Alltop

What's hot on Alltop

  • Most Topular Stories

  • Targeting children with treats [infographic]

    Holy Kaw!
    10 Feb 2012 | 6:36 pm
    Via TEACH. Get the full picture with infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ Turns 1 on a Friday: What’s Your Favorite Memory?

    Mashable!
    Brian Anthony Hernandez
    10 Feb 2012 | 11:08 pm
    A year ago, Rebecca Black’s unforgettable viral tune “Friday” first appeared on YouTube. Since then, the massively autotuned “Friday” music video has reached millions upon millions of eyes, spawned countless parodies and caught the attention of many celebrities. To honor the jam, which eventually became Know Your Meme‘s top meme of 2011, we’re looking back at the high-profile musicians and famous tech personalities who have supported Black, covered the song or parodied it for its comedic glory (see list below). Although released on Feb. 10, 2011,…

  • This Week In Bots: Dogs Of War

    Fast Company
    Kit Eaton
    10 Feb 2012 | 3:27 pm
    Alpha Dog: Goes "Hi Ho," Romps Over HillsIf you're any sort of fan of robotics, you'll know about Boston Dynamics' Big Dog and Alpha Dog--research prototype robots that will be used to inform the design of a genuine military support quadruped robot. Now DARPA has just taken Alpha Dog out into the wild to put it through some grueling tests:[youtube xY42w1w0TWk]The tests include hauling 400 pounds of cargo over 20 miles during a 24-hour window without needing refueling--exactly the sort of automated troop-following tasks that will make its military-grade offspring incredibly useful in what may…

  • 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…

  • Zynga Marketing Master Padma Rao Joins Foundation Capital As An Entrepreneur In Residence

    TechCrunch
    Eric Eldon
    10 Feb 2012 | 8:31 pm
    Padma Rao’s analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she’s bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital. Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company. Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Holy Kaw!

  • Targeting children with treats [infographic]

    10 Feb 2012 | 6:36 pm
    Via TEACH. Get the full picture with infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • Ride the highway to heroism in a Captain America jumpsuit

    10 Feb 2012 | 5:19 pm
    Ladies out there, are you still trying to find a way to get back at your significant other for buying that bike? Here’s your sweet revenge. For almost $1300, your man can cruise the suburban byways in style thanks to UD Replicas, and for that kind of money, he wouldn’t dare not wear it right? On the other hand, it could also be a great way for guys to pick up the hottest cosplay girl at the ComicCon, so be careful what you wish for. Full story at UD Replicas via Technabob. Not only is it super cool, it’s safe. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • A guy’s guide to Valentine’s Day gifts [comic]

    10 Feb 2012 | 4:26 pm
    Full story at Pleated Jeans. Have a great V-Day. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • Making Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” come alive [video]

    10 Feb 2012 | 4:23 pm
    One of the most striking aspects of Van Gogh’s most famous work is that the painting almost appears to swirl in dreamy delight even in its original form, but with some help from Petros Vrellis and openFrameworks, that dream becomes a reality. Full story at Vimeo via Laughing Squid. Animating art. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • Solo Cup's strategy for tripling its Facebook likes

    10 Feb 2012 | 3:42 pm
    After seeing low levels of Facebook engagement, Solo Cup launched a strategy that managed to triple its "likes" and quadruple its monthly active users. The company did so with a multi-pronged approach that lured Facebook fans with coupons and social games, and that aimed to put a human face on the company. Full story at SmartBlog on Social Media by SmartBrief. More SmartBrief stories. Permalink | Leave a comment  »
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Mashable!

  • Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ Turns 1 on a Friday: What’s Your Favorite Memory?

    Brian Anthony Hernandez
    10 Feb 2012 | 11:08 pm
    A year ago, Rebecca Black’s unforgettable viral tune “Friday” first appeared on YouTube. Since then, the massively autotuned “Friday” music video has reached millions upon millions of eyes, spawned countless parodies and caught the attention of many celebrities. To honor the jam, which eventually became Know Your Meme‘s top meme of 2011, we’re looking back at the high-profile musicians and famous tech personalities who have supported Black, covered the song or parodied it for its comedic glory (see list below). Although released on Feb. 10, 2011,…

  • 7 Marketing Lessons From RIM’s Failures

    Alex Goldfayn
    10 Feb 2012 | 10:24 pm
    Alex Goldfayn is CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute. His new book is called Evangelist Marketing: What Apple, Amazon and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn’t). You remember, don’t you? The emails magically appeared while you weren’t looking. That blinking light turned us into addicts. And that keyboard — copied often, but never matched. It was the BlackBerry, the glorious, beloved, and life-changing BlackBerry. It made us feel good, and it never let us down. Long before the iPhone the took the world by storm, and before Google…

