Special thanks to Veendam’s Techspert Rob who posted this on HAL’s Digital Workshop blog.

Rob here on the ms Veendam, today we have just finished our first cruise around Cape Horn in South America. This trip has so many highlights, ranging from the Chilean Fjords, Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina, Cape Horn and to top it all off, a final stop in Buenos Aires! During our longer cruises we often urge our guests to make good use out of the digital workshop or more specifically the fantastic features of Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Here are a few pictures you guys have been taking along the way. The photos are courtesy of Rick Fadden of BC, Scott Webb of Oregon, and Elizabeth Havas of Australia. Smooth sailings, everyone! – Rob

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Topics: Art, Activities & Entertainment, ms Veendam, South America | | 2 Comments

Here’s the second batch of photos from Will Stockert, Holland America Line’s manager of digital workshops, who sent us these wonderful photos submitted by HAL guests. Enjoy!

French Basque Country.

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Thanks to Will Stockert, Holland America Line’s manager of digital workshops, who sent us this latest batch of photos submitted by HAL guests. Enjoy!

Photo taken by HAL cruiser Annie Jan during a Statendam Panama Canal cruise, April 27-May 17. The photo was taken in Nicaragua at a market. Annie used Macro mode to capture this photo of a baby parrot being sold at the market.

Another photo taken by Annie Jan. This one was taken in Costa Rica.

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Thanks to Will Stockert, Holland America Line’s manager of digital workshops, who sent us the latest batch of photo contest winners from our Digital Workshops. Enjoy these gorgeous photos!

Picture of the Sands Hotel, Singapore.

Dog in Wat Pho, Bangkok.

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Topics: Art, Activities & Entertainment, ms Maasdam | | 1 Comment

These beautiful photos were contest winners from Zaandam’s Digital Workshop.

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Topics: Art, Activities & Entertainment, ms Zaandam, Postcards from... | | 1 Comment

Days 76-77 March 22-23:

Chris Jackson, the “techspert” on board the Amsterdam, is telling the class in his usual rapid-fire style why there is no one “best” computer for everyone. “The type of user you are will determine how much you’ll spend in a computer,” he explains. If you are a basic user – use a computer just for e-mail, Web browsing and maybe some word processing – you won’t need as much computing power, or will have to spend as much money, as a “well-rounded” user who streams music and video files or a “high-performance” user who does a lot of advanced photo and movie editing. “Does that make sense?” he asks over and over, making sure the students are grasping the point. “Does that make sense?”

It all makes sense, which is the highest compliment I can think of for a class on technology and computers. And not just one class but 22 different “Digital Workshop” classes repeated throughout our World Cruise and covering the spectrum from computer and digital camera basics to creative photo editing and movie making and “cloud computing,” or using online-based software and storing – and accessing and sharing – our photos, videos, music and other files and documents online.

Photo of visual aid that Chris uses during class.

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Topics: Cruise Diary, Grand Voyages, ms Amsterdam | | No Comments

Thanks to Will Stockert, Holland America Line’s manager of digital workshops, who sent us the latest batch of photo contest winners from our Digital Workshops. Enjoy these gorgeous photos!

Photo taken by Gail Whitfield.

Photo by Boyd Wynne at Half Moon Cay.

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Topics: Art, Activities & Entertainment, ms Ryndam, Postcards from... | | 1 Comment

There’s a lot happening in the digital workshop for crew! Once a month we’ll have a class just for crew. In our movie-making class, the crew learned how to import their own photos and make a fancy slide show with animations, transitions, music, titles, captions, credits and best of all, we learned how to burn them onto a DVD and upload them to Facebook or YouTube. In our photo editing class, the crew learned how to edit imperfect photos by adjusting color, exposure, temperature, tint, saturation and straightening crooked photos. You can do this to one photo or all 300 with one click. We eliminated those dreaded red eyes and got rid of the wrinkles on the skin. “Let’s get digi with it!”

Trevor Moynihan
ms Zuiderdam, Techspert
Digital Workshop, Powered by Windows

Zuiderdam crew members at the Digital Workshop.

Topics: ms Zuiderdam | | 9 Comments