ProPanels - Velcro is the new duct tape

About a month ago, I received my new propanels to replace my old homemade panels made from electrical conduit + grid wire. I got to use them for 2 shows now, and I must say I like them a lot. They look so much more professional than the old burlap covers I made for the homemade panels. They setup so much easier, are more rigid, and a tiny bit lighter in weight. But the biggest thing I like about them is that Velcro sticks to the carpet. Even in just this short time, I've already realized that velcro (or more generically, hook and loop fastener...specifically the hook side) can be used for just about everything. In fact, I've already gone through a 75 foot roll of hook velcro and just ordered 2 more rolls.



Hanging artwork

When I got my panels, the first problem I needed to solve was how do I hang my work? I used to use curtain hooks that went through the burlap an over the grid wire. You can use the same on propanels, but they have no internal grid, so the hook is really just supported by the carpet. The problem here is that it will stretch the carpet out. From my understanding, that's not a problem because the carpet will return to normal after it sits. However I've seen it done and it looks a bit unattractive, because the picture leans out a bit and you can see it stretching away from the wall.

Another option is the hangers that you can buy with your propanels. They hang over the top and extend down as far as you need. I shot this down for a number of reasons. They cost a fair bit of money, they are a little limiting in how you hang photos, and they don't look as nice since you see the hanger running down the panel.

Instead, I thought I'd try a different approach: velcro.


Canvas wraps

Since I was going to be showing a number of canvas wraps this year, I figured "those are pretty light...what if I tried hanging them with velcro?". I went and got a roll of sticky backed velcro, attached it too back of the finished canvas wrap, and hung it. It worked like a charm. Easy to hang up and easy to take down. The sticky backing on the velro has excellent adhesion. However, just to be safe, I put 3 staples in each strip of velcro (one on each end, and one in the middle). The canvas is very secure. In fact, if anything I overdid it and made it too secure. It sticks to the wall so good, it takes a concerted effort to remove it (but still, no more than 5 seconds)

Here's a photo of the back on one of my canvases. As you can see, I put a strip of velcro across the top and bottom edge of the wrap, and then just a small peice on each edge. For as light as these canvases are, you could probably easily get away with only half as much velcro.


Back of a canvas with velcro


Closer look at the velcro

The thing I like most about this design is how easy it is to hangup frames in the booth. In 2 seconds I can have the frame right where I want it. In addition, the frame isn't going to shift when things get windy and the booth rocks...no more periodically straightening frames throughout the show.


Hanging wood frames

Well, I thought if this worked so incredibly well for wraps (which are just wood) they should work equally well for regular wood frames. My heaviest work is a 24x36 with acrylic instead of glass, so it only weights about 12 pounds. I did the same thing with my wood frames, and it worked like a charm.


Wood frame with velcro

Pictured here is one of my 16x20's. It holds well with just the 2 sections of velcro. For my larger, more expensive pieces, I wanted to be extra careful so I put a lot of velcro on the sides as well.

Hanging metal frames

Now came the tricky part: hanging metal frames. With such a thin surface area to adhere to, and without being able to staple the velcro to the frame, I was extremely apprehensive about taking the same approach. After thinking about it a bit, I thought "what if I made a short piece of velcro and put curtain hooks through it". It would be just like the old way, except instead of piercing the hooks through the wall, I'd velcro the hooks to the wall.

In designing these, I had a few concerns. First, with the weight on such a small piece of velcro, I was concerned about it coming off. If I attached the hook up high on the velcro, the weight of the picture would in effect peel the velcro off from the top until the whole thing comes loose. If I instead attached the hook to the bottom of the velcro, the weight would pull the velcro down instead of peeling it off. Since the velcro doesn't easily slide across the carpet, that would solve that problem for all but the heaviest frames (much heavier than anything I display).

The other concern was that if I punctured the curtain hook through the velcro, the weight could cause it to tear through the velcro until it breaks loose. Of course, the velcro I'm using is quite tough, but still better safe than sorry. I decided to simply re-enforce the hole with a metal washer.

Making these hangers was quite simple. Cut 2 identical size pieces of adhesive backed velcro (one piece hook, the other loop). Take one piece and peel off the backing. Take a tiny metal washer and place it about 1/4 inch from one end. Then take the other piece of velcro, remove the backing, and stick it perfectly to the first piece. Once it's stuck together, it should be an extremely strong bond, and the washer should be firmly in place. Now take a curtain hook, puncture the velcro with the sharp end (making sure to puncture through the washer). You may need to use pliers to bend the hook some so you can put it through the velcro, and then bend it back to its original shape after it's assembled.

Now you've got your finished velcro hook. Just make a bunch of these, and use them to hang your frames (I use 2 per frame).


Parts needed (plus a curtain hook)


peel off the backing and place the washer


Carefully attach velcro, adhesive backings together


Finished strip, backlit so you can see the washer inside



Puncture the hook through the washer (make the hook side is down)


Finished piece on a propanel.

