Lab74

Thank you to all that purchased my Ebook

2012-10-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone,
I want to thank all of you who purchased my Ebook and spread the word about it. It hit me like a shockwave of how great the response to my book is.
Never really thought that it would have been that successful and that you guys are spreading the word about it, big thank you to all of you.
Things look great right now and my goals to visit my Family in Germany after over 8 years of being away from them, seems more possible then ever. Wish that it works out and that my other goals of driving through Canada in an RV and take more shots is coming closer and closer.
I am very touched about your support and would like to thank everyone of you.
Thank you soo much,
JayDee
Here a some sample pages of the book that can be purchased here.

To purchase just click me, link opens in new window.

Finally the book is out

2012-10-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

Finally after all the little sneak previews the book is finally out. Over 50 Pages with over 50 Photographies, a journey through Calgary seen with my eyes.
Check it out here
Grab your copy today, thank you for your support

Youtube alternative to get yourself or your ideas exposed

2012-10-02T06:05:00.001-07:00

Good morning everyone and good day to the later viewers, today I looked at an alternative to the very dominant Youtube.

In the old days I sold many Items on eBay and used Youtube to show the Item more in detail, this increased my sales by about 80% in my case. It never crossed my mind that other platforms could be out there and therefore be used to expose you or your product to a wider audience.

If you do a lot of online sales or even depend on it like I do right now, then you have to find more then just one platform for your purpose.

I will start using metacafe besides Youtube and would like to hear about your experience with metacafe or even other simular platforms. Of course I will share my experience with you on upcoming posts and what I like or dislike.

Just leave a comment under this post and let me hear about the other places you might have stumbled on and got some experience with.

Thank you and have a great day.

Some Music I made with Garageband and my MPC

2012-09-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

This is a result of freestyle Friday, as all know I am working on my first Photography ebook and sometimes I just need a break from it. The launch will be someday this week and will be about everyday snapshots I take. I am planning on 10 Volumes of snapshots from this city and hope that I can realize through the income of the books my next goal. Paying a bit for life and saving towards a mobile home aka RV to travel for a few years my great country Canada and take pictures for new upcoming books.
Of course there will be news about this on the blog here and lots of videos in a vlog style.
Now Enjoy the Music:

Have a great day and Keep your head up.

Beat and Book Sneak PEEK!!

2012-09-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

No fresh postings for a long time and I felt really guilty, the other project my ebook, was using lots of my spare time up. Taking Pictures editing the book, programs that crashed and so on.
Now with Scribus, the deal is pretty much sealed. Just a few more days of fine tuning some little things here and there and everything should be soon available. Please have a look at a few pages that I took screenshots from. Over 58 pages full of pictures that I took in about 3 months on my daily trips through the city. From full coloured to BW everything is packed in this tasteful little book.
Stay tuned for more info in the next coming days and now have fun listening to my new tune I am working on and enjoy the preview of the book.
Thank you for your time and have a great one,
JayDee

I know I know...so little posting but here is the reason

2012-09-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hi there again,
yes I know not much going on right now you are thinking, but I am working actually on my goal.
Yes you heard right, a goal towards a journey that I should have taken long ago but always found a reason to avoid it.
I traveled always a lot in the country and took lots of pictures all the time and was really thinking about how to get one day a book out with my "art".
And that is what I am doing right now, I am in pretty much final stage of editing it in my open source DTP program called Scribus. Without this magnificent peace of Software this dream would have never come true to me.
I am really proud that I can soon present the full book as ebook version for now, wish that I can raise enough to maybe get some hard copies done. Hard copies would be great when I hit the road with an RV this or next year to travel through Canada taking pictures of places in my style.
With me will be an very excellent Songwriter and Singer that I will follow with m camera to her Stages on her tour through Canada.
Right now I can only say what "simply red" once sang...money is too tight to mention, I know my quality of work and am sure that this book will be greatly appreciated.
I see photography like music, you have to recreate your art instead of following the Hurd all the time and wonder why you never get anywhere. I have my own style, a bit of traditional mixed with fresh flavours. I don't want every picture polished till nothing that satisfied me that moment is gone.

