Have spent all of today fine tuning and surfing, in the process I've discovered the following:-
So, I am now officially using a Microsoft product.
Above my old beloved iView Media Pro, which was technically owned by Microsoft, but still looked and felt like the original app.
Perhaps a review over the coming days? One thing I can say at this point is, that I cannot run the apps together side by side to see how they fare, and some menus and commands have moved, more to come.
Technorati Tags: DAM, photography, software, Digital Asset Managment, ivewmedia pro, Microsoft Expression
Ok Ok, I admit it I'm excited!
Just watched, the intro to the iPhone, and the way the iPhone seems to work is mind blowing, the "gestural" approach to using it is so 'sensible'. Definitely an desirable piece of technology, elegant simple easy and intuitive.
The idea of "swiping" to remove things and "pinching" to zoom just blows me away.
Just hope that by the time it gets to good old Oz, a carrier here will handle it and the costs won't be too prohibitive.
I still would prefer a higher Mega-pixel count in the camera, though.
An interesting idea but still does it carry any meaning?
Technorati Tags: digital, Microsoft Expression, photography, web
Guess I've been living under a rock, grease monkey type functionality now available for Safari. Bring on Web 2.0, *woot*, it's called cream-monkey, and now lot's of user input can be quickly and easily controlled using it from your menubar, in Safari.
Technorati Tags: browser, geek, greasemonkey, javascript, safari, web, web 2.0
This looks like a cool new feature from Google Earth, is it even new though?
Thanks to Peter from the AusPcTagging Group for the heads up.
I managed to get me an invite to pownce, thanks there brendadada. I have 2 invites left?
Technorati Tags: geek, blog, microblog, web, social networking, web 2.0
I'm no technology commentator but this AIR app by adobe seems to have a lot of potential, and overall I ike the idea of applications moving off the desktop and online so to speak. Given that air is a technology that and I'm quoting Adobe here:-
Adobe AIR is a cross–operating system runtime that enables developers to leverage their existing web development skills in Adobe Flash®, Adobe Flex™, HTML, JavaScript, and Ajax to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.Web developers are excited about Adobe AIR because it enables them, for the first time, to build and deploy cross-platform desktop applications without having to learn complex OS-centric development technologies.
Interestingly one even may give skitch a run for it's money. It's called screenplay.
Technorati Tags: applications, apps, browser, digital, web 2.0
I've been roaming the interwebs over the last few weeks, searching out another cyber-gallery/home for my photography.
In my travels I've found the following sites, which is by no means an exhaustive one, but a good starting point for those thinking of using the web this way.
Today I spent some time uploading and tweaking, my mulitply.com site. Which lead to me noticing the pluses of flickr and perhaps why it's become so successful.
Two areas I notice where flickr really is head and shoulders above the others, uploading and groups. One minor negative, is skinning or the appearance of your stream.
Something that flickr doesn't offer is 'skinning' the ability to change, the appearance of your page, multiply does and so does as does ipernity, each to a different degree, but the look of your site/page can be made different to the rest of the site, a feature also by the way of myspace, which in itself has become a cottage industry, but not facebook. Anyway I digress. This skinning feature is obviously a feature not clamored for by many people. [Some basic layout changing can be done on flickr, but I don't get the feeling people don't want to change the appearance of the streams on flickr. Possibly a clever move on flickr's part, certainly from a 'branding' point of view. But flickr has done some other things that make it stand and and more memorable.
Uploading to flickr, is a breeze. People can use the flickr interface itself, and several 3rd party apps that will do it very seamlessly for me as well. Multiply has no 3rd party apps that I can see, just a java, e-mail or html interface for uploading, which isn't bad but those little 3rd party apps I use really tap into the aspects I want fast easy simple and feature packed. Ipernity has one 3rd party app, which is very good, it has been so long since I've used zooomr I can't remember now how to upload, and I think there are account problems as well? DevaintArt's uploading system [html] has always been to prescriptive for my liking, [I'll be the one who decides what sort of categories my photos fit in thanks].
Creating groups and more importantly adding photos to groups. On ipenrity, as I write, no group facility exists, nor on zooomr, on multiply their are groups, albeit a huge variety of them, but adding photos to them is a separate process to adding photos to your own stream/account. When adding photos to groups on multiply, you add separate albums to the group, a bit of a nuisance really.