Getting these cut perfectly the same length so that none of the adhesive is exposed can be a bit tricky. What I found to work better was to make a dozen at once. Peel off a couple feet worth of loop velcro, stick a dozen washers to the back (evenly spaced every 2 inches), then attach the hook velcro to the back of it (peeling as you go, so that it doesn't accidentally get stuck to anything. When you are done, you have a 2 foot long strip. Cut it every 2 inches, near each of the washers.


Hanging everything else

Next I figured if I'm using Velcro for the heavy things, why not the light things, too? Anything that I wanted to put on display was promptly stuck with velcro. Price signs, credit card signs, information plaques, etc. Anything in my booth...if it was attached to my propanels, it was done with velcro (with one exception...my shelves where attached by shelf brackets, but I'm sure I could figure out how to velcro those too if I had the need).


Where to get velcro

I found my velcro cheapest on ebay. Look for 1" wide, adhesive backed, 25 yard (75 foot) rolls. If you buy 2 rolls together, you should be able to get them for about $20 a roll shipped. The first order I got 1 roll of loop and 1 roll of hook. I hardly used the loop, but I finished off the hook rather quickly, so my second time I ordered just 2 rolls of hook.

If you don't want to order through ebay, the company that I bought from sells direct. Their hook-and-look can be found at http://www.baerfabrics.com/hook-and-loop-fastener.asp




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Next show only slightly better

I had another show this week. This time it was the Northville Art in the Sun show. The gist of it is, I did a bit better...made a small profit, but still nothing to get excited about.


Setting Up

This was attempt number 2 at setting up my new booth. Unfortunately, this show only had a morning setup (no option to setup the night before). On top of that, my wife ended up having to work at the last minute, so I was doing things on my own. And on top of that, I only had about 4 hours of sleep.

Then on my drive in, I literally missed hitting a deer by about 2 feet (the driver next to me hit the second deer). In fact, I would have hit the deer I missed had I not mistakenly thought the lane I was in was ending and thus cut over 1 lane. The scariest part was that I didn't even see the deer coming. When I realized I shouldn't have cut over 1 lane, I looked in my passenger mirror to make sure the lane was clear, and as soon as I looked back forward, the deer was already in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and she just barely got out of the way. As I'm trying to stop, the deer carcass from the other car is sliding down the hiway at the same speed as me, spinning in circles as it slides. I was just hoping it wouldn't slide into my lane before I stopped.

Well, despite being alone, and then very freaked out, it didn't work out so bad. I put a few parts on backwards, and a few other mistakes, but I got everything together fine.

The show

Traffic was a LOT better than Livonia. Not even any comparison. There were a few dull spots, but mostly it was good. The slow periods mostly corresponded to the rain. A medium rain came in about 1 hour before the end of day 1. Then there was lightening about 15 miles away and reports of hail at another nearby city. Some strong gusts of wind came in. An artist a few booths down selling wooden bowls was in the middle of securing her canopy side walls when the wind grabbed it, hit her display, and destroyed $700 worth of work. Everybody started packing up. After being one of the few holdout artists, I decided enough was enough and closed up 30 minutes early (the first time I've ever done that at a show).

Day 2 was very similar. Similar traffic (perhaps slightly better). Similar gusts of wind, and threats of rain, but nothing much came of it. Happily, since no rain came, my tent was able to dry out, which means I now don't have to unpack it at home to let it dry out.


The sales

Well, it was better than last time. At least I made a profit (though remarkably tiny, after deducting booth/app fee, materials, and gas). I figured I worked 22 hours this weekend for about $3 an hour.

I wasn't the only one doing poorly. Everyone else had similar complaints. I saw very little artwork in patron hands. The number of people I saw walk past carrying photos from other photographers...well, I didn't need 2 hands to count them. The market just wasn't there


Conclusion

A slight turnaround, but still disappointing. But it was a fun experience. At least now I know I can setup the whole display (9 foot trimline included) all by myself (with just a tiny bit of help putting on the legs). I figured out some cool new ideas for my setup. I've got 5 weeks until my next show and a number of ideas to consider implementing before then. Hopefully then things will turn around a bit.


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Starting off year 3 with a terrible show

Once again I'm off to a bad start for the year. Last weekend I did the Livonia Art From the Heart show, for the third year in a row. It ended up terrible...I lost money. However, it was good practice with some of my new equipment, so not all is lost.


History of Livonia Art From the Heart

Just to recap a brief history, Livonia was my first show ever, and ended up as my best show the whole first year. The second year was a LOT worse. I actually lost money that time and it was my lowest sales show of the year. However, at the time I did the show, I had not yet experienced a better show, and so (not knowing what was out there) I was too quick to just write it off as a bad year and thus signed up for year 3 on the spot (in order to get a $50 discount). Well, year 3 turned out just like year 2.


Way fewer artists this year

When I received my welcome packet a while ago, the first thing I noticed was the layout of the show. The isles looked like they had way fewer booths than last time. This time there were less than 100 booths, whereas (I believe) the prior year had about 150 booths. Obviously a lot of people were upset about 2007 and didn't return.

