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Question: What color is your terminal background?

My Answer: It had been set to one of those Apple-supplied background pictures, actually, but I just changed it to 80% opaque dark green. Spring is in the air, and everything around me is about to turn green: why not my Terminal? White text, naturally.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Should I ever need a 6'x4' picture (yes, feet) printed for less than $75, I now know where to get it.

Found it via a Digital Rebel Forum I've stumbled onto today.

I took a panoramic photo (6 pictures stitched together) of Machu Piccu and wanted a larger print made. I emailed 3 different places that I found online. They all said that they could print it up to about 30" - 35" wide by about 6-8" tall. Two of the places wanted about $100.

Big Print Shop charged me.......$6.83. So I bought two of them and paid about $17 including shipping and tax. They're about 32" x 6.5"

They charge by the square foot, no matter what you're printing or how big it is.

Quality is purported to be very good. Wowee.

Question: When you die, how do you want to be "handled"? Buried, cremated, drawn and quartered… what?

My Answer: I'll take cremation. It's cheap and spacially economical. I don't want to sit in an urn, either: scatter me over a golf course or my lawn or something.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

My Rebel XT has a 1.6 crop factor, which basically means that - in 35mm terms - a 135mm lens is the equivalent to a 216mm lens on a full-frame camera. This much I understand - simple math.

What I'm not so sure about is "zoom" factors. I realize that "zoom factors" are not the way people like to think about still cameras - it's more a P&S term or a digital video camera term - but I have one simple question: does a standard 100mm lens show 4x as much as a 200mm lens? (half, but in two directions, height and width, resulting in one-quarter the viewing size)? In other words, is a 200mm lens "zoomed" in twice as far as a 100mm lens (regardless of the crop factor)?

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She sings, too! And has a blog. And vacations somewhere warm and sunny. So, uhh, there you have it! Conclusive proof that… okay, so I'm bored. But there you go.

Rounded CSS corners without rounded images? Yep!

iPhoto's "Enhance" just plain sucks. So much so, I'm not sure why it's even there - a great stage demo, perhaps? I realize it's intended to be a one-click solution for those who don't know enough to adjust things manually, but it doesn't even seem to be good at that. It destroys pictures more than it helps them.

Here's an example. I realize it may not be representative, but in my experience, the results seen here are pretty common:

Shadow detail? Nah, no need for that! The originals were a bit washed out, as my Rebel XT seems to shoot washed out pictures. That's "A Good Thing™" as it prevents blowouts and blackouts - loss of detail in highlights and shadows - because you adjust things in in post-processing.

iPhoto's "Enhance" button, on the other hand, isn't "A Good Thing™" as it routinely destroys pictures. Yes, in the comparison below, the after photo has a bit more "pop" and contrast, but it's phony. Please, people, spend sixty seconds (or, at most, three minutes) with iPhoto's sliders. You'll get a picture ten times better than just clicking "Enhance."

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ISO - Determines amount of grain or "digital noise." The higher the ISO, the more grain you'll see, especially in shadows. In bright light, ISO 100 works fine. In low light, higher ISO gets you reasonable shutter speeds and DOF. For sports, high ISO "freezes" action. As a general rule, use the lowest setting possible to reduce noise.

Aperture - Size of opening that allows light in. Smaller apertures (higher #s) let in less light and have greater DOF. Larger apertures let in more light and have less DOF.

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Question: Which birthday was your favorite? Why?

My Answer: The one I'll have in a few days. I'm with Carey, and I've never been quite as happy as I am now.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: What's your favorite "______-a-day" calendar?

My Answer: I'd like a word-a-day calendar, but I get those delivered via email. I used to get Dilbert calendars, but I see those in PulpFiction every day. Carey got me a "Golf Hole a Day" calendar, and it's my current favorite. There are a lot of these kinds of calendars out there, so I'm curious: what do you have? What do you like?

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

I spilled some Reese's Pieces on my desk today and, remembering what I'd read about f-stops and depth of field, I set about trying different shots with different shutter speeds. I set my Rebel XT to "Tv" mode, or "shutter priority" mode, put the camera on a tripod, and took different pictures. I could have chosen aperture priority mode (Av), but seeing as how I was just going to be taking pictures over a range, I didn't see much difference.

I took pictures at everything from 1/8 second (f5.6) to 4 seconds (f20, the picture you see here). The difference in brightness as well as depth of field is pretty interesting. Focal length was 132 mm (without any multiplication by 1.6) and I used the pretty standard 200 ISO.

I'm slowly learning more and more about my new digital SLR. One of the things I'd like to try is to put together a list of "assignments" that I could do (and perhaps share with folks here on the blog).

By "assignment" I mean something like: "night shot at ISO 1600" and the corrolary, "night shot with tripod." I mean things like "B&W Showing Emotion" and "smooth pan of something in motion." Perhaps it could even be the start of a new blog, and people could post their own images to the various "assignments." The assignments would cover a variety of techniques and subjects.

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Question: Which scientific unknown would you most like to see solved? Why?

My Answer: This one's easy. Cold fusion. Goodbye $100 electric bill and reliance on oil, hello personal nuclear reactor.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Have you ever punched a wall?

My Answer: Only the padded ones in gyms, and only very gently. I get upset sometimes, but my anger manifests itself in verbal outbursts, and even then they're usually under my breath (particularly when playing golf or in the company of others).

This question comes about because I was perusing a camera forum and people were sharing pictures of their hands, and stories of how many bones they'd broken or dislocated after punching walls. I have no freaking idea what could ever make someone punch a wall. Walls are solid, and even drywalls have studs every 16" or so.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

I've never met a more intelligent (or mischievous) two year old. The kid's a handful. She's going to make some guy very, very scared someday. 😀