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    Holy Kaw!

  • 5 tips for improving your eating habits

    21 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pm
    Your eating habits affect your health and weight—them’s the facts. You could try dieting or motivating yourself to get to the gym, but the reality is we don’t always stick with these goals. So it’s important to think about the way you eat as one way to start improving your health. By making these five changes in your eating patterns, you’ll boost your well being and help kick those extra pounds to the curb. The first step is to chew—a lot. When was the last time you actually sat down and took more than twenty minutes to finish off a meal? By eating slowly,…

  • How to ward off allergies during the holiday season

    21 Nov 2009 | 2:25 pm
    We’re entering the holiday season, and you know what that means—visiting friends and family. Yes, it’s a wonderful time of year. But from Aunt Edna and her long-haired cat, to sleeping on Grandmas’s dusty spare bed, to the hidden food allergens in mom’s famous stuffing—the holidays wreak havoc on your allergies. To ensure you’re prepared to prevent and treat all of the above (and more), read this great About.com article on dealing with “seasonal” allergies. Don’t let allergies get you down. Permalink | Leave a…

  • How to impress women: Get the Kirtsy book

    21 Nov 2009 | 1:50 pm
    Check out this trailer for the Kirtsy book. I may be the only man in the video—albeit with a pimp hat and feather boa! Do yourself a favor and buy the Kirtsy book: The women’s blogging revolution has taken hold, and this inspirational and practical guide is a celebration of one of the leading women’s social networking sites on the web. The idea for Kirtsy.com was born during the 2007 Super Bowl, when the self-described “Kirtsy chicks” tuned out the game and tuned into their collective desire to aggregate cool, relevant, interesting, and practical content provided…

  • How to save time

    21 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am
    Here’s a great tool: Sue Shellenbarger, over at the Wall Street Journal, has test drove three time management tools for us, so we don’t have to try them ourselves. Talk about time saving. The three tested methods are: Getting things done. The Pomodoro Technique. Franklin Convey’s Focus. Read the article to see what she found. We’ve got lots more ways to get things done and hack your life, too. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • How to re-imagine the color of your room with no paint

    21 Nov 2009 | 9:14 am
    Want to see what your room would look like with different paint? Check out colorjive.com, a really cool site that takes your pictures and changes the colors of the walls in just a few easy steps. It's fun! And it could save a lot of fails. More cool design sites. Permalink | Leave a comment  »
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    Mashable!

  • Turtles with Facebook Urged to Vote in #openwebawards [VIDEO]

    Pete Cashmore
    21 Nov 2009 | 12:48 pm
    The finals of our annual Open Web Awards are hotly contested, with 170,000+ votes cast since Wednesday. Among the most active categories: the top videos and channels on YouTube. Popular YouTube channel CardGamesFTW has a strategy to help it beat out the competition: turtles. At least, a humorous clip linking turtles, Facebook and people called “Steve” aspires to drive more votes for the channel in the “Funniest YouTube Channel” category. The competition is tough, however: competitors include top YouTubers ShaneDawsonTV, Smosh, loadingreadyrun and RayWilliamJohnson. If…

  • Bing Accused of Censoring Simplified Chinese Language Searches

    Pete Cashmore
    21 Nov 2009 | 11:25 am
    The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is controversially asking web users to “Boycott Bing“, claiming that Bing is censoring Simplified Chinese queries even outside the People’s Republic of China. Last night, Bing responded to Kristof’s Friday afternoon posting, citing a programming bug but failing to deny the censorship claims. To us, both sides of the argument seem lacking. Boycott Bing? Kristof’s complaint is part of an ongoing debate: should US companies censor their search results to appease Chinese authorities? Those in favor say it’s simply good…

  • GrandCentral Website Shuts Down Next Month: Download Your Data and Contacts

    Pete Cashmore
    21 Nov 2009 | 9:26 am
    Google has already transitioned GrandCentral users over to Google Voice, and now comes the final step in that move: Google is shuttering the GrandCentral website and telling users to download any old messages and contacts they have on that site. The GrandCentral site will be closed on the last day of the year – December 31st – and a further reminder will be sent before that date. In a mail to users today, the company advised: The GrandCentral website is shutting down – GrandCentral is now Google Voice. Dear GrandCentral User: We’re writing to let you know that we will…

