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    May 26

    Rushworth Easter Festival photos

    The webDotWizards were out over Easter to photo the annual Rushworth Heritage Easter Parade.
     
    You'll find links to their online photo albums at http://www.webdotwiz.com/sites-230409.htm.
    March 26

    John's impressive Deep Zoom panorama of POW Camp 13

    John created a panorama from a photo at the Murchison Historical Museum depicting the Murchison World War II POW Camp 13.
     
    He's uploaded the photo using Deep Zoom Composer so you can zoom and pan around the panorama to pick up lots of detail.
     

    Mazza's driveway photosynth

    Here's a photosynth with a difference (and may give you some ideas, too, for your own photosynths):
     
    March 12

    Photosynths by the Digital Camera Class (Feb-Mar 2009)

    Here are links to photosynths by members of the RCH Digital Camera class:
     
     
    You can follow the photosynths from the Rushworth district (that includes Cornella :)) on the Photosynth Explore Map.
    March 11

    Digital camera class photosynths

    All members of the digital camera class have managed to create a photosynth from a collection of photos.
     
    As soon as they put up the links to their photosynths online, the links will be posted here and you can enjoy their creations.
     
    Keep an eye out for a new post real soon (as they say).

    More photos from Kevin

    Kevin has posted several times recently to show some tests he's been doing with his Canon SX1 camera;
     
    Visit his site at http://kevplew.spaces.live.com to catch up with the latest.

    Digital camera class Feb - Mar 2009 underway

    In late February, a group of five began a digital camera class that will run over five weeks.
     
    All have been having fun using Windows Live Photo Gallery to import photos from their cameras to the computers, organising their photos and then creating panoramic photos and 3D photosynths - these latter two activities make up the fun part of the course.
     
    As part of Live Photo Gallery, the group have started to upload photos to their free online photo album space (plenty of free space - 25,000 megabytes of it!) to make it easy to share photos with family and friends.
     
    Thus far you can find three of the group at their own websites - just click the links listed below - which gives you access to the photos they've upload so far:
     
    February 09

    Photo albums from Genie, Poppy and Mosaic Barn

    You can browse some panoramas and photo albums on these links:
     

    John's Mercedes SSK photosynth

    John has synthed his model of the Mercedes SSK - click the link http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=45D5EBAE-1F9F-43C2-8570-BC386386E8B8
     
    He's got some panoramas to deep zoom and post online - keep an eye on his site at jbmurch.spaces.live.com.

    Kevin's test photos from his Canon SX1 camera

    Kevin has been posting photos he's taken with his new Canon SX1 camera - check his site at kevplew.spaces.live.com.
     
    October 29

    Talking about Irises – Must do things in 2009

    A writeup with lots of good photos from one of the display gardens featured in the Rushworth Open Garden day held on Sunday October 26 2008.

    Thanks Genie. 

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    Irises – Must do things in 2009

    Last weekend I visited an Open Garden in Rushworth Victoria.I have been to iris shows before but not on this scale. To see 200 different varieties planted in the ground in full flower was well worth the visit.

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    They have already started to prepare the ground for new plantings for next year so it should be spectacular.

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    If you missed this garden at the weekend you really missed a great garden, keep it in mind for a must in 2009, it will be advertised.

    Talking about Bush Walking with Louise Costa

    Plenty to see and read about from the Oct 25 Bushwalk out to Reedy Lake. 

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    Bush Walking with Louise Costa

    On Saturday morning we met at the Community Centre at 8.00. Our destination today was to Reedy Lake near Nagambie, we were joined this morning by 2 couples and their 4 children, Louise and Carol, Kristine ( Community Volunteer) myself and of course Louise had bought her dog along for a run.  

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    The area here is very dry but interesting, Louise showed us a site where there had been a midden many years ago. A midden often contains evidence of cooking such as charcoal, ash, firestones, burnt earth or clay. Sometimes they also contain animal bones, fish bones and stone tools and traces of aboriginal burials.They are found along river banks, near swamps and lakes.

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    Louise with clay which had hardened to a rock.

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    We headed off towards the waters edge, but often stopping to have a close look at something along the way.

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    Louise explaining the tree hollow to the children.

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    Play time, Mum nearly came a cropper, when the branch broke.

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    Interesting spider webs, holes looked large enough to have a large spider !!!!!!!!  Left them alone.

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    Lovely soft native grasses.

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    Finally we reached the waters edge which was a long way out, the sun shining on it made it look lovely.

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    Would you believe emu footprints, it was a bit of a surprise.

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    This was really the highlight of our day, one of the alert children noticed a leaf with larvae wriggling on it, on closer inspection we were excited to be able to watch the hatching of dragonflies. The pictures below show the stages. 

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    Just a small log but a nice story.

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    Heading back towards the cars.

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    Time to say goodbye to new friends after such a lovely morning, with one of the couples moving to Coffs Harbour, we wish them well. Now the weather is starting to warm up, next month is the last bush walk this year, starting again in March 09.

    Talking about photos around Murchison

    John has some other photo albums that are worth browsing. 

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    Talking about More RCH Courtyard photos

    There are other photos worth looking at in this album. 

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    Talking about RCH Courtyard Roses

    When you're looking at this photo, take a moment to browse the complete album. 

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    October 07

    webDotWizards photos

    Those webDotWizards with a camera have not just been taking photos to save memories for family and friends.

