Have you ever tossed your SLR Camera up in the air? I dare you to because this is the result you’ll get. Although you may not get the right shot on the first toss, but with multiple tosses, you will have a higher chance of capturing a picture like the one above. This seems to be the trend for photography, but its also a risk of losing a camera. I have to admit, I’m not brave enough to toss my expensive camera, but I will definitely try it on my “OLD” Point and Shoot camera.

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Philippe Sainte-Laudy

Merriewells

Philipp Klinger

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Alberto Twose

As you can see reflection photography is very powerful to any photographers artistic vision. If you want to take your images to the next level you have got to incorporate some reflection in your photos.

If anyone has their own reflection photography examples, please leave a link to it in the comments below.

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Cache controls are actually best used for content that doesn’t change much, such as graphics. But how does one go about enabling caching on your website?

Well there are actually three methods of setting cache controls, but the best way will always be through the server configurations. As I’m an Apache user, all you ASP developers can stop reading at this point. Go back to your inferior ASP, you’re not wanted on this blog. In fact why don’t you click on our banner ad and get the hell out!

For older versions of Apache before version 2.0, you will have to install mod_expires and mod_headers modules into your server. Once enabled you will have to insert the code in the following order

LoadModule expires_module     libexec/mod_expires.so
LoadModule headers_module     libexec/mod_headers.so

AddModule mod_expires.c
AddModule mod_headers.c
...
AddModule mod_gzip.c

Ordering is important, and the mod_gzip.c must be loaded after all the other modules.

For version 2.0, you will just need to enable these modules for your cache controls.

LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so

Afterwards place server configurations for the directories you want to cache.

ExpiresActive On


    Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    ExpiresDefault A300
    
        Expires A86400
    
    
        Expires A2592000
    

Notice how you set ExpiresActive to the ‘on’ setting. Then place the path to your website in the ‘Directory’ tag. ExpiresDefault A300 will set the default cache to 300 seconds. Then you can target specific file extensions using FilesMatch, and set their default. As you can see the html files expires in 1 day, and graphics, css, and javascript files expires in 30 days.

Once these configurations are set, restart your server to set the cache controls. You are now on your fast track to a better performing server, now aren’t you glad you read this? By the way, you should click on a ad on your way out, I’ve got children to feed. Not really…

Got questions of cache controls, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Having had an average American childhood, I was able to experience the joys of reading comics, watching Anime, and playing video games. I straddled myself between the world of geeks and the world of man. You could even say that I was a casual geek, limiting myself to being an outside observer into the geek culture. So with that said, the following story left me both embarrassed and fascinated AT THE SAME TIME!!!! I’m talking about a freaking Over the top COSPLAY WEDDING!!!!!!!

Sharon and Neil Vaughan’s took their love of comics into overdrive. Most people might get a comic themed wedding cake, or maybe give out little toys as favors, but I guess that wasn’t enough for these Super Geeks. But it’s not the fact that they both dressed up as Batman and Wonder Women for their cosplay wedding, but it’s the fact that they look nothing like what Batman and Wonder Women would look like in real life. Batman doesn’t wear saggy leather pants, he wears paper thin, almost see through tights that is rippling with muscles. Also Wonder Women is a voluptuous middle aged women, and Sharon does not look voluptuous but I guess she does look middle aged. Anyways, if you are going to do a Cosplay Wedding, you gotta do it right, and you gotta look the part.

On a positive note, the couple saved a ton of money by skipping a lot of traditional expenses for their Cosplay Wedding. I don’t know what saggy leather pants and red corsets go for, but it’s probably a lot cheaper than a tux and wedding gown. They will also be taking their honeymoon in Australia, and hopefully not as Batman and Wonder Women. It also seems like they got world wide attention from their cosplay wedding and that’s always a plus. So good luck Sharon and Neil, may you guys both live long and prosper as super geeks.

I just love stories where people try to find excuses to celebrate Halloween when it’s NOT Halloween.

Would you guys ever do a Cosplay Wedding? You can leave your feedback below.

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The digital camera age has sprouted some very interesting trends in photography. One of those trends is called the Camera Toss Photography or Kinetic Photography. This involves setting your camera to very low shutter speeds, maybe around 1 or 2 seconds, then throwing it in the air just as it’s about to take an exposure. Then you catch it before it hits the ground. Usually this is done at night near some sort of light source. The result is a fantastic array of colorful patterns that looks strangely Windows Screen Saverish.

Many critics are bewildered by the fact that someone would actually throw their cameras in the air and risk damaging their equipment. I personally would never use an expensive camera for this, but if you could pick up and inexpensive point and shoot, you should definitely give it a try. Also I highly recommend all my photography competitors to do some camera toss photography with their professional Cameras, in fact give it like 1000 tries.

