Demphoto of the M & D Creative Concepts Network

Choose an attractive photo

Kodak has a ton of good information, how about wall art?

2007-08-09T23:17:00.000-05:00

This offering is going to be a little different, I'm not going to talk about the details of taking pictures, but identify an idea for a creative project found on the Kodak Projects & Ideas web page.

How about some wall art?

Select a photo of something you find attractive—beautiful scenery or maybe a family portrait—that can easily be divided into 3 sections vertically.

Crop your photo

Using a photo editing tool, crop the image into 3 equal parts. To start, zoom in on the left third of your original picture. When you're happy with that section, save it, and repeat with the remaining 2 sections.

Print your photo

Make an 8” x 10” print of each section.

Hang your wall art

Place each print into its own frame, and hang side-by-side, leaving about 1/2" between them. Then step back and admire your new art!

As always, enjoy the art of photography,

Darrell Mishler

Pick your shots

2007-07-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

One of the lessons I learned from a professional photographer friend was to pick-my-shot. Since hearing his advice, I have taken the time to get the feel for the area, place that I plan on taking photographs of. If you have a plan, visit the site during the day, review the directions of the best positions for the pictures that you want to take. Where is the best shot looking east or west, remember the color saturation of the morning and evening light.

Having spent time reviewing what I am going to take a picture of, I'll come back when the light is right - a morning sunrise reflection, an evening sunset color swath and return to the locations that I want to capture.

Here is a break down of from the bbc.co.uk site and is demonstrated by a picture from Tom Ang:

If you see a potential shot, walk around to find the best position from which to take it.
You may also have to wait for the best light.
The best position may depend on the zoom setting that you choose.

Once again from Darrell, enjoy the art of photography,

Darrell Mishler

Color and your photographs

2007-03-18T14:19:00.000-05:00

Once again, I'm using a resource from BBC - A Digital Picture of Britain. There is a good explanation of using color to make your photograph more interesting. One good practice is to be aware of "hot" and "cold" colors. Reds, Oranges and Yellows are warm or hot colors, where Blues and Greens are cool or cooler colors. Choices of color add to the contrast and make the photograph more "interesting" to the eye.

One of the most frequently cited examples of the power of color contrast is to have a blue water lake scene surrounded by green forest and a red canoe sliding across the water at an angle either from lower left to upper right or visa-versa.

Here are some good tips from the above BBC source:

Redder colors will create a warmer feel for your shots than blues or greens.
Color affects the way we look at pictures, so try to use color creatively in your shots.
Look for images that contain contrasting colors, such as red and green or yellow and purple, to add tension or drama.
Using shades of the same colors will create a sense of harmony.

As always, enjoy the art of photography,

Darrell Mishler

Lines for a better photograph?

2007-03-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

Lines in your photograph can add symmetry or chaos. What is your purpose for having the lines, are the lines interesting or are they detraction? Here are some hints for effective use of lines. This is another tip from the BBC web site that provides a lot of good information on taking interesting and artful pictures.

You can create a sense of direction using naturally occurring lines.
Direction and orientation of lines can imply certain feelings.
Slanting or 'oblique' lines imply movement, action and change.
Curved lines or S-shaped lines imply quiet, calm and sensual feelings.
Lines that converge imply depth, scale and distance, for example, the outer edges of a road converge as it disappears into the distance, giving a two-dimensional image three-dimensional depth.
Repetitive elements create a sense of rhythm, which is often more interesting if the rhythm is broken by a missed element.

Flash and lighting

2007-02-23T18:15:00.000-06:00

Not a complete expose on the subject of course, but some things to keep in mind when using a flash and lighting techniques.

These tips are from: Digital Picture of Britain web site.

Use your camera's red-eye reduction setting (if it has one) when taking flash photographs of people.
Avoid red-eye by turning up or providing more light in the room.
Aiming the flash directly at your subject can result in harsh lighting. Try to bounce the flash off a reflective or white surface, such as the ceiling, to produce a softer light.
'Fill-in' flash (which may be a setting on your camera) is useful for subjects that are quite brightly lit from behind

Enjoy the art of photography,

Darrell Mishler

Light Source, Time of Day and Tripod

2007-02-08T20:51:00.000-06:00

Here are a couple more tips on taking better photographs. One of the resources that I use when I need a refresher on how to take better pictures is the Kodak web site reference “taking great pictures”. There are a lot of good articles and how-to descriptions there.

