If you’re like me, you’re seeing all the hype about video in HTML 5 and thinking “that’s nice, but what else?”

As a web developer going on 10 years of working on the web, I was looking for a quick way to get caught up on the “what else” without having to read through 3 chapters of how HTTP is a stateless protocol and who Tim Berners-Lee is and get straight into some practical examples.  Well, that’s exactly what the new title, Introducing HTML5, does. And all in under 250 pages.

Book: Introducing HTML5

The New Semantic Web

After a nice intro on how the HTML5 spec actually came about, the authors devote the first third of the book diving into the new, more meaningful tags touted by the HTML5 spec that should ultimately replace all the DIV tags that we’ve been using ever since table tags were ousted for layouts 5 years ago. The book’s examples of the header, footer, and article tags, as well as the new form validation attributes demonstrated in the context of a typical blog will certainly appeal to many of us out there with an “ah ha” moment. 

The other refreshing element that the authors touch on thorough the book is accessibility.  While often overlooked on the web in most development books, these guys definitely take away your “I didn’t think of that” excuse.  After reading this book, you’ll definitely know what you’re not today to help those non-sighted or otherwise impaired users of your website or app.

A Little Bit of Video

Halfway through the book, there’s a short chapter on the audio and video tags; more so on how they are to be used and not the parading “kill flash” banter you read everywhere else on the web.  If you only want HTML5 for the video tags, this book isn’t for you.

Along with video, there’s an in-depth look at the canvas tag and the related API. While an interesting topic to cover, I can’t think of any immediate uses in my own development plans. Still, it lets you see what else is included in the spec.

Build Me a Web App

Spending almost all of my professional career working with Microsoft technologies, most of my application building has been using WinForms, ViewState, and Session management to handle some of the issue stateless session and cookie headaches, I can certainly appreciate the new features in the HTML5 spec to make things a little easier on my open source work.

In fact, the too biggest reasons I wanted to dive into HTML5 were the local storage and offline access features. While short and to the point, these chapters are a good enough example to know what to use and when, all within the context of HTML and JavaScript. Now, there will no doubt be libraries built on top of the main spec elements to help us with our PHP or similar applications, but getting to know the basics in such a simple format is always a big help.

Wrap Up

In short, this book is a great read if you just want a primer to know the what and why of the new HTML5 spec before venturing into more in-depth titles on the specifics of a particular topic. The fact that it’s short, to the point, and has pretty relevant examples in it are all big selling points for me. The humor and the dual authors’ subtle digs at each other is rather entertaining, too.

Book cover image credit: Amazon.com

Related posts:

1. Book: iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JS

Well, it looks like the little bundle of joy we’re expecting in December won’t be the only infant in the house come Christmas. Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our newest bunny, Hailey.

Ever since our beloved Sky passed away in September last year, we pretty much knew that our other rabbit Star would need to have another furry friend.  It just came down to the timing, since we loved Sky so much and he was my favorite.

For the last week or so, it almost seemed that Star looked particularly lonely, so we started talking about finding another rabbit.  Well, after a visit to my cousin’s house in Schaumburg, the conversation kinda went like this.

Kris: Was there anything else you wanted to do while we’re out this way?

Cindy: I can’t think of anything, can you?

Kris: Wow, did you just pass up an open invitation to Woodfield?

Cindy: Sure, we can do that.

Kris: Hey, the pet shop where we brought Star home from is right down the street from here. Wanna stop in?

Cindy: Okay.

And after about 20 mins debating outside of this little one’s cage, we were verbally reorganizing our living room to re-occupy one of the empty cages we still had.

Star’s Splitting Image

Besides being 25% of the size of Star, these two are almost identical twins.  The only subtle difference we’ve seen so far is that the bottom of Star’s tail is white, like the telltale cottontail rabbit. Hailey – as in the comet, sticking with the astro theme here – has a gray tail to match the rest of her backside.

Aside from that, it’s like an eerie Austin Powers “mini me” sequence whenever we step back and look at the cages side-by-side.

The interesting thing is, neither one of them probably knows that they look like each other when you stop to think about it. I mean, unlike you and I, our rabbits don’t get up an look at themselves in the mirror every morning.  If anything, they may have an early memory of what their litter mates looked like, but who knows?

The Timing

While it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to make a detour to the pet shop, we didn’t jump into this decision lightly.  Like I said, we talked about it for at least 20 minutes first.

Kidding aside, we did factor in the arrival of our first son in December, and if there was going to be a time to find Star a companion and get them acquainted and coexisting together, it would be now.  Trying to introduce a 2nd rabbit to our household after our child was born and all the chaos and learning as new parents would not have left room for much else. And seeing Star by her lonesome for at least another year would be rough.  What can I say, we have a soft spot for these little guys.

And so, once again we’re a two rabbit household.  Seeing how we’re expecting to repeat all the early bunnyhood steps with Hailey that we did with Star, we’re pretty confident that it will be only a matter of time before our new furry friend will be hopping around like she owns the place.

It’s an interesting lead-in to this post that as I’m writing this, I’m actually standing in line to get to see the Stanley Cup in person for the first time Saturday afternoon. Sure, I could have just waited until I got back to the room or after the weekend was over, but having to stand in line for about an hour gave me more than enough free time on my hands.

Every Hockey Player’s Dream

It is totally cliche to say that growing up, every kid playing hockey dreams of holding up Lord Stanely’s Cup over his head. But the reason they say that is because it’s true.

Now, normally the dream is holding it up over your head at center ice of your home team’s arena. And while the viewing session that I waiting in line for won’t actually let me touch the trophy, I’m willing to take what I can get at this point.

The ultimate goal is to be back here in ten years with my son (who’s arriving later this year). The pessimist in me is saying that if I don’t treat this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to live out something from my youth, however, it will turn into a none-in-a-lifetime chance. Now, how could I do that to little Nelly Jr. before he’s even born? And no, that’s not going to be his name.

So, here I am, inching closer and closer. Tunes on the iPod, wearing a newly signed Jack Skille Rockford Ice Hogs jersey, and typing away on my iPod Touch. By the time you actually read this post, there will be a freshly taken snapshot of the greatest trophy in professional sports attached to it, and one more thing leftover from childhood that I can cross my list.

Sorry, but I gotta go. I’m next.

For the second year in a row, Cindy and I have made our way downtown for the 3rd annual Chicago Blackhawks Convention.  It’s such a nice way to fill that painfully long gap between the Stanley Cup Finals and the preseason.  Sure, there’s the NHL Awards, and free agency, and salary cap issue; but there’s nothing like a good convention with all the true lifelong Hawks fans to take your mind off the fact that we might not have our Stanley Cup goaltender anymore by the time you read this.

So much has happened between last year’s convention, both for the team and for us, personally. I could ramble on and on about each, but I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say that we’ve been looking forward to this weekend since Game 6 ended in OT, and it’s great to be here.

Baby Update

Of course, if you cared so much about the Blackhawks, you’d be standing in these long lines with us, so let’s skip to the good stuff.

I know the blog has been lacking the baby-to-be news that seems to be the most interesting to everyone, so I’m trying to get to posting more often (at least once a week). Especially now that we’re pass the half way point and things are going to start moving a long very fast from this point on. It’s going to be baby’s first Xmas before we know it.

If you’re not following along with us on Facebook, then it will be news to you that last week we found out our little one is going to be (or technically, already is) a boy. Well, that takes care of a few of our 20 questions. While not the little princess we were shooting for, my fatherly intuition is kicking into overdrive now and the prospect of having a little Nelly is starting to get to me more than I had imagined. Visions and goals for the future are coming fast and furious; the latest being thoughts of having a home up in northern Wisconsin with a backyard that, starting in about five years, will be flooded each winter. That’s a longer story, but I’ll get into it someday.