Give me a few more days and follow me till release day.
Thank you,
JayDee

Yawcam Surveillance update

2012-09-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

Remember my post yesterday? How to set up and use motion detection?
This morning around 3:49am (mountain daytime MDT), I had 2-3 visitors on the porch again, due to my settings of the camera, Yawcam was not able to make a face shot of any of them. But I noticed that it seems mostly around 3-4 that visitors arrive. Guessing that a night staying up and catching them will do the trick. Tired of people hanging out and searching for stuff to take.
Changed the settings back to area instead of whole picture, hope that this makes a difference in being able to catch them.
Here a few shots:

Hard to get any faces!

2 People to see

looks like 3 all together!?
The Camera is now set up a bit different and hoping to catch better faces next time. This time it seems other then having your privacy bit damaged nothing else is missing.

Need a cheap surveillance system? Then read this

2012-09-13T08:47:00.001-07:00

The last 2 weeks were really full of excitement here at my place, we had invaders on our porch that did not care about a gate or anything else. They slept on our porch, took some stuff away and left a big mess.

It always feels bad if someone messes with your privacy, invades your private space or even takes your most beloved coffee mug away.

It just feels plain horrible to see that you can't do much, or can you!?
As german blood runs through my veins, that little bit of engineering gene combined with the cheapness ( Love to call it frugal as it sounds a bit nicer) let me come up with a solution everyone can use at home. Thought I might throw that in here for those who would like to setup a (almost) free surveillance system. All you need is a windows pc, web camera or if you have IP camera and the free software from Yawcam.

Really love the very easy interface, even non techies can set this up in under 15 minutes. What I really like about it is it's simplicity. But the best is at no cost to download or install, it really is complete free! Many sites offer free download surveillance software that is (now read carefully) free to download, that means in a lot of cases as you install you find out it is really just a trial and you have to purchase the software to get it running or use all the functions. But Yawcam (Yet Another Webcam software) is really completely free, runs on windows and really gets the job done.

The interface is really easy to use and what I really like about it, is how you can setup the camera. Easy as pie, the camera can watch a specific place you can mark on the screen or just set the camera up for watching all of the screen. A feature that is mostly just found on expensive software. Now enough talk here is the link, there is much more to read and a lot of screenshots.

Head over and I wish you a great day,

JayDee

Working on something big

2012-09-13T08:27:00.001-07:00

Hello my followers and friends,
right now is a busy time as the job is taking full advantage of me. Besides that I am working on a private project that finally over the years is coming true.

The job I do right now to keep a roof over my head is lawn care and as fall is marching into Calgary, a lot of work is coming up. Aeration of the lawn, fertilizing, clean ups and much more.
Life is quite a journey and not everything you do is really what you like to do, that is why I am putting now all my rest energy in the night to work on my project that I love.
Photography is something that always surrounded me on some scale as I grew up, from the first pocket snapshot camera, SLR cameras to now a D-SLR. Finally all the tools needed are available for everyone to go get the dream out and turn it into a goal, at least for my case and I am soo excited.

Again hit by hail here in Calgary

2012-09-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Calgary seems to get hit this year by many hail storms, but this time we got away with just a little one. My city gets chinooks and these can turn a beautiful day into storm and the other way around. We are known for getting summer weather in the middle of winter, these chinooks are sometimes a blessing and in some cases a curse.

I was sick the last days and really had no time blogging anything from importance and so I left it cool down for a bit.

As we got hit, I was just getting my camera (canon t3) setup for some video shots on a tripod. Yes we are lucky and got some footage, this time I cut it into a 2 minute short film, less wobbly. Love the camera and the ability to really shoot great video in HD and take stunning picture in RAW and jpeg.

Here is my short Hail storm clip:

Thank you for watching and hope you stay safe and secure at all times.

