Happy Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and leftovers weekend!

If you’re looking for an easy way to avoid dark-thirty doorbuster lines to find a fun gift for us (read: probably Eric) boy have we got a surprise!

Our camera bag made it into a contest!

Drop on by the Digital Wedding Forum’s contest to see all the camera bags and vote for your favorite and ours, number 18!  Consider it a great Christmas gift you don’t have to pick out, find, wake up early to stand in line for, buy, wrap, or sneak under a conifer!

Please VOTE FOR #18!

VOTE HERE >>> http://www.digitalweddingforum.com/blog/whats-in-the-bag

Plus a gift* for you!

After we have won and are crowned Camera Homecoming King & Queen / Cutest Couple, Eric will record and post a geeky video of all the gear we haul around and WHY we use it (besides it being shiny).

Thanks so much for your help! – Eric & Sara

*gift may not be exchanged for cash or less geeky content. Void where prohibited by law. Please geek out responsibly.

Image © Drobo

Just over 2 years ago I added a Drobo to our wedding photography workflow and backup strategy. (Read the original writeup here). I just fed it another pair of 1 terabyte hard drive this month and figured it would make a good time to share a review of its performance over the last 2 years of photography work and backup duty.

My use

I bought the Drobo USB model when I was running all my edit work off my MacBook Pro laptop. The MB Pro’s 320gb internal drive filled up really fast with shoots, edits, designs and my music collection. Last fall we added a Mac Pro tower to the home office to handle heavy lifting and upgraded storage needs. (And there was much rejoicing!)

After the Mac Pro addition the Drobo now handles backups of Lightroom catalogs, raw and JPG image backups, designs. Older catalogs from 2004-2008 stay archived on the Drobo for infrequent reference and finding samples from specific churches or reception venues.

“Live Work” catalogs of 2009-2011 work are backed up every few hours with Apple’s Time Machine and synchronized to a Drobo backup weekly using ChronoSync as well as synchronized between the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro nightly. (Great to have your most recent edits, designs, and full offline previews on the laptop ready to go.)

I haven’t used any other RAID systems yet to compare one setup against the Drobo’s way of doing things, but am interested to hear comparisons in the comments.

Likes

Simple. Plug it in, put in hard drives, go to town. Mismatch drive sizes and it figures out how to span the data. I started with a pair 0f 500gb drives, added 2 more 1TB drives, and now have all 4 bays full of 1TB drives. Rather effortless setup, USB connection (Firewire, gigabit ethernet and more options on newer versions).

All in one box. When I switched to Macs I started with laptops for Sara and me. I had a little city being built on my desk from the mismatched external drives I used to manage, backup, and store images. It was nice to keep the other externals as infrequent use backups or to move large folders of wedding edits between computers.

Easy to upgrade. I’m writing this while the Drobo does its work spreading data out to the new 1TB drive I just added. (Update: adding a 1TB drive took about 20 hours for the Drobo to reallocate data across all the drives. You can still access the data once a new drive is added, but don’t shut it down!)

Dislikes

I realized quickly the performance bottleneck editing a few thousand NEF / camera raw files in Lightroom from an external USB drive. None of my other external drives provided much more speed, this was a problem of needing faster, larger internal storage.

On the upside, in the winter my laptop and the Drobo could heat my office while processing these edits. There are newer, faster versions available since the introductory USB model, and I now run my edit & design work off the Mac Pro’s internal drives at a much faster pace. This solved that bottleneck.

Paranoia of a proprietary RAID format. This one still gets me. I took one of the smaller 500GB drives out to add the 1TB upgrade and when I put the Drobo-fied drive in the Mac Pro it wasn’t recognizable and would need to be formatted (read: erased) to be used in the Mac Pro. While the Drobo tells you when a drive is getting full and (haven’t tested) if one fails, it doesn’t say much of what happens when the box’s internal hardware wears out. I suppose get a new Drobo? I’m still a bit leery of this one.

Hot & bothered. It gets pretty loud when running lots of editing and transfers. I have it mounted under my desk to save some space and reduce the noise. Other reviews have mentioned this too. It’s only as loud as the hard drives spinning when it isn’t under much use, but in editing or moving large amounts of data the fan kicks up pretty high. Keeps my legs & toes warm in the winter. It seems to be loudest when compared against the MacBook Pro on the desk and the Mac Pro (near silent!) also on or under the desk. If it’s in a noisy room it’s no problem.

Here’s a couple of screen shots of the backup in progress.

Recommendation: Yes. Keep it simple.