Being here at the convention this weekend – baby bump’s first hockey memories – has really put things into perspective as to how much fuller our lives are about to become.  And when I say fuller, I don’t mean busier, I mean complete. I’m not going to get all sappy, but just know that I could.

Hello August

It’s hard to believe that summer’s almost gone, but it is.

We have a few fun things coming up in August before things with mommy and baby get really intense. In a few weeks, we’ll be having dinner with tigers, and the weekend after that, we’re hoping to be heading back to Door County (finally) for the first time since January. Also the first time to Door County during a month that didn’t fall between September and April.

Of course, August was supposed to be the month we had hoped to spend entirely on Maui, as well as attending the ‘10 Maui Photo Festival with all the great folks we met at last year’s event.  Obviously we have chosen to take a much different path with our lives since this time last year, but you’re not going to hear a single complaint from either of us.  A few years down the line, when we finally return to the island we love with keiki in tow, you might hear “holy cow, I can’t believe we’ve waited this long to come back” out of either one of us, but it won’t be a complaint, that’s for sure.

– Kris

Just about this time last year, Cindy’s sister was being released from the ICU at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines, IA after emergency heart surgery. We had made two road trips to visit her there last June, and we’re happy to say that she is doing very well.

While in Des Moines for a total of seven days between the two trips, we spent maybe 4 hours outside of the hospital itself. What little we did see seemed nice, so we thought we’d make a point of returning on better terms.

So, on the books for the weekend, we’re taking a 2nd three-day weekend for the road trip west. The plan will be for us leave Friday morning and spend a good part of the day in or near the downtown area. Cindy’s family, who live about an hour north of Des Moines will be meeting up with us Friday night and staying the weekend as well.

Then, we’ll have all day Saturday to explore the town together and even pick up a little baseball at the Iowa Cubs game Saturday night. We’ll all be staying in the same hotel downtown, so that works out rather nicely.

With all that’s going around here with BBQ’s and the baby, we haven’t had much time to just sit back and relax. This has turned into a much different year than we had anticipated after our trip to Door County at the beginning of the year. Some of our friends from the Maui Photo Festival last year just wrapped up an amazing week of Paradise Bootcamp on the island, wish I was totally interested in when I first heard about it in February.

And with our little one on the way and building up our baby war chest, we scrapped plans to return to Maui for the 2nd annual photo festival event. After all is said and done, we knew what we were getting into and are very, very excited with where this year is going to end, but it’s nice to still have these little weekends to look forward to.

Let’s only hope it will turn out better than our trip to Lake Geneva in April.

It only took a year after the site launch, but I finally spent a little time (and dough at iStockphoto) to put together a logo for Maui by Photo.

Now, it’s my no means extravagant or anything, but I think even as simple as it is, it certainly adds a more inviting feel to the site than just the plain – and I mean plain – masthead text did previously. With the month of June set aside for MBP updates and now that July is here already, I added a few more tweaks, but not as many as I would have hoped. Here’s a short recap:

• Facebook Integration – I mentioned this previously as a potential advantage of having a fair amount of fans on the site’s Facebook page (500+) it’s a nice way to allow for easier comments when linking from Facebook. I’ve also started to roll out the Like buttons on a few of the pages, and those seem to be getting clicked on now, too.
• Newly Designed Footer Lists – I redesigned the footer of the site to include many of the links previously in the sidebar, which I think adds a cleaner look. I also added links to a few additional pages such as About, Flickr, and the Locations page I mentioned in the Posts by Tag post.
• Static Map Updates – You won’t notice the difference on the posts, but I updated the code to use a static-map plug for showing the island view of the map rather than copying the entire HTML for it in each post. A benefit of knowing how to write plugins.
• Testing Out New Photo Galleries – I just recently installed very popular NextGen Gallery plugin for WordPress to try out better photo management and display. The first post to get the new look is the Haleakala article, so take a peek there if you’d like to chime in on the improvement.
• WordPress v3.0 Upgrade – The site is now running v3.0 of WordPress, although I’m not taking advantage of any of the new features yet. The custom taxonomies feature looks like something I’d like to try out with locations.

I think that about covers it for the updates this month. There are a few things I might try to sneak in during the next few weeks, but July is the month I move my attention to the re-launch of Nighthawks Hockey Online, which is going to be huge. Be sure to stay tuned for that this summer.

- Kris

Related posts:

1. WordPress Plugin: Posts by Tag
2. Updates to Maui by Photo

Although I haven’t done much with my camera gear since the hobby went on hold a few months ago, it was still a pretty exciting week for me photography wise.

Two of my photos made it into Hawaii magazines this week, my Iao Stream photo and my Haleakala Sunrise image from the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival. Here’s the scoop on how it happened.

Iao Stream in Hawaii Magazine

I had originally submitted this photo to Hawaii Magazine for their Photo of the Week feature about a year ago. Thinking nothing of it since then, I was contacted by the magazine last month for a print-friendly version to run in their Your Hawai’i section of the July/August edition. I certainly couldn’t pass up on that opportunity.

Sunrise Silhouette in Maui No Ka ‘Oi Magazine

Already knowing about the photo printed in Hawaii Magazine, I was pleasantly surprised the following day when the July/August issue of Maui No Ka ‘Oi magazine arrived at our door. Featured in the magazine’s Talk Story section was a full page article on the upcoming Maui Photo Festival in August. Since this photo won the best portrait award in the inaugural event last year, I was invited to sign a photo release so it could be used by the event organizers for promotions and the like. And there you have it.

Cindy had her monthly check up today and everything seems to be in order. That is, except, for the ridiculous wait we had while we were at the office. 

According to one of the others in the packed waiting room, someone earlier was 20 minutes late and backed everyone up for the rest of the afternoon.  Personally, I wasn’t buying it because we were on-time for our 1pm appointment, but there were people that arrived after us and were seen before us.  My only guess is that they might have had other doctors, but still.

Time Machine

Anyway, aside from being a little frustrated with spending 45 minutes in the waiting room (and another 30 minutes waiting in the examination room) it was an interesting chance to see what’s in store for us.

It was pretty crowded as I mentioned, and there were mothers-to-be that were just seeing their first sonogram photo to another that was probably around 32 weeks, and another family with 3 little rugrats that left the office each carrying an ultrasound photo of their expected new brother or sister.  At the time, all the extra noise and chaos was just more aggravating, but looking back now it was kinda neat.

By The Numbers

Okay, enough with the philosophical stuff.  This afternoon’s visit puts Cindy at 16 weeks on her 40 week journey to motherhood.  She’s still down 7 lbs from the first visit, but she’s done with the morning sickness and gaining weight again. In fact, she even finished an entire Chipotle burrito for the first time a few years.

At next visit, she’ll be 20 weeks and by then they’ll be able to determine if we’re having a little princess or another Nelly.  The doctor this visit (all 5 minutes we saw him) said sometime between now and 20 weeks is when Cindy should be able to feel the little one starting to move inside her belly.  You know you’ll all hear about that when it happens for the first time.

Well, until next time.
  – Kris

When one of my friends on Facebook pointed out yesterday that there was now a “Like” button next to each comment on a Facebook post or status, I sort of rolled my eyes. To me, that just seemed to be overkill. I mean, know that the Like button has made it’s way outside of the walls for Facebook and into the rest of the Internet (including one of my sites), but trying to push it down another level of detail into the comment thread didn’t really seem necessary.

So, I went looking for an official post or other blog coverage of this new feature, and I found myself at the popular Inside Facebook blog. Here’s the article I found:

Facebook Adds Likes to Comments

To my surprise – and who am I to judge – they reported that this is actually a commonly requested feature. For real? People are asking to have a Like button when someone comments on their status or the status of a friend? I think I may just be missing the point.