  • Saudi Journalist Arrested After Tweeting About Prophet Muhammad

    Lauren Indvik
    10 Feb 2012 | 10:01 pm
    Twenty-three-year-old Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari has been arrested in Malaysia after sending out a series of controversial tweets about the Prophet Muhammed Saturday that caused some religious conservatives to call for his execution. He was detained Thursday morning at Kuala Lumpr International Airport, the Wall Street Journal has confirmed. “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you,” were among the tweets sent by Kashgari…

  • ‘This Message Will Self-Destruct’: One Shar.es Erases Data After Transmission

    Kate Freeman
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:36 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: OneShar.es Quick Pitch: OneShar.es lets you send confidential data that automatically deletes after the recipient views it once. Genius Idea: Allows your sensitive data from becoming one of the many “read” emails in a recipient’s inbox, which could potentially be accessed if his or her smartphone is lost or stolen. Ever wonder if the private emails you send to trusted…

  • Google to Get Scary With Anne Rice

    Kate Freeman
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:04 pm
    Google has been known to celebrate authors and encourage educators to write books. It even made finding authors of articles easier by improving the quality of search results for authors. Now the search giant is playing host to legendary horror novelist Anne Rice. Even if you’re not a Google employee you can tune in to author Anne Rice’s presentation at the company’s Mountain View, Calif. headquarters on Feb. 24 via live broadcast. Rice will be discussing her latest novel, The Wolf Gift. You can check it out on the Authors@Google YouTube channel on Feb. 24 at 10 a.m. PST. The…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Fast Company

  • This Week In Bots: Dogs Of War

    Kit Eaton
    10 Feb 2012 | 3:27 pm
    Alpha Dog: Goes "Hi Ho," Romps Over HillsIf you're any sort of fan of robotics, you'll know about Boston Dynamics' Big Dog and Alpha Dog--research prototype robots that will be used to inform the design of a genuine military support quadruped robot. Now DARPA has just taken Alpha Dog out into the wild to put it through some grueling tests:[youtube xY42w1w0TWk]The tests include hauling 400 pounds of cargo over 20 miles during a 24-hour window without needing refueling--exactly the sort of automated troop-following tasks that will make its military-grade offspring incredibly useful in what may…

  • If Your Customers Are Poised For Revolt, It's Time For Extreme Trust

    Don Peppers
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm
    Two thousand years before smartphones, Plato suggested that excessive democracy would lead directly to tyranny, because sooner or later the majority will choose to trample the rights of the minority. One indication of the wisdom of Plato’s teachings is that all Western “democratic” governments, including America’s, are structured not as pure democracies at all, but as representative ones, or republics. This is not just because it would be impractical to allow every citizen to vote on every legal and regulatory issue, but also because elected representatives can be firmly bound by…

  • 8 Reasons Your Social Initiative Will Fail

    David Lavenda
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:36 pm
    Social is one of the hottest trends in enterprise software, and many companies are considering rolling out products and services that make it easier for employees to share information with each other and communicate with customers and suppliers. Social software covers a lot of ground, but in general, products in this field enable people to share ideas and documents, find expertise and connect with colleagues, and communicate interactively with others. Gartner reports that “social software technologies as a whole are among the most hyped in the industry at the moment,” but is quick to warn…

  • YouTube And Shiva Rajaraman Bring Intelligent Channel Picks To Online Video

    Christina Chaey
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:28 pm
    How do you create technology to recommend new channels to users? And when does a person need to step in to curate these recommendations? In this extended version of the conversation from our latest issue, we chat with Shiva Rajaraman, Group Product Manager for YouTube."On YouTube, our top queries are 'funny videos,' 'LOL,' and 'make me laugh,'" YouTube group project manager Shiva Rajaraman told us recently. "They fall into this vague land of 'Entertain me!' So based on that, how do we help people discover fresh, fun content--without just sifting through the 48 hours of video that are uploaded…

  • Staying Competitive In A Customer-Centric World

    Kaihan Krippendorff
    10 Feb 2012 | 12:11 pm
    I stopped asking my students to write essays years ago. When I required them, I was shocked to find nearly half of the papers had been plagiarized! These young college undergrads, studying entrepreneurship, could not understand why copying text from a Google search and pasting it into a paper as your own is wrong. I was so put off I decided simply to never ask students to write papers again. Excel models, survey results, analyses--yes. But anything that might tempt them to copy others’ work--no.Now I fear I may be wrong. My perspective may be outdated. Am I falling behind?What prompted…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    TechCrunch

  • Zynga Marketing Master Padma Rao Joins Foundation Capital As An Entrepreneur In Residence

    Eric Eldon
    10 Feb 2012 | 8:31 pm
    Padma Rao’s analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she’s bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital. Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company. Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was…

  • Busta Rhymes Waxes Enthusiastic On Google Music

    Devin Coldewey
    10 Feb 2012 | 7:56 pm
    When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the gloom. Busta Rhymes seems to be a fan of the latter, and not just because he’s in an official partnership. In an interview on MTV, he was positively effusive about Google’s new platform.

