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  • Awesome TV theme songs, a cappella

    Holy Kaw!
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:59 pm
    This guy is a one-man TV theme song wrecking ball... but in a good way. Take a look at him perform the "Pokeman" theme song, a cappella, all by himself. You can also see him perform the "Doug" theme song and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."  Via Buzzfeed. Top TV news. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • ‘Bachelor’ Contestant Courtney Gets Auto-Tuned [VIDEO]

    Mashable!
    Samantha Murphy
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:19 pm
    Fans of The Bachelor are all too familiar with this season’s over-the-top contestant Courtney, who makes snide comments at the camera and likes to take off her bikini top. Now, a video has popped up on YouTube that has turned some of her signature phrases — from “Winning!” to “I do modeling” — into a catchy Auto-Tune clip. The contestants are vying for a rose from winemaker Ben, and Courtney has rubbed many of them the wrong way, and this video shows why. This is not the first time YouTube users have turned pop culture moments into Auto-Tuned videos.

  • 3 Ways To Deal With A No-Win Situation

    Fast Company
    Mark McNeilly
    8 Feb 2012 | 2:41 pm
    If you're a Star Trek aficionado, then not only have you heard of the "Kobayashi Maru Scenario" but you can recount it easily to others. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the Kobayashi Maru Scenario is a no-win situation cadets encounter at the series' Starfleet Academy. In it, the cadet is in command of the Federation ship, responsible for rescuing another Federation vessel (the Kobayashi Maru) from attacking Klingon Warbirds. If the cadet chooses not to save the ship in distress, it will be destroyed with all hands. However, if he goes to the ship's aid, he will precipitate…

  • Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK

    How to Change the World
    GuyKawasaki
    20 Jan 2012 | 12:46 pm
    Over the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are…

  • Hipster CEO Also Apologizes For Address Book-Gate, Calls For “Application Privacy Summit” [Guest Post]

    TechCrunch
    Contributor
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:07 pm
    The following is a guest post from Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow, following yesterday and today’s revelations that select apps were uploading users’ entire address books to their databases. We blew it, we’re sorry, and we’re going to make it right. It’s Hipster’s goal to provide a fun and beautiful service for our community to share where they are, and what they are doing – creating a safe environment for our users is of the utmost importance to us.  However, when we built our “Find Friends” feature for iOS, we clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our…
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    Holy Kaw!

  • Awesome TV theme songs, a cappella

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:59 pm
    This guy is a one-man TV theme song wrecking ball... but in a good way. Take a look at him perform the "Pokeman" theme song, a cappella, all by himself. You can also see him perform the "Doug" theme song and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."  Via Buzzfeed. Top TV news. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • 10 app to increase your productivity

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:55 pm
    If you actually want your smartphone to make you smarter, then check out this Open Forum article, which offers 10 apps that can make you more productive. Here's a good example: HelloFax. This app is billed as a fax machine replacement, but I don’t really use that function. What HelloFax allows me to do is receive a document—like a contract, agreement, vendor form or non-disclosure—that need edits and my signature. Instead of editing, printing, signing, scanning and e-mailing back, I simply download the document, upload it to HelloFax, make my edits, drop in my stored…

  • The 5 hottest, non-tech industries

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:50 pm
    Want to break into business but don't have a penchant for computers? Great news! There are plenty of booming industries that don't invovle technology. For example: Relaxation beverages. If you think this is a fancy phrase for wine and beer, think again. “Sleep-aid beverages” are the yin to the energy drink’s yang, intended to help you hit the sack after guzzling caffeine all day. The report projects nearly 25 percent annual revenue growth for the category through 2016. Full story at Intuit. Top innovation news. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink | Leave a…

  • What you can learn from brands' successful facebook pages

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:48 pm
    To be the best, learn from the best. What do the best Facebook brand pages have to teach us. Ragan points out a few of the biggest Facebook fan pages and gleans a few lessons from them. Here's an example: Red Bull—26.3 million Facebook fans What we can learn: • Brevity is the soul of building your fan base; • Strong content paves the road to becoming a lifestyle brand. The popular energy drink has become a lifestyle brand, evident from its Facebook presence. What do we mean by a lifestyle brand? Red Bull has grown to become more than eight ounces of adrenaline proxy. It's…

  • Is this tattoo infographic the real deal? [infographic]

    8 Feb 2012 | 10:05 pm
    So, the question is, did Polish artist Paul Marcinkowski make his infographic love permanent as part of a school project? We doubt it, but if the unthinkable is true, he’ll just have to point to that spot under his belly button to explain. Via Forbes. Like infographics? Not that much. Permalink | Leave a comment  »
 
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    Mashable!

  • ‘Bachelor’ Contestant Courtney Gets Auto-Tuned [VIDEO]

    Samantha Murphy
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:19 pm
    Fans of The Bachelor are all too familiar with this season’s over-the-top contestant Courtney, who makes snide comments at the camera and likes to take off her bikini top. Now, a video has popped up on YouTube that has turned some of her signature phrases — from “Winning!” to “I do modeling” — into a catchy Auto-Tune clip. The contestants are vying for a rose from winemaker Ben, and Courtney has rubbed many of them the wrong way, and this video shows why. This is not the first time YouTube users have turned pop culture moments into Auto-Tuned videos.

  • Facebook Talks About Social Games and Mobile Apps for 2012

    Kate Freeman
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:09 pm
    Facebook revealed its roadmap for social games and mobile apps for the rest of the year at the Inside Social Apps 2012 conference on Wednesday in San Francisco — and it’s good news for app developers. Want to create an app for Facebook’s Open Graph? The mobile space presents a huge opportunity to create cross-platform social games, said Carl Sjogreen, director of product management at Facebook, who spoke to a packed conference center filled with IT insiders about Facebook’s projections for the mobile social gaming and app space for this year. “You sort of had to…

  • What Digital Non-Profits Can Learn From Companies Like Google

    Daniel Atwood
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:46 pm
    Daniel Atwood works with organizations in the social sector to craft meaningful experiences for customers and constituents, and to find innovative product, campaign and messaging ideas in unexpected places. We live in a world where new digital products are solving problems daily — from managing our finances to remembering the groceries. Often, they’re solving problems we didn’t know we had, like the need to connect several times a day in 140 characters or less. Occasionally, they’re creating new problems (but that’s a topic for another conversation). What…

