BrianHimes.com » Technology

Technology and Art

Brian — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:21:08 +0000

With the exponentially growing popularity of smart phone cameras more and more people seem to believe that they are artists. My question is, what does this mean for the true artists of the photography world?

If it’s getting easier and easier for people like me to snap a photo, filter it with some software, and put out a decent photo, where does that leave the photographer who honed those skills over years of practice? Not, knowing a lot, I would guess that there is still a divide between what can be done with software and what can be done with a great camera and a dark room. But what happens as that divide shrinks?

Again, I would have to guess. My guess is that the artist adapts. There is always room for a good eye. To me art is as much a state of mind as it is technique or practice. Art changes and adapts to the tools of the time. It’s people finding creative ways to use the tools available that makes the art, art.

Smart phone cameras and photo apps like instagram and hipstamatic make “art” more accessible to the common man. While they may dumb down techniques that are difficult and time consuming for the true artist, they allow normal people like me to join in the fun. I would hope that a true lover of art would rejoice in this renaissance of photography and take the opportunity to educate others about the art of photography. What do you think?

I may be way off with these thoughts and would welcome a real artist’s comments. These were just a few thoughts I had this morning while drinking my coffee and reading the latest tech news.

Have We Forgotten the Outdoors?

Brian — Mon, 24 May 2010 22:38:32 +0000

While reading one of my favorite blogs today, Curbed LA, I came across a post discussing a recent UCLA study. In the study Los Angeles families were videotaped for three years and the results were interesting. Although the families had yards, none of them used them.

I find this particularly interesting because the wife and I are about to finish the long tedious task of making our backyard livable.

I have to admit that I haven’t spent much time out in my backyard in the 2 plus years I’ve lived in my house. I hope that’s about to change though. We’re planning to put in sod on Memorial Day. I hope the plan works out.

In the past, I have blamed it on the atrociously tall weeds that have dominated the landscape, but perhaps there is something more to it. Perhaps our culture has changed in Los Angeles. Perhaps we no longer value the outdoors.

While we have amazing weather year round, I wonder if we, as a culture, are becoming too focused on things that draw us indoors. We have our TVs, DVRs, computers, air conditioning… and the list goes on and on.

Have we forgotten about the outdoors? Is it too easy to just come home and wait for our technology to entertain us?

For me the answer to both of those questions is yes, but I am going to make a conscious effort to change that. How about you?

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Random Rant: Read More

Brian — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:48:40 +0000

In the world of blogging is there anything worse than the words Read More?

Read More usually follows an abbreviated version of a blog post. You, the reader, are expected to click those words, and wait for the page to reload so you can actually read the entire article. Never mind that you were already actually trying to read the article.

Now, I understand that there can be a few different reasons to use the Read More method of blogging, but really? Really, is it necessary to make it more time consuming and difficult for someone to read the content you've put out there? You should be happy I'm attempting to read what you wrote to begin with. Why would you want to make it more work for me? Think about it?

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Random Rant: Click Here

Brian — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:09:22 +0000

I hate Click Here.

Click Here is a terrible way to link to a document or web page. It’s not descriptive or helpful. In fact, I would argue that it’s lazy and just wastes space.

The World Wide Web Consortium, an international community that develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web, is even against its use. Here’s what they say about using Click Here.

So, there you have it. Don't use it. I say so, and so does the W3C.

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Church Web Design: People vs. Buildings

Brian — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:38:56 +0000

I have been doing a little thinking about this topic lately. In church web design, should you feature pictures of your congregation, or just pictures of your building and surrounding neighborhood? I would like to hear where you stand. Here are my initial thoughts. Feel free to disagree or convince me otherwise.

In the world of web design and mail solicitations for nonprofits, images of people are king. It is all about emotional appeal. You want an image to touch the viewer and stir them to take action. That action could be to make a donation, volunteer, or whatever, but it is that emotional connection that you form with the person in the image that creates that connection. I argue that you cannot forge the same connection with a building. Buildings, even in the best light and at the right angle, are cold man made objects. Sure, you can take some stunningly beautiful photos of buildings, but the difference is you cannot look into their eyes and sympathize with them.

Churches are about people, not buildings. And, I think the theory behind using images carries over from the nonprofit world. Church websites should make an emotional appeal to people. As a designer you should want the people who visit your website to see the church as a warm family they could fit right into. You want them to identify and sympathize with the people in the photos. You want to create that emotional connection to pull them in. Buildings can look cool from an art or design standpoint, but ultimately that is not what churches are about. It is about people.

Those are my thoughts anyway. Please share yours. Whether you’re a designer, or an armchair critic like me, I would love to hear from you.

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LA Nonprofits on Twitter

Brian — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:55:01 +0000

While I was sitting around the house this morning, an idea popped in my head. The idea was simple. I should find local nonprofits on Twitter and follow them. Now, I agree this may not sound like a lot of fun, but when you're a nerd like me things like this sound exciting.

To my surprise, after a short search, I was unable to find a good local list. I looked through directories, lists and users and found nothing that satisfied me. There are wonderful Twitter users like @nonprofitorgs who are compiling comprehensive lists of all nonprofits, but that is a little more than I want. I want to just read about the LA area. No one seemed to be doing that. So, I started @bhimes/la-nonprofits. It's a Twitter list for Los Angeles area Non Profit Organizations.