When I arrived on Friday night to to check in, the thing I noticed was that they were hand writing in several people onto the show layout chart and filling out their signage by hand. In contrast, most everyone had them prefilled in and computer printed. It's possible these were alternates called in at the last minute. However, given the decrease in the number of booths, I don't think that was likely...I suspect they actually accepted everyone who applies. The only other thing I could think was that they were actually accepting last minute entries.

One benefit of the fewer artists was that our booth space was increased from 10x13 to about 15x13. That would have been useful had I realized it before I finished setting up...I could have put up another awning and put some more work on the outside wall. Oh well.


Friday night setup...in the rain

When I arrived to setup on Friday night, it had just started raining. On the plus side, we missed the lightening that was originally forecast, and the rain was only relatively light...no downpour. Normally I would have been upset about the rain, but this year I had my new Trimline canopy. If it were as good as its reputation, I'd have nothing to worry about. Another upside to the rain was that we were one of only about 6 people who chose to setup on Friday night, so there was no fighting for parking spots.

Even though I bought the trimline at the end of last year, I never used it because I wanted some more practice setting it up. The only setup I had done before, I got as far as assembling the frame and top, but no walls or awnings. Well, I never got around to practicing, so essentially I was doing my first whole setup of the tent on the spot. I ran into a few small snags, but nothing I didn't quickly figure out. I'll write more about the booth in another post.

Once we got the canopy up (including walls), we were much relieved, as we were able to finish our work in the dry interior. We setup the pro-panels (which we also had never setup before), hung a few frames, and then decided we were exhausted enough to head home and leave the rest for tomorrow morning.


The show

Saturday was entirely uneventful. No rain, no major traffic, no snags. Nothing interesting to report on at all. Sunday started out the same way. Then there was a minor surge in traffic that made it hopeful that things would start picking up, but it ended as quickly as it started. A few more brief surges happened over the next few hours, but it never went anywhere.

There was a storm scheduled to come in right around the time we were to close (5PM), but it arrived early. At 1:30PM the storm hit. I closed up the booth, but there was lightening, so I figured it was safest to retreat to the car. The rain lasted only about 15 minutes. I returned and reopened.


The early exodus

Right after the rain, artists immediately started packing up. Our row held the line (we only lost one booth), but the next row over lost all but 3 booths. About 3PM I decided to take a walk around the show to see (what was left of) the other artists. It was sort of embarrassing how quickly I walked the entire show. There was hardly anything left.

It got a bit windy, and one of the artists who was packing up had her easy-up canopy roll on her. She made the mistake of leaving it up with no weights and no stakes holding it down.


The results

When it was all said and done, I made about $190 in sales on a $200 booth fee, so I lost $10 plus materials, gas, credit card fees, and time. What was most interesting was that even my cheap $5 gift cards couldn't save me. I sold a set of 5 and a single card. Three of the prints I did sell were discounted prints on my clearance shelf (I had too much inventory for my bin and wanted to move some of the older prints).

Another artist near me only sold a bit over $500 worth of stuff, and $325 of that was due to to a single large canvas sale. A jeweler near me only made $35 on Sunday.


Done with the show

I was a bit stupid for signing up again, but now I know better. I've found better shows, and there's no need to hope for a turnaround on this one. I'd rather spend my time trying out new shows than come back to this one, so that's another show off my list for next year.

Next up...the Northville show this coming weekend. Also up this weekend....a forecast for scattered thunderstorms :-( On the upside, maybe all this rain (if it keeps up) will make for a wonderful display of autumn colors this year. That upside is 4 months away. I must be desperate for good news.


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Color Correction with the Datacolor Spyder 3 Studio

In getting ready for another year of art shows, I'm addressing some issues I faced last year. One of those issues is a lack of color consistency throughout my workflow process. Last year I learned all about color profiling and got OK results by using generic paper profiles from various sources. This year, I've decided to address the issue further. After researching various options, I decied to try out the Spyder 3 Studio from Datacolor. So how has it turned out? So far so good....

A brief history of my color workflow

For years, color correction was a non-existent topic for me. What I got out of my Canon i960 was mostly close enough for my satisfaction. If not, I'd tweak the photo in Photoshop to give me what I wanted. That "worked" well enough (only because my definition of "close enough" was pretty lax) until it came time to upgrade printers.

When I got my Canon IPF5000, I decided if I was going to spend over $1500 on a printer, I was going to do it right and learn how to use color profiles. I used generic color profiles from a variety of sources. That worked a lot better, but I found myself results still lacking. For one, none of the prints matched my monitor exactly. Second, I still found every profile gave me (at best) slightly different results. Some of the profiles that I got straight from the paper manufacturers were outright terrible.


