Entertaining assininities encountered today.

For a laugh, today I browsed the DPReview discussion forums. DPReview has some quite acidic flame wars which is one of the reasons I never bother setting up accounts on forums. I'd rather just marvel at the stupidity being posted without being drawn in to correct misinformation then being attacked because the truth isn't to other users' liking.

Today, several topics worth a belly laugh came up.


If I have been hired by a school as a photographer to work in another state, do I have to charge sales tax. 

• If you're going to work in another state then you need a business license for that state and probably a local municipal license also. Tax could be paid in either state as long as it is paid. There is a caveat here. Government institutions do not normally pay sales tax but the sales tax return has to be filled out Well, the truth is that if you're going to work in another state then you need a business license for that tate and probably a local municipal license also. Tax could be paid in either state as long as it is paid. There is a caveat here. Government institutions do not normally pay sales tax but the sales tax return has to be filled out 
• The discussion did not center around that though and it's debatable as to whether somebody serious about business would even ask such a serious question on something as frivolous as an online forum. I've asked several local sole traders whether they bother with forums and the answer is a resounding no and the reason is they don't have time to play around.
• The advice given was, of course, laughable and clearly given by people who never have been in business and likely never in any form of management. The sad thing is that somebody who doesn't know enough yet might follow their advice.

Good enough to fool clients.
This is a very common answer when questions are asked. In this instance somebody had blurred the background of a photo to allegedly make the subject stand out. Several things come to mind here.

• If fooling a client is a consideration then the person considering such an action is thinking in such an immoral way that criminality is going to be the very next move. Fooling people is not something anybody particularly in business should ever consider. The ramifications are too severe and wide reaching.
• If the subject is so insignificant in the photo that it cannot easily be identified without manipulation then the photo is bad in the first place.
• These blurry backgrounds are not artistic. They are a failure of photographic equipment to resolve an image satisfactorily. In the old days, lenses were not well designed and film speeds were slow meaning that anything outside of the prime area of the lens was blurred and especially so in less than great light. Photographers have been so used to the failure of equipment that they now consider a photo that's crisp across the frame to be abnormal. 

Scams

It seems every day they're posting about some scam via eBay, Amazon or the photographic retailers. 

• Usually the alleged scam is because the buyer has not read nor understood the terms and conditions of the deal
• Allied to the above, too many people seem to think its OK to buy an item, use it briefly then return it. Highly dishonest.

Given the above and that's just from today, I would consider most alleged photographers as being a very dodgy proposition. Indeed I am reminded of a documentary about a 19th century photographer who was perpetually broke and who would pawn his camera, pretend photographs didn't come out then use the clients money to get his camera back then actually take the photos. Very dishonest and to be frank, an attitude that seems to permeate photography at every level.

As an example, look at the professional photographers. Laughably, they demand deposits. This is not because they get too many bookings to cope but because clients are so rare that they have to use a non refundable deposit as a hook to snare victims. The actual photography is pretty much nothing. Anybody with a cell phone can take decent photos. 

Yes, the above image is a cell phone photo, taken in the dark with a Nexus 4. Now, could somebody with a camera costing thousands have taken a better picture? Possibly but it would have been a close call.

Reading photo forums provides a very interesting view of the world that's so distorted as to make the reader question what substances the writers have consumed. According to forums...

• Clients know nothing
• Clients have to be fooled
• Photography makes money
• There are never enough photographers to satisfy demand
• Only the best equipment will do
• Only the latest equipment will do
• If equipment is more than a year old, it should be tossed out and replaced with new
• If customers aren't coming it's because your photography is bad
• If websites aren't getting visitors it's because your photography is bad
• If websites aren't getting visitors it's because your website design is bad 
• If nobody is ringing after you advertised in the yellow pages, your photography is bad
• If nobody is ringing after you advertised on the side of your vehicle, your photography is bad.

Notice there seems to be no recognition of the fact people are not falling all over themselves to buy photography? Seriously, when was the last time you hired a photographer? I can honestly say I never ever have. I appeared in high school group photos but never hired the photographer and very often never bought a photo. I had some guy in Walgreens do some passport photos but they were a sales clerk and they used a compact. That's it - I have never ever hired a photographer. Very few of my friends ever have either. In fact, most friends that get married get the guests to pool their cellphone images and skip paying a bum with a camera.

So, go ahead, read the forums. Have a belly laugh but remember to come back. Reality still needs you!

The Social Media Magic Bullet!

For those that say there is no magical bullet for social media, shame on you. There is a magic bullet that works very well for all social media. I've used it and it works brilliantly. I digress though. 

