, given either as an inhaler or in tablet form. The British Lung Foundation is currently funding a number of research projects into asthma. Dr Graham Roberts at the University of Southampton is investigating whether pregnant women's diets affect their babies' chances of developing asthma and other chest problems.
Dr Andrea Venn at the University of Nottingham is conducting research into whether living close to a main road increases the risk of developing asthma, allergies or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. lthough there is already evidence that pollution can worsen the symptoms of people living with lung diseases, it is not known whether traffic pollution can cause these conditions or cause a longer term decrease in lung function."
If you have been moved by Percy's plight and his bravery, please consider making a donation to the British Lung Foundation.
Thursday 01 March 2007 at 12:30 pm
Designers who are used to using pixels for sizing fonts on web pages, should find this pixel to em converter a very handy tool. My only query is that it doesn't tell me about the relationship to different fonts. For example, text written in 12pt Arial looks bigger than 12pt Times New Roman.
But it will save me time in future. I can spend a lot of time compared to my present practice of changing values in CSS, uploading the file by FTP and then reloading a page to assess whether the font size is acceptable.
Why use ems rather than pixels? Pixels specify the font on a web page at a fixed size which cannot be resized by the browser, whereas fonts specified in ems can be resized by the browser. This is extremely useful for people who prefer to read font on a screen at a larger size. In fact, it is a crucial strand in accessible web design.
The link to this tool came from web accessibility experts, WebCredible.
Thursday 15 February 2007 at 5:29 pm
Gothla.co.uk is now up and running.
I have joined a cooperative of enterprising ladies, including my daughter, who are organising a gothic bellydance event in Leicester in June 2007. We've found that we've been able to do most of our PR and marketing via the web so far, using niche groups at
Tribe.net and
LiveJournal.
The website was created with one page initially to which the MySpace diverted enquiries. Our aim was to collect email addresses of people who were interested in attending the event. I use
List Messenger Pro to manage the database and to send out email newsletters.
List Messenger also allows people to confirm their subscription and to opt out. I haven't used the facility to design forms to collect preferences yet.
Paying for the software meant that I did get a personal reply from the creator, and I can use the ticket system to get priority support but otherwise, I have to use the forum just like everybody else. A free version of the software can support 100-200 subscribers.
The Gothla website is designed for a specific event, and thus is likely to have a limited lifetime - unless the weekend proves so successful that the organisers decide to do it again.
Thus we have focused on just the information likely to be required by attendees. We've used PayPal for bookings, but also allow people to download a booking form to send with a cheque if they prefer. We've used a Google map to highlight the whereabouts of the different venues, bus and rail stations and hotels.
Each member of the cooperative has her own email address. One of the benefits of doing the website is that it seems to have focused the organiser's attention on their specific roles - a great aid to management of the project.
I commend
Compila, the webhost, which was in turn recommended to me, for the facilities it provides for just £20 a year, with second year free. 250Mb web space, unlimited POP3 email addresses, 2 MySQL databases and unmetered bandwidth.
We have also used
MySpace and
YouTube to garner interest. And I have learnt how to convert a video in DVD format to something that you can see and hear on the web. Every web project pushes the boundaries that much further.
Sunday 14 January 2007 at 6:38 pm
I discovered that Sooz Nooz had vanished on 26th December 2006. All entry files and templates had disappeared from my web folders.
I still haven't had any reply from the web host intimating how this might have happened. I think it may be time to consider moving my domain hosting elsewhere.
There's a strong possibility that the site was hacked. Or it could have been a security issue. Following discussions with the web host, I did try installing a .htaccess file using a different FTP client called SmartFTP, which turns off an unsafe php setting, and that does seem to have worked.
Meanwhile, Pivot has released an updated version of its software. One of the reasons it's taken me this long to get back up and running is that I had to compare old files with new. The template layout and CSS values had changed very significantly.
I'm reasonably satisfied with my efforts to restore the look and feel of Sooz Nooz. I still have problems with CSS values for container width in IE 6 and earlier, but that is comparably a minor irritation.
By great good fortune, Google had spidered the website just three days before I discovered it had gone. As a result, I have been able to restore all the entries from Google's cached versions of the blog. I would have been quite devastated if I had lost everything.
So now, all entries are being copied into files on my PC as well as into the blog, and backups of the database and configuration files are being rigorously applied.
Sunday 14 January 2007 at 6:21 pm
This item was first published on 8th December 2006.
I refurbished the Buckles - classic shoes for ladies with small feet website in October and November, launching the new look in the second week of November.
Buckles, the shop in Loughborough, closed finally in October. With access to Biggin Street closed by pedestrian access and council works that seemed to go on for months, the customer base had dropped. The proprietor also had family reasons for closing.
The problem was what to do with the outstanding stock.
Firstly, the company decided that it would sell only its smallest sizes online, since this was a niche market. That means British shoe sizes from 13 to 3, or Continental sizes 32 to 35.
I was instructed to use PayPal as the purchase mechanism. There were several reasons for this.
- The company already had a PayPal merchant account, and did not want to make the commitment of subscribing to another payment system. PayPal takes a percentage of a sale, and does not require subscription.
- It's relatively easy to set up payment options on a website using PayPal, providing there aren't too many items. Otherwise, it becomes very time-consuming to list the items and obtain the code.
- It's now possible for anyone to make a payment using PayPal using a credit or debit card. Customers don't need to have a PayPal account.
My reservations are that PayPal, partly, at least, from being owned and used by eBay, has a mixed reputation. Personally, I have never had any problems with paying via PayPal, but some people have. You only need to hear of one or two bad experiences to begin to distrust an agency or organisation.
The problems probably come from tales of 'phishing', and from the vast anonymity of using the mechanism.
(more)
Sunday 14 January 2007 at 6:10 pm
This item was first published on 4th December 2006.
The $100 laptop computer has been launched in Brazil. Read more about this at Global Voices Online.
Global Voices Online summarises the reactions to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative in Brazil, from various bloggers in the country, and provides translations into English from the Portuguese.
Naturally, reactions vary from those who think it's WOW, to those who, understandably in my view, suggest that more investment in teachers might better meet the objective of improving educational attainment, to those who believe the money might have been better spent in combating poverty and providing food and water.
And then of course, who will the laptops go to? One blogger queried this after supposing that the launch machines would be given to President Lula's grandsons.
The $100 laptop uses a different hardware configuration from that which we are used to, and also a different browser, called OLPC, after the name of the initiative. Watch the YouTube demo of OLPC in action.
Also see this article entitled Clever kit to benefit the poor in London's Financial Times.
Update on January 5th 2008: An article in
The Economist reveals that the OLPC laptop is clumsy, cumbersome to use, and crashes frequently. It's more likely to deter kids than encourage them. The Economist says that this has been largely due to "the hubris, arrogance and occasional self-righteousness of OLPC workers. They treated all criticism as enemy fire to be deflected and quashed rather than considered and possibly taken on board. Overcoming this will be essential if the project is to succeed past its first release."
All is not doom and gloom however. Laptops are getting cheaper and there are other options. At least the OLPC initiative has pioneered a trail.
