Monthly Archives: April 2018

#50by50 #29 – Make a photobook

The PolyBlog
April 26 2018

I like using our digital photos for different things — the website, a digital photo frame, some prints around the office, custom calendars, etc. And annual photobooks — a Year-In-Review style that goes month-by-month. Except I’m a bit behind on them, having only completed three or so of the last 13 years worth of organized digital photos that are in my digital gallery. So when I added “Make a Photobook” to my #50by50 list, it wasn’t a specific commitment like “Make a photobook of (someone’s) wedding” or “Make a photobook of a specific trip or year”, it was “knock one off the long list of photobooks you want to do” i.e. get back into making them.

Starting with a Year-In-Review book

Just over two years ago, I took a look at several websites that offer do-it-yourself photobooks, and I gave a bunch a try. Some of them failed for software limitations, others for their variable quality. I pretty much ended up going strictly with Shutterfly in the end. For my new YIR book, I thought I might as well start with Shutterfly again.

Shutterfly is a solid site overall, with all the basics plus some bells and whistles. They have regular coupon deals, established history, and I can reuse/copy old projects to incrementally improve each year while keeping some basic consistency. And lots of extra product possibilities like mousepads, notepads, notebooks, magnets, mugs, etc. I re-familiarized myself with the site and didn’t see any major changes in the functionality of the web design in the last two years, still no downloadable software to do it and then upload as one piece but rather still just all online, and the default templates for “years in review” are still not particularly attractive (only two main defaults from which to choose). Still, a solid choice. There are e-share options too, but I’m not particularly attracted to them nor do I need the option since I have my own photo gallery site with more content than would go in the books.

I bit the bullet. I put together a year in review (or actually a partial year in review) for the second half of 2010. In so doing though, I wanted to revisit the basic design of their template and see if I could create a new master template that I could reuse for future YIRs. Some of it was quite simple — adding background colours, putting in the months of the year, making sure every month has at least four pages to start with, etc. It took me most of a day to put the template in some form that I could call a “master” draft to build from for the future, but I only have to do it once and it probably took me longer as I was coming back “new” to the software/website. I then copied it over to a new project for a backup. And then used that to create “2010 – Book 2”.

Choosing the photos is a bit more of an iterative process than one might think. Here’s my general work-flow:

a. I copy all the photos from Andrea’s phone, the compact point-and-shoot camera, my phone, my tablet (rare), and the DSLR, plus any that others happened to send us of shared events into a set of photos by month;

b. I then sort them into days and events;

c. I pick the best ones for uploading, sending everything else into sub-folders called “extras”, keeping about one for every 2-3 that go in the extras folder (I don’t delete photos unless they’re blurry or technically wrong for some other eason…I’ve gone back too many times to a photo that was perhaps good for everyone, but in looking at the extras, I find one that is GREAT for a specific person, allowing me to crop it to just them);

d. For a Photobook, I start with the web choices, and weed it down to a smaller list of possibles, and then let Andrea weed even further.

I uploaded the weeded set to Shutterfly and the template worked almost perfectly. A couple of little tweaks here and there, but not enough to warrant changing the master, more tweaks for colouring with the photos I was laying out in the template. I added some prose, chose some photos for the covers and inside page, and bam! I submitted the book with a 50% off coupon. Sweet.

Now I just have to wait.

Considering a Trip Book

I’m willing to experiment with other sites, just to try them out, and I’m going with some trips as the theme. But which one to try?

a. MixBook

Last time I tried Mixbook, the software was a bit unwieldy. This time, I found 11 templates for “Year in Review” style books. The Minimalist style was a bit black and white, but cute; Linen / Vintage / Colourful YIR / A Year to Remember / Year in Review / My Year Magazine / Graduation Year in Review / Watercolour Year in Review are all more thematic or event-driven than I would like. The one called Family Yearbook would be an awesome style for people with multiple kids and I could see easy ways to adapt it. However, the Kraft Year in Review is outright awesome. Simple chronological design, exactly what I am looking for in YIR-style without weird or wonky titles for each month. My only complaint is it is a bit drab … most of the layouts could benefit from a bit more colour per page. The software seemed to work okay, and as with most, you do a lot better with everything pre-chosen before you start. Definitely a viable option, and an improvement over previous attempts.