This contribution will talk about light source, time of day and using a tripod.

Light Source: If you are standing with the light source (sun) coming from behind your subject, you will loose details of the subject. Sometimes this is preferable; you can create silhouettes and gain some artistic representation. If the silhouette isn’t the reason for taking the picture, move your camera close to the subject face and take a meter reading. If you’re camera has a light meter locking setting, choose the setting from the location of the subject and expect the background to be washed out. Changing the depth of field to compensate for the extra light behind the subject is a topic for another article.

Time of day: When you take pictures during the day makes a great deal of difference when it comes to the amount of color contrast that is captured on the screen, film. The closer to sun rise or sun set the better. When the sun is in the lower ¼ of the sky, the suns rays have to travel through more of the “atmospheric” filter before they hit the subject of your photograph. This color saturation will provide more stunning colors and a richer looking picture, give it a try.

Using a tripod: If you are alive and trying to hold a camera stead by hand, your heart will be beating at a normal rate. No matter how steady your hand is, there is still a pulse racing through the appendage that is holding the camera. The best way to achieve an accurate representation is to mount your camera on a tripod and use a remote release. The quality of the tripod does make a difference too, but that is also another topic for an article. If you want to capture the texture of the feathers on a bird, the individual hairs on a cat or dog, using a tripod will be the only way the accuracy of these things can be captured.

Enjoy the art of photography and the results of your picture taking.

Darrell Mishler
www.mndcreativeconcepts.biz
www.demphoto.com
www.wild-rice.biz
www.motreasures.biz

Taking a better snap shot...

2007-01-31T20:30:00.000-06:00

Most people take pictures of family, friends and the occasional family vacation. One of the most frequently asked questions I hear is “how do I take better pictures?”. There are three things that you can do to take a better picture without getting into the details of photography. A lot of detail can be found on www.demphoto.com photography resources.

These suggestions are for the casual photographer.

1. Don’t be afraid to get closer – fill up the view finder with the subject of your photograph. If you are taking a picture of a family member, get close enough to make out the contours of the face. By getting closer, you’ll be more able to capture the personality, not just a record of where the person was at time the picture was taken.

2. Be aware of the background. In other words, watch out for the UFO’s (Unidentified flying objects). There are often branches that might look as though they are sticking through the person’s head or a clump of branches from a bush clouding the lower corner. Make sure you are identifying the subject of the photograph.

3. Keep the sun to your back, natural light will heighten the features of the persons face even if you are close. One thing to be aware of when you are close and the sun is to your back is where your shadow might be. That can be a UFO as well.

These are three little things to take into consideration the next time you are out with the family enjoying your time and wanting to capture the feelings with your camera.

Darrell Mishler

New design for M & D Creative Concepts Network

2007-01-20T22:15:00.000-06:00

We will be publishing a press release, but I wanted to announce some of the major effort going on with the M & D Creative Concepts Network of web sites. Already updated are the landing pages of M & D Creative Concepts, Motreasures and Demphoto. Not only have we updated the landing pages for these web sites, we have migrated to an new shopping cart - online shopping site. Our shopping site is still under construction even though it's open for business. Customer service is job 1 and all available security is in place. We are proud to be able to accept Google Checkout, Paypal, check and money orders. If you are concerned about buying online, you can contact us for a telephone order.

So much for the blatant plug for our new network, we want to welcome new browsers, shoppers and surfers to our new network.

In future posts, I'll be talking about taking better pictures and making your online experience a better one. I know that that's quite a diverse agenda, but thats the purpose of blogging - get the information out there...

Safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

Ways to get yourself heard...

2006-07-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

Good day all,

I was thinking about all of the things that I haven't been doing for some time now. I haven't updated my RSS feeds for 5 months, I haven't submitted my web sites to the search engines in at least 4 months, I haven't updated my affiliate links in some time too. I haven't created any press releases and by not doing all of these things, I have let my rank coast and it has cost me position in the search engines - I need to find ways to convert traffic to my store www.mndcreativeconcepts.biz/catalog from visitors to purchasers.

One thing that I'm sure you are aware of, is that it takes time to build your brand, especially on the web. I have read and believe that it takes constant effort and probably a year to a year and a half to garner the kind of brand knowledge and loyalty that it takes to be successful.

I am going to make a committment to my success, I'll update my RSS feeds weekly, post new articles to my blog at least weekly, submit my web sites at least monthly, find and post to new and existing threads in forums that are pertinenant and generate a press release at least once a month.

