RSSMix.com Mix ID 214243

New Tobinrussell.com Favicon Logo

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:12 -0500

How to be a Successful Artist in Minnesota: I don't get it

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:59:03 -0500

This came to my inbox from the preeminent art school of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Talk about a mind-f$%k. Can anyone translate?

People

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:14:45 -0500

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

The Varsity Golden Pantry Gas Pump I Found the Tiger in the Neighborhood at Night with the iPhone

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:21:40 -0500

FEBRUARY 1, 2010
What a prize! To find a tyger so soon after the beginning of the year of the tyger.

eHow.com: Why Not?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:24:02 -0500

2/2/2010
Note: This has not been edited. If you want to do it, you just volunteered yourself.

I bought a Universal GE remote and it came with no instructions. I type in Google "How do I program a GE Universal remote?" and eHow.com pops up.

eHow.com popped up yesterday when I googled, "How do I reinstall an app I already purchased from the iPhone?" eHow told me. I also see eHow answers my question on how to take a screenshot with my iPhone...among many other tech entries.

I checked to see if eHow can teach us "How to successfully blackmail?" but eHow seems to draw the ethical line there - although eHow offers advice on how to deal with blackmail. Who knows if it's good? I hope I don't have to find out.

All in all, eHow.com seems to be the top aggregator or collector of articles on the interwebs. I don't know eHow they done it, but I have benefitted successfully as I have navigated through their instructions, which usually seem good and are user rated (bonus).

For example they offer advice on "How to Get Introduced to Venture Capitalists" and advice on "How to Launder Money." I don't think they are intentionally working both sides of the equation, but I'm not complaining.

They even seem to have an entry on "How to Automatically Back Up Your PC for Free" - add that to you "How to Make Friends"* and eHow seems to be less instruction manual and more keys to your fantasy life. Maybe someone high up at eHow will write an article on how they do that - I'm not going to check though. I've eHad enough.

* Actually Wikihow.com has "How to make friends," eHow.com has "How to Make Friends in College."

The Best Portrait Technique I have ever Witnessed

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:14:25 -0500

Photographers, as a breed, each have our own 'schtick' for photographing people:

Craig in Minneapolis does something like peep-a-boo behind his camera with a weird noise. I've never been on the other side of the camera, but it seems really weird if you are not the target of the attention

I have known photographers who employ a 'fart machine' that throws the sound all over the place - particularly good for Children and commercial work, cause they always be smilin'

I myself have been been told to do some version of 'cheese' on funny version of which I can't remember right now, but that's not what I usually do. What I do is "Give me the love" and "Get closer, it's OK to touch your FAMILY" (you squeamish white people). The Love really brings it for me.

Now...after seeing Napoleon Dynamite four years after everyone else saw it, I have witnessed what I believe to be the best portrait technique - relationship building at it's best (American Beauty has a good version of this - and if I can scan my memory far enough back I believe Sex, Lies and Videotape also has at least an interesting rapport.)

In any case Deb has got it in spades: She creates a mental space like no other and gets props from Napoleon's uncle.

Aggressive Feedback for the Skitch.com Screenshot Program

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:31:05 -0500

Hello Audience - who ever you are I love you and will soon send a survey to find out who you may be...

The old "Observations" blog has been moved to Archived Blogs on this site and now I am posting Observations here. So here is a new "Observations" post about a screenshot tool, Stich.com, that runs on Mac and archives things online.

This aggressive example of feedback is a pretty fair assessment of what I'm like 9 days into JMG's absense, but hell - I'm getting more done online now than I have ever before. It's all about perfecting systems...that automate Ideally. To give an idea: I have been juggling Facebook Fan Pages, several Twitter accounts, several Tumblr blogs, installing Pixelpost photoblog software to a new website, Tweetdeck on the iPhone, audio embedding widgets in websites and just now finding Stich.

Every question I have I just figure out the best keywords and type it into Google. (I appreciate the fact the Google Nanny no longer says 'of' is not an important word.)

Here's my Aggressive Feedback:

[Actually I copied it, then copied something else, so it's lost. And here's some feedback for Stich now: Where the Hell is my Feedback? Did you just soak it up? I will post it when they give it back!]

February 4: I never got my original feedback, but here's some more!

Why can't there be a save to folder settings on the skitch window. Additionally why can't users simply set up skitch to automatically save to a specified folder? For such a versatile program having to manually drag something or 'webpost' it from the window is ridiculous. Skitch needs to be out of the way of the action, not interfering with it's demands for you to make a decision about the screen shot every time a screen shot happens.

Simply put - with the shortcut to crosshair capture or any other capture, it seems that there should be a way for the capture to be auto saved, in whatever compression format the user chooses, to a folder of the users choosing - set in preferences - without there ever being a Stich window to look at. This seems obvious to me - Gadwin PrintScreen for PC is a free program that does it. A great program to that moment, Skitch becomes terribly inefficient if it's demanding you manage images on it's schedule.