b. Costco

Since the last time I tried, CostCo has updated their software and their book builder looks a little better, albeit somewhat slow to get it to click over to the “ready” stage. Or more specifically, it goes off to “prepare” the book for editing and never returns. Just sits and “spins” that it is doing something and never finishes. Maybe it doesn’t like Firefox, maybe the site is busy, I don’t know. Pass.

c. Shoppers Drug Mart

The software seems better this time than last, and I was able to navigate through a few choices to get to a reasonable option for a book. I chose their one and only Year in Review template, and it isn’t bad. The overall layout and control options are much more basic than other sites, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing — some of the others are a bit overkill. Definitely a viable option I might consider.

d. Loblaws

If you go to the Loblaws site, you won’t find their photo book options because their photo service is separate — aka Photolab.ca. And it looks surprisingly familiar. Like with my previous review, Loblaws has the exact same software as Shoppers Drug Mart for their site, it just has a different name. But functionality, templates, etc are the same. So again, a viable option.

e. Uniprix

I wasn’t overly impressed the last time I tried the UniPrix site, but a friend suggested I give it another try, as he had good luck with it. So I gave it a go. Like SDM and Loblaws, it has some basic options, nothing extravagant. And while the opening interface is different, the final operations are almost identical for the software with Loblaws and SDM. A few differences, for sure, but functionally the same.

f. Blurb

PhotoBookGirl is an online reviewer of photobook designs, and she has a bunch of reviews of different photo sites (mainly in the U.S.), so I wanted to give a few of them a try too. Blurb was up first. Blurb has some amazing options to upload a PDF and to sell things onwards into Amazon, but that’s not my focus. When Blurb Bookify starts, you get to the editing options pretty quick but that’s because the main options of other sites — draft templates, layouts, etc. — are all missing. Pass.

g. Bookemon

Like Blurb, it has options to create a book for sale — including kids books, etc. But the templates that come with it, and the basic interface are a bit too menu driven and mechanical than designed to populate things for you. Pass.

h. Clark Color Labs

The software for CCL is pretty clean. I set up an account easily, uploaded some photos pretty fast, and wandered through their templates. I’m looking for Year In Review designs, and while there weren’t many (only 3), they were all quite vibrant in colour. A very different look and feel to the template than Shutterfly or even Mixbook. The only challenge was that some of the months were set for a single page, others were spread over two, with no rhyme or reason. Plus there didn’t seem to be a reason why in some months they chose to put the name of the month on the page and others just a symbol (St. Patrick’s Day images for March, for example). Where they make up for some of it though is in their easy to access clipart. On a lot of sites, it is hard to find good clip art to add to the layout, but they make it pretty easy, and it was easy to add the months of the year for example or change a background. Overall a pretty simple and direct option. I have no idea if the quality out the other end is any good, but it’s a pretty nice site.

i. Picaboo

The site has some power, no doubt, and if you want to start from a very minimalist book layout, it’s a great choice. There are only five main themes, variations on “white”, but no choice between a year in revew or a trip or graduation. You can add all that, but you start with a blank template. Not a problem, but why would I want to do all that extra work unless I was starting with a very unique project? Pass.

j. Snapfish

Upfront, Snapfish has some great opening choices in sizes. I’m mainly interested in the landscape 8 x 11 books, but there were quite a few other choices too. When I chose YIR, just because it is an easy way to decide if it’s viable or not, eight sample templates came up. Most of them are comparable to the Shutterfly and Mixbook options, so nothing to really sell me there. Clicking on “Travel” pulled up another 12 options. One of them was called Road Trip (which a lot of my trips are), and pre-organized around Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. So a viable option again.

So that gives me a full dozen options, including the original Shutterfly. 

  • I’ve passed on: Costco, Blurb, Bookemon, and Picaboo;
  • I’m considering: Mixbook, Shoppers/Loblaws/Uniprix, Clark Color Labs, and Snapfish.

However, there is one small feature I like about the Shoppers / Loblaws / Uniprix option. I can print it and pick it up. No shipping required. And while I can’t guarantee the quality until I try it, it’s also not likely being shipped off to the lowest common producer elsewhere. There is a bit of local production involved. I hope at least. So I’ll try one of those three first.

