School’s out, and henceforth, my three-month summer begins. School—even with marks in the high nineties—ceases to give me any satisfaction. And so I’ve decided to live a summer full of purpose and productivity. I couldn’t be more excited.

I have a couple of projects that I am looking forward to working on throughout the course of the summer break. While I want to relax during my one major break from school, I also want to be creative and accomplish something (or a couple of somethings) this summer.

• As many of you know by now, one of the things very close to my heart is missions. I will be going to Lusaka, Zambia for a month this June to help first-hand with the troubles facing AIDS victims and orphans. It’s different than just dropping some money in a bucket and letting someone else worry about their problems.

  I get to actually first-hand and walk with them, talk to them, and love on them. Sure we will be helping out with the essentials—food, water, medicine, AIDS education in schools, etc. But there is something even more powerful: I am able to go and bring them the love and hope and happiness that they have never had the chance to know. I count it a privilege to go and live in tents in the middle of the jungle in order to bring love to their remote tribe. That, in my opinion, is the greatest project for any summer.

  But being the geek that I am, I don’t want it to end there. Part two of this Zambia Missions project is to bring what I saw, heard, and felt home. I want to share exactly how the people of Zambia have changed my life as much as I have changed theirs. I will be coming home with thousands of photos, video clips, and stories that I will be just aching to share. And share them I will—as soon as I catch up on my sleep.

• The next major project that I will be working on is a major redesign of MichaelMistretta.com. While the current design has served me well, it’s grown a little long in the tooth. And truthfully, I’m a bit tired of it myself. I don’t have any mockup designs in place as of yet, although I do have a pretty good idea of what the next step is in the MichaelMistretta.com design evolution.

  I want MM.com to be a central hub into all of the things I’m involved in on the Net. That said, I’m going against the decision to make it look like a “hub” and lose it’s journal-like experience. I’ve got a couple designs floating around in my head that I’m not ready to reveal yet. But if you are a designer that is looking for a project of you’re own for this summer, and feel up to the task, please give me a shout. I’d be more than happy to discuss plans in more detail one-on-one.

• On another site related note, I will finally be switching all of my many sites over to (mt). I’ve been using free Site5 hosting from my friend Ben Feldman ever since the launch in January, and I’m not going to lie—it’s been pretty bad. MM.com itself has only had about 85% uptime in the last couple of months, and I’ve had my IP banned from my sites for multiple days. After reading Shawn Blanc’s extensive post on his experiences with Media Temple over the past year, I knew that they were the host for me.

  I’m opting for Media Temple’s (gs) hosting plan which seems to strike the perfect balance between storage, reliability, price, and seems to handle a medium traffic site with occasional traffic bursts seamlessly. Sounds ideal for my needs.

• Finally, my biggest project this summer is the one that I can reveal the least amount of information about. The inspiration for the idea struck while in the middle of a game of Mario Kart Wii—which has absolutely nothing to do with the idea whatsoever. It is a joint project between Chris Thomson and myself, and is slated for a public release on August 30th. That is, of course, depending on how fast we can code PHP/speak with some people. While I can’t reveal the idea yet—although I will hint at it, as I love secrets—I will hint at the code-name for the project. It’s known as The Plank.

There are, of course, other side projects that I hope to participate in this summer, as well as some secret plans that I have yet to reveal. So far though, it seems that this summer is going to be action-packed. I’m looking forward to working on some things that I’m passionate about after a long year of school.

Dan McCullum just got his first DSLR (congrats!) and DM’d me on twitter asking for my opinion on whether to shoot in RAW or JPEG. If you are completely photo illiterate, I suggest you stop reading this, get a large mug of your favourite drink and start here. Most amateur photographers have probably heard these terms thrown around before, but don’t know which is better for them.

What are they?

Every time you click the shutter, your camera takes a picture and saves it in a file - typically a high-quality JPEG. JPEG compression is a lossy format that throws away the data that you can’t see in order to give you smaller file sizes. RAW on the other hand is lossless. It keeps every piece of data your camera captures - even if you don’t need it. This results in much larger file sizes, and slower write speeds. A RAW file isn’t even technically an image file. It has to be converted by special software on your computer and processed in order to be suitable for print or publishing.

Okay, but I asked what are they?

In essence, RAW and JPEG photos look pretty similar coming off the camera. In some cases, RAW photos can actually look worse as they are not as sharp and contrasty by default, creating the appearance that they are washed out.

So why would someone shoot in RAW if it produces worse shots and takes up more space off the bat?

While I don’t agree with Ken Rockwell’s opinion on this matter, he happens to have a decent analogy for explaining the purpose of RAW:

Cameras all start with raw data and convert this data to JPEG images with hardware in the camera. They then throw away the raw data since it’s no longer needed.

