It was bound to happen sometime.  I have now made it possible for those with iPhones to see my blog in a mobile format.  Use Safari to go to Piratechnical.com and you will be welcomed by this format:

You will still be able to see photos and leave comments.  Some video might be brought up in YouTube and/or not play.  I am sure there will be some updates along the way to make it look more snazzy, but for now, you don’t have to worry about zooming in and panning across to read tiny print.
Let me know what you think.

I feel that I try to stay up on the new technology, science, concepts, etc.  My wife will tell you that this is true except for when it comes to pop culture, this includes social networking.   This blog probably started a couple years after it should have.  I am on Facebook, but hardly keep up with the thing.  Well now I am Tweeting.  This is just in time for USITT*.
Look to the top right of this page…this tweet is what I recently said.  Ooooh….Ahhhh….
You can click on PiraTWEETnical and follow me through whatever tweet tracking method you might use.  If …

If you have been to VideoCopilot.net then you know exactly what I am about to say….
Andrew Kramer is a great source to learn and/or help expand your knowledge of Adobe After Effects.
If you do video editing and like creating visual effects, I recommend Adobe After Effects.  I have used Final Cut Pro and its companion Motion and find them limiting in comparison to this software.  I am also an avid PC user and that might have something to do with it.  But back to the topic at hand:
Video Copilot offers many stock effects and footage DVDs for sale that are …

Turn a sketch into an actual photo…”Say what?”  A hand full of researchers have teamed up to develop a program that will interpret a sketch that you make on their software, surf the internet for pictures, and stitch together the parts to make a realistic photo of the original sketch.  The project is called PhotoSketch.
They haven’t released a version of this yet.  They have, however, released the code that does this process (I am sifting through it right now, pretty neat).  According to their site a demo is being created.
How could this be put to use?  In digital media design …

[poll id="2"]
I have never really gotten onto the whole blog scene until recently.  I am a late bloomer.  I ready one or two from time to time like John Huntington’s blog.  I had also heard of RSS feeds but never explored their usefulness (this technology is 10 years old now).  Now with a blog of my own, I have been requested to have an RSS feed.  So that brings me to the poll above.
If you would like, please share with me some of your favorite blogs/rss feeds.  Also let me know if there is a special reader that you like …

I am of the mindset that many things can be solved with a database.  When designing a database I push it beyond its standard purposes.  I end up with a complex series of action queries that must be performed with extreme precision which make the relational databases sweat a little.
When I am teaching others database design, they usually have a final product in mind.  This is a great place to start.  However, they jump right into creating tables, queries, forms and reports only to find that it doesn’t work how they wanted and have to go back to change …