I’ll see how it goes and update later. In the meantime, I’m waiting for my YIR book for 2010.

Reviewing “An Inspector Calls” (as seen at OLT)

The PolyBlog
April 17 2018

Back in January, as part of our subscription series for the Ottawa Little Theatre, we went to see “An Inspector Calls”, written by J.B. Priestly. I didn’t get around to reviewing it at the time, partly as it didn’t contribute to my “#50by50” series since I’d already counted a play for that, but I kept the playbill lingering around my desk. The play was first performed back in 1946, and set just prior to the First World War.

Much of the play revolves around noblesse oblige of the wealthy and the fate of the working class, and the gap between the two. The cast is made up generally of a family of five people plus an inspector who calls on them while conducting an enquiry into the death of a young woman by the name of Eva Smith. She appears in shadows as a ghost, but has no lines.

It’s near impossible to review the play without spoilers, and so I won’t try. Essentially, as the night unfolds and the family members individually answer the Inspector’s questions, it moves through Eva’s life (although she was known by different names). All of the events were interconnected by happenstance, not design, and no one was aware of it all, even the girl herself. Over the course of the interrogation, you realize the man of the house, a businessman, used to employ her; the daughter ran into her in a shop; the fiancé of the daughter and the son both interacted with her romantically; and the wife/mother met her through charitable work. In essence, they all treated her badly, partly because they could, and when the girl had nothing left, she committed suicide.

While the plot sounds fantastical, it is the Inspector who sells the story. He is imperious when dealing with them all, insisting on treating them as potential criminals to be interrogated, not aristocrats to be handled nicely. The daughter has lots of angst-filled scenes where she debates the role of women, their collective conscience as a society, the plight of the working class, the out-of-touch nature of her parents, the shame of her fiancé having cheated on her. And ultimately her own guilt. Each member of the family initially denies any responsibility, until in the end, the Inspector verbally leads them to indict themselves. It was very well done.

Then there is a twist, where for a short time, all the guilt appears for nought. They are returning to their regular lives and views of the world, until they get one last shock at the end of the night that’s a bit spooky for them. Twilight Zone almost.

The father, Arthur Birling, was played by Roy Van Hooydonk, and he affected an old English-gentlemen-style of pontification that was mildly endearing and easy to watch, although a trifle slow in the delivery. His wife, Sheila, was played by Katherine Williams and the character was difficult to watch. It was hard to tell if it was the actress or the character, but they were both heavily repressed, and there was little emotional resonance in the performance. There was an okay performance for the fiancé Gerald Croft (played by Guy Newsham), with a bit of a sheepish “boys will be boys” vibe, if only the women would understand. He did a decent job of trying to act/feel like a victim in some places. The character of Eric Birling (played by Jamie Hegland) was relatively minor, and consisted mainly of being surly, drunk and/or childish. Nothing much to watch. I found the role of Sybil Birling, the daughter played by Janet Rice, was a bit too much over-the-top for her angst. Emotionally, she was all over the map as both a character and the actress…it was hard to get a read on her, and some of the dialogue for her went on and on as over-moralizing. Subtlety was not part of the script, apparently.

So you might think I didn’t like the play. Instead, it is all made up for because the role of Inspector Goole (ghoul, get it?) was filled expertly by John Collins. Admittedly he flubbed a line or two in the first half, but considering the number he has, that’s not too surprising. But he had awesome presence. Brutal, foreboding, lurking, dark, imperious, harsh. He’d start off soft in some parts, and then rip the individual to shreds in the interrogation. Digging and digging, poking and prodding until they broke and told him everything, which he already seemed to know anyway (but not in a Columbo sort of way, more like supernaturally). He was fantastic to watch.

I checked out the Internet Movie Database to see if there is a movie version, and there are multiple ones over the years. Including an all-Chinese one a few years ago. Same plot, just different names, and a few small tweaks to the setting, but otherwise the same movie.

