Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

This afternoon, I went out to my BIG mailbox and discovered that another eBay purchase had arrived. When I got back to the office, I discovered that the package contained a certain, very large book I had won (over 1,600 pages). While I am not going to tell you what book it was (sorry), I CAN tell you that its contents got me very excited. I immediately knew the book had to be scanned…but then I remembered how much a pain in the @$$ scanning a book can be…especially on that size. Then I thought about BookScanning.com…I’m sure they’d scan it for me, but I can’t imagine what a 1,600 page book would cost me (I do highly recommend the BookScanning.com folks BTW).

As I’m sitting at my desk, flipping through this massive book, when, all of a sudden, an idea came to me. I tested the idea right away and was blown away by the result…I was able to “scan” 30 pages from the book at 275 dpi in just 2 minutes and it was a simple process. I didn’t have to rush and the files opened right up in Photoshop. And here’s the COOL part…at that speed (15 pages per minute), I could scan 900 pages in just one hour. That means that I could have my entire 1,600 page book scanned in under 2 hours and NOT be ready to pull my hair out (what little there is).

So what was my brilliant idea? I pulled out my Canon 20D digital camera and photographed the pages! The 20D is an 8.2 megapixel camera, which, for the book photos I was taking, resulted in a letter-size file at 275 dpi…and the images were sharp, thanks to autofocus. Now get this…you don’t need a high-end camera to do this…any digital camera will work. All you need is even lighting (I used two 500 watt spiral fluorescent lightbulbs) and a piece of plexiglass to help keep the pages flat. That’s it. It might not be a bad idea to use a tripod and a cable release, but I photographed (I mean scanned) my pages handheld.

So there you have it…I just increased your book scanning process by a factor of 5 or more! Now get to it!

 Tony

I’ve shared before about my family’s cultural heritage and how we dance at powwows. I thought I’d share a photo of my girls from the last powwow they danced at. Don’t they look fantastic?! My wife is wearing her newest, white regalia which tooks her months to finish (it takes a while to do all that beadwork). Enjoy!

L to R: Tekakwitha (close friend), Courtney, Ashlea, and my wife, Deborah

 If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times…the opportunities are endless when it comes to the Public Domain. The problem is that we as product creators tend to have a narrow view of what product creation looks like or what opportunities are available. The truth is, opportunities to use content from the Public Domain abound…much more than you or I are currently taking advantage of. The challenge is to “allow” ourselves to think in ways that are different than we’re used to thinking. The classic definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over but expect different results. And based on THAT definition, most of you are probably insane…lol. I feel that one of my “jobs” in teaching about the Public Domain is to challenge you to get out of the box with your creativity and innovation so that you can tap into some truly amazing product creation ideas rather than accept the mediocrity of copy-cat product creation.

Last night, I was reading up on science and tech news when I came across a curious article about HP and some new technologies that they have been developing based on ideas that are in the Public Domain. I’ve included excerpts below. Notice that the article flat-out admits that the concepts were in the Public Domain (and the author is still living!).

Hewlett-Packard scientists reported Wednesday in the science journal Nature that they have designed a simple circuit element that they believe will make it possible to build tiny powerful computers that could imitate biological functions.

The memristor, an electrical resistor with memory properties, may also make it possible to fashion advanced logic circuits, a class of reprogrammable chips known as field programmable gate arrays, that are widely used for rapid prototyping of new circuits and for custom-made chips that need to be manufactured quickly. The memristor was predicted in 1971 by Leon Chua, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. There have been hints of an unexplained behavior in the literature for some time, Mr. Chua said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

He noted, however, that he had not worked on his idea for several decades and that he was taken by surprise when he was contacted by the Hewlett-Packard researchers several months ago. The advance clearly points the way to a prediction made in 1959 by the physicist Richard Feynman that “there’s plenty of room at the bottom,” referring to the possibility of building atomic-scale systems.

“I can see all kinds of new technologies, and I’m thrilled,” he said.

The original theoretical work done by Mr. Chua was laid out in a paper, “Memristor — The Missing Circuit Element.” The paper argued that basic electronic theory required that in addition to the three basic circuit elements — resistors, capacitors and inductors — a fourth element should exist.

Because the concept of a memristor was developed almost 40 years ago by Mr. Chua, it is in the public domain. The Hewlett-Packard scientists, however, have applied for patents covering their working version of the device.

This article also reminds me again of an idea I threw out to the listeners of my Public Domain Teleseminar Series concerning the product ads you see in old magazines. We often think that physical product development based on existing products is off-limits because of patented technology, when the truth is that patents expire after 20 years and cannot be renewed. That means that any patent filed before 1988 (20 years ago) can now be used as the basis for any NEW product creation you can think of. That’s HUGE! Think of ALL the inventions that have occured over the past 100 or 200 years. It’s all available for you to use now as the foundation for new products. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now offers the ability to search patents (full text back to 1976 and full images back to 1790). You can use their search tool here: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Have fun!

