I also changed the name of the site from :skyecade online to simply robertsinclaire.com. It’s been something I’ve been toying with for a while now. All the original URLs will still work, however, so feel free to keep plugging in skyecade.net if that’s what you prefer.

Lastly, I added a “Subscribe Via Email” section to the side bar for people who would like all my wonderful posts sent directly to their inbox. Never again will you miss out on the pure awesomeness which is :skyecade online robertsinclaire.com. Just pop in your email address, hit “Subscribe”, and wait by your inbox. Oh yeah!

Okay, off to jury duty……again.

It’s completely free and it takes only a few minutes to get a new video on your site. I signed up, created a video, and embedded it into my site in under 5 minutes. Sorry for the bad quality. I used the built-in mic and camera on my MacBook. But imagine the possibilities.

Not only can I annoy people with my writing, but now someone has made it easy for me to annoy people with my face too. Thanks bubbleguru! Their slogan should be “We are Web 2.0s version of blinking text”.

All kidding aside though, this looks like pretty cool technology. You might see me pop in from time to time. Prepare yourself.

I’m still not 100% convinced that paying for an online education is a good idea, but the fact that it’s O’Reilly makes me much more curious.

Course List:

For the complete I.T. beginner:

* Introduction to HTML and CSS
* Learn Object-Oriented Programming Using Java
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin I: The Basics of System Administration
* Learn C Programming, Part 1

For the beginner/intermediate student:

* Introduction to PHP
* JavaScript 1: Client-Side Programming
* Learn Perl for CGI Programming
* PHP/SQL 1: Introduction to Database Programming
* Learn SQL for Database Programming
* Learn C Programming, Part 2
* Learn VB-Script
* Learn Unix for Web Programming
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin II: Networking and DNS
* Learn XML

For the intermediate/advanced student:

* JavaScript 2: AJAX
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin III: Unix Services (including email and web servers)
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin IV: Scripting for Administrators, Sed, Awk, and Perl
* Learn Visual Basic .NET
* Learn C#.NET

This site uses a lot of CSS and is written in xhtml (transitional), both of which comply with w3c standards. Validate them yourselves if you wish. BUT WAIT! Before you do, I should mention that though the site code complies with w3c standards, some of the content may not always validate properly, e.g., when embedding videos from Youtube. So to validate this site, click on this to leave the front page and then click on the two buttons below.

   &   

Needless to say, the site renders perfectly when using Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari, Konqueror, and even older versions of Internet Explorer. Grrrr. I’m so disappointed. I was really looking forward to this release.

So what now? I could block all IE7 users from my site. That’s just mean. Not to mention that in about one months time IE7 is going to be included in Microsoft’s automatic updates – which in turn, means that the majority of Window’s user’s will be upgrading to IE7. That’s a little under 50% of my visitors. Yeah, I thought that was a crazy statistic too. That obviously means that about half of the people that visit this site are using something other than Internet Explorer. Although, I’ve always assumed that people who read and/or write blogs were more likely to use an alternative browser to Internet Explorer, but I never would have guessed 50%. My faith in humanity has just doubled.

Maybe I should just wait for Microsoft to fix this problem for me. (you may now take a moment to laugh). Done?

No, I think my only viable option here is to find a CSS expert who can write me an IE7 hack of some type. If it’s even possible. I really don’t want to do a complete site redesign just because of one stupid company that can’t play nice with the rest of the kids in the yard.

To help clarify my last statement:

• kids = web standards
• yard = the internet
• stupid = Microsoft

Alright, I don’t think Microsoft is stupid. In fact, I think they can be down right brilliant at times. So why, then, can’t they get something as simple as this correct? Why, oh why.

Anyways, I don’t plan on doing anything drastic for a while. Maybe Bill Gates is a frequent reader of my site and will be appalled with what he sees and go back to Redmond and personally fix the problem himself. Thanks Bill! I owe you one.

Enough blabbering. What is the moral of this story ladies and gentlemen? For the love of god, download Firefox.

