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    Holy Kaw!

  • Tech nerds take it all off

    20 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm
    A techie strip club would probably feature plenty of outlets, free wi-fi and dancers flinging off Geekologie-brand undies to a song of remixed iPhone ringtones. Calm down, pervs, there’s no plans in the works for nekkid techie discotheque (that I know of), but, in the meantime, get your dweeb kicks with the Nude Tech Calendar 2010. London’s top new media entrepreneurs stepped out from behind their computers and stripped down for the 24 picture, limited edition calendar. Proceeds go to Take Heart India, a charity that raises funds for IT education programs for blind and disabled…

  • 6 principles of simple agile

    20 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm
    When it comes to agile software development, simplicity is key. To help you stay focused, here are the six principles of simple agile. 1. Collaborate. And what I really mean is - communicate effectively with each other. There’s no place in agile for a lack of clear communication, since the point is to work in a team. Try to keep conversations as close to real-time as possible and hopefully as high bandwidth as possible. 3. Honour priorities. Always, always work from a ranked product blog. Your team should follow the rule, “the next thing you do should be a task in the highest…

  • Travel: How to pack under the weight limit

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:57 am
    Frustrated at having to pay a scaling fee for each checked in baggage while you’re traveling, you may just flip out when you’re told you owe an additional fee for being overweight. In this case the overweight fee is for your baggage, but airlines have already begun charging double for the chubby, curvy passenger. For sensible packing, follow the 7 packing tips recommended by DeclutterYou.com. And, if you’re like me and need to work towards avoiding the other type of overweight charges, let’s focus on fitness and nutrition together. Permalink | Leave a…

  • 7 keys to reading faster

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:27 am
    Scott Young at Think Simple Now points out, “Speed reading is about controlling your reading rate, not just going faster.” Young shares the lessons he learned that helped him to increase his reading rate and consume over 70 books in a year. “Speed reading requires active reading. That means, instead of just assuming the information will jump out at you, you become an inquisitive, seeking animal. Before you start reading, prime your mind by asking what you’re hoping to get out of your reading session. Even if you aren’t 100% sure of what you’ll learn, this…

  • Picture. Of. The. Day.

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am
    Just trust me and click on thru. Total Macintosh coverage. Permalink | Leave a comment  »
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    Mashable!

  • 3 Creative Ways SMBs Can Use Social Media for Holiday Discounts

    Jennifer Van Grove
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:46 am
    This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Every year consumers turn to the web to scour for the best holiday shopping deals. Black Friday has practically become a holiday of its own, with retailers jumping on the bandwagon earlier than ever to satisfy deal-hungry consumers. This holiday season you have an opportunity to leverage social media channels for trackable giveaways and discounts that can not only boost your holiday sales but improve your social media…

  • New Moon Reviews: What Twitter Thinks [CHART]

    Christina Warren
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:23 am
    Twilight-mania just won’t stop! More than 400 million “New Moon” videos have been viewed online, the film is expected to beat all midnight opening records, and Twitter continues to be abuzz with “New Moon” chatter. On Wednesday, we reported that more than 81,000 tweets were sent out about “New Moon,” most of them positive. So how did the Twitteratti respond to the debut of “New Moon” last night? Our friends at Crimson Hexagon ran the numbers and this is what they figured out. Out of 4500 tweets sent regarding the film, this was the…

  • Target Facebook Page Updates by Location or Language

    Adam Ostrow
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:49 am
    Here’s a neat new feature we noticed on our Facebook Page this morning: the ability to target updates to users in specific locations or users who access the site in a specific language. You can imagine this being useful for situations in which you’re promoting an event, or, posting content in multiple languages. By targeting only those that an item is applicable to, you reduce your chances of overwhelming your fans with unnecessary information to the point that they start hiding your updates. To use it, there’s now a pull-down next to the “Share” button with the option of…

  • New Moon Videos Have Already Been Viewed 400 Million Times Online

    Adam Ostrow
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:47 am
    New Moon might go down as one of the biggest movies of the year, but it’s also quickly becoming one of the biggest online events ever, at least in the world of online video. Visible Measures, which tallies what it calls the “True Reach” of an online video (the original, official trailers, copies of the trailers, fan-made trailers, fan commentary, etc.), now reports that New Moon is the second biggest event of all-time, trailing only the omnipotent Soulja Boy in term of total views. In all, the firm estimates that New Moon inspired videos have now been viewed in excess of 400 million…

  • Mac Twitter Client Socialite Adds Twitter List Support

    Christina Warren
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am
    In the month or so since Twitter started rolling out its Twitter Lists feature, a number of web and Adobe AIR based clients have added support for it. However, we haven’t seen any native Twitter apps support Lists. Today Realmac Software released Socialite Beta 3 for Mac OS X, including, among other enhancements — basic list support. Realmac acquired Socialite (then named EventBox) back in October and expects to release the first version of the program by the end of the month. Socialite is a multi-purpose social media client, and like Seesmic Desktop, TweetDeck and Brizzly, it…
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    Fast Company

  • Can Protein Sciences Produce a Swine Flu Vaccine in Time? Update: Likely No

    Erica Westly
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    UPDATE: A FDA advisory panel has ruled that Protein Sciences' insect cell-based flu vaccine requires more safety tests before being made commercially available in the U.S. The panel said the vaccine appeared to be as safe and effective as more traditional egg-based flu vaccines, but there were concerns over a few patients who had adverse responses, according to Bloomberg. The FDA isn't required to take the panel's advice, but, considering how concerned the public is over vaccine safety already, it seems unlikely that the agency would go against the ruling. As detailed in the earlier post…

  • SocialCycling Turns Unrecyclable Products Into Usable Items

    Ariel Schwartz
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am
    We write a lot about upcycling, or the practice of reusing products for new purposes to prevent waste. Now DMD Green, an environmental management consulting company, wants to make the process even easier with its new SocialCycling program, which takes items that are nearly impossible (or impossible) to recycle and finds new uses for them. The program, announced earlier this month, gathers reclaimed materials and post-consumer products from DMD Green clients at a central SocialCycling site. Once at the site, products are separated and delivered to artisans, manufacturers, and anyone else who…

  • Intel's Mind-Reading Chips: Replace Your Mouse With Your Brain

    Kit Eaton
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am
    You know those neat mind-control toys? Well, Intel has some grand plans for mind control that go far beyond their limited power. By 2020, the company's researchers plan to have chips that let you control computers with your thoughts. But here's the scary part: To read your brain waves, Intel's not planning on having you wear some kind of skull-cap--the solution venerable sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke proposed--no, instead you'll have tiny chips actually implanted directly into your brain. Brings a whole new meaning to "Intel Inside" doesn't it? The technology works by recognizing the…

  • Inside the Vamp-artment of Twilight's Edward Cullen, Buy It for $3.3M!