Best for: Data backup, Time Machine, infrequently used / archived files.

If you want to give a Drobo a try and appreciated our real life workflow review, we’d love it if you got one through us here, it helps spoil the kids, I mean support our growing family.

- Eric B

The name game

Disclaimer, I enjoy photography and enough web design to throw my site together. I’m far from an expert at either.

Late the other night I was checking web stats and got an idea. That led me to just flat out Google “eb photography” to see what happens when someone searches for my page instead of just typing ebphotography.com like it is on all my stationary, promotional materials, sample albums, etc. (This is an oddly high way that traffic reaches us when people search for a web address isntead of just type it in the address bar.)

My business’ name is far from unique, I’m very aware of this. I was required to make a business name and logo from my name or initials for a typography class and… hated the idea. When I wrote my initials together it either looked exactly like a video game store‘s logo or a butterfly. Then I scribbled something and fired up Illustrator and made the logo I have today, it stuck immediately. And so the slanty slashy figure 8 was born. I didn’t however, want to name it after my full name and make anyone try and pronounce my last name the way I do (Americanized German pronunciation I presume).

Here’s some of the other “EB Photography” listings that came up.

ebphotography.net – Emma Barnard

Mentions Reading and British English so I’m thinking Great Britain / UK across the pond. I had to look up the website registration to find any name, which totally puzzles me. Wouldn’t you want a prospective client to know who they’re contacting? “Hi is… EB there? Ebb, are you a photographer?” Hey there’s a Nikon camera on the home page!

ebphotography.org – Emily Bitterman

Denver, Colorado is mentioned a few places on the site. I gathered her first name from the email address listed. Script fonts are pretty till you have to read a paragraph of them. Also Photoshop comps with text are completely useless to search engines if you want your info to be found. Once it’s found keep it readable. Also had to look up registration info to find a name.

ebphotographyonline.com – Elizabeth Breakey

Raleigh, North Carolina – finally, a NAME and a LOCATION on the site. Big points.

Attack of the music! I started shutting browser tabs to find out which site was creeping in on my already-playing music. At least it’s bearable. (EDIT: I left this site open the longest so the kids could enjoy the calming music.) The scribbly scripty links were a bit to read at first. Nice flash site a little scrapbook background feel. Nice work too!

http://ebphotoanddesign.com – Elissa Barela

Santa Ana, California phone number lookup. Nice clean site, the “about” page text was miniscule to read though, and I already have glasses. Love the Nikon camera again. I’m no bride but if your “wedding” gallery consists of only ONE posed photo I’d be a little leary. Blog but it hasn’t had an update since last year. Had to get name off registration again.

http://www.ebphotodesign.com – Ellen Burke

Again, the registration info. One working link, and no contact page. Looks like the site was abandoned. Still pops up in the listings so I wanted to check it out.

Tips (Freebies!)

For starters, list your name & location if you want to be found! If people don’t remember if you’re EB Photography listed under ebphotography.com, ebphotography.net or ebphotography.org they can surely remember if they see your name and location.

Make it searchable. Might have to abandon the Photoshop comps, which brings us to …

Make it readable. I’d probably skip 2 of the sites if I hadn’t really, really, wanted to see what they were about.

Keep it fresh. Good reminder to me to keep adding new photos, posts, and interesting bits.

My turn! eBphotography.com

So it’s nice to at least know there aren’t any EB Photography photographers from these sites in this area. Wouldn’t want anyone to get confused. This began as a search to see if visitors who just searched for “eb photography” would know which one to choose if they were looking for eBphotography.com and turned up some really intriguing results.

So for all things equality… rip on my site http://ebphotography.com, it’s only fair. Hit me with your best shot… of constructive criticsm. Since these other EB Photography pages aren’t direct, area competitors there’s no reason I should slack on my work and not get an earful about the good bad and ugly of my own site. Tell your friends, enemies, and your enemies’ friends: it’s open season.

Game on.

eB

With weekend events to photograph and mix, lots of final touches to the house, early Thanksgiving dinner (yay!), and scheduled c-section with hospital recovery in the coming week I wanted to put a notice out early to let everybody know I might be out of touch for a few days.

We’ll be back at full speed Tuesday, December 1st.

To everyone that’s going to ask, Sara’s doing well, looks great, and is more than ready to have our daughter soon. Last month soon. Adrian likes to put his hand or head on Mommy’s tummy and say “baybee” and I’m pretty sure he knows something’s up but not that he’s about to be ousted as the youngest in the house. There’s also that sharing thing to get used to.