What’s Really Missing

To me, I think the bigger gap related to comments to posts and statuses is not a Like button, but better notification and comment tracking for Facebook Page admins. As an admin of 4 pages currently, it’s less than ideal for me to have to check each one everyday or every other day to feel responsive to my visitors. And I know it would be difficult to create a reasonable solution that works for both smaller pages like mine vs. the thousands of comments on the page of your favorite championship sports team, but still, it feels like there’s more value to be made there.

As another example, I have a few photographer friends that have created Facebook pages to share their work. When they post photos and people comment, there’s no notification or anything. Now I know first hand in the case of photos there is a View Comments page – like this one – but would a subscribe or RSS feed option be too much to ask? Or maybe something similar to the Facebook Page Digest emails we admins received weekly for a brief while. Something daily like that might work to show a summary instead of each individual comment.

Any Insight?

I know that Facebook has been working to improve their Insights stats section, and I can only hope that those tools start getting closer to real-time soon. It’s Thursday night as I finish this post and stats are only current through Tuesday. Again, not horrible from a longer range trend perspective, but not a tool I can use for engagement.

Your Thoughts?

Getting back to topic, do you think the Like button for comments is a useful feature or just more fluff? And if you’re a Facebook Page admin, I’d sure like to hear your thoughts – or any tricks or tools – on staying current with engaging your visitors.

Thanks for reading,
- Kris

Related posts:

1. Facebook Connect-ed, For Now
2. Updates to Maui by Photo

This post is a short example of how I used the Posts by Tag plugin by Sudar for one of my new pages on the Maui by Photo website.

The concept of the page was simple: to build a directory of sorts for posts that were tagged with different locations on the island.

WordPress Repository Location: Posts by Tag

What Was Needed

I wanted to have a page that listed all the locations on Maui that my website featured, as well as each post associated with that location.

For the website, I’m was already using Categories for the primary navigation, such as Beaches, Activites, etc. But in order to track the location of each post, I was also tagging each post with a specific place name, such as Lahaina or Kapalua. After accumulating more than 40 posts from 11 different locations that were tagged, it was time to create a page that featured each location and list the posts assigned to it.

What Was Done

The Posts by Tag plugin actually works in two modes: a widget mode for use in a sidebar, and a shortcode mode that let you embed the list inside a post or a page. For this case, I was looking to the shortcode feature to help get the job done.

The post_by_tag shortcode functionality offered by Posts by Tag uses most of the same parameters as the get_posts template tag that WordPress offers, so right away I knew it had everything I needed.  In my case, I wasn’t as concerned with the dates of the posts (as in a traditional blog sense) as much as having a directory listing of posts. So the fact that I could order the posts by Title and in Ascending order was perfect. The only other parameter required for me then was the number of posts to return, which I set at a generous 25.

With the shortcode usage planned, it was just a matter of laying out my page just like you would any other page. While the shortcode supported multiple tags at once, I was looking to add a photo and a link for each tag. At the time, there were 11 location tags that I wanted to display posts for, so I needed 11 instances of the shortcode on the page. I added all 11 locations and photos in the order I wanted, knowing that the next time I added a post and tagged it with one of these locations, it would be automatically added in correct list and in its proper order alphabetically.

Now, if I added a tag for a new location at some point, of course I’d have to go back and manually update the page, but that is a less frequent occurrence that I was not concerned with at time.

The Result

With the shortcodes utilized and the page in place, I was all set. A screenshot of the final result is below, but if you’d prefer to see the page itself, visit the Maui by Photo Locations page.

Feedback

Please let me know if you think this short demo helped or if you’ve used this or a similar plugin on your own site, too.

- Kris

Related posts:

1. Maui by Photo Gets a Logo

After just one year of working with the WordPress platform, it’s pretty safe to say that I’m a big fan. What’s not to love? All the functionality right out of the box already, a nice theme system with loads of designers, a rich set of plugins, and the support of a great developer community. Sure, some say it might be a resource hog or slow, but I haven’t experienced too much of that (yet). So, where do I want to fit into this process?

Plugin Development

After getting familiar with the standard installation and customization on a few different blogs, followed by theme hunting and modifications, the next logical step for me was working with plugins. It’s usually easier to find an existing plugin that fits your needs than reinvent the wheel. But just like themes, there were a few cases were something was close, but still needed to be tweaked for my own personal needs.

So, I picked up a book, started reading, and was ready to take on the plugin world. Like everything else, I just dove right in and started coding away, creating a few custom plugins that fit neatly into my sites. That was the first revelation for me, that these were for me and not necessary useful for a larger audience. For example, the Daily Maui Photo widget over there on the left is a plugin I created, and it’s currently deployed on a few other of my sites as well. It’s customizable with 3 different views to be adaptable to various themes and scenarios. Yet it’s still not something that may ever be available for public consumption.

There are a few other plugins that I’ve built recently, such as the recent posts display on the home page and the display view for site details on the links page. Those might be more useful to others, but that quickly led to the next few revelations: testing and support. It takes a lot of testing and dedication to release plugins that can potentially be used by hundreds or thousands of users. And while I give many kudos to all the awesome, hard-working folks doing that today with their plugin development, I just don’t have the time at the moment (or ever). The support side is huge, too. Check out the thread on this page for the Simple Facebook Connect plugins I mentioned last month. It has over 1,200 responses and growing daily. Not something I can commit to.

Plugin Contributions

So, now I’ve come to terms with not writing my own plugins for public use, I do feel comfortable and interested in helping users extend their own plugins with features that are useful for me that hopefully others might find helpful. This right here is another great feature of the WordPress platform as being open source, because if something isn’t working correctly or not meeting my needs, I can dig into the code and hack away at it. Much faster than I could do if I was building it from scratch, I might add.

On the contribution side, if I feel my modifications to the plugin are something that others might be interested in, and the original developer is accessible and approachable – most of them seem to be – I’m more than willing to engage and return the favor by handing over my code. In all honesty, this is actually in my best interest because by adding my own custom code, I put myself at risk because future updates and features added in newer versions will likely override my changes. So, if something I write for my needs ends up being included in the official release of the plugin, I’m much safter.

As a Resource

With only one year working with WordPress, I can’t by any means claim to be an expert. But as someone having multiple blogs running the software and having a strong development background to help understand how things work behind the scenes, I think I can also be a resource to help others. For example, I have collected a fairly sized list of plugins that I gravitate towards with every new install. In addition to that common list, I’ve also used various plugins for more specific reasons on a site-by-site basis.

My plans here now lead to creating a resource section here at the site that will serve as a reference for others that may just be starting out or looking for a not-so-obvious plugin to accomplish a particular goal. Acting as an extension of my web portfolio here, I’ll be adding a more detailed WordPress section of the site that will not only feature the plugins I’ve used, but also link to and reference where on my websites I’ve used them. I find helpful so readers can view by example before deciding if something will work for them or not. I mean, how many times have you seen a neat plugin that you think will work but can’t find an example of where it’s used? Not one of my favorite experiences, either.

More Soon

I seem to be ending most of my posts with “more soon” these days just because I have so much going on these days. But still, be on the lookout for this new section and some of the features that it will contain. In the meantime, I am also sharing interesting articles and posts from other blogs related to WordPress development over on my Facebook page, so that is a good place to check out in the meantime.

- Kris

Related posts:

1. Starting WordPress Plugin Development
2. Facebook Connect-ed, For Now

At some point between that last post of ‘09 when we bought a Mac and when I started posting again in April, we picked up a Wii. And as anyone that has one will tell you, they are a lot of fun.

Initially, we just stuck with the sports games that came with it, which were still enough fun for the two off us. That was until Cindy bought the Just Dance game, which quickly became her primary use of the Wii as a daily workout regimen. But alas, that came to an end under doctor’s orders to keep all activity to under 120 bpm (beats per minute) while she’s pregnant. And trust me, those last few Hawks games were really pushing that limit.

So the Wii went unused for a month or two until a small discussion about all the media coverage of the Blackhawks bonding as a team during the playoff road trips by holding their own Mario Kart tournaments. Before long, we were looking at spending budgets for the month and then picked up the game and a second steering wheel over the weekend. Or is it wii-kend?

