[paulmhoward]

Migration.

paulmhoward — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:36:41 +0000

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let anyone know, who ever is out there who still reads this, that my blog was moved a few months back to my personal website. The easiest way to get there is to click this link: http://www.paulmhoward.com

see you all on the other side!

rethinking art

paulmhoward — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:44:44 +0000

new business card

Its been a while since I posted a blog.

In the last month or so I have been doing a lot of planning and rethinking of my art and photography styles. As far as photography goes, I am working on learning several new styles. Much of those have to do with off camera lighting and changing the message that my photography tells. I am more than tired of taking the “normal” photographs. I won’t go too far into what I mean by that, except to say that you should all expect to see many new photographs from me with a style differing far from what you are used to seeing from me.

Another thing I have been thinking about is my graphic design for print and for the web. It has been sometime since I took time to learn coding and web programming, but it is about time I get back into it. The game has changed much now since I first learned web design.

My first order of business in this realm is to redesign my blog here, which started as a social experiment for a class, into the main hub for everything you need to know about me. This simple layout change was a small deviation from the image I wanted my design to have last year, but it is the first step in many on my move into a more professional and artistic style of my art.

There are many more things on this list but those are a few of the first things.

What is my inspiration for this change? Light.

If any of you read my Facebook status a few days back, it spoke about light and how that light is the catalyst in how we perceive visual art. I want to learn to control light in its simplest of forms and use that tool to my advantage. I want the light that we all see to be the single and most important factor that separates my work from the next persons.

What does that mean for me? It means that many exciting things are on the horizon for me and it is time I begin to walk into those things, because now is the time for me to step into this direction that God is bringing me to.

What does this mean for everyone else? Just be excited, and stay tuned for what is ahead.

- PMH

Innovations and Social Media

paulmhoward — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:34:44 +0000

view source at: http://www.youtube.com/paulmhoward

Season of change

paulmhoward — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:39:06 +0000

As the end of my junior year here at Lee draws to a close, amongst the craziness of life, I have decided to take a small portion of my valuable time to reflect on this school year and a little further back. Now I realize that I am not fully through my college journey but I am a firm believer that we should all take time to look back every so often so we can see where we came from and where God has brought us. It truly helps you to appreciate your present situations a lot more.

I am currently in one of the busiest, most insane semesters of my college career and easily one of the most dynamic times of my life to date. As I said before the semester is about to end, which means a overload of last minute final projects, papers and tests, and if that isn’t enough to make any average man throw in the towel, I have also been in the process of signing the lease and moving into my first house, planning for a week long trip in the Ukraine, searching for a summer internship, and also getting prepared for my best friend’s wedding this May in which I am his best man. With the mixture of all of these big things going on around me, I have had to stop several times and rethink my current life strategy just to be sure I don’t end up on the tail of this time reeling in defeat. I am happy to say that I have made it through several hurdles and God is really putting the necessary things in place in His timing. By the end of this week, I will be more than halfway moved into my house, I will have all of my trip arrangements taken care of, and most of my final projects and papers completed. I am really tired and worn out but I can’t stop yet. God gives me strength daily, and I am only surviving through his power.

At the beginning of last semester I was going through a really tough time emotionally and I was not strong enough then to handle the struggles of today. God knows the best time for things and he has really proven that over and over again to me, and this time is no exception. I look back at how much I have truly grown since August of 2009 and I am shocked at how far I have come. Now with all of that said, I didn’t intend to make this entry into one of self pity or a public announcement of my life experiences, I just wanted to give credit to God for having my best interest in mind. He really knows what is best and when it is time for us to move to that next step in life. On Friday, I ate Chinese food for dinner and received a very encouraging fortune from my fortune cookie. I am not a superstitious man, but I do appreciate those little moments of encouragement even if it is enclosed in a cookie. The fortune simply reads ” Your hard work is about to pay off.” I always seem to get the most fitting fortunes for what I am going through, and I dont think it is wrong to think that God is speaking to me through them.