Making the move to custom profiles

Over this last winter, I decided that from here on out, I needed to do things right and get custom profiles made. I had debated about paying to have them made, but I decided against it for a few reasons. The thought of paying out money for something like that just didn't strike me right. I'd rather pay more up front and then have the flexibility to create profiles whenever I wanted. I tend to like to experiment with different papers, and this gives me the option to create as many profiles as I want on a whim without wasting money. Any new paper I want to evaluate can be evaluated using a properly made profile, so theres no need to waste money, or to decide on a paper based on non-representative results.

I looked around at various options. The i1 Color from X-rite is well regarded as the leader in color management solutions, but in the $1000+ range, it was a bit out of my budget. I was looking for about half that price. I found a few solutions, including the x-rite ColorMunki and the Datacolor Spyder 3 Studio. From reviews, both seemed to do a good job, but the ColorMunki seemed to be a bit too basic for my tastes.

I decided to go with the Spyder 3 Studio. I found it through Amazon.com for only $545 shipped. It included both the Spyder 3 Elite (for profiling your monitor) and the Spyder 3 Print (for profiling your printer/paper).


Profiling my monitor

The first step of the process is getting the colors on your monitor corrected, so that your workflow begins with a known configuration. Otherwise, getting the print to match your monitor is both next-to-impossible and pointless. I installed the software for the Spyder 3 Elite and gave it a go. It was relatively painless. However, when I was done, I ended up with what I thought was a terrible monitor profile. The screen had a definite magenta cast to it. I repeated the process and got identical results.

At this point I was feeling like I had purchased junk and was about to say screw it and just make my monitor look good again. However, I remembered that it sometimes takes your eyes a while to adjust to different lighting, and thought maybe I should give the profile a chance to sink in. After about 10 minutes the color started to look really natural. Moving to a different light source and then coming back, I could see the magenta cast each time, but my eyes quickly readjusted. After a few days of working with it, somehow my mind has gotten adjusted to the new color settings, and now, even after coming in from a different light source, I can't really notice the color unless I'm consciously looking for it. Almost instantly, it looks like pure white to me.

I don't believe I saw any tips like this in the program. It would probably be useful, to set new user's mind at ease.


Profiling my printer

Now, with the monitor calibrated, it was time to move onto the printer. I started with my Canon HW Satin paper. I printed a basic 225 patch target and scanned it in. The scanning is a bit time consuming and tedious, but the included guide makes it easier and less error prone. After scanning in all the patches for the target, it generated a profile and I went to print a test page. When I hit the soft proof button, it showed very little change, so I figured that was a good sign. When I then printed it out, what I got was quite surprising. For the first time ever, my print looked virtually identical to what I saw on the screen. This was really a breakthrough moment for me.

Next I moved onto the "paper" that previously gave me the most problems: the Breathing Color Chromata White Matte Canvas. Breathing Color doesn't have a profile available for the iPF5000, but they do for the iPF8000. Being that the 2 printers are nearly identical (same ink set, same print heads) the profile should have worked fine, but it didn't. It had terrible contrast and saturation, so I had to correct for that in the printer's export module configuration. I was hoping the Spyder 3 Print could do better.

I printed out the 729 patch color target plus the 238 patch extended gray target. Scanning the nearly 1000 patches took me somewhere in the range of 30 minutes. As I got a little way into it, I was noticing that the results for each patch as displayed on the screen was quite terrible. Like my previous profile, they were all low in contrast and saturation. When I finished, I soft proofed my test print and it was horrible...much like what my uncompensated prints with the old profile had given me. I backed up and experimented a little with the advanced options, but nothing could give me a soft proof that had acceptable results.

Once again, feeling disappointed and thinking I had wasted money, I decided to see just how bad it is on actual paper. I restored the profile to all of it's default settings and generated my test print. Once again I was shocked when, despite the terrible looking proof on the monitor, the actual printout look great. It was virtually identical to the monitor, and also virtually identical to the HW Satin print.

I then threw together a sampler page of my own photos and printed it out, and the results were virtually identical for every single image. Everything from a black and white to the most saturated sunset all look wonderful and accurate.

Conclusion

This is far from a thorough test, but so far I am extremely pleased with the results I've received. It's really opened my eyes to exactly what is possible. In fact, I feel quite stupid for having tolerated what I did before. If you have the money to spend and aren't completely satisfied with your current output results, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this product.

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Getting ready for another year

2007 ended up being a pretty decent year for art shows. After getting off to a bad start, things turned around and I had several of my best shows yet. However, in the process of all of that, with the preparations and improvements being made, I didn't have a lot of time for much else. After finishing my last show in September, I decided to take the winter off, and I haven't done much photography since then. Now that time for shows is approaching again, its time to get started back in the swing of things.


So far, I'm scheduled for 4 shows I did last year, and have applied to a 5th. A 6th hasn't put out the app yet. The other 2 I decided to drop. One show (Saint Clair) I actually lost money after travel expenses. The other (Wyandotte) was actually pretty profitable last year, but it was a very long show. It was four days, 11 hours each, plus another 2+ hours for driving each way, setup, and teardown. In the end, it didn't end up being all that profitable for the amount of time I put in, so I decided to cut that one too.