PS. So a list of folders could also be on the skitch pop up window and act in the sameway as webpost or 'library save' - click a button and it automatically goes into the skitch library and wherever else you specify the image to go.

Same in the version I just thought up without the pop up window (have I mentioned how annoying it is that I must manage the Skitch window after every screen shot? It's a screenshot - I'm pretty certain I know what I got.). As it is auto saved to a folder it would be autosaved to the History Library too. Everything shot should be automatically saved.

Radical Chic at Memory Lanes

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:50:56 -0500

The last band gig in Minneapolis. Radical Chic, based on the Tom Wolfe essay, plays Memory Lanes.

Happy Year of the Tiger 2010

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:36:47 -0500

January 24: Death of a URL

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:30:00 -0500

I'll tell you what's happeing at Pixelhog on Twitter. Nothing's happening. Not anymore.

January 24: Death of a URL
Annoying D-Bag Pixelhog Minnesota Alter-Ego Down for the Count;
TobinRussell On Twitter Will Emerge the Victor after Certain Defeat

It was getting lonely over there at www.twitter.com/pixelhog. It was clear Pixelhog was meant to fail. I should've known when the German said it, but, hell, you can't ALWAYS do whatever the Germans say.

But Right There, out in the Cold, totally unclaimed, but beautifully rendered by none other than Flashlight Photorental, is yours truly all Raoul'd Tilt and Shift and Here I am coming now. Coming in from the cold on University Avenue. Trucker hat in tact. I'll all be at

TWITTER.COM/TOBINRUSSELL
Twitter.com/tobinrussell will be taking over for Pixelhog, who no one really liked to begin with.

I feel ' digital stillbirth ' coming on...
(not be my first, but please lord of higher wisdom make it the beginning of my last):

twitter.com/pixelhog...so many good tweets, so many good times...so many other people doing stuff while you were doing that. And forget about that pixelhog twitter feed at TRCOM, not happening anymore.
flickr.com/pixelhog....you are so full of SHIT! The only thing you have on there is crappy pictures of ZOMBIES at the best attended street event in Minnesota of 2009. Some kind of licensing pipe dream led you to believe if you saturated the zombie market with 200 (that is the non PRO! account monthly upload limit) zombie photographs from the pre-eminent Zombie Pub Crawl. Fives of thousands of people dressed as puke guts zombies, really into it to, being all like: "Disease is fun!"
....that THAT was your ticket to a payday in Minnesota? I have never not understood a place so much.
myspace.com/pixelhog....you actually have good music photography and a decent selection of images in a reasonably good presentation. In addition, if any group of people in the whole Untied States would gravitate to something called Pixelhog, there's a 40% chance it might be musicians. So, I gladly neither cut you off, nor let you wither away (much). I will keep my claim to the MySpace Pixelhog troll. Maybe he can collect some Tolls along the way.

Pixelhog, stillbirth of Minnesota, you did a fine job of driving people away. I am relieving you from duty. Your task is accomplished. You have sealed the deal with digital lips, making the communication path 100 percent one way, you were the finishing touch on a case about non-compatibility I have been considering too long, for quite some time now.

In the world of creation, there are many deaths. Few of them as ugly as the death of another being. There is no comparison. That is why we are artists. To make things which fail, to say it is not that big a deal, and eventually to connect with an audience who says, "I get it. I like what is happening here. This is working."

Hello " twitter.com/tobinrussell ", come in from the cold, and warm yourself up. Breathe a little. I think tobinrussell at flickr.com is up for the taking (unless I took it and forgot), I'm not sure I want it, but I am fairly sure you don't want it.

I promise next time, I'll just send a survey to avoid problems / time suck,

49. iPhone

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:52:42 -0500

great computer!
mediocre phone!
but love the computer!
more than my own!

48. Uberganizairz

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:58:33 -0500

entymology -Play on the words 'uber' and 'organizer'

def. - n. an elite type of political organizer trained with a broad array of skills and also a special, superpower type of skill, which can be deployed in extreme situations. Frequently dwells in GreenCorps or, on the dark side, at elite Christian Universities in western Virginia and rural Michigan.

Uberganizairs can:

Plan press conferences from a mountaintop which has been removed and get people there
Find strategic flaws in management systems and implement a broad variety of fixes
Lead national TV and media crews up the sides of very tall damns to 'get the shot' of the political action

This is a brief video introduction before we learn about three Uberganizairz' special skills:

47. eViolated

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:57:28 -0500

In usage,

Whoa be the day Google gets eViolated (you peeped eViolated here first BOYZ!) by cybercriminals...it will happen and I am crossing my fingers, praying to Jeebus, my Gmail and Google Docs, and now Google Calendar and Sync don't fall flaming out of the sky with it.