  • Whale Hunting: Facebook Hooks 1st-Time Buyers With $5 Of Game Credits For $1

    Josh Constine
    10 Feb 2012 | 7:16 pm
    Only about 5% Facebook gamers pay to play freemium games. If Facebook could up this percentage, it and its third-party app developers could make a lot more money. That’s the idea behind a new promotion Facebook announced today where those who’ve never bought Facebook Credits virtual currency before will be offered $4 in free Credits when they buy $1. This gets users to set up their credit card and experience the rush of paying for an enhanced gaming experience. Years ago when Facebook first launched its Credits virtual currency, it offered free Credits to some users. While this…

  • Kickstarter’s Big Day: $1.6M Pledged In 24 Hours

    Devin Coldewey
    10 Feb 2012 | 5:15 pm
    They say when it rains, it pours. That’s not usually a good thing, but when it’s raining money, things are a little different. That was the case at Kickstarter yesterday, where they had their biggest day of funding ever, beating the record set… the day before yesterday. It was also the day that marked the first Kickstarter project to break $1,000,000 in funding. And the day that marked the second project to hit that number. And New York’s city council endorsed the site as a way to highlight community projects that need funding. Oh, and they’re on Portlandia.

  • Look Out AT&T Customers, Your Upgrade Fee Doubles On Sunday

    Chris Velazco
    10 Feb 2012 | 5:03 pm
    If you’re an AT&T customer coming off of a contract and looking to snap up a new phone, you should probably get on that right now. According to an AT&T memo obtained by BGR, AT&T will be raising their device upgrade fee from $18 to $36 as of February 12, which means you’ve got until Sunday to swap phones before your first post-upgrade bill gets even bigger. The memo states that the fee hike is needed because “the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased.” In AT&T’s defense, it’s a fee that’s most people will only have to deal with…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Seth's Blog

  • It's never too late

    Seth Godin
    10 Feb 2012 | 4:55 am
    ...to start heading in the right direction.

  • The Weird interview

    Seth Godin
    9 Feb 2012 | 2:06 pm
    To celebrate the launch of Squidoo's new UpMarket magazine, we got permission to post an audio interview I recently did with Darren Hardy of Success. You can find it here. Thanks for listening.

  • Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)

    Seth Godin
    9 Feb 2012 | 4:46 am
    If I tell you, "I'm going to the baseball game," it seems as though you're likely to understand what I mean. Of course, you won't. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it's a religious experience. Me, I don't even like baseball. Or maybe it's my nephew's ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on. We label the experience with just two words, and two words can't possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event. The same thing is true with brands. If I tell you that a new business was funded by USV, that might…

  • 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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Wired Top Stories

  • A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 11

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

  • Amazing Videos of Earth at Night from Space

    Adam Mann
    10 Feb 2012 | 6:58 pm
    While you're curled up comfy in your bed each night, the crew of the International Space Station is getting unrivaled views of our planet. For anyone wishing they could see what the astronauts see, here are recent videos of the Earth at night taken from space.

  • Are Google's Wallet Dreams in Danger?

    Mike Isaac
    10 Feb 2012 | 6:54 pm
    Two recent Google Wallet hacks have brought the long-term viability of the platform into question.

  • Yahoo to Build Secret Servers in Nebraska

    Cade Metz
    10 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pm
    Yahoo is hoping to build a facility in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, where it will assemble its own servers and ship them to data centers it operates across the country, according to lawmakers and officials in the Midwestern state. These lawmakers have proposed a bill that would provide this facility with tax breaks, and though Yahoo has discussed its plans in full, the Nebraska bill opens another window onto how the web's biggest names juggle the massive amounts of servers needed to run their myriad online services.

  • Intel Agrees to Pay Pocket Change Over Antitrust Allegations

    Caleb Garling
    10 Feb 2012 | 5:54 pm
    Intel and the New York Attorney General's office have agreed to settle a 2009 lawsuit that accused the chip giant of violating federal and state antitrust laws. As part of the settlement, Intel has agreed to pay $6.5 million dollars to account for some of the court costs, but it has not admitted wrongdoing.
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    @ProBlogger

  • A Tale of Two Ebooks

    Guest Blogger
    10 Feb 2012 | 8:04 am
    This guest post is by Alexis Grant of The Traveling Writer. During the last six months, I’ve published two ebooks: one that’s selling wonderfully, and another that flopped. Why did one succeed, while the other—at least in sales terms—didn’t? What was the difference? It wasn’t a beautiful cover, nor a pre-launch sale, nor an impressive newsletter list. The differentiator was a factor you have to consider before you even begin writing your ebook. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, some background on the products, so you can avoid making the mistake I made: EBook No. 1: How…

  • Is Perfectionism Stalling Your Productivity?

