Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast has its charm

I’ve played Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast this year and it hasn’t impressed me. But I’ve noticed some worthwhile stuff there. I’ve liked very much some interiors and some ideas beyond them. Look at this shot.



This is a stage of Durlag’s Tower. There are 3 tables: one is for the maters and two are for the servants, I suppose. The master’s table is covered with white table-cloth. And high life also sits in the chairs while the servants use benches. I can imagine how people ate at that dining-hall. It’s not just some furniture in the room but it’s a little history.

Eh, well. Here is a shot of quite funny cues collision.

Tags: baldur's gate - tales of the sword coast - interior - detail - charm - durlag's tower

Gothic 3 news disturb me

I've looked forward Oblivion. And I've foretasted Gothic 3. Oblivion disappointed me. And now I read first reviews of new Gothic. I can say the only thing: its estimates are notably lower than Oblivion's. I'll better wait for some great patches.

Cliches are "dead metaphors"

I've written on cliches and comparisons recently and now I get a nice connection of these things. Here is the article, where cliches are called "dead metaphors". It's pretty nice, eh?

Flickr warning

I loved Flickr the day I saw it. And now I’ve discovered one significant inconvenience. I’ve needed to post 30 photos to my blog at once. So I’ve searched for some “Generate HTML code for all selected pictures” button. Flickr can generate HTML code only for each picture separately, though it’s not so easy.



I’ve read Flickr forums and have discovered 3 treads where people discuss this problem. One remarkable fact is that 22 month ago Flickr team member promised something about it. And still now there’s no progress here. It’s a pity.



I hate routine like everybody hates it and I haven’t been able to master myself. Finally I’ve registered at Photobucket and have got what I needed easily.



Resume: if you deal with large amounts of pictures and need different batch processing issues you’d better to use Photobucket than Flickr.



Technorati Tags: flickr, flickr.com, photobucket, photobucket.com, photo, photos, problem, HTML, tags, code, generate, multiple, picture, pictures, inconvenience, warning, batch, processing, automatization, routine

Performancing for Firefox Blogger Beta support

Yes. This happened. Now Performancing for Firefox 1.3 works with Blogger Beta accounts. There's a small problem with categories, but it's not critical. Cheers.



Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, blog, blogging software, blog software, sowtware, blogging client, client, performancing, firefox, beta, blogger, tool, blogging tools, support, work, works

powered by performancing firefox

Blog clichés

Yesterday I was interested in various clichés. Today I focus on blog clichés.



So we have two types of “cliché” term interpretation. More global is “cliché” like “some overused stuff”. The other is “cliché” like “hackneyed phrase”. The second type directly concerns to blog writing. So it would be great to compose a list. And of course it should be named “The Worlds’ Greatest Cliché List”.



The first contributions would be:



“This is absolutely uninteresting post. Don’t read it.” Fantastic, but it’s always true.



“Cool stuff”. In this way people name their sites’ or blogs’ link sections.



“Must see” made a good showing and remains popular nowadays. Don’t miss it. Use it in every review in this way: “…and special effects are so great! And orcs are so realistic! MUST SEE!!!” And its pair “must die” was popular before blogging boom occurred. Hope this phrase will rise again.



At http://mw.cracked.com/2005/07/blog_cliche_roundup.php there’s a worthy blog cliché roundup. MUST SEE!!!



Here is some more COOL STUFF: http://tireddad2.blogspot.com/2006/08/top-ten-appalling-blog-cliches.html





Technorati Tags: cliche, cliches, cliche list, blog cliche, blog cliches, blog, blogs, blogging, wrting, must see, cool stuff

Cliches

I thought of writing a post about greatest hoaxes but discovered that this theme is widely covered at http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/

And so I decided to tell you a little about clichés. Cliché is a trite, hackneyed, stereotype or overused expression. Every life sphere has its own clichés. It’s better to avoid them speaking or writing, didn’t you know? :) By the way I’ve just used one. The phrase “life sphere” sounds pretty but is so trite.