Monday night was both of our Kart racing debuts, and we played for about two hours. Needless to say, we had a blast. And now that Cindy is really starting to get over all the morning sickness (knock on wood), it was good to see her have such a good time again.

I’m not exactly sure how much time I personally will be able to play regularly during the week, but I do know that left alone to practice on her own, it won’t be long before Cindy is a force to be reckoned with.

- Kris

 
Photo Credit: Amazon.com

Just about a year after launching Maui by Photo, I’m getting back to putting some of the finishing design touches on the site to polish it off. These are mostly minor design tweaks for now, but I’m hoping to add more features my month’s end, too.

A Year Wiser

MBP was my first site using WordPress, so much of the initial effort involved was spent learning how to customize themes and organize posts than more of a focused effort on look and feel and navigation. So, with a year of WordPress under my belt, and another year of web design practice, minor changes are already underway.

While the premise of Maui by Photo is fairly straightfoward (a la the About page), there was more effort involved with editing and managing all the photos than I originally anticipated. Not only am I a year more experienced with WordPress, my photography and post processing work with Photoshop has also risen to a new level. Therefore, one of my tasks for later this summer (or year) is going to be re-editing all 300 current photos featured on the site, plus adding at least 100 more that aren’t featured yet. Heaven help me, that’s a lot of work ahead.

Quick Wins

In the meantime, I’ve been attacking a few quicker wins to make the site more interactive. The biggest update so far has been the integration of Facebook comments and Like buttons using the Simple Facebook Connect plugins I posted about recently. It’s been installed on my Kris and Cindy site and you may even notice it’s slowly being phased in at this blog, too.  Since the Maui by Photo page on Facebook has been a relatively big draw, I see this as an opportunity to bring in some of those users to contributing to the site as well. More to come on that.

While the Kris and Cindy site just uses the auto display for the Like button, I’m working that feature into MBP a little more selectively than that.  I have a few ideas of where it will end up to be intuitive but not obtrusive, but it’s not completely rolled out yet.

Also while I was at it, I added the Twitter @Anywhere integration that made it here, too (previous post).

More Content

The goal of Maui by Photo is to let the pictures do the talking, and get the sites visitors to leave their own stories about Maui. But in order to help raise awareness and education about the goals of the site, I’ve been writing a little bit more content to fill in the gaps. Therefore, the home page now has more of a traditional website landing page feel to it than the previous list of blog posts as before. Also, the About page has been updated with a bit more organization and some photos to help keep the reader engaged.

In addition to that, the portfolio page here on the site has been updated with a little background on how the site came together, so this collective information should be a good start. I’ve also uncovered a few additional items to add as mentioned in this post about creating effective About pages. Even though there is still a ways to go, I’m pretty happy with the subtle progress that’s being made so far.

Next Update

Even with these changes to the site underway, Maui by Photo is still fully functional and awaiting your favorite Maui stories. As far as the next update goes, I’m targeting another post here at the end of the month with news of bigger changes that are in the works. Be sure to stayed tuned if you’d like to see what I have in store next for this site.

– Kris

Related posts:

1. Facebook Connect-ed, For Now
2. Maui by Photo Gets a Logo
3. A Photo a Day, On Facebook

With the Blackhawks Celebration going on today, I thought I’d take a quick look back at all the hockey related posts these last two months showing the grueling path it takes for a team to win one of the oldest trophies in professional sports.

The Beginning

The beginning of the playoffs is actually just the end of a long 82 game season, which was extended this year for some players because of the Olympics in Vancouver back in February. Sure, the MLB is a 162 game season, but does that really compare? I don’t think so.

Post 1: It’s Playoff Time Again – April 15^th

Next up was the advancement to the second round of the playoffs after beating the Nashville Predators over about a 2 week span.

Post 2: Round 2 Picks – May 4^th

After a great series against Vancouver in Round 2 and eliminating them for the 2nd straight year (nice!), we were back in the conference finals to face the fish.

Post 3: Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy – May 17^th

While the first two rounds were a little more prolonged, the sweep against the Sharks was a thing of beauty. And before we knew it, our hometown team was back in the final for the first time since the early 90’s.

Post 4: To The FInals – May 23^rd

Three days later, the Philadelphia were just about wrapped up with the other remaining Original Six team in the conference finals when ticket prices started to make news for Games 1 and 2 of the finals. Gulp

Post 5: Thanks Goodness for HD – May 26^th

After was seemed like an extra long week to wait for Game 1 of the finals, I spent time at Starbucks while CIndy was at the salon and I wrote a little letter to the team asking for their help in making our world just a little better.

Post 6: A Better World for Our Child – May 29^th

And finally, this past Wednesday night after a long 49 year wait (of which I’ve only been alive for 30) the Stanley Cup was on it’s way back to Chicago. As all the marketing ads from the NHL promised – history was made.

Post 7: Thank You Blackhawks!!! – June 10^th

And now, it’s Friday and most of these young rascals who are still younger than me (sigh) are having their day in the sun an probably going on less than 4 hours of sleep since Game 6 ended in Philly. And you can’t really blame them, they’ve worked hard and sacrificed for this, and they have more than earned it.

What’s Next?

Well, a couple things. First, I’m officially announcing the end of my retirement from hockey. Okay, that was a joke.

Kidding aside, the next thing for us that’s Hawks related is the Blackhawks Convention in Downtown Chicago at the end of July. We went to the one last year and had a good time, but this year’s going to be amazing. Plus, we’re staying at the Hilton downtown this year during the festivities, so that will just make it even better.

As for the players, they will get to participate in one of the coolest traditions in professional sports. They each get to have the Stanley Cup for an entire day all to themselves. Some take it back to their hometown – I know Sweden and Russia are on the itinerary for sure – others share it with thousands of their closest friends. In any case, you know there’s going to be a lot to talk about this summer as the Cup checks in during all of it’s travels. Hey, does the Stanley Cup have a foursquare account?

Well, it’s been a draining last 2 months on the hockey front, so after this short breather, be sure to check back for more updates as the convention approaches, as we tackle a trip out to Des Moines, and the latest baby news before then.

Bandwagon or not (preferably not) let’s all enjoy this championship for our home team. Wooohoooo!

- Kris

Thank You Blackhawks for an incredible season!

And thanks for the returning the cup back to Chicago. All of us can’t wait to be at the Blackhawks Convention this summer. It’s going to be amazing!

Time for another entry in my Facebook Photographers series. And like the previous entries, this one comes from the Hawaiian islands with a young and talented photographer, Makena Gadient.

(Photo Credit: Makena’s Flickr photostream)

I met Makena at the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival as one of the high school scholarship winners – all of which were pretty amazing for shooters their age.  Since the festival in September, I’ve been following along with her work on Twitter and the beginning of her 365 project on Flickr at the start of the year. It’s been great watching her experiment with a lot of different techniques and really starting to come into her own style this year.

Perhaps one of the things I envy the most about Makena (aside from living on Maui ) is that she’s coming into this hobby at such an ideal age. When you talk about teenagers getting into something with as much commitment and dedication to a craft that she is now, you can definitely tell that they have a bright future ahead of them and the sky is the limit with what they can, and will, accomplish.

Finding Makena’s Photos

In addition to posting the daily photos in her 365 project on her Facebook page, you can also find them and outtakes on her Flickr account.  It is certainly a lot easier to see the collective set on Flickr, and compare images from the beginning of the year to the recent weeks.

When you check out those photos on both sites, you’ll notice a reoccurring theme in both places – that is the support an encouragement of her friends and her family.  From acting as models to providing feedback and coming up with new ideas, there’s a lot of positive energy there that only fosters great things.

If you do have a Flickr or Facebook account, you’ll certainly want to follow along for the rest of this year and with where Makena’s work with photography may take her. If she follows her aspirations in photography in the future, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from her.

