My iPhone has become my main camera.

It’s not because the quality of the camera is so amazing, thought it’s certainly not bad. It’s because of the applications available to edit photos and create effects on the fly. I’m particularly fond of the analog camera simulation apps like Hipstamatic, PictureShow, Lo-Mob, Plastic Bullet and Infinicam. But I love AutoStitch, You Gotta See This! and Pro HDR as well. Each one, individually, has it’s place in my photo arsenal. And I post photos to my main photo blog, In The Viewfinder, almost exclusively using edited iPhone photos.

But one of my favorite things to do is use the apps in combination. And I may be doing it in ways the creators never envisioned, so I thought I’d share one of my favorite ways to combine apps. The photo to the right is a photo of a sunflower straight from the iPhone without having been processed through any app.

Infinicam + Pro HDR

For this example, I used two photos manipulated using Infinicam. I then combined those images in two different orders in Pro HDR. I have used this technique with exports from Plastic Bullet and PictureShow as the starting point as well.  Here’s a finished example from two different Plastic Bullet exports combined using Pro HDR – Rush Hour.

Pro HDR is my favorite HDR app for the iPhone, and I use it a great deal in the way it was intended to be used. However, using the “Library HDR” option from the main menu of the app, you can force it to process any two photos of the same size. Your results will change based on which photo you choose as the “darker” image and which photo you choose as the “lighter” image. Example:

The results can change dramatically when you simply choose the alternate photo to begin the process.

There is no way to predict what the end result will be, but that’s the beauty of this process. I love the surprise of a beautifully random and unexpected combination. You may prefer the first result above. I preferred the second and published that photo to my photo blog. All of the original files can be seen at full size in this Flickr photo set -  Using Pro HDR To Create Interesting Effects.

Give this simple technique a shot on some of your photos and be sure to come back and put a link to your results in the comments. I’d love to see them.

His first presentation was entitled, “How To Speak Geek – Hiring And Managing A Developer.” In that presentation he broke down the common communication problem areas the average business person faces when dealing with a developer, and how to fix them. His second presentation was aimed directly at the developers in the audience. “Real-Time Plugin Development” gave Steve the opportunity to get into the nuts and bolts of building a WordPress Plugin. He wrote the plugin, which focused on a more intelligent use of a post’s gallery of images, while at the Wordcamp, then demonstrated the building for the audience.

Below you’ll find the entire real-time plugin presentation. (56 minutes)

Create a GoDaddy Account

• If you do not already have a GoDaddy account, create one at godaddy.com.

Purchase a New Domain Name (if you don’t have an existing one)

• Log into GoDaddy and search for an available domain name.
• Purchase the domain.

Purchase Web Hosting

• Click the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
• On the Hosting screen, click “Click here to purchase a Hosting Account “ under the “Purchasing Additional Hosting Accounts” title.
• Choose a hosting plan. Any plan will do. I chose the 3 mos Economy Plan for $4.99/mo.
• This may take a few minutes to take effect.

Set Up Your Hosting Account

• Click again on the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
• On the Hosting screen, “New Account” will be listed. Click “Setup Account”.
• There are 5 steps to setting up a hosting account:
  • Step 1 – License. Agree to the License.
  • Step 2 – Login. Create a login and password.
  • Step 3 – Account Details. Choose the domain you just purchased (or any domain listed). The domain you choose will be tied to this hosting account.
  • Step 4 – Options. Choose PHP 5.x and enable Google Webmaster Tools.
  • Step 5 – Confirmation.  Click “Finish”.
• This process may take up to a couple of hours to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.

Set Up a Database

• Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
• Click “Databases” and then click “MySQL”.
• Click “Create Database”.
• Fill in the description field. This can be anything you want as it is only for your purposes.
• Fill in a mySQL Database/User Name. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
• Fill in a mySQL Password and confirm it. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
• Click “OK”.
• This process may take a few minutes to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/SQLDBList.aspx. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.
• Once it has been set up, click the pencil button under “Action”. Jot down the host name as you will need it for the WordPress set up.

Download WordPress Core Files

• Visit http://wordpress.org/download/
• Download the latest version of WordPress.
• Unzip the files on your local computer and note where you saved the files.

