memory for your mother, for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is Sunday (May 9th). Lexar is suggesting that you consider giving portable memory storage (for data) as a gift...

At first thought, it may not seem like a great idea...but, hold on: it's something she can keep things on and take with her anywhere she goes. She can put important information on it, like a will and health records. Pictures and videos can be available for her to show-off. And, she can copy some music files so she can listen to them.

They can be very stylish. For example, Lexar has drives available in different colors and sizes:

16GB JumpDrive FireFly (Red)

8GB JumpDrive FireFly (Charcoal)

4GB JumpDrive FireFly (White)

2GB JumpDrive FireFly (Black)

"...It also serves as a fashionable accessory and comes with a key chain hole so it can be easily tethered onto a key ring, attached to a backpack, or hooked to a purse or briefcase..."

To enhance it as a gift, I thought you can: purchase a USB drive...copy files to it that she will love (pictures, audio recordings, and videos of and from family)...and then give it to her on Mother's Day. With a tissue, because there's a good chance she might think it's so sweet she'll shed a tear or two...

http://lexar.com/jumpdrive/jd_firefly.html

camera (and web) images

Tom called the radio show about digital photography, and we discussed format preferences...here's what I think I know:

There are two basic kinds of computer graphics: raster (composed of pixels), and vector (composed of paths).

Most of the time it is best to use the vector format for all type, line art, and illustrations. Bitmaps are considered best for photos or images...

Vector graphics are best suited for page layout, type, line art, or illustrations. You can increase and decrease the size of vector images to any degree and your lines will remain crisp and sharp, both on screen and in print. The primary disadvantage is that they're unsuitable for producing photo-realistic imagery. They tend to have a cartoon-like appearance.

At this time, the most common and accepted format for vector images on the Web is Shockwave Flash (SWF). Another standard for vector images on the Web is SVG

Due to the nature of vector images, they are best converted to GIF or PNG format for use on the Web.

Raster images are more commonly called bitmap images. A bitmap image is composed of pixels. Pixels can be of differing colors. Most bitmap formats are TIFF, PCX, and BMP.

Consider using...

For web pages:
GIF - Graphics Interchange Format - The GIF format uses compression for smaller files and faster downloads.
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group - the JPEG compression can be "lossy"...save the image using no compression or "lossless" compression and make JPEG copies from it.

For printed documents:
TIFF - Tagged-Image File Format - Used for bitmaps only. The TIFF format is supported by virtually all graphics applications.
EPS - Encapsulated PostScript - A file format used for both vector graphics and bitmaps. EPS files are unique in that you can use them for vector graphics, bitmap images, and type.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/aboutgraphics/a/bitmapvector.htm

http://www.sketchpad.net/basics1.htm