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Stephen Pickering

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  • Useful Links and Sites

    • 13 Little Known Google Search Features

      Welcome to New Zealand. Pictory takes you through what feels like a personal guided tour. Photographer: Michelle Choy
    • NeatImage – A plug in for Aperture and Photoshop that allows you to shoot at higher ISO’s and then it gets rid of the unnecessary artifacts.
    • FilterStorm – An iPhone App. $3.99. Great, intuitive photo editor for your iPhone. For instance if you have great shots that are too dark, it can magically fix them.
    • TinyLetter.com – Ever wanted to start your own email newsletter? This service handles everything, even if you want to charge for it. Plus it’s cool and developed by a cool entrepreneur, Phi Kaplan. Oh, also it’s free.
    • Dog Might Provide Clues on How Language Is Acquired – NYTimes.com – I’m interested in languages and dogs.
    • GoogleArtProject – It’s like Google Street View for Museums. Ultra High Res Images. Makes you feel like your actually walking through these famous Museums.
    • Potterish – For all you Harry Potter freaks. This is the best site. It’s Brazilian. However is you use Chrome as your browser it’ll auto translate it for you, so you can still have fun.
    • Google Shopper iPhone App – This is super cool. Take photos or speak the name of items into the phone, and it automatically pulls up prices and reviews of products and all the stores both online and off where its available.
    • Forvo.com – It’s like a search engine for learning how to speak other languages. You type in a word in any language and it finds a recording of that word spoken by a native speaker. What’s more, it’s crowd sourced, so that you can become a contributor also.
    • Pictory – Photo “Stories” I really love this site. At first blush, it feels like a great way to take a “virtual” humanized photo tour of a place. For instance, the featured story on the site right now is of “New Zealand” and through the beautiful photos and little snippets of interesting stories about the place, you really get a good feel for the place. It’s better than any other “virtual” tour experience I’ve seen on the net. It’s fun and useful. That’s key.
      Photo Credit: Michelle Choy

    • Internet Shopping: Etsy.com Continues to Flourish

      You just might if you sell your wares on Etsy.

      On the heels of a recent report that Etsy, the ecommerce site known for “arts & crafts” is set to do $50,000,000 in revenues this year from a base of 7 million customers and over $400 million in transactions, I felt it would be good to write about it. I’ve heard about Etsy for years, but always let it slide off my consciousness. The moniker “arts & crafts” has never had a positive connotation in my mind for whatever reason. But a business that is doing well financially usually is also a business that has a good product. So I decided to investigate further.

      • “The site itself does a really good job of blending content and e-commerce.” – Kathy Choi from “This Week in Startups” #107 (During the news section at the end of the show)
      • “Really Unique and Authentic Products that are often cheaper than non authentic, mass produced products.” – Jason Calacanis (same show)
      • “The site itself has the feel of shopping from a upscale department store, but it’s all hand-crafted.” – ditto, Jason
      • Kind of has a “Shabby-Chic” feel. So this might be the internet’s version of going “antiquing” kind of thing or a warm, old-fashioned street market, a chance to find unexpected things that may delight you. – (that’s mine, hehehehehe)

      Halloween costumes, linens, furniture, hats, clothing, dry-goods, are some of the main types of things you might find there. But go check the site out yourself. There’s lots of categories, and also if you happen to have a passion for a certain craft you can also sell your own wares there, making a business out of your passion. The business has a great reputation, and trust is the key ingredient in e-commerce.

    • [Video] A Drive Through the Snow and Musical Accompaniment.


      This is just a video I made driving through the snow in Little Rock on 1-10-11 the day after our “Mini” Snow Storm. I played my new song “New York & Light” and the cover I did of “Silent Night” on the CD player as accompaniment. I haven’t made enough HD videos with my iPhone4 so I wanted to start. Then I started playing with iMovie and there’s some fun things you can do in there. So it’s mostly just play and experimentation, but you might find the scenery pretty. Hope you enjoy the song too!

    • New Song: “New York & Light”

      [audio:http://www.stephenpickering.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/New-York-and-Light-1.mp3]

      New York and Light (iPhone/iPad Link) You can download the song if you right click on the link and choose “Save” or “Save As,” and it will download the MP3 file.

      So I took the little poem I wrote a couple post’s back “New York & Light” and made it into a song. I had this tune I was working on at the same time, so I applied the words to it. I added a couple more paragraphs for a second verse.

      Lyrics:

      New York and Light
      East Egg above
      They dance all night
      The Jitterbug.

      Their dreams play notes
      Her favorite song
      Love lines he wrote
      She danced along

      Chorus:

      With eyes like that
      That guy could sing
      She floats him back
      Across the sea.

      The city’s moon
      It strums their tune.

      Verse 2

      Long Island Sound
      This is the place
      It’s where she’s found
      Stars light her face.

      There’s something there.
      Behind her eyes.
      Inside her stare
      A thousand and one nights.

    • Silent Night

      Silent Night by spickeringlr

      I did a cover version of “Silent Night” with my guitar and Apple Logic. Merry Christmas!

    • New Poem: “New York and Light.”

      New York and light.
      East Egg above.
      They dance all night
      The Jitterbug.

      Their dreams play notes
      Her favorite song.
      The things they wrote
      She danced along.

      With eyes like that
      That guy could sing.
      She flys him back
      Across the sea.

      The city’s moon:
      It strums their tune.

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