  • Tila Tequila Continues Her Ustream Video Meltdown [LIVE VIDEO]

    Ben Parr
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:19 am
    Social media is a double-edged sword. Due to its unfiltered nature, it can be a powerful promotional tool. However, it can also publicly expose our problems. Former reality TV star Tila Tequila is an unfortunate but prime example. Some backstory: Tila Tequila is one of the most popular artists on MySpace, was the subject of an MTV reality show, and most recently filed assault charges against San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman, which were subsequently dropped. Fastforward to Wednesday, November 18th. That night, Tila had a very public meltdown on her Ustream page. She waved around a…

  • UNDERDOG: Google Android Smashes Apple iPhone in Reader Vote

    Barb Dybwad
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:20 pm
    We’ve been matching up popular web services, applications and mobile apps against each other in heated one-on-one battles here in our weekly Faceoff Series. Last week Microsoft Office bested Google Docs in a head to head race for the title of office suite champion. This week we turned our attention to a rather timely battle being waged on the mobile front, between Apple’s still wildly-selling iPhone platform and Google’s slower to boil Android mobile operating system. Apparently the latter has been gaining some ground, resulting in our first unexpected upset victory in the…
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    Fast Company

  • The 12 Best and Worst Digital Characters

    20 Nov 2009 | 4:15 pm

  • What Do Presidential Libraries Say About Their Namesakes' Legacies?

    Alissa Walker
    20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Part of the point of a presidential library is that it's a monument to a leader's legacy--his style, his enduring affect on the world, even his reading habits...or lack thereof. Speaking of which, Laura Bush unveiled the design for her husband's book joint this week, and the ultra-traditional structure that nods to Washington but bows to the rest of Southern Methodist University's campus isn't winning any points with architecture critics. But how does W's design stack up against his predecessors? We checked out the libraries of fellow recent commanders-in-chief completed in the last three…

  • Drive a Mercedes with Your iPhone and Nine Other Mind-Blowing Stories This Week on Fast Company

    Kate Rockwood
    20 Nov 2009 | 3:45 pm
    Mind-blowing phrase of the week: "interferometric modulation," which can be loosely translated as "Oh my God! Qualcomm’s Mirasol e-reader has color video!" Mercedes Benz unveiled an app that lets you control your car with the iPhone. But Intel one-ups the luxe car maker with an implantable chip that lets you control your computer using only your thoughts.Round two of the juice-packaging cage match started late last year with Pepsi’s Tropicana fiasco, and this week Coke’s Minute Maid unveiled a juicy new look (courtesy of Master of Design cover boy David Butler). Los Angeles took home…

  • ComScore's New Study Finds Dope on "Movie Junkies"

    Alissa Walker
    20 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm
    Research group comScore released its study on "movie junkies" yesterday that surveyed the behavior of 500,000 moviegoers who bought tickets online in September 2009. Some of the highlights: Fandango rules the market. Over $31 million is spent each month buying online movie tickets, with 81% of those tickets purchased at Fandago.com. Females 25-54 are heavy online ticket buyers. Women are actually more likely to make decisions about movie night than men: movie ticket purchasers are 39% more likely to be female. Maybe men would rather watch at home? DVD sales were an equal split between the…

  • Can Chegg Beat the Kindle at the Textbook Game?