<!- - end IE7 hack - ->

BTW, here is the artist’s step by step instructions on how he created this in Photoshop CS2. Pretty impressive stuff.

It’s called the Google Page Creator and it is yet another incredible piece of software that has been released by Google. If you read my last post, I mentioned that I was a bit disappointed with the release of the Google Pack. Well, needless to say, they’ve completely redeemed themselves (as I suspected they would).

Google’s Page Creator is a site that allows you to create your own web pages and host them on Google’s servers. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of like Blogger meets Geocities, but better and a lot better. The interface is extremely easy to use and you don’t need to know html to make a great website. You can host files and have multiple pages, all for the low, low price of nothing. This is going to make web hosting companies like GoDaddy very unhappy This is what the internet is morphing into. A true example of Web 2.0.

Experts are now saying that people, my generation and younger, will most likely accomplish the following in their lifetime:

1. Write a novel
2. Write a poem
3. Write a song
4. Create a website
5. Learn a new language
6. Write some kind of computer code
7. Make a movie/video of some kind

This isn’t because we are smarter than our parents and grandparents, but because the tools to accomplish these things are more easily accessible to us. The Google Page Creator is just another great example of this. It’s something anyone can use, and should.

I’ve always said that everyone should own a website of some kind. This will make it easier for people to do just that. I created this website in under ten minutes. No kidding. Now imagine if I actually put some effort into it. You could do some pretty incredible and useful things with this software.

Ahh Google, how I love thee.

1. With your image loaded into Photoshop create a new adjustment layer. Click on Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. Then just click OK, and then OK again. We’ll come back to this layer again later.
2. We are now going to repeat most of step one. Click on Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. Click OK once. Grab the slider for Saturation and drag it all the way to the left (-100) to completely desaturate the image.
3. Now we need to change the blend mode of first Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Using the Layers palette, target the first Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Hue/Saturation 1) you created by clicking on the layer. This will select the layer. Change the blending mode for the layer from Normal to Color by using the drop down menu on the top of the Layers palette. By the way, if you can’t find your Layers palette simply click on Windows > Layers.
4. Now double-click on the Hue/Saturation 1 thumbnail to open the adjustment dialog box.
5. Move the Hue slider to adjust the grayscale values of the image. Move the Saturation slider to control the finer details of the image. In short, move the Hue slider for major changes and the Saturation slider for minor changes.
6. For even more detail you can adjust individual colors. On the top of the adjustment dialog box click the drop down menu and choose a color to manipulate it. For example, you would choose blue to adjust the color of the sky. Adjusting the blue color channel shouldn’t have an effect on skin tones or hair color of people in the photograph. Unless of course you’re a smurf. Likewise, adjusting the green channel will effect the tones and contrast of grass and trees but shouldn’t have an effect on the sky.

And there you have it. Pretty easy huh? What’s great about this technique is the flexibility and control it gives you over the photograph. There are other, even more complex and sophisticated ways of converting color to black & white, but this is a good starting place. Give it a whirl.

1. First load your crooked picture into Photoshop. (duh!)
2. Select the Measure Tool. This can be found under the eyedropper tool in the toolbox.
3. Select a point on the horizon and then, while holding down the mouse key, drag the cursor across the image to the other side of the horizon. This line will obviously be slanted since your horizon is slanted. By the way, the horizon can be anything. In my case it was the top edge of a wall.
4. On the top menu bar go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary.
5. You will see the rotate canvas dialog box appear with a number already filled in. This is the correct number. Click O.K.
6. You will see that the image is rotated and the horizon is now level. The last step is to select the Crop Tool and crop the image to trim away the white edges.

And that’s that. Stay tuned for more exciting Photoshop tips right here on skyecade online. However, I don’t think you can actually stay tuned to a website. How about, check back for more exciting and useful Photoshop tips right here on skyecade online!! Yeah, that’s nice.

I’ll post’m as I learn’m.