Even more Interuptions

Social Media in general has become a obessed with interupting you amd keeping your attention (primarily so they can sell more "eyeballs" to advertisers). The time you spend can be worthwhile occassionally but not when you mindlessly have to scroll through hundereds of images, video or headlines. This is primarily a waste of your time yet the notification bell keeps tinging.Some phone let you change the tune but it does take a lot of self control not to pick up your phone or open a new browser window. It is made more complex when you have had enough and want to uninstall, it mostly has to be done individually by notification service by app or service, and it was easy to unsubcribe from say theei newsletter but the notifications where then defaulted back on. My current feeling is less than 1% of these notification actually need my attention so I now inore then all, and often missed phone calls!

Notificitaion * 99% => Interuptions

One respite was flickr it had a beautiful recent activity page which (automatically) curated a selection of your friends and those you followed and was the landing place when you logged in. There was no need for the endless scroll just to find something worthwhile to view and study for a while, not swipe up of down to get over it to the next 2 second glimpse in a length search.

Well that was until now ... ...

"Now that most of the Flickr community has had the chance to experience the new Notification Center, it's almost time to close the book on the Recent Activity page."

Flickr do offer a range of decent setting for notfications so it is worth visiting that page now and pruning back the default notification setting before they become to annoying.

Where is you tube heading?

 Well the YouTube studio blog update says they are going dark (that’s the option to use dark mode) but sadly this may be a good metaphor for the way the informational content of their offerings are heading.

Once upon a time (well a while ago now) YouTube was a great place to look up "how to" do stuff. Especially those fiddly little things about home maintenance and the things in the user manuals (does anyone other than me still read them?)_ A five to ten minute video that went through a process step by step was wonderful allowing a lot to get done.

Things have changed,, viewng YouTubes now has more than likely incorporated ads which often interrupt the process (ok a good step fr google to extract money from advertisers) but hopeless for our concentration (look up the dangers inherent in context switching - if you think these can be ignored). This smell of cash has unfortunately also attracted a lot of players seeking to game the situation with SEO and hacks to find and copy popular video and repackage them, but with flashy click-bait titles and less helpful information, often unresearched and misleading information presented in fashionable colours and well curated backgrounds. I can’t see and attempts by google at fact checking, it is ll about becoming a celebrity and “owning” the hashtag. Because this get more views and perhaps longer attention they become promoted in YouTube suggestions,

The true information gold is sinking to the bottom, and difficult to discover.

Why I am moderating all comments & deleting so many?

There are just so many bogus commenters around at the moment both here and on YouTube. Most of them are promoting software that I have mentioned and have links to “cracks" ways to download and run the software for free, but that always leaves the way open for different forms of malware. A few are pointless rants, leading to even more dubious places.

So I have turned on comment moderation here and on YouTube. I do read through and comments and definitely carefully visit sites linked in the comments. It is tedious for me but I don't want to leave you my readers venerable to any innocent looking  cyber-naughties.

I  would however really welcome genuine comments and recommendation of things you like or wish to draw my attention too. Just be patient it may take a week or two for me to keep.

Just a moment ... ...

 

If you have been wondering why my blog has fallen silent of late. There are two reasons, some health issues (I'm well on the mend now) and arghhh I've had enough of Windows upgrade! I'm and not looking forward to Windows 11!

I have been seriously battling against Windows 10 updates since October last year, even longer if you count my little toshiba netbook (now happily being an occassionally used Linux machine that has stepped up to replace others that have fallen). During this time three (and a half) computers have stubbornly refused to reboot after upgrades and I have wasted too many days trying to reload windows (using both thw offical windows  tools (which end up in deep loops of incomplete installs) and using Ventoy on a bootable standalone USB to install from various ISO files. Trying to install official Microsoft version of windows just lead back to stairng for hours at the Just a moment screen followed eventual with a blank screen and a computer which would boot.