I haven't applied to any more than that, and I'm not sure whether or not I want to. The economy has been pretty bad, especially here in Michigan, and I'm a little concerned about how thats going to impact sales. Traveling to shows out of state isn't feasible for me at this moment. Plus, I was so busy doing shows last summer, I missed out on doing a lot of other stuff. I'm thinking of a more relaxed schedule for the year.

I've got a lot of things to get into place for this new year. I need to get new ink, and paper. I'm planning to get new panels for this year to go with my new 9ft tall canopy. I was planning to build a new print bin. I planned on switching out a lot of my framed prints for canvas wraps instead, since they are lighter and easier to manage. A lot of stuff to get done in the next 6 weeks.

I just picked up a new camera, since my old one broke twice on me last year (the mirror, which I repaired, and the lens, which I couldn't do anything about). I'm learning how to use some of the new features of it.

I'll have more details on some of the stuff I'm doing soon.


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Partially Failing Lens

Back in May I mentioned how the mirror on my camera broke and I did the $5 MacGyver repair to fix it. Well, a few days ago I went for a quick mid-afternoon photo shoot and discovered that my 18-55mm lens is not acting up.

Anytime I'm zoomed between 18-24 mm, if I have the aperture set to anything other than wide open, the picture fails and the camera gets an error 99 and locks up until I power it down and back up. Not sure if this is a problem I can figure out how to fix. Might be time to look for a new lens.
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Second year of art shows completed.

The Northville art show that I did almost a month ago was my last show for the year. After a somewhat disappointing 2006 (where my first show was good, but everything went downhill from there), and a disappointing start to 2007 (where my downward slide continued for the first few shows), things eventually turned themselves around, and I had a pretty satisfying year.

I did eight shows this year, and only the first 2 ended up being a disappointment. Of the remaining 6, 4 were very good and 2 were decent enough that I'll probably give them a shot again next year.

Of the two that were bad, I definitely won't be back to one of them. However, the other I've already prepaid to be at. I really wish I hadn't done that now. When you don't know there are better options out there, you often cling on to what you have and hope things will work out. At the time I had only done one show that was good and it was THAT show the year before. Little did I know the rest of the year would be filled with better shows. Oh well, whats done is done. Hopefully the show will improve and be as good in 2008 as it was in 2006. I have no options that weekend that are good enough to justify writing off the $200 I prepaid in order to go somewhere else instead.

My newly purchased TrimLine canopy ended up not being used. I stuck with my EZ Up for the last 2 shows. I hadn't had enough time to practice with the TrimLine to be comfortable using it. I wanted to set it up a few more times at home first. Since the weather for both shows looked great (not even the slightest suggestion of rain), I figured it was safe to stick with the EZ up a couple more times. I'll start with the new booth next spring.

At my last couple shows, I experimented with a couple of semi-large panoramic canvas prints, and those were quite well receieved. Lots of comments and I sold one of the 2. For next year I think I'll try offering a larger number of them in a couple of sizes and see how they do.

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Hard Drive Failures

I know I haven't posted in a little while. My last post was the day before my South Haven show. The following weekend I was sick, and then the weekend after that was my Northville show. I planned to post an update here, but I had a few things to catch up on around the house, so that came first. Then, to completely distract me, my computer suffered a hard drive failure. And not just a single failure, but 2 hard drives at once.

In the many years I've been using computers, I've been lucky enough to never experience a hard drive failure. I've had several drives that worked reliably through as much as 8 years of use, with never a single problem. Yet, I knew my luck had to be running short, and with my photography business starting to take off, I figured a hard drive failure would be a bad thing. Even if I had all my data backed up, the time to get a new drive, reinstall applications, and restore all the data would be a terrible distraction if it happened in the middle of the show season.


Protecting data: Backups and RAID

To protect myself from such a problem, in addition to backing up all my data periodically, I also bought a second drive and utilized the RAID controller on my motherboard.

For those not familiar with the concept of RAID, it basically means having multiple hard drive appear to the computer as a single hard drive. There are several ways to configure a RAID system. Some give you better performance, some give you data redundancy, and some give you both.

I had my computer set up with a RAID-1 configuration, which means that both hard drives were identical copies (known as mirrors) of each other. Every last file is exactly the same at all times. If one of the drives fails, you can remove it from the system and continue to use your computer with no data loss. Then, you get another drive (ASAP!), put it in the computer, and all the data gets copied from the old hard drive to the new one and you are protected once again.

One risk you run is that you could lose both hard drives at once, so you definitely need some sort of backup plan in addition to RAID to handle that. All of my data was burned to DVDs periodically. So I was prepared for the worst, but I certainly wasn't expecting it. I mean, what are the chances of both drives failing at once?


Really....what are the chances?

