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Posted at 01:56 AM PST: "Comments?"

I would like to open this entry up to some comments -- not necessarily related to anything in this site here. Anything to say out there? I'm just sort of curious who you all are.

This has been dangerous in the past... ;)

Hi Eric,

I found you last year via kenny liu who is the most adorable doctor in our hospital(not to mention one of the strangest). I check in every couple of weeks mostly because I am at work and there is no t.v. and your life is more interesting than the scenery outside our "pen" here at the switchboard.
I think you are becomming a phenomenal photographer and I love to read about your travel and adventures. While I am still in school and a mom it is as close to travelling myself as I get..so thank you!

trisha

posted by trisha @ 10/21/2002 01:43 pm PST

Heh. If you liked Bachelorhood article, you might find the following amusing as well:

15-Minute Man

Anthrax Scare Drives Down Cocaine Use.

Glad you got a laugh out of it! :P

posted by pjammer @ 10/13/2002 09:53 pm PST

hmm.
i can't honestly remember
who led me to your website
when i started to read you
regularly (when i emailed you
the same day in regards to
your nifty tank!). but it's
been a pleasure reading your
journal and seeing your pix since, spy! 8)

i do remember the very
first time i came across your
site was a link you made
to goldencandy.com.
for some reason, i couldn't
find your journal archives?

/dork

thanks for sharing online. 8)

posted by cyn @ 10/12/2002 05:13 pm PST

I love your photography and stories. Thank you for sharing.:)

posted by Sandra from Denmark @ 10/12/2002 02:36 am PST

pjammer - hey! I just found your site recently. I read "Why Pjammer is Doomed to Eternal Bachelorhood," which is HILARIOUS. :)

posted by echeng @ 10/12/2002 01:12 am PST

Howdy!

Let's see if I can get the obligatory boilerplate echeng.com comment out of the way ...

Hi Eric. I found you through [RBJ/search engine/stalking your ex like a psycho creep]. I just want to tell you that I [like/love/adore] your [awesome/amazing/breathtaking] photos. I've been reading your journal/blog for [1/2/3/10] years and I check back [monthly/weekly/obsessively, my PERL script reloads /output and pages me when changes are made]. Keep up the good work!

*Ahem*

Nice balance of personal exposition and terrific underwater photos, in all seriousness! :) When I upgrade cameras - I'll have to read some of yours (and Adam's) recommendations a bit more closely to get ideas on what I should focus on.

Anastasia - what are you hoping to accomplish by repeatedly pestering a stranger for details of their love life? It's rude and unseemly. If somebody deliberately leaves a part of their personal life offline, trust me, they are NOT sending out an invitation: "please, pester me enough and I will satisfy your morbid curiosity about my personal affairs."

Yeesh!

Ah. I also went to Vienna Teng's concert last week and wrote a review of it in my blog. Discovered her via a link on your website - and I am *really* looking forward to catching her CD. Thanks for the link.

Cheers!

- pjammer

posted by pjammer @ 10/12/2002 12:38 am PST

hi eric!

very brave of you to put up your comments again, and thank goodness it's been positive feedback so far... i'd really like to find out who the psycho commenter was and blow up his/her computer, but that's wrong, and thus i shall not think about it anymore. >=)

anyway, i love visiting your site every so often to get a glimpse into a life more exciting than my own... indeed, i am a simpleton, and though i enjoy being a simpleton, i also enjoy checking out greener pastures.

did somebody call me a sychophant? bastards! =P

posted by andrey @ 10/11/2002 11:47 pm PST

1) are you saying you use breezebrowser to dynamically build your pages?

I use breezebrowser to generate the thumbnail table and slideshow pages. the thumbnail table lives in one file -- which I include with a SSI include statement wherever I want it to go.

2) is space or bandwidth becoming an issue with all the images you have up already?

yes, it is! echeng.com is almost 1GB. I use CWI Hosting (cwihosting.com), and pay $30/month for 1.5GB of space.

3) by high quality jpeg do you mean 80% save quality (approximately)? (which i think would be about 80k on a 1meg 650x500x24 file)

um... I usually save between 60-70%, in Photoshop, depending on the image. In Breezebrowser, I use something around 86-88, whatever that means. In DeBabelizer Pro, I believe I use an 89.

