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Mark on the Road – Digital Photography Edition

Mark Soper — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:21:14 +0000

Please join me Thursday evening from 6:00PM to 7:30PM, September 17, at McCollough Branch Library, Evansville, Indiana, for the first of two presentations on digital photography.

I’ll be discussing how to shoot better photos of school events and sports, based on my latest book The Shot Doctor: the Amateur’s Guide to Taking Great Digital Photos. This book and others will be available for sale, and I’ll be happy to sign and inscribe them for you. See a sample chapter here: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1347408

Learn more about the program here: http://evpl.org/events/search/event.aspx?id=18983.

Need a map? Go here: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107016838176065254607.00043feb8844aa3119721&ll=37.99481,-87.563095&spn=0.142856,0.275688&z=12&om=1&iwloc=00043feb94b7a95143145

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Blogging with Windows Live Writer

Mark Soper — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:49:44 +0000

Microsoft has just introduced a public beta of Windows Live Suite, a set of communications and social networking tools and web services. I’m using the Windows Live Writer component to write this blog entry.

It’s easy to add pictures (you can edit your photos with the new Windows Live Photo Gallery),add a table (this one’s in honor of an old Sci-Fi book series I enjoyed)…

My name	My nation	My game	My destination
Michael Mars	America	space flying	Mars

insert a map…

I can insert tags from Technorati, 43 Things, and other services, and videos too…

I’m going to like this service!

To learn more about Windows Live Suite, see my Maximum PC blog.

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Discover the best new and improved features in Windows Vista (and a few that need work): get my new book Maximum PC Microsoft Windows Vista Exposed: an Insider’s Guide to Supercharging Windows Vista. It’s available from Amazon.com and other fine bookstores.

Darwin’s Day, or Lincoln’s? Why I Vote for the Man from Illinois

Mark Soper — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:22:59 +0000

By an amazing twist of fate, both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on February 12, 1809. Some celebrate this day as “Darwin Day” (and some churches got in on the act a day early by hosting “Evolution Sunday” services). I prefer to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, instead.

Whatever the merits of Darwin’s theory of evolution as a scientific theory, its application (some would say misapplication) to human relations as “Social Darwinism” have been highly toxic, leading to eugenics, abortion and sterilization (as a means of removing “harmful genes” from humanity), and even the Holocaust.

Lincoln’s battle against a nation “half slave and half free” (June 16, 1858 “House Divided” campaign speech), on the other hand, was an early blow in the long battle to recognize all peoples of any color as truly human. Even before becoming president and signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he defended the Declaration of Independence’s statement “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” vigorously (July 10, 1858 speech at Chicago).

Who has inspired more good actions and a better humanity? Darwin or Lincoln? In my mind, it isn’t even close.

(H/T to PowerLine)

He’s Baaaaack!

Mark Soper — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:13:00 +0000

Jack Bauer’s back (on Fox’s 24), and by an amazing coincidence, so am I! I don’t have an excuse as good as Jack’s for my long absence from blogdom: saying “I was being held hostage by Windows Vista betas and release candidates” doesn’t have nearly the cachet of a Jack Bauer involuntary ”vacation,” but no matter: the long wait (for both 24 and Windows Vista) is almost over.

I’ve written for my favorite hard-core mod-happy technology magazine, Maximum PC, several times over the last few years, and I’m happy to announce that they’ve tapped me again to write a piece called The Vista Starter’s Guide for an upcoming issue (could it have anything to do with my forthcoming book Maximum PC Guide to Windows Vista Exposed?).

Keep an eye out for a special edition of the mag with two chapters from the book.

Making Blogging Smarter and Easier

Mark Soper — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:34:17 +0000

If the only blog tools you’re using are your favorite web browser and your blogging host’s default editor, you’re working a lot harder than you need to.

Ian Soper (The Nameless Church and iansoper.com just introduced me to a new browser, Flock, which is the first web browser optimized for blogging, photo sharing, and other social networking tasks.

Flock makes it this easy to blog about a web page:

Open the web page in Flock
Right-click on the page
Select Blog This
Flock opens its integrated blog editor and adds a hyperlink.

Flock can do much, much more: check it out.

Blogged with Flock

See you at IvyTech in July…and beyond

Mark Soper — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:31:07 +0000

I’ll be teaching a trio of non-credit courses in July at IvyTech’s Evansville campus:

- Digital Photography (using my own Easy Digital Cameras book for the text)

- Scanning and Archiving Your Photos – learn how to convert your old photos into digital format, edit, enhance, print, and share them

- Buying and Selling on eBay

Download the summer 2006 non-credit class catalog. The catalog is in Abobe PDF format; use Acrobat Reader or equivalent to view it.

Get Adobe Reader (free!) here.

For more information, call the Workforce and Economic Development Continuing Education office at (812)429-9807 or drop Lisa Harvey a line at ldharvey@ivytech.edu.

If you’re looking for a way to make the summer more interesting, join us! These classes are fun, provide personalized instruction, and will get you off on the right foot with a new hobby, or make the hobby you have more enjoyable and profitable.

If you haven’t been to IvyTech’s Evansville campus lately, be prepared to be stunned. It’s a terrific facility with many new classrooms, offices, and other enhancements. Get a Mapquest map here.

If your summer is already booked up, these classes and more will be available this fall.

Thanks to B&N, and readers in SW Indiana!

Mark Soper — Tue, 02 May 2006 22:29:47 +0000

Posting’s been light in April, thanks to a combination of going to a book fair in Boonville, wrapping up final corrections on Upgrading and Repairing Networks, 5th Edition, coping with a cranky Windows Vista beta (does ‘beta’ mean ‘crashprone’ in Latin?) for an upcoming book, and coming down with a customized high-temperature version of ‘what everybody’s catching.’

Thankfully, I survived April, and had a wonderful time at Barnes & Noble Evansville’s first annual Author Fest. I sold a few books, talked to a lot of other authors (a big shout-out in particular to Bloomington’s own Quentin Dodd, author of two hiliarious YA sci-fi novels, including Beatnik Rutabagas from Beyond the Stars, and The Princess of Neptune), and showed off my latest book, Upgrading and Repairing Servers (about which I’ll be posting more later).