I encourage you to look back on the hard times of your past and see where God has taken you. You may not be going through the best time in your life but look ahead and trust God by knowing that He will see you through to the end. Don’t take for granted the good things, even if they are as small as a fortune cookie note, and your life will be that much brighter. God has always taken care of my questions and doubts and I know He will do the same for you! Be strong. Be encouraged. You are loved.

Adobe Creative 5 Suite Launch

paulmhoward — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:49:55 +0000

Those who really know me well, they know that I love Photoshop and that much of my “free-time” – I don’t really have much free-time nowadays — is spent reading about Photoshop and watching videos with information and tutorials. Well a few days ago I decided to watch an hour-long video on www.Adobe.com that was a brief highlight of most of the new features in creative suite 5! I had already seen sneak previews about the new version of Photoshop, like the video floating around about the new “Content-Aware fill” which makes the process of removing unwanted portions of a photo essentially effortless! I could go on and on describing how much this will speed up my workflow when it comes to processing photos, but I will save that for another entry after which I actually have my hands on the software…that shouldn’t be too far away! Adobe has always been an innovative company and they have not disappointed with this release! As a student in advertising and graphic arts, CS5 will no doubt change so many things. With the added tools in Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, InDesign, and Illustrator, as well as the addition of Flash Catalyst, creating content and designing creative and engaging media has never been more available to us students. Adobe has shown us that the sky is the limit and that even as a young professional, our ideas CAN be reached. I look forward to having the chance to really get my hands on this software and see what I can now create.

I encourage anyone who is really interested to see all of these new innovations to stop by Adobe’s website and watch all the Creative Suite 5 videos so you too can see the software in action! www.adobe.com

MacLife – Week One

paulmhoward — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:18:52 +0000

Well folks! It’s official. FedEx delivered and my iMac finally made it in last friday on February 26th. I decided to give it a week to really allow me to dive into the user experience and I will say that I am extremely pleased! This machine is solid, in build quality, hardware stability, and software capabilities. I spent the first weekend frittering away time in GarageBand and forsaking my homework. Right out of the box, I went straight to the preferences to set up my shortcuts and function keys and other workflow related functions. I am a big supporter of shortcut keys and this iMac did not let me down. The level of simplicity to set everything up was not easily matched. My laptop running Windows 7 is great and has served me well for the last two-three years but it was beginning to get sluggish( I did upgrade from Vista, which helped a lot). I am not becoming an Apple fanboy but I do LOVE my iMac, best tech purchase I’ve made in some time. Now I know this review sounds all positive but allow me to breakdown the cons…

Moving from Windows to Mac OS X was not too difficult for me, because I consider myself an innovator and I enjoy getting my hand on new technologies and learning the ins and outs whether I plan to purchase in the future or not, so I wasn’t completely new to the OS shift. It took time to get used to using the different interface controls, like on the open windows for example…I miss the maximize feature from Windows. I have had trouble with video connection on Skype and others, more often than I did on my PC. I do not like Safari, and the only reason I used it was to download Google Chrome browser. ESPN360.com’s live game feed has yet to work. My bet is that issue is Adobe Flash based…and we all know how Apple feels about Flash. I haven’t connected my Google Android phone to it yet, and after the recent patent lawsuits I am sort of nervous! Just kidding! I have yet to completely understand how applications get properly installed. Sometimes they run from a disk image, sometimes they give me the option to place a shortcut in my applications folder…I dont get it yet. I’m sure there are other minor things that I am leaving out, but overall, it is a much more intuitive and fun user experience than all of the Windows PC’s I have owned…not to mention this has the best hardware I have owned to date so that helps too.

My switch from Mac to PC=success! I just need more Adobe CS software! Stay tuned for more my MacLife posts!

Update on my iMac situation!

paulmhoward — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:24:57 +0000

Well my new Mac still isn’t here yet, but its supposed to arrive between tomorrow and Friday, so I guess I should be patient! However! I did receive my Apple Remote today! Now if I only had something to use it on….haha. I also picked up a copy of Macworld, just incase!

ps…my computer is currently in transit according to FedEx and it was in Reno Nevada as of 10am this morning, and my headphones are in Anchorage AK as of 1pm! Im hoping that everything arrives tomorrow! Ill be making a unboxing documentary when it comes in!

iFinally made the shift.

paulmhoward — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:17:41 +0000

iOrdered an iMac. iCant wait to get it. iAm excited.

