"I said I'd do it and I DID IT!"

That's what Sam used to say at the end the TV commericals Sam the Record man used to have. Rob posted this link and I had to link to it as well.The Sam the record man in Unicity is where I bought a lot of formative music in my life. The flagship store in TO was an required stop, with the amazing selection, right on Yonge St.

As well while working at Sam the CAMERAMAN all those years, we'd constantly field calls asking if the latest new release was in stock. We'd tell them to look one more line down in the phone book.

globeandmail.com: Toronto's Sam the Record Man closing

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Only in Canada: Frenzied fawn runs rampant at N.B. legislature

An intruder deer galloped into the New Brunswick legislature's departmental building Thursday morning and then made an explosive exit through a window.

Oh deer! Frenzied fawn runs rampant at N.B. legislature

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Teddy Bear Picnic

Teddy Bear Picnic
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

First time! Took a bit for him to warm up to the idea, as you can see here.

Ricki's supergraphic

Ricki's supergraphic
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

NEW SHOES!

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On location Polo Park

On location Polo Park
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Check this shot out in Flickr for notes

No one is forcing you to use words

Diesel Sweeties by R Stevens

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Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac

...as previously promised we're releasing some of this new functionality in a form that you can start using right away: Beta release #1 of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac is now available for download.
This is a stand-alone Macintosh application that converts .docx documents - that is, documents saved by Word 2007 for Windows in the Office Open XML file format - into rich text format (RTF) documents so that they can be automatically opened in either Word 2004 or Word v.X for Mac OS X.

Mac Mojo : Get converted

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D2x at North Pole

In case  you're wondering how gear fares in the extreme cold, check out this thread on DPreview. The guy took two D2x's to the North Pole. Not alot of chimping! And I thought shooting outside in Cambridge was tough, can't imagine skiing and pulling a sled as well!

DPreview post here

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More entertaining that Superman and Spiderman3 COMBINED!

Best. Superheros dancing and singing. EVER!

Photocast Network

What is the Photocast Network?The photocast network is a community of podcasters producing content related to photography. We’ve banded together to form the photocast network for mutual support and to cross promote our shows. This brings increased subscriber numbers and opportunities for group negotiation with possible sponsors.The Photocast Network has no joining fees or contracts to sign. You retain complete control and ownership of your content

PhotoCast Network

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City sponsers deal on composter

WINNIPEG - May 23, 2007- The City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba are sponsoring a one-day compost bin sale this Saturday, May 26, 2007.

The Earth Machine compost bin, valued at $80.00 each, will be sold at a reduced price of $25.00. 1,000 bins will be available at each of the following four locations, rain or shine, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (while quantities last):

* St. James Civic Centre - 2055 Ness Avenue at Woodlawn St.
* Garden City Shopping Centre - 2305 McPhillips St., S.E. Corner Parking Lot
* Kildonan Place Shopping Centre - 1555 Regent Ave. W, South Parking Lot
* St. Vital Centennial Arena - 580 St. Anne’s Road

There is no limit on the number of bins you can purchase. Cash or cheques only will be accepted – cheques should be made payable to Norseman Plastics. All sales are final – no refunds.

Composting experts will be at each of the sale locations to answer questions. For information on composting, or to sign up for a free workshop, call the Resource Conservation Manitoba Compost Infoline at 925-3777, or visit www.resourceconservation.mb.ca.

Each compost bin can prevent 100 kilograms of organics from going to the landfill each year. Organic materials produce methane gas in landfills, which contributes to harmful climate change.

For more information on The Earth Machine compost bin, visit www.earthmachine.com. For information on the one-day sale, contact the Water and Waste Department Customer Service Centre by phone at 986-5858 or by email at recycling.

T Style cover shoot Behind the Scenes video

Check out this video . Behind the scenes making of for a NYTimes Magazine shoot. Bit of a budget on this one. Never mind that when it's all said and done, the shots are tight crops with little or no set in the frame!

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The Look for Warehouse One

The Look for Summer on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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The 2:26 that got me hooked on this show.

I wasn't too keen going into watching On The Lot, the reality show about film directors. Then I saw this, the short called Time Out.
Now keep in mind this short was made in 24 hours. That's 24 hours to write, shoot, edit and this case, put the FX in. Hands down way way better than the other entries.