Suppose that most often we come across clichés on the news. Here are some groaners with comments from http://www.newswriting.com/groaners.htm

Slain – Dragons are slain. People are killed.

Hospitalized – Bathrooms get sanitized. Shirts get Martinized. People do not get hospitalized. They’re in the hospital.

Area Residents - “Shhh, Tommy, don’t play the drums so loud, you’ll wake the area residents!” Normal people don’t refer to their neighbors this way. Why should we?

Blog http://tommangan.net/banned/ is devoted to groaners too and it is remarkable for its epigraph:

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”
George Orwell

Movie clichés are the objects of ridicule for a long time. For example, no matter how dead you think you've killed a bad guy, he can still get up at least 3 more times. You can find villains, cars, alcohol, wars, asteroids, aliens and other movie stereotypes at http://www.moviecliches.com/

Phrases “someone once said... [followed by an obscure quotation]”, ”24/7”, “...just doing my job” are common life clichés. See some more at http://hypocrisytoday.com/cliches.html

Worth1000.com photoshop contests also have some overused entries: Britney Spears, George Bush, Statue of Liberty, Star Wars and terrorist references. Read FAQ section http://www.worth1000.com/faq.asp#3 for more information. I'd add Lord of the Rings references to this list.

It’s not hard to find collections of different areas clichés (try to search Google “RPG clichés” or “music videos clichés”).

Finally one more time: filter your speech and texts, don’t use hackneyed expressions and your image will be more attractive :)

Tags: cliche - movie cliches - RPG cliches - news cliches - cliches - common cliches - expressions - phrases - cliche list - popular cliche

Make your texts more attractive using vivid comparisons

Your posts will look better if you use vivid comparisons.

Here is a remarkable quote from “The Invisible Man” by Wells:

“His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a watchful dog.”

“Big toes are ears of a watchful dog” is a smart parallel.

Kipling wrote in his “Puck of Pook's Hill”:

“Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great red deer with horns like Jewish candlesticks.”

This unexpected turn makes me imagine a deer with Jewish candlesticks instead of horns. And maybe it’s a good idea for some photoshop.

I remember one great comparison from Marc Chagall’s “My life”. He described a hut as a potato wetted in a pickle. It’s quite marginal, isn’t it?

So I offer you to comment this post using some your great comparisons. It may be a good exercise if you are thinking of how to improve your writing style.

And here is one more thing. I’ve an idea of making a series of such exercises in this blog. So, you’re welcome.

Tags: writing - writing exercises - exercises - creativity - write - books - tips - writing tips - quotes - comparisons

Researching bookmarks. Part 3. Conclusion

4. I noticed that about 15% of my bookmarks concerning me in person. Mean sometimes I save links to outstanding discussions where I’ve participated, to sites where I’ve done something. And also I’ve bookmarked my accounts at last.fm, flickr.com, plime.com and so on.

So in theory involving people in your blog processes, asking them to do something engaging for your site stimulate visitors to bookmark. Readers may get your RSS feeds, and maybe it’s even better, than bookmarking.

5. Everybody has some just cool links. For example it can be web comics’ page.

If you’ve managed to do something great, and somebody except you admits it, try to reflect it in your blog. You may find some unexpected associate. Well, if you’ve really done cool thing, you’re lucky :) My compliments

You’ve noticed for sure that I haven’t too much shocking facts about bookmarking. But here’s short conclusion. If you follow it you’ll have some more chances to be bookmarked.

1. Arrange useful reference lists.
2. Post concrete and particularized stuff.
3. Keep your blog carefully.
4. Involve visitors in discussions and contests.
5. Write cool :)

Tags: bookmark - bookmarking - research - conclusion - analysis - analyse - browser - involve - cool - stuff

Bookmarking research. Part 2

Let’s continue bookmarking analysis.