Saving this raw data is exactly like people who save twenty years of newspapers in piles around their house. They know they might need the information sometime, but it sure gets in the way! Other people think they are crazy.

The easiest way to understand why you want to keep the data in your photos is to see some real-world use. I scoured through my Aperture library to find two photos that were atrociously taken (by yours truly) to use as our victims in this experiment.

Example 1: White balance

Yes, that’s me in all my yellow splendor.

This is the photo right out of the camera. I know what you are thinking: horrible white balance. Photo is ruined. Delete. But this photo was shot in RAW, so there is still the original information from the camera saved in this file. Let’s simply tell Aperture to set the white balance from the colour of the shirt - which should be pure white.

After a white balance and a couple contrast and sharpness adjustments, the finished photo looks perfect. No one would have known that I had totally messed up the white balance had I not written this post. I was able to turn this photo from a reject to a rather nice portrait in under a minute.

That’s my secret. Shoot in RAW, and you can fix almost any mistake you make in the camera.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s look at what would have happened if we applied the exact same adjustments to a JPEG version of this image.

Bet you wished you had kept those 20 years of newspapers - you never know when you might need them.

Since the JPEG compression threw away data that you technically couldn’t see, you can’t make very extreme adjustments when editing the photo. All of the original data is lost and the detail in those parts are gone. Photo ruined. Delete.

Example 2: Over-exposed

By now, most of you are thinking that I’m a horrible photographer. There is a reason this photo came out overexposed. In order to blur the car I needed to slow the shutter speed to 1/25 of a second. I closed my aperture to f/22 (the maximum) and set the camera on the lowest light sensitivity (ISO 100), but the image was still going to be overexposed. I had to choose between a normally-exposed capture with no motion blur, or an over-exposed capture with motion blur.

I chose the motion blur. And with a couple adjustments in Aperture I came out with this:

That is the power of shooting in RAW. You can correct things that went wrong in the camera. In this case, I restored data from areas that were totally clipped (pure white) and brought them down to a normal exposure. Again, in order to see how revolutionary this is, you have to see the equivalent JPEG.

While the car and the trees look decent enough, the detail could not be restored from the road or the sky and resulted in turning those areas to pure grey. The photo looks washed out and ‘blah’ compared to the RAW version with the preserved detail

If you want more information on the specifics of RAW and JPEG photography, check out this in-depth post from one of the greatest photo blogs out there - Digital Photography School.

So which one should I use?

There are pros and cons to shooting both RAW and JPEG images. Many people choose to shoot in JPEG because it is a universal format that they can be taken right off the cameras and shared via email or published to the Internet. RAW shooting requires an additional step - and additional software. RAW images need to be processed in a program like Aperture or Lightroom - I prefer Aperture - or even Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop.

If you are not going to bother processing your photos, RAW is not for you. But even if you view photography as a simple hobby, it is worth investing in photo-management software like Aperture or Lightroom that make organizing, keywording, searching, and editing your RAW photos as simple as working with JPEGs. Flash memory and hard drive disk space is cheap enough nowadays that you can save all the data from your photos - especially if they are memories that you want to last forever.

As a writer, there always comes a time where you ask yourself why you are doing what you’re doing. Why do I sit here - or in my case, lie on my bed - and type words to publish on the Internet? Some think it’s crazy; others, a waste of time.

I came across a paragraph from John that expresses my feelings perfectly:

I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.

This long weekend - big happy birthday wishes go out to Queen Victoria by the way - I decided to do just that. I read a blog. No, not a blog post. An entire blog. From start to finish. From post number one to post two hundred sixty eight. I poured over the pages and pages of my favourite blog for hours on end.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed it more than spending the night watching TV. Enjoyed it more than coding and tweaking my website. Heck, I even enjoyed it more than tweeting.

Why did I enjoy it so much? Because Shawn wrote for an audience of one; he wrote his blog for himself above everyone else “When I write something for shawnblanc.net and hit publish, I want to then open up my homepage and read my own article. And I want to really, really enjoy it.” He wanted to enjoy his own content. And that made me love his posts even more.

Words of life

I hate to rave on and on about Shawn’s blog as I know I would be embarrassed if someone did the same for me, but I believe there is something to learn from the way Shawn writes. When I read over the pages of his blog, his words come alive. In all honesty, I have no words to describe it (no pun intended).

Words have power. And words, real words, are the ones that speak to me and come alive in my life. It’s addictive - in a good way. When I finished reading every word on Shawn’s entire blog, I started googling for more articles from him (and I did end up finding some). It didn’t have to be about anything in particular. It wasn’t the topic. It was the passion and the realism behind the words that allowed me to see into his life. It could have been about quantum physics, and I would have been glued to my seat.