Image sizes range from 30K-120K, depending on what I'm taking pictures of. :)

posted by ehcheng @ 10/11/2002 04:21 pm PST

thanks eric! i vacillate being happy and not so happy with the images that i have up. so hopefully i'll have better content as i finish the huge task of editing.

btw, i use irfanview to batch convert and color correct as it is much smaller and faster to use than photoshop. it makes converting and renaming files easy. especially when i am dealing with 200+ video stills for my asia journal pages.

a few questions:
1) are you saying you use breezebrowser to dynamically build your pages?
2) is space or bandwidth becoming an issue with all the images you have up already?
3) by high quality jpeg do you mean 80% save quality (approximately)? (which i think would be about 80k on a 1meg 650x500x24 file)

posted by Paul @ 10/11/2002 03:10 pm PST

I'm just a stalker. :)

posted by jim @ 10/11/2002 03:02 pm PST

I am an avid reader of both yours and amabelle's blogs, and believe that just because you both entertain, provoke thought, and seem to be fantastic people, there is no need to ask about personal issues that we have no privy to. Keep up the good work!

Kenny, you really should post more ;)

posted by Dorrie @ 10/11/2002 12:49 pm PST

I am an avid reader of amambelle and your's blog too. I really like to read you guys blogs. It is just like reading interesting stories. Like Anastasia said"why you guys broke up?" You guys looked ok when the time amambelle went to NY to visit you.. but then couple days later you guys not bf and gf anymore.. What was the matter? You guys made the readers so curious about the relationship... why didnt you guys talk about it..It is just like reading a story without a ending..

posted by A @ 10/11/2002 12:06 pm PST

Like Kenny, I too an am avid reader of echeng.com. Sometimes I bug Eric to take and post pictures of me so more traffic can come to my site :)

posted by Adam @ 10/11/2002 11:40 am PST

Hey, Eric. Long time, no email. Just took a quick pass at your web site, and saw this request. I don't make it here often, but I am in the process of creating my own blog, and decided to look and see how you implemented yours.

Thanks for the info on your workflow. I do something similar:

1) convert RAW D30 images to high quality jpeg.

2) add comments to EXIF in Breezebrowser.

3) generate html code, using modified template, in Breezebrowser. This step resizes, sharpens and adds copyright info to image.

Oops. I forgot to mention step 1.5: crop and adjust color balance in Photoshop 7.

voila.

great work. Just saw your webcam link above. Great idea.

-Andy

posted by Andy @ 10/11/2002 05:58 am PST

Hey, Miple -

I have a rather strange process, now. I used to do all sorts of fancy stuff with scripts, etc... but I found that Breezebrowser works just as well, and generates some kick-ass slideshows, complete with EXIF header information.

This is what I do:

1) color correct in photoshop

2) oversharpen in photoshop (500%, 0.6 for 6MP images, 400%, 0.4 for 2.1MP images)

3) save as high quality jpg in temporary staging area (this is why the EXIF data shows the size of the image to be so big. it uses this size, because they're the "original" images that the HTML generation uses).

4) copy EXIF information over from original images, using Breezebrowser

5) add comments to EXIF headers, using Breezebrowser

6) generate HTML, with my own template, using Breezebrowser -- with no sharpening in the resized files. The originals have already been oversharpened. I find that oversharpening the originals and resizing without sharpening the final image works the best.

7) upload HTML and generated images files to a directory, and server-side include the index file wherever i need it (the only thing in the generated file is a table with linked thumbnails).

I can do this very quickly, now. :)

posted by echeng @ 10/11/2002 12:28 am PST

Hey Eric,
I've been checking out your site for a while now (found it via tow.com) & must say that you have a really amazing collection of pictures! Every person that I show your underwater photos to is as equally amazed as I was when I first saw them.

Anyways, one quick question. What program do you use to resize your pics b4 uploading to your site? Both you and Adam seem to be able to keep the dimensions of the pics large, yet keep the file sizes relatively small without losing much of the clarity/detail. Whenever I try to resize (using Photoshop), I either end up sacrificing dimensions or clarity in an effort to keep the file sizes manageable. Any help would be appreciated! Peace.

posted by Miple @ 10/11/2002 12:14 am PST

like many others i found ur site through some photography stuff, have been coming here often for almost half a year, i like ur photos and your life sounds so.. vigorous so to speak. hm.. it's funny how I can relate to some of your blogs and restaurants u mentioned, cos i just graduated and started working in bay area. anyways just to say hi and maybe i'll see you some day on the streets

posted by ding @ 10/11/2002 12:08 am PST

eric:

i forgot how i found your blog; i've been reading for awhile now. i love your stories and pictures. if i only had a camera, the stories i could tell too....