Okay enough lame Apple puns. After being a PC user since Windows 95, I finally ordered my first Apple computer. I got a sweet deal on a, might-as-well-be-new, refurbished 21.5in iMac and i couldnt pass it up! This doesnt mean that I am giving up on Windows, I just needed a new computer, and I felt it was time to get a Mac. Im not a fanboy of either system, both have their ups and downs. But I am very excited to be getting this machine! It should arrive on wednesday and I will blog about it when it gets here! I better not have trouble integrating my Google junk and my Android phone with it!

iWill catch you all later!!

Anarchy vs Dictatorship

paulmhoward — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:09:25 +0000

This post is actually inspired by the last bit of the panel discussion on thursday, and a tweet that I RT’ed the other day “@mikelemmon: Where the iPhone is a benevolent dictatorship, Android is anarchy.”

I want this post to blow up with discussion of differing opinions and facts. Most of you know I am an avid Google supporter and Android user. I have my legitimate facts why I support Android over Apple in the mobile market, and your more than welcome to ask for details.

Ill start by highlighting my main defense…With well over 10 different Android phones out on the market running across all major network providers and Android’s open source/linux base, I feel it gains a strength over the iPhone’s “close-minded” ways.

Let your voice be heard!

Google’s BIG week!

paulmhoward — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:49:44 +0000

Anticipation was beginning to build a week ago as plans leaked across many social media and online news sources about Google’s dive into the social networking pool. Many said that it would fail due to past attempts to enter the social networking world that just “flopped.” And now-a-days, social networking giants, Facebook and Twitter have become so popular it seemed impossible for Google to make a worthwhile attempt. Although Google was not the big dog in this fight, it definitely stood its ground with Tuesday’s and anticipated launch of Google Buzz. Less than a week later, Buzz is still growing. With its fluid integration into Gmail and aggregating the use of Google’s other popular services such as YouTube and Picasa, many were attributing the success of Buzz to it being built “in-house” and not being acquired from outside company. Well I started using Buzz as soon as it went active in my Gmail and I was active in it everyday, leaving my feedback on many peoples “buzz’es” and as of this morning I decided to hide Buzz altogether. It kept cluttering up my Gmail inbox and I was constantly getting emails on my Gmail app on my Android phone(yeah yeah I love Google, what can I say?). Still under a full week of being released Google is still making changes and adapting Buzz to fit the users requests. Until then, this “Buzzer” will stay away from Buzz for a little while…just for the sake of my sanity and clean Gmail inbox.

Also this week Google announced its acquisition of Aardvark, for 50 million dollars. According to Crunchbase.com, “Aardvark (formerly Mechanical Zoo) is a social search engine, founded by a group of former Google employees. Aardvark that lets users ask questions that are distributed to the social graph for a quick and high quality answers.” Looks like Google really means business in this social networking fight.

Aside from its highly anticipated release of Buzz and the acquisition of Aardvark, Google also announced on wednesday that it has plans to build several high-speed fiber networks across several cities in the US on a trial basis. Google Maps Mobile 4.0 was also released this week for those lucky Android users who are on version 2.0+ where certain users(ME!) are still stuck on Android 1.5 thanks to my lovely mobile carrier delaying release. The newest release of mobile Google Maps has a Buzz add-on and a few other needed tweaks. If all of that was not enough Google also released a Labs add-on for the Google Maps website. Labs, for those of you who do not know, is a feature that was first released in Gmail that allows for software developers to create both fun and functional add-ons for Gmail, so just carry that idea to Google Maps. Yeah, that was all in one week. Way to go Google.

Now the hype moves to this coming week for the Mobile World Conference 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. Google’s Eric Schmidt will be delivering a keynote speech this week at MWC, and I am just too excited to hear what he has to say about Google’s growing presence in the mobile world.

Thats it for now! Keep checking back!