Blogs

June 30, 2008

I'm not one of those folks who spend their days longing to quit their jobs to become professional photographers. But I do love to run around with a camera. And I love to eat. And I enjoy words. And just last week, I started playing with a way to combine all three.

So often we see pictures -- whether online or in print -- with words beside them or under them to describe exactly what's going on in the photo. But what if we put the words on the photo, right there in the heart of the photo so that your eye sees the image and reads the words all at once?

We do quite a bit of this for hammock.com, and I'm going to continue to play and learn with my own personal photos, too.

Using picnik.com on images that I took of food I actually cooked, here are my first two attempts. Bananas Foster French Toast and a spinach salad with grilled chicken, apples and feta:

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June 20, 2008

Bugsy works on keeping my chair warm while T.J. does some blogging and Thunder chases cats away. It's Take Your Dog to Work Day!

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June 12, 2008

We're back from Washington, D.C., where a team of folks from Hammock spent several days covering the NFIB 2008 National Small Business Summit, using our "association community builder" approach to share the event. Video, text and photos can all be viewed at the NFIB Summit website.

The Summit is always a great time for learning about small business issues and sharing a meal and great conversation with folks from NFIB who are scattered all over the country. Putting email addresses and new faces together is always exciting for me. But a definite highlight for me this year was two seconds with Roger Staubach who spoke at the gala reception Tuesday evening. My Daddy is so proud!

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June 5, 2008

I'll be in our nation's capital June 8-11 for the 2008 NFIB National Small Business Summit. And I'm hoping to find a few minutes to sneak away for some yummy local bites with the politicos. During the scheduled agenda for the Summit, food is plentiful and always good. But if you happen to find yourself in D.C. during the Summit too and have extra time to taste the regional fare while you're there, here are a few local favorites:

• Ben's Chili Bowl and Old Ebbitt Grill. Politicians and lobbyists are regularly seen at both places.
• There are tons of excellent restaurants in the Chinatown/Penn Quarter area, which is very near the Summit location. A local favorite is Matchbox. There is almost always a huge line and at least an hour wait no matter what night of the week you go.
• Also in that area are Cafe Atlantico, Jaleo, Rosa Mexicano and District Chophouse. All are yummy and unique to D.C.
• Friends who work on the Hill say Hawk & Dove and Tabard Inn are also big political hangouts if you're hoping to rub elbows.

If you see me there, say hello. I'll be the one on the hunt for the best cupcake in town.

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June 2, 2008

And I didn't check e-mail. Not even once.

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May 12, 2008

I participated in my first wiki during the Super Bowl three years ago. It was basically the score chart page that goes around many offices during the Super Bowl or the Final Four. Everyone purchases a square or two, and if one of your squares lines up with the final score, you win!!! (This particular Super Bowl wiki was all for charity, with the cash going to the winner's favorite charity.) With fewer than 50 people participating, this wiki was small and easy to use.

Compare that to Wikipedia, the behemoth online encyclopedia, which has more than 2.3 million articles in English alone. In that instance, wikis can be rather intimidating. But they don't have to be.

Shifting Careers, the New York Times small business blog, has linked to a fun and informative little video that explains a wiki in a very easy-to-understand format.

Wikis can fill many needs from social networking to education to business collaboration -- one of our favorites around here is smallbusiness.com -- but they don't have to be scary. They can be fun -- and even generous -- if you play your cards right.

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April 29, 2008

When I was growing up, there was a picture of him hanging on our living room wall, right along side other family portraits. His voice could often be heard coming from the den and wafting down the hallway as he sang. I even spent a couple of July Fourth holidays picnicking with him in Luckenbach, Texas. And still to this day, I call him "Uncle Willie."

And when the Texas Monthly celebrating Willie Nelson's 75th birthday showed up in our mail yesterday, I actually got a bit choked up. I'm no designer. I've never shot a photo for a magazine cover, but I know when a good cover hits me like a ton of bricks. And this one certainly did. It's just him. No barcode, no cover blurbs teasing inside stories, no airbrushing. It's just Uncle Willie. Aging and full of history and music and legend.

A striking cover. That's all.

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April 21, 2008

My mail looks pretty much the same each week: bills, sales flyers, a couple of magazines. But this weekend was a bit different. Hidden in the middle of the usual stack of catalogs and envelopes there was a postcard from Taiwan and one from Finland.

About a month ago, at the urging of a friend that I met through flickr.com, I signed up for postcrossing.com. The premise is simple: Send postcards out from your hometown, and in turn receive them from all over the world.

There are people from 180 countries participating. And it's simple to do so after registering with the site: As a sender, you simply request an address from the system and send a postcard out. As a recipient, you wait to receive a postcard, then register it online. (Each postcard that you send and receive will have a code and the system tracks how far the postcard traveled and how long the journey took.) On April 11, the one millionth postcard was registered in the system.

Running to the mailbox each day reminds me of being in the second grade and having my first pen pal. Back then I couldn't wait to see what fun stamp would come on my next letter from her. And today, I can only guess what country my next postcard is coming from, what beautiful images of their country the sender has chosen to share, and what my new friend's handwriting looks like.

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April 15, 2008

We have an incredible team of graphic designers here at Hammock, Inc., and I take advantage of their creative tendencies every chance I get.

But sometimes, I receive a photo from a client that just needs to be cropped or resized before I can use it, and I don't want to bother the design folks or use up their time on such a simple task. So I'm learning to do some of that on my own.

And right now, those lessons are coming from picnik.com. This web-based software did not require anything to be downloaded to my computer. There was no box to buy and I can use it from any location where I'm connected to the web.

It's simple:

• Upload a picture from your computer, camera or storage device.
• Make your edits.
• Resave.

In a click, I can crop the photo, change the size and even auto-fix the lighting and color. If I wanna get really creative, picnik also allows me to give a cat some googly eyes, turn a tree neon green or pretend my photo was taken with a Polaroid camera.

I first noticed the editing power of picnik.com through flickr.com, but you don't have to be a member of flickr to use it. There is a free version and a premium version (only about two bucks a month if you go that route).

Is there a photo-editing software -- web-based or otherwise -- that you love? Let me know. I'd love to keeping learning.

Many thanks to my lovely model, Augie, for her time. She insisted on only green treats and bottled spring water in her dressing room, but other than that, she was a joy to work with.

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April 3, 2008

Well, it's been one week. One full week since I unplugged the Windows-based machine and jumped head first into using a Mac. There's been no blood or tears, but I did sweat for a couple of days.

All of my colleagues at the "Pie in the Sky" (the Hammock headquarters in Nashville) have been happy and avid Mac users for years. I've heard them talk about the ease of use, the protection from viruses and the great creative uses of the Mac. But I still liked the old comfort that my Windows machine gave me. I knew where documents were filed. I knew how to backspace. And I knew exactly what to do with the control key.

And just a week in, I'm happy to report that I now know (or am at least in the midst of learning) all of those things on the Mac. I've become close friends with command+Q and finder. And I'm truly impressed with how fast Mac wakes up in the morning and is ready for work.

I'm sure about a month from now I'll feel like an old pro, and Megan and Patrick -- who probably cringe every time an IM window from me pops up and begins with "hey, can I ask you one more Mac question" -- will be so glad to have me out of their hair.

Now can someone just tell me where to buy a backspace key?

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Summer Huggins

Managing Editor

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