  • Comment and Highlight on Websites with commentto

    Alissa Skelton
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:30 pm
    The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: commentto Quick Pitch: Comment anywhere. Genius Idea: Commentto is a browser add-on service that allows users to highlight, bookmark, comment, save and share bookmarks and excerpts on websites. Do you ever want to add extra knowledge to a news story or other content on the web? Well, browser add-on commentto lets you comment on anything you want. Commentto allows users to highlight…

  • Twitter Comedy: How to Be Funny in 140 Characters

    Matt Silverman
    8 Feb 2012 | 9:37 pm
    Comedy is king on Twitter. Professional humorists and armchair standups alike have amassed legions of followers that hang on every 140-character quip. Twitter humor is a brand-builder, a great writing exercise, and if you’re really good, it might even land you a job (but probably not, so settle down). So, what does it take to get laughs at this 24/7 digital cocktail party? We asked some of the funniest tweeters around for their tips on cracking wise in the one-liner Renaissance. 1. Start by Being Funny in the First Place Bill Corbett knows a thing or two about landing short quips. He's…
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    Fast Company

  • 3 Ways To Deal With A No-Win Situation

    Mark McNeilly
    8 Feb 2012 | 2:41 pm
    If you're a Star Trek aficionado, then not only have you heard of the "Kobayashi Maru Scenario" but you can recount it easily to others. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the Kobayashi Maru Scenario is a no-win situation cadets encounter at the series' Starfleet Academy. In it, the cadet is in command of the Federation ship, responsible for rescuing another Federation vessel (the Kobayashi Maru) from attacking Klingon Warbirds. If the cadet chooses not to save the ship in distress, it will be destroyed with all hands. However, if he goes to the ship's aid, he will precipitate…

  • Amazon Inks Deal With Viacom, Sprint Announces iPhone-led Q4 Highs And Lows, Japan Targets 30% Cut In Rare Earth Use

    Nidhi Subbaraman
    8 Feb 2012 | 2:41 pm
    Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.Amazon Inks Deal With Viacom For Video Streaming. Amazon has plumped up its Prime Instant video streaming catalog with a pile new TV shows, courtesy of its new agreement with entertainment hub Viacom. The deal brings up its video count to over 15,000, putting it in a stronger position to compete against the recently formed Redbox/Verizon double act and traditional TV destroyer Netflix. --NS --Updated 9:50 a.m. ESTSprint's Q4 Sees iPhone Led Highs And Lows. Sprint is announcing results coming off its first…

  • How To Find Your Next $140 Million

    Shawn Parr
    8 Feb 2012 | 1:26 pm
    I recently spent the day with author Andrea Kates, who was challenged to connect the relevance of the working philosophy found in her best-selling book, Find Your Next, with real solutions that can help move businesses forward. Working with the executive team of a national restaurant chain on this particular day, Kates asked herself, "Which single metric could they focus on to yield the most growth for the company?" Her conclusion was that of all the metrics and contributing factors, it all boiled down to a dogged pursuit of increasing guest frequency. She learned that an increase of one…

  • New Details On Redbox-Verizon Streaming Service, Netflix Competitor

    Austin Carr
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:33 am
    Yesterday Coinstar, the parent company of Redbox, the 35,400-kiosk-strong movie-rental service, announced a joint venture with Verizon to provide a subscription-based streaming video service, thus positioning the companies in direct competition with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Coinstar also announced that it would acquire NCR's entertainment business, which includes its former rival Blockbuster Express, adding more than 9,000 kiosks to Redbox's roster around the country. Now new details about the combined companies' plans have emerged. First, it's clear the companies are adamant about bringing…

  • Why Facebook's Daily Active Users Is Not The Number That Matters

    E.B. Boyd
    8 Feb 2012 | 9:25 am
    A fracas emerges over the fact that not all daily Facebook users visit the company's website. Advertisers tell us why that's missing the point. More Facebook Coverage Be sure to read about the Facebook investors poised to make billions from the social network's impending IPO. And take a deep dive into our earlier profile of Mark Zuckerberg: Hacker. Dropout. CEO. Then compare the Zuck of yesterday with the Zuck who just penned a letter to investors. Plus, dig into all of the revenues and user numbers. Check back here for more to come in the days ahead. In the new world, however, brand…
 
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    How to Change the World

  • Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK

    GuyKawasaki
    20 Jan 2012 | 12:46 pm
    Over the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are…

  • Design a Sam Adams beer

    GuyKawasaki
    20 Jan 2012 | 10:24 am
    Now this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in Austin in the first week of March. #sponsored

  • How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK

    GuyKawasaki
    17 Jan 2012 | 3:52 pm
    This is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote this blog post. There’s a lesson in this too: Get the best person for the job. His grasp of financial models and how to present them exceeds mine by two orders of magnitude. The Purpose of Financial Projections When it comes to financial projections, there are two types of entrepreneurs: first, the “visionary entrepreneur” who…

  • How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK

    GuyKawasaki
    12 Jan 2012 | 10:16 am
    Here is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my SkyDrive folder here. Feel free to download it and use it as inspiration. And if you’re working with a partner, you can use the free Word Web App to stay in sync. I provided the PowerPoint document before the Word document because a good business plan is an elaboration of a good pitch as opposed to a good pitch being a distillation of good business plan.

  • How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK

    GuyKawasaki
    9 Jan 2012 | 10:01 am
    Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea into an enchanting investment opportunity—from the perfect pitch to a killer business plan to financial forecasts. I’m going to start with a little dissertation on creating effective PowerPoint pitches for your company. I embedded the sample deck for you to click through by using the PowerPoint Web App. When you’re ready to get started, you can download the…
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    TechCrunch

  • Hipster CEO Also Apologizes For Address Book-Gate, Calls For “Application Privacy Summit” [Guest Post]

    Contributor
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:07 pm
    The following is a guest post from Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow, following yesterday and today’s revelations that select apps were uploading users’ entire address books to their databases. We blew it, we’re sorry, and we’re going to make it right. It’s Hipster’s goal to provide a fun and beautiful service for our community to share where they are, and what they are doing – creating a safe environment for our users is of the utmost importance to us.  However, when we built our “Find Friends” feature for iOS, we clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our…

  • Is A Hash Of Hash Of A Torrent Of A Torrent Of Copyrighted Data Copyrighted?