    Tyler Gray
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    Must every facet of Twilight's sparkly-skinned lead vampire Edward be irresistible? He may be a blood chugger, but his interior design sense doesn't suck. The character's (played by Robert Pattinson) digs are featured prominently in New Moon, and the pics below will surely help bring to life many a teen fantasy. It's designed by Arthur Erickson, the award-winning architect behind Fresno, California's City Hall, the San Diego Convention Center, the Kuwait Oil Complex, and the Ritz-Carlton in Vancouver. It has more than 5,000 square feet, has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, an outdoor pool, a…

  • Nendo Brings Minimalist Magic to New Issey Miyake Shop

    Cliff Kuang
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    The shops furniture evokes shopping carts, in a beautifully funky way. Last week, we brought you a slideshow highlighting a new exhibit of works by Oki Sato, the founder of Nendo. Today, Nendo has announced their latest project: A hyper-sexy series of display furniture, which is being deployed at Issey Miyake shops across Tokyo. The new Issey Miyake line has new items in 20 colors each, and will refresh every two months. So Nendo designed a series of display pieces which can constantly be arranged in new, quirky, overlapping patterns--an idea of constant change lifted from the chaotic, always…
 
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    Guy Kawasaki

  • The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read

    GuyKawasaki
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pm
    Inc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop.

  • How to Get Found

    GuyKawasaki
    4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pm
    The reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff.

  • How I tweet

    GuyKawasaki
    2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 am
    By popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices.

  • Current Twitter Demo Script

    GuyKawasaki
    28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 am
    This is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this.

  • How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness

    GuyKawasaki
    26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pm
    Over at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.
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    TechCrunch

  • Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One

    Leena Rao
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:41 pm
    Angstro, a 2008 TechCrunch50 startup, launched with a product that socialized the content on the web by tapping into your social graph. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today the startup is launching Knx.to, a real-time search engine capability and API that looks up most recent social information about any of your friends, from their LinkedIn profile to their Flickr account to their Facebook profile. In order to understand Knx.to’s virtue, it’s best to see the technology implemented in an application. Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice competitor and cloud-based VoIP telephony service,…

  • Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser

    Leena Rao
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:35 pm
    Qwisk, which is launching today at the Real-Time CrunchUp, is an innovative new way to add a social twist to your browser. The site, which is a product of Y Combinator-funded company Socialbrowse, connects with you with your friends on Facebook and Twitter in real-time as you browse the web. We have 500 invites exclusively for TechCrunch users. You can redeem these invites simply by clicking here. It’s important to note that Qwisk is a browser extension, not a plug-in to a browser. On the site’s page, you sign into your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Facebook Connect and oAuth.

  • Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry

    Leena Rao
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:27 pm
    Seesmic is having a huge week. The startup that develops Twitter and Facebook clients for the web and desktop just unveiled a native Windows client at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference earlier this week. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today, Seesmic is launching its first venture into the mobile space with impressive apps for both the Android and BlackBerry, which are now available for download here. This is a pivotal moment for Seesmic because the startup is now conquering all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. I sat down with Seesmic’s co-founder, Loic Le Meur, to…

  • Hot Potato Organizes The Stream Around What’s Really Happening Now

    Erick Schonfeld
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pm
    Yesterday, Twitter changed its organizing question from “What Are You Doing?” to “What’s Happening?” But if you want to know what’s really happening now, check out Hot Potato, a startup launching right now at our Realtime CrunchUp. Hot Potato is releasing an iPhone app which lets you create a stream of conversations around events based both on your location and what your friends are doing. Hot Potato is a micro-messaging app that organizes the conversation stream by events. For Hot Potato, an event can be anything that is happening right now: a basketball…

  • RealTime CrunchUp: Win A Signed Copy Of Benioff’s ‘Behind The Cloud’

    Jason Kincaid
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm
    Today at the RealTime CrunchUp Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took the stage to talk about the social enterprise with Erick Schonfeld and Steve Gillmor (he also introduced us to a new real-time Salesforce Chatter platform). Benioff has also signed a pair of copies of his book Behind The Cloud, which we’re going to be giving away to attendees of today’s conference. To win one, just tweet out your favorite moment of the RealTime CrunchUp so far, and include the hashtags #CrunchUp and #Cloud in your tweet (#CrunchUp is the conference hashtag, and #Cloud will let us know who’s…
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    Seth Godin

  • The amateur scientist (that's us)

    Seth Godin
    20 Nov 2009 | 2:41 am
    Many people buy a car (probably their single biggest discretionary purchase) based on slamming a door, kicking a tire and judging the handshake of a salesperson.We choose a surgeon based on the carpeting in his office and a politician by his hair cut.During the first week of swine flu vaccines in New York, most parents (more than half!) chose to keep their kids out of the program.Interviewed parents said things like, "I'm not sure it's safe," and "I wanted to see if it affected other kids..."No mention of longitudinal studies or long-term side effects. No science at all, really, just rumors…

  • Embracing lifetime value

    Seth Godin
    19 Nov 2009 | 2:46 am
    If you walk into a company-owned cell phone store to sign up for a contract, what are you worth?Given the huge gross margins at AT&T and Verizon and the standard two-year contract, I think it's easy to figure on more than $2000 in lifetime value.If you ran a business where a customer represented an additional $2,000 in profit, how would you staff? How long would you make someone wait? If staff costs $25 an hour, how long would that extra person take to pay off?Few businesses understand (really understand) just how much a customer is worth. Add to this the additional profit you get from a…

  • Some books for November

    Seth Godin
    18 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    Random thoughts from all over for those of us hungry for new ways to think. This month's list is here. The previous list was blogged in September.

  • The reason they want you to fit in...

    Seth Godin
    18 Nov 2009 | 2:03 am
    is that once you do, then they can ignore you.

  • Breakthroughs and drips

    Seth Godin
    17 Nov 2009 | 2:25 am
    There are only two ways to win in the market.You can create a breakthrough. A promotion so powerful that people can't help but engage. An innovation so remarkable, people can't help but talk about it. A pricing strategy or ad campaign that breaks the mold and is worthy of attention. This takes huge guts and substantial investment.Or you can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust. This might take years.Almost all marketing attempts to do neither of these, and of course, fail. Painless and quick are rarely associated with…
 
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    New York Times

  • As Iran Stalls on Nuclear Deal, New Sanctions Weighed

    By STEVEN ERLANGER
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm
    Officials from six countries and the European Union expressed disappointment that Iran had not accepted a deal to export most of its enriched uranium.

  • In Survey, Hard Times Before Slump

    By SAM ROBERTS
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:08 pm
    One in five Americans needed help paying for basic needs, according to a 2005 census survey.

  • Quiet Shift in Budget May Prompt City Job Cuts

    By MICHAEL BARBARO
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm
    The Bloomberg administration, which has said it wants to avert layoffs, has not disclosed the change to the public.

  • Ohio Sues Credit Rating Agencies

    By DAVID SEGAL
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:05 pm
    In the suit, the state’s attorney general asserted that Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings provided misleading ratings that led to hundreds of millions of losses for state funds.