2. Everybody likes entertainments but also has a list of interests. For example, I’m interested in web-development, blogging, Internet on the whole, computer role-playing games, roller skating and so about 70% of my bookmarks are quite particularized. Remaining 30% are quite heterogeneous, mixed and casual.

Resume: suppose people bookmark something of a particular speciality, specific and concrete. I’d rather bookmark some blog on post-rock than just cool music blog without any specialization.

3. I’d say that about 60% of web pages I’ve bookmarked contain articles or stories. 40% are site roots (home pages). The first means I’ll return to particular page once or twice to refresh some facts in my mind. Or maybe I’ll send link to this page to my friends.

The second means I’m interested in the site and its various contents and I’ll visit it again and again without any concrete purpose hoping to discover something worthy (e. g. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com).

I think that the second variant is much better. So write good posts and make your blog history attractive :)

To be continued…

Tags: blogging - bookarking - bookmarks - research - analysis - analyse - facts - visit - posts - attractive

Some facts about user's bookmarks. Bookmarks research. Part 1

Someday I’ll write about blog success measurement. And now I just say that one of the best indicators of your blog’s success is a quantity of people who visit your blog typing address in or using bookmarks.

So my desire to find out what people usually bookmark is quite natural. I’ll start my research analyzing my own browser bookmarks. Here’re some facts about my 110 Opera bookmarks which may somehow help to understand bookmarking psychology.

1. I have some links to online blogging tools: http://co.mments.com, http://blogsearch.google.com, Technorati Tag Maker at http://www.speciousreasoning.com/tags/ and so on.
2. 9 links to documentation resources (e. g. http://wiki.cakephp.org)
3. 1 link to webcomics (http://www.qwantz.com/) and 5 links to some amazing pages (http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, http://totallyabsurd.com/archive.htm)
4. 5 links to libraries and book lists.
5. 9 links to my site accounts at http://del.icio.us, http://worth1000.com, http://last.fm and so on.
6. 6 RPG-related links.
7. 10 links to blogs (7 are themed blogs)
8. About 20 links for webmasters (e. g. http://urlinvestigator.com, http://google.com/addurl, http://abouturl.com, http://sitemeter.com)
9. The other links are just cool links, which are difficult to categorize :)

And here follows some analysis.

1. I have about 10 links to pronounced lists and tops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-apocalyptic or http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/nifty-tools-and-tutorials-for-creating-diagrams-charts-and-chart-flows). I’ve run into them some time and have decided they were very useful. But unfortunately I’ve not much time to explore them. So I visit half of these links rarely. The other half is waiting for consideration.

Resume: you may compose lists and post them in your blog, readers will bookmark them, but don’t hope they’ll return again and again just to reread this list. Some solution: you may update your list constantly or you may write more interesting posts in your blog.

To be continued…

Tags: bookmarks - bookmarking - research - analysis - exploration - investigation - blog - blogging - success - facts

Writing thoughts: how to become a great writer :)

1. To write charming texts you need subjects. You can draw ideas from your experience or you can just imagine. Both methods are quite effective. For example Ernest Hemingway wrote “Green Hills of Africa” based on his personal experience which he got hunting in Africa. Jules Verne was a great dreamer, he didn’t travel, but he read books, imagined and improvised.

You need some sources of information, that’s for sure that. It can be your own biography, school lessons, books, Internet, canvases in museum or anything else. So you need some food for thoughts, starting points for your imagination.

2. A good way to learn some writers’ tricks is reading books and articles on writing (quite smart, heh). For example I’ve read “Hot Text! Web Writing that Works” by Jonathan and Lisa Price and have found it very useful (their site is useful too). It would be generously of you to share you materials on this subject in comments.

3. Here’s one more frequent advice: show your texts to your friends and relatives and ask for critics. There’re some sites focusing upon this. This method is often mentioned but is rarely used.

4. Of course you’re to practice a lot, to write everyday. Good practice is revising your works again and again. Even if you read your text the next day you wrote it, you’ll improve something for sure.