At this point it is a work in progress, but the plan is to grow the list and I can only do that with your help. Please suggest Los Angeles area nonprofits for me to add. You can leave a comment here, or send a reply to @bhimes on Twitter. Thanks.

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What I’m Up To: New Social Media Focus

Brian — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:09:52 +0000

Over the past couple days I've been making tweaks to brianhimes.com. And while the transformation is not yet complete, I thought I'd share a little about what I'm up to.

I read a lot about social media, nonprofits and technology. It's the most prevalent subject in my Google Reader and it's what fills my email inbox at work every day. I'm inundated with information and yet, for the most part, I read these articles, internalize them, and move on. I want to change that. My new goal is to share this information with you.

However, with that said, I don't want to change the random nature of my blog posts. I still want to write about anything and everything that comes to mind. So, I've created a few new pages at brianhimes.com. If you head over now you'll see three new pages: Consulting, Resources, and Projects. Check them out.

The information on these pages is very basic right now, but this is a work in progress. I plan to continually update these pages and grow this part of my website. It's my hope that brianhimes.com becomes a useful tool for people looking to get involved with social networking. If you have any suggestions please pass them along. I'd love to have you involved.

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Google Buzz

Brian — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:16:37 +0000

Odds are you have now heard about Google Buzz. And, if you're a Gmail user, you might have even seen it in your Gmail inbox. Google's been rolling it out to everyone with Gmail accounts since Tuesday. But what is Google Buzz? People are still trying to figure that out.

If you're only point of contact with Google is Gmail, Buzz seems to be a Twitter-like aggregator for sharing ideas and content. It links with other social media services like Flikr, Twitter, etc.

If, like me, you use other Google services, Buzz becomes a little more interesting. For example, if you have a phone with the latest version of Google Maps, you can now see Buzz posts laid out on a map according to where the person who made the post was located at that point in time. There's also another view in Maps where you can see a Twitter-like list of all the posts of people physically near you. With this functionality, you can leave tips, comments and reviews for any location you visit, and people will see these posts when they check out the Buzz.

If you have an iPhone or an Android phone with Android 2.0+ you can also access a web app, which I can only guess incorporates the features available in Maps and Gmail. My Android phone only has Android 1.6 so I haven't been able to see the app. Please feel sorry for me.

All these features make Buzz a look a little like Foursquare + Twitter + Friendfeed on crack. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Foursquare has been growing quite rapidly in recent months so, for Google to drop Buzz right now is an interesting and maybe smart move.

The question that remains is will people adopt this new platform? Only time will really tell. I think it will largely depend on whether Google works out some of the kinks with Buzz, and if you haven't noticed there are some kinks.

Perhaps the biggest kink in my mind is that content pulled in from Twitter and other sites is slow to show up in your Buzz stream. And to make matters worse, communication with these services is only one way. For Buzz to succeed it'll need to be able to push and pull data instantly from services like Twitter and Facebook. Otherwise, what's the point?

I would be very happy to have Buzz essentially replace the need for all of these separate services, and the convenience of having access to it all in Gmail, makes it even more alluring. Interestingly though, with the addition of Buzz, Gmail has become more a communication's platform and less a webmail portal. It has chat, email, and now an aggregation/broadcasting tool. Strange huh?

It'll be interesting to see how that progresses. For now, I'm going to continue exploring Buzz and hope that Google continues to improve it over the course of time. I've been really impressed with their work in Gmail and I hope that Buzz can live up to it's name.

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Apple’s iPad

Brian — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:52:09 +0000

Well Apple seems to have done it again. They announced what seems to be another amazing product. And this time, in an almost un-Apple fashion, the price point of the product seems reasonable. Maybe I’ve just become accustomed to their pricing, but I really expected the iPad to start at $700 subsidized by a mobile carrier when you sign a multi-year data contract. I’m glad I was wrong. Apple seems to have pulled out all the stops with this device.

One of the features that surprised me most was the availability of the iWork office suite. I had been dreaming that it would be capable of running presentations and opening documents, but I never really expected it to be a reality. Bravo Apple. This seems like an amazing device.

I am anxious to see how the iPad fares in reviews once people have their hands on it. I know I have a few questions still about how it will accomplish certain tasks, but I’m really excited about the possibilities. I think Apple is going to give both netbooks and ereaders a real run for their money with the iPad.

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Android Market Rant

Brian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:42:49 +0000

I like to peruse the new apps added to the Android Market every day to see what’s new in the world of Android. I realize this is a little obsessive, but oh well. It’s just something I’ve done since I got my phone. Now, because I like to see all of the new apps, I generally use the All Apps category and filter it by Just In which mostly works great, except for one small thing. The All Apps category lists every non-game application, including all the wallpapers, themes, font packs, etc.

Now, if it were an actual program that managed wallpapers, themes or font packs I could understand why they would be listed as an app, but is wallpaper really an app? Also, when publishers add new wallpapers, or themes they sometimes publish 20 (or more) at a time, so you’ll see a Lakers theme followed by a Clippers theme, followed by a Cavs theme and so on. It gets really annoying. I wish the Android Market had another category for these types of files. It would make my daily habit much more enjoyable.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the themes or the people that make them; I just think they should be organized differently. If they had their own category it would be easier to find them when you wanted them and easier to avoid them when you don’t. I think it would be a win win situation.

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