EclecticGuy

I like to ice fish several time a year. I’d do it more if I had more time! Several years ago, I started ice fishing with my son’s Boy Scout Troop when they have there annual winter cabin camping trip in January. The camp has a beautiful lake loaded with fish. So, to cut costs, I designed and built a few tip-ups to use. Surprisingly, there is very little information on tip-up building on the web, so here is an article I wrote: Ice Fishing Tip-Up

Hopefully this will help some people get started. Please note, the end of … Continue Reading

Several months ago, I blogged about my rediscovery of an old book that presented a different technique for making continuously tapered, knotless horse hair fly lines. I reproduced the technique and improved on it slightly. That was all covered in the original post.

Given the large response (believe it or not!) I had to that post, I decided to write an article for the Webzine Power Fibers covering the same topic with a lot more detail and full color photographs.

Power Fibers is published quarterly by Todd Talsma … Continue Reading

I have been studying the history of fishing for several years to learn more about the rods, flies and techniques used by early anglers. There are many early books that have survived , including “A Treatyse of  Fysshyng with an Angle” attributed to Dame Juliana Berners and originally published in 1496! The contemporary ”The Compleat Angler” by Izaac Walton, originally published in 1653 and a second part added by his friend Charles Cotton (gotta love that hair!). These works … Continue Reading

This photo was taken the day before my wedding on Nov. 10, 1989. My brother flew over from Germany (he was stationed in Mainz) and my Mom & Dad came to Boston for my wedding. My mom took this photo with a little point & shoot ASP camera in Faneuil Hall in Boston. It is my Dad’s favorite photo so when I was visiting earlier this year I sneaked into his office and scanned the photo. The print was 3.5″ by 5″ and not in the world’s best … Continue Reading

I’ve received lots of very positive feedback on my Assembling Demos from balsamiq Mockups posts. However, there have been a number of people asking “How do you know what the hotspot rectangle position and dimensions are?”.

To that, I have an answer: look at the Mockups generated XML file! Here is an example for a Button:

<control controlID=”23″ controlTypeID=”com.balsamiq.mockups::Button”
x=”139″ y=”393″ w=”82″ h=”-1″ zOrder=”6″ locked=”false” isInGroup=”-1″>
<controlProperties>
<text>Push%20Me</text>
</controlProperties>
</control>

It will have the x, y coordinates for the top left corner of each item on the Mockup. For many, it will have the width (w) and … Continue Reading

Yesterday, I blogged about how to assemble an interactive demo from a set of balsamiq Mockups image files (or any set of image files for that matter).  Well, when I awoke this morning I realized that I should pre-load the image files on the first page (usually index.html) to make the demo more responsive. Turns out that it is really easy to do using only CSS! I’ve updated the index.html.txt and selection.css files already so you can download fresh copies to see how it is done.

The Details

 selection.css now includes a new class to set … Continue Reading

UPDATE: I posted an enhancement to this technique that pre-loads the image files to make the demo more responsive.

Several weeks ago I blogged about balsamiq Mockups. Now that I’ve really had a chance to use Mockups I am even more impressed with it! I won’t be using paper and pencil for thinking through UI designs any more!

Over the last few weeks I’ve put together a number of mockups and thought it would be really cool if I could link them together based on a … Continue Reading

I am experimenting with different techniques to convert normal action photos in to something a little more exciting and personalized. I’ve done a bit of “posterization” using Photoshop in the past so I thought I would try that technique to create a cartoon soccer photo. The fun part is that I can remove or change parts of the photo without having to be too careful since the posterization hides it.  Posterization really “simplifies” the photo, so it is possible to start with a poor photo (out of focus, noisey, etc) and create … Continue Reading

In this Part C I will talk about what to do with all of those photographs you took out on the soccer pitch! I use a particular workflow and set of tools because they work for me, but many of the concepts can be applied to the tools you have. Remember though, I am an amateur and I do this for fun. I share my photos with the other families on the team. Depending on what your goals are, my workflow may not be the best for you.

Since 1986 I have purchased … Continue Reading

Here is Part B of my earlier post, “Practical Guide for Youth Soccer Photography – Part A”. Part A presented some general non-technical tips and techniques. This post will concentrate on the more technical details of taking good soccer photos. I am assuming that you are shooting with a digital SLR camera – or at least a good “point and shoot” camera that allows manual control of aperture and shutter speed. Being able to control your camera is critical to get the best photos.

As always, the following is my opinion … Continue Reading