    Darren Rowse
    9 Feb 2012 | 2:04 pm
    We’ve all been there … You sit down to write a post. You get the opening line down, but half-way through the second sentence, you go back to tweak the first. A bit further on, you decide to chop up the paragraphs you’ve done so far and rearrange them … but on second thought, is that really the better option? In two minds, you “finish” the post, then spend a half-hour writing and rewriting the “ideal” headline. Finally, happy(ish!) your cursor hovers over the Publish button … but you just can’t press it. You decide to give it some…

  • 6 Powerful Guest Post Tactics that No One’s Talking About

    Guest Blogger
    9 Feb 2012 | 8:05 am
    This guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind. Guest posting is a hot topic amongst startup bloggers. It is one of the most widely-adopted blog promotion strategies in existence, and has been made perhaps even more popular by the success of “serial” guest posters such as Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. His “blitzkrieg” strategy may come across to some as a triumph of quantity over strategy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He understands the key concepts that we will be exploring in this post, and executes them in a highly effective manner. Whilst…

  • 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…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors

  • Apple Sues Motorola Over Licensing of Cellular Technology by Qualcomm

    Eric Slivka
    10 Feb 2012 | 4:19 pm
    Reuters reports that Apple has filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility alleging that Motorola has breached a licensing agreement with Qualcomm in its efforts to have a number of Apple's iOS devices banned from sale in Germany. Following a December victory by Motorola in a German court, Apple last week briefly pulled all 3G-enabled products with the exception of the iPhone 4S from its German online store. They were restored within a few hours after the injunction was suspended. Today's lawsuit specifically addresses the iPhone 4S, which Motorola has also been seeking to block in Germany and…

  • Apple Offering Stripped-Down $999 13" MacBook Air to Educational Institutions Buying in Bulk

    Jordan Golson
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:48 pm
    Apple has begun offering a stripped-down 13" MacBook Air to educational institutions purchasing in bulk, replacing the two-year old white plastic MacBook offering the company recently discontinued. Apple had ceased sales of the MacBook to consumer customers back in July of 2011. The new educational-exclusive MacBook Air is a 13" model with the same specs as the entry-level consumer 11" MacBook Air: 1.6GHz i5 processor, 2GB RAM, 64GB flash storage, and the Intel HD Graphics 3000 chipset. The machine is available in a 5-pack for $4,995 or $999 per machine. The standard 13" MacBook Air…

  • More Claims of MacBook Pro Adopting MacBook Air Form Factor in 2012 Redesign

    Eric Slivka
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:14 pm
    In two report back in April and July of last year, we reported that Apple was working on an ultra-thin 15-inch Mac notebook, with the suggestion being that the existing MacBook Pro line would evolve to take design cues and many of the features from the popular MacBook Air. But whether the larger notebooks would be branded as MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs has been unclear. Many had hoped that the redesigned 15-inch notebook would debut by the end of 2011, but Apple apparently elected to squeeze in one final minor spec bump as it waited for Intel's Ivy Bridge platform to launch in 2012. Reports…

  • AT&T Rolling Out LTE Micro-SIM Cards, Sparking Speculation on iPad 3 Link

    Eric Slivka
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:38 am
    Phone Arena reports that AT&T has begun supplying its retailers with LTE-compatible micro-SIM cards, requesting that existing micro-SIM stocks be scrapped in favor of the new ones supporting the latest networks offering faster data speeds. The obvious explanation for the shift is the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 next month, but speculation naturally also turns to Apple's plans for its upcoming devices. Phone Arena suggests that the LTE-enabled micro-SIM cards could eventually be used in the iPhone 5, but the much nearer term launch for Apple is the iPad 3, which has been rumored to offer…

  • Apple in 'Crunch Mode' Lining Up Apps for iPad 3 Demo and Commercials?

    Eric Slivka
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:21 am
    Rumors continue to swirl about the iPad 3 launch following yesterday's claims that Apple will be holding a media event during the first week of March for the introduction. The Next Web now reports that Apple is currently said to be in "crunch mode" as it works to finalize its plans for the event. According to the report, Apple is working to pin down select third-party apps to be the featured demonstrations at the media event and in commercials for the upcoming device. Apple is said to be emphasizing apps that will show off the iPad 3's high-resolution "Retina" display.Our sources tell us that…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Copyblogger

  • Why Not Sell Physical Stuff With Digital Media?