    Ariel Schwartz
    20 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm
    The Kindle may be the king of e-readers, but it has a long way to go before being accepted as an acceptable replacement for textbooks. When Amazon's device was introduced at Princeton for classroom assignments recently, it received mostly negative reviews. Now the Kindle's budding classroom legacy is being challenged by Chegg, an online textbook rental service that just raised a whopping $112 million in a round led by Insight Venture Partners. Chegg deals in good old-fashioned print books, but saves paper by letting students rent textbooks in a Netflix-like model. The company, founded in…
 
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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

  • TechCrunch Interviews (The Very Happy) Skype CEO Josh Silverman

    Michael Arrington
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:59 pm
    Skype CEO Josh Silverman can’t stop smiling in this video interview we recorded in Menlo Park this morning. And no wonder – despite serious legal and spinoff drama, Silverman has managed to close his multi-billion dollar spinoff of Skype from eBay. His legal troubles have evaporated. Skype is growing like a weed. And he’s managed to keep his job running the business. Life is good. All he has to do now is manage board meetings with two of the more forceful personalities on the planet – new investor Marc Andreessen and cofounder/new investor Niklas Zennstrom. Well, that…

  • Google Calendar Starts Testing “Sneak Preview”

    Jason Kincaid
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:57 pm
    Google Callendar is testing out a new feature that should make scheduling events a tad easier than it used to be by allowing you to see at a glance if the event you’re creating will conflict with the schedules of the people youre’ inviting. Dubbed “Sneak Preview”, the feature’s name is perhaps more exciting than its actual function, but it should prove to be quite useful. The feature is apparently in a limited rollout right now, so don’t be surprised if you don’t have access to it. Once you’ve activated Sneak Preview (assuming you have access to…

  • Bloosky Acquires Tracking202

    Michael Arrington
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pm
    Most TechCrunch readers have never heard of Tracking202. But affiliate advertisers love the service, which manages advertising campaigns on Facebook, MySpace and other platforms. In fact, Tracking202 was at the center of the Facebook click-fraud issue that we reported on earlier this year. Tracking202 users saw a certain number of clicks on ads via the Tracking202 interface, and far more on their Facebook admin pages. The company is self funded and has a number of customers who pay for the premium hosted version of the service. Today they’ve announced they’re selling the business…

  • 2010: The Year Android Will Shake Its Money Maker

    Guest Author
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:31 pm
    Editor’s note: More and more mobile app developers are deciding to make apps for Android, even though it still doesn’t have the same reach as the iPhone. In this guest post Kevin Nakao, the VP of Mobile for Whitepages, makes the argument for taking the Android plunge now (as he is preparing to with a new Whitepages Android app launching next week). Follow him on Twitter @knakao Mobile games publisher Gameloft might have thrown in the towel on Android, but that is a mistake. I certainly understand why they gave up on Android. Since launching in February of this year, our own…

  • Facebook’s iPhone App Is Broken. Who Will Fix It?

    MG Siegler
    21 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm
    10 days ago, Facebook developer Joe Hewitt rocked the iPhone development world when he announced that he would stop making iPhone apps because he was fed up with the way Apple is running the App Store. This is significant since Hewitt was pretty much solely responsible for one of the most popular (and best) iPhone apps out there: Facebook’s. And now, just a little over a week later, we may be seeing the downside of Hewitt’s decision. The Facebook iPhone app is broken [updates below, it appears to be an API problem], and has been for a while now. Every single user profile page…
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    Seth Godin

  • Benefit of the doubt

    Seth Godin
    21 Nov 2009 | 2:11 am
    It's almost impossible to communicate something clearly and succinctly to everyone, all the time.So misunderstandings occur.We misunderstand a comment or a gesture or a policy or a contract.And then what happens?Well, if we're engaged with someone we like or trust, we give them the benefit of the doubt. We either assume that what they actually meant was the thing we expected from someone like them, or we ask about it.If we're engaged with a stranger or someone we don't trust, we assume the worst.The challenge, then, is to earn the benefit of the doubt. How many of your customers, prospects,…

  • 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.
 
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    Wired Top Stories

  • Vanish! How Wired Readers Caught Our Fugitive Writer

    Evan Ratliff
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:45 pm
    In an age when everyone is following everything, is it ever possible to disappear? On Aug. 13, one man drove out of San Francisco determined to stay hidden in plain sight and test this possibility.

  • Shaggy to Bald: Evan's Daily Costume Change

    Nicholas Thompson
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:41 pm
    While on the run, Evan Ratliff snapped a self-portrait each day to document his constantly evolving appearance.