Tony

Did you ever notice that none of the gurus talk about making money with image-based products. All the buzz is Video, Audio and Text, and you can certainly make a TON of money with these. But when it comes to images, they say nothing. Do you think it’s because, when many people think of making money with images, they get this image in their mind of peddling t-shirts from Cafepress or cutesy greeting cards printed out on your inkjet printer? Perhaps…but that’s not why I’m telling you about Public Domain images and how to make money from them.

Honestly, if you’re not creating (and selling) image-based products in some form, you’re leaving a LOT of money on the table. And here’s the thing…this type of product sells so well that I actually have people e-mail me and ask that I not tell anyone about their websites or their methods.

My buddy George takes Public Domain images of Native Americans and prints them on leather and then sells the new “work of art” for hundreds of dollars…and he can’t keep them in stock. In the book, I tell you how he does it. There’s another guy quietly making hundreds of dollars EVERY day selling image collections on eBay. Another guy is making nearly $20,000 per month selling poster prints of Public Domain images. I personally have made thousands of dollars selling copies of maps, photos and more. Another person is making a killing selling copies of old patent drawings. I could go on and on.

The cool part about Public Domain images is that there are  millions…tens of millions…of photos, fine art and illustrations
available for you to use. In “Easy Money Picture Project”, I share over 90 websites (the best ones) where you can find and
download Public Domain images. I also tell you everything I’ve learned about using Public Domain images from my 20+ years experience working in the printing and publishing industries.

I talk about:

=> Where to find them online and offline

=> What to do with them once you’ve found them

=> How to profit from them

=> Who your potential customers are

=> And more!

If you want to stop missing out on a money-maker that no one is willing to talk about (except for me), then invest in your
copy of Easy Money Picture Project today and find out just how easy it is to cash in with Public Domain images.

http://www.easymoneypictureproject.com

Tony

I am always looking for new ways to use Public Domain content to create profitable products to sell and my latest discovery really caught me by surprise. This idea never even occurred to me until just a few days ago, and I have to tell you…it’s one of my favorite ideas yet because it’s fun, whimsical and full of potential.

I made it totally by accident while I was getting dressed for work. And I have to tell you that it’s been a really fun rabbit trail to investigate. What is this discovery? You can find out over at Tony’s Yard Sale. I spilled all the details in a brand-new report. And I can almost guarantee that you have NOT thought of this one…fun, fun, fun!

Check it out => http://www.tonysyardsale.com

To your continued success!

Tony

I’ve been searching for a good, free OCR software program that has the best features for scanning books and magazines, but still be really easy to use. I believe I’ve found the perfect choice for you. The program is called FreeOCR and can downloaded here:

FreeOCR.net V2.3 Free OCR Software

http://softi.co.uk/freeocr.htm

I installed the program and proceeded to put it through the paces. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles (which is a GOOD thing) so the scanning and OCR process is pretty straight-forward. There are a few tricks you should know about though, which is why I’m writing this. To test the software, I decided to scan and convert a multi-page article from a magazine (from the Public Domain) that I recently received. The article was formatted in a multi-column (3 columns) format, so I was curious to see if the software could keep the columns separate from a single scan. It couldn’t. All the lines ran together across the columns. But honestly, this isn’t a big deal. All I did achieve success was to scan each column individually and it worked perfectly!

The next issue I encountered was exact how to handle the multi-page scans. There wasn’t a prompt to ask for the next scan. What I discovered, however, was that this isn’t a problem either. Here’s what I did: I did a preview scan of the first page of the magazine article and then adjusted the scan area to only include the first column from the article. Then I scanned that column into FreeOCR (use at least 200 dpi…I used 300dpi). When the scan was complete, it appeared in the program’s left panel. I clicked on the OCR button in the program and the text was processed and shown in the right panel.

Next, I clicked the “scan” button again and re-adjusted the scan area to include just the 2nd column. When the scan was complete, the 2nd column appeared in the left panel as before. When I clicked on the OCR button for THIS scan, it processed the text and added it to the end of the previous OCR text. Very cool. I repeated the process over again until I had scanned all the columns from the magazine article. Once the last column of text was processed, I copied all the text from the right panel (there is a button to copy the text to the clipboard) and pasted it into Microsoft Word for final formatting. You can also click on the Microsoft Word button within the program, and if you have Word installed, it will automatically launch the program and open a file with the scanned text. All that remained was to format the text.

