Posted on February 18, 2003

• Last week I decided to take a short break from creating new wallpapers. I just needed to do something else for a little while and recharge my batteries. Rather then let the time go completely to waste however, I’ve set about addressing some of the special requests which I get on a daily basis.

  I’m always getting emails from folks using Apple Cinema displays asking me to render wallpapers to fit their screens. If you have one of these widescreen monitors, this is your lucky day. I’ve just posted a starter collection of 14 wallpapers at 1920 x 1200 resolution. They will fit the larger Apple displays (and some other widescreen monitors), and can be scaled down to accurately fit the widescreen Ibook displays (I hope).

  If you like these and want to see more, please drop me a line and let me know.

Posted on February 12, 2003

• Thanks to everyone who’s written me with comments on “Arboreal”. It sounds like most of you like the image and have no problem viewing it on your screens. Great!

  There was one thing that needed fixing however. A mapping error on my part resulted in the background planet having a strange, elongated shape. I’ve redone the render and replaced the image that I posted on Monday.

Posted on February 10, 2003

• Added “Arboreal” to the gallery today. I just know I’m going to get a ton of email from people telling me that this one is too dark for their screens. It’s dark on my monitor too, but that’s the point. It’s supposed to be a somber night scene where everything is just barely visible. It is definitely best viewed in a dark room on a sharp monitor. I hope it works for some of you at least.

Posted on February 4, 2003

• I’ve added a dual-monitor version of Alpine to the 2X gallery.

Posted on February 2, 2003

• A week or so ago, the Friday before the Super Bowl, Jessie and I were watching the late local news when something unusual happened. The broadcast cut to a live interview with Columbia astronauts William McCool, Michael Anderson, and David Brown. McCool, who had been born in San Diego, was the focus of the interview. He spoke of his fond memories of the city (especially the Zoo), predictions for the Super Bowl, and his hope that the thousands of soldiers deploying to the Middle East would all come home safely. Very cool.

  It’s a shame that most of us only seem to notice the space program when something goes wrong. Outside of Israel and India, I doubt that many of us even knew that Columbia was bound for home yesterday, or would have celebrated if she had landed safely. These brave folks fly for all of us, and each successful flight inches us away from our base origins and towards our future in the stars. When we eventually return to space I can only hope we pay as much attention to the successes as we do the failures, and honor the astronauts who live as well as the ones who perish.

• On a lighter note, I added “Alpine” to the gallery this morning. CG mountains are a dime-a-dozen on the web, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could add to the genre. I hope you like it.
• Thanks to all the folks who wrote Jessie with birthday greetings (see 1/31 post). She really enjoyed reading all of your messages. We had a great time yesterday and we’re still recovering from Buca di Beppo.