posted by chi @ 10/10/2002 07:50 pm PST

hi eric, like most of the people here, i must say you take the most beautiful photos. i've been reading your site off and on for almost two years now, and what brought mere were actually the pics of your bengal kitties. i take a lot of photos of my cat, but i'm just a photographer wanna-be. :) take care and thanks for sharing your vision. ~LK

posted by luckykat @ 10/10/2002 07:39 pm PST

hey eric, I've been visiting your site on and off for about a little over a year now. I love your photography! and that's the main reason I come back, to check if you've got some great shots up, plus I'm also interested in seeing what kind of exotic places you've gone to recently. I just got back from a trip to asia a few weeks ago, and shot a ton of pictures. If you're interested in checking them out, lemme know and I'll send you an invite offline to the albums. take care!

posted by rc @ 10/10/2002 06:40 pm PST

Hi Eric!! Thanks for saying hi! I see how comments can be dangerous now.

Guys, privacy and maintaining a friendship are more important than satisfying your lunchtime curiosity! Go read the National Enquirer.

posted by Raymond @ 10/10/2002 01:40 pm PST

oh, also... being a musician myself... i have enjoyed reading all about your musical adventures... and i am reminded every time i go to your site that perhaps i should've taken up the cello rather than percussion!! ;)

posted by carlos @ 10/10/2002 01:28 pm PST

first off, thank you, eric... for your generous donation to Rice Bowl Journals! :)

secondly, i've been an admirer of your site... and the photos are always stunning! as well as the layout/design and its organization.

thirdly, man! 100 photos in 32 hours... very inspiring to say the least!

posted by carlos @ 10/10/2002 01:25 pm PST

Cats are gone to a nice family in the East Bay. My lifestyle (gone a lot, and busy, at home) was not a good match for Bengals, unfortunately. I miss them, but it's good to be "free." :)

posted by echeng @ 10/10/2002 01:11 pm PST

e-
thanks for the reply. while i am disappointed to not fully understand what went on (amabelle's blog definitely stirs up that curiosity), i understand...but c'mon! your fans deserve to know!!! this is too tom & nicole for me! and for your fans (as well as amabelle's readers). excuse my persistence and blatant disregard for your privacy, but i had to at least make a plea. thank you.

and P.S. dig your pics!! but what happened to the cats? i haven't seen them in a while in the pics! and i love cats!

posted by Anastasia @ 10/10/2002 01:08 pm PST

Paul -- fantastic photos on your site!

I print with my Epson 2200 printer, and also occasionally get lightjet prints made at Pictopia.com. Actually, it's hard for me to tell the difference -- especially behind glass (unless you study the print from a few inches away. :).

I would really like to take some time to put together a portfolio. I tend to post ALL of my photos, instead of just the good ones.

Anastasia -

Yeah... only our friends really know what happened, and even then, it's always a one-sided story from one of us, since very few of our friends are friends in common. I don't mind it when she does mention my name, but I prefer not to share my most personal thoughts on a public forum, so that sort of thing stays off of /output.

There are also some people on her blog who are crazy stalker types. They are always willing to come here to cause trouble, so it's just better if I stay off of the topic.

posted by echeng @ 10/10/2002 11:47 am PST

I'm an avid reader of echeng.com. I used to post stuff on my site, too, but recently, it's just been easier to read your site and pretend that I'm posting on my site, too.

cool pictures.

posted by Kenny Liu @ 10/10/2002 10:49 am PST

i first started visiting your site by stumbling upon your kilimanjaro entries. I envy your life... that's all i gotta say.

posted by dude @ 10/10/2002 10:48 am PST

hi eric,

i also stumbled onto your site from amabelle's, by way of ricebowljournals.com

you have some really awesome underwater shots. and your colors are so saturated and really luscious. do you print C-prints or cibas from your digital shots? i wonder how the quality is? i just got an epson1280 and the images are not that bad. not cibachromes, but for casual images its more than adequate.

i was a banker in NYC for many years, and am trying to be a photographer now. i've been editing 8 years of stuff for the last 6 months now. and almost finished. so we'll see how it goes.

i have a yamaha C7, but rarely play it these days. was working on chopin's revolutionary etude. i haven't taken out my violin in years. but probably like you played both since about 5yrs old.

paul

posted by Paul @ 10/10/2002 09:22 am PST

i'm an avid reader of amabelle's blog. silly questions or not. and i want to get down to the naked truth. how comes she never mentions your name when she talks about her "ex", and why did you break up with her? and why is that never discussed in your entries? i'm just looking to tie everything together. much appreciated.

posted by Anastasia @ 10/10/2002 08:32 am PST