AfterCapture's On Photography Blog

Jun 09 2010

The Joy of Zeroing Out Hard Drives

Category: Online Resources, Technology Insights, Workflow & DAM — Ethan G. Salwen @ 5:25 pm

In March I shared best practices for formatting hard drives, passing on the wisdom of Peter Krogh and dpBestflow.org. On Monday, I put yet another 1.5 TB Lacie external drive on line, and again I needed to refer to Krogh’s excellent video tutorial featured in the “Hard Drive Handling” section of dpBestflow.org.

Here I share screen shots of the step-by-step process because, 1) they serve as a quick, valuable reference to Krogh’s video, 2) I want to encourage you to do this!, and 3) Because, let’s face it, you guys just love my screen shot posts.

Zeroing out hard drives is really easy, but the steps are not at all intuitive. For PC users (and Mac users wanting the skinny on my steps), check out Krogh’s video tutorials featured in my earlier post.

Continue reading “The Joy of Zeroing Out Hard Drives”

Tags: Best Practices, DAM, Data Management, Data Verification, Disk Utility, dpBestflow.org, Hard Drive Formatting, Hard Drive Handling, How To Format a Hard Drive, How-To, Peter Krogh, Screen Shot Post, Zero Out Data

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May 04 2010

Fantastic Twitter Basics from Jessica Hische

Category: Technology Insights — Ethan G. Salwen @ 3:50 pm

“If you’re not using Twitter yet, you may feel as if you’ve missed out,” writes Rafe Needleman at the beginning of his helpful and encouraging Webware post, “Newbie’s guide to Twitter.” Personally, I’m still struggling to get a handle on Twitter, and I’d probably find Needleman’s encouraging words more encouraging if he had not posted them on March 15, 2007 – a million years ago in SMT (Social Media Time). Still, there’s no time like the present and luckily. . .

Yesterday, in response to my TCC (Twitter Confusion Confession), my friend @janelerner recommended that I check out Jessica Hische’s “Mom, this is how twitter works.”

@jessicahische’s insights into the very basics of Twitter protocol is a masterful must-read for all TCT (Totally Confused Twitterers) like me. You’ll also find it useful if you tweet regularly but are not entirely clear on some of the SNI (Surprisingly Not Intuitive) aspects of who receives which tweets and why.

With incredibly clarity in the “who sees what” section of her document, Hische makes it clear that there’s a big difference between whether I put “@jessicahische” at the beginning of a tweet or anywhere else in my tweet. Whether or not @jessicahische is following me (@ethansalwen) will also impact my tweeting, and my tweeting will be affected if others are following the both of us. (Unlikely. @jessicahische has 5,005 followers; I have 12.)

Hische explains the critical fundamentals with no fuss about reasons for tweeting or strategies for doing so. This is refreshing. For all the gobs of Twitter advice I encountered today on the Web, I have found none with the the basic TDI (Twitter Driving Instructions) as clearly presented as those of Hische.

(If your Titter IQ is equal to or — gasp! — lower than mine, check out the “Twitter in Plain English” video at the end of this post.)

Even if this basic information is as old to you as Needleman’s post, like @janelerner, you’ll appreciate the ability to forward this Hische’s “mom resource” to any TCT friends coming to you with a TCC.

By the by. . . Continue reading “Fantastic Twitter Basics from Jessica Hische”

Tags: "Mom this is how twitter works", "Newbie's guide to Twitter", "Twitter in Plain English", Communication Resources, How Twitter Works, How-To, Jane Lerner, Jessica Hische, Online Learning Resources, Rafe Needleman, Semi-Permanent, Social, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0

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Feb 23 2009

Fantastic Book on In-Camera Digital Fundamentals

Category: Books, Creative Process — Ethan G. Salwen @ 11:57 am

If you are a successful photographer secure in you image making there’s no need to turn to “Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light: Making the Very Best In-Camera Exposures.” If however, you need help with your process, your composition, your use of natural and strobe light, not to mention critical fundamentals regarding exposure, this book is a fantastic, easy and enlightening read.

“Exploring the Light” is also a perfect book to recommend to the would-be photographers or amateurs you encounter who need a good, helping hand, but that find that most basic photography how-to books fall short. The reason most basic photography books fall short is because they miss critical fundamentals or over-explain over-rated technical fine-points.

A respected photographic educator, Rick Sammon has written more than twenty books and scores of articles as well as Continue reading “Fantastic Book on In-Camera Digital Fundamentals”

Tags: Basic Techniques, Book Review, Educational, How-To, In-Camera Techniques, Rick Sammon, Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light

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