    Devin Coldewey
    8 Feb 2012 | 9:23 pm
    Let’s try to parse this. Pirate Bay (.se) user allisfine just recently uploaded a torrent to the site that is a collection of all the magnet identifiers for the entire site (actually, only about a quarter of the site, but all the publicly visible ones). That is to say, it is a list of the unique identifiers, cryptographic hashes, of every .torrent file on the site. In a way, this torrent file, or indeed its magnet identifier (938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c), contains millions or billions of dollars worth of pirated content. Or does it? It’s more a philosophical question…

  • Stealthy Startup timeRAZOR Raises $3.4M Pre-Launch, Partners With Major Household Brands

    Sarah Perez
    8 Feb 2012 | 9:01 pm
    Got FOMO? (That’s “fear of missing out” for those of you who don’t do slang.) There will soon be an app for that, or so says the $3.4 million in angel funding the stealthy D.C.-area startup called timeRAZOR has raised. In its pre-launch state, the curious company is already lining up brand partnerships with big names like Marriott and L’Oreal in preparation for its March debut. But what the heck is a timeRAZOR? According to CEO and co-founder, Jeff White (formerly the founder of govWin), timeRAZOR is a mobile application that will help people discover…

  • Founder Collective Makes A $4 Million Bet On Paddle8′s Online Marketplace For Fine Art

    Rip Empson
    8 Feb 2012 | 8:33 pm
    When it comes to a marketplace for fine art, a space which seems to intrinsically resist digital services, technology really hasn’t had quite the same disruptive influence it has in so many others. Startups like Zazzle and Art.com have taken steps to make art commercial and broadly accessible, with some cool technology to boot, but automation and democratization haven’t really penetrated the upper crust world of fine art in any significant way, for understandable reasons. Democratic luxury sounds like an oxymoron, or phony marketing. Founder Collective, an early-stage venture…

  • FYI. Dave Morin Didn’t Lie To Gawker About Path Storing User Data

    Alexia Tsotsis
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:59 pm
    Some people always see the good in people and some people always see the bad … Gawker just published a post with what at first seems to be some pretty damning evidence against Path founder Dave Morin, publishing an email where he assured writer Ryan Tate that Path wasn’t storing user data. While today’s headlines would lead one to believe that the statement was a lie, Morin (who is a friend) tells me that the exchange is misleading out of context. He was actually talking about Path 1.0 in the email, which lacked the “Add Friends” feature and therefore did not…
 
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    Seth's Blog

  • How do they know you're not a flake?

    Seth Godin
    8 Feb 2012 | 4:43 am
    Before your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will…

  • Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea

    Seth Godin
    7 Feb 2012 | 4:09 am
    But it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are…

  • Who is your customer?

    Seth Godin
    6 Feb 2012 | 4:26 am
    Rule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect…

  • In search of a timid trapeze artist

    Seth Godin
    5 Feb 2012 | 4:01 am
    Good luck with that, there aren't any. If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you're not going to last very long. And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution. Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can't get to the next rope if you're still holding on to this one.

  • Will energy consumption stay private?

    Seth Godin
    4 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm
    It's clear that the consumption of energy has external effects that impact more than just the person who is paying for it. Geopolitical, health and economic issues come to the neighbors and nearby citizens of entities that are using a lot of power. It was always straightforward to see who was burning a lot of wood or drove a huge car. It's easy to see when a company has a huge smokestake belching carbon. What happens when sensors make it easy to see how efficient a machine is, how much of a resource is being consumed and how much exhaust is being spewed? What happens when Google maps shows…
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    Wired Top Stories

  • A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 9

    Ken Denmead
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:01 pm
    Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.

  • GigaOM Acquires PaidContent: Interview With GigaOM CEO Paul Walborsky

    Tim Carmody
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pm
    Om Malik's GigaOM has purchased media news organization ContentNext, paidContent's parent company, from the UK's Guardian News & Media.

  • Purported Pictures of iPad 3's Rear Casing Emerge

    Christina Bonnington
    8 Feb 2012 | 6:28 pm
    The launch of Apple's next iPad is just around the corner, if the presence of leaked parts images are any indicator. Today, what reasonably seems to be the rear casing of the new iPad has popped up in photo form on the interwebs.

  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gregory Brothers, ACLU Team for Video on Photographers' Rights

    Scott Thill
    8 Feb 2012 | 6:10 pm
    Benjamin Franklin kicks an informative and hilarious rhyme about transparency and First Amendment protections for pro and amateur photographers in the latest video from Joseph Gordon-Levitt?s open collaborative production company, hitRECord.

  • Researchers Build Hard Drive of Future With Lasers

    Caleb Garling
    8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pm
    A team of researchers from across Europe and Asia has demonstrated a way of using laser heat to store data rather than magnetic fields, potentially increasing the speed of your hard drive by 100 times or more. Tom Ostler -- a physicist at the University of York, which led the research project -- tells Wired that this could not only allow allow your machine to save files much faster, but also reduce the machine's power consumption by avoiding traditional magnetic storage techniques.
 
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    @ProBlogger

  • How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support

    Guest Blogger
    8 Feb 2012 | 8:07 am
    This guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned…

  • Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2

    Guest Blogger
    7 Feb 2012 | 2:05 pm
    This guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want…

  • How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]

    Darren Rowse
    7 Feb 2012 | 8:04 am
    Mid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of…

  • Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral

    Guest Blogger
    6 Feb 2012 | 8:00 am
    This guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a…

  • How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide

    Darren Rowse
    5 Feb 2012 | 2:03 pm
    Image by Stuart RichardsAs bloggers, each of us has to deal with criticism. Blogging is a very public activity—almost all of us has the goal of gaining readers to our blogs—and the more people you reach, the more likely it is that you’ll hear criticisms. “You’re wrong…” “How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I couldn’t disagree more…” “This is the last time I read this blog!” These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of…
 
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    MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors

  • Photo of the Back of an iPad 3 Rear Shell, Smart Cover Magnets

    Arnold Kim
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:44 pm
    Apparently, iPad 3 enclosures are easy to come by these days. Earlier today, Repair Labs posted a photo of the interior the iPad 3 rear shell. They concluded that there were some minor changes that suggested a larger battery and redesigned logic board. Tonight, Apple.pro posts an image of the back of the same shell, showing it to look quite simliar to the current iPad 2 backing. There's no markings on the enclosure, however. No "iPad" or serial number markings. The site also claims to have a photo of the Smart Cover magnets, suggesting the iPad 3 will share the same Smart Cover as the iPad 2.