I think I'll start by re-submitting web sites to search engines, that's always easy, I'll review the products that I have listed on Overstock.com Auctions. I'll make sure that the links I have to and from TOASA are current and have meaning. My RSS feed takes a little time, so I'll set up a spread sheet and keep track of all the different feeds that I have.

One more thing for today, I'm have been gathering information that I would like to share about SEO and getting noticed and garnering sales, the first contribution is going to be about writing a press release, this is an excerpt from Writing Press Releases.com:

There are seven basic elements that every press release should have in terms of content and how it appears:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: These words should appear in the upper left-hand margin, just under your letterhead. You should capitalize every letter.

Contact Information: Skip a line or two after release statement and list the name, title, telephone and fax numbers of your company spokesperson (the person with the most information). It is important to give your home number since reporters often work on deadlines and may not be available until after hours.

Headline: Skip two lines after your Contact information and use a boldface type.

Dateline: This should be the city your press release is issued from and the date you are mailing your release.

Lead Paragraph: The first paragraph needs to grasp the reader's attention and should contain the relevant information to your message such as the five W's (who, what, when, where, why).

Text: The main body of your press release where your message should fully develop.

Recap: At the lower left hand corner of your last page restate your product's specifications, highlight a product release date.

I hope this has been helpful - safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

dmishle@gmail.com

M & D Creative Concepts

M & D Creative Concepts Store

demphoto on Overstock

Gourmet Wild Rice

M&D's Firemountain Classified Ads

TOASA Member

Just Be Good To Yourself

Excerpts from an article for blogs

2005-12-12T05:40:00.000-06:00

In an article from:

Rick Hendershot is a writer and publisher of The Linknet Publishing Network. For an example of how you can put the power of blogs to work for you, check out Power Listings at ===> http://www.linknet-promotions.com/power-listings.php.

He writes about the need to use blogs to build your business. He suggests referenceing the sites that you want to advertise within the content of your blog. This only makes sense with the automatic syndication of blogs. This also makes sense when it comes to adding inbound links to each of the web sites that you are promoting. These links may be created for the purpose of adding traffic to your site, but they stay within the data-base of the search engines and effectivly give you another "quality" inbound link.

I have several web sites that I would like people to find, they are
MnDCreativeConcepts, MoTreasures on Overstock, Demphoto on Overstock, Wildrice a Gourmet Food and MnD's Firemountain Classifieds.

Here is a quote from the article:

**Two Important Conclusions about Blogs**

First, if you want to have something reflected quickly in search engine searches, writing about it in a blog is the best way to accomplish this objective.

Second, since the search engines follow links, placing links in your blog posts to other sites to which you want to draw attention to is a good way to get them spidered as well. For instance, say you introduce a new product on your website. The best way to have the search engines visit your site quickly and reindex the changed pages is to make an announcement in an active blog. The spiders will visit the blog, follow the links pointing to your website, and index the changes to the website.

This is why links placed in blog posts are generally the most effective way of drawing attention to other targeted websites.

As always, safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

dmishle@gmail.com

M & D Creative Concepts

demphoto on Overstock

Gourmet Wild Rice

M&D's Firemountain Classified Ads

Just Be Good To Yourself

What's important in search engine ranking?

2005-11-30T12:49:00.000-06:00

I was having a discussion with another web site owner the other day and we came up with another way to get inbound links. This doesn't need to be a secret, it will create an inbound link to all the web sites that you enjoy and the people that you endorse.

Well, what is it, you ask? It's as easy as adding something nice to say about them using one of your RSS items. I support and enjoy working with several web site owners and am able to create an RSS item for serveral of thier web sites - a truly good way of "making their web site important" in the eyes of the search engines. Give it a try and see what else RSS can do for you.

I just read an article about "how to raise your search engine rankings" by Trent Brownrigg that has several important considerations. Here are some of them abridged.

The main elements to getting top search engines rankings are:

Number, quality, and relevance of inbound links pointing to your site

Fresh, relevant, quality content (needs to be added frequently)

Keyword density of your home page or any page you want to rank highly

Links, Links, Links

As of right now, the web sites that I manager have a ranking of at least 2 with one actually into a ranking of 3, this is a lot of work, but it does improve over time and with effort.

As always - safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

M&DCreativeConcepts

Wild Rice a Gourmet Food
Just be good to yourself!