Tags: writing - web - book - article - become - writer - imagination - experience - advice - critics

Searching for a blogging client

I continue searching for some functioning offline blog editor and have discovered promising Bleezer but haven’t be able to make it connect to Blogger Beta account.

It seems strange, that the creators of blogging clients are so inert that until now most of their software has problems with Blogger Beta accounts. But I’ve read one post and have seen the other side. So the reason of this odd situation is in a poor state of blogging services APIs. It sounds quite realistic.

And here is a list of popular blogging clients and some explanations why no one client can upload images to Blogger.

Tags: API - blog - blogging - tools - client - search - searching - Bleezer - service - Blogger Beta

What is a “homepage” nowadays? Corporate blogs instead of corporate sites.

Term “homepage” was popular at the dawn of Internet. Now it’s not so widespread. To my mind nowadays “homepage” is generally equal to “personal blog”. In fact blogging services provide all that is needed for a simple site. And of course you can customize your blog’s template to approach “your personal ideal site format”.

I noticed that a lot of small companies actually don’t need a site and simple blog would be enough for them. Actually I can’t find any disadvantages of this turn. Maybe sometimes blog format isn’t flexible. But having blog instead of small corporate site is much cheaper (you can start your blog without any investment), safer, more flexible. Now corporate blogs came into fashion. Corporate blogging is quite an easy way to get the image of a progressive and modern company.

Tags: blogging - homepage - site - corporate - blog - modern - progressive - image - advantages - advantage

Blog writing software: online Technorati tag maker

I’m searching for a nice blog writing tool, but I haven’t found it yet. I’ve tried Performancing for Firefox recently, but it has some problems with beta Blogger. Promising MarsEditor is only for Mac OS. And so on.

But I discovered online technorati tag maker. It’s quite simple but saves a little time. I’ve a Utopian idea to make fully automated which needs only post’s text as an input.

Now meet the Technorati tag maker and don't be afraid of some political framing :)

Tags: blog - blogging - tool - Technorati - tag - maker - Blogger - beta - Performancing - Firefox

AJAX is great but…

I know the advantages of using AJAX and admit that it’s a very useful feature, but two things about it bother me.

1. My favorite browser is unfortunately Opera 7.56u. Well, it can’t handle AJAX at all. So to use blogger.com, worth1000.com, plime.com, mail.google.com I need to change browser. I use Firefox. And you know this changing is quite annoying.

You may say that solution is easy, I should use only Firefox. I’ll answer that my old Opera is much more convenient. But I’m trying to migrate now.

2. This point is global. Most of AJAX applications use animated GIFs or flash to show loading process. AJAX is still quite unstable technology, a lot of programmers just learn how to use it and very often something goes wrong and this animation continues infinitely. I hope the solution will be found, but now progress indicators don.t depend on real process, so it’s unpleasant.

AJAX, web development, firefox, Opera, progress, programming

Books to read for RPG script writers

There’s a lot of exciting adventure and detective books. But reading some of them, I notice elements which fit RPG adventures nicely. I mean that sometimes described situations can be great quests, heroes can be bright NPCs, and things can be mighty artifacts and so on. I feel that most of cRPGs could be more attractive if script writers read books of that kind. Now I’ll name some “special for RPGs” classical novels, I’ve read recently.

1. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft.

Actually this book is not of a great artistic value and on the whole I didn’t like it, but protagonist makes a great journey in it. He visits some areas which are described quite detailed and to my mind it could be a worthy setting.

2. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Well, as you can see it’s full of vampires-related details. I suppose Troika learnt it thoroughly, making Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. I’ve read the book before playing the game and I noticed some parallels. For example in the game the vessel with a sarcophagus is called “Queen Elizabeth”. In the book Dracula made a voyage by sea on a ship with the same name (as far as I remember). The book is quite unsophisticated, but it hits the mark.