On The Lot: Episodes

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PHP based app to view Apeture library in a web browser

Browse Your Aperture Library Online - Aperture Users Professional Network

It sounds pretty clunky to install right now but sounds very promising. Allowing you to serve up the images in your Aperture library would be handy.

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Shoes the Full Version

This one was mentioned today during a fashion shoot. See it now before eveyone emails it to you.

Interviewer ambushes Gates about Apple Ads

GARFIELD: I want to ask you one more thing: Those Mac ads -- how do you feel about the John Hodgman character?
GATES: I can't comment on someone else's ad.
GARFIELD: OK ... but he's you.
GATES: Yeah, I'm not gonna comment on someone else's ad.
GARFIELD: OK, well, Bill Gates, thank you so much for joining us.
(Silence)
GARFIELD: Can I just have a clean goodbye?
(Silence)
GARFIELD: OK, can you just say goodbye? Thank you or goodbye or something like that?
GATES: Goodbye.

Advertising Age - AUDIO: Bob Garfield vs. Bill Gates

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A Splash of Photo History Comes to Light

At first glance the two pictures seem to be gorgeous anachronisms, full-color blasts from the black-and-white world of 1908, the year Ford introduced the Model T and Theodore Roosevelt was nearing the end of his second term.

Edward Steichen - Art - Photography - George Eastman House - New York Times

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Teens Top Ten features for a point and shoot camera

If you ask a random teenager who's browsing through Best Buy for XBox 360 games what they require from a point and shoot camera, you essentially receive the instructions that millions of dollars of marketing acumen and sampling tell the camera companies every year:
1. It has to be small, futuristic, and shiny so that it will look cool when I non-chalantly show it off to friends.
2. It has to be able to zoom in really close, just in case a girl is looking super hot and I'm too far away to see anything with my own eyes.
3. It has to be able to have enough shutter lag for me to blame my lack of photo talent on the camera.
4. It must have a flash so that people will know I've taken their picture, because otherwise they don't know to stop posing until I tell them. And I hate talking.
5. It must be able to take pictures in the dark, because I'm mostly nocturnal and spend most of my time in basements or clubs.
6. The LCD display needs to be big so that I never have to print anything and can just show people the back of my camera for 95% of what I take. The rest I'll just upload lo-res to Photobucket for my MySpace page.
7. If my parents have to spend more than the cost of an iPod on it, I'll never hear the end of it when I inevitably lose it or drop it in a pool.
8. I need it to do HD video, too. Again, just in case that hot girl is around.
9. The fewer buttons the better. I only have one belly button and that's the way I roll, so that's how I want my camera to roll.
10. And, finally, could I just subscribe to your company for an annual fee and receive the latest model every 6 months, because these things are disposable, right?

The Online Photographer: Building the Perfect Point-and-Shoot

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The importance of good photos during and AFTER the election

Today's Freep Front showcases why it was important to have good photography for the election. You never know when the press might want to use that shot on the front page of the newspaper. I'll let you guess which of the shots on the front are mine. :-)

Women win more seats than ever Manitoba beats all other provinces

Thu May 24 2007By Mia Rabson

NELLIE McClung would be proud.

When the Manitoba legislature reconvenes next month, almost one in every three MLAs taking their seats in the house will be female, more than in any other provincial or territorial legislature in Canada.

"Wow," said Raylene Lang-Dion, chairwoman of Equal Voice, a national organization dedicated to getting more women elected to all levels of government."That's where you really want to be, where you have a critical mass."

It has been 91 years since women could run for office in Manitoba, and 88 years since the first woman was elected to the Manitoba legislature.

The roster of one-third of Manitoba's MLAs as women is a step forward for both politics and women's equality in Canada, where women make up more than half the population but have generally made up fewer than one-fifth of our political leaders.

The Winnipeg Free Press Online Edition

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Birds Hill May long weekend

Birds Hill May long weekend
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

The tradition lives on

The tradition lives on
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Camping breakfast

Camping brekfast
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Yummy! Camping is all about eating and nothing beats waking up outside and having a big breakfast. Smoke and bacon combined is my fave smell in the world. Hash browns are bonus!

Photosho, a Canadian JPG Mag

Flickr: Photosho - cast your vote for next themes!

