ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Hi Everybody. For this week's tech lesson, I'm posting an excellent article that Bryan Wilson wrote for our own FoleyPod blog about keyboard shortcuts.

Written by Bryan Wilson

Why do you have a computer? How do you use your Mac? Is it for work? Fun? Are you a creative artist? Real-estate agent? Student?

When I sit down in front of my own MacBook, and roll up my sleeves, I’m usually dividing my time between 3 - 4 basic functions: Using the internet to do tech research, editing music or video, communicating via email, iChat, or Word documents, and wasting some of that time on stupid surfing.

I’m fairly new to the Mac, I’ve only been a dedicated Mac user for 2 years, and the moment I learned about Keyboard Shortcuts I could never go back.

Continue reading "Introduction to Keyboard Shortcuts for new Mac users." »

Posted by Chris Foley at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | author bio

Do you remember when CDs first came out? They were the coolest thing in the world, except for a few minor issues, like they didn’t really sound very good yet, or that they came in those ridiculous cardboard long-boxes, and only a very small selection of the music you wanted to buy was even available in the new Compact Disc format. In short, there was a lot not to like, but the new format piqued the interest of record retailers who wanted to be able to fit a larger inventory into their record bins....

Continue reading "The CD superstore, in your computer" »

Posted by Chris Foley at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | author bio

Written by Chris Foley

So, you’ve got the digital camera, you can’t remember the last time you actually had to go and develop a roll of film! It’s so easy to take great photos now, and you take them all the time. You may have kids, you probably have a pet or two in your life, and you live in Southern California. Lots of opportunities to take lots and lots of digital photos! And quite quickly, you find yourself drowning in hundreds, if not thousands of photos. Sitting down to the computer to enjoy your photos or email them to friends and family, or to select the best of them to create a book or calendar can be an ordeal, if you’re not careful.

Sound familiar? If so, I have some great news for you. You can organize your photos very quickly and very easily and then use iPhoto’s advanced search functions to locate them in a flash later on. But there are a few things we have to do to your photos first.

Continue reading "Getting Organized in iPhoto" »

Posted by Chris Foley at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | author bio

I've been playing with some of the latest web 2.0 technologies as it relates to the election. In particular, the little widget below is a feed of discussion pulled from many different sources into one window. The focus is on the social network sites on the web such as Twitter, YouTube, Google Reader, Flickr, Seesmic, etc.

In addition to this widget, you might be interested in checking out the Twitter Election stream. It's just another fun way to stay connected and talk about the election season. And finally, if you an iPhone user and an Obama fan then go grab the Obama iPhone App - an amazing use of the technology. It can search your contact list, sort them by State (in order of importance to the election), and then track if you have called them about the election.

Posted by Kenley Neufeld at 05:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | author bio

(photo credit to Ray Smith, Daly Road Graphics)

1) Do you now or have you in the past personally supported "Stop the Trucks!"

The City Council has agreed to give financial support to the "Stop the Trucks" organization. There are some legal hurdles that need to be addressed, but I believe we need to find a way to make it happen.

Continue reading "Stop the Trucks: City Council Candidate, Betsy Clapp, Answers Our Election Year Questions" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 02:41 PM | Permalink | author bio

Danger Apparently Still Being Ignored by Planning Division

(All pictures are courtesy of Maureen and Dan Smith, Wheeler Hot Springs)

In a August 21, 2006 letter regarding the Ozena Valley Ranch Mining project, the Board of the Ojai Valley Municipal Advisory Council warned Christopher Stephens, then the Director of Planning for the Ventura County Planning Division and now the head of the entire Resource Managment Agency for the County, that "SR-33 has suffered many landslides and slipped roadways in past years. The vibration created by the mine's trucks on SR-33 may be adding significantly to the problem of road slippage, slumps, and slides. No review of vibration as a potential impact on SR-33 has been included in the Draft MND and vibration from trucks may present a significant adverse impact on the environment."

In February of 2008 a portion of Route 33 collapsed into the river. Below are a dozen photographs of the damage done, indicating the collapse was far more significant than originally reported.