  • Stories From the Hunt for Evan Ratliff

    Nicholas Thompson
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:40 pm
    After Evan Ratliff was captured, Wired asked the most active hunters to send in their stories. Why were they drawn to the hunt, what did they do and what did they learn?

  • Wired Tests Writer With Series of Bold Challenges

    Nicholas Thompson
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:39 pm
    With a week remaining in the hunt for Evan Ratliff, Wired decided to up the stakes with of five challenges hidden in New York Times crossword puzzles.

  • Delete Browser Cookies, Clean Up Your Trail of Crumbs

    How-To Wiki
    20 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm
    The web is watching you, and it’s doing it using browser cookies — small snippets of tracking code. Do away with them to be free of watchers, and annoy the heck out of Big Brother too.
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    ProBlogger Blog Tips

  • Why Nobody Cares About Your Blog

    Darren Rowse
    21 Nov 2009 | 5:40 am
    A Guest Post by David Risley Except yours, of course. ;) However, there are a lot of bloggers who feel this way. You write. You write some more. You don’t feel as if you’re getting the traction that you want. What’s going on? There is plenty to be said about issues like proper market selection, search engine optimization and other tactical things, but let’s go deeper. In fact, let’s go deeper than most bloggers really think about when it comes to their blogging. Are You Talking At Or Talking To Your Readers? If I walked into a crowded mall, went into the food…

  • 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…
 
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    Chris Brogan

  • The Serendipity Engine – Web 2 Expo Speech

    chrisbrogan
    20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm
    This is my favorite keynote speech yet. It’s just 10 minutes long, and I feel pretty good about it. You’ll recognize bits of my storytelling from the last several conferences tucked into here in a new way, I hope. Enjoy this video. (Can’t see it? Click here)

  • 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.
 
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    Lifehacker

  • Use a Spoon to Prevent Milk from Boiling Over [Food Hacks]

    Jason Fitzpatrick
    21 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm
    You're boiling milk, you turn your back for a moment, and—boom!—like Godzilla rising out of the bay, the milk is boiling over the pot and all over the stove. Prevent that mess with this simple hack. First, courtesy of food blog thekitchn, a little background on why milk boils over, unlike a pot of plain water: As milk heats, the water in its structure starts evaporating from the surface. This concentrates the remaining fat and proteins into a thicker layer at the top of the pot. This layer eventually becomes so thick that water vapor rising through the milk can't break through…

  • Make a Lighted Christmas Ball [Holidays]

    Jason Fitzpatrick
    21 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    If you're tired of the same old outdoor holiday decorating routine of simply wrapping a tree in lights, you'll definitely want to check out these lighted tree balls, a cheap and novel way to brighten your neighborhood. The design of the tree balls is extremely simple. You take a length of chicken wire, roll it in a tube, fold the top and bottom edges in while shaping it into a ball, and wrap the whole affair in a strand of Christmas lights to create a glowing sphere you can suspend from a tree. While that part of it is interesting, more interesting is the story of how they became popular and…

  • Fishbowl Brings Facebook to Your Desktop [Downloads]

    Whitson Gordon
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm
    Windows only: Fishbowl, the Facebook client demoed at Microsoft's introduction to Silverlight 4, is now available for download—and it adds quite a few new desktop features to the Facebook experience, including badges, a mini news feed, and more. At first glance, Fishbowl looks a lot like a reorganized, slightly better looking version of Facebook. Along the top you have the usual sections of Facebook—Home, Profile, Photos, etc.—and on the left sidebar you have options for the window you're in. Navigating these sections is just like Facebook's web site, so it's pretty…

  • Use a Waffle Maker to Roll Your Own Pizza Pockets [Clever Uses]

    Jason Fitzpatrick
    21 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    If you want to squeeze even more miles out your seemingly one-trick waffle iron, you can use it to roll your own homemade Hot Pocket knockoffs. More than a few people have taken a long hard look at their waffle maker and said, "Certainly, you must be good for more than waffles." We've already shown you how you can use a waffle maker to crank out some quick cookies and make some great bacon, but now we're back to share how one munchie-driven Instructables user turned his into a homemade pizza-pocket maker. You'll need a tube of crescent roll dough and whatever filling you want to use. The…