In the end, the play was enjoyable, if a little bit heavy-handed on the moralizing in some places, but that is more a reflection of the style of dramas written in the mid-century, and particularly so when set at the turn of the century. The “we know better now” can work quite well by making even one character seem more forward-thinking than the time, but that is not the way the play was designed. Goole plays that role to some extent, but is far too dark to be inspiring. Now, if I can only find it in book form…

#50by50 #28 – Write ten book reviews

The PolyBlog
April 16 2018

I like writing book reviews and sharing them, and so it was a no-brainer to add book reviews to my #50by50 list. I toyed with writing 50 of them, or making it a reading goal for 50 books, but then I realized it was simpler that I focus on writing and posting the reviews in a more manageable goal. I have a bunch of other books to review, but I’m going to declare this one “done” since I’m already at 13 book reviews since my birthday, with two of them non-fiction (yay me!):

  1. Seven Up by Janet Evanovich (BR00103)
  2. Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich (BR00104)
  3. To the Nines by Janet Evanovich (BR00105)
  4. Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich (BR00106)
  5. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich (BR00107)
  6. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich (BR00108)
  7. Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich (BR00109)
  8. Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich (BR00110)
  9. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich (BR00111)
  10. Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich (BR00112)
  11. Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich (BR00113)
  12. RASC Observer’s Handbook, 2018 edited by James S. Edgar (BR00114)
  13. Big Box Reuse by Julia Christensen (BR00115)

Okay, sure, Evanovich is kind of light reading, and I’ve gone further with her and other writers, but those are the ones I’ve written so far.

Articles I Like: Are 'Learning Styles' Real? – The Atlantic

The PolyBlog
April 16 2018

In recent years, many educators have ratcheted up their attacks on the idea of people having “learning styles”. While it was in vogue for awhile, more and more research is suggesting it isn’t as compelling a theory as it once was thought to be. To me, it is more about a theory that resonates instinctively with people, and more a metaphor for approaches to learning – a descriptive paradigm, if you will – then a hard and fast “rule” or law, let alone a theory. So when I saw an Atlantic article aiming to debunk it further, I couldn’t help but click.

In the early ‘90s, a New Zealand man named Neil Fleming decided to sort through something that had puzzled him during his time monitoring classrooms as a school inspector. In the course of watching 9,000 different classes, he noticed that only some teachers were able to reach each and every one of their students. What were they doing differently? Fleming zeroed in on how it is that people like to be presented information. For example, when asking for directions, do you prefer to be told where to go or to have a map sketched for you?

Today, 16 questions like this comprise the VARK questionnaire that Fleming developed to determine someone’s “learning style.” VARK, which stands for “Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic,” sorts students into those who learn best visually, through aural or heard information, through reading, or through “kinesthetic” experiences.

Basically the idea that everyone is relatively unique, but if you break them into sub-types for learning, you can reach them better by using techniques that target that sub-type. Yet the scientific evidence, i.e. the “testing” of the sub-types is less indicative:

…a lot of evidence suggests that people aren’t really one certain kind of learner or another. In a study published last month in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education, Husmann and her colleagues had hundreds of students take the VARK questionnaire to determine what kind of learner they supposedly were. The survey then gave them some study strategies that seem like they would correlate with that learning style. Husmann found that not only did students not study in ways that seemed to reflect their learning style, those who did tailor their studying to suit their style didn’t do any better on their tests.

[…]

Another study published last year in the British Journal of Psychology found that students who preferred learning visually thought they would remember pictures better, and those who preferred learning verbally thought they’d remember words better. But those preferences had no correlation to which they actually remembered better later on—words or pictures. Essentially, all the “learning style” meant, in this case, was that the subjects liked words or pictures better, not that words or pictures worked better for their memories.

Are ‘Learning Styles’ Real? – The Atlantic

However, in the same article, it basically says it isn’t about “styles”, it is about skills. Some people are better at certain tasks than others, so they may think they’re a visual learner because they happen to be good at things that are visual. My problem though is that I’m not sold the idea fails with their “tests”.

All of them have the same methodological problem that the studies about “digital reading” vs. “paper-based reading” exercises and measures of retention. Basically, the studies conclude that if two students read the same text, one on paper and one electronically, the one who read paper will remember better. Which I can practically guarantee will happen with the test they’re running…they’re taking a text that was designed for paper reading, converted it to e-format, and then ran the test.