  • U.S. Fears Iraq Development Projects May Go to Waste

    By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm
    After spending $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since 2003, the U.S. is concerned that Iraqis won’t be able to maintain the facilities once the Americans have left.
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    Wired Top Stories

  • Malaria Gaining Resistance to Best Available Treatment

    Nathan Seppa
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    Malaria has begun showing troubling signs of developing resistance to artemisinin, which is currently the best available treatment for the disease.

  • Hacked E-Mails Fuel Global Warming Debate

    Kim Zetter
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am
    A trove of e-mails stolen from a leading climate-research group in Britain has sparked an online debate over global warming data. Bloggers claim the e-mails reveal that scientists colluded and manipulated data to support global warming theories.

  • Wired Backs Internet for Nobel Peace Prize

    Lewis Wallace
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    Nothing has done a better job of circumventing censorship, spreading democratic thought and promoting understanding between nations than the internet. Join Wired's global campaign to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to our beloved series of tubes.

  • IR Image Shows Ghostly Bones of Galactic Feast

    Alexis Madrigal
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    Using new processing techniques in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, astronomers have peered through the thick dust of the Centaurus A galaxy to reveal the leftovers of another galaxy it consumed.

  • The Illustrated Man: How LED Tattoos Could Make Your Skin a Screen

    mistercharlie
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:39 am
    The title character of Ray Bradbury's book The Illustrated Man is covered with moving, shifting tattoos. If you look at them, they will tell you a story. New LED tattoos from the University of Pennsylvania could make the Illustrated Man real (minus the creepy stories, of course). Researchers there are developing silicon-and-silk implantable devices which sit under the skin like a tattoo. Already implanted into mice, these tattoos could carry LEDs, turning your skin into a screen. The silk substrate onto which the chips are mounted eventually dissolves away inside the body, leaving just the…
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    ProBlogger Blog Tips

  • Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide

    Darren Rowse
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am
    Speech recognition technology has come a long way in the last few years – in this in depth, informative and inspiring video which Jon Morrow (Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Co-founder of Partnering Profits) shares his first hand insights into speech recognition for bloggers. Jon does all of his blogging via speech recognition so he seemed like the logical guy to ask to cover the topic – in the video (I’m glad he agreed). In the video Jon makes recommendations of software, hardware (the hardware is key) and even demonstrates how he uses them in his everyday blogging. The…

  • Review This Blog – Man vs Debt

    Darren Rowse
    19 Nov 2009 | 5:46 am
    Last month here on ProBlogger we ran a community review on a reader’s blog. I posted a link to a blog with some comments from the blogger and then opened it up for readers of ProBlogger to review it. The response from the post was great. 120+ comments were left including some great advice. I also had a lot of emails from readers saying that they learned a lot by reading the suggestions of others – many wanted to see these reviews done regularly. As a result I’m going to try to do these reviews on a monthly basis – today we have another one. As a little bonus to…

  • Warning: Watching This Video May Lead to Work! [But It'll Also Improve Your Blog]

    Darren Rowse
    18 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am
    What’s your blogging Vice? Most bloggers that I know have at least one – whether it be compulsively checking blog stats, constantly tweaking template designs, obsessing over plugins and widgets, spending hour after hour ‘networking’ on Twitter, becoming preoccupied with SEO and… even allowing ourselves to become consumed by learning about blogging…. and not doing much of it. The reality is that as bloggers there are many tasks that compete for our attention. Many of them are important and can bring a lot of life to our blogs but most of them can also become…

  • 13 Ways I Get Back into Blogging after a Vacation

    Darren Rowse
    17 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am
    Yesterday was my first day back at blogging after a 10 day vacation with my family and on Twitter I commented that I was finding it a little hard to get my brain back into blogging mode. @Mikeachim responded by suggesting I write a post on the daily rituals that I use to get my mind into gear. I thought I’d take his suggestion and jot down a few notes – both as a way of getting my head back into blogging but also because looking at the tweets I received this morning it’s a problem many bloggers face. As my head is a little scattered today (as I readjust) I’m going to…

  • Email Marketing is Not Dead

    Darren Rowse
    16 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am
    While at Blog World Expo recently I recorded this video interview with Abby Johnson from Web Pro News. We covered a variety of topics including why email marketing is not dead – internet marketing for smart people – the new FTC regulations and touched on a new project I’m working on with Brian Clark and Chris Brogan. Read other recent email marketing posts on ProBlogger: 6 Reasons Why You Need to Consider Email as a Communication Strategy on Your Blog How I Use Email Newsletters to Drive Traffic and Make Money Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger. Email Marketing is Not Dead…
 
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    Chris Brogan

  • How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Media

    chrisbrogan
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:33 am
    How much time should you spend on social media? In some ways, the answer is: “how long is a piece of string?” And yet, you can set up some simple guidelines. They might be a bit different than you think. By the way, I’m writing these from a business perspective, but remember that I think of religion and nonprofits and all kinds of other applications as business-related, too. Here’s how I look at it: Social Media Time Management The way I’d do it is to break it up into 4 chunks, and then you decide the amount of hours to devote (2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST…

  • Start a Moving Business – Overnight Success

    chrisbrogan
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm
    In this episode of the Overnight Success series, I’ve got an idea about what makes one successful: moving. But it’s not what you think. If you can’t see the video, click here. What do you think?

  • Stop Humping My Leg

    chrisbrogan
    18 Nov 2009 | 9:13 am
    Dear people trying to sell me on something new: stop humping my leg. You know what I mean. You’ve seen dogs do this, right? That’s what it feels like when you jump on me breathlessly to share your new product or service when you don’t really much know whether I’m the right guy for your services. I was recently leg-humped at Web 2.0 Expo, by someone I like, and who I think is smart and has a lot of good potential. The thing is, I politely declined a demo, and he persisted. Immediately, I shifted to my back foot. I felt defensive. I rolled up my interest and tucked it…

  • Prioritize Your Social Media Efforts

    chrisbrogan
    17 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the chores that social media puts in front of us. The best writing I’ve found on how to manage your time in social media is via Amber Naslund’s social media time management series. Her efforts in crafting this should become a little ebook that you hand around to everyone. If you skipped over that link, go back, click it to open a new tab/window, and then read it when you’re done with this (or skip mine and read Amber’s- it’s that good). If you’re still with me, here’s what I want to say on the matter.

  • How I Made it Here- Overnight Success

    chrisbrogan
    16 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm
    As part of the ongoing Overnight Success series, I wanted to share with you how I made it to where I am. If you can’t see the video below, click here. In short, the answer is that you have to have a kitchen, a lemonade stand, and a campfire. (That, friends, will be work for several months of your time with me.)
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    Macworld

  • Review: Geared for iPhone

    20 Nov 2009 | 12:19 pm
    In spite of some flaws -- it can be hard to position pieces and the game is a little picky about when you're allowed to move things -- Geared is a perfectly fine puzzler that satisfies after its too-easy early stages.

  • Bugs & Fixes: Screensavers in Snow Leopard

    20 Nov 2009 | 12:09 pm
    After a little wait, many third-party screensavers are now compatible with Snow Leopard. But there are glitches. Ted Landau has details.