  • Foxconn's Servers Hacked, Exposing Vendor Usernames and Passwords

    Arnold Kim
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:11 pm
    One of Foxconn's servers was reportedly hacked, exposing usernames and passwords for clients and employees. The group that took credit for the hack is called SwaggSec who claims they weren't doing it in response to working conditions or even for information on the iPhone 5, but simply for the enjoyment of it. We encourage media, security experts, and other interested individuals to explore our leaks. Foxconn did have an appropriate firewall, but fortunately to our intent, we were able to bypass it almost flawlessly. Of course with funding ourselves we did have our limitations. But with…

  • Apple Determines iTunes Match Royalties By Counting How Many Times A Song is Accessed

    Jordan Golson
    8 Feb 2012 | 3:56 pm
    TuneCore president Jeff Price today wrote a blog post praising Apple's iTunes Match service for creating money "out of thin air" for copyright holders. iTunes Match launched with all the major record labels on board, but some small labels refused to participate over concerns the service was legitimizing music pirates. Price disagrees: A person has a song on her computer hard drive. She clicks on the song and plays it. No one is getting paid. The same person pays iTunes $25 for iMatch. She now clicks on the same song and plays it through her iMatch service. Copyright holders get paid.

  • Photo of iPad 3 Rear Shell Suggests Minor Physical Changes, Larger Battery

    Eric Slivka
    8 Feb 2012 | 2:52 pm
    (Click here for larger version) RepairLabs reports that it has received a photo of what is claimed to the inside of the rear shell of the iPad 3, comparing the part to the corresponding version found on the iPad 2. The iPad 3 version demonstrates a few minor changes compared to the iPad 2, with one of the most notable being an apparently narrower logic board that could make room for an expanded battery.A. You can see here that the mounts for the logic board are very different, which means the logic board shape will be different allowing for . . . . B. More battery. The width of where the…

  • Siri Support for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Russian Languages Coming Next Month?

    Eric Slivka
    8 Feb 2012 | 12:42 pm
    Tech in Asia reports on an article [Google translation] from Chinese information technology website DoNews claiming that Apple is preparing to bring support for the Chinese language to Siri on the iPhone 4S next month. According to the report, Apple is also preparing to launch support for Japanese and Russian, but the initial Chinese support will only include Mandarin, with Cantonese and other dialects being left out for the time being.The Chinese tech site DoNews claims to have heard from an Apple engineer who’s working on the Chinese-language version of Siri, the clever voice assistant on…
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    chrisbrogan.com

  • Throw Away the Maps

    ceb
    6 Feb 2012 | 3:30 am
    People judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The…

  • The Next Social Networks

    ceb
    5 Feb 2012 | 3:30 am
    The rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for…

  • Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform

    ceb
    3 Feb 2012 | 3:30 am
    Jacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the…

  • Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard

    ceb
    2 Feb 2012 | 10:05 am
    I had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the…

  • Build Your Platform – Start

    ceb
    30 Jan 2012 | 3:30 am
    The following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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    Copyblogger

  • The “New” SEO Secret Weapon

    Sonia Simone
    8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am
    If you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see…

  • 8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read

    Robert Bruce
    7 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am
    It’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader We’re not telling you to keep your copy short.

  • 7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Wildly Successful Guest Post

    The Blog Tyrant
    6 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am
    We all know that guest posts grow blogs. But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers. Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits. In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post. Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals. Who am I to teach you about guest blogging?

  • 7 Smashing Social Media Marketing Links

    Robert Bruce
    4 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am
    This week on The Lede … What really works on Twitter One thing social media copywriters should never do 9 productive social media hacks A reminder of the power of the original social media If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. It’s painless. Really. // 9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your…

  • Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules

    Robert Bruce
    3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am
    What if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow? Would you stop as well? No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long. This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way. So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course. Original content creation is the…
 
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    ReadWriteWeb

  • Groupon's First Earnings Call Missed the Mark, But It May Not Matter

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:28 pm
    Today in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share. Despite the loss, Groupon's revenue in the fourth quarter 2011 grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. In fact, the fourth quarter 2011 was the company's first quarter of operating profitability since it opening international operations in the second quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a…

  • Daily Wrap: January's List of Apps You Need to See and more

    8 Feb 2012 | 8:00 pm
    Dan Rowinski rounds up the best apps, in our opinion, of January 2012. This and more in today's Daily Wrap. Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well. Sponsor New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012 In what is surely a labor of love, Dan Rowinski combs through the mass of apps released…

  • Stop Saying "Finally"

    8 Feb 2012 | 7:50 pm
    FIIIINALLY! Google released a Chrome beta for Android! GODDDDD. What took them so long? All the Ice Cream Sandwich users have been waiting, like, FOREVER! Finally, Tweetbot for iPad came out. I've only been asking them for, like, EIGHT MONTHS! Jeez. Apple fiiiinally released iTunes Match after a whole month, and it didn't even work right! Listen to how this sounds. How do we, the tech bloggers, get away with headlines like this? Where do users get off complaining impatiently about updates to a service that costs them $2.99? Or a free service? Let's have a reality check. Remember how awesome…

  • 10 Ways to Win Over Writers

    8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 pm
    As a PR person, product developer, CEO or whatever, you're probably more interested in getting noticed by the media than developing a relationship with a particular writer. That's one way to go about it. Then there's that old-fashioned "building a relationship with a real person not a robot" idea. You know, treating people like people and taking the time to get to know them. Oh right, yeah, forgot about that. Writers, like artists, are sensitive to ideas and people. But not every writer will get you or your product - and in the tech world as in any world, each writer has their own…

  • Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings

    8 Feb 2012 | 6:30 pm
    According to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor…
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    Smashing Magazine Feed

  • Collaging: Getting Answers To The Questions You Don’t Know To Ask

    Kyle Soucy
    6 Feb 2012 | 9:02 am
       When conducting user research, we all know that asking the right questions is just as important as how you ask them, but how do you know exactly what questions to ask? What if the discussion topic is very personal? How do you get a complete stranger to open up? There is a better way to conduct an in-depth interview, and it doesn’t involve a clipboard. Just imagine what you could discover if the participant’s answers weren’t limited to a predetermined set of questions. This is where collaging can help. Collaging is a projective technique by which participants select images…

