This post is a follow-up of my previous one concerning the FAT 32 formatting of hard drives bigger than 32 GB under Windows.

For those who think I'm speaking hebrew here, let me explain briefly :

I have recently been confronted to the need of digitally recording live endoscopic / laparoscopic surgery procedures in the operating room (OR). This challenge had several constraints such as :

• the system should be small and easily tranportable in and out of the OR
• the system should be compatible with most video endoscopy standards and connections used in ORs

As I wrote in a previous post, I have setup accounts at Fotolia and Dreamstime. My experience so far is that both sites have nice and intuitive interfaces. They both exist in several languages, although Dreamstime non-english languages are still in beta and sometimes translations aren't accurate. This is not a problem for me as I use the english version of these sites most of the time. Fortunately, both site let you upload photos using FTP, which makes your life easier when you have a series of photos to upload.

Here are some remarks about this personal experience:

Hello,

My apologies to those who come visit this site regularly to see if new stuff has been posted. Sorry for the silence during these past few weeks. I have been so busy at work that I had almost no time left for anything else. Things are cooling down a little bit now and I am going to post here again more frequently.

It has been seven days now since I submitted some photos to Dreamstime.com and Fotolia.com stock photography websites (see this post for details). A week later, I am still waiting for approval of my images. This is very frustrating...

Recently, I have been looking at stock photography sites. More precisely, I have set up accounts at dreamstime.com  and fotolia.com. It seems that more and more people are trying to sell their photos on these image database sites and some (well...a few) people are making money with this activity. Even if you are talented and have an important activity on these sites, I don't think the income you may get from these sites can replace a "regular" job. But it can be fun, I guess, and it gives an opportunity to index and classify your photos more accurately.

SQL server 2005 Express Edition is a great  (and free !) database tool from Microsoft. While the Express Edition doesn't have the full capabilities of SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise editions, it is sufficient for running your average data-based website. Unfortunately, backing up an SQL database is not an easy task. You're never sure to backup everything that is needed in case of a database problem and the Express edition of SQL Server doesn't provide a utility like the Standard or Enterprise editions. Expressmaint is a free utility that comes in two flavours : a stored procedure that you can execute on your SQLServer Express and a stand-alone executable that you can call from a scheduled task on your PC or your web/database Server. This is the solution I'm currently using for my blog and my photoblog.

Richard Avedon in Milan : a retrospective

I had the chance to see the Richard Avedon retrospective exhibition in Milan last week.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) is considered as one if the greatest photographers in the world. His work has changed the world of fashion photography. He has also done some great portraits of famous and non-famous people. These portraits are dark, emotional and intense.

This could be the best photo website around...
Onexposure.net is a photography website and community, where each photo is screened which means it has to be approved by an editor before before being published. Then anyone can comment, criticize and discuss it in the forums. Onexposure.net is a photo community, but where art is the main concern. You don't have to look at hundreds of less-than-everage photos to have the chance to see some great pictures. Founded by two serious amateur photographers from Sweden, onexposure.net has an interesting vision and philosophy :

I have built this site with Graffiti CMS. Graffiti CMS is a very recent product (version 1.0) released in february 2008. Graffiti CMS has been developped by Telligent, the company that makes Community Server. Communit Server is a powerful online community management system that is used to run some of the most important communities on the Internet (MySpace, National Geographic Online, XBox 360, and others).