I even tried out the available beta version of Windows 11, it ended quickly on all computer saying the computer was not suitable (no reason given) but I assume thay are in the too old category.

A real savioue was a version of Linux Lite (warning this site was pop up ads which I find annoying), a cut down version of Ubantu that can be run from the USB drive. Using it I discovered that all the computers had been repartiontioned to have a tiny inital partion (too small to load a viable version of windows onto. I then swap the haddrive on my main computer over to a resude harddrive that I had freshly reformated. That the half computer that died above. It look promising for a windows reinstall but soon arrived that the endless Just a moment loops. CHecking drive from the standalone linux lite USB It too was repartioned. Whate the?

Whilst there are hundereds of items showing up under the "failed windows upgrade"serach (you should be totally ashamed microsoft) I could not find any reliable dicussion of this repartioning on any forums. So I got brave and used the Partioning tool in Linuz light to investigate, sure enough I found windows.old and my user data in the second partion. Not so useful as I already had backs on external drives. Then I merged the first two partions and did a windows reset. My laptop had to run through a lot of installing and upgrading including more Just a moment times BUT eventually it was able to reboot itself. Some light at the end of the tunnel at last!

An updated Studio :: Painted & Decluttered

I'm still hobbling around a bit after a fall last month, nut these seemed the perfect time to repaint the bedroom I an using as my studio (its been accumulating junk for 25 years first as my office and them as a craft/junk room and eventually my studio)/ there was a lot to clean out (it was the council's hard rubbish collection) and the biggest ting I wanted to do was repaint, specifically to a neutral colour. I didn't mind the burgandy but it played havoc when trying to match colours and calibrate my computer screen.

I had decided on the Neutral Grey that photographers often call (18% grey card) to check colur cast and also exposure time. My theory is that this will help me with colour mixing. Very fortuiosly I visited Bunnings and got 4 litres of a nice neutral grey as close to the photographic refernce card as I could judge.

The clustered was both easier and harder to deal with. The guidig principal though is I only bring back the things I will be using and for which there is a defined place to store them. So that is dominately blank canvases, paper and sketch books. I also have watercolour and acrylic paints, brushes and accessories, pens, pencils and pastels. There are open book shelves, a slick stainless steel set of draws and a file cabent to hold all these tings. 

I also kept the old desk a a work area and place to "stack" my computer and I am intending to mount an old large flat screen tv on the wall as my main computer monitor. Still a bit of work to do here.

More ways to make movies without a movie camera

 I’m actually not a huge fan of the current social media offering. However they can be a great way to interact with others and in fact find a wider audience for your works. From my involvement in the Watercolour Society of Victoria. I have discovered what really counts is a sense of community, knowing and caring about others. Following what they are creating or struggling with.

An interesting video with a few good pictures and relevant story are sure to make a good impression. They are highly likely to stop the viewer scrolling through static thumbnails and endless selfies.

So I hope this little set of examples inspires you to create a video about yourself art making and showing your art.

Experimenting with IGTV

 I'm afraid IGTV never really appealed to me. Not sure if it was the vertical format or the type of video maker it was trying to gain access to. was it YouTube for the chronic selfie take who hasn't worked out how to turn the phone through 90 degrees and use the better lens on the back of the phone. Perhaps I'm being a bit cynical!

Anway no time better than now to experiment with the format.

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A post shared by Norm Hanson (@normhansonart)

Man the embed code is longer than the video! 

I took two short clips with my phone. then I used Canva (an on-line design tool) which can handle video and offered a neat way to append the clips together and add some text. I exported it as .mp4 and it seemed fine until I listened to the audio. So I recorded a simple voice-over on the phone. Uploading to Instagram was the real challenge but I eventually discovered it was simple if I did it from my computer via the web connection to Instagram. It didn't take so long and would I be inclined to do it again, Maybe?

Perhaps not as much fun as using mmhmm. Looks like my challenge to other artist continues.

'Make a video of yourself marking your art"