# I followed a European flickrnaut over to ipernity but can't remember who?Technorati Tags: apps, flickr, GUI, ipernity, multiply, photography, project, publishing, social networking, web 2.0
Thanks to b's comment yesterday, I went in search of more places to store and share images, in the process I found this site, free-webhosts.com, which then sent me in search of even more places to share and store photos. Still nothing shapes up quite like flickr in terms of it's overall, look, feel, ease of use and sense of community. Photobucket for example has a clunky interface and isn't that clear about limits attached to a free account. Shutterfly, despite it's more liberal upload limits, explicitly prohibits hot linking, and seems geared to selling prints anyways, I'm not even going to bother with Kodak's equivalent as they are not renowned for having their fingers on the pulse of things these days.
As for communities in general 'online' I suspect that flickr has built a rod for it''s own back. In the process of setting up such an organic process, there is bound to be certain levels of anarchy. I realise to that getting to 'know' a community takes involvement and time, but the 'structure' of the groups on flickr seems unique. You create a group about anything and list it anywhere yo feel comfortable and invite away. If it well managed it prospers, if not well whatever. All the other sites have very well defined boundaries that you must at add your group to. Making it less anarchistic, but somehow less owned.
Technorati Tags: photo sharing, photo storage, photography
This is where it all began, flickr even has, or is that had its own group
In my search for a stable set of image uri's brenda has put me onto this site, theblackstripe.com, and this image is being hosted there.
Again the features are there like flickr, but as of this writing no signs of a "community" ie groups. The interface I would rate better than ipernity, and less funky than Multiply, but slightly more elegant.
I am disappointed that I can only seem to link back to one size photo as well? More to come over the coming days.
This is an interesting feature, a link to albums. And while ipernity and multiply might have this feature, I've yet to see/find them.
So I can for example link straight to the albums I create, but unlike flickr not to any slideshow feature? Hmmm?
Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, photo storage, photography, project, publishing, social networking, web 2.0
My interest in Phone Cameras, and their uses is well know, thanks to a Oli over at flickr here's another use of phone cameras, for play.
Technorati Tags: mophone, phonecam, photography, games
I've long held an interest in maps in particular from the perspective of identity and location. Discovered this site this morning thanks to flickr
What I like about this site is it's a little more intuitive, than the others I've encountered so far, and the filters seem pretty powerful.
Perhaps I'll wax lyrical a little more about the idea of maps identity and location in an other post?
A free CD rom from RenoBrothers.com.au, given to us at the RACV home show, surprised me no end in it's poor design and usability.
Given that the clientele that were likely to show up to this kind of event, I was pretty dismayed at the lack of real text that could be zoomed and the reliance on pdf's embedded in a flash player.
I spent several minutes digging around the contents of the CD trying to find the place to start. Eventually, I did find it and hey what's a few minutes between friends eh?
Then! Lo and behold, the text didn't render very well on the front page command + did nothing to ANY of the text. Surely I thought to myself things can't be ALL that bad, this site looks very nice, so I continued to navigate around.
Eventually I got a bit lost, , so I thought no worries, I'll just hold down my back button and CHOOSE from a list of pages recently visited and get back to the page I think had the info on it I wanted. Sadly all got is a list of untitled pages?
The front page of the CD ROM
This is actually the 3rd screen, with the pdfs embedded in a flash player, the second screen seemed more like a afterthought with a bunch of text links dumped in the middle of the page, not even worthy of consideration.
Technorati Tags: design, rbit.com.au, usability, web 1.0, web 2.0
Look at these 2 cameras.
Which one has been made redundant by technological advances?
By way of background, the camera on the left is a film camera, a Kodak Brownie Flash II manufactured 1953-1963. The camera on the right a Kodak DC20, a digital camera from the mid 90's. An honest review here.
Technorati Tags: analogue, digital, technology
So yesterday, on flickr I left a comment about Australia's National Telco, Telstra and how I wanted to NOT get on a soapbox about them. One of the respondents asked, "What is Telstra". I responded by googling "We Hate Telstra", I came across this article, from the age, that summed it all up really quite well. Clicking on the author's blog link lead me to this article which incorporates ideas I've long held close to my heart.
