http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php Production notes, technology experiments, and the occasional light banter you've come to love so much. en mrpiano@yahoo.com Copyright 2010 2010-03-29T22:08:55+00:00 http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/redesigning_pixeldust_films/ http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/redesigning_pixeldust_films/#When:22:08:55Z After 2 months or so of solid work, I'm pleased to announce the relaunch of Pixeldust Films and Interactive. Along with the business, the website has refined itself and focuses on our three primary services: Web, Photography, and Video Production/Post Production. Thanks to all the folks who reached out and gave their guidance, opinion, and expertise.The new site has been an absolute blast to work on! I gotta tell ya, I haven't had this much fun working on a website since well, since my last website! I had to focus on every possible problem one might face when defining your online presence: What do we do here? How do we represent that? Who is my customer? Who do I want to be my customer? Does my site communicate to that audience? After all, that's what we do: we help others answer these same questions! I believe the new site speaks for itself, and successfully answers the questions above. Have a look around, and I hope you'll agree. Web Design, Expression Engine 2010-03-29T22:08:55+00:00 http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/the_high_street_caffe_photography_session/ http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/the_high_street_caffe_photography_session/#When:20:37:02Z This past week I was honored to visit my good buddy Don Syracuse over at The High Street Caffe and do a 1/2 day photography session. During these sessions, which I'm now offering to restaurant owners in the area, you get a 1/2 day session of the restaurant (indoors and out), lots of food photography, lots of "b" roll shots, detailed, wide angle, you name it.Then, you get a slideshow for your website, custom built, and of course you get a DVD with hundreds of great pictures.  I was able to get to the restaurant on a Thursday night, and that was a great night to shoot as it wasn’t terribly busy but I still had a lot of different dishes hitting the hot plate.  You can do so many things with the photos: use them on your website, print them for promotional purposes, use them for menus…you name it.  All high-resolution, ready for print! Chef Jay Wenner was, as usual, right on target in the creation of savory cajun dishes that have kept people coming back to the High Street Caffe again and again.  Of course, one of the perks was that I got a chance to eat some of the dishes that we made completely for the purpose of photography!  I was pretty full by the end of the session! If you are interested in this type of photography for your website, kindly contact me and we can get it rocking!  And by the way, I also did the video you’ll find over there and designed the website as well.  The High Street Caffe has pretty much utilized my services in every area.  Stop over to the website and check them out, and then, go get the best Cajun food you’ve ever had… Photography 2010-03-28T20:37:02+00:00 http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/i_phoning_this_in/ http://www.pixeldustfilms.com/index.php/spotlight/entry/i_phoning_this_in/#When:04:27:15Z I’m giving IBlogger a spin on my Iphone, and would like to see what the real capabilities are on mobile phones as it pertains to blogging. First off, I'm not liking the proprietary markup being generated by IBlogger.  It inserts its own footer (promoting themselves, a somewhat cheap move since I paid for the app, even for 99 cents). As well, it wraps my images in a bunch of inline styles. It validates, but this feature could be better: perhaps pick up the native Expression Engine defaults I have already setup in the EE control panel?Also, once I edit the text on the Iphone, it doesn't seem to be showing up correctly in the EE control panel.  Not exactly sure what the disparity is, but there is a delta.  And what about the ability to assign my blog posts to categories?  Perhaps I'm missing that, but it seems all posts go directly into a huge bucket, which could become messy over time.  EE's Moblog module, on the other hand, allows for a series of default behaviors, including the ability to assign a post to a category by default.  My pic uploaded from the Iphone just fine, and was placed correctly into the designated upload folder. Iblogger pulled in all my blogs once I configured it correctly, and the new user will need to point to the Metaweblog API in order to actually connect.  It took a little snooping on the EE forums to get there, but once connected, I had full access to the range of posts in each one of my blogs. Iphone, On the Go, Web Design, Expression Engine 2009-02-12T04:27:15+00:00