3. Investigation by Stanislaw Lem

It’s an Arcanum style book to my mind: both are full of global conspiracies and mysteries (do you remember dwarves secret about half-ogres?). Lem describes situation with animated dead and it’s investigation. An old-style England atmosphere fits perfect. Thread of that kind would adorn any RPG project.

4. Kim by Joseph Rudyard Kipling

This book is full of Indian things. And its plot is quite tangled too. Reading this novel can bring a lot of oriental ideas to game scenario.

To be continued…

Feel free to tell about your "special RPG" books in the comments

Tags: rpg, books, scenario, script, Stoker, Dracula, Kipling, Lem, Lovecraft, reading, crpg, quests | Technorati Profile

Thoughts of blogging: choosing content form

You can produce content (quite industrial formula) by yourself or borrow it from the others. If you borrow, everything is easy and your blog is full of wonderful works, but sooner or later you’ll have copyright problems. And it’s also immoral. Really.

So it’s better to publish your own works. What do we have?

* Videos. You don’t need to make much effort to shoot some videos, but getting something worthy is more difficult than taking a nice photo or writing an entertaining passage. If you decide to post videos, they are to be outstanding. It doesn’t fit me. I’m not fond of shooting films.

* Photos. There’re a lot of talented photographers, but not so much. You’ve more chances to come across a talented photographer than a talented operator. But on the whole awesome photos are rare. Here I should say that my photos are quite ordinary. I use them to illustrate my articles and position them as key post elements rarely.

* Illustrations, flash cartoons and music are infrequent too. The overwhelming majority of bloggers can’t produce them (hello, factories :) ). I can’t make something special too.

* Texts are the only form of content most bloggers can offer. It’s the most popular content form and I suppose it’s possible to write good articles. Internet is a great library indeed, so here’s nothing terrible.

I’ve ideas on how to make progress in your writing skills.

Thoughts of blogging: choosing a field

Choosing what to post in your blog you have two immense ways: “blog as a diary” and “blog as a journalist’s column”.

The first way is more natural and following it is quite easy. You write about your current affairs and feelings, describe funny situations, post photos you like. This way implies writing for a narrow circle of acquaintance. You constantly get comments from your friends and comment their posts. Everything is really nice, you write what you wish and get feedback. So you are lucky ;)

The other way is more complicated. You don’t just chat with your friends, but try to entertain, educate, teach a large audience. If you are success, your audience grows and you have nice chances to find a good company.

So if you’ve chosen the second way you get more troubles for sure and maybe some more doubtful pleasure ;) You are to give attention to content and step carefully.

What can you do?

* Just inform people. For example you can comment world events in you specific vision or unmask somebody’s dirty business. In that case you become a columnist or a commentator.

* If you are quite experienced in some field you can teach, give advice and so on.

* Being a philosopher or a thinker you can share your views and conceptions. This post is an example. Here I’m trying to classify blogs and to choose what to do with my blog.

* If you are witty, draw comics, take awesome pictures, you may entertain public.

* Finally you can combine. For example you post your wonderful photos and explain the way you took them.

Steve Irwin and September 11

Everybody goes mad. All that stir about Steve Irwin and September 11 tires me. I feel for it but think people don't need so much disclosures and sensations. Let them investigate by themselves. Don't thrust opinion on them.

Most of the sites I read are full of shocking detailes and absurd discussions.

Here is my image.



I've participated in Worth1000 Photoshop contest and the first comment I've recieved was "A reference to Steve Irwin ? (digger)". Really nice. Of course it's a reference. What an irony!

That image and comments at worth1000.com

Steve Irwin, September 11, Photoshop contest

The Battle for Wesnoth

The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.

Build up a great army, gradually turning raw recruits into hardened veterans. In later games, recall your toughest warriors and form a deadly host against whom none can stand! Choose units from a large pool of specialists, and hand-pick a force with the right strengths to fight well on different terrains against all manner of opposition.