M & D Creative Concepts

Demphoto

Wild Rice

What should your RSS subject be?

2005-10-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

Good evening all,

You TOASA members can look at the FAQ and find out how to build an RSS feed using www.rapidfeeds.com. Review the FAQs and the technical details explain how to create your feed and items, this article is to try to give you some reasoning as to what you might deliver as "what's important about this new item".

This is going to sound a lot like our own ourprecioustreasures - Mike, but this really makes sense when it comes to what to identify for your RSS feed item.

I need to give credit where credit is due: I am paraphrasing from an article - How To Write Persuasive Subject Lines - by Karon Thackston © 2005 http://www.copywritingcourse.com

Like Mikes talks about, it takes 3 seconds and 40 characters to grab your readers / subscribers / buyers attention, how you use that time and number of characters is vitally important to continuing to communicate with your reader.

In her article, Karon Thackston says that,

"Because subject lines are often truncated at around 40 characters -- and because email readers usually have their index fingers poised over the delete button -- we're left with about three seconds and approximately six words to make an impression"

What do we have to do to grab their attention, give them something that piques their interest or identify "what's in it for them".

Make an offer

Examples include
Half Off Leather Boots Until Novermber 1st
Top 10 Reasons (5 Reasons), why it's better to buy from a TOASA Member
Your Link on High Ranking Web Pages
TOASA 10 Promotion - 10% off the next purchase from a participating TOASA Member
Have you seen the TOASA Two-Fer?
TOASA Manic Mondays are for you

State a benefit

10% Off your next TOASA Purchase
Build Link Popularity & Traffic to Your Site
Free shipping with Make It Mine
Free shipping with 2 or more purchases

When you are adding items to your RSS feeds, practice thinking in the terms of 3 seconds, six words, what's in it for me and what's the benefit.

I sincerely hope this helps understand the need to add items to your RSS feed and to keep them fresh - your customers want what you are offering and want to know more about what's new.

Darrell Mishler

M&DCreativeConcepts

Wild Rice a Gourmet Food

Gourmet Gifts from California

I'm PayPal Verified

Just be good to yourself!

Internet presence check list?

2005-10-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

I have been sitting here thinking about all the things that I should be doing to keep my / our presence current on the internet. Online auction, TOASA, Overstock.com Auctions, blogs, RSS feeds and web submissions are all on the list of things to do weekly, monthly and even daily.

I thought I would offer you the opportunity to join the TOASA email list. Keep current with TOASA promotions and sellers specials.

Click on the button to subscribe:

What is the formula to make your presence on the Internet more predominant. There are things that you can do to. What are they and making sense out of the process can really enhance your exposure on the internet. Let's deal with daily ...

Daily, it has been suggested that you update the content on your web page and blog. What is the focus of your web page, add new content, what is selling, what can you offer to your customer or visitor? Adding an item of interest, new recipe, bit of history, manufacturing process or just something that adds to the awareness of you visitor to online fraud, anti-virus update and other free stuff found around the internet.

Weekly, update your RSS feeds, delete the stale ones and create new ones. Tell your subscribers about your new auctions and promotions. Submit your web site to at least the major search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Scrub the Web, and others. This really doesn't take too much time and there are a lot of free submission sites, take advantage where you can.

Monthly, have your customers heard from you in a while, it's not an imposition to let them you have new items for auction, added elements to your web page. Stay fresh in their minds and your rewards will be more traffic and with more traffic comes more sales.

I think I'm going to have to formally make myself some table check lists and try to keep up with the repetative nature of keeping our presence current.

Have a great day and safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

M&DCreativeConcepts

Wild Rice a Gourmet Food

Gourmet Gifts from California

I'm PayPal Verified

Just be good to yourself!

How long is the Gas and Oil issue going to hurt?

2005-09-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

Although I have no data to validate my statements, I am protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

First, the oil companies that supply us, the general public are gouging us, the American people. Oil company’s profits are soaring out of control. We pay for it at the pump and have started paying the price of home heating and all other consumables. Is this against the law, it is if the activity fits within the criteria established by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has deemed three types of conduct so lacking in economic justification as to be "per se" illegal. The "per se" violations include price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation schemes, and are generally prosecuted criminally by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice.