Back to the Festival

Although I won’t be making the trip back to Maui for this year’s photography festival, I still will be following along with everyone.  In addition to Makena, I made so many connections last year that I still keep tabs on, and there will be more MPF alumni that will be featured in this series in the coming weeks and months.

Stay tuned.

– Kris

Continuing to share more from my own bookshelf, I picked up this title earlier in the year as I started to dive more into the mobility realm. I had already started with a few iPhone SDK books, I had Mac, installed the SDK, and had been tinkering with it for a few months prior. But when this book gave me the idea of just building a mobile website using the skills I already had, I was innately curious.

Book: Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Since I was already motivated to work on something for the iPhone, it was pretty easy to gather the momentum that made this a pretty quick read. I was through the first four chapters in a matter of hours, and I hate to admit it, but the chapters on client side storage and the offline application cache were my first hands-on introductions to new features in HTML5. I know, I should have been on top of that by then. Whatever.

I found the book easy to work with because I already had a small mobile web idea in my head. So as I followed along with the example app built in the book, I was working with both that example and my own little project. There were a few minor snags with references to jQTouch in a few places, but that’s only expected because everything in this space is changing so fast. I mean, come on, the book was written in January of this year, and there were already updates to the referenced software in March. That’s pretty fast.

What’s also interesting about this book is that author Jonathan Stark worked with O’Reilly under their Open Feedback Publishing System, which means as it with through various drafts, they were published online for users to review and provide feedback. Even the final version is still available under that program – Free – so if you don’t want to pay for this guys hard work, check it out before the program ends.

Other Details

While I had my mobile web app up in less than 2 days, I haven’t gone through the PhoneGap chapter yet to migrate it to a native app. I’ve been meaning to get back to that soon. Also, the author is currently finishing up a similar title for the Android platform (since both devices using the same WebKit mobile browser as a base) by summer’s end. That has me equally as interested as well, so I can’t wait for that.

In the meantime, if you wanted to take a sneak peak at the mobile web app I put together using this book on your iPhone or iPod Touch (haven’t tried it with the iPad yet), point your browser to http://www.mauiphotocal.com/iphone/. I’m still sort of considering it a beta right now, and I’ll soon be adding all the details to my portfolio section as well. Just trying to find the time.

Thoughts?

If you’ve seen this title before and either grabbed the book or thought it better not to, I’d like to hear your take on it. Also, if you’ve worked with similar titles, I’m always looking for suggestions, too.

Thanks,
-Kris

Book cover image credit: Amazon.com

Related posts:

1. Book: Introducing HTML5

Taken by Kris Nelson on February 19th, 2009.
Location: Our lanai at the Sheraton Maui Resort, Ka’anapali, Maui

A sampling of the morning views we used to enjoy when staying at the ocean front rooms at the Sheraton Maui Resort in Ka’anapali. Sure, we paid a premium for those rooms, and all budget-minded travelers will say that you can save a ton of money on cheaper rooms that you’re not really going to spend that much time in anyway. And they’re right.

Still, for two weeks out of the year, being able to wake up and walk out on your balcony and see views like this…

I like to think it was worth it.

Mahalo,
– Kris

This photo is from my Maui Portfolio on my photography website. Head on over there if you’d like to see more.

Don’t take that title the wrong way. I’m not one of those that thinks you have to have thousands and thousands of followers to consider Twitter valuable. Nor do I really concern myself with which celebrity or team of celebrity PR staff has more followers than the other. For me, it’s quality over quantity.

So, why the title? Well, I recently came to the realization that I’m following a diverse group of tweeps in a few distinct categories. In an effort to wrap my head around just how many people I follow for different reasons, I took some time to revisit my Twitter lists and did a little organizing. From that, I came up with an interesting breakdown of my interests and how Twitter fits in. Let’s have a look, shall we?

The Lists

The lists I have created for my @webnelly account:

• Hawaii, 134 tweeps – Folks that I follow in the Twitter Ohana.
• Maui, 67 tweeps – My pals on the Valley Isle.
• Photog, 38 tweeps – Photographers and other photo services I follow.
• Hockey, 34 tweeps – Keeping tabs on updates from various hockey teams and leagues, and their crazy fans.
• Tech, 22 tweeps – A relatively new list of techie and development folks that I’ll likely be expanding rather quickly.
• Music, 9 tweeps – A handful of musicians that I follow on Twitter, neat if you’re interested in seeing some of what I’m into.

Lastly, I have an IRL list for the users I have met in real life (not the Indy Racing League). Currently 26 handshakes out of 343 following, not too bad.

Now, there is some obvious overlap since some of the people I follow cross multiple boundaries, such as photographers on Maui, etc. I’ve tried to separate the Maui folks from the rest of Hawaii as to not count them twice in those lists, but it’s still interesting to note that at least half of the people I follow are in the 50th state of the union. And believe me, it used to be a higher percentage when I was just starting out.

What It All Means

Not trying to read a whole lot into it, but it ended up being a pretty neat experiment, if nothing else, something to kill 30 minutes organizing everything. As my interests and hobbies evolve, more so the time I have for each, it’s interesting to see how my value and use of Twitter changes. Since my photography is on hold for now and my work on this portfolio site and other WordPress blogs I manage increases, the Photog and Tech list will likely flip-flop in numbers. And it’s crazy right now on the Hockey list with the Stanley Cup finals nearing completion, but that will likely die down over the summer.

By the way, if you’re interested in a better way to manage your lists than just using twitter.com, I did all of this with the latest version of TweetDeck. If you prefer other tools for list management, please drop the name in a reply since I’d like to check them out, too.

So, turning to the other side of the table, what types of topics do the tweeps you follow gravitate around?

Related posts:

1. Social, Networking, and Social Networking
2. Hovercars: No, Hovercards: Yes

If you’re a regular Flickr user, I’m sure you’ve probably seen the “Most Interesting” page in your profile that shows what the service thinks are your most interesting images based on its own secret algorithms.

Well, if you haven’t, just click on Your Photostream from the home page, then Popular, and there you go.

In any case, seeing those images right there might be, well, interesting, but it might not be something everyone is going to do when browsing your photos.  Not like they would if, for example, they were in their own, automatically created photoset now, right?

Flickr Set Manager

Enter the Flickr Set Manager, which I found interestingly enough just browsing through someone else’s “Most Interesting” photoset.  You see, once you set this up, I like I have done here, it adds a nice little link explaining how it got there.  Pretty neat.

The process is pretty easy, and it all works using your Flickr account so you don’t to really do much of anything.  The website lets you setup what it calls Managed Sets, which is just a shorter way of saying “automagically generated photosets of your cool stuff.”  And it’s not just most interesting either.  The settings let you go random, choose least interesting (huh?), as well as recently posted or taken.  You can also filter by tags, dates, and even location if you’re a whiz at geotagging your pics like I do.

Try It Out

If you’re not already using this app and decide to give it a shot, post a link to your new photoset wonders so I can take a look.  If you’ve been using it for sometime already or using something similar, feel free to share as well.

Thanks,
– Kris

Saw a post on Mashable earlier today about 10 Adorable Apple-Themed Baby Accessories when it dawned on me that these types of things will soon be very relevant in my life.

So, for all of those who out there that know me, do you think I would or wouldn’t buy something like this and torture our future child?

Note: Whether Cindy will let me or not is an entirely different matter altogether. We know she wouldn’t, but that steals the fun away from having this debate in the first place.

Let’s hear ya.

- Kris

Dear Blackhawks:

Congrats on making it one step closer to your ultimate goal. Everyone we know is cheering for you, and your grit and determination are an inspiration to us all.  It’s so neat hearing so many of our friends talk about who their favorite Hawk is and way – and all for their own reasons.  It speaks volumes to what a great group you all are.