JayDee

Free online music software, for those with small budget

2012-08-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Just discovered through Chrome apps this beautiful online music studio tool. Completely free!!
You have different synths and even a sampler is included.
Just diddling around with it right now and thought you might want to have a look at it, here is the link. The software is called Audiosauna and the best thing is, works on all Plattforms as you don't have to download anything to work with it. I think it is pretty amazing that even Mac or Linux users can use it without any hassle.
And now .... go try it
Have a great day,
JayDee

This site is amazing for crafters and do it yourselfers

2012-08-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Check this out, all I can say ..... really go and check this out. Great ideas and projects we all can do, let's grab our powers back and craft instead of shopping.
Love it.
Here it is: RIGHT HERE

A must see free Documentary about dirt

2012-08-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

This is amazing documentary about our planet and how it recycles everything, we can learn so much and I thought I should share this with you.
Enjoy this in the evening instead of watching some game show and be amazed and stunned what dirt and our planet can do.

This is the description to the movie:
DIRT! THE MOVIE is an astonishing, humorous and substantial look at the glorious and unappreciated ground beneath our feet. Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth's climate. Why do we humans ignore, abuse, and destroy our most precious living natural resource? Consider the results of such behavior: mass starvation, drought, floods and global warming. Narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, DIRT! THE MOVIE tells the story of humans trying to reconnect to dirt -- the living skin of the earth. Traveling from the vineyards of California to the plains of Kenya, DIRT! reveals how repairing our relationship with dirt can create new possibilities for all life on earth.

ENJOY

Free Mac programs that help to clean your mac

2012-08-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Coming from the Linux and a bit of windows world I was missing some programs to keep the mac up and running smoothly.
After hours of research I finally found two helpful programs that are for free.
One is called Onyx (found here), it is a multifunctional utility to very your startup disk, do maintenance and many other useful tasks. Best thing it is not just free to download, nope it cost really nothing to even use. No nagging, no popups nothing just a real good utility program to keep the mac smoothly running.
Give it a try.
The second one is call Magican and can be downloaded here.
Let it run in the background and it can free up your ram with a click of the mouse, it monitors the temperature of your cpu and gpu and many other details can be displayed. I find it great do uninstall programs as it looks up even for the folders that normally just stay as fragmented junk on your mac.
These 2 tools keep my older macbook running smooth and free up lots of space through cleanup of caches and other leftovers on my mac. Give them a try and visit their websites (just click the links above), hope this can help you as it does for me.

Shop update this weekend... Submit your Ideas and win free Mug

2012-08-23T07:14:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone,
this weekend keep on tuning in as I fill up the store with more designs. Mugs and more t-shirts are coming up, got some sweet ideas and hope that you will like it.
You have an idea and would like to see that printed on a mug or shirt!? Submit it to me and if approved you will get YOUR design on a mug or shirt for free!!
Yes you heard right, I will send you your design on a mug for NADA yes i'm not crazy for real free no shipping no handling and the mug is for free too.
Submit your ideas to jodakay at zoho dot com.
You got till Saturday ...August 25, 2012.
Good luck,
JayDee

Container gardening and watering tips

2012-08-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

If you live in the City like I do and your water smells sometimes heavily like chlorine, you don't wanna pour it fresh from the tap onto your plants. Filling up some containers in the morning and let them sit for a few hours in the sun outside helps to get that chlorine out. This way you will have better growing plants. If you want you can even filter your water with some filter systems that are out there for your tap or even just a water pitcher model. But over time you will find out that this method is only suitable for very small container gardens or just one or two small planters.
If possible try to catch rainwater as much as possible and use it for your garden. Many systems are out there for homeowners, but for Condo owners or renters, I suggest you do the the first method.
Another thing to watch is how you water your plants. Don't just pour straight out of the bucket with a big splash onto the planter. You wash the soil away and expose the tiny roots, this can cause the plant to die or just not producing as the power to rebuild the exposed roots does not go towards their crops.
Get yourself a handy water can with a sprinkler on top of the spout, that way water gets softer on the soil without washing the protective layer away or exposing the roots.

I hope these small tips about watering the plants will help you succeed mastering your container garden.
JayDee

Buzzword Container Gardening. What is it really?