  • Top 10 Ergonomic Upgrades for Your Workspace [Lifehacker Top 10]

    Kevin Purdy
    21 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am
    It's easy to forget about your body's needs when you're deep into your work or the net—until your body offers a painful reminder. Save your physical shell some strain with these cheap, customizable ergonomic workspace upgrades. Photo by IMG_3771 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!. 10. Elevate your laptop to eye level Your neck can't text you to explain how annoying it is to have to keep looking down at your laptop. Over time it will let you know, though, in a nagging, painful way. If your laptop is your day-to-day work machine, elevate it to eye level using any one of a number of clever…
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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

  • Weekly Wrapup: Google Chrome OS, Obama's Twitter, Blogging Statistics, And More...

    21 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we report on President Obama's (non)-use of Twitter, take a look at the past decade in the media industry, review the latest statistics about blogging, question if Oxford Dictionary should've chosen "unfriend" as its word of the year, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs). Sponsor Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup You can subscribe to the…

  • 3 Great Light Blogging Tools Compared

    20 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm
    Once the service for those serious enough to pay for the privilege to post, TypePad recently released a free "Micro" service. The company made the decision to offer a free product realizing the demand for a platform more formal than Twitter and less formal than Wordpress or Typepad's original product. ReadWriteWeb compared TypePad's Micro against 2 other leading light blogging tools. Below are our thoughts: Sponsor TypePad Micro: In addition to being able to blog via email, iPhone app, "Blog It" bookmarklet and the general WYSIWYG dashboard, this tool also allows users to cross post to…

  • An iPhone Visualization App That Syncs with the Cloud

    20 Nov 2009 | 3:50 pm
    Roambi announced a pro version of its iPhone application this week that syncs with Salesforce.com and other cloud-based services or on-premsie sales environments. It's a visualization application, providing mobile workers with a pretty cool way to see sales information. Integration is by far one of the most significant trends we are seeing in the enterprise space. It's a wave, really, marked this week by Salesforce.com and its move to turn the Force.com development platform into a service that makes all of its applications social. Sponsor A good example of this trend are small companies like…

  • 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.
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    Strobist

  • New Chinese TTL Remotes Surfacing for Nikon and Canon

    20 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Info is sketchy at this point. But the Strobist Flickr group is pretty much at DEFCON 1, of course. On a discussion thread, Flickr user "Cotswald," who is apparently involved with the company, says:• We WILL be selling these in Europe. I won't discuss exact prices, but will say that prices will be lower than those quoted above. (DH note: Less than $200/ set + shipping.)

• The PC socket is screwlock.

• They do support i-TTL, TTL and Manual.

• As said above, the Canon version will ship in the New Year, or just before XMAS.

• I am just checking trigger voltage safe…

  • 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…
 
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    Smashing Magazine

  • Zen Coding: A Speedy Way To Write HTML/CSS Code

    Sergey Chikuyonok
    21 Nov 2009 | 10:58 am
      In this post we present a new speedy way of writing HTML code using CSS-like selector syntax — a handy set of tools for high-speed HTML and CSS coding. It was developed by our author Sergey Chikuyonok and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.How much time do you spend writing HTML code: all of those tags, attributes, quotes, braces, etc. You have it easier if your editor of choice has code-completion capabilities, but you still do a lot of typing.We had the same problem in JavaScript world when we wanted to access a specific element on a Web page. We had to write a…

  • 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…
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    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

  • Mousing around: A review of Disney theme park iPhone apps

    Steven Sande
    21 Nov 2009 | 3:20 pm
    Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Holidays, App Store, App ReviewMy wife and I are unabashed Disneyphiles, so the last two months have been a lot of fun. After my wife taught a tutorial in L.A. last month, we spent a few days at the West Coast properties -- Disneyland and California Adventure. This month, we had some Disney Vacation Club points left over, so we spent five days at our "home" resort near Disney's Animal Kingdom, Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, and Disney's Hollywood Studios. I thought these trips would be a perfect opportunity to try out some of the many travel apps that have…

  • The Huffington Post has seen the iTablet... not!