  • Google adds captions to YouTube search

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:53 am
    In a step to make YouTube videos more accessible to deaf people as well as to anyone else searching for videos online, Google has launched an automatic video captioning service.

  • iPhone owners demand to see Apple source code

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:32 am
    iPhone owners charging Apple and AT&T with breaking antitrust laws asked a federal judge this week to force Apple to hand over the iPhone source code.

  • Review: Mad Skills Motocross

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:05 am
    Mad Skills Motocross is an addictive, fast-paced, and entertaining side-scrolling motocross racing game. 40 tracks spread across five levels provide tons of play time, and a track editor and time challenge mode make the fun last even longer.
 
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    Lifehacker

  • Wallpaper Roundup: Turkey Time and Pumpkin Pie [Wallpaper Roundup]

    Jason Fitzpatrick
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    Turkeys are being purchased, pie recipes dusted off, and the folding chairs are being dragged out from the basement. It's that time of year again—celebrate Thanksgiving with some fresh wallpaper for your computer. We've rounded up some Thanksgiving and fall-themed wallpapers for you browse through. If you have a great resource for holiday wallpapers or a few wallpaper-size pictures of your own to share, leave a comment with a link to the pictures and everyone can enjoy them. In the mean time, grab a new wallpaper from our gallery to put yourself in the Thanksgiving spirit. Note: The…

  • Give Wireless Charging Mats a Natural Wood Look [DIY Creations]

    Sarah Rae Trover
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am
    Wireless charging mats are a clever way to charge your gadgets without cords or power bricks, but a big black mat can easily stick out in any room. Instructables shows you how to make a more stylish wooden induction charger. Instructables user jvalal has been working on altering the aesthetics of his all-black power mat induction charger. First he removed the electronic guts from the unit, then mounted them into a routed-out piece of wood. He intentionally made the mat longer than he needed to, allowing space for his wallet and keys at the end of the night. jvalal writes that the hardest part…

  • YouTube Will Soon Block Access From Set-Top Devices [Media Center]

    Kevin Purdy
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:20 am
    It won't affect your PS3, Wii, TiVo, or other licensed YouTube partners, but Google's streaming video service will start blocking API access to TV-connected devices as of Dec. 2. The COO of set-top box maker Popcorn Hour writes that the firm tried to negotiate with YouTube to retain the service, but YouTube/Google seems to be standing firm—just as the site starts to transition to 1080p video. TV-oriented apps will certainly find work-arounds—Boxee, for example, uses a Mozilla-based browser to stream otherwise blocked Hulu videos—but it's not a promising vision of the media…

  • TorrentFetcher Searches for Torrents from Your Desktop [Downloads]

    Whitson Gordon
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am
    Windows only: Most people use torrent sites like Mininova or The Pirate Bay to search for torrents online, but free program TorrentFetcher lets you search straight from a desktop program and quickly start the transfer in your BitTorrent client of your choice. Torrent sites offer a lot of information about the torrents they have available, but sometimes you just don't want to navigate to the site and look at all the annoying ads, or maybe you just want something a little simpler. TorrentFetcher is an easy solution, offering desktop search of btjunkie.org so you don't even have to open your…

  • The 40/30/30 Rule Preps You for The Game of Life [Motivation]

    Lisa Hoover
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:40 am
    When you've placed yourself where you need to be, kept at something past your initial doubts, and taken a risk at failing, you're running at 100 percent. Weblog The Simple Dollar suggests thinking of challenges that way—40/30/30—to stay motivated. Photo by martinhoward. Financial blogger Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar breaks it down: What is the 40-30-30 rule? Simply put, it's an argument that when you prepare for anything in life, only 40% of the preparation is physical – the rest is mental. Thirty percent of preparation is technical skill and experience, and the second thirty…
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    Copyblogger

  • The Art of the Paragraph

    Jonathan Morrow
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:11 am
    Anyone can write a paragraph, but not everyone knows how to write one that other people want to read. You’ve seen it: You open a book, and the whole page is one long block of text. Each sentence in the paragraph makes exactly the same point, said in a slightly different way, and you wonder why they didn’t just say it once and be done with it. Every paragraph is the same length (five lines, maybe?), whether it makes sense or not, and it gives the piece a monotonous rhythm. The paragraph makes a point without telling you why that point is important, and you can’t help…

  • How to Persuade People to Accept an “Unfair” Offer

    Dean Rieck
    19 Nov 2009 | 6:36 am
    Ever heard of Charley Hill? He seemed like an average, ordinary guy. He lived in a mid-sized town with his wife, two children, and a dog. He went to church on Sunday, coached Little League, and drove a pickup truck. He was friendly but quiet, the sort of guy you could walk by on the street without noticing. But appearances can be deceiving. Charley Hill was one of the most successful farm equipment salesmen in the Midwest. People would travel hundreds of miles to see Charley, even when there were plenty of dealers much closer to home. What did Charley have that other salesmen didn’t? Not a…

  • Free Report: How to Become a Creative Entrepreneur

    Brian Clark
    18 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am
    I’ve written another piece of extended content, this time for Lateral Action. Rather than sending you over there, I’ll just tell you about it here. It’s a free 31-page PDF report (don’t worry, it reads fast) called The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. It’s probably the most personal I’ve gotten about my history, but it’s still heavy on actionable, real-life examples. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why I quit my cushy law firm job and turned to online publishing. How I failed miserably. How I then succeeded miserably. How I…

  • Landing Page Makeover Clinic #20: TantricSexforBusyCouples.com

    Roberta Rosenberg
    17 Nov 2009 | 6:14 am
    This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Is it hot in here or just me? Diana Daffner and her husband want to help people find a renewed sense of joy and connection in their intimate relationships through tantra. Their business, IntimacyRetreats.com, offers couples retreats throughout the year, but realizing not everyone can attend a retreat, they also want to promote their books and media products. The URL referenced above is actually the “/shop page” off their main site. Diana would like to use the page as an…

  • What I Learned From Writing 42 Guest Posts in 7 Weeks

    Josh Hanagarne
    16 Nov 2009 | 7:12 am
    Before you get too impressed, hear this: I did it all in self-defense. Let me give you some quick background. I have extreme Tourette’s Syndrome, as Sonia noticed recently. Tourette’s makes people move or vocalize involuntarily and occasionally results in unspeakable awesomeness. My motor tics range from eye blinking to punching myself in the face to even stranger things. My phonic tics range from clearing my throat to hooting and yowling and snarling and slobbering and screaming like the Tasmanian Devil. Did I mention that I work in a quiet library? There are only a couple of things that…
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    Photoshop Insider Blog By Scott Kelby

  • Special “This Weekend Only” Deal on OnOne Software’s Photoshop Plug-in Suite 5

    Scott
    19 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Hey gang—the huge success of last week’s MPIX.com deal really paid off, and we’ve been in contact with a number of companies who are willing to give you guys a “This Weekend Only” special discount. This week, the fine folks over at OnOne Software are offering readers of my blog $200 off their new “Plug-In Suite 5″ which includes the most recent versions of their award-winning Photoshop Plug-ins: Genuine Fractals for resizing Mask Pro for removing unwanted backgrounds PhotoTune for color correction FocalPoint for selective focus PhotoTools and…

  • Thursday News Stuff

    Scott
    18 Nov 2009 | 10:41 pm
    Howdy folks. First a quick thanks to photographer Bruce DeBoer for his inspiring Guest Blog post yesterday here on the blog. Very cool stuff! Now, onto the news! Nikon releases FREE “Learn & Explore” iPhone App This one slipped by me, but luckily John “The Snake” Barrett dropped me a line to let me know that Nikon has released a FREE iPhone App called “Learn & Explore,” which not only has tips for using your Nikon camera, but it also has access to back issues of “Nikon World Magazine” (John let me know that the issue I’m in is…

  • Breaking News: My New Photoshop Elements 8 Book is in Bookstores!