It’s the exact reason that John wanted to write. He wanted to write for someone that would “like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word.”

Fear of words

The problem with writing words of life is that it requires you to be vulnerable. You have to open yourself up, and allow your readers to glimpse into your life. You have to be yourself, and write with passion.

Shawn Blanc:

The problem is the fear of man. That fear to be ourselves, to speak truthfully and honestly, to stand up for what we know to be right and true and beautiful and wonderful.

That is why I’m sitting here on a Sunday night - Victoria Day’s Eve - in front of my laptop immersed and typing away in Writeroom with fireworks exploding all around. Because I want a voice of my own. I want to write for myself. I want to enjoy every word that I write, and savour them over again and again.

I’ve read through all the secret sauce recipes of blogging. How to write the killer headlines, and how to attract the crowds. Keywords and SEO and stats and traffic. But I’m tired of all that. I just want to write.

Yup, I’ve taken the leap and started a podcast.

It’s called Discovr. Let me explain:

Discovr is the brainchild of my own pursuit for information. I wanted to know about photography and graphic design and video editing and coding - every creative thing you could imagine. And when trying to learn about them, I found myself resorting to countless hours Googling. Reading and dissecting every bit of information I could find.

After a while, I realized that this was not the way to learn things. I wanted to go to one place where I could learn about a certain topic from top to bottom. It was then that the seed for Discovr was planted. Over the next few months, I worked on developing this minuscule idea into a full-fledged podcast.

The idea was simple - cover one tech topic in depth each week. Invite guests on that actually know what they’re talking about. Sit down, hit the record button, and have a conversation: just like a couple of people sitting around a table and talking tech. No limits. No restraints. No geekiness boundaries. Just raw technology.

We’ve already gotten two episodes up. Check ‘em out, and subscribe in iTunes if you feel so inclined. Also, if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. Ideas, tips, critisim, requests, complaints, whatever. Just give us a shout up at the blog and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

Theoretically, technology exists to make our lives easier. In the real world however, it’s not that simple. In many ways, technology over complicates even the simplest tasks in our lives. And so the story continues with RSS.

RSS is one of those technologies that seems like a revolutionary way to simplify your life at first, but ends with tireless hours of complex organization and wasted time. At the very core, RSS is a brilliant idea - bringing the news you care about to you, instead of you going to the news. However, the existing RSS readers ruin the simple foundation that RSS was built upon. Once again, software is shown to be the major bottleneck in the development of a platform.

The creation of any revolutionary new technology represents a major paradigm shift. However, in order to explain a new technology to a person, you must compare it to an existing technology. Sometimes these comparisons don’t always fit perfectly (for instance, see the original Macintosh manual where the Finder is described as “a central hallway in the Macintosh house”). Two different comparisons are typically used when explaining RSS - email inboxes and newspapers.

RSS as an Inbox

It’s no coincidence that the most common way to consume RSS is similar to one of the most common uses of a computer. Everyone uses and understands the way an email inbox works, and so, that knowledge is translated into an RSS reader that functions like an inbox. You refresh your RSS feeds much as you get new mail in your email client. You sort your feeds by folders much as you do - or should do - with email. And there is a big annoying number that marks your “unread count”, or the number of new RSS items you have to “read”.

This is where the comparison between RSS and email fails.

RSS is not email and shouldn’t be treated like it. Most email is specifically directed at you, and requires your attention to read and possibly take action. RSS feeds, on the other hand, are not specifically for you. They don’t all require your attention, and need to be “read”.

How many times have I come home from a weekend away, only to find the RSS count in the thousands. RSS quickly becomes a burden that is dreaded. And so the question remains - is there a better way to get your content?

RSS as a Newspaper

Recently, there has been a push towards a different approach for RSS. Instead of treating RSS feeds as emails in an inbox, Dustin MacDonlad’s new app, Times, takes a new - actually, an old - approach to RSS. Alex Wooley, a casual RSS user, sums up the game-changing nature of Times nicely:

Before the introduction of Times, it’s fair to say I wasn’t really an RSS worshiper. I had NetNewsWire installed on my system (after they made it free) and opened it once in a while (where I would be blasted with 200 feeds which I really didn’t want to have to read through). So, I didn’t want or have a need to read RSS feeds. Upon downloading Times, I knew I’d been hit with a new kind of RSS feeder, something I hadn’t experienced before, something quintessentially different.

Times frees RSS from the dreaded “unread count”, and allows you to consume RSS feeds in a different, more refreshing way. The philosophy is that you will be able to scan headlines and find the content that is appealing to you without having to go through and “read” every single article. While it’s an interesting approach, it is suited for more casual RSS users. When you begin to have hundreds of feeds in your arsenal, Times quickly becomes cumbersome and useless.