Now, I know you already have a lot on your mind as you get ready for Game 1, and there is a ton of pressure on you, but I was hoping you could help us with one small wish: Make the world a better place for our child.

You see, when we were growing up just north of Chicago, we had enough to get by, but we never had a Stanley Cup to call our own. We had the ‘85 Bears, which at only 5 years old (most of you weren’t even born yet) I still remember the Punky QB and the Fridge.  I remember having a #34 Payton jersey, too – boy we sure could use sports heroes like him again.  Bless you, Sweetness.

I was 10 when the Bulls started the first of their 2 three-peats and before the old barn was torn down in place of the new Madhouse.  It was great to see the entire city rally around a team like that in celebration of their achievements.  But I still remember wishing it was the other West side team at Grant Park, not the Bulls.  And I know, if it wasn’t for Super Mario and that young Jagr kid, it could have been.  Ask Scotty, he was there.

As for the Cubs, well, let’s not kid ourselves.  The Sox were a pleasant surprise in ‘05, but I was already grown up by then.  Still no Stanley Cup.

Our Wish

Like any other good parents, we only want our child to grow up in a world that is better than ours. So, now that my wife and I are expecting our first child right smack in the middle of the ‘10-‘11 season, there’s no time like the present to start a dynasty of our own and keep the cup here in Chicago for the next few years.  My mother was still pregnant with me when Team USA defeated the Russians in 1980, so I think it’s only poetic for you guys to carry on that tradition.

To give you a sense of where we’re coming from, my brother and I have been playing the greatest game in the world since before we could ride a tricycle.  For what it’s worth – if anything – we even played in the same rink that Mr. Olczyk did back before they added all the polar bears.  I’m sure he had nothing to do with the polar bears, but one can never be too sure.

We grew up in listening to Foley and Tallon on WBBM 780 AM because we couldn’t pay for Hawkvision. We grew up watching Savvy and Cheli and Belfour and a young Jeremy Roenick who my brother actually got to meet after one of the games he went to.  Sure, JR was necking with his wife at time, but he politely stopped to say hello to a young, adoring fan. (Not sure if that’s an entirely true story, you’d have to ask my brother). And then there was January 1st, 2009, but that’s for another time.

The point of all this is, if you could take care of business in the finals over this next week or so, Cindy and I would be eternally grateful.  Coming back to the Blackhawks Convention this summer and getting to take our picture with the Cup would be something we’d be telling our young one for years and years to come.  That is, at least until you win a few more when he or she is old enough to watch you guys in person.

Best of luck against the Flyers, and we all know you guys can do this.  Until then, we’ll see you guys again this summer at the convention, sans the beards.  And forgive us if we don’t stand in line for 2.5 hours for a photo and an autograph.  That is, unless you have an expected mothers’ line – now that would be sweet!

All the best,
– Kris and Cindy

Let’s Go Hawks!!!

With all the hype about Facebook’s Open Graph announcement and all the bad press about their privacy issue, talk about the Twitter @anywhere platform.

So, when I came across this simple how-to from TwiTip, I went right at it. And, in just a matter of moments, references to my Twitter accounts @webnelly and @MauiByPhoto had neat interactive hovercards.  All I needed to do was follow the instructions in that post to setup my a new @anywhere application for my website and install the Twitter Anywhere Plus plugin for WordPress.  And that was it.

In Action

As you can tell, I have things setup on this blog, but I don’t have too many Twitter references here (yet). So, I also installed this over at my Ka’anapali Dreamin’ blog where many of my Maui Tweeps were featured regularly.  I even had a few Follow Friday posts over there last year which should made for a good demo if you’re interested in seeing more.

One note if you’re interested in adding this to your own websites, the particular plugin I’m using won’t work if you have already added a link to the Twitter name you’re referencing. So, I’m going back – as time allows – to remove those static links so the plugin can work its magic.  You’ve been warned, plan the time accordingly.

Much More

If this is all that the Twitter @Anywhere platform could do, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  For now, I haven’t played around with anything else in the platform.  As that changes, and I get more time to experiment, I’ll post more details and examples.

If you’d like to learn more in the meantime, check out the official Twitter @Anywhere site for all the goodies.

Happy hacking, and if you do integrate this into your site (or already have), please leave a note with your thoughts and experiences.

– Kris

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One of the Add-ons that I’ve used regularly for Firefox over the last few years has been the Web Developer Add-on by developer Chris Pederick.

So, when I switched over from Firefox to Google Chrome a little over a year ago, those handy tools were surely missed.  Every now and then I’d have to revert back to Firefox to debug a little JavaScript, troubleshoot a few CSS tweaks, or view some generated source markup.  But life still went on.

So, when Chrome Extensions official came out of Beta earlier this year, I knew there was hope.  And sure enough, I recently came across the official port of the Web Developer toolkit as a Chrome Extension.  Happy dance.

A Little Deeper

Take a closer look at the features that I’ve found the most helpful to my workflow in both Firefox and now the Chrome version, here’s a list of the functions I use the most:

• Edit CSS – this option lets you view all the CSS references in your web page and make adjustments while seeing the results real-time.
• View Generated Source – haven’t found this in the Chrome Extension yet, but in Firefox, this one let you view all the HTML that was currently rendered on the page.  This is helpful for any markup that’s generated dynamically using JavaScript or AJAX that isn’t part of the original markup sent to the browser.
• View JavaScript – let’s you view all the JavaScript files, local and external, referenced by your page all in one view.
• View Style Information – same deal as View JavaScript, and came in handy when I was just searching for something and not needing to edit just yet.
• Resize – this option let you set different view settings so you can view your page rendered with different resolutions.  Even more handier now for testing mobile websites.

There are a ton of other features that I use less often but it’s good to know they are available when needed.

Plus, one of the things I like about the Chrome version is that the tools are a flyout menu and not a dedicated toolbar like they are in Firefox.  One of the early reasons I liked Chrome in the first place was that it removed all the clutter in the browser, so that stays true to form here, too.

Thoughts?

Have you used the Web Developer add-on for Firefox or now the Chrome Extension?  Do you have other extensions for Chrome that you’re head over heels about that you’d like to share?  I’m still experimenting with a few myself, so if you feel like leaving a recommendation, I’m all ears.

– Kris

No related posts.

It’s been a few months since my last serious photo shoot at the end of February, but I got the call yesterday in the afternoon to come out and shoot for the Nighthawks Hockey club I used to play for and also coached.

I have a quite a long history with the team – which you can read about in this recent post over at my web development blog – and since I’m on the Board of Directors and was already going to the game anyway, it wasn’t that much effort to pack the gear and bring it with.

Up Closer

Seeing as this was just a JV hockey game in the hockey rink I practically grew up in, it was pretty easy for me to find my way over at the end of the home team bench and getting the most unobstructed view of the action I’ve had so far in any of the hockey shoots I’ve done. The majority of the photos were right from the bench area and not shot through the safety class along the boards.

Shooting with both my Canon 20D and my Rebel XSi at the same time allowed me to shoot telephoto for the far end of the ice and more wide angle for the action up front.  That, and having the extra room not being confined in single seat at the other arenas made this shoot very enjoyable. The low lighting was an issue as always, but I just left the ISO at 800 and ran with it.

Hack Job

When we last chatted, one of the primary reasons I’ve put things on hold was because I didn’t have time for processing in post. That was the case here as well which I spent a few hours on Sunday to process these photos.  Not something I had planned for my weekend, but that’s how it goes.

The saving grace was that the primary purpose of these photos was for the team’s Facebook page, so I knew going in that my post processing workflow wasn’t going to be the same as it is for my vacation and landscape shots. In fact, it was pretty much a hack job flying through about 40 of the best shots using Adobe Photoshop Elements on my Mac. For the intended purpose, it did the job.

