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Just going through the administrative motions (updating WordPress, going through referrall logs, etc.) and noticed just some odd things going on. You may or may not be interested in this, but hey, it’s mostly for my own records anyway.

1. Referrall logs can reveal some interesting sources, such as a referrall from Anarchy.org.au, “Your starting point for the anarchist movement in Australia.” Um, should I really be driving traffic to this site?
2. Amazingly, I’m result 16 for “EFY” in Google, which is kind of crazy. EFY is a massively popular weeklong youth summer program in my church, and to find myself at number 16 for my post EFY Rocks! is kind of funny.
3. In the top 100 results for search phrases used to get to my site are these interesting results:
   • 4: Picture of Cuba
   • 11: Christmasy names
   • 24:illegal fireworks
   • 35: 143
   • 36: 2382
   • 48: womenswallstreet
   • 59: huggues hoppe married
4. My browser marketshare goes like this:
   • IE: 26.28%
   • Firefox: 14.95%
   • Mozilla Compatible Agent: 10.56%
   • Opera: 7.42%
   • The Rest: Mostly RSS readers and bots

I think that’s most of the interesting stuff. Evidently I need to target traffic a little better! Happily though, my most numerous hits for getting to my site involve WordPress and Travelogue, and Travelogue downloads are just up up up! Thanks for visiting everyone!

Now, perhaps this is just me. But after having lots of fun with Google Maps and looking at the stunning images from Microsoft’s coming MSN Virtual Earth, I noticed something that I consider slightly interesting. Where are all the people?

This is most noticeable on the sample images from MSN Virtual Earth, where the resolution and quality is amazing. You will often see cars parked out along streets, vehicles at stop lights, etc. But what I cannot see anywhere is an actual person! No one walking on the sidewalks, nobody in convertibles, nobody in the swimming pools of the sample image here.

I zoomed in quite close to the large version of this image, and the only place you could possibly say there are people is on the lawn chairs in the bottom left-hand section of the image. But still, does that mean that every single person at that precise moment was either laying on a lawn chair, indoors, or invisible? I think not! Not a single person was walking on the sidewalk, getting into a lawn chair, or swimming? Imagine that, you look around and every single person in this large area is laying down, no one is up moving! Crazy!

Now, perhaps I’m missing something (and if I am, please let me know) but I doubt that the producer of these images, Pictometry is going to take the time to go into each photo and clone out every obvious human, but I can also see why they theoretically would. Two words that are wreaking havoc in our modern day sue-happy world: Personal Privacy.

But anyways, can someone spot some people for me so that I don’t feel so paranoid?

There have been many requests on how to edit and insert a customized picture into the polaroid in my Travelogue theme. It does take a bit of Photoshop know-how, perhaps in the future I’ll make it easier to do. That said, it really isn’t all that difficult, just follow these steps:

1. Copy the picture you want to insert as the polaroid, but do not paste it yet.
2. Turn off the top three layers that serve as an intro to the PSD.
3. Open the “Polaroid” layer set, and find the layer with the current image in it (should be the fourth one), click it.
4. Paste your new image in. It should appear as a new layer above almost everything, but below the polaroid. If not, move the layer around until it does.
5. You may wish to rotate your picture layer to make it appear straight inside the box. This is kind of a “tweak it till it’s right” step.
6. Now Ctrl + Click on the vector mask (the little grey looking box next to the actual preview) of the old polaroid picture layer. This should load up a selection of the outline of the inside of the polaroid. Hopefully you can get the step in correctly, it’s the tricky/important one.
7. Finally, making sure that your new polaroid picture layer is still selected, click on the “Quick Mask” button at the bottom of the layers palette, should be the second one from the left, a grey box with a white circle in the middle.

If all done correctly, you should now have a perfectly masked new polaroid picture! Just pop into ImageReady and export that slice with the new pic! Oh, how to do this? Well…

1. Save the file you have just edited.
2. Go File > Jump to ImageReady. Photoshop will now open up ImageReady with your file.
3. In the toolbar, select and hold the Slice button (looks like a knife) until other buttons pop up, then select the Slice Select button (looks the same, but with an arrow).
4. Select the slice that contains the polaroid. You should only have to click on it.
5. Go File > Save Optimized As, and change the bottom drop-down to “Selected Slice Only”. Then save it where you want!

And that’s it, you should now be set. I would highly encourage you to learn Photoshop, if you have it at your disposal. You will be a better webizen for doing so. Good luck!