Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask the Geek,

I have a question for the photo geek. What book or resource do you recommend to learn tips on using a DSLR? Want to increase my knowledge before my trip to Lucca this April.

Thanks,
Kristen

Dear Kristen,

this time I’m trying something a little different and I hope you’ll find it useful – I’m answering you in a quick video! Check out my answer regarding improving photography with some helpful tips about using your manual, books and sites you can read for tips, and setting some goals for improving your photography. I’ve also included some helpful links below the video (direct link to the video in case you don’t see it)

Books & gear I mentioned:

• The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 2 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 3 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• All 3 volumes of Scott Kelby’s The Digital Photography Books - [Kindle pack]
• More camera/video gear and photography booksI use or recommend - and more books that talk about composition and the more artistic side of photography

I also wrote a post about tips to improve your photography with any camera (not just a DSLR).

Other sites & blogs you should check out: (have a favorite site? leave it in the comments)

• Digital Photography School (they have a very active forum, too)
• Photofocus
• Phototuts+
• Jasmine Star Photography (especially for portraits / wedding)
• Strobist
• Joe McNally
• Stuck in Customs
• Nicolesy
• Mitchell Kanashkevich (he has a lot of ebooks, too)

Hope that helps,

Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are to Amazon – I’m an Amazon affiliate and I will receive a small percentage if the product is purchased. 

If you’ve never given a presentation in the Ignite format: 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each (read more about the Ignite format on O’Reilly’s website), I strongly urge you to – it will challenge you as a presenter and force you to be very succinct and practice quite a bit to stay with the timing. I’ve presented several Ignites in Italian this year, but this was the first one in English.

Here’s the video of my presentation:

Here are the slides of my presentation:

The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

It was a great experiment and I’m really pleased with the results. Soon I’ll share what I learned on the technology side, but for now I’m just enjoying seeing it for sale online.

If you want to check it out, you don’t need to have a Kindle to read it! Here are links to the (free) Amazon Kindle App software for Android phone, Blackberry, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac or a PC. After you download and install the Kindle App software, you can buy the book and read it on your device!

Buy How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy in your Amazon store! (note: the content is in English regardless of the Amazon store you buy it from):

• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.com
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.co.uk
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.de
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.fr

I used to be a die-hard Remember the Milk fan. Then I discovered Wunderlist.

What do I love about it?

• It’s everywhere I want to be. Check it out below: for your Desktop, iPad, iPhone, Android…there’s even a web version if I’m not near one of my devices.
• A neat and clean interface keeps me calm. I haven’t even changed the default wood background because it reminds me of a clean desk.
• Did you see I said desktop app? My browsers are such RAM hogs, I love not having to use my browser when I’m working from home and also keeping my lists available for those offline productivity sprints, too.
• It syncs, syncs, syncs. No matter what device I pick up (Android phone, iPad, computer) my lists are in sync.
• Some great drag & drop organization and quick views for upcoming deadlines.

What I hope to see in a future release:

Not too many criticisms here – I like the clean interface, the search capability, the print tasks, and unlimited lists and syncing. But one thing I’d really like to see is smart recognition of dates in the text (instead of manually selecting deadlines) and being able to set recurring events – pretty much my only gripe, and not that big of one!

Check out Wunderlist.

Disclosure: I’m not being compensated in any way for the thoughts and opinions in this post.

All the applications suggested are linked to their Android Market pages so you can check them out immediately – click on them! Here’s a direct link to Productivity on your Android Mobile – 10 Tips & 40+ Apps on Slideshare.

Did I leave one out? Let me know in the comments.

If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, it’s very exciting for both speakers and spectators. 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s a timing nightmare and you’re always racing against the clock, but it’s a great exercise to really concentrate on the meat of your presentation and remove the extras. (I gave another Ignite earlier this year on the New Digital Company: Distributed, Online, Transparent)

In any case, the Ignite I gave has enough material and research behind it for a 1 hour talk, and it was hard to stop at 5. But since this topic is relatively new, I wanted to whet people’s appetites with a broad overview of digital curation: what, why, how, and a brief look at curation and protecting our data across all of these different social networks and sites we sign up to and subsequently fill up with our data. We often can’t get that data back.