    Scott
    18 Nov 2009 | 10:32 pm
    Just a quick heads up; My Photoshop Elements 8 book for Digital Photographers (which I co-authored with Matt Kloskowski), is now in bookstores (just in time for the holidays). Anyway, you can pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Borders, or wherever really great books that come out just in time to make a perfect Holiday gift are sold.

  • It’s “Guest Blog Wednesday” featuring Bruce DeBoer!

    Brad
    18 Nov 2009 | 4:51 am
    Looking at photography is one of my favorite pass-times. It’s awesome how the great photographers can make me actually feel the moment of capture. I enjoy the greatness of their talent. What a trap. As if photography wasn’t full time enough, lately I’ve been charging head down in an ancillary effort to learn what drives people to create. Research, writing, listening and conducting interviews across all disciplines while dissecting my own work. Most photographers I know can recall nearly every click of the shutter, and those book-worthy gems capture more than just a replica of the…

  • Catch our “Adobe Creative Suite Unleashed” Tour This Friday in San Diego

    Scott
    17 Nov 2009 | 6:18 pm
    If you’re in the San Diego area, Dave Cross and RC Concepcion, are coming to San Diego this Friday with our Adobe CS4 Creative Suite Unleashed Tour, and then onto Boston on December 1st. If you haven’t had a chance to catch this special Adobe-sponsored tour, you don’t want to miss it, as they cover everything from Illustrator to InDesign, from Photoshop to Flash, and how it all works together. This special tour is only $49 (or just $39 for NAPP members), and you can get all the details, or sign up, right here. Hope we’ll see you San Diego on Friday, or in Boston in…
 
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    ReadWriteWeb

  • 8tracks to Launch Playback API and Developer Program

    20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    It appears that the time for freemium music services in the US has passed. Earlier this week streaming music site Imeem sold to MySpace for under $10 million dollars while laying off a large number of staff. For a company with all four major record labels signed, more than 15 million uniques a month and well over 5 million tracks in its catalogue, it came as a sobering blow to the industry. While many companies move to a subscription model, 8tracks continues to forge along in what some describe as a convenient loophole. As of this weekend the company is publicly launching its API for Boston's…

  • Memento: Protocol-Based Time Travel for the Web

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:45 am
    The Web constantly changes and evolves. That, of course, is what makes the Internet so exciting, but it also means that finding older versions of a website is hard. The current push towards the real-time web is making this problem even more apparent. Memento, a project based at Old Dominion University, wants to make it easier to access older versions of a web page without having to go to the Internet Archive. To do this, the project is using a relatively obscure feature of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Sponsor The Memento project wants to give browsers a 'time-travel' mode.

  • The Future Is All About Context: The Pragmatic Web

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:14 am
    The semantic Web has long been heralded as the future of the Web. Proponents have said that Web experiences will some day become more meaningful and relevant based on the AI-esque computational power of natural-language processing (NLP) and structured data that is understandable by machines for interpretation. However, with the rise of the social Web, we see that what truly makes our online experiences meaningful is not necessarily the Web's ability to approximate human language or to return search results with syntactical exactness. The value of the semantic Web will take time because the…

  • FastPencil: Turn Your Blog Posts into a Published Book

    20 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am
    Writing a book will never be easy, but FastPencil's mission is to make things easier for authors by bringing this process online and to collaborate with others. FastPencil takes writers from idea to published book. The service offers features for collaboration, editing and design, as well as professional consulting services for authors. One cool feature of FastPencil is that it can import blog posts and turn them into books and e-books that bloggers can then sell through all the major book distribution channels. Sponsor Features The areas where FastPencil exceeds are online editing,…

  • Was Chrome OS a Disappointment?

    20 Nov 2009 | 8:28 am
    It's the morning after the big Chrome OS event where Google executives and engineers revealed a myriad of details about the company's first attempt at creating their own operating system. The highly anticipated news conference was tracked all over the web, liveblogged by technology sites, and Twittered so much that it's still listed as a "trending topic" as of this morning. But now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine? People had high expectations for Google's new operating system but the end result doesn't look like the revolutionary, "change the world" product many had hoped…
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    Strobist

  • Living the High Life in San Miguel

    18 Nov 2009 | 10:41 pm
    Last week I was in San Miguel de Allende, which sits at over 6,000 feet of elevation in the central Mexican highlands. (Town motto: Meh, oxygen is overrated…)There for a Santa Fe Workshops lighting gig with Rosi, Beth, Françoise, Sara and two Peters, we threw ourselves into a week-long intensive on small flashes, eating well and (me) mostly being out of breath. They worked their butts off, and went from lighting each other very tentatively in the beginning to working completely on their own by the end of the week. Start the week strong, and finish it soaking up rays in the courtyard while…

  • Choosing Big Lights: Elinchrom

    15 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    UPDATE: As I suspected would happen, there is some really good info already developing in the comments from Elinchrom owners. If you are reading email or RSS versions, be sure to check it out. And FWIW, I expect this ongoing comment discussion will be the best part of the post.__________One of my main considerations when shopping for more watt-seconds was to be able to work independent of AC power. In this respect, Elinchrom gets strong consideration in the form of their two battery powered platforms, the Ranger RX and the new Ranger Quadra. A look at a very powerful battery flash, and it's…

  • Beers With: Vermeer

    11 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    With apologies to every art student and teacher, ever, today marks the second in an occasional series of chats with Old Masters.These guys were the original connoisseurs of light, and that is the framework under which we interview them -- as photographers. Turns out, they've been ripped off by photographers so many times at this point that they are actually cool with it. Which, by the way, is why the Old Masters merit your study. At least to the point of trying to stay awake during that early morning humanities class.They are, of course, very difficult to pin down for a chat -- what with…

  • Hey, Your Flash is Hawt …

    10 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    No, not as in the vapid, Paris Hilton sense. But rather the laws-of-thermodynamics sense.Made-for-photography gels are meant to be used near theatrical light sources. So they can handle the heat. But even still, the front lens of your flash can get very hot with repeated cycling -- especially at higher power settings.Don't believe me? Try this little trick: Hold a piece of printer paper right next to the front of your flash and set off just one, full-power pop. Now smell the paper. That would be a burning smell. From just one pop.Be CoolWhen you gel, leave a little space between the flash and…