Taking cues from JPG Mag, this mag is based on user submissions. The more the merrier.

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Lightzone 3.0 upgrade

A revamped interface, simplified editing (including one-click Styles and a slick Relight tool), improved batch processing and an edit history feature headline the changes in LightZone 3.0 for Mac and Windows.

 

The new version of Light Crafts image editing and RAW conversion application also adds RAW support for the EOS-1D Mark III, EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D and Nikon D40.

Rob Galbraith DPI: Light Crafts unveils LightZone 3.0

It seems like only a month ago Light Crafts upgraded this app to 2.4, now we have 3.0. A much slicker UI, some cool new tools, my favorite "secret weapon" just got better! I urge all my photog friends to download the demo and try it. Trying it will make more sense that reading about it.

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Photography Laptop Case (aka Pimp Your Laptop Case)

Check out this cool custom job on a Pelican for location work with a laptop. It stuns me that no case or bag make has created gear that addresses this need!

Babel

Babel (2006): Metacritic links

Someone tell me what the message of this movie was, other than life sucks and then you die?

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Currently reading: Ada Blackjack

Ada Blackjack was an unlikely hero - an unskilled 23-year-old Inuit woman with no knowledge of the world outside Nome, Alaska. Divorced, impoverished, and despondent, she had one focus in her life - to care for her sickly young son. In September 1921, in search of money and a husband, she signed on as seamstress for a top-secret expedition into the unknown Arctic.

It was controversial explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson who sent four young men and Ada Blackjack into the far North to desolate, uninhabited Wrangel Island. Only two of the men had set foot in the Arctic before. They took with them six months' worth of supplies on Stefansson's theory that this would be enough to sustain them for a year while they lived off the land itself. But as winter set in, they were struck by hardship and tragedy. As months went by and they began to starve, they were forced to ration their few remaining provisions. When three of the men made a desperate attempt to seek help, Ada was left to care for the fourth, who was too sick to travel. Soon after, she found herself totally alone.

Upon Ada's miraculous return after two years on the island, the international press heralded her as the female Robinson Crusoe. Journalists hunted her down, but she refused to talk to anyone about her harrowing experiences. Only on one occasion--after being accused of a horrible crime she did not commit-- did she speak up for herself. All the while, she was tricked and exploited by those who should have been her champions.

Filled with exciting adventure and fascinating history, Ada Blackjack is a gripping and ultimately inspiring tale of a woman who survived a terrible time in the wild only to face a different but equally trying ordeal back in civilization.

---

'Ada Blackjack' by Jennifer Niven

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Trackitback

Trackitback
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Medi-dent

Medi-dent
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Canadian made fishing lures

Canadian made fishing lures on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Shot for West magazine

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Barry Saunders, Inn at the Forks

Flickr: Photos from ianmcc

Shott for Ciao Magazine

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Canada Loves Facebook!

I

How does growth in Canada compare to other non-U.S. countries? This graph shows weekly shares of total users by country of affiliation for non-U.S. users. Since the beginning of 2007, the number of Canadian users has nearly doubled in relative presence on Facebook!

If you were to check out the Toronto, ON network page, you'd notice that the Toronto network has over half a million members—a huge chunk of the explosive growth Facebook has recently seen in Canada (2 million Canadian users—or 10% of the Facebook population—and counting).

Soon after the launch of network pages, I started a new topic on the Toronto Discussion Board where I asked Torontonians what factors they thought contributed to the growth of the Toronto Facebook network. Since then, several enthusiastic members have posted their theories, ranging from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) coverage, and word of mouth, to the explosive media coverage Facebook has been receiving.
How does growth in Canada compare to other non-U.S. countries? This graph shows weekly shares of total users by country of affiliation for non-U.S. users. Since the beginning of 2007, the number of Canadian users has nearly doubled in relative presence on Facebook!