In order to validate a claim of price fixing, we can all go down to the corner gas station and see that the price of gas goes up and up. Not just at your own community gas station, but gas stations around the country. Take us back to the seventies when supplies were artificially lessened to force the increase in gas prices. This is a revisit of the same practices and policies.

Do we see market allocation schemes, Enron did it, are the gas companies doing the same? The news broadcasts are all abuzz about natural disasters that limit the amount of refined gas based on a specific geographic area, what is happening to the rest of the gas refineries?%

Are you in control, or is what you read?

2005-08-12T22:23:00.000-05:00

Control or out-of-control?

Oh my what an issue. Feelings are hurt, who's mine, yours? If they are mine, I own them and it's up to me to deal with them. If they are someone elses, they are resonsible for their own. Who is the owner here?

I have been sitting by and watching people get upset, hurt, angry and despondant over the past few weeks, just because of what someone has said in print. Am I insensative to what they have to say, no, but I own how I feel.

Internet trolls just want to roil the water and see how much mud they can turn up in an otherwise peaceful, even flowing stream. It seems that they can't stand to see something running smoothly. Or is it a feeling of a lack of self confidence, frustration over missed opportunities? Who knows.

Here is some advise (solely my opinion):

The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls.

When you try to reason with a troll, he/she wins. When you insult a troll, he/she wins. When you scream at a troll, he/she wins. The only thing that trolls can't handle is being ignored.

Don't give away control when you really don't want to!

Darrell Mishler

Win an Auction, List for Free!!

Just be good to yourself!

Another beautiful morning in the Northland

2005-07-29T08:28:00.000-05:00

I can't help but love this time of day, the sun is up, the birds are chirping outside my window, and there is a soft breeze coming in my window. Hey! I should be fishing.

One of the things that makes my day is when I can help other people achieve their goals. It's always a win-win situation. I post an occational update on my other blog MnD Security Blog and people stay informed about security issues, password management, new or recent virus's to be on the lookout for and have questions about what anti-virus software to use. When I can answer these questions with confidenct, it makes me feel good.

One of my primary life's tenets is "doing the right thing for the right reason". By listening to your stomach, you know if it is right or not. What I'm saying is that if it feels right, then it "is right". Give yourself the time to feel, that goes hand in hand with rationalizing. If they aren't in harmony, then it's probably not "a good thing".

I know that I am rambling and I guess this is the place for it. So, have a wonderful day and we'll be talking again soon.

Darrell Mishler

TOASA Member

Valid 07/28/05 @ 2 PM EST - 07/29/05 @ 2PM EST

10% off Entire Order!

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Linking the internet networking secret

2005-07-10T16:28:00.000-05:00

Links

Links in your web page aren’t enough to help you out, they help the search algorithm for ranking your page among the millions of pages on the web. The more links you have to your page the better your page “fits” into a search result. Links on your page are the beginning though. That leads to reciprocal linking

Links to a powerhouse

Links to a place like Overstock Auctions leads to more traffic for you and the association with Overstock will result in raising the importance of your web page to a higher position in search results. This works both ways, when someone searches for Overstock knickknacks, they first find Overstock then the next most important web page or site is listed beneath it, hence driving more traffic to your web page through association.

Reciprocal linking

Now the more important factor in determining how important your web page is to searchers on the internet is “reciprocal linking”, the links that lead back to your page from another page, hence raising the importance of you page to someone else.

Helping you, the web page owner

Affiliate linking banner ads on your web page provide an opportunity to attract more customers to Overstock through your page, linking to your home pages and “view all my auctions” gives people a short cut to your auctions. These things are a part of the calculation of value. That calculation comes from the number of people that visit vs. the number of transactions that take place. Where do you want people to buy their merchandise? From your auction!

Darrell Mishler

TOASA Member

Earn a $10 Overstock Shopping credit today!

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MSN Search Tool Bar vs Google Search Tool Bar

2005-07-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

I've downloaded and installed both of the tool bars on my Internet Explorer and found that they both work pretty well for the average user.

I did find that there was a conflict with the MSN configuration though; I do a lot of web design and the MSN indexing function was interfering with the sites that I built using FrontPage. I removed the tool bar and have not had a problem since.

I do use FireFox regularly and Google has just made a tool bar available for it and I have downloaded it and am using it now. I haven't seen problems or issues. I'll keep an open mind. I prefer to use FireFox because of the ease of Tabbing pages. The MSN tool bar didn't tab as intuitively as FireFox, but I am biased.

Darrell Mishler

TOASA Member