You needn’t remind me to take lots of photos. I’ll have the exclusive since it looks like Madeline’s holding off for early Thanksgiving dinner this weekend and staying in her nice cozy hideout till Tuesday’s scheduled c-section delivery. We’ll announce when it’s ok to have visitors, keep in touch here, facebook, twitter, and faxes. Just kidding. We keep it old school, telegraph time.

Be back soon! – Eric, Sara, Adrian and Maddie

The century would change and they would each hit the road and live abroad on separate continents. And then one summer afternoon back in Indiana in 2002 they would meet up to share travel stories and photos and start to fall in love.

In 2005 he asked Sara to shoot with him at a friend’s wedding… and they were hooked.

In 2006 they would stand in front of the cameras out in the green grass to celebrate the ceremony they have photographed together… a wedding day. Our wedding day!

The rest, as they say, is history!

To kick off our 5th year photographing together, this March we’re proud to present our Photography Gallery Debut.

Come celebrate with us Saturday, March 7, 2009 as we kick off our very first Gallery!

Saturday, March 7th, 2009 – 7:00-10:00pm
Ugly Mugs Coffee & Culture
102 N Main Street, South Bend, Indiana

Click HERE for directions!

We hope to see you there! Click the photo or Click Here to see and add the FaceBook event page!

Years back I set up shipping accounts for shipping all kinds of goodies in eBay auctions. I worked in shipping and receiving for a while before being shipped out to live on a ship. I like logistics.

One of the sites that makes keeping track of our album orders, customer orders, eBay goodies and things boxed and stamped in general from pretty much any carrier delivering in the US is TrackThePack.com

Today I saw this unusually fun list of European cities one of my boxes is visiting, and I’m jealous.

Any guesses? It’ll be here this week… expect a big announcement soon!

Truth in photography and business from WhatTheDuck.net

(Trouble seeing the photo in your subscription? Click HERE)

One photographer replied that the buffet is her favorite Chinese Restaurant. It didn’t occur to me till I began a reply that my favorite Chinese restaurant is directly across the parking lot. So how, then do two similar restaurants stay in business? Here’s my reply that got ME thinking while I wrote it.

- – - – -

Should you get the chance, drive, walk or take a rickshaw across the New China parking lot north toward Ireland Road and walk downstairs to China Garden. Same great fried goodness, less sitting-in-a-buffet-bin texture. Order your food, not scoop it.

Disclaimer: Sara and I frequent China Garden. Probably 25% of the time that we have their food we order it carry out. We’re hooked. I won’t pass up a buffet meal with friends or family, but given the choice between these two Chinese restaurants within a fortune cookie’s throw of each other, I’ll be found at China Garden.

Small business lesson here? Two restaurants, pretty much same ingredients. Two different approaches to serving similar* foods.

Differences?

New China / Buffet: (Been there at least since 1998)

• U-Scoop – eat as much as your digestive system allows.
• One price and you get everything in the bins
• Great to try different dishes that at your leisure, good for picky eaters too.
• Staff takes payment and takes away dirty plates
• Conversation: Hi how many?” and “Are you done with that plate?”

China Garden / Sit-down: (25+ years in business including restarting after a building fire)

• A greeting where, if followed by “How many?” is to determine your party size not your order total upon entry
• Meal courses (appetizer, entree, dessert) served individually and not all available simultaneously. Timed delivery keeps the food coming a portion at a time.
• Portions are generous and I often take home leftovers
• Servers take your order at table, bring food, and in most of my experiences there, conversation.
• Did I mention an experience?

My first time eating at China Garden with Sara was not long after her mother had passed away, not two months into my dating days with Sara. When we arrived the staff asked how Sara was and how her family was doing. When Sara told our waitress that her mother had recently passed, the waitress broke into tears. I didn’t realize how long Sara’s family had been visiting the Garden and how they had gotten to know the staff.

Their chef, Jimmy, has come out to our table to see how our meal was (always tasty!). The exact date escapes me but within the last year or so he lost his wife. More than once he’s had conversations with us and with Sara’s dad about lost loved ones.

Once the fried goodness digests and tiredness subsides, what are you left with? A rumbling stomach, perhaps. Smelling like deep fried Chinese food, most certainly. What’s the experience that will get you talking?

What’s your business’ experience that will get your customers talking?

* Foods similar to American tastebuds and relatively safe to assume isn’t intestines, dog, or anything too “weird” for Americans to eat. Fellow China travelers can you agree?