2012-08-21T13:10:00.002-07:00

Container gardening can be done by everyone in almost every place or space. To make a long story short, instead of putting flowers into a big flower pot, you simply plant a veggie plant into it. If you want success, her some easy rules:

Make sure you plant something YOU like and can grow there, shady spots for shady lovers and sunny ones for sun lovers. Info can be found on seed packages. Easy isn't it?
Almost anything can be grown even inside with the help of cfl bulbs, you need ones with at least 6500k, k stands for kelvin and is a measure for light.
Get some garden soil for you planters, that can be anything from a plastik bucket (reuse &recycle) or get some planter boxes or even make some from scrap none treated wood. It is important for your health that you only use NONE TREATED wood. The chemicals could spoil your soil and your plant and ends up in your system as you eat.
Convert unused space with racks into a nice gardening spot, a blank wall with lots of sun and old metal racks or whatever you have to convert it. You don't have to ruin your nice lawn for container gardening, isn't that cool?

You can have pretty much all year round some fresh veggies on your table that you harvested, empower yourself again. This skills are easy to learn and each year your crops will be better yielding because you start to really understand what you are doing.
Like I said, it can all be done low cost, just open your mind and imagination and you see your own potential again.
Good luck and like always here is a video of my city slicker porch in the core of Calgary.

Finally on itunes

2012-08-21T08:24:00.001-07:00

Hey hey hey,
what a morning.
Finally found out that my song is submitted to itunes, thanks to routenote for helping small artists to get their stuff out and be able to make a buck or two. It feels great to have this ability without sacrificing your soul to the majors.
My music is mostly sampler based ( I use the MPC 1000 from Akai ) and gets spiced with some extras through Garageband.
I would recommend to do some research and see which distributer for your digital music would be the best. There are many out there with different offers that change rapidly as this whole digital music game is growing. Another good distributer is tunecore, there are countless distributers for your music out there, too many to name. But before you sign up, be aware of this little hint.
Say you have a cd and you think you could double up sales using both tunecore and routenote, that is total wrong. If you sell the same songs through both of them (tunecore and routenote) and both push it up to say itunes, what happens is that your song or cd won't be showing up. Itunes thinks it is spamming and put you up on a blacklist,that I heard from many others. BE AWARE of this and only sell through one digital distribution service. And now good luck on selling your music and I wish you all the best of luck. If you have any questions you can leave a comment and I will answer as good as I can. The link below is to my song on itunes, support your small artsist.
Thank you,
JayDee

Song on itunes

Supporter Shop is UP

2012-08-20T11:42:00.004-07:00

I can't believe it!! Thanks to estoremonster, I could create a little store to make my own merchandise for YOU.
Yes, that is right, just for you.
Right now I have one Item up only, but tonight I will fill this with some sweet designs that will satisfy your soul.
Just check on the site navigation panel (or here) and see the new store, that is how easy it can be done.
Big thank you to estoremonster and their superb customer support, they helped so quick and fast that I was able to set this up in minutes.
I don't get any commission for this bragging, just so satisfied how easy it was. This might be something for other blogger or even entrepreneurs with good graphic skills. Make a buck selling your own designs beside your job and get paid for each sale.
I love it and can only recommend them, tried many before and was not satisfied.
Estoremonster .....YOU guys rock.
Use this link to setup your own store

Finally the Video to the nice Bow River Weir trip

2012-08-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Took some time to get that all converted and uploaded here from my 5 year old macbook I got for free, but it is worth the time.
You get some great shots from the Bow River and that brand new weir they build the last years, it looks great. Hope you enjoy it and if you like the music, I kid you not, it is made by me and is up for sale for just 0.49cents US!!! Help and support your Blogger, all of us spend time doing something and I have to invest in this many hours of time for, writing new articles, editing videos and composing music to it.
If you like this Blog and the music then please support me.
But now back to the Video and now lean back and enjoy,
JayDee

Have a great day

Bicycle trip to new Weir in Calgary

2012-08-19T16:13:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I was with my neighbour on a bicycle trip around the bow up to the weir, to shot some pictures and video.
Riding through the city to get to the nice pathways around the river was the only real heat challenge, but when you make it to the pathways, that are all nicely paved, you can feel the refreshing cool air from the river. So many beautiful scenes are around the river and you get so much more to see of Calgary then you can ever imagine when you drive by car.
Only shot a few pictures and just cutting the video footage together and making some music to it, will take a few days. But I will post the video here when I have it all edited.
Here a few shots I made just before the sun totally went down at the weir:

If you ever make it to Calgary and have no Bicycle at all, you can go down to the Eau Claire Center and rent one for a few bucks and hour. Then just follow the Bow towards NE direction and you are going straight to the wonderful new weir they build there.

