Tag: Meta

Unsplash: Completely free images for whatever you want

I recently made the decision to have a featured image for each of my blog entries. The intention was to make things more consistent and easier on the eye. Sometimes, the image to use was immediately obvious and I would get it from my personal photos, at other times, it was not so easy.

Thankfully, my good friend and exceptional designer, Terrance Robb came to the rescue by introducing me to Unsplash. Unsplash is a service that posts ten stock images every ten days. These are high resolution images licensed under Creative Commons Zero, and as such, are completely free to use as you see fit.

Unsplash | Free Stock Photos

Why use Unsplash? Well, when someone puts professional, copyrighted images on the Internet without the permission of the owner, it directly impacts that owner's ability to make money from that work.  I like Unsplash because it encourages people to do the right thing with regards to copyright. Rather than resort to stealing copyrighted images with a right-click, Save As…1, Unsplash provides a free source of images for those who cannot afford professional alternatives. Not only that, but the licensing terms are completely unambiguous. There is no hunting for the appropriate attribution information or license information, you know exactly what your getting with these images.

So, next time you need inspiration or want an image for your presentation or blog and don't have the budget to pay for a professional stock (or custom) photo, don't steal; check out Unsplash.

  1. come on, you know you have done it [↩]

Humble beginnings

I saw friends do it, I saw professionals do it and I wondered, "Why don't I do it?"

Ever since I started taking part in Stack Overflow, I have been frustrated to find that sometimes, there is so much more to write than just a question, an answer or an occasional witty comment (or perhaps, more correctly, occasionally witty). Things the likes of Jon Skeet, Eric Lippert, Jeff Atwood and many other Stack Overflow participants blog about all the time, things born from hours and days spent making mistakes solving problems at home or at work, things NSFF (Not Suitable For Facebook – I like my friends just enough not to geek out in front of them like that).

But wait, there's more1

Not only did I have blog envy, but this year I started attending the Ann Arbor .NET Developers group meetings. Through AADND, not only have I met some fascinating people, but I have also learned about some fascinating things. From the .NET Micro Framework to the Windows Workflow Foundation (did you know version 4 was a complete rewrite? me neither), my mind was awash with ideas, projects and procrastination and while I tinkered with and tweeted about these things, deep down, I harboured a desire to do more and to say more. I could not contain it any longer, so here we are.

I intend to blog about anything and everything from my songwriting and recording to my DIY disasters improvisations, but mostly, I expect I will blog about programming. I hope that I'll provide some useful insight or perhaps just useful instruction so others don't have to repeat my mistakes, but most importantly, I hope that I'll learn a few things along the way.

So far in life I've been a software engineer, a strawberry picker, an ostrich farmer, a barman, a sarcastic git, a singer, a runner, a cook, an ex-pat and a gamer (sometimes several at once). I'm often amazed at the things I don't know and I'm always somewhat abstract. I saw friends do it, I saw professionals do it and I wondered, "Why don't I do it?" So I did.

Thanks for stopping by.

1it would be a short blog if there weren't