What was impressive to me was the accuracy of the OCR. The article I chose wasn’t just a simple, basic article (you know me better than that). I picked one that included French and Spanish in the text in addition to English. The OCR correctly rendered all the words in the entire article (except for three) and even included all the quotation marks as well as all the diacritic marks for the foreign words. Overall, I was pleased with the software and have concluded that it, if you do not currently have scanning software installed (such as OmniPage, Acrobat Pro or Microsoft Document Imaging), FreeOCR is a perfect choice for scanning all those Public Domain magazines and books that you’ve been buying off of eBay!

The latest addition to my popular report series, “Photoshop Tricks for Public Domain Product Creation” is now available. In Volume 4, I share two, time-tested tricks that I’ve used for years when working with low-rez images. You can get all the details (and download) over at Tony’s Yard Sale => http://www.tonysyardsale.com.

See you there!

Tony

Great news! The Public Domain Q&A Teleseminar MP3s and Transcripts are ready for you to download! I was overwhelmed by the response I received for these smoking hot teleseminars.  Here are just a few comments:

***

“The teleseminar was absolutely brilliant. I had to listen to it three times (so far) to get all the information. This was one of
the best most informative teleseminars I have listened to for a long time. Keep up the great work you are an inspiration to me.”

***

“I listened to the whole seminar and yours was the best seminar with the most information that I have ever attended, and I have attended many.”

***

“The amount of material that you provided in your teleseminar last night was amazing! I have several pages of notes, just from listening to the live call.”

***

Well now you can listen to the recordings over and over again and milk them for all they’re worth. Just load them up on your iPod and you’re ready to go. Plus, if you’re a reader like I am, you will also have the complete transcripts available
as well to dissect and study. This will be especially valuable for you with the Step-by-Step case study I included in the second teleseminar recording where I take you from beginning to end on how to use Public Domain works to create your OWN info products. This section alone is worth the price of admission!!

You can get all the details on how you can claim your own copy of this fantastic, over-the-top teleseminar series by clicking the link below:

http://www.on2url.com/app/adtrack.asp?MerchantID=64979&AdID=378251

BTW…while you’re there, make sure you check out the PS at the bottom of the page. There is very special information there that you will not want to miss!

Tony

On April 6th I turned 46. My Mom shared years ago (and reminded me again on my birthday) that when the “magic” day arrived, it was like 4 minutes until Midnight on April 6th, and the doctor asked Mom if she wanted my birthday on the 6th or the 7th. I believe her EXACT words in response to the doctor’s question were…

“Get him out!!”

So…April 6th it was…lol. Well, I had a really nice quiet day with my family doing one of my favorite things…investigating local flea market. I didn’t find anything nspiring enough to buy, but it was still a ot of fun.

I decided a while back that I wanted to give y0u a few presents for my birthday…I love giving presents (if you haven’t already noticed from all the freebie reports I produce). So I put together a few things you haven’t seen before.

First, there’s a brand-new audio I recorded on my way to a local book show a few weeks back. On the MP3, I share the strategies I use for finding so many books and magazines offline!

The second gift I have for you is a brand-new report titled: “Targeted Article Research with Public Domain Magazines.” In this new report, I share one of my secret resources for identifying exact articles related to my niches BEFORE just blindly buying magazines. I always say that you can’t find what you don’t know to look for, and this report will help you get even MORE targeted in your research with Public Domain magazines.

You can download BOTH gifts at my Yard Sale. Be careful where you walk though because I just planted some new grass…grin. Oh, and I added a few more great resources there as well. Enjoy your new gifts here:

http://www.tonysyardsale.com

I’ll see you there!

Tony

BTW - The teleseminar audios are just about ready for you. Watch for an e-mail coming in the next day or two to find out how you can download your own copies of these wildly popular teleseminars. I am also working on a very special new resource for you that will definitely take you to the next level in your use of the Public Domain. This is going to be sweet.

My wife and I were at an art show of sorts today and I was able to pick up a fantastic piece of ancient Chinese art that is definitely in the Public Domain. Below is a scan of the beautiful “painting” that I purchased:

But there is some extra-special about this artwork that you should know. It WASN’T painted by a heroic samurai warrior or a zen priest. It actually pre-dates all that history for one simple reason…it’s a slice of picture marble (rock) that was found in Guanzi Province in China. It’s amazing how Nature does such an amazing job at creating beauty, and even MORE amazing that this “artwork” actually has the look and feel of ancient Chinese art. Of course, since it IS technically a piece of rock, it cannot be copyrighted, placing it firmly in the Public Domain! I think there might be a book in there somewhere! BTW, the “art show” was a rock and mineral show…I’m a bigtime rockhound!

 Tony