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The summer is just about to come to an end and the wife and kid will soon be going back to school.

I can't say I'm over the moon about it, but it's not the worst thing to happen, either. 🙂

I really recommend you check out one or both… And spread the word. If you'd like to publish an article for sale (or free!) on DSLRU, we'd be happy to talk to you about it!

Using Beauty Dishes
http://dslru.com/courses/S2003

While light modifiers like umbrella lights produce a soft light that can make anyone look good, beauty dishes produce a more directed light that accentuates angles and curves. Fashion photographers love the possibilities that this light provides! In this comprehensive course, celebrity photographer John Ricard covers how to shoot with a beauty dish. He’ll walk you through the basics of a beauty dish, including a comprehensive look at light falloff as you adjust the dish. Then, he’ll walk you through two different types of shoots with a beauty dish, letting you see both how he sets up his shoot and how he works with his models.

This course contains a 22-minute video.

Creating HDR Images with Photomatix
http://dslru.com/courses/D2004

In this course, Reed Mangino delves deep into the world of High Dynamic Range (HDR) images with Photomatix Pro. Reed discusses every processing mode and option from both a technical standpoint as well as real-world use cases. He also covers camera setup and shooting techniques. Furthermore, this course covers post-processing your HDR images. Most people think that your work is done once you close down Photomatix. In fact, the opposite is true; many of the best HDR photographers spend hours post-processing their HDR images, and this course will help you learn how to do that processing.

This course contains a 59-minute video.

The Sand Trap's golf forum is likely going to be switching to Huddler by about the end of the year.

Huddler is a "community" software package that's grown up quite a bit in the past year. It's a forum at its core, but it layers on a few more things like products pages and user reviews of equipment that are pretty nice.

One of the sites that's on Huddler is epicski.com, and they're similar to a golf forum in many ways.

I'm waiting for a number of features (including reputation) to be implemented before we consider actually making the switch, but when we do Huddler will be in charge of advertising and the sales thereof, freeing me to worry about the content.

I'll have more to say about Huddler once we actually get the ball rolling, I presume, but for now it's a waiting game. In the meantime, they're submitting some redesigns to me for comment, and I'm liking how things are looking.

I'm once again catching up on blog posts. I've got 2/3 of them written - I just have some holes I want to fill in as I go along.

Seriously, as a writer who presumably cares about his craft, you'd think he'd get this right. Next time I check in will he be talking about how "your not going to like" something or "what there trying to say" or something?

When discussing the first computer - the Mark I at Harvard - a funny exchange:

Letterman: How did you know so much about computers then?"
Hopper: I didn't. It was the first one.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 77); »

Another monetary redesign, another flop.

Ugh. The first African American president? And he trumps the first president (of any color, height, weight, etc.) HOW???

Jeez. I don't care what party you support, that's just stupid.

Desktop pictures (wallpapers), .ics, Excel, and other formats, all available now for download from the Penguins site.

Any fall TV shows you plan to watch?

I can't say that there are many (or any?) that I'm looking to watch. I'll continue to watch Bones, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, Fringe, 30 Rock, Castle, and a few others. I'll pick up a few shows like Blue Bloods and give them a try but I'm not all that interested in picking up too many shows.

I haven't been on it yet, but this looks fun. Too bad Waldameer is closed for the season soon.

I've been playing with it off and on, and I've gotta say I'm impressed. Over 3G I experience no buffering issues, good sound quality, and an incredibly impressive resolution.

These are still frames, so they're going to look blockier than things look in motion, but I still think they're impressively detailed:

Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don't want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches.

More here. Hilarious.

I originally goofed this survey up by not including the proper spacing in the {democracy:##} block, so here it is again:

I've been a lifelong "wallet" guy, but I'm using a MoneyClamp and kinda digging it. If you visit The Sand Trap and reload enough times for the MoneyClamp ad to load (currently on a 50% rotation so you shouldn't have to reload much, if at all), you can save 20% on a MoneyClamp of your choosing.

Anyone do any dissections at home? It seems that a kit - with six to eight specimens to dissect - will run only about $50, and for that price it'll be a really fun thing to do together over the winter.

I've just spent 20 minutes or so adding friends to two lists on Facebook: "Friends & Family" and "Golf."

I thought that posts could be made available to people based on the list in which you've put them, but I can't seem to find that option. Is it available somewhere? Am I missing it somehow?