I propose WordPress as a digital hub – a place where our original and curated content is created, published, and archived, and integrates with everything else. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one you can own and it continues to evolve as new plugins are coming out every day (just today a plugin was released to sync WordPress with Google+ – it’s a great time to get started!)

Here are the slides (in English) from “Digital Curation: The New Frontier of Knowledge“. Video of my presentation is online at KnowCamp.it, but it’s in Italian. If you have any questions, let me know!

I’ve been using Jamendo.com for several years as a source of creative commons and royalty-free music as inspiration for the videos I make and put online, and it seldom takes me longer than 10 or 15 minutes to find what I’m looking for.

Artists can choose to license their music directly through Jamendo.com and/or ask you, the fan, to donate directly to them what you feel is appropriate. As always, the creative commons license should be respected.

Have you used Jamendo?

Here are some of the videos I’ve made with music from Jamendo and I’ve listed the music credits at the end – click through to the post if you don’t see the videos below:

A summer vacation in Kauai:

A weekend in Paris:

Italians talk with their hands:

This week has convinced me I'm doing a Vision Board & Workshop in November, in Italian here in Milan. If you're interested, let me know.—
Sara Rosso (@rosso) September 22, 2011

After speaking with several friends who are struggling to see the next evolution of themselves, I decided to hold a Vision Board and Planning Workshop in Milan, Italy. It will probably be in Italian unless a majority of the participants desire English.

I’m working on the agenda and logistics as you read this, and I’ve already gotten enough interest to start picking a date. If you’re interested, feel free to contact me or leave a message on this post and I’ll get back to you with more details.

Just in time for a trip to Hawaii, I started playing with the Kodak PlaySport digital video camera. This is not my first Kodak digital video camera – right around the time I was playing with a friend’s Flip camera and was looking for a personal videocamera, too, and I got a chance to check out the Kodak Zi8 (I ended up publishing several films made with that camera like a Weekend in Paris and a video about Italians talking with their hands)

Here’s a short video montage from my Hawaii trip – from frolicking on the beach and in the water, to snorkeling with fish, to recording in the rain and seeing double rainbows, to a wild, doors-off helicopter ride all over the island, the PlaySport kept up with my playful activities. (Review continues below the video)

What I loved about the Kodak PlaySport:

I spent a lot of time around water this summer (at both the ocean and in swimming pools) and I loved that I could bring the camera with me and not worry about getting it wet or sandy, unlike my Canon 7D I carry around with me when I’m in “serious” photography mode. The autofocus when switching from landscape to macro worked well, too.

In addition to the videocamera setting, the still pictures it took were pretty good (5MP) which was great when I didn’t need to shoot film and not switch devices.

The size and grip of the device were great, and overall it was smaller than the Kodak Zi8, though that meant the screen was a bit smaller as well. The rubber casing felt rugged and I was never worried about dropping it. I had the red model on the far right and liked having some color in my devices (my Zi8 was the cranberry model, too).

Best of all, it was very intuitive to use and I still haven’t opened the manual.

Where the Kodak PlaySport could improve:

After the first time I took the videocamera underwater and wanted to transfer pictures back to my computer, it was very difficult to open the waterproof hatches and get to the mini USB port later that day. At one point I had to use a knife to ease it open. After that, it was much easier, but I was a bit worried I would break it. I would suggest opening the hatches not too long after the underwater experience and make sure the salt doesn’t dry on.

The responsiveness of the buttons could be better (noticeable when shuffling through and deleting), as well as the microphone switching from underwater mode to above-water mode – once in a while the sound quality was muffled as though water clogged it temporarily.

One more thing I noticed was some shakiness while walking (and of course on a helicopter), but it would be nice if some sort of stabilization could be stronger / built-in in the camera to combat all the playing you’ll be doing with the camera.

The verdict on the Kodak PlaySport:

None of these were deal breakers, and I would definitely recommend the Kodak PlaySport video camera for an all-around digital video camera you can knock about, and you’ll find ways to use the underwater feature since you have it!

Disclosure: This product was provided to me by Kodak Italy (thanks!) I was not compensated otherwise and no review was promised in exchange. The review is my own words and feelings.