    Using free software such as Windows Live Photo Gallery, they’ve been experimenting with creating panoramic photos of locations and sights around the area. Here’s the view from Growler’s Hill courtesy of Poppy:

    In the past couple of weeks the wildflowers have been in abundance in the Rushworth forest and Genie photographed some of them during the monthly bushwalk with Louise – here’s one:

    Taking her interest further, Genie created a panorama of a canola crop:

    Other free software the webDotWizards have been trying is Photosynth which gives a 3D view of a collection of photos. You can create an interior view of a room (such as Rushworth Community House’s computer room at the top of the Rushy Whroomer), an exterior walk-around view of a building, or a 3D rotating view of your favourite pot plant in full flower.

    Finally, Kevin, who photographs with impact and attitude, is continually contributing thought-provoking photos to show us all what’s possible:

    October 02

    Talking about Bush walking with Louise Costa

    Take a few minutes to browse through Genie's photo album of native plants in the Rushworth forest (link is below). 

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    Talking about Bush walking with Louise Costa

    Genie has a photo album of photos she took on this bush walk - click this link to view. 

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    Bush walking with Louise Costa
     This morning, Saturday September 27th at 8.00 we met at the Community Centre.
     With Louise as our guide we headed off to look for wildflowers in our local forest.
     The weather was great, also the company, we walked up Growlers Hill and down to the Flora Reserve,
     then on to the clay dam. What a lovely spot, the colours around the waters edge very vivid and there was even water in the dam !!!!! 
     Enjoyed the morning so much will go again next month.

    Talking about Get started with Wave 3 Windows Live

    Scroll down if you're more interested in reading about some of the new features in Live Photo Gallery

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    Get started with Wave 3 Windows Live

    The Wave 3 version of all the programs and services that make up the Windows Live suite (Live Calendar, Live Family Care, Live Hotmail, Live Mail, Live Messenger, Live Movie Maker, Live Photo Gallery, Live Toolbar, Live Writer) can be downloaded from http://download.live.com. Although these programs are still in trial (that’s why you’ll see “beta” in their title), webDotWiz has installed them on his own computer and those at the Rushworth Community House without any problem.

    In this column we’ll take a brief look at some of the new features in just two of the Live suite: Live Messenger and Live Photo Gallery. There’s plenty to talk about but one of the snazziest little things in Live Messenger is when you hover your mouse over the top right corner to see the texture peel away so you can set your own scene. Choose from those provided or browse to use one of your own photos.

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    The Wave 3 Messenger becomes a better central point to get to your email (note the small envelope on the right-hand side) either via Live Mail or directly to your Hotmail.

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    Favorites is set up so you can add specific people to this group of friends. As well you can create groups of people whom you chat with (a group can consist of as many as fifteen of your Messenger contact friends).

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    At the bottom of the Messenger windows is the What’s new section. This part of the window scrolls through what your friends have added to their Live Spaces so you’ll be up-to-date whenever they add new photos or make a new entry. Click the dividing line to expand the size of this section or click What’s new to take to your Live Spaces home page.

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    Hover your mouse over one of your contacts to bring up a menu so you can post an instant message to begin chatting or share some photos or send an email.

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    Turning to Live Photo Gallery, there are some special features that have been added. You’re now able to tag people in your photos with their name for easy reference, straighten any photos (often this is done automatically as soon as you choose the Fix menu), view and download photos of your friends on Live Messenger, and create a Photosynth directly.

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    Now there are two types of tags – people and descriptive, the latter being the former Tags feature. When you first start Live Photo Gallery after installing the Wave 3 version you’ll note that it spends some time updating your photo library (look down in the bottom left corner) to look through your photos to apply its face recognition technology. Once this task is finished, opening any photo of family or friends will bring up a list of unidentified people.

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    Over at the top right of the Live Photo Gallery windows you’ll see under People tags that you can identify this person.

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    Hovering over the Identify link enables you to enter a name for this person and if you’re logged in to your Windows Live ID you’ll have access to your Messenger friends list to make the job easier.

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    The Straighten photo function under the Fix menu repairs any photos taken when you weren’t holding the camera level. As well when you’ve scanned 35mm slides and the negative has slipped inside its cardboard holder the scanned result can be repaired.

    Here’s a scanned slide that needs a little straightening:

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    After choosing Straighten photo under the Fix menu, a grid is placed over your photo to help make the job easier if you’re not happy with Live Photo Gallery’s automatic straightening.

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    Live Photo Gallery has plenty of excellent features to help you organise your photos and edit them for your viewing pleasure. The program is simple to use but at the same time is powerful – and it’s free! If you’d like to take the creation of panoramic photos further than Live Photo Gallery offers, you can download Microsoft Image Composite Editor which gives you more output options for your large panoramic creations.

    Overall the Wave 3 version of the Windows Live suite is now at a stage where we can start to experience the benefit of how these services tie in together (webDotWiz hasn’t mentioned, for example, how Live Calendar now synchronises with the calendar in Live Mail or Outlook).

    Here are some sites to get you started:

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    May the Synth be with you.

    Posted using the Wave 3 version of Windows Live Writer.

    September 25

    Talking about Summer program Oct to Dec 2008 at Rushworth Community House

    All the courses and programs for Term 4 (October - December) at the Rushworth Community House are now available on the Rushworth Community House Live Space. The courses are posted online by day of the week so you can easily browse through the pages to find the course you want.

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    Summer program Oct to Dec 2008

    Summer Program 2008

    October 6 to December 19

     

    Details on the way – online here – in the next day or so.

    A printed version of the new term’s program is being distributed so will turn up in your mailbox soon.