More Photos

If you’d like to see the rest of the images, you can view the Nighthawks vs. New Trier photoset on my webnelly Flickr account. Not sure if I’ll take on any more games this spring season, but it would something I’d definitely want to pursue when the Fall season starts depending on where things are by then.

– Kris

Well, if you see my little bunny friend here, you know something’s up.

As hard for it is for me to say this out loud, but it has come to the point where this amazing hobby of mine has to go on the backburner for awhile.

There are numerous factors playing into this very difficult decision – some positive, others negative – but I’m choosing not to dig into those right now. At the end of the day, my current workload and other demands on my time have left me very little opportunity to shoot new images. And even when I do get to break open the camera bag, I’m left with even less time to work with them in post and share them with everyone here.

Missing Maui

The other big impact this has on my overall happiness is that I’ll have to pass on the Maui Photo Festival this year – which is very unfortunate since I’ve been looking forward to returning ever since we got on the plane to go home after the ‘09 event.

I wish everyone involved with the MPF this year and those either returning or attending for the first time this year all the best – I really want to be there with you, and look forward to seeing the great shots and hearing about the wonderful experiences you’ll be having once it has come and passed.

What Now?

I don’t want to say this is the end of everything, so if you are so inclined, please bear with me as I work out my priorities elsewhere.  While I won’t be posting new images very often for the foreseeable future, I will try to add new content from time to time.  Whether it’s links to other photographers on Facebook or interesting articles or topics I come across, I’m hoping to keep this little site going so that when the time comes that I’m able to recommit myself, I can get going again rather quickly.

Many Thanks

I would like to extend a collective Thank You to everyone I’ve interacted with online or in real life as it relates to photography.  The last year and a half of really taking this hobby seriously has brought me so much joy, and networking and meeting other photographers has been a major part of that.

In a way, that interaction with my photography peers may be something that I’ll miss the most.  That, and the trips to Maui.

Happy shooting everyone, and keep those great images coming.  I look forward to rejoining you all someday.

– Kris

Photo: A de-saturated look at one of my previous beach photos.

Of all places to find inspiration for creative work in Photoshop, would you believe this one came from Windows XP?

I had this photo as my desktop background on my office machine – which unfortunately is still running the ancient operating system.  For those of you that might remember it, the Shut Down sequence fades your desktop to black and white in the background. And there you have it.

I couldn’t help but keep some of the color in the blue skies and a touch in the water, but always open to feedback.

– Kris

Another subtle but (I think) effective touch up to an old favorite with a minor tweak in Adobe Camera Raw and Topaz Adjust.

The Before Image

Overall a good image to start with.  Unfortunately it was not shot as a RAW file, so my options in ACR for recovering details in the shadows was somewhat limited. Fear not, though, as Topaz Adjust was able to help out there.

The After Image

The first change I made was in ACR to adjust the White Balance, since this was taken indoors and before I really knew how to use the Custom WB feature on my Canon 20D. You can see that effect in the white sheet under our furry friend here. From there, I increased the exposure compensation just a tad, but not too much because this was not a RAW file.

Next up, Topaz Adjust had its turn using the Exposure Correction preset and tweaking the Detail tab just a bit. You can see from the detail around his eyes and nose where there’s more detail and texture from his fur.  In the resulting image, his fur does end up looking a little lighter than it was in real life, but I’m willing to except that for the additional detail it provides.

Missing Our Little Friend

The photo is more special now than ever because our furry little friend is no longer with us. He passed last summer while fighting with a few medical issues on and off. This is by far my favorite image of Sky, and seeing it makes me wish I could still take more.

Thoughts?

Just like all editions of the Before and After series, let me know what you think of these adjustments and any other suggestions you might have.

– Kris

Photo: Our bunny Star in the process of launching out of her cage.

“Bunny blur” almost sounds like a technical term, doesn’t it?

Since Star here is unofficially becoming the site mascot when changes are made or things go wrong, I figured it would be fair give her the spotlight every now and again.  I’m also in the process of touching a few of her and our other rabbit – who has since passed – to move over to my photonelly flickr account, so I’ll probably have a few more uploaded in the days/weeks to come.

For now, check out the bunny tag for more photos of our furry friends.

- Kris

My little friend here is back to tell you about the new Blog Photos page I’ve added to the site.

One of the tasks I follow before posting a new photo on the blog is obviously making sure that I haven’t posted it already. I have my own tagging convention on Flickr that helps me track that, even with switch to a new Flickr account last year. What that let’s me do is see all my photos (kinda) in one place when doing this initial check.

At first, it lead to me creating the Blogged photoset on my Flickr account, which is actually what’s driving this new page. Not liking the small square previews or the 18 photos per page approach viewing this on Flickr, I decided to move it here to the site. Now, whenever I add a new photo to that set after posting it on the blog, it will automatically pop up on this new page as well.

Not Everything Yet

At the moment, the new page is only pulling photos from my photonelly Flickr account and not my original one that still hosts photos from the posts previous to the move. I’ve been re-processing the old photos and moving them over a few at a time, but to give you an idea of the numbers, there are currently 198 photos in the Daily Photos category and only 76 photos in the Blogged photoset.

Still, it’s a good sampling of where my camera has been and a feel for the variety of things I enjoy shooting.

Where to Find It

I decided to put the new page in the Portfolio section, so click there and find Blog Photos on the menu to the left-hand side. It may take a moment to load all the images, but once they’re up, click on any of the photos to see a larger view.

Links to the blog posts and back to Flickr will be added eventually.

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

– Kris

Back with another edition in the Facebook photographer series. This edition features the surfing snapshots of Clark Little.

Clark Little was one of the many cool photographers and instructors that I met at the Maui Photo Festival last September. However, you’d be hard to compare Clark on the same level as many of the other professional photographers holding workshops. You see, Clark isn’t your photography professional. In fact, he’s a surfer who, according to his bio page, only started his photography career in 2007.

So what’s so special about Clark?  As his website puts it:

Clark had a unique talent for taking off on hopeless closeout shorebreak waves and surviving in one piece.

Put a camera in Clark’s hands and you have some amazing works of art.

If you haven’t clicked on any of the links above yet, then check out his gallery on clarklittlephotography.com and you’ll see what I mean.

More Photos on Facebook

One of the reasons I wanted to feature Clark in this Facebook series is that just about every week, he’s posting new photos right to his page’s wall, which means right into your news feed. If there were ever photos as of late that you could share online without captions and have them constantly speak for themselves, these would be it.

Plus, if you want to meet Clark in person, pack your bags and come join the fun at the ‘10 Maui Photo Festival in August.

Stay Tuned

Be sure to check back for more editions of the Facebook photographer series, and if you’d like to request a fan page to be featured next, head over to my page on Facebook and leave your recommendation there.

– Kris

Taken by Kris Nelson on February 21st, 2009
Location: Whale Day Parade down South Kihei Road, Kihei, Maui

March of the Whales

Yesterday was the 30th annual Whale Day celebration at Kalama Park in Kihei, and although we couldn’t be there again this year, a lot of my Maui Tweeps and a few new friends had another great #MauiTweetup.

For more details about the entire Maui Whale Festival, visit http://www.mauiwhalefestival.org, and for more details about the #MauiTweetup, head over to A Maui Blog or check out @AMauiBlog’s new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/amauiblog.

Mahalo,
– Kris

Taken by Kris Nelson on Septmember 19th, 2009
Location: Honolua Bay near Kapalua, Maui

For this week’s Sunday Photo I wanted to share the latest panoramic image I’ve worked with from our trip last September. This one is from down by the water of Honolua Bay, and if haven’t seen the bay from this level, you really should make the trip down there.

For those you that might have seen Honolua Bay from the lookout point above, that boat there out on the water is the one you usually see from the top.  If you haven’t seen Honolua Bay at all, here’s a different view, too.

View Larger

I know it’s kind of hard to see all the details in the version above, so if you want to see more, check out the Large and Original views over on Flickr.