There may not be one single reason why Facebook is so popular in Canada, but rather a combination of tipping-point factors that continue to make networks like Toronto so unique in terms of growth. The best part is that as more people in Toronto join, the more relevance Facebook has for everyone involved, as it becomes more and more likely that all your friends are members. On behalf of all the Facebook Team, and as the resident Canadian, I want to say "Thanks Canada!".P.S. A little internet video that made the rounds in the US in the last

Facebook | The Facebook Blog

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Wonderful post about techno-lust

Equipment Lust - O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

"...Perhaps we need to spend a little more energy focusing on understanding our equipment inside and out and improving our abilities, as well as knowing just what it is that we’re trying to express in each image we make. Then we too can make magic happen with what we have. The latest/greatest gear may make it technologically easier to do something or enable us to do something we currently can’t do with what we have. But the soul of our images comes from within. Sometimes having less makes us work smarter and better."

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Price tags for Turkeys

Price tags for Turkeys
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Dunno why, but this phrase makes me laugh.

Chrissy handling a light stand

Chrissy handling a light stnad
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

As much as I loathe clients handling my gear, I do offer one task to them as a test. Lighttstands are deceptivley simple in design but continue to pose a challenge. Chrissy does a pretty good job with this one, but she still can't touch my gear!

Trailer for Jesse James movie is up

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Apparently there is a battle between the studio and the film makers. Advance screening have garnered rave reviews calling it the best film Terrence Malik didn't make. 3 hrs and slowing pacing might kill the art cut, and the studio might get a whiz bang version. We'll see.

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Jeope goes balloning, my jealousy hit all time high!

Jeopopolis: Such Great Heights

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Nikon's Picturetown

Nikon handed out 200 D40's to the residents of Georgetown NC. and then dubbed it Picturetown It's worth watching the movie explaning the story.

It also shows where Nikon's "focus" seems to be, much to the chagrin to us pro's uses their gear.

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The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need

Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things done. Innovation junkies, take note: the Internet has a lot to offer. From invoicing to marketing, these are tools that freelancers need to know about.

Codswallop » The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need

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Cambridge Bay

Cambridge Bay
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Nikon P&S uses Wifi and uploads to Flickr

Nikon’s new Coolpix S50c with built-in WiFi lets user upload images directly to Flickr! Nikon is even including 3 free months of Flickr Pro service when you purchase the S50c, valid until Dec 31, 2007

WiFi Enabled Coolpix S50c Uploads Directly to Flickr « Nikon Camera Blog

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Ducks in the pool

ducks in the pool
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Weird Photoshop trick

Improve your photography with clasical art.

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orange head

orange head
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

Globe&Mail Re-design reaction on NewsDesigner.com

Can't say I was totally blown away with the new design. Seems a few others aren't either... read on.

Newsdesigner.com | Globe and Mail Redesigns

Posted by: Joan Smyth at April 23, 2007 10:04 AM

While these pages look great in thumbnail, when you're holding the paper it looks incredibly disappointing.

The trim of the paper is good but the overuse of lines makes the entire thing look grey. Rather than looking modern, the paper looks rather retro--like something the Post would have put out had it been published in the early 80s. Or maybe the Globe's trying to mimic websites circa 1999.

The plethora of typefaces, lack of discernable headlines and over-reliance on lines--presumably to hide the basic design rules they're trying, unsucessfully, to break--make most of the paper look like a jumbled mess. The ragged type with the smaller column size makes reading stories difficult. Despite the smaller paper, the text looks more dense and cramped.

It's hard to read more than a few graphs in without being distracted or pulled away by a competing deck or psuedo-headline. Also, the breaks in the middle of the story that give statistics or sidebar information break the flow of the text.

And speaking of white space? What white space? With the exception of the pages shown here, there wasn't a cubic millimetre of whitespace to be found in the entire paper.

Did the quality of the paper or printing go down on this redesign? Because the photos look very muddy.

That being said, I think the redesign could be improved with tweaking. Use fewer decks. Nix the vertical lines and pump the headlines back up. Reduce the number of tyepfaces used and stop trying to cram so much on every single page.

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geek Design pst of the week: Ace Jet 170

Cool blog about type Ace Jet 170

 

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Flickr revamps their slide show and it's nice!

May 07, 2007 Announcing Slideshow 2007 (Web User Edition) We've launched an improved version of the Slideshow. Here's the feature comparison: Old Version -- sucks New Version --  rules! You wanted bigger photos! You wanted to see titles + descriptions! You wanted to see your photos on a black background! Well, check this out.

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our pool right now

our pool right now
Originally uploaded by ianmcc.

this should be fun!