    Robert Bruce
    10 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am
    We know that online marketing works when selling digital products. When’s the last time you thought about selling physical products online? Of course, the business of physical widgets is booming, even though Internet types tend to shy away from it. Online marketing doesn’t necessarily mean an exclusively online business. Ben Settle jumped on the line with me this week to talk about his old school physical information product business. Give it a listen to find how he gets it done, and how he gets his stuff into the hands of buyers … In this episode, Ben Settle and I discuss:…

  • How to Recover From a Social Media Hangover

    Cori Padgett
    9 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am
    “Hello. My name is Cori and I’m a social media addict. “Today is day 1 of my commitment to give myself a regular break from technology and the foggy, uncreative haze it can unwittingly lead to.” I was reading a post the other day by blogger Michael Brenner at B2B Marketing Insider, talking about getting your social media game on. Of course, being the skimmer that I am, the first thing that caught my attention and made me go back and read the whole thing was his mention of having a Social Media Hangover. His hangover was induced by sometimes (as we all do) forgetting to…

  • 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?
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    ReadWriteWeb

  • [STUDY] Your Facebook Friends Influence How You Feel

    10 Feb 2012 | 5:30 pm
    "A cute baby dolphin for your weekend-viewing pleasure" a Facebook friend of mine writes. Under the text, I see a link to an imgur-hosted image of that amazingly adorable marine mammal. Suddenly, my day is feeling a lot better. Did I just catch a mood... on Facebook? A new study by Facebook data scientists shows that Facebook users can spread emotions to their friends through messages, posts and status updates. It suggests that emotional contagion happens quite frequently on the world's biggest social network. Facebook's Chief Data Scientist Adam Kramer presented these findings at the Society…

  • This App Tells You All About Your Facebook Friends, But Will It Make You Smarter?

    10 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pm
    In the two weeks I have been using Wisdom, an iPad and iPhone app that gives you detailed demographic data about your Facebook friends, the number of users has gone from just over 4 million to just under 6 million. Part of that rapid growth is most likely attributable to an extensive advertising campaign on the iPad version of the New York Times (which is where I first heard about it). Sponsor Wisdom's marketing slogan promises "Get Wisdom and Get Wiser," and gives us the option of not only analyzing our own social network, but the entire Wisdom network (yes, to Get Wisdom you also need to…

  • Daniel Jacobson of Netflix on the API with an Audience

    10 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pm
    Alexia Tsotsis, who writes for TechCrunch, had this advice on Twitter earlier today: "Good tech blogger rule of thumb: Avoid using 'API' in headlines when/if you can." Usually, I'm all thumbs myself, but I can't find this particular rule on them anywhere. I suppose I'm not a blogger after all. Or perhaps I just know my audience. The first rule of communication, as I have taught and been taught (both quite repeatedly, and often) is, "Know your audience." The API has become the principal communications tool of any company that does business digitally. Therefore, professes Netflix Director of…

  • Zuck Voting for Mitt? How Facebook "Like" Makes Things Ambiguous

    10 Feb 2012 | 2:30 pm
    Sometimes the "Like" button is not as clear cut as it seems. Even Zuck would agree. ZDNet reports that a Facebook design flaw has accidentally convinced some readers that Zuckerberg is endorsing Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The awkward "Liking" took place earlier this week. Zuck "liked" a story by Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo, who posted the following status along with a link to mittromney.com: "Try, just looking at the Romney logo without seeing the word MONEY." When that image shows up on users' news feeds, however, it appears as if Zuck "liked" the Mitt Romney link…

  • iPads and iPhones Make Up More Web Traffic Than Mac Desktops

    10 Feb 2012 | 2:15 pm
    The tablet revolution. The post-PC era. The smartphone explosion. Whatever label you want to apply to it, personal computing is changing. People are spending more time with smaller devices like tablets and smartphones and less time on desktops and laptops. This been evident for awhile, but the trend is still relatively young and the data points are only just beginning to trickle in. For evidence of this shift, look no further than Apple. The company just reported an absolutely bonkers financial quarter, in which it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads. The two products now make up…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Smashing Magazine Feed

  • Upcoming Web Design And Development Conferences For 2012

    Louis Lazaris
    10 Feb 2012 | 10:58 am
       We’re well into 2012, and many designers and developers around the world are planning their travels for the year, which may include attending one of the many Web design and development conferences that will be held in the upcoming months. To help you out with your plans, we’ve once again put together a list of conferences and events that you might want to consider. As always, this post covers events taking place in about a seven month timeframe that ends in early September. In August, we’ll post another article like this that will cover events for the six or…

  • A Beginner’s Guide To jQuery-Based JSON API Clients

    Ben Howdle
    10 Feb 2012 | 4:37 am
       Are you fascinated by dynamic data? Do you go green with envy when you see tweets pulled magically into websites? Trust me, I’ve been there. The goal of today’s tutorial is to create a simple Web app for grabbing movie posters from TMDb. We’ll use jQuery and the user’s input to query a JSON-based API and deal with the returned data appropriately. I hope to convince you that APIs aren’t scary and that most of the time they can be a developer’s best friend. APIs Are The Future But, More Importantly, The Present JSON-based APIs are a hot property on the Web right now. I…