What has this to do with photography? Well I'm glad that all three of you asked? Changes are afoot in the nature of the hierarchies of structure of photography, it's histories and acknowledgment of photographers who produce significant work. No longer will curators in dressed black, sporting condescending black rimmed glasses be the arbiters of quality and meaning. At the very least we will see the notion of good photography split into, many many camps and schools of thought, all out of reach and control of galleries both State Sponsored and privately owned, I'm guessing, anyways.
All in all I'm excited, about photography's spread and use that has been accelerated by the internet and the lowering costs of digital cameras.
All this from a casual comment and a quick google search.
Finally an article that extolls the virtues of Web 2.0, in particular flickr in the classroom. Albeit a little old, [written in 2005], some aspects of the article are no longer relevant. certainly worth some thought.
Technorati Tags: hierarchies, education, Telstra
New Browser on the market folks, sea monkey. Check it out. Released, last month. yeah I know I know hardly cutting edge, but this ain't no technological blog ok?
Currently I use the following browsers in descending order of frequency, or have at least experimented with them:- Safari, Camino , Firefox, Flock, Opera
While I download it in the background I'll try and head all 3 of you off at the pass. Why so many browsers, I hear you ask, well, web design is a bit of a side interest of mine. Being able to view my work in ANY browser gives me a feel for how it MAY look elsewhere. Of course until I get a Macbook, sometime in 2008, I will need to rely on the kindness of other people I know who use PC's to surf the web.
On the surface nothing seems all that different from other versions of Netscape browsers, all the usual stuff like built-in e-mail, & news groups, and a html writer, called composer, 1996 anyone?
It can be dressed up with themes I see but the toolbar doesn't appear to be customisable at this stage, still I guess it's in early development so who knows?
Comic Life, a great little app for creating comics on computer is now available for windows
The Googalyzer. Another browser, with an interesting feature set, designed for hard research, allowing users to keep notes and run multiple research projects at once.
I particularly like the button for google scholar.
Technorati Tags: applications, apps, browser, mac, technology, web
For those so inclined here's a long look at the new operating system by Apple.
My upgrade has gone relatively smoothly compared to many others, at the moment I am not able to use ecto, my blog publishing tool, only on this blog, and all my mail rules stopped working and now have to re-build them all.
Now to scope out all the new features, my favourites of which so far are, TimeMachine, the more unified interface look and the integration of Mail and Address Book and iCal.
Any of my readers on a Mac, like to try some very cool free software? It's called skitch, and currently is only available as an invite download, you will also be required to register as well.
It is useful for quick screen-grabs and sharing information graphically from computers
Just send me your e-mail address and I'll invite you.
Check the flickr pool for some ideas on what it can do.
Blogger has just added a neat little slide show feature that allows you to run a slide show in the sidebar of your blog, all you need is an account with someone like flickr or paint-bucket or picassa, and away you go.
I did, mine is optusnet.com.au
Candy Bar is is out!
[From Panic - CandyBar 3 - Change and Organize Your Mac OS X Icons and Dock]
for Leopard users only, still it looks good!
MJCP the editor is a funny guy:-
[From Weekend Edition: Ding Dong - Macworld Australia]
and it seems there is some speculation over a MAC owned and run stand alone store opening in Melbourne?
Sigh, bound to happen I guess?
[From Macsweeper - The first Mac adware/malware attack? - MacTalk Forums]
No need to bother really.
I love this little app and have sent invites to a few freinds, now it's in public beta.... yah...
[From Skitch.com]
...very useful too.
More Like a Scam really?
[From Macsweeper - The first Mac adware/malware attack? - MacTalk Forums]
boo!
Had to laugh at this article
[From Multimedia -- who cares? - Australian Macworld]
But serioulsy, what of the early experiences of computer generated art, sound, video, photography animations and so on. Well there is this book which has a special place on my bookshelf,
"The New Media Reader" (The MIT Press)
Even so something I've noticed in my cyber travels, particularly on flickr over the last 4 years or so is that notions of memory and identity don't seem to rank very high on most folks radar. As an artist it's often all I care about; in a creative sense anyway.
