Top 10 Search Terms for Feb

Here are the top 10 search terms people used to find my website. I have combined those terms that were VERY similar to one another.

REQ | Search Term

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26 - making fire in photoshop - Again this phrase brings a good number of people to my website.

22 - Poser Gallery - My gallery of art created by Poser is limited due to the fact that most of the images I make, I make for Melly, but I still get people checking out my site for them.

11 - Screen Destroyer - This is just the name of a picture I created but I find it odd that people are searching for this. Will someone please enlighten me?

9 - WinDVR2 - Ugh, again? I gotta quit mentioning this peice of crapola

9 - Flame Artwork - not only do people want to know how to make fire (digitally) but they want to see fire too. Pyros. ;)

7 - Archangel - I can't tell if they are interested in the Marvel Comics character or in the religious version.

5 - Entertainment PC case - Guess people are really getting into building entertainment PCs now. Unfortunatly I dont have a lot of info for these people.

5 - Micro ATX Flex Case Quiet USB - I don't fully understand what these people were looking for, but 5 people came to my site in search of it. Interesting.

5 - stainedglass - Huh?? I don't have anything about stainedglass on my website!

4 - Blender Artwork - I have a picture called Rainbow Caught in a Blender. But Blender is a freeware 3D application. I suspect that's what these people were really looking for.

Honorable mentions:

media snake - Must have been looking for info about the MPAA or the RIAA.

woman in neverwinter night gallery - Dude just play the game and you can see plenty of 3D women walking around. This one is a bit weird.

buffeting or explained or blinker or adjudged or deal - This one totally escapes me.

Ok it was a slow month in terms of good search phrases. Guess if I had boobs and talked about sex all the time or something I'd get more hits. Oh well.

Big Brother is back!

Read this FAQ regarding what Intel and Microsoft (along with others) want to do to your computer. It's a dangerous threat to computing as we know it and you should be aware of it. Ignore this issue at the risk of your freedoms and rights.

Shortcut for Windows 2000 and XP users

When walking away from my computer, at work, I like to "lock" my computer so no one can sit down and start fooling with my stuff.

The "normal" way to do this is to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and then click the "Lock Computer" button.

Well I discovered a shortcut! I totally stumbled on it. Hold the WINDOWS key, the one with the little windows flag on it, and then hit L.

Ok so it's pretty useless for those people who are running Windows 95/98/ME (I dont think it works on XP Home either), but I thought I'd share it anyway. Be thankful i'm so generous! LOL

Fire Tutorial

I know it's not quite the end of the month yet, but I was checking out the popularity of my tutorials and I found that this month alone, I have had 49 unique hits to my website from web surfers searching for how to make fire in Photoshop. At this month! Ok for some people that's not much, but I'm pretty thrilled about it.

If you use the search phrase, "making fire in Photoshop" as 13 people did, I'm #1 in Google. Rock on! LOL

I really should get some more tutorials up on here too. I have a couple in my head, I've just never gotten around to writing them. Shame on me.

One would be for the game Neverwinter Nights. It has an editor with the game so you can create your own games, but there is one tricky thing that many othes mentioned, but they never went step-by-step and it took me a week to figure it out because no one went from start to finish.

The other is a long promised tutorial on how to import DEM (Digital Elevation Maps) into Terragen to create more realistic landscapes. Honestly I'm going to have to relearn that one. I think there is new software for it too, so that wouldn't be a terrible thing.

I'm also happy to create tutorials or answer questions, if I can.

Building an Entertainment PC

My entertainment PC list has helped Rita. I'm not entirely sure how she found my site, but she had a few questions. Here is what she wrote, followed by my answers, best I could do. Please keep in mind that I'm not rich nor are any of these companies giving me parts to test with. I do my best to research the hardware, but I cannot promise anything.

