Perez Studios

These 34 brand new Acer Desktops/Monitor Combos were delivered on Friday and today I get to begin cloning them using Storage Craft.  

I came across an article today when I was getting caught up on some RSS feeds and one that got my attention was from the Digital Photography School.  It mentions the fact that today, photographers cant just be photographers.  They have to master so many different areas in order to stay in the game and keep up with the rest of the competition.  I, myself try to keep up with things and it seems to overwhelm me with my full-time job and my part-time life. 

I thought this article was a great read and I recommend you all read it as well.

Here is the link to the article.

Thanks for reading!

Semper Fidelis,

Manuel Perez

Adobe released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 recently and I must say I was looking forward to some of the improvements in the new version.  Some of the new features are:

• Superior noise reduction
• Accelerated performance
• Lens correction
• Support for DSLR video files
• Flickr integration
• Image watermarking
• Easy-to-share slide show videos with music
• Easy image importing
• Tethered shooting
• Perspective correction
• Film grain simulation
• More flexible print packages

To see an introduction video on how to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 you can watch it on Adobe TV.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Manuel Perez

I finally finished ordering all the photos for Cal Ripken Baseball Saturday.  They should be here soon.  Once they arrive we will sort through them and put them together according to who ordered what and put them into envelopes.  We plan on delivering them on the day of the awards ceremony for the program.  We will be having a booth setup with all the envelopes and photos and we will also have some other items to display. 

Now that the photos are done we still have a couple of projects planned.   I got to join the Firebaugh Police Department Saturday for a barbeque and watching them qualify on the pistol range.  It was interesting and I plan on posting some of the photos on here tomorrow.  We also have a wedding planned for later on in May which is going to be great and I cant wait to see the happy couple at the altar. 

Now that all the photos are backed up I am now ready to make use of those 4 Seagate 1.5TB drives to configure them as a RAID 5.  The problem was that the motherboard I bought didn’t support a RAID 5 and Vista doesn’t support a RAID 5 without a separate controller so I went out and bought one.  It cost me about $112 on eBay but its worth it if you plan on having a lot of storage and redundancy.  The whole purpose of the RAID 5 is to have three or more hard drives act as one big drive giving you speed and redundancy.  If one drive fails then you quickly swap that drive out with another and it rebuilds itself keeping your data safe and secure.  I started the RAID 5 initialization on Sunday and it said it was going to take about 33 hours to initialize all the drives and give me a total of 4.5TB.  Now, my C drive or my OS drive is on a Seagate 1.0TB drive which I plan on using the RAID for keeping backups of the C drive along with my photos and downloads. 

That’s all for today.  Thanks for reading.

Manuel Perez

I am working on building a new PC and I must say it gets pricey when you want to add things like redundancy.  I have been purchasing most of the parts from New Egg which is really great with the prices.  In fact I think just about all of the parts came from New Egg except for the processor which I got from my friend.  Nothing fancy on the cpu but my friend is going to over clock it for me.  Here is what we have in it so far.

This does not count all the taxes and shipping for all the different times I had to buy this and then realized I needed this.  That is always a pain.  I plan on installing Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit on the OS.  I also have a 120GB SATA drive that I plan on hosting my OS on and using the 4 – 1.5TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration and use it to store my music, photos and documents on.  I will have another 1.5TB drive that I plan on using for Backups which I know I will have to upgrade that soon to keep all the backups on.  Thankfully I use Storage Craft to do all my backups and I must say it is the coolest way for backups. 

If anyone has any feedback I would appreciate it.  I am hoping to have this system up and running by next Friday since I have a Photography Gig coming up.  Wish me luck folks!

Well, after all the reinstalls after reinstalls, I decided to go with Windows Vista Ultimate 32.  I tried running Vista Ultimate 64 but a lot of my programs didn’t like the 64bit environment.  I then tried going to Windows 7 Ultimate 64 and the same thing.  I then went down to Windows XP 64 and the same thing.  I thought this is great!  I have 8GB of RAM and wont be able to use it all because I am going to have to go to Windows Vista Ultimate 32.  So I took out 2 sticks of 2GB, bringing me down to 4GB and after installing iTunes and importing all my music the system kept crashing.  So I thought I should put the memory back in and see how it runs.  It ran a lot smoother after the whole 8GB of RAM was in there. 