Wesnoth has many different sagas waiting to be played out. Fight to regain the throne of Wesnoth, of which you are the legitimate heir... step into the boots of a young officer sent to guard a not-so-sleepy frontier outpost... vanquish a horde of undead warriors unleashed by a foul necromancer, who also happens to have taken your brother hostage... guide a band of elvish survivors in an epic quest to find a new home.

200+ unit types. 16 races. 6 major factions. Hundreds of years of history. The world of Wesnoth is absolutely huge and limited only by your creativity - make your own custom units, compose your own maps, and write your own scenarios or even full-blown campaigns. You can also challenge up to 8 friends - or strangers - and fight in epic multi-player fantasy battles.



Features

* Build up a formidable fighting force, starting from a single leader and a small amount of gold.
* Over 200 unit types in six major factions, all with distinctive abilities, weapons and spells.
* Experienced units gain powerful new abilities as they advance.
* Several multi-player options available, including internet play.
* Scores of different custom-designed maps, and unlimited random maps.
* Hundreds of campaign scenarios available for download via a simple in-game procedure.
* 'Fog of war' feature available for a true test of generalship.
* Sophisticated mark-up language lets advanced users make their own maps, factions or campaigns.
* Excellent language support – 20 different languages currently available.
* GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOSX, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, AmigaOS4, OS/2 & eComStation compatible

It's really involving. If you like Heroes of Might and Magic 2 & 3, try Wesnoth. It's free :)

List of indie RPGs

Found a great thread at rpgcodex forums. Advanced gamers post links to different indie cRPG projects. So, CRPGs - post 'em if you find. I hope you'll find something useful.

Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome

Recently I've tried Ultima-like cRPG Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome. Developers assure that their game is just great. Here is the list of features:

* large and diverse game world
Meet kings and warriors, noble ladies and slaves, peasants and priestesses, legionaries and barbaric mercenaries. Explore Teutonic villages and farmsteads, royal halls and miserable huts, sacred groves and Roman camps, and countless forests, swamps and caves.

* eventful and exciting plot
Negotiate with stubborn chieftains, win legendary duels and bloody battles, overcome insidious intrigues, consult seers, liberate a village, fight for a woman, find treasures, capture Roman arms, overthrow a king, and many other adventures.

* multiple different storylines
Become farmer or merchant, warlord or pensioner, Roman mercenary, or king of your tribe. Countless sub-plots, and great freedom of action in every game situation.

* historically authentic and informative
While playing this game you'll learn a lot about our barbaric ancestors and the Romans. Game world, plot and texts are historically correct up to the smallest details. The game also includes an online encyclopedia on Teutons and Romans (100 pages).

* classic role-playing features
As you play your way through the game you'll gain experience, improve your skills, arm yourself with chain mail shirts or Roman weapons, learn wizardry, capture booty, hunt for treasures, or trade goods. What kind of skills and character you develop depends only on your actions.

* detailed and realistic game world
You can talk to all characters within the game world, barter with them, make friends or quarrel with them. All objects within the game world can be used and have realistic attributes. People produce new goods, merchants sell their wares. The entire surrounding of each location can be explored.

* strong artificial intelligence
All persons within the game have their own daily schedules, relationships, plans, and views. They act realistically in everyday life and interaction with others, and they react intelligently and naturally to everything the player says or does. All persons are aware of their surroundings, the player and other persons, or interesting events, and they can refer to these during dialogs.



Free demo version is only 6 Mb.

Promising RPG-projects

Last year I strongly felt lack of new RPGs. I mean old-fashioned well-designed RPGs with thousand strings of dialogs, unexpected plot turns, vivid characters and complicated gameplay. Now it seems RPGs are popular again. All RPG-playing world discuss Oblivion, approaching Gothic 3 and Neverwinter Nights 2. But Oblivion is so far from RPGs, which I mention above. Neverwinter Nights 2 disturbs me more and more. The only hope is Gothic, but who knows.

