Category Archives: self publishing

Ouran Wallpaper: More fun with Photoshop

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As I post this, I realize that I have no where on any of my formal websites to display this stuff. Yeeks, I’ll figure out something by the end of the week. Anyhow, here’s the Haruhi wallpaper. I like this image of her with sheep (mostly because I adore sheep). So I made the image to look like it was cut out of paper.  Here’s the original image:

haruhiwithsheeporiginalThis was tough, because the image quality of the manga magazine was very poor.  I had to clean up a lot!

Here are some links to the nether regions of one of my websites. I’ll update this once I get something formal going.

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Fun Stuff Coming out of NAA Conference

I’ve been following the news coming out of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) conference.  Here’s a link to latest thread as Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt adds his 2-cents.  Basically the newspapers have discovered that “free” isn’t a business model while, at the same time, they have no idea how to regain control of the distribution of their content from the millions of bloggers and aggregators out there in the world.  The thing I don’t understand is why they object to bloggers and aggregators providing links to their content and why they are acting like the music industry folks and “hating” upon their customers.  First of all links are the life’s blood of the internet.  If you want people to find your content, then links to your content  (along with quality content) will help put your content on top of the Google stack (links are the Internet’s “street cred”).   What news agencies don’t want is bloggers and aggregators reprinting content in whole without crediting or linking back to the source.

Let’s take a look at my interaction with Ad Age.  I pay a subscription to Ad Age because I find the content compelling.  I ended up getting a subscription because of links from the CEA news aggregator.  Some Ad Age articles are free, but not all of them.  I wanted access to this news so I pay for it.  What a concept!  In my blogging I put links to Ad Age in them and if my readers want to read the Ad Age source they can choose to pay and read the source article.   Mind blowing isn’t it?  So what’s the secret?  Um … it’s called compelling content!

So with respect to bloggers, news agencies want them to find their content.   News agencies want bloggers to pay to read content and then repackage the headlines so they compel their readers to follow the links back to the source.  Those readers, then, will be confronted with the choice to pay to read further.  So my message to the news agencies is that they should show some love to bloggers rather than “hating” upon them.  Most people like their news pre-digested and spoon fed to them.  Get used to it!  Understand who it is that wants to get beyond the headlines and serve that audience.  Quit worrying about the masses for which the “cesspool” of the Internet and headlines are good enough.  Let the bloggers and the aggregators have the close relationship with the masses — use them as envoys.   I think Eric Schmidt got it right by telling the news agency execs and reps,

These are ultimately consumer businesses, and if you piss off enough of them, you ultimately won’t have any.

Wallpaper Done

I had to take the image into Fireworks to work with items I imported easier.  I purchased a couple doily drawings from iStockPhoto and a floral flourish to complete the look.yudabg1_sm1

I also made a wide screen version for TV, laptops, and wide screen monitors.

yudabg1920x1080Yippee!  All of these files will be made available in the goodies section of the Zettai Heiwa Daisakusen on Omari’s Sister Translations.

I Heard an Interesting thing About Newspapers

I live in a city where my newspaper is in danger of being no longer. I can’t say I’ll miss the city newspaper because I haven’t subscribed to it in over 5-years. So what happened with me and the newspaper? Well, I ordered the Sunday newspaper only because getting the newspaper 7-days a week was too much for me to read and created too much trash for me to deal with. Unfortunately, the newspaper, obsessed with selling advertisements, ignored my desire and sent me the newspaper 7 times a week. I then canceled because my house became filled with newspapers I didn’t read. Our house and garage used to be littered with stacks of unread papers. It’s a fire hazard and they attract bugs and vermin that like to hide in the folds. I really only wanted the front page, the Sunday comics, and the Sunday coupons. The newspaper, actually didn’t stop coming, though, because my Dad signed up for the newspaper using the same phone number I did and the newspaper came to me instead of him. Hahaha!!! It was a frustrating experience. Needless to say, it got straightened out and I have been newspaper-free for years.

My problem with the newspapers is that they come on a ridiculous amount of paper. That’s why I turned to the Internet once it became a valid source. The newspapers are kicking themselves for not selling the news online at the start. The big problem though is hyper-linking. I heard some guy on KPBS’ “Editor’s Round Table” mention this, but I don’t think he completely grasped what he was saying. The problem is even if a newspaper charges people to access the news, there are ways to grab information and rebroadcast it that can’t stopped. Sure people can link to the information and then those that follow the link can pay whatever is charged to read the full article. But as a blogger, I have found myself cutting and pasting content from paid content because somewhere in the back of my mind the idea of the news being property is absurd — sorta like paying for flowers, unprepared food, water, air, and health care. (BTW: I have stopped cutting and pasting entire articles and I cleaned my blog to link the articles). I imagine most people feel this way, so it happens all the time. Anyhow, to sum it all up, because print is giving away to the internet, the newspapers can no longer control the distribution of their content. Continue reading I Heard an Interesting thing About Newspapers

Twitter Logo Artist Paid $6

Here’s an article from Wired about how the Twitter “Bird” was purchased from iStockphoto for $10 – $15.  Apparently some graphic designers aren’t happy about sites like iStockphoto and crowdsourcing in general.  This sounds to me like the same whining coming out of the mouths of developers upset about 99-cents iPhone applications.   With respect to this, the Twitter artist, Simon Oxley said:

“I believe a designer can only be ‘hurt’ when they stand in line — instead of constantly seeking new inspiration and producing new things with their ever-increasing experiences.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Sell your creativity.  However, I do believe Twitter needs to credit Mr. Oxley for his design on their website.