Take lots of water or juice with you as you ride to keep hydrated on very hot days and light fruity or veggie snacks. These provide you with extra liquid and are not heavy on your body as you still ride.

For all trips I always take my trusty compass with me and a map of the city, sometimes you just bike and bike further into some places you've never been and it helps a lot when you get lost.

Driving in a circle for hours let's you learn this lesson. More on map reading and basic compass reading will be discussed here soon. You don't need to spend 100 of $ for a basic and simple set at the beginning, but you can always upgrade if you want to.

JayDee

How much is a bird in the hand worth!?

2012-08-17T13:19:00.002-07:00

Heard this long time ago and because I got raised in Germany, this sentence never really made sense to me.
Vsauce has a really nice Youtube channel and the answer on the question "how much a bird in the hand" is worth.
Thought I share it with you.

Thank you very much Vsaucers =)

Close call during Video Night shots!

2012-08-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night around 11:00pm I was standing by the c-train station 7ave and 5th street southwest. Preparing my camera and tripod to get some nice shots of the c-train arriving with the tasteful light installation in the background.
The tripod was up the camera still in the bag as a revving engine and squeaking tire sounds caught my attention, just in the right moment.
The f-150 was coming towards me and my tripod on the curb, a quick jump to the side till I realized that the driver just got his truck under control again and stopped right on the tracks.
The lights at the intersection were red for him but his motor seemed to malfunction as it revved up and only the quick reaction of both drivers stopped this close call before it could turn fatal.
Really great job they did, the Calgary city police arrived soon and had in seconds everything under control, good job guys!
Was after that a bit under shock and tried some other shots but was done for that night, but here is the footage with narration about everything.
Hope you enjoy,
JayDee

About my Music

2012-08-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

For those who read my "about me" page already know it, but yes I make music. It is sample based and sometimes I use garageband or freeware from Linux called "lmms", what is kind of a clone from the commercial Fruity loops. But for free, and easy to use with a midi keyboard.
Whoever wants to make music these days has always a good handful of tools for free on his hands to get his feet wet with music production.
As and "oldschool" hands on dude, my preference always goes towards the MPC a standalone Music Production Center, it has a sampler and sequencer inside. These are still made till today by Akai one of the pioneers in this genre.

LMMS is available for Linux and Windows, here a screenshot from their website:
A really beautiful piece of freeware to get started and maybe
be a big producer one day.

The MPC from Akai has different models and here is the model I use for my productions mainly.

Here now some Videos of
the music I created,
hope you enjoy it.

Now that the weather turned outside from grey to sunshine, I will leave you listening and go catch some warm sun rays.

Calgary hail disaster

2012-08-14T22:59:00.002-07:00

Sunday August 12, 2012

It was a nice summer evening, warm winds some neighbours in the other building were sitting on their balconies and everyone seemed to have a great time. Around 9:30 pm the sky turned red and lightning struck the sky without any thunder for about 25 minutes.
I guess this is how celebrities feel when they go somewhere just wild flashing everywhere, I felt a bit like a rockstar.

9:55 pm rain started and a few minutes later pea sized hail joined in, till then everything seemed okay. The sky turned really black and then the real hailstorm started, for about 10-15 minutes it just got loud from that hail.

Golfball sized hail covered the streets, dented cars and crashed windows.

Here a picture of some hail I picked up:

Golfball sized hail in Calgary August 12, 2012

Neighbours were trying to get their cars from the parking lot into safer places, to keep the damage down. Not many had luck with that.

Hail smashing on our roof sounded like someone hammering with a jackhammer, it was really a frightening moment for many here in Calgary.

Even today the newspapers were full of aftermath stories about the costs and damage that was done by the hail.
Everyone is just really relieved about the fact that it is over, for my readers you can watch my Video I shot. Just a raw impression what it was like.

Wishing everyone a safe and good night.