  • Smashing Special: WordPress Theme Trends For 2012

    Siobhan McKeown
    9 Feb 2012 | 7:25 am
       This special is the first in our series of Smashing Specials — extended articles and studies dedicated to a specific topic. The special features current WordPress theme trends for 2012, covering past trends, new developments in theme design and trends in the theme development. 2011 was a great year for WordPress, with some excellent new updates that saw the introduction of a drag-and-drop uploader, distraction-free writing, the HTML5 Twenty Eleven theme, and movement towards a fully responsive dashboard. As well as changes to WordPress core, theme development continued to…

  • A Craft Of Consequences: Reader, Writer And Emotional Design

    Robin Rendle
    8 Feb 2012 | 10:06 am
       Before the very first page of a book has been read, you’ve already analyzed it in countless ways without even noticing. The paper stock, the thickness of the binding, the aroma, the color of the type and even the texture of the cover; the very character of the book is being dissected by the hand and eye at every moment. In this brief second there is a dialogue between the reader and the object. This conversation is subtle and complex, but for most people it is entirely subconscious. This is because we rarely think about these things  —  we feel them…

  • 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…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    CNN.com

  • Catholic bishops group decries WH plan

    11 Feb 2012 | 12:20 am
    The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced President Barack Obama's compromise over whether to require religiously affiliated institutions to provide contraception to female employees, saying the proposal raises "serious moral concerns," according to a statement posted on its website late Friday.

  • Blood found on comforter in Josh Powell's storage unit

    10 Feb 2012 | 10:40 pm
    Initial tests detected blood on a comforter found in a storage unit in Washington state belonging to Josh Powell, authorities said. Powell, who was considered a person of interest in his wife's disappearance, killed himself and his two sons at their home last week.

  • GOP freshmen vow to fight for agenda

    10 Feb 2012 | 8:56 pm
    A trio of House Republican freshmen told an annual gathering of conservative activists on Friday that, far from backing down, they believe they should double down on the conservative principles that carried them into office in 2010 on a wave of tea party support.

  • L.A. school, police seek more victims

    10 Feb 2012 | 8:45 pm
    Los Angeles public school officials are working with sheriff's detectives to determine whether other schoolchildren were victims of alleged teacher sexual misconduct at Miramonte Elementary School, a spokesman said Friday.

  • Rio police strike a week before Carnival

    10 Feb 2012 | 7:29 pm
    Rio de Janeiro's police and firefighters declared a strike Friday, just a week before Carnival kicks off, raising fears of violence and crime as tourists arrive for the famed parades and street parties.
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider

  • Shooting Motorcross at a Dirt Track

    Scott Kelby
    10 Feb 2012 | 1:06 am
    I’ve been shooting quite a bit lately for the book I’m just finishing up and I thought I’d share a few shots from a shoot I did on Monday, set up for me by my friend and neighbor, photographer Kathy Porupski at a motocross track in Dade City Florida.(Above: Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot. You can’t tell from this shot, but my photo assistant Brad Moore is way up on a hill that the riders jump over. That’s my friend and fellow photographer Kathy Porupski holding the power back behind Brad, and I’m below them a bit farther down the hill).We used…

  • 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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Digital Photography School

  • Abandoned: Weekly Photography Challenge

    Darren Rowse
    10 Feb 2012 | 12:04 pm
    Earlier today we posted a series of photos on the themes of Abandonment and Urban Decay (uplifting stuff wasn’t it). I thought it might make a good theme for this weeks photography challenge too. While not everyone will have an atmospheric abandoned factory to race out and photograph – hopefully it’s a theme that with a little imagination everyone can participate in. Perhaps there’s an old abandoned building in your area? Perhaps you’ve got something around the house that has been lacking attention (some old gym equipment in our garage springs to mind) Or perhaps…

  • 25 Evokative Images of Abandonment and Urban Decay

    Darren Rowse
    10 Feb 2012 | 8:34 am
    Today I found myself surfing through flickr admiring a growing number of images on the theme of abandonment and urban decay. While perhaps not an every day kind of subject for most of us – there’s a growing number of photographers exploring a theme that can produce striking images. Here’s a few that caught my eye today. Click these images to be taken to their home where they can be viewed larger and where you can learn more about the stories and the wonderful photographers behind them. Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips. Check out our more Photography Tips at…

