Trying Photoshop Express On My Mom And Her New Boyfriend

I was playing around with the new Adobe Photoshop Express this morning after we filmed Loaded. The main reason I wanted this was red-eye removal. Flickr does this but only if the subject's eyes are wide open. For example, I tried to use Flickr to fix the red-eye in the picture below, which happens to be a photo of my mother on the right, Danny DeVito, and her boss Kathy at the 2008 Keep Memory Alive Annual Gala. As an aside, my mother attends this gala every year to help find a cure for Alzheimer's because my grandmother suffered from this terrible disease for nearly five years before she passed in December of 2006.

Anyway, my mother wanted me to take the red eye out of this photo. Every single one of them had it. Flickr was able to get the red-eye out of my mother's eyes as well as Danny DeVito's but it could not handle Kathy's eyes. That happens a lot in Flickr's photo editor. It just can't handle some eyes for some reason. Photoshop Express worked but I still think the eyes look a little unnatural. Kathy's eyes are not black like that. Regular Photoshop would make this task a lot easier but I don't have that program. I haven't used Picasa's photo editor yet either. I'll play around with it later but for now, enjoy this rough sampling of my first attempts to Photoshop Express.

Don't Mess With A Latina

Michael Arrington was nice enough to cover my Univision news on TechCrunch this morning. As soon as I read his coverage, I knew that the people who post in the TechCrunch forums might be nasty because that is often the very nature of the TechCrunch forums. Having worked for Michael, I know this first hand. I promised myself not to read the forum comments but that proved to be as impossible as trying to drive passed a car accident without looking.

I feel like the people who commented on this post are trying to assert that I am not Latina enough to make videos for Univision. I usually don't respond to that kind of negativity but the Latina in me cannot keep quiet so I am about to prove myself to be a true Puerto Rican woman and have a little fit. I am usually reserved and polite but this is my mother's sangre running through me so please bare with me. Here it goes:

Most of the people posting nasty comments on TechCrunch probably don't even speak Spanish. True, Spanish is my second language, not my first and it skipped a generation. My grandparents opted not to teach my mother Spanish so my sister and I had to teach ourselves. My grammar is solid and the professionals at Univision think my accent is acceptable. This is also my first time in front of a camera speaking Spanish so inevitably it will improve. The point is that I am trying something new and challenging. If I could improve my accent, I would but why is it an issue? You don't see people criticizing Om for his Indian accent in English on The GigaOm Show. It is unfair, rude, unwelcomed, and frankly sexist. When I wrote for TechCrunch in 2006 I was criticized for being a woman. Now I'm not Hispanic enough? Would this audience be more comfortable if I wore an apron and made a video of myself cooking Puerto Rican pasteles and arroz con gandules? Would that be authentic enough? If we were all as lambasted for trying something new, the Web culture that we know and love would cease to exist! I don't think I am perfect and I do think that I have room to improve. But I am proud of my first efforts and so are the Hispanohablantes that I care about, namely my editor at Univision and my brother-in-law Juan. The rest of you should steer clear of me today.

Okay, nice Natali is back. That did feel good though. Chale!

CNET En Español

Today CNET will announce a partnership with Univision called CNET Tecnologia. As part of this partnership, myself and the New York CNET TV crew will be producing weekly news shows in Spanish. You can find my first one here.

I have to admit, I found this assignment of producing regular news shows for Univision to be daunting. I really wanted my Spanish to sound perfect and I wanted to make sure I used the correct terminology when it came to writing about technology in Spanish. Fortunately, the managing editor for Univision, is a great resource. I sent him my first script and he sent it back with very helpful edits. This first video was supposed to be a trial run but he liked it enough to publish it live.

To my Spanish-speaking friends and relatives, this is by far my biggest accomplishment. Hispanohablantes don't have several news networks to choose from, they just have Univision. It is THE place to go for information. My mother was so proud when she saw it, she called me and said, "Oh, my baby, she's speaking Spanish!" My sister wrote me an email and said, "You'd think we don't have English-speaking parents!"

I will be producing one of these per week. It will basically be a weekly version of Loaded, rather than a daily version like the English show. Even though there will only be one per week, it will probably take me just as long to write the Spanish version at first. Plus, filming in Spanish is not as easy just yet but, as my dad said, "that's just a matter of court time." So please enjoy my first few steps onto this court.

UNData Firefox Plug-in

I wrote my first plug-in today for my Firefox search bar! This may be pretty remedial coding but I am feeling proud of myself nevertheless.

I wanted to have the ability to search terms directly on the new UN search engine, UNdata. I talked about this site on today’s episode of Loaded. After we filmed the show, I got to thinking that it would be really useful to have easy access to the site in my search bar so I decided to write a plug-in.

