Thursday, August 7th, 2008
I had a great idea yesterday. I was thinking that since I like to take pictures and post them up on this blog, maybe people would appreciate a dedicated photo gallery.
One of the things that always annoyed me what that no on can really see the detail in my photos. The new camera that I got takes great pictures, but when I shrink them down to fit in the blog, I lose so much of the close up detail. For the blog, I shrink the photos down to 503 pixels. For the photo gallery, I will shrink them down to 1000 pixels. That should let the average blog reader (civilian) see what I want them to see.

Jay Gaulard Photo Gallery
Where can you see this marvelous new gallery? Well, right here. The gallery is an open source application developed by Coppermine Photo Gallery.
I just put a few photos in there for now. I am not going to drive myself nuts be going back to every photo I ever took to try to fill it up. Also, I am reserving the gallery for only really good photos…not everyday things I post here. Well, some of the stuff I post here, but only the good stuff. I will also refer to the gallery in my posts if I have a better photo over there.
When visiting the gallery, be sure to click the thumbnail photo. When the photo gets large, click it again for the really big one. That’s where you’ll see some really cool stuff.
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Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Last night, after we went to Circuit City, we stopped by The Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk in South Windsor, CT. It’s near Manchester. We had to visit Pottery Barn to get some plates and napkins and things like that.
I am not even sure how this turned into a blog post, but since I did have my new camera on me and the night was just perfect, I started shooting away. Leave it to me to suck the romance out of anything. It was quite romantic. It was dark out and there were so many couples holding hands. Just as I was mentioning to Laura that everyone was holding hands, I realized that I wasn’t. I grabbed her hand and made a night of it. Of course, she looked up at me with that big smile.
I told you I took some photos. These aren’t the greatest, since I was dark, but they’ll do.
I kept telling Laura that this area is reminding me more and more of when I lived in Atlanta, GA. Everything is new and very nice.
I snuck this shot without too many people seeing me. I have a feeling they would’ve called me a dork.
Just in case you ever wondered what the inside of a Pottery Barn looked like. Ahh, the joys of a new camera.
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Saturday, July 19th, 2008
A few days ago, I noticed something strange happening to my Sony Cyber-shot 4.1 mega pixel camera. It was kind of the same thing that happens to all my Sony digital cameras after a few years…I had to start smacking the side of it to make the display correct itself. Before I smacked it, I noticed horozontal lines across the display, and strangely enough, in the photographs themsleves.
Now, if you have been following this blog for any amount of time, you certainly know how fond I am of taking pictures. With this in mind, I walked over to the wall and saw the writing on it. A few moments later, I was on CircuitCity.com ordering a new camera.
It really doesn’t take me very long to do these types of things. I basically visited the camera section and narrowed it down to show just Sony cameras. I like Sony cameras because they plug in easily with a USB cord. I looked at the 12+ mega pixel cameras and saw that only point and shoot one on the page. It’s the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera. I read a few reviews and bought it.
I recived the package today and opened it. One of the first things I noticed is that, while it does use a USB cord to connect to the computer, the connection that fits the camera is not a traditional USB connection. This was a little disappointing because I really like to have things that use USB cords. I don’t want to have to worry about forgetting this special cord when I am traveling. Oh well.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - front view.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - side view.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - rear view.
I installed the battery and turned the camera on. Then, I took about three pictures. I tried to take a forth picture, but was notified that there was no more memory on the camera. Good thing there was a deal at Circuit City where they gave away a 2GB Sandisk memory stick with the purchase of this camera. Also, the problem was that the camera was set to the highest quality. You can imagine how large the file sizes of the photos on a 13.6 mega pixel camera can be. If you can’t, they are about 4MB each.
I installed the 2GB memory stick and took a few more photos. I then plugged the camera in to the USB cord and opened the folder on the computer. Oddly, I could only see the photos on the memory stick (mass storage). I deleted them. Then, I took the memory stick out of the camera. I re-plugged the camera in and saw the first photos I took (internal storage). I tried to delete those photos from the folder in the computer and it wouldn’t let me. I learned that if you are using internal storage on a digitial camera, you can only delete the photos by using the camera’s delete function. If you are using mass storage, you can delete them from the computer.
There are many features on this camera, such as:
- 13.6 megapixels
- 3x optical zoom (which people don’t think is all too great for the price)
- 2.7” LCD display
- Dual image stabilizers (which I need because I have a bad habit of taking blurry photos)
- Face detection (detects up to 8 faces and focuses on each one of them)
- 9-point auto focus
- Smile Shutter mode (the reviews say this really works)
- Dual aspect ratios (normal or widescreen)
- HD slide show with music
- Image optimization
- Easy shooting mode
- In-camera image enhancements
- Scene modes (this camera actually has a description on the screen when you change modes - this is good because I really never knew what any of them meant)
- Burst shooting mode (up to 100 shots consecutively at almost two shots per second)
- Shoot movies
- 15MB of internal memory
If all these features work as described, you will start noticing higher quality photos in my blog posts.
Peace out.
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