I liked the list you put together for possible entertainment PCs. I was thinking of building something similar and wondered if you have any input:
What do you think of the AMD version of the Shuttle system (sk41g) with the All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 and AMD XP2100? Do you think this would get too hot? The 7500 doesn't have a fan, and AMDs run hotter. If it doesn't get too hot it would cost about $200.- less (http://www.directron.com/sk41g.html)
Let me know if you have any thoughts on this. (I have the 7500 + AMD Tbird 900Mhz now and it seems fast enough for TV/DivX media. I don't know if the 8500 is worth the extra money for a non-gamer-any thoughts on this is also appreciated.)
Thanks,
Rita

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The Shuttle mobo/case (SK41G) is a good case and has both positives and negatives regarding cooling.  One the plus side, it's aluminum which is much better at dissipating heat than the standard steel case.  The primary negative is the number of heat generating devices that you'll pack into they system. However as popular as these cases have become I would be very surprised if the heat levels reached unsatisfactory levels.  Especially since these cases are being snapped up by enthusiast builders, who tend to overclock.

Unfortunately, I have no proof of this and is purely conjecture.

You'll be fine with the ATI 7500 All-in-Wonder.  I believe the Remote-Wonder device will work with the older All-In-Wonder software as well, however that will be an additional purchase, if it's an issue for you.

I picked the 8500 because I was going to be doing both gaming and TV on it. I have actually since switched to an nVidia card for my gaming system, but
I'm still quite happy with the 8500.  But I doubt there is enough of a reason for you to upgrade, especially if you are not planning on gaming with it.

My TV system is running an original Athlon 900 (Slot-A) and it has no trouble with DVR functions.  The temperature, stays at around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with a pretty basic heat sink.  You have more cooling options with yours than I do and you'll be able to cool yours equally well and likely better.

Believe it or not, your real temperature "bad boy" will more likely be your hard drive.  The 7200 rpm drives tend to run a bit hot.  If you are looking to get a larger hard drive, for recording, look at 100GB or larger.  Most of the reviews I have read show that the slower, 5400 rpm drives actually run as fast as smaller 7200 rpm drives because they have a very large cache, often 8MB.

With my 40GB (7200rpm) drive I had to purchase a hard drive cooling fan kit that sits under it.  I have a full tower, so I have room.  In the Shuttle case you are looking at you will not have that kind of space.

Another thing to consider is that you can tell Windows, in the Power Settings control panel, to turn off the hard drive after a period of time. If you are simply watching TV, not recording, let it turn off.  It'll reduce the temperature.

A lot of temperature will depend on how you use the system and where you place it in your room.  If it's buried it'll be hotter, than if it's exposed.

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I hope this is helpful. If anyone notices any problems with any of this, please let me know. That's why I have a "comments" link.

F'n Snow

It's snowing AGAIN this morning. Ugh! This sucks. Glad I'm getting new tires put on my car this morning. Too bad they are better designed for rain than they are snow. Come on SPRING! Get here already will ya!

WebSite Update

I've updated, seriously, the photography section of my art gallery. It's not 100% complete at this point, but you are free to check out the changes. I've added a number of photos that were previously not availible on my website or were hidden. I'm not totally happy with the navigational design, but it'll do for the time being.

Part of the reason for this change was to remove the family photos that I had posted. My website gets a lot more hits than it used to and certain family members may prefer not to be posted up here. Also my website is intended to be a gallery of my artistic tallents. Most of the family photos are far from artsy.

I also wanted to reorganize the photos themselves. Now rather than being organized haphazardly by events or other criteria that made sense at the time, there are now basic catagories; Architecture, Art, Creatures, Flowers, Landscapes, and People. The last one, People, will be pretty small at first. I'm still not sure if portraits are my forte or not yet. Currently I just have a picture of my dad and my friend San. I had others but those are the ones I liked. Others were just personal, not artistic or particulary "good" photos.

Please be patient as I work on getting up the individual photo pages. Consider the thumbnails as teasers until then. ;)