Getting The Picture

How to Blog?
Making Big Pictures Fit
The Happy Phil Way

Poppies by the doctors parking lot. 4/7/09

Put picture on desktop as png file.

Insert image in Google Docs.

Now you have the picture in the document editor, where it can be moved around, sized, and used to illustrate text.

The Video


I made this video for George Bleich, explaining how I reduce 10 mega pixal pictures from my photo library so they will fit on a blog or web page. His mail server cant handle a 17MB file, so I put it here for all to see. I hope it's helpful.

Good Stuff To Eat

I really enjoy Natures Path cereals.

I am not real big on granolas, but this is different. It's good by itself, or when mixed with another cereal. I feel good about the cereal that I get from Natures Path, especially after I went to their website. I have written about them before. You can find those previous posts with the search blog box. Type "cereal", or "granola", or "Natures Path", and it will find the articles I have written that have that word in them. It's actually much easier than the labels. The labels are getting top heavy. I may change that feature.

Dog In A Teacup

Chihuahua-Jack Russel mix. 1 month old.

I remember when you could buy a dog that fit in a tea cup. Just send $4.95 and the coupon from the back of the comic book. You could also get "Sea Monkeys" for $1.49.

That's A Cute Baby

Infant Francois Langur. Toranga Zoo Wildlife Hospital.

When people show me their babies, "cute", is not the word that comes to my mind. But, this little monkey is the very esscence of cute, in my humble opinion.

Albino Bottlenose Dolfin

Albino dolphin in Louisiana's Lake Calcasieu,(inland estuary).

Meanwhile In Space

Dust lanes backlit by millions of stars in NGC 7049 halo.

The Hubble and ESA telescope images never fail to fascinate me.

Nanotubes Strengthen Plastic

Electron microscopic view of nano composite strength test.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A research group from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has discovered that adding carbon nanotubes to a widely used commercial plastic can greatly strengthen it. Their work is one example of how incorporating carbon nanotubes into plastics and other materials can yield composites with much improved properties.

Happy Phil Podcaster

Still experimenting with the new microphone. 4/7/09

I have tried the new 1" diaphragm condenser mic, singing a song, and speaking a voice over. It sounds great. Another experiment will be with my friend, Fred, down in Mississippi. He wants to do a radio show/podcast, and is finding the places on the internet where we can do it. It should be fun. Fred and I were in radio, years ago.

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
Radio -Van Morrison

It might rain tonight

Once Again

Repeating History

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson


"...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln


Speaking Of History...

"I taught I taw a puddy tat, but I can't find my glasses."

My sister sent me this picture, reminding me that, "Tweety", is 60 years old.
Thank you Sue.

Stellarium

The illustrated view from my balcony. 3/26/09 6:02 AM

I got a great program to assist me with stargazing. It's called, Stellarium. The download is free. You can set it for the sky anywhere, on, and off the earth.

I enter Redding, and my zip code and I get a picture of what I look at from the balcony.

Planets and stars, I am not seeing, yesterday afternoon.

I found Stellarium, while reading Toms Astronomy Blog . Thanks Tom.
Get Stellarium.

$2.8 Billion a Year

My laptop turns off automatically, thank you.

The other day, I was at a friends house and I asked him why he didn't turn his computer off when he wasn't using it. It was just the way he had been taught when he had a PC. I got to thinking that even PC's probably should be turned off when not in use. A little more research and I found that especially with windows, it's important to turn them off when not in use. It will help you avoid having to reboot each day because your cache gets clogged. (Or something like that.)

Anyway, if we all turned our computers off while we are not using them, we can save $2.8 billion in electricity costs each year. I think that the leaving it on goes back to UNIVAC and warming up the vacuum tubes until they were at a stable temperature.

So now you know. It's good to turn your computer off when you are not using it.

Killer Flapjacks?

They look good to me.

The killer pancake e-mail is back.

I got one from Garie, this evening. It must have had more than 100 email addresses that it had gone to.

Here is what I wrote back to Garie;

Hi Garie,

I knew I had seen that e-mail before. The last time I got it was in 2008. It began circulating in 2006. According to snopes, there was a dear Abby letter with the story, but they couldn't verify that it was a true story.

However, in 2001, 2 pathologists in Charleston, reported a case of a 19 year old who died from a mold allergy after eating pancakes made from a box that had sat open in a kitchen cabinet for 2 years. His friends didn't finish their pancakes because they tasted bad. They didn't get sick.

Snopes advises that if you have a mold allergy, don't eat pancakes from an open box that has been sitting out for 2 years.

I wonder why people write e-mail like that?

Phil

I Saved $20

Redbox rentals cost $1.00

You may have noticed these DVD rental machines at your local supermarket. They have a couple of them at the local Raley's, where I shop. I have used the machine to rent 2 or 3 movies like, Wall-E, (Loved this movie.), and something else not as memorable. But how did I save $20?

On the 24Th, Apple began offering HD movie downloads. They claim to be better than HDDVD's and nearly as detailed as BluRay. I am intrigued by the amazing quality of HDTV broadcasts, so I thought I would get a movie to enjoy on the great equipment I have. They have a few movies offered at this time, but I haven't seen any of them. They charge $19.95 per movie.

