They say the best things sometimes happen when you are forced to deal with limitations. It seems that may be the case in trying to get our Read More links to work. After many fits and starts and never quite getting them to work properly (at least not for everyone) we began searching for alternate solutions. What we found not only seems to work, but is actually better than most everything else we've tried.

Instead of just giving you the lead-in to an article and inviting you to log in to read more, we can now extract sections from throughout the article. Even enough to give you the gist of the whole article if you choose to never log in. Of course you'll always get more by logging in; extra photos, more details, richer content. That's why we do it in the first place. It isn't some nefarious plot to make you log in just for the heck of it. There are so many things we can offer through our web site that we simply can't send out in an email. Until we get this right, we are forced to hold off on sharing some of that rich content with you.

We've been wading through hours of raw video footage, putting together our first complete course for you. It's going to be a doozy. Don't worry, it will all be broken up into bite-sized chunks for those who don't want to sit through hours and hours of video. And it won't just be video; there will be so much more! I'm very excited but we're not going to put it out until we get it right. (The stupid read more links taught me that.) Our new goal is to have the first course released by the end of the year. And then we plan on releasing about one new course every month over the next 18 months or so.

The topic of the first course is already decided (Understanding Your Camera's Settings) but we've created a poll to let you decide what should come next. It will be visible right on the main page as soon as you log in. You can vote once each day.

We also got our menus to finally start working the way they were always meant to. Now they collapse and expand so we can begin offering you a rich range of options without making you scroll for miles. And there's a new menu option, What's New, right at the top. What you get when you click on this option may be different from one day to the next. The label will always be the same but the link behind it will change from time to time. It will be like your own little surprise.

Finally, we've enhanced the popular Random Image feature on our main page. It will now feed up a baker's dozen random images. Flip through them all, play them as a slide show or just zero in on what interests you most.

Slowly, we're building out a site as rich in content as what I'd originally envisioned. We appreciate you sticking with us through all the growing pains and hope you think this is all worth it. There's a new feedback form (hint: It's currently hidden behind the What's New link!) so you can tell us what you think. We really want to know what you like, what you don't like and what you want to see next.

Everyone loves a parade but they are difficult to photograph and few people end up with satisfying parade photos. Let's look at some relatively simple things anyone can do to get more effective, more satisfying photos of parades.

(Please note that much of this article is visible only to users who are logged in.)

1. Get up front.

2. Scout your position

3. Notice the sun

4. Get down low

5. The crowd may push and jostle you

6. observe everything

7. Zoom with your feet

8. Be careful not to zoom too much

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It's very common for people to talk ad nauseum about which lenses are sharpest. While it's true that some lenses are known to be sharper than others, you may be surprised to find that any given lens is not equally sharp under all conditions.

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Few people, especially in America, consider themselves whizzes at geography so here we have a select list of countries and the U.S. states closest in total area. (All areas listed in square miles.)