  • How To Use Custom Post Types To Organize Online Marketing Campaigns

    Joshua Dodson
    3 Feb 2012 | 9:04 am
       Custom post types add a level of flexibility to WordPress that makes this open-source Web development platform more useful on many levels. Whenever I have been faced with a Web-based task, especially one that involves organizing information, the first thing I do is examine WordPress to determine if it can handle the job. It usually can. Image Source As an Internet marketer and analyst, I need to be able to organize online marketing campaigns in a way that is trackable in Google Analytics. This is the perfect task for WordPress custom post types. In this article, we’ll explain…

  • Freebie: St. Valentine’s Day Icon Set (10 PNG/PSD Icons)

    Smashing Editorial Team
    2 Feb 2012 | 9:38 am
       Every now and then, we release useful freebies for all of our highly valued readers. Today, it is our pleasure to present to you Cuberto‘s fantastic St. Valentine’s icon set  —  exclusively designed for Smashing Magazine and its loyal readers. The icons presented are available in transparent PNGs as well as Photoshop PSDs (128×128 px) and are perfect for any projects you have coming up for St. Valentine’s Day. Enjoy! Download the Set for free! This icon set is completely free to use for commercial or personal applications without any…

  • Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

    Julie Stanford
    31 Jan 2012 | 11:03 am
       Like most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use and, just as importantly, easy to get started using, without a lot of pesky setup and learning steps. And it must hold meaning for the user through visual beauty, an emotional connection, personal insights, etc. In this article, we won’t outline the entire design process for creating an iPad app, but we…

  • Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: February 2012

    Smashing Editorial Team
    31 Jan 2012 | 7:48 am
       We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over two years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features…
 
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    CNN.com

  • Families cope with school sex scandal

    8 Feb 2012 | 9:51 pm
    Sergio Blanco faced the most painstaking moment of parenthood the past week when he had to ask his two of his young sons whether they were sexually molested at Miramonte Elementary School.

  • Drillers reach long-buried Antarctic lake

    8 Feb 2012 | 8:48 pm
    Russian scientists have successfully drilled through two miles of Antarctic ice to a freshwater lake buried for millions of years, polar researchers announced Wednesday.

  • Wash. state OKs same-sex marriage

    8 Feb 2012 | 8:37 pm
    Gov. Christine Gregoire has pledged to sign the bill, which would make Washington the seventh state to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

  • UF suspends frat for 'serious' hazing

    8 Feb 2012 | 8:03 pm
    The University of Florida has temporarily suspended its chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity after learning about a hazing incident involving fraternity members, a university spokeswoman said Tuesday.

  • Teen gets life in death of neighbor, 9

    8 Feb 2012 | 7:17 pm
    An 18-year-old Missouri resident received a life sentence Wednesday for the thrill killing of her 9-year-old neighbor, authorities said.
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    Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider

  • Cliff Mautner on the Nikon D800

    Brad Moore
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:02 pm
    What a few days. It’s amazing how much interest a little piece of metal can produce. As a proud member of the team at Kelby Training, I wanted to share my experience with the D800. This project has been going on for many months. i was approached by my good friends at K&L in Tokyo- Nikon’s agency for decades- and was blown away that they asked me to participate with this project. My job was well defined: Use the D800 in a way that utilizes and highlights the latest features the D800 offers in real world wedding conditions that I’d face week in and week out. Simple, right?

  • It’s Free Stuff Thursday!

    Brad Moore
    8 Feb 2012 | 11:01 pm
    Photoshop World DC – 9 Days Left for Early Bird Registration! Photoshop World Washington DC is quickly approaching, and there are only 9 days left to save $100 on registration! Head on over to PhotoshopWorld.com to sign up, get hotel info, see the full schedule of classes from instructors like Jay Maisel, Joel Grimes, Lindsay Adler, Glyn Dewis, and a ton of other incredible people! And, there are only a few spots left in some of the pre-conference workshops like Lightpainting 101 with Dave Black, On Location DSLR Workshop with Rich Harrington, Real World Concert Photography with Alan…

  • It’s Guest Blog Wednesday featuring Jake Peterson!

    Brad Moore
    7 Feb 2012 | 11:37 pm
    Making History Come to LifeTen months ago I was attending Photoshop World in Orlando, FL. It was the second time I had been to Photoshop World, but after the blast of Vegas the previous September there was no way I was going to miss the one that Spring. One morning in the instructors’ lounge Jay Maisel, someone who I knew of but had never met, was sitting at a table. I introduced myself and we started to talk. Afterward Jay went up to my Dad and said, “You have failed as a parent if you let your kid go into photography as a career.” He smiled and my Dad just laughed;…

  • Jumping the gun on the Nikon D800

    Scott Kelby
    7 Feb 2012 | 9:46 am
    Since my post last night here on Google+ (http://www.scottgplus.com), and here on my blog earlier today, I’ve seen a lot of comments flowing in pro and con about this camera, and I just want to say a quick few things about the comments I’ve been reading thus far:(1) The D800 was apparently created for a very specific type of photographer  There is no law that every camera introduced by a camera company has to be designed to fit your personal needs. If you read that it has 36.3 megapixels and you’re like “36.3 megapixels is overkill!!!” then obviously this…

  • Nikon Announces The D800 And Baby Does It Look Sweet!!!!

    Scott Kelby
    6 Feb 2012 | 11:33 pm
    36.3 megapixels (wow!) with a full frame sensor. Full HD video with stereo sound (yay) built in HDR (sweet) and it looks like its aimed at the commercial, wedding and landscape markets (photographers who shoot medium format digital backs. I mean who used to shoot digital backs). ;-)I haven’t seen one, held one, etc., but it sounds amazing and I want one. Bad!!!! (And yes, sometimes you need 36.3 megapixels). Two words: Whoo Hoo!Read the full scoop at Nikon USA: http://bit.ly/wVaU77
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    Digital Photography School

  • How to Use Dome Diffuser to Eliminate Shadows and Harsh Light

    Guest Contributor
    8 Feb 2012 | 12:40 pm
    A Guest Post by PhotographersOnUTube. One question I frequently get asked is how to get rid of shadows in the picture when the subject is close to a wall? Well, it depends on if the shadow is being created due to a specific angle of the speed light or you’re using some sort of a flash diffuser. A lot of photographers assume that the omni dome diffuser you get with your speed light is essential to making the light softer, which is not always true. In most cases that dome diffuser is used to spread the light in a very challenging lighting situation when you can’t bounce anything off the…