Luckily this year I noticed two pretentious projects by obscure teams. It seems these people are hardcore old-school RPG fans and they know what is needed. They concentrate on games’ filling, so graphics are simple (but in any case this is much better then Adom-like games).



“The Age of Decadence” by Iron Tower Studios



“Eschalon: Book I” by Basilisk Games

Upd.: both teams on realease date say: "It will be done when it is done"

Two Ideas On How To Write Exciting Texts

I wish to learn writing exciting texts, but it’s not so easy. Well, it’s almost impossible. Of course, you’ll reach some level if you write and write and write, but...

So what are the ways to progress in your writing style? I’ve two ideas.

1. At worth1000.com I found not only Photoshop contests, but also text contests. You need to invent some short witty text on the instructions. It’s a great training. You read other variants, compare them with yours, see the clichés, learn some tricks. Good school.

2. Read books, especially books by classical authors with beautiful language.

Plan B

These New Google Features Are Great :)

I've already blogging here for about 2 weeks and noticed some drawbacks but these Google new features (especially new template customization system and tags which are for some reason called "labels") made me happy. Really :)

Photoshop Contests At Worth1000.com

Often using Photoshop for routine matters I dreamt of making collages (like these). And finally my dream comes true (nice cliché, heh). Yesterday I registered at worth1000.com, read a lot of rules and guidelines and now suppose I know what to do.

Photoshop contests for beginners are held constantly and I’ve already participated some. My results, hmm…, I wish they were more prominent. My first successful image I’ll post here and hope soon. So one more useful site is worth1000.com (what a piece of news!)

In Search Of Worthy Blogs

It seems the quantity of blogs keeps on growing from day to day. It’s excellent. And the same time it’s terrible. The ratio between worthy and worthless blogs changes constantly. Suppose these changes are negative.

What are the ways to find some interesting content?

One of the most popular ways is visiting aggregating sites (joint blogs, catalogs of blogs) where there’s not so much content but a lot of links sorted and categorized. The main minus is that in some way you don’t choose what to read and to look. Everything is done for you. You see only what other people shows to you, what is interesting to the most of the audience. But the advantages of such sites trump the drawbacks. It’s a really great way to find nice blogs and sites quickly and surely.

The other method is searching by yourself, browsing and browsing lots of pages. The efficiency of this way is quite low, but the results may be fine. Blogger.com fit for exploring badly. That links in your profile (interests, movies, books) works poorly.

Still everything is not so bad :) Google provides a powerful tool for searching blogs at blogsearch.google.com. Use Advanced Blog Search page to tweak your queries and get incredible results.

Tracking Comments To Interesting Posts With Co.mments.com

I had my first blog at livejournal.com where tracking replies to your comments, your friends' posts and comments to your posts is easy (you may tune your account and receive e-mails for each comment).

When I started blogging at blogger.com I found out that here there's no "replies" to your comment, only comments to your post and there's no any e-mail notifications. So watching some interesting conversation is a labourios process.

And I found a solution. Co.mments.com is a very useful free tool to track comments. Try it and you'll see.

Photo Tips: Noise Reduction

Not being a great photographer, I’m keen on taking pictures and have some secrets. One of the main problems of digital photos is noise (visible red and green grain present in the image). Here is example:



There are some ways to remove noise. I’d like to tell about Neat Image software. It reduces most high ISO noise, film grain visible in scanned slides and negatives, JPEG artifacts in overcompressed images.

Open input image on the first tab, go to the tab “Device noise profile” and press the button “Auto profile”, go to the tab “Output image” and press the button “Apply”. That’s all. Now you can save your less noised image in fine JPEG quality even in trial version. Here is processed example image:



A useful side effect of Neat Image noise reduction is that noise-free images are better compressable. By reducing noise you can reduce the JPEG file sizes by 30-40% (even if the same compression level is used to save both noisy and noise-free images).

Try to guess what’s on the example photo and see the answer

Download Neat Image (2.1 Mb)

Baldur's Gate 1 Fun

Gorion would be proud, heh ;)