The thing is that the camera toss photography is a huge phenomenon in the photography world. There are whole communities and websites dedicated to this art form. So if you don’t mind breaking your camera, and want to get some sweet shots that you can brag to your friends about, then I believe the camera toss photography is just for you.

Also please share your camera toss photography photos in the comments below.

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I am truly touch by this photo. The little girl look so happy with her dog even though she lives in a slum located in Andong Village, Cambodia.  I don’t know if I would be able to produce such a beautiful smile like she does if I was in her situation.  This photo makes me want to go to Andong Village, Cambodia and help as many children as possible.

Please share your thoughts about the Girl From Andong Village, Cambodia

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So as a any good developer should do, they should always back up the database in case anything horrible happens to the server. This is easy to accomplish using the export function in phpmyadmin. Now if your database has less than 16mb of data, importing that backed up information is simple through phpmyadmin. But what do you do when you have gigs of data to import? You definitely cannot use phpmyadmin to accomplish this as it will warn you of the size limit. In this article I’ll give a quick solution to this problem by using a mysql bulk upload, so lets start from the beginning.

1. login to phpmyadmin and choose a database

2. go to the export tab, make sure the ’save to file’ checkbox is on, then click the ‘Go’ button.

3. You now have a sql file downloaded to your computer.

4. Upload this file to a location on your web server, and keep a note of the location of the file.

5. open an SSH application, I use putty. Then place your host address, which is the same host address you use to connect to your server. Afterwords you connect, and you should get a command prompt type of interface.

*note you may have to ask your hosting company to activate ssh for you.

6. find the directory that your sql file is stored.
cd .. - goes back a directory
cd [folder name] - enter the folder
ls - displays all folders and files in the current directory

7. once you’re in the correct directory, then type in this command for a mysql bulk upload.

mysqldump -u [user name] -p [your password] [database name] > [File name].sql

*note that the information in the brackets means you need to fill in your own information.

So doing a mysql bulk upload is a simple process, but it definitely is not something you would know unless someone told you. I remember how frustrating it was to do a mysql bulk upload using the import function in phpmyadmin. I had to split my sql files into many different pieces in order to accomplish this. It was a monstrous task that took hours out of my life. So I hope my mysql bulk upload tutorial has helped enlighten you, and you are welcome to thank me monetarily by writing a check payable to John Kim.

so if you guys have any questions about the mysql bulk upload you can place a comment below.

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View here if you cannot see

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Graduation was coming up for Heidy Rodriguez, and she wanted to prepare some invitations with a nice graduation portrait of herself. Heidy had asked us about taking some photographs of her. This was actually the first time we had taken pictures of just one person, usually we’d be taking pictures of couples, or a family. So we had researched a lot of female poses to get inspiration for the project. We also thought it would be a good idea to get her in a 1930’s era style at a train station. Of course, because she was graduating we felt that a train station represented her new journey in life. I know, it’s really cliche, but it’s still a very creative and thoughtful cliche. Afterwords, we felt that her graduation portraits were some of the best work we’ve done.

Enjoy more of Heidy Rodriquez’s Graduation Portraits, and let us know what you think by submitting a comment below.

For those of you who don’t know me, or for those who know me but you feel too good to talk to me. First off screw you, and second off I’ve been a fan of Jackie Chan ever since the Barbara Walters interview of him back before Rumble in the Bronx was released. He was unlike any other celebrity and his bigger than life persona was only matched by his humility. I wasn’t only a fan of Jackie Chan, I wanted to be Jackie Chan. I remember going to my friends place and choreographing fight scenes, and practicing falls on my bed. I was a stuntman in the making, unfortunately I busted my knees which ended my short lived career as the next Jackie Chan.

What didn’t end was my admiration for this man, so I nearly lost my marbles when I heard that Jackie Chan has come out with his own DSLR camera. Can you imagine bringing my favorite Celebrity, and my favorite hobby all into one fantastic package? The camera is being released by Canon, and it’s basically a Canon Rebel with Jackie Chan’s Name all over it. Plus they give you a sweet carrying case with an official Jackie Chan Photo Album. I must admit that I’m not too fond of the Canon Rebel, but I am definitely fond of Jackie Chan. If I can get my hands on one of these babies I will keep it locked away in a safe.

Unfortunately Canon is only producing 2010 of these, and it’s only being sold in China. Life is so cruel!!!! Well my only chance of buying it will be on ebay and probably for triple the price. Sucks because I have a thing about paying more than market value, I guess that means that I’ll never have one. But if someone out there really likes me, and wants to make me very happy, you can get one for me as a gift. If you do that I might consider naming my first born child after you, just make sure your name doesn’t rhyme with fart or else the deal is off.

So what do you think of this awesome camera? Also leave me a comment if you want to donate me this camera, I will send you my mailing address or you can choose to hand it to me in person. If you do that you will be my new best friend, plus I might name my first born child after you.