PS This is certainly my most introspective and cohesive Tuesday Thoughts post yet. Thanks for reading.

So anyway, enter British chef and TV crew, restaurant makes its own mozzarella cheese and specialty dishes, everyone’s thrilled so…

Chef Gordon gives Anthony a ring to propose to his girlfriend in front of the packed restaurant, including food critics from Bon Appetit magazine. Everyone’s thrilled, teary and Gordon drops another surprise: he’s arranged for them to get married THAT NIGHT. And the couple looked stellar.

I didn’t even get a chance to give the guy my card.

September marks the switch to Macs we made in 2006. I was not a fan of Macs in college. Most of the Macs in the computer labs were G4 towers with Zip Drives and not a lot of zest stacked against quite new and speedy 2003/2004 HP Windows machines. However, when I began working with a local photographer in 2004 I became more familiar with the iBook and Powerbook lines of Mac laptops that we used on location and began to take a liking to the Apple brand.

Geeky as I tend to be, I’m not an über geek, but with some help from friends I built my own custom PC tower. It did what I needed it to do and hauled pretty well for photo editing and design work. But it had bugs that took a lot of time to update, fix or… reformat to eradicate. When in 2006 my desktop took a dive that required a reformat, it was time to make the switch.

I got a MacBook Pro 15″ notebook, one of the Core Duo 2.16GHz ones I had drooled over for a while before the dead PC helped me decide to just make the switch. (I actually put a photo of the MacBook Pro as my PC’s wallpaper months ahead, just to let it know I wan’t thrilled and already had its replacement picked out.) I maxxed out its 2GB or RAM right away and upgraded the stock 100GB hard drive to 320GB late last year.

So 2 years later here are my observations on running a photography business on the Apple line

• Macs CAN crash, and I can make it happen. More often than not I would just stall it. However it’s from running tons of memory hungry apps all at once and not from constant virus headaches or Windows trying to update / ask me a zillion questions, no.
• “Lose control, gain command” – nice pun on the control/command key naming game. Whatever you call it, it’s much more natural to lower my thumb to hit Command (mac) instead of wrangle a pinky finger out to control (windows) for keyboard shortcuts. I’m all about keyboard shortcuts, so this little key placement swap is a HUGE improvement for me.
• No “Windows Key” or Start Menu was a little weird. Clicking the apple in the upper left corner didn’t do much either. A little puzzling at first but I started with Windows 3.0 so navigating folders / preferences panels was something I could do even if I hadn’t in a decade. The Dock keeps my most used apps anyway, and a Spotlight Search pulls up anything else I need pretty quickly.
• External drives show up on the desktop and in Finder windows. Ever use a drive and have to find the little green arrow in the system tray (windows XP anyhow) then figure out which device it is and THEN safely disconnect it? Since I’ve been running everything off a laptop all the big working files are backed up on external drives, and each shows up on the desktop when conencted. No wondering if I plugged it in, no clicking around “My Computer” to see what’s there, it just is or isn’t. Hooray simplification!
• Two finger scrolling touchpad. This isn’t news if you’ve held an iPhone, iPod touch, or a Powerbook G4 and newer laptop but… coming from a Toshiba Windows machine I love this scrolling innovation. I zip all over the place easily without reaching for the mouse (unless it’s wired up to a keyboard, monitor and drives at the desk).
• Backlit keyboard – awesome help in dim concert, reception, and event venues and rather nice for surfing from the couch in the evening.
• No virus problems. I do have a virus scanner that runs once a week or so. I do have a handful of friends that haven’t stopped forwarding me their latest virus alert emails (probably carriers of the virus, or at least being sent like one). I politely remind them that I don’t want their forwards and I certainly don’t want Windows virus alert emails.
• No reformatting just to “tidy things up.” The only reformatting I’ve done was done when trying out OS X 1.5 Leopard, adding the larger hard drive, and then moving back to OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Things I’m not so thrilled about are usually just familiar Windows apps that don’t have a complete / competitive Mac version out. (For such I use Parallels and run XP inside Mac OSX, sacriligious, I know.) I’m sticking with OSX 10.4 / Tiger as not everything I use for location work wants to run as nicely on Leopard yet. Tiger runs just fine. Sara’s MacBook runs Leopard and the biggest thing I miss about it is the Quick Look preview of just about any file without opening a needed app to see what it looks like, sounds like, or contains. I’m sure there’s a workaround.

Anyway, my 2¢ on the last 2 years of running the photo biz on a Mac.

Mac Switchers, what’s your favorite reasons?