But what is the more appropriate test? Well, how about optimizing the text electronically first? Taking advantage of the e-format to embed other info or even use a font that looks better on e-format? There’s a reason why so much money and attention is paid to web design — layout and format matter, and it isn’t simply a matter of converting from paper to electronic. And did they first gauge how comfortable the person is with reading an e-text? The assumption is that the texts are the same, so the reader experiences no difference. Yet we all know modern-day Luddites who might be adept at email, surfing, or texting, but they find the idea of e-readers abhorrent. They just don’t want them. Almost NONE of the tests asked what the student preferred to use. If you start off blocked and negative, would you expect the outcome to be different? People are used to paper, they don’t often “balk” at a paper text (except in purchase decisions).

To use the VARK idea, and downgrading it from a learning style to a communications style, we all know that personality types are generally accurate in groups but not so much individuals (all stereotypes, negative or positive, break down when you go from a group to an individual — the standard of deviation is enormous). So let’s look at the personality-type model that resonates the most with me — the axis of introverts/extroverts vs. analytical/intuitive.

Analytical introverts (the blues) have a very clear preferred communications style — they want details. They analyze, they nuance, they want to get their fingers dirty poking the content so they understand it. Preferably, they get paper and read it on their own and they have it before they discuss it together.

Reds, i.e. analytical extroverts, are action-oriented and while they want details, what they really want are the KEY details — they prefer high-level summaries and overviews with minimal background noise. Be brief, be bright, be gone. Don’t waste their time.

Yellows, i.e. intuitive extroverts, want interaction, team work, FUN. They want to discuss the information. Sitting quietly and reading the book by themself is tantamount to torture.

Greens, i.e. intuitive introverts, also want to be “involved” in small-group discussions. A bit quieter than the yellows, and preferably with some say in how they decide what to study or how to proceed.

Those personality studies have been studied to death and for about 60% of the population, they have pretty strong validity. Another 20% end up straddling types. Which leaves 20% where, in my view, they suffer from two measurement problems — about half don’t know themselves well enough to answer the questions reliably (they’re following scripts of what they THINK they should say, not describing what they actually do) and half who are balanced across multiple categories. It doesn’t mean the theory of personality types is wrong, it just means it isn’t universal when you apply to individuals. Quelle surprise.

So what might that look like in terms of learning styles? Well, if the four groups have differences in their preferred communications styles, would it be surprising that they have a different way of learning? Not really, it should be expected. So the test would have to be optimized first for EACH learning style.

But even then, it’s not going to be 1:1 for every person on every item for every subject. Not unlike the phrase that talking about love is like dancing about architecture, reading about art isn’t very useful without pictures of the actual artwork. Equally, if a picture is worth a thousand words, historical video footage of events is far more compelling and easy to “understand” as the students witness.

Is that true for everyone? Nope. Some are going to respond to the text more than the pictures, pictures over video, and video over text, or the reverse such as text over video.

Ultimately the benefit of the theory is not in saying everyone has a different style and targeting the individual, although someday we may be able to do that better. Instead, the benefit of the theory is recognizing what everyone has already known. Mixed teaching techniques, judiciously applied, work better than a single technique of one-size fits all.

But that’s just my view. What do YOU think? Do you learn differently from a friend or sibling? Or do you believe one can find a perfect way to deliver info for a topic or subject area that is applicable to all?

Articles I Like: Review of Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray

The PolyBlog
April 16 2018

The Guardian published a review of an interesting-sounding book, and I thought I would share. The review itself isn’t anything special, I confess, but the book sounds good. It’s not available on Amazon Canada yet, but it appears to be an overview of the history of atheism and all its different forms.

The argument against the first five forms of atheism discussed in this book will be familiar to readers of Gray’s excoriating reviews and the greatest interest for some will lie in his discussion of the two final forms. One is entitled “Atheism without progress”, that is, without any assumption that human beings can be changed for the better…The final chapter, “The atheism of silence”, contains a surprise. It includes a discussion of a nearly forgotten author of a four-volume history of atheism, Fritz Mauthner, who argued for what he called “a godless mysticism”. Gray argues that there is in the end an affinity between the mystical element in Christianity, which stresses that God is beyond words and incomprehensible, and this form of atheism. “A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity and the difference between the two may be less than you think.”

Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray review – a fascinating study of disbelief | Books | The Guardian