Rutledge just wrapped up his world exclusive review of the Lian Li PC-A17 Midtower Chassis. Lian Li is perhaps the top computer case manufacturer in the business. This is one of their new cases that was on display at CES and has been discussed quite a bit in various forums across the net.
Be sure to check it out and don’t forget to Digg It!
I want to take a moment and thank everyone for their participation in my recent Giveaway. Thanks to the giveaway, this blog gained 28 new RSS by E-mail readers - not too bad at all!
So, everyone wants to know… who won?
1st Selection - Alex S. - CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller
2nd Selection - Gary S. - Imation 1 GB Flash Drive
3rd Selection - Tyler Ingram - Cooler Master 512 MB Flash Drive
Thanks again to everyone who entered. I will be starting up a brand new giveaway over in the OCIA.net Forums once the renovations are complete!
Besides computers and technology, one of my other main passions in life is photography. I have always been somewhat interested in taking pictures, but I didn’t really get “serious” about it until January of 2006 when I purchased my first DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, a Nikon D50. The main reason I bought this camera was for taking pictures of review products, but I soon found myself shooting more for pleasure than work.
The awesome thing about most DSLR cameras is that you don’t have to be a photography whiz to operate it; simply using the Automatic settings can net you some good results. Once you feel comfortable with your camera, you can start experimenting with some of the manual settings. Your camera’s user manual is a great place to start, but you can also find tutorials and guides online to further help you understand some of your camera settings, or even take some photography classes.
Once you have a good collection of photos, it’s time to start marketing them. There are several “stock” photo sites that will host your images and help you sell them. Stock photos are a bit different than most photos you will probably shoot and have several demanding requirements that must be met. These are pictures that can be licensed for specific uses and must be “generic” in form. They cannot contain any business logos or copyrighted material. If you have a person / people in your photo(s) that is recognizable, you must have them sign a model release waiver. Also, if you photos are not absolutely perfect, many of these sites will not accept them. Some of the more popular ones include iStockphoto, Big Stock Photo and fotolia.
If you are not interested in stock photos, you can elect to try and sell photos on your own. There are many ways to market your own photos, many of which are absolutely free!
Social networking sites are a great place to start. Sites like Myspace and Facebook allow users to create free photo albums. You can host your photos here and detail your pricing information in the photo description area and on your main profile page. Both of these sites also have user groups that you can join, where you can meet like-minded people and help share your pictures.
Photo hosting sites like Photobucket, Flickr and Webshots are other options that you can take advantage of when trying to sell your photos. Sites such as these allow you to label your pictures with descriptive “tags”, which will other users locate your images when searching for specific topics. As with the social networking sites, simply list your contact info. and prices in your profile.
Regardless of which method(s) you select, it is imperative that you put some kind of watermark or identifying text on your images. This prevents people from “stealing” your images and also is a great way to advertise your website or blog for free! I use a watermark on all of my online images (Flickr, Myspace, Facebook), either linking to my tech site, OCIA.net (before I started this blog) or directly to my blog.
Have any of you ever sold pictures online? I’d love to hear about what worked best for you…
There are only five more days left to enter our First Blog Giveaway of 2008.
If you remember, I am giving away some goodies that I snagged at CES: CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller, a Cooler Master 512 MB Flash Drive and an Imation 1 GB Flash Drive.
To enter, simply submit your email address to my RSS by Email Subscription box on the top right side of my blog.
Things have been going pretty well and we are currently at 83 RSS readers. I’d sure like to hit 100 by the end of this contest, so I have decided to spice things up a bit!
If the blog hits at least 100 RSS readers by the end of the giveaway (Feb. 19), then I will give the first selected winner an additional $25.00 via Paypal on top of their choice of prize!
So, if you haven’t entered already, please do so for a chance to win some pretty cool prizes… and free COLD HARD CASH!
For those of you that have already entered, thanks! And also, be sure to verify your subscription by clicking the link in the activation email. 
“I got to spend some time with the Android platform at Mobile World Congress. Here’s some video action so you can check it out for yourselves. The one thing I will say is, Android is fast, fast, fast. Like, OMG fast. Faster than any phone UI I’ve had a chance to play with before.”
Courtesy Information Week.
It’s good to finally see the rumors of the “Google Phone” coming to life, although this is just an early reference design. Also keep in mind that Google itself most likely won’t be building their own phone(s), but simply offering their Android developer platform to handset manufacturers. Look for Android-based handsets to hit the market in the second half of this year.