Configure WordPress

• In the local copy of WordPress that you just unzipped, open the file called “wp-config-sample.php” in a text editor.
• On line 19, replace ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
• On line 22, replace ‘usernamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
• On line 25, replace ‘yourpasswordhere’ with the mySQL Password you created above.
• On line 28, replace ‘localhost’ with the mySQL host name you jotted down from the steps above.
• Save this file.

Upload WordPress to GoDaddy

• Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
• Click “Content” and then “FTP Client”.
• Click “Allow” in the security popup.
• On the Remote System (right side), delete “favicon.ico” and “welcome.html”.
• On the Local System (left side), locate your local copy of the WordPress files that you just unzipped.
• Upload all files to the Remote System.
• Locate “wp-config-sample.php” and rename it to “wp-config.php”.

Set Up WordPress

• In a browser, visit your domain. (If you just set up the domain, it may take up to 24 hours to propagate and it may not work yet.)
• You should see the WordPress set up screen.
• Fill in a title for your blog.
• Fill in your email address.
• Click “Install WordPress”.
• Jot down your user name and the temporary password.
• Click “Log In”.
• Log into WordPress.
• All Set!!!

See, wasn’t that simple.

Download all of the Mac Mail Stationery files discussed on this blog.

Especially in business settings. For personal use, most of the templates included with the new Mail application in Mac OS X Leopard are great. But they’re just too “cute” for most business use.

In an attempt to quickly create Mac OS X Leopard Mail templates that are more appropriate for business use, I offer up two more “not cute” versions. I’ve creatively named them “White 1″ and “White 2.”

Download White 1 & White 2 OS X Leopard Mail Templates here.

Screen captures of White 1 and White 2, based on the existing “Doodle” Stationery template.

Here is a very simple, non-cute, customizable letterhead template for Mail in OS X Leapord that is suitable for business use. It my first attempt and very simple, but it works. Your logo will be centered in the page. Here is the download link.

Letterhead Templates For Mail.

Once the file has been downloaded. Put it in the “Resources” folder in whatever category you would like it to appear. Library> Application Support> Apple> Mail> Stationery> Apple> Contents> Resources> Stationery> Contents> Resources for example. To use it, simply drag your logo into the image window and resize.

I’ll work on some more designs later.

Enjoy!

Also… you can download:

The Missing Pink Baby Template For Mail.

But the first thing I said when I saw them was, “why are there no business templates?” It continues to befuddle me. It would have been simple for the Apple dev team to throw the business community a couple of bones and at least create a template that would allow you to replace a logo and edit some styled address and contact fields. I don’t think that’s asking too much.

The second thing I said was, “there better be a way to create your own templates.” Well, there is.

It will help to know a little HTML, but it’s actually quite simple. The image on the right is a screen capture of a quick first attempt on my part. I edited the existing “Fun” template to include an icon in place of the flowers at the top and company logo and address information to replace the flowers at the bottom. In this case, the only editing of the actual HTML document was to change the default color on the font in the email. The rest was done by simply editing the jpg files.

You get to the Stationery templates by going to the Library> Application Support> Apple> Mail. From there you’ll need to drill down until you get to the resources folder that contains the different Stationery templates. In this case I dragged the “Fun.mailstationery” file to the desktop and renamed it RES.mailstationery. Then I Control clicked on the file to Show Package Contents. All of the files are there for your editing.

To rename the template inside Mac Mail, open the English.lproj folder and edit the template name in the file, “DisplayName.strings.” Content.html contains the meat of the HTML for each template.

Make your changes. Save the new graphics files into the resources folder of your edited Stationery file and then copy that file into the place with the other files in the category you’ve chosen your template from. When you fire up Mail again, your edited template should be available. Like this:

The thumbnail on the far right was easy to generate. As you can see, it was created before I moved the logo box to the left on the template.

I still feel strongly there needs to be some good, easy to edit business templates for the program. But it’s 2am right now, so that may have to wait for another day.

I know some of you reading this will be saying, “Seriously? How could someone who doesn’t know how to copay and paste even be surfing the web?” Well, over the past few weeks I have been reminded not to assume anything. Several times over the past couple of weeks I’ve said, “just copy and paste,” only to hear the following: “How do you copy and paste? I don’t understand.” But it’s like anything else. If you’ve never done it, you can’t be expected to know how to do it. Can you?

So, if you don’t know how to copy and paste, don’t be ashamed.

Just click on this link… How To Copy And Paste