  • Mono Monday: Choosing the Right Big Lights

    8 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Normally, I try to balance lighting technique, trends, gear and a smattering of general silliness on this site. Apologies for fact that that Strobist is in somewhat of a gear-oriented spate of posts. There is a reason for that -- namely that I have gotten a little ahead of myself.A few On Assignment posts are in a holding circle because they were shot with larger light sources. And before getting to those, I wanted to take a look at the process of how to go about choosing a big light system in the first place.Recently, I revamped my kit after spending 20 years using the same set of well-worn…
 
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    Smashing Magazine

  • The Big Showcase Of Online T-Shirt Stores

    Callum Chapman
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:22 am
      T-shirts, as you’ll surely agree, play a big part in the design world. Sometimes, we designers don’t get the kinds of projects we want, and so we are left to apply our creativity in some other way, many of us opting to submit graphics in t-shirt competitions or printing them ourselves and selling them through shopping cart systems such as BigCartel. In this post, we bring you a showcase of online t-shirt store Web designs, all of which serves as a great source of inspiration for Web designers, graphic designers and even illustrators.You may be interested in the…

  • The Death of The Boring Blog Post?

    Paddy Donnelly
    19 Nov 2009 | 6:34 am
      Let’s face it: the classic blog post is boring. Barring the text and images, each one generally has the exact same layout. We see little originality from one post to the next. Of course, consistency and branding are extremely important to consider when designing a website or blog, but what about individuality? Does a blog post about kittens deserve the same layout as one about CSS hacks?Too Easy?Because installing a WordPress theme is so easy, anyone can have a blog up and running in minutes. While this is great, and we now have a wealth of blogs on countless topics, perhaps…

  • Designing CSS Buttons: Techniques and Resources

    Janko Jovanovic
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am
       Buttons, whatever their purpose, are important design elements. They could be the end point of a Web form or a call to action. Designers have many reasons to style buttons, including to make them more attractive and to enhance usability. One of the most important reasons, though, is that standard buttons can easily be missed by users because they often look similar to elements in their operating system. Here, we present you several techniques and tutorials to help you learn how to style buttons using CSS. We’ll also address usability.Links vs. buttonsBefore we explain how…

  • Designing Social Interfaces: Overview and Practical Techniques

    Dmitry Fadeyev
    17 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am
      The standard approach to interface design is to craft a channel that allows you to easily and efficiently control hardware or software; it’s all about the interaction between people and computers. But today, the two entities on each side of the user interface are changing: it’s no longer about people interacting with computers, but rather about people interacting with people through computers.This is the nature of the social Web. Social news websites, message boards, social networks, online stores and blogs all have some sort of user interaction going on, whether…

  • Brushing Up On Photoshop’s Brush Tool

    Thomas Giannattasio
    16 Nov 2009 | 9:54 am
       When laid by a learned hand, brush strokes can convey a sense of energy, tactility and humanness. These qualities speak to your audience’s subconscious, whispering ideas that words alone can’t convey. In the digital realm, a website with beautiful brushwork is a welcome break from the stark precision of most corporate websites.Mastering the digital brush is by no means easy. It carries the same difficulties as the sable brush hidden at the bottom of your art bin. In fact, the difficulty is multiplied by the disconnect between the hand and monitor. Developing Photoshop…
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    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

  • TUAW's Steve Sande provides gift ideas on the latest MacJury podcast

    Steven Sande
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    Filed under: Odds and ends, Podcasts, HolidaysHere it is, T-7 days until Black Friday, and you don't have any gift ideas? I joined MacJury podcaster Chuck Joiner earlier this week to provide my ideas for gifting. This was part two of a holiday gift ideas episode on the popular podcast. Joining me on the podcast were MacMouseCalls support genius (and grandmother) Pat Fauquet, Julio Ojeda-Zapata from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and The Mac Observer's Jeff Gamet. Storage seemed to be a popular gift idea from the panelists, along with iPhone / Mac jewelry, video tools, and even some freebies. I…

  • MacUpdate Desktop version 5.0.2 released, win a membership from TUAW

    Casey Johnston
    20 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am
    Filed under: Software, Cool toolsMacUpdate announced today the release of version 5.0.2 of the MacUpdate Desktop utility, which allows users to manage application and widget software updates on their Mac OS X machines. The new version of the application adds some features and bug fixes as well as support for more languages. MacUpdate Desktop can track software updates for 30,000 Mac applications, and it also provides update support for applications on the iPhone, although iTunes handles that pretty well. Updates can be triggered manually and individually, or set to install automatically when…

  • Geotagged tweets now alive in Stone Design's Twittelator Pro 3.3.1

    Steven Sande
    20 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    Filed under: iPhone, App Store Twitter has flipped the switch on some new features, including geotagging of tweets and automatic retweeting. As a happy user of Stone Design's Twittelator Pro 3.3.1 [iTunes link], I was even more giddy when I found out that my favorite Twitter app already supports both of these features. The geotagging feature lets you optionally attach a latitude and longitude to your tweets. If you receive the tweet in Twittelator, you can tap on the sender's avatar icon to see the geotag and pull up a Google map of the location near where the tweet was sent. The app lets you…

  • Navigon briefly cutting price on its popular Nav app

    Mel Martin
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am
    Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhoneGee, we were just saying how competitive it is getting in the iPhone nav department, and Navigon has gone and cut prices for holiday travelers. For 10 days only, beginning today (November 20-30) Navigon's iPhone app, Mobile Navigator [iTunes link]will be on sale for U.S. $69.99 instead of $89.99 providing a $20.00 savings. In addition, Navigon's Traffic Live feature is also on sale for $14.99 instead of $24.99. Traffic Live is a one time charge, not a continuing cost. That's a significant saving for this very popular app, and puts it under similar featured…

  • CrossOver Games releases version 8.1.0

    Mike Schramm
    20 Nov 2009 | 8:30 am
    Filed under: Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, Snow Leopard The folks behind CrossOver Games sent us a note that version 8.1.0 of their software has come out, and it's got some nice upgrades for Mac and Linux folks who prefer to run their games in Windows almost-emulators (it's based on Wine, and as we all know, Wine Is Not an Emulator) rather than Boot Camping over to the real thing. We tried out CrossOver Games a while back, and found it lacking in almost everything but Steam games, but actually that's OK, because lately Steam has a lot of games going on. Accordingly, this new…
 
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    Joe McNally's Blog

  • Heading East

    Joe McNally
    16 Nov 2009 | 2:03 am
    Yep, heading for Malaysia, courtesy of the efforts of Louis Pang, one of the premier wedding shooters in that country, and for that matter, all of Asia. Louis and I got to know each other when he took my lighting class at Santa Fe this past year, and the irrepressible Louis had ideas. When he gets ideas, actions follow. He went home, put together a plan, launched a website, and off we go. Or are going. First week in February, Drew and I will be in Kuala Lumpur, working with photogs from all over Malaysia and points east. Here’s the link. We’ll do a series of one day intensives,…

  • Letter to a Young Photographer….