I've been wanting to add a blogroll to my blog for some time and have not been successful.
Here's a picture of the error message that I have no idea how to fix looks.
Anyone got any idea as to wot's going on?
Thanks as always to the hard working and patient Cos for his help fixing my blog, I now have a blog roll.
Haven't really been following this debate, but makes for an interesting read
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : Microsoft reverses version targeting default.
[From Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : Microsoft reverses version targeting default]
This is my favourite bit:-
"given a company-wide reorientation away from proprietary winner-take-all competitiveness and toward interoperability"
Ah the mainstream media still relies on these kinds of adjectives.
[From The world's 50 most powerful blogs | Technology | The Observer]
Thanks to my stats on flickr I rediscovered this site this morning. http://www.earthalbum.com. and of course the vain part of myself went looking for my own photos. Very nice tool indeed.
Maps and photography have long been an interest of mine, now with these techonolgies Web is added to the equation quite nicely. In fact this idea will form a large part content of my next e-book.
Here's a great laugh!
..."My Nikon contact tells me their R&D people are now working on a system that eliminates the photographer altogether. Nikon's customer research has discovered that when a photographer takes a great image, they claim all the credit. But when a photographer takes a bad image, they blame the camera.
By eliminating the photographer, Nikon plan to eliminate lousy photos altogether..."
[From Nikon D90 Specifications Revealed]
Now if folks in this thread would just read it!
...or why I love the internet.
Perhaps companies that think they can force us to listen to their messages — their banners, their interruptive graphic crawls over the pages we're trying to read — will realize that our ability to flit from site to site is built into the Web's architecture. They might as well just put up banners that say "Hi! We don't understand the Internet. Oh, and, by the way, we hate you."
[From World of Ends]
GASP!
[From Optus announces it will release iPhone too | NEWS.com.au]
Perfect timing as my current contract ends in a few months.
Visual Bookmarking, like del.icio.us for pictures
[From We heart it / Visual bookmark for everyone]
Go on you know you want to.
This is one awesome application.
Yesterday I talked about this new app I downloaded [fluid.app], since I downloading and running it I've had some problems, serious ones. Of course this particular laptop is very long in the tooth, and at the wrong end of the power scale. I also set-up at 5 apps to run using it, so maybe that was too much a drain on my humble system. The problems I had were, applications hanging to the point where apple+option+esc, was no good and I had to apple+control+restart. The 1st time I did this, I then got the flashing question mark on my start up disk! After a bit of prodding and poking I managed to get things back up and running. Then today the same thing happened, with all 5 apps running again, so I have now stopped using the app, and the apps it creates until I can investigate further.
Pity it is a great idea.
Edit, it seems that it is an OS issue, and may even work well on Intel machines
Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that the iPhone is about to be released in Australia. I recently purchased an iPod touch. The only differences as far as I can tell? No camera and no phone on the iPod.
So, in the last few days, I was contacted by my telco and offered a new phone, not an iPhone though, this new phone has a 5 mega-pixel camera in it, and will cost extra to add 3g accessibility to it. The iPhone, has but a 2 mega-pixel camera, and looking at some of the plans on offer in terms of downloads, I still think I am better off sticking with the new Sony Ericsson C902, my biggest fear? That the new phone will have TOO MANY camera features in it, after all part of the challenge of using an image capture device like a mophone is that you are limited to light and composition as the only way to achieve image nirvana.
Other implications are:- 1. My mophone blog may stop or change. 2. My Neo-documentary project may also end or change.
Recently there was a recent outage on the twitter network, that caused some rumblings amongst some of the peeps who I follow. In the interim Marcus, found plurk, which I am trying out, a different interface & conceptual framework makes for an interesting and maybe easier experience. Other social services, I'm exploring, ping.fm and kwippy
.Wow, an Apple product on the front page of Wiki Sunday morning[local time]
[From PowerBook 100 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
Aright; alright; alright, I know; I'm a nerd
Delicious has a new interface, which btw I like. I am also a big fan of bookmark sharing between people using this site, add me as a contact, if you are so inclined, ie have photographic interests?
