Welcome to HatBoss Dot Com!
Graphic Arts
I've been wowing friends and acquaintences with my computer art for nearly two decades
now, and I've decided to start sharing as much of it as I can!
I'm opening
four
five websites with all free content! (Just Added -- Complete
Astrophotography Setup For Under $300, and photos to prove it !-)
Currently, all five Hat Boss web sites are hosted together on just two hosting plans
at
GoDaddy, and nothing would thrill me more than to give away so much of it that I
need five plans, or even a dedicated server for each to cover the bandwidth.
As small as these graphics files can be, you can fill your screen with breathtaking
art from a 2Kb
download*. That's right, Kilobytes, don't-blink-downloads, if you will, so
that will help save bandwidth for the videos (See below).
* (It doesn't matter how big your screen is either! I run 1920 x 1200
here, and the quality is amazingly better than what you see on this site, which
is designed for band width)
Now, some of these 2K downloads take a while to "unpack", mind you, and you have
to use special (free) software to do so, but when you're done you have beautiful
pictures for wallpaper, posters or web sites. Some take so long you'll
want to start them and go to dinner, and check back later. You can even do other computer work, as
it is fairly friendly about resources.
So as you can see, you could fill a
hard drive from a few Mb download. Spend ten or twenty minutes opening up about 10 of these 2K picture
seeds (you can run a bunch at once), and go to bed / work / etc., and when you revisit
your computer, presto! You've got a beautiful little slide show for your windows
screensaver!
I'll also giving away some large renders of some of my better art. The big
files, of course, have limited selection on my site at any given time, with a larger
selection on sites where you can buy posters of them. I'll be giving away over 1,000
picture seeds AND the program in one 3 Mb download and that'll be free from the
start.
If I get enough links from people who like what I'm all about here to make it pay
for itself, I'll have hundreds of hi-res pics you can browse and download for free,
and more coming all the time.
VIDEOS
Now, I'm so anxious to give away my art I can hardly stand it. But that pales
beside my belief that anyone can create graphics like the ones I use. All
you have to know is whether you like how something looks or not. To prove
this I have a series of how to videos, and to help promote it, I'm paying for a
different kind of art in the form of models co-hosting a rabid fan football show.
giving away some large renders of some of my better art.
The how to videos, of course, will remain free for as long as I can afford the hosting
for them. The football videos may have to rotate, unless their popularity
earns them an archive, but I'm not holding my breath there.
Astrophotography
Shortly before I fit all the pieces of this group of sites together, I got
bit by the astronomy bug. Actually, I was hooked nearly 10 years ago when
I first saw the moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings, live through a telescope.
Part of my investment in the project was a $250 camera (okay, $350 with memory and
a protection plan), and on my second attempt at astrophotography, I was astounded
by what this baby can deliver. You can do robotically controlled astrophotography
for under $1000.
I have how to videos for that and recommended equipment for astronomy and astrophotography
priced from $100 to thousands.