“The iPhone Portable Power Station, with its 2200 mAh battery, is a really neat and innovative product, but it is not without fault and certainly not for everyone. If battery life is at the very top of your list of requirements and you don’t mind the extra bulk and no access to the camera, you might want to give the Power Station a look.”
Read it Here.
Please Digg to Share.
As you may already know, OCIA.net received a total overhaul last July, which included a new look as well as a custom-designed back end. Unfortunately, the OCIA.net Forums were not part of this upgrade and are still using the old software and layout.
I had planned to remedy this sooner, but finances have been tight lately so that has not been possible. But, with your help, this might soon become a reality!
It just so happens that my pal Derek Semmler is holding a contest where the winner will take home $106.34… which would go a long way to help get the new forums up and running.
So, I simply ask that you hit the front page of OCIA.net and click the square ad on the right side of the page that takes you to his blog. You would be doing a great favor for the site and who knows, you may even like his blog enough to bookmark it!
Almost exactly one year ago, I posted my 2007 CES in Retrospect article. So, how did things pan out this year, and did I stick to my goals from last year?
To sum things up, comparing this year to last year was like night and day. As much as I hate flying, it was SOO much easier and faster to just fly there and get it over in about three hours… instead of 30 (yes, we drove last year). I decided that we would stay on the Vegas Strip this year at Treasure Island. Last year, we stayed with one of Keith’s friends who lives just outside of Vegas. This had its benefits - free shelter - but at a cost… that cost being time and convenience. Staying on the Strip saved us a ton of time and allowed us the freedom to attend more events than last year and meet up with some friends for dinner, to hang out, etc.
As far as productivity this year, things were much better as well. Last year, we posted a total of 10 CES coverage articles. This year, we wrapped things up with a total of 17 articles, which are listed below.
CES: Unveiled
Bill Gates Keynote
Booth Babes
Tagan, Data Drive Thru
OCZ Technology
AEE Show Floor
Arctic Cooling
Art Lebedev
Logitech
Yoggie Security Systems
The Parties
Thermaltake
Cooler Master, CSX, Zalman
Razer
Jook
The Cars
Tycrid
Splitting into teams worked pretty well this year, but I still have some planning to do for next year to fine-tune time management. I booked too many meetings and didn’t set aside enough “downtime” to write articles, which resulted in some pretty late (or early) nights and lack of sleep.
So what changes will I make next year? Well, that all depends on who/how many people from the site go next year. Early guesses would tell me four once again, which would be desired. Next year, I will aim to get two hotel rooms. Four people in one room… while it did work, was a bit cramped and can suck when some people are tired while others are working on articles.
Another change I have in mind, that I didn’t even consider this year, is switching up the job of taking pictures and taking notes. I discovered that if one person took all the photos and the other did all of the note-taking, only the note-taker was able to write an article because the photographer was busy taking pictures and didn’t know anything about the products. This isn’t really fair, making one person do all the writing when it comes time to do an article, so next year, I will look to rotate this job.
Finally, I am thinking about having a “day” and “evening” team. The day crew would get up and out on the show floor early, do some meetings, floor coverage, then have the rest of the day to relax a bit and get some articles done on the day’s coverage and be able to get in bed at a reasonable time. The evening crew would get things started later in the day and be responsible for hitting up the evening press events and parties at night. Parties are a great place to network and meet new people. This crew would of course be out real late, so they would get to sleep in the next day, then wake up, do some article writing and start all over again later that evening.
These are just some things I have to think about over the coming year, but either way, CES was a big success and I can’t wait until next year’s show! Big thanks to Josh, Keith and Airica for attending this year - your help was greatly appreciated!
“GPU computing is something we were not familiar with, but as Chris explained, the key behind GPU computing is utilizing the stream processors on NVIDIA graphics cards. These stream processors can provide anywhere from 10x to 100x speedups in your algorithms over conventional CPU cores. According to Tycrid, a single Titan workstation can replace over 50 dual quad-core workstations!”
Read it Here.
Digg it Here.
“Jook, a subsidiary of Razer, is a wireless technology standard that allows any portable music player to act like a personal radio station. Basically, Jook wirelessly broadcasts songs to people in the immediate vicinity. Think of Jook as “social networking meets music”. With the success of social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, it only makes sense to expand on this growing market.”