    David Winograd
    21 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm
    Filed under: Humor, Rumors Gerald Sinden of the Huffington Post writes, with tongue firmly in cheek, that he was given the first production model of the iTablet and 24 hours to play with it. According to his post, it's gesture based and sports a 10" screen along with being a phone, albeit a large one. And foam corners. To prevent people from inadvertently blacking their eyes when they try to use it as a phone. Mmm-hmm. Really. There will be two cameras in it, and an option to mount it on the dashboard of your car when one camera will serve as a back-up camera, an option present in many high…

  • Attention to Detail: What we love in an app

    Erica Sadun
    21 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm
    Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, App StoreSoftware. It doesn't matter if it's for a Mac or for an iPhone. There are certain qualities we just love, that make an app really stand out to us. As a rough approximation, we call it "Attention to Detail" but there's a lot more going on than just looking at tiny details. It's about understanding the user, what he or she wants from the app and needs it to do and how the realities of being humans with weak eyes, large fingers, and bad memory affect the way software gets designed. I asked my TUAW colleagues to share their thoughts on what…

  • Getting bit by the Gmail "exceeded IMAP bandwidth limits" bug

    Steven Sande
    21 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, Bugs/Recalls, Troubleshooting, Snow Leopard I have a couple of Gmail accounts set up with Google Apps, so that Google is hosting my email using my own domain names. While those accounts have been working flawlessly for quite a while, I suddenly ran into issues a few days ago where Apple Mail couldn't pull email from the server. I could use the Gmail Web client and access the email, but using Mail or my iPhone, I'd get an error. Both Mail and the iPhone initially reported that either my password or username was incorrect, but after restarting my MacBook…

  • Super-panoramic showdown for Mac

    Tim Wasson
    21 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am
    Filed under: Software, Reviews, Graphic Design There are several photo-stitchers available for Mac (and several for iPhone as well), and most do a stellar job for stitching together 3-4 images into a panoramic image. However, I recently completed a project that required stitching together hundreds of images into some very large panoramas of several locations around beautiful Peoria, Illinois. What I found is that some of the programs which do admirable work on small stitching jobs performed very poorly on larger-scale panoramas. I tried several programs with varying results, and you can check…
 
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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

  • Photoshop in a Weekend – Book Review

    Barrie Smith
    21 Nov 2009 | 12:34 pm
    Adobe’s favourite son is often considered to be a powerful but daunting program yet many consider it to be an essential tool for photographers who take their efforts seriously. Photoshop in a Weekend, based on CS3, attempts to open the application and to be seen as a companion to the original Adobe manual. It begins with the lowdown on the companion programs — Photoshop Elements and Lightroom — and places them in the appropriate hierarchy. Successive pages deal with the key components, like Bridge, the role of Camera RAW and Image Ready. A useful chapter explains the methods of…

  • This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (15-21 Nov ‘09)

    Nicole
    21 Nov 2009 | 8:04 am
    In case you hadn’t heard, one of our forum admins is a new dad! Congrats Sime, Mum and Baby. Weekly Assignment Things got noisy for this week’s assignment which was Sound / Noise. We had a real variety of shots, but what made us pick the ones we did was most often because of the way that it really showed off sounds and the impact of those sounds. Our winner this week was rt80639’s “Colour of Sound” this was an excellent example of how the sound from speakers can be used creatively. While you might not be able to “hear” the sound in this one, it…

  • PORTRAITS: Weekend Photography Challenge

    Darren Rowse
    20 Nov 2009 | 5:37 pm
    Image by JOHN CORVERA This weekend your photographic challenge is to take and share a portrait. Early next week we’ll be launching our first ever e-book here at DPS – ‘The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography’ and in anticipation of the launch and to get a little practice in – I thought it’d be fun to set the challenge to take a portrait over the weekend. If you’ve not participated in our weekend challenges before – they’re pretty simple. You can see the last three weekends results in our Kitchens, Pets and Environment challenges. The…

  • 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…
 
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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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    Planet Photoshop

  • 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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    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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