I like James Bond movies, or at least I thought I did. I liked the Sean Connery, and Roger Moore, "Bond", movies that I have seen, and I noticed a bond movie in the HD selections. It is called, "Quantum of Solace", and features some, "new guy", as Bond.

What I like about Bond movies, and thought would look good in High Definition, are the sweeping vistas and exotic location shots. I like the humor and the clever dialogue, the puns and double entendres. The tounge in cheek performance as, "Bond....James Bond". I was thinking about investing $20 in this movie, but wondered how I might be able to see it first. REDBOX! If the movie was good, I would consider downloading the $20 HD version, to savor in striking color and detail.

Thank you Redbox, I saved $20. It would have been awful to sit through that movie in a theater. I'm glad I watched it at home, where I could move around, eat dinner, read the news, fix cake and ice cream, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, edit photographs, take my meds, and clip my fingernails while I waited for Quantum of Solace, to end.

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
Live and Let Die -Wings

Shaken, Not Stirred

The Large and The Small

March Ahead

Moon and Venus

The Moon and Venus as seen from my balcony. 2/27/09

It was splendid to see. The crescent Moon also showed the rest of itself, lit by light reflecting from Earth. My thanks to Toms Astronomy Blog or I would have forgotton to go out on my balcony and look.

Speaking of the balcony, the tree trimmers came, and gave the trees, a GI haircut.

Just A Trim, Please

It's a year of cutbacks.

What A View

The trimmed tree sure opens up the sky.

I was trying to describe my new setup with the Macbook and HDTV monitor, and thought; "Maybe a couple of pictures will help".


Editing A Movie

Phil the editor after tooth extraction. 2/28/09

Nice workspace.

Note that this angle is instrumental to give the scale.

Editing with iMovie '09

The mic is for voice-overs.

Muddy River

The rains wash, nutrient rich, soil into the river.

I went out to the store for food last night, while the moon and Venus were so wonderfully prominent in the western sky.

At the register, I was talking about the Moon and Venus display to the nice lady who was checking me out, when a woman came up and said;"What?, Did You say, Venus?, My name is Venus, and we have been driving I-5, for hours, using the moon and that star as our guiding light."

I said; "That is Venus."

The check out lady said, to the woman traveler; "You see, you were your own guiding light."

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
The Nano Song
-Nanomonster1

The Nanotation Web Site

Balance

Falling For Fullerenes

Getting Closer

Dawn Falls Toward Mars

Artists concept of Dawn approaching Mars

The Dawn spacecraft that was launched in 2007 is now using the gravitational field of Mars to help counteract the pull of the Sun on it's way to Ceres and Vesta, in the asteroid belt.

The team at JPL is very excited;

"Not only are our thrusters off and we are dropping in altitude, we are plunging toward Mars," said Marc Rayman, the Dawn project's chief engineer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "And everybody here on Dawn could not be happier."

The spacecraft shut off it's Ion propulsion system in November, last year, to begin this fuel saving maneuver.

Getting It Write

This pen remembers what you write, draw, or say!

Use this pen on special paper, (You can print your own), and your writing, doodles and drawings can be uploaded to your computer. I also has a microphone to record audio!
New High Tech Pen
The possibilities are endless. I will wait while the 3,000 developers develop more stuff for it to do before I think about buying one. but I can see how it would be useful to me.

Breakfast at Phil's

I enjoy breakfast. Thank you Sandi, it was great. 2/19/09

Now that my activities in the kitchen have been reduced to prevent further damage to my spine, I am so fortunate to have Sandi Taylor to assist me. I think that a breakfast, like the one pictured above, enjoyed twice a week, is essential to my health and well being. The eggs are cage free, natural feed, happy hen, brown and tasty.

Nano Tubes To The Rescue

Dr Zhu at University of Queensland lab.

I have been trying for some time now, to get someone in our country to pick up the Buckyball and run with it, but at least the rest of the world has an eye on the future.

Dr. Zhu has developed a membrane using NanoTubes, that will separate the carbon from the oxygen in Co2 emissions from industrial smokestacks. I have written him, suggesting that he use a similar process to reclaim the fullerenes from the carbon molecules. This would pave the way to having tons of fullerenes as raw material to manufacture everything from micro circuits, to stronger than steel bridges. Read full article HERE

Here in Redding

Today's blogging conditions...Great! 2/20/09

There is more exciting content for today, but in the interest of keeping the file small enough for iPhones, Blackberries, and dell computers, you will just have to come see me again, tomorrow.

Todays Relatively Appropriate Song;
Mister Sandman
-Chet Atkins

Free To Be Happy

It's A Smaller Blog

After All

Here are a few things I found while meandering on the web today;

Glacier Gloves

Review

If you are like me, and some of you are, your hands get cold easily. For most people, this is not a big deal, but for some people, the cold is just the first stage in a series of levels of pain that is best avoided. According to the review, these gloves will keep your hands warm, dry, and flexible under the most severe of conditions. You can find out more at Glacier Gloves

On line Doctor?