  • Beginner’s Tip: Get Closer

    Peter West Carey
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:48 am
    I work with a lot of people just starting out in photography. People who want to move off of Auto mode and on to something more. And they show me their images, asking, “What can I do better?” I’ve started noticing a pattern in many of the images I have seen from new photography enthusiasts. It’s not absolute, but it is common enough that I write here today offering this bit of advice: Get closer. Here’s the pattern I see when I ask new photographers to photograph something of interest. I’ll illustrate the flow with photos most students start out with. First, they find something…

  • Canon Update 3 Lenses including EF 24-70 F/2.8L II USM

    Darren Rowse
    7 Feb 2012 | 6:35 pm
    Yesterday saw some excitement among our Nikon readers with the launch of the new Nikon D800 DSLR – but also announced yesterday were 3 new lenses from Canon. The main one of interest is the EF 24-70 F/2.8L II USM. Version I of this lens has always been a popular choice with photographers for quite a few years so an update is a logical one. The main updates included: More durable body Smaller Size (only slightly) Redesigned Optics New Zoom Lock lever to prevent damage in transit Unfortunately the update didn’t bring any Image Stabilisation to this lens – something that will…

  • View a Short Film Shot on the New Nikon D800 DSLR

    Darren Rowse
    7 Feb 2012 | 6:10 pm
    With the announcement of Nikon’s new D800 DSLR yesterday came a short film shot on the D800 that shows off some of the D800′s video shooting capabilities. The film is called ‘Joy Ride’ and was created by photographer – Sandro. The film showcases the D800′s ability to shoot in some tricky lighting conditions and situations (fast moving motorbikes, low light etc). Here it is: Also released by Sandro today was a behind the scenes video. It doesn’t contain a heap of technical info by will give you a feel for how it was shot. Post originally from: Digital…

  • The Perfect Camera Bag for the Female Street Photographer

    Sime
    7 Feb 2012 | 12:15 pm
    A review by Marianne Gilhuus. For the first time ever I have a camera bag that does not make me look like a photo geek! (Or, to be honest, for the first time in my life I have a real camera bag, with room for more than just one camera)! It is a beautiful leather bag (available in several beautiful different colours), which can be used/worn at any occasion. A great bag for combining shopping or having a coffee with friends, and photo shooting. And as the bag won’t give away that you are carrying a camera, it is ideal for a female street photographer! For me it is a small drawback that…
 
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    TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

  • App usage doesn't drop during Super Bowl -- except during halftime

    Mike Schramm
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 pm
    Mobile advertiser Flurry's latest report, on app usage during the Super Bowl, is fascinating for those of us who have been following the "second screen" phenomenon: The tendency of mobile device users to use their devices while also watching television or other media. Flurry notes that during last week's big game, not only was the app audience (according to the apps that the company is actually monitoring) almost as large as the Super Bowl audience as a whole, but as you can see above, app usage steadily grew throughout the game. With one interesting exception, that is: During the Madonna…

  • Daily iPad App: Tweetbot emerges as a top Twitter client for the iPad

    Megan Lavey-Heaton
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 pm
    I admit I was late to the Tweetbot bandwagon. I was tempted by the initial reviews, but wasn't keen to spend the money. Yeah, it was $2.99. But, if I wanted to spend money on a Twitter app, I wanted to buy one and have that be it for awhile. The free native Twitter app, which evolved from Tweetie, suited me until the overhaul in December. While there were some features I liked, others drove me up the wall. I found that I was using Twitter less and less because I didn't care for the redesigned iPhone app and web interface. So, I finally turned to Tweetbot, and I haven't looked back. Steve…

  • You're the Pundit: Does a 7" iPad make sense for the education market?

    Erica Sadun
    8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pm
    When it comes to forecasting the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today's topic is Education and the iPad. Last month, Apple introduced iBooks Author and expanded iTunes U. It was a big presentation and a big commitment to the textbook market. The problem is, of course, whether the desire to embrace digital textbooks can live up to the costs and grim realities. Granted, Apple's probably going to start pushing the iPad to schools much more enthusiastically now that it's ceased educational sales of the…

  • White MacBook reaches end of life, education sales to cease

    Chris Rawson
    8 Feb 2012 | 5:30 pm
    Although discontinued for consumer sales last July, the plastic MacBook remained available for sale to educational institutions as a (relatively) low-cost option for schools seeking portable Macs for students. If you were wondering how long that would last, wonder no longer; seven months later, Apple has ceased distributing the MacBook to educational institutions, according to Mac Rumors. Apple has notified resellers that the plastic MacBook is now classified as "End of Life," meaning it will no longer be produced or sold to anyone. Production of the old model may have ceased as long ago as…

  • Apple resellers in Europe say inventory delays affecting business

    Steven Sande
    8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pm
    Life is a bit difficult for Apple's Premium Resellers in Europe now that the company is expanding retail locations throughout the continent. A post by France's Les Echos profiles a complaint by eBizcuss, the largest and first authorized reseller of Apple products in France (through their ICLG subsidiary), about the impact that the popular Apple Stores are having on the company. TUAW first covered this story in December, when we noted that eBizcuss has filed a lawsuit against Apple. eBizcuss saw sales fall 22 percent in the third quarter of 2011, and the company is teetering on the edge of…
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    Strobist

  • How the Other Half Lives: George Holz' Beyoncé for Spin

    8 Feb 2012 | 11:00 pm
    Photo © George HolzYou know how people on the Strobist Flickr group like to talk about how it is technically possible to shoot blow-away white with just one flash?Yeah, this is not exactly that.Hit the jump for a walk-thru vid for the (ahem, eight-light) shoot, including a key light combo that you're prolly gonna want to rent rather than buy next time you are assigned to shoot Beyoncé. Read more »

  • Lighting Inside the Box

    6 Feb 2012 | 8:30 am
    After 15 years of long-term planning (and saving) Susan and I finally took the plunge with a full kitchen remodel. We were really pleased with the results, and at some point I had promised the contractor a nice photo of the final product.In a room like this you are basically illuminating the inside of a box by using hidden lights, which turned out to be an interesting exercise. And it's something I would recommend for just about any photographer. Read more »