Today I looked at my iPad and noticed on the settings screen it lists Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. That's actually really bizarre because I wouldn't let apps of such foulness near my iPad.

Android devices like Windows computers are well known for being loaded to the gunwales with trash software. Sadly, it seems that Apple has leapt onto the same bandwagon.

Thus far I have found no way of deleting junk ware or in this case, junk icons, from any mobile devices. Computers are far easier and in fact there was something called "Dell Decrappifier" that deleted all the junk software automatically.

As far as social media magic bullets go, the best one I have found is simply to delete the social media account in question. It frees your time, lessens your stress and allows you to be more creative. Social media is all about conforming to an artificial norm where people superficially pat each other on the back. It's a fake world full of fake people. Don't tell me that you have met all the people on your Facebook friends list. You haven't, probably never will and don't even know if those people really exist. They could be some kind of online app run by the CIA to play social engineering experiments on you. That 35 year old buxom maiden is likely to be a 50 year old unemployed drifter from Wisconsin who's sitting in stained shorts in a dirty trailer, surrounded by used syringes and empty beer cans.

Twitter
To deactivate your account: Sign in to twitter.com on the web. Go to your Account settings and click on Deactivate my account at the bottom of the page. Read the account deactivation information. Click Okay, fine, deactivate account. Enter your password when prompted and verify that you want to deactivate your account.

The reality is that it takes 30 days to become effective. Once you've done this, you need to delete all your Twitter cookies in order to avoid accidental reactivation of your account.

Flickr
Sign in to Flickr. Visit Your Account. Click Delete your Flickr account. Read the important messages, then click OK-NEXT. You'll be prompted to enter your password to confirm your account deletion. Check Yes, I fully understand... Click DELETE MY ACCOUNTNice and easy. Very final.

Vimeo
visit your Account Settings. Scroll down until you see the “Account Status” section and follow the steps for deleting. This will remove your account and all your content from Vimeo.

Facebook
This can be a real bitch. I have an old account with no personal information on it registered to an old email address. I reactivated email address and tried to log into Facebook to delete my account and was met with a refusal to allow me to proceed without sending Facebook personal documents such as a copy of my drivers license. That account cannot be used nor deleted it appears. Facebook is one of a myriad of random websites and I'd no longer send them my drivers license than I'd hand my wallet to the town drunk.

Looking at Facebook it seems accounts can only be deactivated, not deleted. The magic bullet is probably to delete the content on your account then to change your name to Joe Spud.

Now for those that think they're going to make money off social media via sales or advertising, it's not going to happen. I've tried it off and on, following advice to the letter and it never ever works. It's like these careers websites... You can spend your life unemployed if all you do is apply online for jobs. Let's see... How did I get my last few jobs...
1. Walked in after lunch, sought out the personnel manager and chatted to him. I got the job and stayed for 5 years.
2. Walked in, saw the project coordinator, got the job and stayed for a year.
3. I'd applied for a job on careerbuilder and clicked down a list of one click apply jobs. I had no idea what I was applying for. Had a phone call two days later, went in and got the job. Stayed there for 2 years.
4. Driving past, I saw a sign, went in on my way home and got the job.

See how very little of that involved the Internet. I make more money every week by working than I've ever made from Adsense or any other internet garbage.

Toshiba $&@#

A long while ago, I bought an iPad mini 2. This was to replace an appalling series of android tablets. To be fair, Android was ok as a system. It was just the build quality of the tablets that really sucked, hence I went through 4 in 2 years. Similarly I went through goodness knows how many substandard smartphones before getting one that actually worked.

Anyway, connecting a camera or memory card to my iPad is almost impossible. I could just plug a camera or card reader right into an Android tablet. That's until I saw this...

It's a Toshiba wifi adapter that allows me to see what's on a memory card or a memory stick. That's as far as it goes though. The software is atrocious. It's on a par with what somebody given a very short time budget having finished a series of evening classes in programming would have produced.

To be blunt, the software purports to let me download images and videos but nothing like that ever actually happened. All it allows me to do is to rename folders and view images. It's about as half assed as can possibly be which had me checking Toshiba's website to see that it really was a Toshiba device and not some 3rd world device with Toshiba's name on it.

Let's just say that I consider myself to have been ripped off. I can't believe I actually paid $10 for this piece of plastic trash. The problem with this kind of trash is it's not fixable, it's not salable, it's not donatable and it's not even givable - it is landfill. It's designed to scam a small amount of money and not to take too much landfill space.

The hunt continues. I gather this might be a good time to bemoan Apple's connectivity issues. Apple has great hardware but poor connectivity. The Android stuff has lousy hardware but great everything else. Maybe tablets just aren't ready for mainstream use yet?