  • How to Shoot Through a Wire Fence

    Darren Rowse
    9 Feb 2012 | 7:47 am
    Stuck behind a wire fence when trying to shoot an interesting subject can be a pain. It’s a challenge most often faced at the zoo but you also come across it when shooting at some sporting events (car racing for example) or in other random circumstances (for example I recently was photographing some kids on a trampoline which had a mesh around it). Image by Doug Brown So how do you minimise the impact of the fence in your shots? Here’s a few quick tips: Switch to Manual Focusing – one challenge you may face shooting through any kind of fence is that your camera may not know…

  • 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…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

  • Valentine's Day app sales underway: Treasures of Montezuma, Hanging with Friends, Order and Chaos Online

    Mike Schramm
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm
    Romance is almost in the air (even, if you're as single as I am, though you might not care), and that means what every holiday seems to mean around the App Store: More sales! With all these great deals on apps, you can either enjoy one with your sweetie, or use them to distract you from your lonely, solo existence. Match-3-alike Ablazed is free right now, as the recently re-released Hand of Greed (which has been re-released a few times now right?). Sega has quite a few of its titles on sale for just 99 cents, including most of the Sonic titles, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and…

  • Snapstream industrial-strength DVR gets Mac browser client

    Mike Schramm
    10 Feb 2012 | 8:00 pm
    Snapstream is an enterprise-level TV monitoring service. It's used mostly by news organizations and companies to keep an eye on what's happening on television every night, looking for a certain piece of video or bit of text or speech (the Daily Show famously uses it to keep track of all of that news footage John Stewart makes fun of every night). And despite its popularity, it's only been available on Windows -- until now. Unfortunately, there's still not a dedicated Mac client, but there is a new web interface that Macs can access and use through the browser. The browser client will do…

  • Diesel Sweeties turns iBooks Author experiment into successful Kickstarter

    Megan Lavey-Heaton
    10 Feb 2012 | 7:00 pm
    A couple weeks ago, Richard Stevens decided to create a free ebook of with a month's worth of his webcomic series, Diesel Sweeties, using iBooks Author. We reported on the experiment then, but Stevens recently disclosed just how big of a success it was: More than 10,000 downloads in three days of the iPad book. Stevens has propelled that success into a Kickstarter campaign, where he will distribute his entire series to date for free in two forms: a PDF ebook and an iBook that will be more than 3,000 pages long. Stevens said he would be making the two versions simultaneously in iBooks Author…

  • Apple now offering education model 13-inch MacBook Air for $999

    Chris Rawson
    10 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pm
    Almost immediately after discontinuing the white plastic MacBook once and for all, Apple has replaced it with a MacBook Air designed for educational sales. The 13-inch model costs the same US$999 as the MacBook it replaces. This 13-inch MacBook Air, which will only be sold to educational institutions, is the same price as the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air sold to consumers. With the exception of its larger, higher-resolution display, the education-model 13-inch MacBook Air also has precisely the same specs as its diminutive counterpart: 1.6 GHz Intel i5 processor, 2 GB of (non-upgradable)…

  • Daily Update for February 10, 2012

    Steven Sande
    10 Feb 2012 | 5:30 pm
    It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.Daily Update for February 10, 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    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 »
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • World Press Photo announces 2012 contest winners

    10 Feb 2012 | 6:08 pm
    Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda has won the World Press Photo 2011 award. The prize comes for his image of a woman holding a relative wounded during protests against Yemen's President Saleh. The World Press Photo Contest 2012 also awarded prizes in 18 other categories ranging from Arts and Entertainment to Portraits. Some of these images may be familiar from news coverage throughout the year but they make a compelling and inspiring reminder of the breadth of photography, even within the confines of press usage.

  • Facebook Lightbox vs Google+: which better presents your images?

    10 Feb 2012 | 4:59 pm
    Facebook is making its first steps towards taking photography seriously with the launch of its Lightbox display interface. The change, which is being rolled-out to users in the coming weeks, darkens the rest of the screen when a photo is selected and shows images in greater detail than before (up to 960 pixels in each dimension). How does this presentation compare to the more obviously photo-friendly Google+ service?

  • 'No Future in Photojournalism' - an interview with Dan Chung

    9 Feb 2012 | 6:04 pm
    Award-winning photographer Dan Chung explains why he thinks there's no future for traditional photojournalism. As a staff photographer for the Guardian and Reuters, Dan has been touring the world's trouble-spots for more than a decade, supplying images to newspapers and websites all over the globe. But although he made his name as a stills photographer, he's been shooting increasing amounts of video both for the web and for TV. We asked him why.

  • Kodak to stop making digital cameras

    9 Feb 2012 | 1:17 pm
    Kodak will stop making digital cameras within the next few months. The company, currently in bankruptcy protection, will also stop making pocket video cameras and photo frames as a cost-cutting measure. Instead it is looking to license its name to other manufacturers who wish to sell cameras under the Kodak brand. Closing the business will cost around $30m, mainly in the cost of laying-off workers, but will save around $100m per year in running costs. All product warranties will be honored.

