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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve been a fan of dpreview ever since a friend introduced me to the site. Yesterday they launched a lens review section, well needed in my opinion, with 4 reviews at the time of writing. You can read about the technical end of the lens review process, as well as the development of the new section here. Here’s an excerpt:
At the heart of the reviews is a unique interactive ‘widget’ has been designed to present the test results in a way that allows visitors to experiment visually with variables such as focal length and aperture and see immediately the effect such changes have on overall image quality, and to compare the performance of different lenses. The user-friendly presentation ensures that even those with limited technical knowledge of optics or digital imaging will be able to use the reviews.
I’ve been off for a few weeks, the typical question I hear is “what do you do with your time?” Well a few things, among them launching a new blog, Traditional Motors. Check it out, there’s only one post up - you’ll recognize it, more to come. why another blog? I got caught up in the excitement of looking for a project bike and registered a new url, the project will be posted there if you’re interested in reading about it. What is the project you ask? Go to the new blog to find out.
I’ve also updated this blog to the latest Wordpress and K2 releases, so you’ll find it a little less buggy. Finally, I’ve updated the main page at rdmillar.com with a cool little contact form I found.
Joost is no longer by invite only! Check out the download page and start watching streaming TV over the Internet. I’m downloading it myself right after I publish this post and I’ll give an update when I have some time to check out the beta.
I’ve played around with the beta, very slick, this is the way entertainment should be - what you want when you want it. The selection seems limited, not surprising considering the age of the product. Given some time I would expect a very cool service.
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As an artificial limb designer and hobbyist robotics engineer, artist Christopher Conte rarely uses blueprints or sketches to craft his elaborate biomechanical sculptures.