Wellsphere worked well for me

Wellsphere is one of the 5 medical sites I found in a review today. It worked well. The main page was open and uncluttered. (Must have been designed by someone like me.) I tried the search feature with the word, "hernia". It gave me a good choice of information links that led me to 2 video's.

The first video was an inside look at laproscopic surgical repair. (I wouldn't reccommended this for those who might be nervous or apprehensive about up-coming hernia repair surgery.) As far as I know, I am scheduled for Monday.

The second was a lengthy discussion, with pictures and arrows, that was very informative.

The written articles and information at the Wellsphere site were helpful, too.

If you have medical questions, you may want to try one, or more, of these;

5 Medical Sites

The Future Of Manufacturing
Nano Tubes

This model of a rotating Carbon nanotube shows its 3D structure.

I am still promoting the conversion of Co2 into Oxygen and Fullerenes.

Popular Science has published articles about the possible uses of fullerenes in armor. I hadn't heard of that one before.

The Hubble Telescope

Actual picture of Hubble Space Telescope in space.

Debris from last weeks satellite collision could keep the repair team from fixing the Hubble. Apparently the combination of bits and pieces from this Russian collision, and the leftover debris from the satellite the Chinese blew up with a guided missile, makes getting to the Hubble a dangerous endeavor for the shuttle. If the Hubble is not repaired and maintained, it will cease to function in about 2 years.

Hope For
Tropical Rainforest Recovery

Clear cuts like this can recover in 20 years or so.

From Discovery News-Deforestation is generally considered to be bad news, especially in the tropics. But there may be some hope: In many places, trees are growing back, according to new research, and some of the new forests are nearly as diverse as the old ones were.

Counting Stars

Image of M82 from Galaxy Zoo 2

Want to be part of the world of cosmology? You can. Visit https://www.galaxyzoo.org/. You sign up, and are given pictures to examine and classify. Your data is then combined with others observations to help catagorize the millions of new galaxy's and space phenomena that are being discovered.

Or, you can go there and look at the cool slide show like I did.

Here in Redding

Yesterday by the Sacramento river. 2/17/09

I was at the park by the river, under a gazebo, watching the rain fall and the river flow. What a great place to live. I am so thankful that I get to spend this time of my life here.

Todays Relatively Appropriate Song;
Ballad Of Bernie Madoff
-Flinch Studio

Laughter Is The Best

Super Sunday

Steelers Win Sixth Superbowl

Santonio Holmes' winning catch

Ben Roethlisberger enjoys moment of victory

It was quite a game, (4 hours from beginning to end). Just about any and every possible play was played and the outcome was uncertain right up until the end.

Al and John explain what we are watching.

3D Promo At Half Time

I'm sure these will come in handy in the future

The 3D on TV was actually pretty good. It made a difference. If you missed it, there is a show on TV Tuesday that's in 3D.

I make My First DVD

I wave at one of the cameras filming me filming me.

Filming me filming me watching the endless pre-game.

It took a number of tries, but once I set all the parameters and audio/video options, I got some usable raw footage. Then it was time to tryout the new iMovie software.
The old iMovie editing interface had a timeline and audio tracks that look similar to professional software.

The new iMovie editor looks like Garage Band.
Eventually, I managed to learn this different iMovie method of audio/video editing, and it was on to iDVD. This was my first expeience with iDVD. It has easy directions and can make simple or complex DVD recordings.

For what I am doing at the moment, I am happy with the results and look forward to making more iDVD's in the future.

Video editor and host, iPhil 2/1/09

New Comet To See This Month

Keep an eye out for Comet Lulin this month.

Comet Lulin, just discovered in 2007 and making what might be its maiden swing through Earth's neighborhood, should be visible in the sky throughout this month, drawing closest to our planet on February 24.

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
There Gonna' Put Me In The Movies
-Beatles

Act Naturally

Moon Over Miami and Saturn

Superbowl Weekend

Go Steelers, or Cardinals!

Enjoy the commercials.
You can see some here;

Banned! These ads are too racy for the Super Bowl

Enjoy.

Purple Frog

Yep, that's it's face. Nose, beady eyes and all.

The name of the frog is the Purple Frog although it is also called the Pig Nosed frog. Unless you want to call it Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis. It lives under the forest floor, eating termites except for monsoon season, when it comes to the surface to mate. It was thought to be extinct because it is so rarely seen.

Plenty of Oil! On Titan

Titan 2005 spectrum image composite

"Up From The Ground Came-a-bubblin' Crude"
Oil That Is

Lakes of Oil

It rains Liquid hydrocarbons on Saturns moon, Titan

Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

The Latest Image Map of Titan

The dark places are lakes of oil.

I just love this stuff.
You can see pictures from the Cassini Spacecraft HERE

Here On Earth

Last Monday our moon blocked the sun over Manila Bay.

Here in Redding

January says goodbye with this beautiful sunset.

I have been experimenting with recording on the new Mac book. I should have most of the kinks worked out in a day or two. What I have tried so far with Audacity, has been really good. Getting all the things set like I have them in the iMac is a little tricky, but it's worth it.

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
Moon Over Miami -The Movie

The Best Mirror Is A Good Friend
-Fortune Cookie