    Joe McNally
    9 Nov 2009 | 5:43 am
    Lectured last week at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. In the photojournalism department, the students all had that traditional mix of energy, enthusiasm, angst, and doubt so typical of that time in your life when you have just picked up a camera and are looking at it, wondering where it will lead you. The usual mix of questions are ever present: Who do I work for? Can I make a living? Will I ever be any good at this? Will my pictures have impact? Nowadays, that traditional line of questioning is accompanied by another significant set of queries. What is the future of…

  • New York Frame of Mind…..

    Joe McNally
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:57 am
    Yankees won. Cool. I’ve been a Yankee fan before I even knew anything about NY. We lived in Cleveland when I was a kid, and my dad would only bring me to the ballpark when those damn Yankees were playing. He brought me down to the third base seats and Casey Stengel was standing in the coaches box. My dad yelled, “Hey Case!” Stengel was standing there, thumbs hooked in his belt, and gave me a wink and a quick wave. Been a Yankee fan ever since, though, like Yogi, I did have a hard time liking anybody in pinstripes back when The Boss was in full cry. Corny, right? But hey, it…

  • This Just In…..

    Joe McNally
    4 Nov 2009 | 6:44 am
    Hot Shoe Diaries was the number one reader’s pick for the arts and photography category on Amazon for 2009. Pretty cool. I’ve gotten some wonderful feedback from folks who really enjoyed the book and I thank everyone for the kind words that have been sent my way. Very appreciative of the support, and thanks for letting Amazon know about it! It’s been an interesting week.  There was the good news about the book, and then Lynn, my studio manager for 18 years, was going back and forth with a major multi-national who had a check for us, but had the wrong address listed. It…

  • Mongo Make Pano……

    Joe McNally
    29 Oct 2009 | 4:57 am
    In New York City leading a National Geographic Expeditions Workshop. Doing alright so far. Haven’t lost anybody yet. Nice group of folks. Hope they’re not disappointed that I’m not, you know, Nick Nichols, or somebody like that who’s got a lot of great Indiana Jones type photo stories. “I stood there in front of the enraged water buffalo, with the only thing between me and his massive horns was my Nikon DS4000XL Red Sonja series camera with the 12 to 3000mm over under combo zoom with the bore sighted grenade launcher. I had one round left…” I make up…
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    Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

  • Worth-a-click

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:20 am
    Here's a few things worth checking out as you surf around today or this weekend. • Adobe has released a beta of Lightroom 2.6 (and Camera Raw 5.6). The major thing I can see is that it now supports the Canon 7D, G11, and Nikon D3s. You can get it over at Adobe Labs if you're dying for support for those new cameras. • My brand new Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (co-authored with Scott Kelby) is out in stores and online. Since Adobe released the Mac and PC version this time around we changed things to cover both. • If you're a photographer (of any level) and…

  • Lightroom Sharpening – Which Brush to use?

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    18 Nov 2009 | 9:17 pm
    Over the last few months, I've done a few of those Before/After videos that involve sharpening as one of the steps. Each time I've done it, I go into Photoshop and do the sharpening there. I've noticed a number of good comment/questions asking about why I don't use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to sharpen instead. So it got me thinking about why. I mean, I knew sharpening was there in Lightroom and that I could selectively do it with the Adjustment Brush but I never really find myself using it. So here's the answer(s) that I've come up with: 1) Old mentality of sharpening last I've had a…

  • Tip – Fading a Lightroom Preset

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    17 Nov 2009 | 6:19 am
    I've got a big article due for Photoshop User magazine this week so I'm gonna make this one short. In fact, I'm being so lazy today that I'm stealing a tip from some one else. See, for a while now I'd have to say the most common preset-related question I get is how to fade a preset. Say the effect is just too strong and you don't feel like going through each slider and lessening the amount it applies. Instead you basically want a volume control for the preset. Well the other day Piet (one of the blog readers) posted a comment pointing me to a video he's done on fading Lightroom presets. Now…

  • Tip – Graduated Filter Modifier Keys

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    13 Nov 2009 | 5:50 am
    First off, thanks for all the great feedback on the Before/After video the other day. For those of you who watched it (and commented on it), the grayish pumpkin that I darkened was brought up a few times. I thought about trying to do something more with it, but then I showed the photo to several people including the mom in the photo. I asked about the pumpkin and the resounding answer was "What pumpkin?" - mission accomplished in my book :-) But I'll probably try to tweak it as a personal mission to see if I can add just a little color back in without looking to fakey. Tip #1: Anyway, I…

  • Video – Before & After Family Photo

    jgilbert@photoshopuser.com (Matt Kloskowski)
    11 Nov 2009 | 8:38 am
    Please install flash player to view video. Here's another one of those before and after videos for you folks. I know these are popular because they really show the workflow and the link between the two programs we tend to use most - Lightroom and Photoshop. I thought this particular photo made a great candidate because I was able to do some very neat things in Lightroom (more than a lot of people think is possible) but I also needed to move into Photoshop for some quick retouching. Hope you enjoy it. I'm actually taking the day off to spend with the family since they're off from school, but…
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    Digital Photography School

  • Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 – Review

    Barrie Smith
    20 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pm
    I sometimes hear from people who’ve newly acquired a digital SLR, saying they find it a hassle to continually change lenses when shooting a wide variety of subjects. Frankly, it goes with ‘SLR-territory’ (digital and film) and is the price you pay to enjoy the improved image of an interchangeable lens, reflex camera. In reality, unless you’re very demanding and continually shoot magazine quality pictures, most times you’re better off with a fixed lens digicam with an extended zoom range … like this one. Panasonic has not indulged in a longish zoom camera before, unlike Canon,…

  • High Key Studio – What I Use and Why

    Elizabeth Halford
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:01 am
    If you follow my posts, you’ll know that I have a studio. At the moment, I mostly do high-key sessions with children. High-key is something that many photographers try to imitate and sometimes fail miserably simply because of a lack of understanding about light (and I only know this because I am one of those people!) Out of necessity, my photographic evolution has been a fast one and I laugh to think that only a few short months ago, I was in torrents of frustration and tears because I just couldn’t manage to take photos like the ones I was seeing from amazing studios such as…

  • 10 Rules for Editing Digital Images

    Guest Contributor
    19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    During the week one of our readers – wedding photographer Martin Whitton – shot me a list of his ‘10 rules for editing digital images’. I thought I’d share them today as a discussion starter for readers. Martin comments that ‘these ideas may seem a little elementary, but sticking to the basics keeps our editing focused, maintains consistency from image to image and keeps our clients happy’. Tone of space (a room, for example) should be balanced and neutral, with no overall bias; Blacks (like tuxes) should be black; Whites (like wedding gowns) should…

  • The Lenses We Would Have If We Could Have No Other Lenses [POLL RESULTS]