Aloha,
– Kris

Browse more Sunday Photos

Taken by Kris Nelson on September 18th, 2009.
Location: High Above D.T. Fleming Beach Park via helicopter

Right up the coast from last week’s photo, this one is of nearby D.T. Fleming Beach. As I go back through more of my photos from this aerial shoot during the Maui Photo Festival last year, I continue to countdown to this year’s workshops in August. Maybe we’ll see you there this time?

More Photos on Facebook

Over the summer, I shared a list of my favorite Maui themed Facebook pages, including the one I created for my other site, Maui by Photo.

Well, as my addiction to intrigue with photography has flourished in the past year, I ended up creating another Facebook page for my photography work.  Take a look at Kris Nelson Photography on Facebook if you’d like to see more of my favorite images. There are more than just Maui images there, but if you’re so inclined, feel free to become a fan and leave a note on my wall asking that Maui be shown front and center.

Mahalo,
– Kris

Browse more Sunday Photos.

Taken by Kris Nelson on September 18th, 2009.
Location: High Above Kapalua Beach via helicopter

Looking down at Kapalua Beach and the Ritz Carlton Kapalua Bay Residences to the left.

For a closer look of Kapalua Beach from the ground, check out this previous entry in the Sunday Photo series.

Taken by Kris Nelson on Friday, September 17, 2007
Location: D.T. Fleming Beach, Kapalua, Maui

A warm beach scene for those of us living in the deep freeze of winter on the mainland, dreaming of our next visit to Maui.

Maui Christmas Everyone!

It’s hard to believe there’s only a week left in ‘09 already. Cindy and I would like to wish everyone a very happy holiday and a happy and healthy new year ahead.

Island Christmas Posts

While we have yet to celebrate Christmas and New Years on the Valley Isle, it is still near the top of our list. Until then, I wanted to share some holiday posts from a few of my favorite Hawaii bloggers.

• A Maui Blog – A Merry Maui Christmas to All
• A Maui Blog – The Night Before Christmas Pidgin Kind
• Go Visit Hawaii – Twelve Days of Christmas (Hawaii-Style)
• Hawaii Vacation Blog – Christmas in Hawaii

I could list dozens of reasons why it would be so cool to spend the holidays on Maui someday. Rather than ramble on about that, I’ll just throw one out there. The Whales!

Wishing everyone peace and love,
 - Kris and Cindy

Aloha Friday Everyone!

The last Friday before Xmas, and for me at least, before a full week off for the holiday. Sweet!

Back to task, I reluctantly woke up from a very vivid dream about Maui this morning, and it was too unreal. I know it’s been a long while since our last post here, but it certainly isn’t because our Aloha for Maui has faded. The holidays, among other things, have been monopolizing much of our time lately, but that’s not what you want to read about, you’re here to Talk Story about Maui.

Our Next Trip(s)?

Perhaps one of the reasons gorgeous visions of Maui popped into my dreams last night is that we’re thinking about fitting in our next trip early in ‘10. Originally, we wanted to return in February for a week as we did this year, as that seemed to be an amazing time to see the whales. Unfortunately, our budget window for that trip sort of came and passed, so now we’re thinking of something in March.

We’re almost certainly going ahead with our plans to return in August for the Maui Photo Festival after such an amazing time in September, so that throws our annual trip budget a little curveball. Originally, the plan was to spend the entire month of August on Maui (2 weeks vacation, 2 works telecommuting) as an initial test to see if the island lifestyle was indeed for us. That is certainly something we still want to do, but planning two trips for consecutive years is forcing us to consider additional sacrifices and savings on top of what we already do each year.

Change of Venue

While we are evaluating a trip in March, we’ve committed to mixing it up from what we’ve done in the past. As you’re able to tell, our previous trips have all been focused out of West Maui, more precisely our absolute favorite Sheraton Maui Resort in Ka’anapali. No question that is an amazing home base for two weeks in paradise, but the accommodations we indulge in there, while well worth it, aren’t the most budget friendly.

So, in order for us to squeeze in two trips (a total of 5 weeks, actually) this year, mix things up a little bit and get a different sense of the island, and be closer to some of our cool friends in South Maui, we’re going to be looking at condo rentals in Kihei this time around. We’re not entirely strangers to the condo rental idea ourselves, since that’s what we do when make our seasonal visits up to Door County, WI. It’s just that we haven’t done so yet on the Valley Isle up to this point, and as I’m just starting to scratch the surface, there are a ton of options out there.

When talking about an early trip in ‘10, I had initially wanted to return to Hana and spend at least one night there as we did in ‘09, but that might have to wait until August.   The good news is there is still so much exploring (and photos) that we have on our list just around South Maui itself that it would more than fill up an entire week. Take La Perouse Bay, for example, which my friend and Maui photographer Peter Liu (@PeterLiu47) has captured so beautifully at sunset on his blog.

Stay Tuned

Although we still haven’t finalized whether our March trip to Maui will happen or not, I still hope to have more details soon and maybe even an update to the site here and there depending on how ambitious I get next week. To say I’ve been spreading myself thin would be an understatement (just ask my wife), but just because I can’t update this blog as much as I’d like to doesn’t mean the Aloha spirit in my heart is not always with me.

Wishing for the best, I can’t wait to see all my awesome Maui friends in person again real soon.

Mahalo,
– Kris

Taken by Kris Nelson on Monday, September 14th, 2009.
Location: Along Honoapiilani Highway in northwest Maui

This is a shot from our first day on Maui during our trip for the Maui Photo Festival back in September. It was one of the places along the end of Honoapiilani Hwy (just before the Kahekili Hwy starts) that we pulled over to enjoy the view.

Slow Going
You can probably tell that the updates and posts here at our blog have been pretty scarce lately. Well, after the Maui Photo Festival much of my free time has been behind the camera and in the digital darkroom as I feed my renewed shutterbug addiction. If you’re interested in seeing more of what I’ve been up to lately, head over to my photography site.

Never fear, though, our love for Maui is still as strong as ever. We’re excited to hear that the whales have arrived for their winter visit, and we’re targeting the end of November to lock down plans for our next one-week trip in February to see them again for ourselves.

Other Posts
Since there hasn’t been much here to read, I thought I’d add a few links that might help with your Maui fix.

• My reviews and photos from the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival
• A little insight into my experience at the Sunset Hula photo shoot
• Another great #MauiTweetup from October, courtesy of @jalove
• Some pumpkin picking at the Kula Country Farm thanks to A Maui Blog
• The official Maui Photo Festival 2009 group on Flickr

Mahalo, and enjoy,
- Kris

Aloha Friday
A cloud covered Molokai as seen from a private area of the Sheraton Maui Resort.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 3 months since my last Aloha Friday post. I guess it goes to show just how busy of a summer it has been for me. Regardless, I’m still working on getting things a little more regular here.

This photo is an oldie but still a goodie. It’s taken from one of the viewing areas at the Sheraton Maui Resort in Ka’anapali. In fact, it’s only one of many great views you can find at the Sheraton.

More FollowFriday Coming Soon
I’m writing this a little unprepared today, so the return of Follow Friday (aka #FollowFriday on Twitter) will have to wait until next week. I’m excited, though, because I met so many great people at the Maui Photo Festival last month and have a great list of tweeps you’d be interested in following.

And speaking of the Maui Photo Festival, they’ve recently announced the dates for the 2nd annual event next year. If you couldn’t attend this year, or wasn’t sure what it was about, let me tell you, it was absolutely amazing. I still owe you details and photos from my MPF experience this year, and hoping to feature some of them this weekend over at Maui by Photo. In the meantime, find me as @MauiByPhoto on Twitter and ask away.

Back to the dates for next year’s event, block off August 25-29 on your calendars. Also, there will be a big push on preregistration starting in a few weeks, and great early bird deals to save money on your registration. Check out their site (and here) as more details are released.

Hope to see you there next year.