  • Core Knowledge: Working With Remotes

    2 Feb 2012 | 8:00 am
    There are two things you should always remember about radio remotes:One, radio can be fickle. This is true whether you are using your time-honored PocketWizards or a brand new Chinese offering.Two, radio waves -- and success with your remotes -- are all about the physics. So a little knowledge can go a long way toward ensuring good range and reliability. Some basics that every lighting photographer should know, inside. Read more »

  • Tyler Stableford: Dispatches From the Underground

    30 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am
    Aspen, Colorado-based photographer Tyler Stableford generally shoots action and adventure, most of it aboveground. But this shoot for Timberland PRO would send him a half-mile deep into the earth. That far down, before adding light it is absolutely pitch black. As in, you cannot see your hand in front of your face. And the lights the miners use while extracting coal there aren't much friendlier -- low-level, and a mix of tungsten and fluorescents. So Stableford shot the entire campaign working on the edge of the quality envelope, and lighting with only a few speedlights. Read more »

  • Q&A: Dealing with Glare from Dark Wood Backgrounds

    26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am
    Reader Jefferson, from California in the US, asked via Twitter:"How do you deal with glare on dark wood in background for portraits? Is this covered in Lighting 101 or 102?"Actually, it is covered in L102, if a little obliquely. And yes, pretty much any time you light into dark wood as a background you are gonna get some blowback.But rather than look at this as a problem, I prefer to think of it as a feature… Read more »
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    News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Sony full-frame camera coming, 500mm F4 lens finally announced

    8 Feb 2012 | 9:05 pm
    Sony has confirmed it will be making a full-frame replacement for its flagship A900 DSLR. No further details were given during a round-table discussion at the CP+ show in Japan, but we find it hard to believe the result will step away from the SLT technology the company has invested so heavily in. The company has also finally announced the A-mount 500mm F4 lens that it has been showing in various states of preparedness since PMA 2007 will be available from late March.

  • Ricoh reshuffle sees Pentax take control of cameras

    8 Feb 2012 | 7:07 pm
    Ricoh has announced that its Pentax Ricoh Imaging (PRI) business unit will take full control of the design, development and sales of the company's cameras, worldwide. PRI was created when Ricoh bought Pentax and is the business that has been responsible for the design, manufacturing and sales of Pentax cameras. It will now absorb the consumer businesses of Ricoh's Personal Multimedia Product Company, which was responsible for the design, manufacture and sale of Ricoh cameras. The change will take effect from April 1st 2012.

  • Sony promises more NEX lenses in updated E-mount lens roadmap

    8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 pm
    Sony has said it will have 15 lenses ready for the NEX system by the end of 2013. It made the annoucement of an expanded E-mount roadmap at the start of the CP+ trade show in Yokohama, Japan. The roadmap includes a variety of zooms and prime lenses, including a high-end standard zoom with Sony's premium 'G' branding. There will also be a pancake prime and a mid-telephoto prime lens some time during 2013.

  • Sigma DP series reinvented as DP1M and DP2M with 15MPx3 sensor from SD1

    8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
    Sigma has totally reinvented its DP series of large sensor compacts with the DP1 Merrill  and DP2 Merrill. The DP Merrill models are named after Dick Merrill, inventor of the Foveon sensor and include the most recent version of his technology - the 15x3MP APS-C sensor first seen in Sigma's SD1. Because the Merrill cameras feature full APS-C sensors, they also feature totally redesigned lenses, with the DP1M including a 19mm F2.8 lens to offer a 28mm equivalent field of view and the DP2M having a 30mm F2.8 lens to give a 45mm equivalent field-of-view.

  • Sigma SD1 becomes SD1 Merrill and gains (much) keener price tag

    8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
    Sigma's new CEO, Kazuto Yamaki has announced the re-branding and re-pricing of the company's flagship camera. The SD1 DSLR will now be know as the SD1 Merrill, in honor of Dick Merrill, inventor of the Foveon sensor technology on which it is based. The price will also be revised, falling to what should be a street price of around $2,299, which Yamaki attributes to work conducted to reduce production costs of the sensor. Despite these changes, his letter promises the performance and characteristics of the sensor have not changed. To avoid disappointing existing SD1 customers, Sigma will offer…
 
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    Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

  • Why I Don’t Backup My Photos Using Lightroom

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    7 Feb 2012 | 7:39 am
    If you’ve used the Import dialog in Lightroom, you’ve probably noticed an area under File Handing called “Make a Second Copy To:”. This is Lightroom’s way of letting you make a backup of your photos as you import them. That way you can get your import and your backup all done at once. A while back, some one pointed out that when you use this feature, you don’t have much control over how the backup drive stores the photos. Basically, it just stores them in a folder named “Imported on….”. For me this is a big problem because it’s not…

  • Lightroom Worth-a-click

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    3 Feb 2012 | 8:26 am
    Happy Friday! Here’s a few Lightroom/Photography related things that are worth a quick click if you’re surfing around. • A friend of mine from Paris (who I shot with while I visited last year and was a HUGE help!), Serge Ramelli has a Lightroom app on the iTunes store. Here’s the link if you want to check it out. • It’s not exactly brand new news but I had a new class go up on Kelby Training last month that’s all about Lightroom presets and how I create them. If you’re looking for a peak inside the mind of the preset creator (and some cool ideas for…

  • Lightroom Video – Dynamic Watermarks (well… not really, but kinda)

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    1 Feb 2012 | 10:08 am
    I always like to do videos that answer questions I get, rather than just doing a video that I “think” everyone wants to know about. Well, this weeks video comes from a question that I’ve gotten in several forms over the last couple years. Recently, some one asked if they could add a watermark to their photos with the current year on them. So basically, Lightroom would have to figure out the year from the metadata (probably not hard) and dynamically add it to the photos when you export them into JPEGS (not so easy). So, there’s really no way to do this, but there is an…

  • Your Burning Lightroom 4 Questions Answered From Adobe

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    30 Jan 2012 | 9:10 am
    I just saw a post over on Adobe’s Photoshop.com blog where product manager Sharad Mangalick, answered a bunch of Lightroom 4 questions. Everything from catalogs, to video, new features, you name it. Below is one question I pulled directly from the page because I’ve been asked quite a bit too, but there’s lots more in the full article. @luxx11 and @jennawoodward Ask: @Lightroom why can’t I use my LR3 catalogs in LR4? Is there a way to easily transfer my Lr3 catalogue into Lr4? Sharad: Since Lightroom 4 is still in beta form, we restricted the ability to bring in catalogs…

  • Lightroom 4 and Windows XP

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    23 Jan 2012 | 9:52 am
    I’ve seen quite a few comments about the fact that Lightroom 4 Beta doesn’t work with Windows XP (and you can probably guess that the full version isn’t going to work with it either). Last week Tom Hogarty (Lightroom Product Manager) wrote about the reasons behind that decision on his blog. Here’s a quick snippet but you can go here to read the rest: “As many have noticed, the Lightroom 4 public beta we released last week does not support Windows XP. This decision did not come lightly and was based on a number of factors. With each version of Lightroom, our goal…
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    MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - iOS Blog

  • The iPad 3's A6 Processor to be Dual-Core?