Well, one day when I powered up my machine, something in the computer was making a strange sound. I thought it was a fan, but determined it was actually a hard drive. So I powered down, made sure the connections and fasteners were all tight, and then turned my computer back on. That hard drive started making a clicking sound and kept restarting the computer before it could even get a chance to start booting Windows. So I took the drive out, and just as I expected, the RAID system worked. My computer booted up and everything was intact.

I started looking into my options for replacing the drive, trying to see if I should buy the same model, a different brand of the same size, or maybe take the opportunity to upgrade to a larger size. The next morning, when I turned on my computer, a few programs complained that their config files were corrupted. Windows screwing up a file isn't exactly unheard of (and maybe it had something to do with the failed drive causing errors) so I ran scandisk to fix the problem and thought little of it. Later that day, I ended up with more problems. I knew that was more than coincidence, so I ran a surface scan on the disk and it found a bad sector and fixed it (marked it as unusable). That was concerning me, but I figured it was fixed so that was that. However, a few hours later it began finding several more errors. I rand scandisk again and it found more bad sectors, and again it fixed them. A few hours later, the same thing happened again. The hard drive was obviously toast.


Why did this happen?

So, how exactly does something like this happen? My best guess is that my RAID controller (which is built into the motherboard) isn't a very good one. I suspect that the second drive to fail had actually failed first, several months before, but that the RAID controller was detecting the problem, "fixing" it by getting the data from the other drive, and then (most important of all) not bothering to tell me that there was any sort of problem. Once the good drive failed, it was no longer able to cover up the problem and things broke down quickly from there.


The end result

Anyway, I've got 2 new hard drives now and I've got most things restored. It looks like I didn't lose any of my photography related stuff. Any of that stuff that did get damaged had already been backed up. I only ended up losing a tiny bit of data from a single non-important file that is updated once a month and hadn't been backed up recently.

Even for that one file....though it isn't important, it would be nice to have, so I have an ace up my sleeve. Though the data was ruined on the drive with the bad sectors, I suspect the copy on the other drive (the one that wont start up) is probably intact. Buy how do I get it if the drive wont start up? Well, there is a well know and often successful trick for getting data off of a drive that fails in such a manner. Put the drive in a ziplock bag, put it in the freezer for 24 hours, and then when it's nice and cold, quickly plug it into the computer, boot it up and copy the data. It doesn't always work, but often does. Its not known for sure why this works, but the common belief is that when the metal gets cold and contracts ever so slightly, it's enough to get something to line up where it wouldn't before. Whatever the reason, if this trick ends up working, you usually have anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to get the data off the drive before it stops working again. Even then, people have reported success with refreezing it and repeating the process several times, getting a little more data each time.

Anyway, with things starting to get back to normal, I hope to make a few posts soon about how the end of my show season turned out.

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Upgrading to a better canopy - Part 3

My Trimline tent arrived a few days ago, and I've had a chance to set it up. Well....sort of.

Like building the jugsaw puzzle?

Not at all. Assembling the pieces and figuring out what goes where wasn't so bad. I've heard lots of reports that it's quite confusing, even after you've done it many times. In fact, at one show earlier this year, there was an artist working on his trimline when I arrived, and by the time I set up my entire booth (almost 2 hours) he was STILL working on it because he kept putting it together wrong.

So, after this I was expecting it to be a bit of a horror. I was thus relieved that it wasn't so difficult. In fact, I read through the instructions once very carefully, and then went about assembling it. I immediately knew where every piece went and didn't have to refer back to the instructions at all.

Granted, my spacial perception and mechanical assembly abilities are quite adept. I'm good at visualizing things and assembling them in my head. That may give me an edge in the process, and may explain why it was so easy for me. Other's experiences may vary.


First assembly

First off, my goal for building it my first time was to do so on my own. I will be doing a show by myself this weekend, and I wanted to see if I'd be able to handle the booth on my own.

Putting it together for the first started off pretty good. I had the roof frame fully assembled in about 15 minutes. It took another 15 to attach the sta-bar, unroll and align the roof, and play with the vents to see how they worked. This all went pretty much without a problem.

Next step was to attach the legs. This is where things didn't go so well, at least not by myself. I think this wouldn't have been so bad for a 7 foot tent, but I got the 9 footer. Getting it raised that last foot or two was the really difficult part. I finally managed to get it on my 3rd try, but it wasn't easy. Hopefully this will be like most things and get easier with experience.

Next, I put on stabars, the awning frames for the front 30" and the rear 54" awnings. I attached the rear awning. Zipping it on was a bit of a pain. The material is quite heavy, and it's hard to hold up while getting the zipper started. Once the zipper starts, it's a piece of cake.

This is as far as I got. UPS arrived laster than I'd hoped, and after unpacking, reading instructions, and getting oriented, I had only a few hours before sunset. In fact, by the time I got the poles bundled up and ready to carry inside, it was almost dark enough to require a flashlight to check the lawn for left behind parts. So I didn't get a chance to attach any of the walls or zipper strips.


Issues I had

I only ran into a few small snags during setup. The first was that the canopy roof changed slightly, but the instructions haven't been updated to match. It seems they replaced some adjustable clip straps with velcro instead, but the instructions say nothing about it.