Been faving and adding to we *heart it* then discovered this coincidence
Found this page/article this morning, courtesy of an e-mail list/forum I participate in that is discussing computers and education.*
[From Neal Stephenson's publishers site, of the book, "In the Beginning was the Command Line."]About twenty years ago Jobs and Wozniak, the founders of Apple, came up with the very strange idea of selling information processing machines for use in the home. The business took off, and its founders made a lot of money and received the credit they deserved for being daring visionaries. But around the same time, Bill Gates and Paul Allen came up with an idea even stranger and more fantastical: selling computer operating systems. This was much weirder than the idea of Jobs and Wozniak. A computer at least had some sort of physical reality to it. It came in a box, you could open it up and plug it in and watch lights blink. An operating system had no tangible incarnation at all. It arrived on a disk, of course, but the disk was, in effect, nothing more than the box that the OS came in. The product itself was a very long string of ones and zeroes that, when properly installed and coddled, gave you the ability to manipulate other very long strings of ones and zeroes. Even those few who actually understood what a computer operating system was were apt to think of it as a fantastically arcane engineering prodigy, like a breeder reactor or a U-2 spy plane, and not something that could ever be (in the parlance of high-tech) “productized.”
Download the zipped file to read the whole article, I, of course spent a few hours turning the txt file into a dtp publishing application to 'dress' it up and make it easier to read.
OK; OK; so I'm mad.
Some noteworthy quotes
..."Applications get used by people whose big problem is understanding all of their features, whereas OSes get hacked by coders who are annoyed by their limitations."
..."Or they could make the browser one with the OS, gambling that this would make the OS look so modern and sexy that it would help to preserve their dominance in that market. The problem is that when Microsoft’s OS position begins to erode (and since it is currently at something like ninety percent, it can’t go anywhere but down) it will drag everything else down with it."
..."The OS has (therefore) become a sort of intellectual labor-saving device that tries to translate humans’ vaguely expressed intentions into bits. In effect we are asking our computers to shoulder responsibilities that have always been considered the province of human beings--we want them to understand our desires, to anticipate our needs, to foresee consequences, to make connections, to handle routine chores without being asked, to remind us of what we ought to be reminded of while filtering out noise."
*Written in 1999, so some aspects of the article may or may not be relevant.and according to Wiki, now defunct as a piece of software. But I feel the principles regarding how and what a computer is used for, still hold true.
Should we be alarmed?
[From Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics]
Same old same old?
Talk about grass roots art, meets corporate technology. This link thanks to twitter.com
[From STREET WITH A VIEW: a project by Robin Hewlett & Ben Kinsley]
More of it I say.
Springfield gets an Apple store.
This year I got an iPod touch for my birthday. As a handheld note taker, organiser, calendar, address book, & mp3 player it is more than useful. If I can get free wi-fi while out and about using it, it moves into a whole other league. So it's a bit of a challenge for me to find free wi-fi when out and about.
Before today, Fed Square, the SLV, were the 2 spots I knew existed. Today; I discovered a service called Tomizone, that will provide 500 mg of free wi-fi a month, until the end of 2008, which ever comes first, for your iPod or iPod touch.
Here is a map of the locations in the CBD where it exists.Of course there's places like Joe's Garage in Brunswick st. Fitzroy that has it as well, the itunes store has a free app to locate free wi-fi as well, and there is this website that lists it too.
McDonalds, features heavily on this site, not sure if you can just sit down and start using it though?
I personally won't be attending, but if any of my readers are interested, and go, say hi to John for me.
[at Web Directions North]
Using the web as a kind of easily accessible tool for all kinds of publishing is a secret passion of mine, I 'met' John, an Australian developer who makes Stylemaster in my early research on web design and have contunued to use his tool. His involvement in the web standars project, convinced me of the importance of CSS, and web standards. John's software has made that transition smoother, and deepened my understanding of CSS and how to use it.
I am in the process of researching digital TV options, for home.
While I have high hopes for communities like youtube eventually usurping conventional TV. I am more than pleased the way choices are expanding in the areas of digital content.
my options seem to be at this stage; Apple TV, a PVR, or Tivo.
Finding the pros and cons between the 3 have not been easy.
