Archive for March, 2008

Photoshop Express

If you haven’t already heard (seems to be everywhere this morning), Adobe has released the Photoshop Express Beta today. What’s Photoshop Express? It’s a stripped down web based version of Photoshop, sort of. It’s Flash based, it’s a photo editor, it’s a simple crop, rotate, limited-tone adjustment app - so forget about doing complex edits. The UI is very slick, clean. The core market are the people who aren’t willing to spend a C-note on Photoshop Elements. The Facebook integration works surprisingly well, the free account comes with 2GB free online storage, along with a gallery view.

Check it out here, and my gallery is at rdmillar.photoshop.com. Enjoy, that is, if you haven’t already.

No Starch on The Pirate Bay

Book publisher No Starch Press has upped The Cult of Mac and The Cult of iPod to The Pirate Bay. Snatch it, it’s legal.

It’s about time some of these corporate knobs wake up and use technology to their advantage. Would I be blogging about these books otherwise? I think not. Considering I don’t understand the “cult”, I’ll be giving the PDF a glance. If I like it, I’ll buy the paper version, as many, many others will do.

Update: So I snatched The Cult of Mac and had a look over the weekend, I’m not really any closer in understanding Macheads. To me, it’s no different than any other brand fanaticism, something I just cannot relate too. I guess I understand it in the way that I just don’t get any sort of product obsession, whether it be Harleys, Star Trek, Croc’s or whatever.

I would like to applaud both the author, Leander Kahney and No Starch, for their forward thinking. However, having skimmed the book, I won’t be buying a copy, which, in reality, is no different than going to a bookstore and skimming the print version, and making a purchasing decision based on the content in it’s entirety. Only this way, there is virtually no cost involved for myself or the publisher.

via Torrentfreak

I Love Moore’s Law

Last week my wife and I went out to get her a new cell phone. She has always liked my Sony Ericsson K790i with the 3.2MP camera. I like it too, while not a good camera, it makes for a pretty good cameraphone. I’ve never seen the logic in almost unusable 1.3MP cameraphones. To my surprise, the vendor had displayed front, center and shiny the 5MP Sony Ericsson K850i.

Nuts! Now my wife has a better cameraphone than I do.

“Are you jealous that I have a better phone than you?” She asks with a smirk,
“No, Moore’s Law dictates when it comes time for my phone replacement, I’ll be getting a better camera than you.” I said, concealing my gadget envy.

Turns out I didn’t have to deal with the envy for long, here’s my next cameraphone, well the sensor at least, Samsung has announced a 8MP CMOS sensor that is the worlds smallest, specifically designed for cell phones. Due for production this fall. Moore’s Law, I love you.

8MP CMOS

The new module, which is 10% more compact than current solutions, will have an ISO 1600 sensitivity, anti-shake capability, face detection technology, 1-cm macro and an automated shoot mode that is activated by silly, smiling faces.

via Gizmodo

Google in Space

Ok, ok, so I like Google, I often have a hard time with it given my disdain for corporations, but who can deny the innovation coming out of the ‘plex?

sky.google.com, mars.google.com, moon.google.com

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Pledge Allegiance to The Bag



Pledge Allegiance to The Bag, originally uploaded by HowAboutNo!.

Banksy is probably my favorite graffiti artist, witty and elusive. This appears to be his latest work. While you’re there, check out the shop, for your very own piece of banksy’s work - free, everyone’s favorite price.

On the subject of shopping bags, check out my wife’s post on the evils of the plastic bag, and how to make your own fabric bags.