Complete article, "Upload Anything? Google Docs just keeps blowing me away."

Upload Anything? Google Docs just keeps blowing me away

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:39:12 -0500

I am much too big a fan of Google Docs. With the exception of having terrible printing exports and settings, having all my documents online is an amazing conveinence. Having access to documents anywhere vies against sharing documents with anyone as collaborators for which is the bigger convenience.

And then there is the big brother aspect of Google, recommending counselors or branded therapies when you get a troubled email from a friend or lover? Just creepy.

But then, in the usual understated way, I run across this today. Google Docs now supports at least the VIEWING of ANY DOC on your F-IN' computer? These guys have the programmer slaves in the basement working 23-6, I swear!

This means photopresentations can be uploaded (not that I couldn't create them in Docs with their presentation program anyway) and any other kind of document on my computer can be handled by Google Docs. Wow.

I knew computers had a long way to go, I just did not know how far they would go. Thank god it's all happening before the 2012 Oil/Religious/Nostradamus Apocalypse! A couple of more years to appreciate this amazing technology before the energy runs out and we're all riding bikes to the farm.

At least animals won't be locked in factory farms anymore. That kind of karma you can't put a price on. I might even give up Google Docs for that.

Next: Google Sync almost makes Paper Toast! But I still have a Quo Vadis dammit, and I like it.

46. Digital Ruler

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:53:14 -0500

Ever need to know exactly how many pixels something on your screen is, but you don't want to open the tool to measure it - or don't know what that tool is? Viola. Listen to this:

In this image, I took a screen shot of the spot the image needs to fit on my site, seen in the
upper left side and looked at it's size 579 pixels wide, then resized Dirty Bird's portrait to fit
exactly in the space I saw on my site: 579px wide by whatever height is proportional.

In Mac (I would search Tucows for an equivalent screen shot program). Use the screen shot function with the crosshair at COMMAND>SHIFT 4.

Go to the area you want to measure, click, hold down and drag across your selection to complete a screen shot of the area.

Go to the file, which lands on my desktop and look at Get Info or Right Click for Properties in PC to get the exact pixel size -

Viola, your area is measured exactly how you see it on screen.

45. Basic Body Check (on demand)

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:47:43 -0500

Every time you bend over, crouch down instead.
Habits lead to habits, you are on your way.

Aging the office dweller
the simplest things
become kryptonite

Driving Web Traffic, an Experiment in Inanity with Results

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:32:58 -0500

The simplest way to drive traffic to your website, by far, is to key into what people are looking for - so why not create a website or blog dedicated exclusively to posts at a collection of other popular blogs - say a feed mix of all the Gawker websites. Set up a twitter account and a blogger account and post an exact headline with lead text and link to Gawker sites on the blog, then post a notice up at Twitter for everything you post - about 50 posts a day - and watch the traffic pour in. Not to mention the Twitter throngs if you properly has the shit out of things.

As for myself, I will simply limit myself to headlines that are clearly lies, like "Robert Pattinson Shows Up at Minneapolis Premeire of New Moon," post a crappy photo of Robert on a non-descript corner and watch the local traffic roll in.

This I will do.

What Mike Tyson's trainer knows about making a competitor

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:31:12 -0400

I have a friend I will call Ray. Ray talks a lot of shit, but on the other hand Ray knows what is required to make a champion. He'll say "You're the next abolitionist. You are the Abraham Lincoln of New England, B!"

If you missed the documentary "Tyson", the most interesting part to myself was his relationship to his trainer in Brooklyn, Cus d'Amato. The documentary has Tyson recounting his original training by Cus. Cus spent most of his early training drilling this message into Tyson's head, "You are the greatest. You are the best out there. You are simply better than your competitors."

Tyson said he realized that without this basic level of confidence, without this voice from outside his normal reality, he would never have made it further - and it's Tyson's belief that fueled his own competitive spirit.

This is not a characteristic of an intellectual upbringing - at least not mine. Lucky for me I have one friend who hones in on what is at the core of my value and drills it into my head whenever I see him. Shout out Ray.

Doubt is important. Confidence is fundamental.

Tech Tips: How to Manage Newsletters in Gmail with Filters

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:30:26 -0400

So, do you have 26,989 emails in your inbox too? I do too. It sucks. But here's a quick fix for Gmail users to deal with information you want, but not necessarily right in your face:

Go to you Inbox
Check boxes of newsletter that you want info from, but want to not automatically show up in your inbox
Go to Button "More Actions"
Select "Filter Messages Like These"
Click "Next Step"
Select box "Skip the Inbox"
Also select "Apply the Label" - toggle "Newsletters" (note: you will need to create this Label)
Click "Also apply to the 10 messages below"
Click "Create filter"
Next window shows you all your filters!