Life is a Prayer.com

Quick Resizer - My first Mac App

February 09, 2012

I've created a few iOS and Android apps for mobile devices and tablets, but just a few days ago, my first 'desktop' app (for Mac OS X 10.7+) was released on the Mac App Store.

Behold, Quick Resizer ($0.99 on the Mac App Store):

Quick Resizer Main Screen

I created the app mostly because I realized I would often drag an image to Photoshop to simply resize it from something like 1024x768 to 500 pixels wide, constrained. Quick Resizer makes resizing JPEGs and PNG files super-easy, and everything can be done from the keyboard (or the mouse, if you're so inclined).

Developing for the Mac is a bit different than the iPhone, but Objective-C and the libraries included are very similar, so it wasn't like creating the first iOS app!

If you like the app, feel free to rate the app on the Mac App Store after you buy it :)

Tags:

Komen and Abortion

February 03, 2012

Planned Parenthood should be destroyed. We should stop giving them tax money. We should stop supporting anyone who supports them. We need to support organizations that actually help women, not ones that abort them and push contraceptives. None of these help women or society. Write your legislators to tell them that you want any government support to these organizations cut off.

This. Very much this. Back to a Komen foundation boycott. I love women, I have a few relatives who have had breast cancer—some have not survived—and I hope we can find cures for all forms of cancer. But I can't support an organization that supports Planned Parenthood (one of the most anti-woman (and inhumane) organizations in the history of the world. Much more so than the medieval Church so many in modern culture satirize).

Tags:

abortion

komen

planned parenthood

Ethics in Media Use: Catholics are NOT Excused from Licensing, Copyright

February 01, 2012

As a Catholic who's worked in many different media fields (newspapers, photography, video production, and web development), I've seen a very wide array of copyright violations, improper media usage, and misuse of licensed assets. This seems to happen more in the non-profit world, where there is little or no budget for acquiring stock images, etc.

I'm extremely generous with my licensing for photos and other media I produce; typically, if someone asks to use a photo of mine, I'll send them a full-resolution JPEG and a license that allows them to use it for any non-profit cause.

However, what really gets under my skin is when I find my photos (especially) used in YouTube videos, for articles, and on posters, when I have never even been asked for permission, and when the photos clearly have 'All rights reserved' or some form of Creative Commons license.

Priest at Prayer
The lifted photo.

Today, on Facebook, I noticed that 'Catholic Church' posted a video on YouTube about vocations (titled Life rooted in God...), and I know the first photo used in that video (a photo of now-Bishop Rice) was used without permission, and I'm pretty sure many of the other photos were, as well.

What the producers of these videos and other media don't realize is that:

It took me a long time to produce that photo (getting some time in Msgr. Rice's schedule, gathering the equipment, setting up the equipment, taking some 20-40 photos, processing said photos, and retouching the final photo).
It required the use of over $2,000 of photography equipment (taking professional-quality photos is not free, and isn't done on one's mobile phone).
Msgr. Rice never signed a photo release to allow the use of his photo in any videos (so, I could not have even given permission for this photo to be used in a public YouTube video).

Please, please, PLEASE try to always ask permission to use any photos, videos, sounds, music, etc. that is not in the public domain. Please respect the media owners' licensing restrictions and copyright.

In the end, don't steal other people's work, even if it's for a good cause. The ends, in Catholic morality, never justify the means!

Tags: