Jim Barraud

I’ve just launched my new photoblog called Nothing But Flowers. The subject matter itself has nothing to do with flowers, it’s just my old domain from my previous tumblelog. But the metaphor still fits. Nothing but the good stuff.

I wanted a more formal location to display some of the photos I’ve been taking. Flickr is great, but I wanted to be more in control of the presentation and more selective about the pictures I’m posting up.

Anyway, take a look and let me know what you think. http://nothingbutflowers.net

I’m a big flickr fan. It’s a great service for sharing and discovering interesting photos. But I’ve always felt browsing around flickr to discover new photos could get a little tiring. You have your standard single page with a photo, previous & next buttons, or a page of paginated photos. Presented in a very basic way that’s similar to the majority of photo-sharing services out there. I usually prefer to view photos in flickr’s slideshow mode because of it’s darker background and larger photos, but this isn’t a great method for discovering new photos or browsing around.

I’ve just stumbled upon a nifty little app called DestroyFlickr (via). DestroyFlickr provides alternative methods to viewing, downloading and uploading photos on flickr. Photos are presented on a dark gray background in a casual format. The app divides itself into several workspaces. You can load various content into each workspace and easily switch between them. For example, you could have you’re photos displayed in one workspace and various contacts photos in the others. The app is built with on the Adobe Air platform, so it will run on either windows or mac provided you have Adobe Air installed.

DestroyFlickr succeeds in making it seem as though browsing flickr is like browsing photos on your own hard-drive. A desktop native feel is given to content that exists entirely online. At times it feels as though I’m using a kind of “Lightroom Light” app for browsing photos on my computer. It’s the first Air based app that I’ve used that doesn’t feel much like an Air app (and that’s a good thing).

DestroyFlickr is still in the beta stage of development and the developer has stated that there are plenty of other features he wants to add, but currently can’t until June 30th because of its submission to the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. It’ll be interesting to watch this app as it develops because there’s a tremendous amount of potential here.

Jon pimped out our foosball table with floodlights at the Hive for better night time playing. Game On!

I’ve been pretty lax in posts around here lately due to wrapping up end of year projects at work, the holidays, and an end of the year vacation. But now the new year is upon us and it’s time to get the train a movin’ again.

Christmas vacation was a blast for several reasons. The first being it was vacation time for me and family. I pretty much disconnected myself from the outside (internet) world. I got several house projects done that the wife and I have been talking about doing over the past year. And it was pretty much a “Nintendo” christmas since Santa left a Wii for the family under the tree. And the wife and I bestowed the kids each with their own Nintendo DS for Christmas (now Daddy has someone to play with :)

But the biggest surprise for me was the gift from the wife. She blessed me with a new Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Which was a surprise indeed. Apparently it was between that and new sneakers. She choose wisely. The new XTi will serve as the replacement for my current Gen1 Digital Rebel. But it’s also sparking and a renewed interest in sharpening my photography skills. So if I had to make a personal resolution for the new year, that would be it. Sharpening my photography skills. That in addition to the standard resolutions of save money, loose weight, backup my data, etc.

So be prepared for more photographic goodness in the coming year.

The wife and I took one of our regular Bucks County day trips this past holiday weekend and visited the Mercer Museum. Choice quote of the museum visit was “So, this is basically a museum of really old stuff”. To which the wife replied “Yes dear, this is a museum of really old stuff”.

What I meant to say was, “So, this is a museum of pre-industrial tools and artifacts collected by Henry Chapmen Mercer.” Really. It’s what I meant to say.

View the Flickr Set

Website design for interior designer Sheila Rich. Sheila needed a site to showcase her impressive body of interior design work. In addition to offering her renowned design services to both residential and corporate clients, Mrs. Rich writes “Rich Ideas”, a monthly newspaper column now in it’s fifth year of publication. Photos or her interior design work as well her “Rich Ideas” articles are showcased on the site.

My submission for this fascinating Flickr group.

Just got a new Canon Powershot SD1000 as my take everywhere camera. I love my Digital Rebel, but it can turn into a real hassle taking it certain places. As someone who likes to have camera with me at all times, I wanted something that was small enough to fit in my pocket (literally) and take decent quality to photos. I have to say I’ve been fairly impressed with not only quality of the photos, but the plethora of features this little camera packs.

If this doesn’t deter you, I don’t know what will.