I also screwed up putting the roof on. I didn't notice until I had it up on all 4 legs, but the roof was slightly crooked. I didn't lay down the material perfectly. I wouldn't have even noticed it, except that the zippers (for the walls and awnings) don't lineup correctly, and my awning didn't go on right.

Attaching and detaching the sta-bars was also a little tricky. It was just a matter of finding the correct angle. Something I'm sure will get easier with experience.

The only other problems I had were failure to follow directions properly. I put the easy riser L brackets on backward (extremely minor...had no ill effect), and I forgot to attach the riser poles before I put on the roof material.


Using the canopy at a show?

So now the question is...am I ready to use this canopy at a show? I was hoping to use it at my show this weekend. However, plans have changed, and I'll be handling the show by myself, including setup. So far, the weather is looking good for the weekend, so I'm debating if I want to try setting it up by myself, or just use the easy up for another week. After that, I have a few more weeks before my next show. That will be a little extra time to practice setting up.


Any Doubts?

Before I started, I realized the first setup was going to be extra difficult while I learned correct techniques. However, even taking that into account, it was still more difficult than I imagined. I'm wondering whether the 9 foot height was overkill.

I'm hoping my doubts will quickly subside. After all...when I did my first couple shows last year, it was a lot of work, and I do remember thinking "my god...what I have I gotten myself into". I wasn't sure whether I'd want to continue on doing shows, considering how difficult it was. Yet this weekend I did my first solo setup for a show (my wife was sick). In addition, I did it in the morning of the show, not the previous night, and I had only 2 hours to get it done. The surprise is that I managed to get it all done no problem, without any sign of panic. Hopefully, with time, setting up this new canopy will become as routine and unstressful.


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Upgrading to a better canopy - Part 2

In my last post, I discussed the many reasons why I decided to upgrade my canopy. The next step in the decision making process was deciding which tent to order, and then which options to order it with.

The field of candidates wasn't very large to begin with. My starting options were
Trimline (by Flourish)
Craft Hut (now owned by Flourish, also)
Light Dome (by Creative Energies)
Finale (also by Creative Energies)
Show Off (by New Venture)


Considerations

There were lots of differences to consider between models, and many of them weren't better vs worse choices, but rather a tradeoff with advantages on each side.


Design

The Light Dome is built with a more or less dome shaped top (thus the name). Every other canopy uses a barrel shaped design.

The Light Dome FAQ explains that the dome shape is better because it offers less wind resistance. However, considering that a closed up tent already has a 10'x7'(or larger) flat surface exposed, I don't believe the tiny extra bit on the end of the barrel canopy adds to that significantly. And as far as when your booth is opened, the dome would seem to act as an umbrella, whereas the barrel shaped canopy all have vents (either standard or as options) to relieve air pressure.

In addition to my intuition, the fact that every other canopy in this comparison uses the barrel shaped design gives me a bit of pause about the possible merits of the dome.


Construction

The Trimline tent uses a steel frame construction. Every other tent uses an aluminum frame. This is one of those areas where there is a definite tradeoff.

Aluminum has the advantage of being easier to work with. It's lighter, thus easier to handle and transport, and easier to lift as you are assembling the frame. This can be especially important for people with injuries, or older/smaller people without much strength.

Steel frame, on the other hand, has the advantage of being more solid. Its added weight is a definite advantage when it comes to standing up to strong winds. It's also more durable...being more resistant to bending. Even with the added weight, I've spoke to other artists using the steel Trimline tents, and even some late 40's, smaller women told me they were able to set it up on their own when necessary.

Being that I'm a relatively young guy in good shape and health, the added weight posed no hindrance to me, thus I saw steel as an advantage.


Available Options & Pricing

Most canopies had roughly the same set of options, but with slight variations in implementation. All have various size awnings. With the exception of the Light Dome, all have vents and skylights (either standard or optional).

Again, in pricing, all of the booths start in roughly the same price range...about the $825 (give or take $25). However, digging a little deeper, I began to see more variation in pricing than was immediately obvious. The Trimline includes an assortment of options in the base price that are extra on most of the others. Roof vents are $70 extra (each?) on the Show Off, and the Finale doesn't list a price. Skylights are also standard, but cost $70 extra on the Show Off, and the Finale (again) doesn't list a price. Awning can zip on any side of a trimline, but require optional zippers to be installed on the other tents.

When it comes to options, again the Trimline seems to have the price advantage. For a trimline, a 2.5 ft awning is $105, and a 4.5 ft is $115. Compared to the Show Off, thats a bargain. Showoff awnings start at $135 for a 2ft and go up to $225 for a 4 foot.


Expandability

In the future, I'll likely want to upgrade to a double wide tent. Most of these tents have a rain gutter option so that you can buy two 10x10 tents, place them side by side, and then connect together with the gutter. The Trimline takes a different approach. Instead, you buy extra parts and a 10x20 canopy top and use that instead of your 10x10 top.