Apple TV for example is really only a digital media centre. Adding a tuner though brings it close to a useful tool for watching content you've chosen to watch, when you want to watch it. PVRs and Tivo's I need to look a little closer at, one thing it seems, only Apple TV offers access to flickr AND youtube.
Part of the research involved going to the Apple store in Moonee Ponds where I got some great help from a chap called Asandrio [sp?]. While I was there, playing around with the Apple TV, I got to look at my flickr stream on a huge Plasma monitor, as well as listen to epsiode 1 of the scream. All round somewhat surreal experience.
According to this article on the DV-B site, digital broadcasting will come online in 2009. This explains the ad on Tele at the moment that is promoting freeview.
Analogue Switch Off plans released.
[From DVB - Digital Video Broadcasting - Australia]
Will there be more choices, I suspect not, I doubt the the mainstream has really learned anything from the internet and places like youtube.
Collection and organisation of information has never been more important, in this, the potential, pre-censorship era of Australian internet use. I have an account on delicious, while this is not the most feature rich of these tools, it more than serves my purpose of keeping track of interesting information I find in my travels, but of course, not only keeping track, also, organised as well, in a powerful and intuitive way.
Now I also use an application with it's own bookmarklet that ties in nicely with delicious account with out leaving the page I'm reading in any way. It is called pukka.
Sure, delicious has it's own bookmarklet, but pukka's is so effortless and so non obtrusive I wish I'd found it earlier.
Worth every cent of the $16.99 US I paid for it.
Here's a brief list of the other tools I can't live without.
Love this response when commenting on Gary's blog, junk for code.
Less and Less on the desktop.
Picasa for Mac: Free download from Google]
Where will it lead? When will it end?
Is this the answer to my digital media search?
The software, which is free and available for download at www.boxee.tv, works on Mac and Linux computers, and on Apple's set-top box, Apple TV. A version of Boxee for Windows PCs is being tested among a limited group of users.
Just discovered one of my flickr contacts, who also blogs, using a mobile phone camera, wrote Masters on 'Moleskine to Mobile : How Creative Professionals are Using Their Mobile', back in 2006.
More Free photo editing software available on the market, thanks the social networking tool, twitter, and photojojo.com.
What never ceases to a amaze me is that with the interface which is so so similar to Adobe's soon to be extinct, and almost irrelevant Dinosaur, how do the makers of this software get away with it?
This software however seems squarely aimed at the web/design market with an emphasis on web design as the colour pickers and system seems limited hexadecimal input. Still I'm always glad to see the 'spirit' of the early computer days kept alive by these free offerings. Uploading is easy once yo work where and how, but I've been unable to save images to the account I created, and a couple of the duds I uploaded won't delete either?
Like so many of these apps there is a social element as well. Which is great, but is the world ready for more social websites?
Geo-tagging an idea close to my heart reached a milestone recently on flickr
[Code: Flickr Developer Blog » 100,000,000 geotagged photos (plus)]
I like the idea of creating a collective narrative of who we are and where we are, something only made possible by the internet, computers, and sites like flickr.
Using your ipod or iphone as a remote for certain devices is well known, but how about a remote control for your camera?
Using the software made by onOne, you can tether a Canon to a computer with the remote software installed, then using your iPod touch or iPhone, control all aspects of the hoot, and preview them 'live']
As gadgets go, this is really amazing, and yes I finally confess to being a gadget geek, but those of you who know me, knew that anyway.
Sadly even Photoshop Express [online] seems the mot popular, accoring to this lifehacker article.
Editing your images on a desktop image editor might be ideal, but sometimes you're away from your home workstation and need to do some impromptu editing. Check out these five options favored by Lifehacker readers
[From Lifehacker - Five Best Online Image Editors - Image Editing]
Sigh!
A new app has appeared, that enables chat and photo viewing at the same time. Photoflow, already does this, but the main difference is that Photoflow.com, is a website, and users to set up rooms based on groups they admin. Flickrapp on the other hand gives you instan feedback on your photos, and the chat is stiil a giant big 'chat'. Be interesting to see if this take off?
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to musings from the photographic memepool [the shallow end] in the geek category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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