    Arnold Kim
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:47 pm
    TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3. Image from RepairLabs As expected, the iPad 3 will reportedly include a 2048x1536 Retina Display, be nearly identical physically, and use the A6 processor. The A6 processor, however, is claimed to have a dual-core chip, not a quad-core one, at least according to his sources: What is surprising, however, is that our sources say that the A6 will not be a quad-core chip, but will remain dual-core. We've previously had heard that the device…

  • Tweetbot for iPad Hits The App Store

    Jordan Golson
    8 Feb 2012 | 2:37 pm
    Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a lot of punch into an intuitive, slick interface, with unique functionality like Smart Gestures which give quick access to a variety of features through double or triple-taps. The Next Web and Business Insider have more in-depth reviews. The app is $2.99 and is a separate purchase from the iPhone app, a fact some users may dislike, but Tweetbot co-developer Paul Haddad explained his thoughts…

  • Vonage Rolls Out "High-Definition" VoIP Calling App

    Jordan Golson
    8 Feb 2012 | 12:24 pm
    Vonage has introduced yet another app to its growing mobile arsenal. The latest, called Vonage Mobile (not to be confused with another app called Vonage Mobile, introduced in 2009) adds a Skype-esque component to the old app's VoIP calling component. Users with Vonage Mobile installed can make "high-definition" audio calls or SMS-type text messages over Wi-Fi and 3G to other Vonage Mobile users. Users can also make low-cost international calls with credits added via In-App Purchasing. Calls to landline or wireless numbers in the US, Canada or Puerto Rico, from anywhere in the world, are free…

  • 'iBank Access' Seeking to Remake Personal Finance on the iPad

    Eric Slivka
    8 Feb 2012 | 7:26 am
    As Intuit's Quicken options for Mac users continue to falter in the wake of a stripped-down Quicken Essentials release and the company's ongoing efforts to make the more fully-functional Quicken 2007 compatible with OS X Lion, other personal finance software firms have attempted to step into the void. One of the more successful companies has been IGG Software with its iBank software, which is available as both a Mac application and a companion iPhone app. IGG Software has been teasing a few tidbits about its work on an iPad application over the past few months, and as noted in a new blog post…

  • The Best Superbowl Ad Was for the iPhone

    Jordan Golson
    7 Feb 2012 | 5:53 pm
    More than fifty commercials aired during the Super Bowl this past Sunday, including one from Samsung that again poked fun at Apple's customers. Apple didn't run any ads during the Super Bowl, at least not officially -- a fact that puzzled some commentators. But, as investment guru Jim Cramer points out, Apple did have an advertisement of sorts air during the Super Bowl. After the game was over, Colts hall of famer Raymond Berry carrier the Vince Lombardi Trophy along a long line of New York Giants players. Players took turns touching or kissing the trophy, all the while taking photos and…
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    CNNGo.com

  • 5 Valentine recipes from 5 top chefs

    Anthea Gerrie
    8 Feb 2012 | 4:05 pm
    by Anthea GerrieNothing proves your love like a well-cooked meal. And nothing sabotages the moment like a badly cooked one. We searched the planet for the most positively passionate chefs, and found five for whom food isn't just for eating, it's for loving. So wherever you are and whatever your culinary skills, you can score some passion points with these simple but sumptous Valentine recipes.  1. Shannon Bennett, Melbourne: Coq au vin in sweet wine Melts first on your eyes, then in your mouth. Shannon Bennett of Vue de Monde in Melbourne treasures the meal he enjoyed with his wife at…

  • Japan's weirdest snowscape: The Monsters of Zao

    Lisa Jardine
    8 Feb 2012 | 3:55 pm
    by Lisa JardineWhen Hilary Wendel, a Tokyo-based photographer and good friend, asked me to tag along as she photographed “Japan’s scariest monsters,” I was apprehensive at first. Fortunately for us both, the Snow Monsters of Zao in Yamagata Prefecture are more impressive than terrifying. They are actually Aomori fir trees that have been coated with extremely wet snow and ice carried by a cold Siberian jet stream that also freezes them almost solid in some of the most peculiar shapes I’ve ever seen. And they're easy to reach from Kanto too -- tickets from Tokyo Station to Yamagata by…

  • CNNGo TV: Rome -- beyond the Colosseum

    8 Feb 2012 | 1:37 am
    The Colossuem, the Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica ... most travelers know the fundaments of this former center of the Roman Empire. Yet, Rome has a lot more to offer.  This episode of CNNGo TV takes in award-winning modern museums, traditional Italian food and that with a modern twist and of course amazing sites of historical significance.  Here are just a few of the outstanding places a team of exuberant locals took us to.  Air times are below.  Don't miss on CNNGo: What to do in Rome -- a big mini guideread more

  • Maldives mutiny sparks tourism warnings

    Zoe Li, Hong Kong Editor
    8 Feb 2012 | 12:05 am
    by Zoe Li, Hong Kong EditorThe president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, resigned Tuesday following weeks of protests and a revolt by police officers. The tourism industry, however, has remained mostly stable in the face of the political tumult, with only a small number of trips canceled after various governments around the world issued travel warnings. Also on CNN: Police revolt topples Maldives president Tourism is one of the mainstays of the economy of the Maldives, a nation of 1,192 low-lying islands of which only 200 are inhabited. The political unrest is generally confined within…

  • CNNGo - Banyan Tree Macau Contest

    7 Feb 2012 | 11:16 pm
    Banyan Tree Resorts has teamed up with CNNGo to offer a luxurious romantic getaway for two of our readers. Fill out the form below for a chance to win two nights at Banyan Tree’s Pool Villa including dinner and spa treatments for two. For more information about the prize, check out: http://www.banyantree.com/en/macau/read more
 
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