Dolfo.org (Under Construction as you can see.)

The search for a good stylish camera bag has been a lengthy process. You want comfort from a well protected bag. I thought I found such a thing when I discovered the National Geographic Tundra Tripod Backpack.

When the bag was pulled out of the box I instantly felt its stiff contour. The outer layer seemed to have shifted. Imagine putting a pillow into a pillow case wrong. The result was an awkward feel in my hands and on my back. I was completely committed to get over it until I tried to place my camera inside. Apparently the bag is made to hold cameras without a lens attached. So you an have a tripod hooked up but not the lens? That simply didn’t make sense. Ok, I will give them that. Maybe it’s my fault for being so naive and assuming it could fit the entire camera with a lens attached and a tripod.

Finally I noticed what would be the deal breaker. The lining and padding was so thin I felt that I would either rip it with my tripod or it wouldn’t be capable of protecting my gear from a cotton ball flying into it. The same day i was disappointed I went to go buy a Lowepro Flipside 200. That thing is a tank and I couldn’t be happier.

Let me start off by saying originally I did not want to shell out the money for some hardware that would be exclusively for night time riding. Then some branches to my eyelids and mosquitoes in my eyeballs gave me a different perspective. I, of course, had to try a pair that wouldn’t make me feel guilty after buying them. So I purchased a nameless pair from a booth that sat in the middle of the mall.(Yea you’ve seen them.)

The first ride with them was without incident. There was nothing to compare them to so I thought they were fine. Around the third ride they began to slip off. I was rolling farther daily now, so the sweat really built up and just made them slip down constantly. Needless to say this was a complete pain so I just took them off which defeated the whole purpose.

Frustrated I looked around for something that would be better but still at a reasonable price. Being that I had no experience in that area I hit the message boards trolling around for conversations that mentioned what I needed. The results were mostly suggestions for ridiculous alternatives. Safety glasses, ski, lab, and swimming goggles, and finally regular prescription glasses. (I do not wear glasses by the way.)

I came across a couple that appeared functional but were only available online and sometimes only from Europe. So I couldn’t get a feel for them before they were purchased.

Then it hit me. Aren’t my eyes worth the extra bucks? I think so too. My first and last stop was Oakley.com. Yea I am sure they hyped the product up a bit but they’ve been in the eye wear business for a while now so they should know something right? I clicked “Add to Cart” and waited for delivery.

The first time I put them I was more relieved than excited. They felt perfect. A snug fit that ensured they weren’t going to move. After my first ride I knew the money was well invested. During that ride with them the rain came down hard, and they functioned flawlessly. The water beaded away, there was no slippage from the rain or sweat… these things basically proved Oakley knew what they were doing.

For my first serious HDR attempt I chose to take some shots while the sun was on its way up. Sunrises and sunsets appear to be the best time for some natural high contrast lighting(obviously) which I suspect is ideal for this type of photography. As you can see there is some glowing or ghosting around the branches and from what i hear this is a red flag that an amateur was involved in the tone mapping process.

I am trying my best not to resort to the Photomatix application. I hear wonderful experiences with the program but the comparison i ran with the trial against Photoshop revealed some less than favorable results. The color produced was remarkable and may be used as a quick alternative option for future projects.

What better time to start writing about my biking adventures than when my biking adventures temporarily stopped.

As some of you know my leg was banged up pretty good the other day. Accepting defeat in this battle by taking time to recover was the result of a lot of convincing.

Imagine having a new toy and not being able to play with it until you got home from school and finished your homework. This is what I am feeling every second. This is driving me insane, to a point so beyond the usual Cabin Fever that I am seriously considering acting out like a teenager and rebelling against anything. Resulting in dyed hair, a shaved head, or anything else to occupy my time.

I guess this down time was meant to be. I’ve been researching products to take, and navigational techniques for, That Race. (If you don’t know about it you will eventually.) Of course I have been looking at bikes to buy too. Selling my car to afford a particular bike is not out of the question.

O yeah, I know how to correctly use a compass now too! So that is another reason this man will not pull over to ask directions. I am becoming a smart dumb person, which we all know is dangerous!

Having a link to a media file that would normally play in a browser allows you to “Save Page As” in Firefox to save the media. (Music, Video, etc.) A minor annoyance is that sometimes the video or the audio starts to play immediately making you press pause while you wait for it to download.

The script below contains a text field where you enter the url of anything you want so you can right click a generated link to download the material. It requires an extension in the url provided. Something like http://audio.hiphopdx.com/20080909-Tony_Sunshine-Here_I_Am_(Feat_Jadakiss)-HHDX.mp3

<?php
if ($_POST["url"]) {
echo “<a href=’”.$_POST["url"].”‘>Right Click and Save As</a>”;
}
?>
<form method=”post” action=”saveas.php”>
<p>
<input type=”text” name=”url” />
</p>
<p>
<input type=”submit” />
</p>
</form>


Tooltips are a useful feature that can be used to elaborate on information without creating another page or linking to another source. It presents the user with immediate results. There are a variety of tooltips available that utilize JavaScripts advantages. Even though most are widely compatible with browsers there is still a small percentage of users that would not see the tooltip when activated with JS.

To solve this problem a CSS solution can be deployed that would work everywhere. There are no bells and whistles but if you require them I would suggest going the JavaScript route.

CSS:

span.tooltip span{
display:none;
}
span.tooltip:hover span{
width:200px;
display:block;
position:absolute;
left:20px;
top:20px;
}


XHTML

<span class="tooltip">Cool Beans!
<span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</span>
</span>


Displaying Flash in a browser sometimes causes display issues. Two common ones are extra space under the object and another is an outline around the object in Firefox 3.

Adding the style sheet properties below hides these issues if you are using the Satay method for embedding.

object {
display:block;
outline:none;
}


In ActionScript 3 accessing your favorite object properties no longer require underscores as they did in AS 2. Here are some examples that list the previous and current conventions.