  • Fujifilm firmware attempts to fix X10 white discs

    9 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pm
    Fujifilm has released the promised firmware update for its X10 enthusiast compact that aims to reduce the 'white orb' blooming effect that users have complained about. The firmware claims only to reduce, not eliminate, the problem that we'll look at in our forthcoming review. The latest firmware adds a series of extra functions and improves behavior of some existing ones. This includes adding face tracking AF to both stills and video mode and preventing the ISO and dynamic range settings changing when you switch between exposure modes. The update also enables the RAW button to be reconfigured…
 
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

  • Lightroom Before/After Video – Eiffel Tower and Plug-ins

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    9 Feb 2012 | 10:05 am
    I haven’t done one of those Before/After videos in a while so I thought it was time for another. The photo I’m using here was a photo I took in Paris last year. It was a rainy day which I actually find can help sometimes. I’d always seen a lot of the same photos of the Eiffel Tower, so I went looking for a different view. I remember seeing the movie, Inception, and noticed this really cool bridge (You know, the one that twisted on top of itself in the movie). It was the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, a bridge that crosses the Seine River in Paris. So I kinda set my sites on that being…

  • 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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - iOS Blog

  • iOS Surpasses OS X in Share of U.S. Web Traffic

    Eric Slivka
    10 Feb 2012 | 10:36 am
    Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis of browser user agents for hundreds of millions of ad impressions across its expansive network.To quantify this study, Chitika Insights analyzed several data sets composed of a series of US traffic taken from August 2011 to February 2012 out of the Chitika Ad Network (covering hundreds of millions of ad impressions). The user agents of individual impressions were then aggregated to determine relative…

  • LifeProof iPhone Case Offers Protection Against Water and Shock Damage

    Jordan Golson
    9 Feb 2012 | 2:02 pm
    One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199 fee, though with the recently launched AppleCare+, that price can be reduced to $49. Most ultra-durable iPhone cases, like Otterbox's Defender or Case Mate's TANK, are merely water-resistant -- not actually water proof. They might protect an iPhone during a rainstorm, but they can't handle a dunk in the pool or -- perhaps more likely -- a drop in the toilet. LifeProof's iPhone case, however,…

  • 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…
  • add this feed to my.Alltop

    CNNGo.com

  • 15 unusual places to spend a night

    Helen Arnold
    10 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm
    by Helen ArnoldWhy stay in a hotel when you can sleep in a sewer pipe in Austria? Or up a tree in France?  Here are 15 of the world's most memorable accommodations.  1. The Oxford Mal, England  Most prisons are the kind of place you’d be desperate to escape from, not somewhere you’d possibly conceive of escaping to.  But this former Oxford prison has been converted into a boutique hotel by the fashionable Malmaison chain and offers the kind of luxurious living that former convicts could only have dreamed of. With 94 sleek and chic bedrooms, a buzzy bar and brasserie,…

  • Baijiu, Champagne or Cava? Chinese drinkers mull new choices

    Edward Falzon
    9 Feb 2012 | 10:57 pm
    by Edward Falzon, Tracy YouThere's nothing we love more about Shanghai than its ability to fit a new idea into any size nook. The well-appointed Alfie's by KEE is one example, located in the basement of a clothing store. Another case is The Bubbles Bar, which opened last fall in the third-floor attic of Spanish restaurant El Patio. The interesting thing about the 15-square-meter watering hole is its menu, which is solely dedicated to Cava, the Spanish equivalent to Champagne. More precisely, the bar only serves one Cava brand, Freixenet, which is well-known for its advertising efforts with…

  • 33 beautiful temples to enlightenment

    Cin Woo Lee
    9 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pm
    by Cin Woo Lee There are some 900 traditional Buddhist temples in Korea -- and around 20,000 in total. A visit to any of these local places of worship -- many of them centuries-old -– can be a humbling, calming or uplifting experience. Many of them can be found nestled in the countless mountains throughout the country, usually in locations believed to have the best pung-su (feng shui) of the area. But despite the endlessly beautiful and endlessly numerous temples, even the most serious pilgrim need not visit all 900. The 33 temples below -- 33 as in Buddha's 33 steps to enlightenment --…

  • Underwater weddings: In Thailand, get hitched with the fishes

    8 Feb 2012 | 9:58 pm
    Some say keeping a marriage afloat is a constant struggle, a battle to keep your heads above water. If that’s indeed true, it seems only fitting that you and your sweetheart start your journey as one under the sea, in full scuba gear. Now in its 16th year, Trang Underwater Weddings welcomes couples from around the world to exchange vows with the fishes from February 10-12. This year, organizers say they have 34 couples signed up to take part in the underwater wedding, a mix of both Thai and international divers. Prices start from 25,000 baht per couple.  Guinness recognition The first…

  • 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…
 
Log in