I then began installing all of my programs again.  I am about 75% complete with installing all my programs.  I just finished the big Adobe programs and will begin the little ones later on tonight.  I am going to take my computer in to get it readjusted with the memory changes so that I can take out the 4GB and get it over clocked just a bit more.  I was burning a CD for my wife yesterday and I must say the thing flies.  I started playing the first song on the list of songs on the CD and before it finished playing the song it was finished burning the entire disc. 

The system is running on an Intel Core 2 6700 CPU @2.66GHz over clocked at 3.20GHz.  The 8GB of RAM is fast.  I am waiting to come up with some money to buy an add in card for the RAID.  I plan on running a RAID 5 with the (4) Seagate 1.5TB 7200.11 Drives.  The motherboard supports 6 SATA devices but Vista doesn’t support RAID in the OS. 

I would love to hear back from everyone to see what they think or if they have any advice on this computer technology subject.

I have come across a dilemma with the new computer build.  Turns out that Windows Vista does not support a RAID 5 setup in the OS.  I can go out and buy a RAID controller and use the (4) 1.5TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration to have redundancy on the drives or I can upgrade to Windows 7.  I am for sure that I don’t want to downgrade to Windows XP because I have been down that route and don’t want to go back.  I like all the features built into Windows Vista Ultimate and would love to have them. 

I am thinking about purchasing the RAID controller card next month when I come across some more money but was thinking about just going to Windows 7 because it supports the RAID 5 in the OS.  I haven’t had much time to play with Windows 7 yet and wanted to get some feedback from you techies out there and see what you thought of Windows 7 Ultimate. 

I have to have a 64 bit OS because I have 8GB of RAM.  If anyone else has other ideas I am all ears! 

Thanks for reading!

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to share with you the new look of Perez Studios.  I was getting tired of the old look of the old site so I decided it was time for a new theme.  The good thing about a new theme is its super easy with the Word Press Engine running your site. 

I have been using Word Press for a couple of years now to manage my blog site and I must say that it makes things easy.  It allows me to choose from a bunch of layouts and themes and with the click of a button, I have a new theme and look without having to know too much coding. 

Above you see a screenshot of the old look which was Layers 1.1.1.  I liked it but the black on the screen and the words weren’t pleasing to the eye on the black background. 

Above you see a screenshot of the new look which is iNove 2.3.  I like it that it has a white background but still has the look of the black on top.  I had to do some research to figure out how to manipulate the width of the css because it was too narrow and when you viewed the upcoming events it would shrink the calendar and not display it all. 

I went to this site to view tips on how to manipulate the css. 

Let me know what you think of the new look and if you have any ideas.

If you are interested in setting up a Word Press site then visit their website for more tips.  If you would like me to build one for you then I can do that as well.  I created a couple for some organizations and it is quick and easy.  The Word Press engine runs on a SQL database which is very quick to setup and keeps your entire website organized and running smooth. 

Call me for a free quote on setting up a website utilizing Word Press for you or your organization.

Here are some websites I did that run Word Press.

Mendota Pentecostal Church of God

Mary Allen’s Country Colors

I have been wondering where do you professional photographers store your photos after so many years?  I have a 1.5TB drive as my Main drive and another 1.5TB drive as my backup which I use Storage Craft’s Shadow Protect to backup but what do the pros use?  I use Adobe Lightroom 2.0 to keep track of all my photos but as I begin to run at about 300GB left on the 1.5TB Main Drive I am wondering should I archive them onto DVD and keep them in a safe or what? 

Anyone with any ideas I would appreciate the help!

Have you ever had been at work and forgot to do something on your computer?  I have been listening to all the commercials about the ability to log into your computer from anywhere and remote to your computer.  The only problem with that is that they charge you a monthly service fee.  When I first started working at my current employer we came across a program called LogMeIn which is just as powerful as those other guys but its free.  They have some additional features for an additional price but the base package is free and comes with more than enough ability to take care of just about anything at home.  They even have plug-ins that allow you to work on a Blackberry or iPhone and remote into your guest computer.

I currently set this up for my clients so that when they have an issue I am able to check their computers remotely.  They even give you the ability to send email links for your clients so they can install it on their computer and then you have the ability to login from your home or office. 

If you haven’t seen this program go and check it out.  http://www.logmein.com.  If you have any questions or concerns about the software just let me know.  If you have had experiences with this or similar software I would love to hear about it.