Continue reading "Stop the Trucks: County Planning Officials Failed to Heed Warnings About Potential Road Collapse " »

Posted by Howard Smith at 04:31 PM | Permalink | author bio

FILM FESTIVAL DATES
November 6-7-8-9, 2008
PRESS CONTACT: Maureen McFadden
(805)966-0190/momcfadden@aol.com

Ojai’s Ninth Annual Film Fest
2008 SLATE OF FILMS ANNOUNCED ALONG WITH CELEBRITIES

Ninth Annual Ojai Film Festival spools out its programs November 6 – 9 with 57 independent films, lifetime achievement honor ceremonies, and a seminar to fill in the four-day event. Hosting sponsor and headquarters for the festival is the premiere AAA five-diamond award-winning resort, the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa.

Ojai has become a viable path for filmmakers and their work to get noticed. Hollywood producer, Peter Guber said of the Ojai FF at the podium of the Toronto Film Festival last year, “Ojai is the next Telluride!” That festivalis like Ojai, a four-day event focused on films one would not otherwise see in the mainstream but of a very high caliber. Artistic Director, Steve Grumette, who was one of the founders of the festival in 2000 said, “There are so many more films being made since the advent of digital technology, and in the past eight years, the festival has sent over a dozen films on to win the highest honors in the industry, including Academy Award nominations and Oscars.”

Continue reading "Ojai Film Festival Announces Slate of Films" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 06:29 PM | Permalink | author bio

"Stop the Trucks" has turned its attention from Diamond Rock to the Ozena Valley Ranch and Gravel mine.

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting the council agreed to give financial support to the Stop the Trucks Coalition, after a victory for the citizens’ group in August...

“After this agreement has been worked out, keeping the Diamond Rock Mine’s trucks out of Ojai, it has been pretty clear to me that whatever this group did, they did it successfully,” said Mayor Sue Horgan.

For Nao Braverman's full story go to the Ojai Valley News Blog at:

http://ojaivalleynews.blogspot.com/2008/10/council-to-help-fund-stop-trucks-effort.html

Posted by Howard Smith at 05:59 PM | Permalink | author bio

This Tuesday, October 14th, at 7:30 pm the Ojai City Council will meet for its regular session. Part of the agenda will be devoted to discussions on how to co-ordinate efforts to deal with the Ozena Valley Ranch & Gravel Mine's proposed renewal and modification of their C.U.P. with the County of Ventura.

Given the well documented negative impact of these highly disruptive and polluting mining and trucking operations on agriculture, fishing, the economy, our water supply, our environment and the health of our children, the "Stop the Trucks" Coalition urges everyone in the Ojai Valley to attend and share your opinions with the City Council.

Posted by Howard Smith at 09:52 AM | Permalink | author bio

(Trucks passes through town on Ojai Ave & Montgomery, photo credit to Ray Smith, Daly Road Graphics)

In documents recently obtained by the Ojai "Stop the Trucks" through a Ventura County Public Records Request, the Coalition has learned that Ozena wants to alter their existing permit so that trucking through the Ojai Valley will begin as early as 3:00 am and continue as late as 6:00 pm during the week with "No Route Restrictions" at all on Saturdays!

This proposal would more than double trucking from a total of seven hours a day during the week to a new and even more intrusive and disturbing 15 hours a day!

In a recent review of weigh tickets from 2007, the "Stop the Trucks" Coalition estimated that Ozena is likely now violating existing permit hours in trips through Ojai by as much as 55%. In a letter to "Stop the Trucks," County CEO, Ms. Marty Robinson, agreed with the Coalition that violations have been under reported by the Planning Division.

In a further review of emails obtained through that same Records Request, we found that the agent for Ozena, John Hecht of West Coast Environmental & Engineering, rejected the consultant the County originally selected, URS, because: "...the proposed costs did not appear in line to the anticipated scope of work. Ozena believes that a competitive process will provide a qualified CEQA contractor in a more cost effective manner."

In a separate email Mr. Hecht then went on to propose the names of three other firms:

Continue reading "STOP THE TRUCKS: Ozena Wants to Expand Hours of Trucking Thru Ojai and Hand Pick the Consultant who will Review their new Proposal!" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 09:22 AM | Permalink | author bio

In a letter to the Ojai "Stop the Trucks" Coalition, Ventura County CEO, Ms. Marty Robinson, wrote: "After the CEO's office reviewed the July and August 2007 weigh tickets tickets communicated by the RMA" (Resource Management Agency) "a statistically significant sampling of the 649 original tickets was conducted by our office and it was determined that potential northbound violations were omitted from consideration by the Planning Division. If these potential northbound violations had been included , the number of violations would have been materially higher..."