I realize I could have used the Add To Search Bar plug-in to make this job easier but I wanted to write the code myself for educational purposes. I also wanted to share it with the community so that I can say that I’ve written open source code because Wilson Tang told me that only one in 50 open source coders is a woman. That’s not enough!

I’ll admit, I didn’t do this on my own. I was able to make the plug-in by myself but I had trouble making it execute the search. Wilson and Randall Bennett from The 404 helped me out with that line of code. Thanks guys!

I am going to send this code to Mozilla so that they can share it but I also thought I would share it with you here. I hope it works!

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/
browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/
opensearch/1.1/
">
<os:ShortName>UNData</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>UNData</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>

<os:Image width="16"
height="16">data:image/x-
icon;base64,
AAABAAEAEBAAAAEAIABoBAAAFgAAACgAAAAQAAAAIAAAAAEAIAAA
AAAAAAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP38/
AH48vAV+fTyFP39/AH///8A9/HvGe3b1kjx5OAz////AP///wD///8A
////AP///wD///8A+fX0FOLGvGvSpZenw4d028GEceDRo5Wt5crCZOr
W0E327+0e////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////
AOrUzlfMmIi7yJOCx9y5rov06uco9u/sHP37+wP///8A////AP///
wD///8A////AP///wD///8A/fz8A+XLw2fEiXbZ37+0gcOJd9v16+gu
////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////
APn08hjOn4+506iardatoKXWrqKh/f39Af///wD///8A////AP///wD///
8A////AP///wD///8A////AP37+wbTqZqr3LqvidKnmK7jxr14/
Pr6B96/tXHGkH7JyJOCwtSqnZn8+/sD5c3FV9Opm5v///
8A69nTQsiTgsL27+wk16+jm967sIfVq56j+vf2FP///
wC4c1z92LOniebQyFS4dF396tbQSN/AtnDFjnvN
+vf2DMmWhL+4c1z9+PLwHNCik7bLmIfF69bQVP///wD///
8AuHRd/e7e2Tr8+voGwYVx3eHFu2fgw7pqy5qJturW0Ei5dl/4uXVe
+uvWz1zWraCl4sS6eOfOx2L///8A////ALl1Xvrs2tU/
+vb1DsCEcN7ix75k4ca8ZcSLeNPDiXbV1a6gk7+CbePx498/z5
+Qu9myppv59PMV////AP///wC4c1z969jSRPr29Q6
+f2rp4MO6auLIv2K4c1z9voBr5/Ln4yq7emTw7NrVUNGklbPZtKiZ8uPfNf
///wD///8Ay5qJtvDj3zD7+PcK0KSVpenVzkrq19FGyJOCwuTLw1z7
+fgHzp6PrvHk4DLat6uTyJOBzeG/tnj///8A////AP///wD///8A
////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///
8A5czEYtOomqfQopSz6dXOV////wD///8A////AP///wD///
8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////
APfx7xnQopOu0aKTs86ejr3v4NtC////AP///wD///8A////AP///
wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///
8A+fTyFePHv3XTqJqzzJuLwfPo5Dj///8A////
AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///
wD///8A9OvoLvPo5DPo0sxc/fz7Bv///wD///8A////AP///
wD///8A////AP///wD///8A//8AAPh/AADx/wAA4/8AAMP/
AACONgAAjLQAAJ20AAC9sAAAnbIAAJ22AACf/
wAAz/8AAMf/AADz/wAA//8AAA==</os:Image>

<SearchForm>http://data.un.org/Default:Search.aspx<
/SearchForm>

<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET"
 template="http://data.un.org/Search.aspx?q={searchTerms}
">

</os:Url>

</SearchPlugin>

Update: Oh right, what do you do with this code. Sorry! If you are using a Mac, save it as an XML file here:
Library>Application Support>Firefox>Profiles>searchplugins
Once you do that, you'll have to restart your browser and it should work.

If you're using a PC, I believe you add it to your Firefox folder in your applications. I haven't used a PC in a long time so I'm sorry if that is incomplete. Any PC users want to set me straight?

A Makeover

If you are not reading this in an RSS feed, you will notice that my Web site redesign is complete! My hero and winning designer is a Mr. Bill Mandra. Bill, thank you so much! I am really so excited to have a site that I am proud of!

I decided to use Bill's header with a customized WordPress design. In addition to the new look, I have also added a demo reel, and updated bio and resume. The demo reel was made by my good friend Jon Wank. Jon used to work with me on TeXtra. It was very nice of him to edit this, although I think I might have to babysit his three year-old twin girls in exchange.

Also, thank you to everyone else who submitted. All of the submissions were really great! If I can ever return the favor, I am happy to try!