    Peter Carey
    19 Nov 2009 | 6:06 am
    A few weeks back I asked a loaded question: If You Could Only Have One Lens, What Would It Be? I knew from the start that it’d be tough question for most, as it was for me. Picking one lens when many of us shoot varied subject matter would present special problems. I was, however, encouraged by the responses, especially the explanations. It was evident that a lot of DSLR owners would keep their current lens, especially those with the Nikon 18-200mm VR. And while a zoom seemed like the obvious choice for all around use, nearly one third of those responding chose a fixed focal length lens…

  • How To Keep Your Batteries Charged While Traveling – City Edition

    Peter Carey
    18 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm
    I’d like to take a moment to talk about power.  Electric power that is.  We all have a craving for it as it powers everything we do with digital photography.  If you’re completely digital gone are the days of being able to manually adjust your camera and still get shots without the need for a battery of some kind.  And that’s why it’s even more important to consider where you’ll get your power when traveling. In this article I’ll concentrate on just the what/how/where of keeping your camera shooting while in populated cities and towns.  I will write…
 
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    MacRumors iPhone Blog

  • MacRumors: Game Developers Scaling Back Android Efforts as iPhone Continues to Dominate

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am
    Reuters reports that prominent iPhone game developer Gameloft is scaling back its efforts to produce content for the Android platform in the face of weaknesses of its application store. Gameloft also notes that it is not the only one making the move...

  • iPhone Coming to Virgin Mobile Canada

    20 Nov 2009 | 9:08 am
    Virgin Mobile Canada issued a brief announcement yesterday revealing that it will begin offering the iPhone there in the near future.Virgin Mobile Canada will launch iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in Virgin Mobile Retail Stores and online ...

  • TomTom to Launch Car Kit for iPod Touch

    20 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am
    Earlier this week, an updated version of TomTom's GPS navigation application appeared in the App Store, and among the major changes included with the update was compatibility with the original iPhone and all generations of the iPod touch. The iPod t...

  • Google Rolls Out Mobile-Formatted Google News for iPhone

    19 Nov 2009 | 12:40 pm
    Google today announced that it has rolled out mobile-formatted Google News pages for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. The feature complements similar existing pages for Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and S60 platforms.This...

  • MacRumors: AT&T Faces Initial Setback in Verizon Ad Spat, Rolls Out Response Ad

    19 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am
    The Associated Press reports that a judge has refused to grant AT&T's request for a temporary restraining order forcing Verizon to halt its commercials comparing the two companies' wireless network coverage.AT&T filed the lawsuit in ...
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    The Luminous Landscape - What's New

  • 19 November, 2009 - ALPA Field Report

    18 Nov 2009 | 3:51 pm
    UPDATE – 10:30am EST It was announced today that Christian Poulsen has decided to resign from his position as CEO of Hasselblad. Chairman of the Board, Dr. Larry Hansen will now also serve as Chief Executive Officer. This follows the recent replacement of Hasselblad USA's President Jack Showalter by Tom Olesen. I have no editorial stance on these announcements at the moment, but one has to wonder as to the nature of the changes taking place within Hasselblad and their underlaying motivations. ____________________ When it comes to technical cameras for use with digital backs few would…

  • 16 Nov, 2009 - Leaf Aptus II 10, The First Week

    15 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm
    Buying a medium format back is a serious financial committment for a pro, and the thought process involved and a photographer's initial experience with it makes for an informative and interesting read. Today's new article by Robb Williamson is on the Leaf Aptus II 10. It details his purchase decision process and his first week's shooting experience. ____________________ I don't often hand out endorsements, however, when I see something unique, entertaining, educational and very reasonably priced I must say something. Your interviews with Jay Maisel and Jeff Schewe really helped me understand…

  • 15 November, 2009 - Leica X1 Update

    14 Nov 2009 | 3:07 pm
    I'm now back from my workshop / shoot in Death Valley. We had a great time. What a terrific group of participants, and Phase One did a fantastic job with the preparations and logistics. All of the members of this workshop were given the new Phase One 645DF camera to use, along with a P65+ or P40+ back. These were the first twenty five production 645DF cameras off the assembly line, and with the exception of a few little bugs, worked flawlessly. I am now preparing my Phase One 645DF camera review and expect it to publish here within the next 10 days. The new Home Page photograph was taken with…

  • 12 November, 2009 - Leica X1 Field Report

    11 Nov 2009 | 6:54 pm
    I have now been shooting with the upcoming Leica X1 for the past few weeks, including this week on a workshop / shoot in Death Valley. How is the image quality, and handling? Find out in my X1 Field Report, which is now online. You can also read Sean Reid's observations at Reid Reviews (a subscription site). ____________________ Give a Gift of The Luminous Landscape No Taxes – No Duties – No Delays Available World-Wide ...

  • 8 November, 2009 - On The Road With Phase One in Death Valley

    7 Nov 2009 | 4:57 pm
    Today begins a five-day workshop in Death Valley, CA, run by Phase One at the famous Furnace Creek Inn. I am among the group of teachers that includes Bill Atkinson, Claus Molgaard, Jeff Schewe, and Mark Dubovoy. Kevin Raber, Phase One's US Vice President, is blogging the workshop this week and you can follow his blog, which will be updated daily, here. The new Home Page photograph, taken with the Leica X1 (hey –  I'm ecumenical), was taken on Saturday evening on the way to the park. ____________________ ...
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  • Viewing and Basking in your Image

    Web Editor
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:15 am
    When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, then hit the F key three times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself [...]

  • OnOne Releases Plug-In Suite 5

    Corey Barker
    19 Nov 2009 | 10:57 pm
    Earlier this week OnOne Software, Inc. released the new Plug-in Suite 5 for Adobe Photoshop. Designed to solve the most common problems facing photographers in the areas of color correction, enlarging, masking and professional photographic effects, the Plug-in Suite 5 combines full versions of six essential software tools in one affordable package: FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune [...]

  • Rotating your images with Shortcuts

    Web Editor
    19 Nov 2009 | 6:15 am
    I spent some time playing around with the orientation of images. Instead of having to go to Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CW or 90° CCW, I set up actions for them. To do this, create a blank document. Once you have the document onscreen, create an action called 90 Degrees Clockwise and assign it a keyboard shortcut. [...]

  • Adobe Creative Suite Tour Coming to San Diego

    Corey Barker
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:13 am
    California is really in for quite a treat this Friday as Dave Cross and RC Concepcion will be bringing the all new Adobe Creative Suite Tour to San Diego this Friday, November 20. If you haven’t yet heard of the this new tour it’s a day long excursion into the Creative Suite. Join RC and [...]

  • Using the Button Mode in Actions

    Web Editor
    18 Nov 2009 | 6:15 am
    The best way to automate tasks in Photoshop is to create actions of common tasks. When you are working with multiple images, you don’t want to keep selecting an action and clicking on the Play Selection icon. Speed up your workflow by enabling Button mode. In the Actions panel flyout menu, you can select Button [...]
 
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