Each way has advantages. The rain gutter option advantages are:
1) Setting up a smaller 10x10 is easier than a 10x20, which can be a bit awkward and is definitely a 2 person job.
2) If you want to use the tents separately you can. For example, if you are a husband/wife team, it would be possible for you to each take 1 tent to different shows one weekend, and then the next weekend put them together to do a 10x20.

The advantages for the Trimlines combined 10x20 are:
1) Fewer parts...there are no redundant legs in the middle. This means less weight to carry, and fewer parts to assemble
2) Slightly faster to assemble than 2 individual canopies.
3) Less chance of leakage in the middle connection (not that I've heard of any cases, but it's one less possibility)
4) More open. Since you don't have the half circle ends in the center, the roof appears more seamless and your booth more open. Supposedly this gives better airflow, too.

On the above matters, its sort of a draw to me. I can see the merits of both systems, and it's difficult to say which I'd prefer.


Taller tents

One option that's been on my list has been to get a tent taller than the standard 7 foot design. This gives the opportunity to have more wall space inside the booth to hang more pictures. The Trimline tent has options for an 8 foot or 9 foot tent. The Light Dome and Finale say they have taller options, but aren't explained in detail on the website. The Show Off does not (as far as I could tell) have any option for taller canopies.


Marketing and Presentation

This is where I really have to give a huge applause to Flourish. The Trimline tent is very thoroughly explained, with each feature and option covered in great details. You can see every option available from the website along with it's price. Everything from extra illumination tops, lighter or darker awning materials, darker side walls, zippered walls, zipper strips to zip up without removing awnings, etc. When I finished reading their website, I felt almost as if I had already assembled one of these tents in person. I knew what the parts were, how they go together.

About the only thing missing from Flourish's site were more detailed prices for when you order the 8 and 9 foot tents. They give you the upgrade price for the base model, but don't mention how much extra the wall zipper options are.

The Light Dome and Finale were on the absolute opposite end of the scale. The website included prices for the base model and absolutely nothing else. I have no idea how much an awning is, or a vent, or a skylight, or extra stakes, or a replacement part, or ANYTHING AT ALL. Certainly I could call them up and get pricing, but thats not the way I work. I like to have a full list, and look over it many times, considering different options and the value of each one. Sometimes I'll be lying in bed and think "you know, what if I went with this...how much extra is that feature". If I need to talk to a salesman to get even a rough estimate of cost, thats a big turn off to me.

As far as descriptions go, the Light Dome and Finale weren't described in much detail. I could get the basic overview, but nothing more than I could have learned from a tri-fold pamphlet.

The Showoff is more in the middle. All of it's options are laid out with prices. However, it had very little in the way of descriptions.

In terms of website design and ease of use, the Trimline website was by far the winner. It was very professional looking and the easiest to navigate in terms of layout. The Light Dome and Finale web site way by far the worst. Horrible to navigate and felt like it was designed by someone who made their first website. Once again, Show Off was somewhere in the middle. While something like this shouldn't really matter when evaluating the canopy, I can't help but think it does tell you something about the company that designed and will service that canopy.


Making a Choice

It's probably obvious by now that I had a lot of really good impressions about the Trimline, and that is indeed the choice I made. However, I'll give a quick summary of each anyway.

The Craft Hut was never much of an option. Although it is still sold and serviced through Flourish, and I'm sure they do an excellent job of supporting it, I can't help but feel they treat it like a second rate canopy. I could foresee a day when they stop supporting it, but the Trimline will likely enjoy a much longer life.

The Show Off was eliminated by it's much costlier options. In addition, it didn't appear to have the taller height options.

The Light Dome was eliminated because it seemed to have fewer options available, and its unique design didn't seem to bring much to the table. In addition, the frame design seems a bit more flimsy to me.

The final decision was between the Trimline and the Finale. In light of all the things discussed previously, I felt the Trimline offered a better deal, and I was more comfortable about knowing how it was designed and what I'd be able to do with it.


Choosing Options

Here is what I decided to go with for my trimline:

10x10 booth with the 9ft tall option
enhanced illumination top
stabar kit (strongly suggested for a normal booth, more so for the 9 foot).
easy riser kit (to make it easier to put up by myself)
1 wall with a middle zipper
1 wall with a 2 zipper universal door wall
3 awnings - a standard 30", a standard 54", and a black out 54"
substitute 3 way connectors instead of L-brackets on 1 awning (so I could use all 3 at once)
4 zipper strips (so I can close up the booth without removing the awnings)
extra pair of spiral stakes

The tent came out to $1660, and then another $130 or so for shipping. I was told it would probably ship Monday unless some parts were not in stock (the 9 foot booths aren't as common, so parts may be less readily available). Being that it's now Tuesday night and my credit card has yet to be billed, I presume something was indeed out of stock. However, I was told that I would definitely have it before my Labor Day Weekend show. I'll post an update sometime in mid to late September to say how I like it.


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