"Stop the Trucks" had previously reported that upwards of 55% of all Ozena related trips through the Ojai Valley were likely in violation of these rules.

Continue reading "STOP THE TRUCKS: County CEO Finds Ozena Violations Greater Than Reported" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 08:18 AM | Permalink | author bio

There is way too much expertise and resources in this town to let public access TV drop. Who's got ideas?

From OVN:

While the city will administer airings of local City Council and Planning Commission meetings on Channel 10, no specific plans have been made regarding what will happen to the rest of the channel’s airing time in 2009, according to city manager Jere Kersnar. Time Warner Cable will still provide the channel capacity on Channel 10, but the city is responsible for managing that. With little funding for such an operation, the city’s options are limited, added Kersnar.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | author bio

Continue reading "OJAI FILM FESTIVAL ARRIVES SOON!" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 04:31 PM | Permalink | author bio

SuzaforOjai.com

More Info About Suza at SmartVoter.org

I am pleased to announce that I have been endorsed by the National Women's Political Caucus
Ventura County

Note: Endorsements are valley-wide and beyond. You do not need to live in the City of Ojai to endorse an Ojai City Council Candidate. If you would like to endorse me, please send your name, address and phone number to info@suzaforojai.com . (To learn more about all the candidates, visit the Ojai City Council link at the upper right corner of the Ojai Post page.)

I welcome your questions, suggestions and ideas for making Ojai a model green and sustainable community.

Posted by Suza Francina at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | author bio

Posted by Howard Smith at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | author bio

Want the Ojai Post and all your other browsing to be a magnitude quicker than IE or even Firefox? I've been using Google Chrome for about 20 minutes and there's no comparison in terms of speed.

I've noticed a couple odd things, including some editing buttons in the admin of this site aren't showing up. But all in all, a pretty great experience so far. It seamlessly transferred all of my Firefox bookmarks. There's one really interesting feature - Crash Control, where if a site crashes, its confined to that tab, and not to any other tabs you may have open. (hat tip Ian)

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | author bio

How do I take better photos?
One question I receive frequently is how to take better photos. Now this is a question whose answer can go on for miles and miles, as one can always take better photos, but I've realized that most problem photos I've seen boil down to the same old thing: Weird color and lighting effects caused by using your camera's built-in flash unit.

For the most part, my recommendation is this: If you own a simple point-and-click digital camera, you should refrain from using the built-in flash at all, except in the few cases when you find yourself outside at night after a dinner party wanting to take that final group shot before your friends all disappear into the night.

Typical digital camera flashes create more problems than they solve. Their purpose is to provide enough fill-light to allow for a proper exposure. Boy that sounds really nice, and in the professional world, flash units are as adjustable as you need them to be. But common point-and-click camera flash units usually have 2 settings:

Continue reading "Fixing color issues in digital photos - Software Training" »

Posted by Chris Foley at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | author bio

I've recently had several clients ask me about social networking, and whether taking the online social networking plunge will increase their business or help in any way. And the answer is yes, sorta.

It really depends (naturally) on what you're trying to do, but for all of the benefits online social networking has to offer, it can represent a huge time commitment to update and monitor all of your profiles across several different services.

For instance, I've been using FaceBook and Twitter for social networking, I share media on Flickr, and also on Picasa (Flickr belongs to Yahoo, and Picasa to Google and they have their own strengths and weaknesses)
I host my own blog, and I also use YouTube.

And because some of these products are owned and operated by Google, and others of these products are Yahoo, I am forced to have yahoo and gmail accounts, which starts being quite a lot of user accounts to keep track of. One eventually begs the question "is this all worth it?" I finally have a positive answer to this question, and it comes in the form of a great new web browser, available for both Macintosh and Windows platforms!

It's called FLOCK. It's a web browser, built on Mozilla, like FireFox, and it's really good, but it also logs me into all of my networks, and displays the activity in its sidebar. I keep it open all day long, and have immediate access to all of these services. Check out the photo I've attached.

If you use all or any of the services I listed above, and you have a similar headache about maintaining all of these activities, check out this awesome little (and free) app.

Come and get it HERE.

Cheers
Chris

Posted by Chris Foley at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | author bio