Adobe Photoshop World – Vegas Keynote Video

pswkeynote 

As promised I have posted the Adobe Keynote Video from Photoshop World Las Vegas. The keynote features lots of new technology introductions from both NAPP and Adobe. It’s well worth a watch. The keynote opens with some great football themed content from Scott Kelby and the Photoshop Guys and then they hand it over to Adobe’s SVP Johnny L who not only covers the progress that we’ve made with Photoshop CS4, but all the things that have come out since CS4 was introduced and a glimpse at some technologies in the works. Russell Preston Brown aka "Dr. Brown" helps out with the demos and shows how to use some of the cool features of Photoshop CS4 and Bridge CS4.

 

 

 Follow Me on Twitter for more updates through out the rest of the week.

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Photoshop World-Vegas Live Coverage

Photoshop World kicks off this morning with the Adobe Keynote address by SVP, Johnny L. I’ll be on hand to report the going ons here on my blog via Twitter. You can of course Follow me on Twitter or watch the feed here. I also hope to post video from the Keynote later today so check back for that too.

 

 

 

So why MMS?

 MMS-picture 

As you know AT&T finally enabled MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone last Friday after Apple introduced the feature back in July with the iPhone OS 3.0 update. Although the iPhone officially had this capability when 3.0 was introduced earlier this summer, AT&T iPhone customers had to wait until the end of summer before being able to use it. Now that it’s on and working for most of us (some are still having issues. If you are having issues, you may want to check out this troubleshooting document), the big question that I’ve been getting from a few friends is:

 

Why MMS? Why not just use email?

After all if you’re an iPhone user, you’ve been able to send pictures via email on your iPhone since day one right? In an iPhone only world, sending emails is a good way to go. However, most non-iPhones, especially non-smartphones, something as simple as email can be a real pain. Many (probably most) non-smartphone users don’t even have email setup on their phones. So the email would go to their computers and they would see what you sent then. OK, what’s wrong with that? Actually nothing at all. Desktop email is a rich experience and once the picture is received it can be printed, added to albums and managed in a photo management program. It can even be edited. So then why MMS? I don’t think that it’s one or the other (MMS or email), I think it’s a matter of using the right one for the right situation. Think of why you send SMS (text messages) vs. email today? Usually if you send someone an SMS message it’s because you want them to read it right then and there and usually you want a response. "Where are you?", "Bring home dinner." "What time does the movie start." "I’m running late." etc. etc. You could easily send each of these via email, but the problem is they may not get it in time. So you send an SMS message instead because you want immediate attention. 

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Join me at Photoshop World – Vegas

PSW09 

photo of me above by the amazing Joe McNally.

 

I’m headed to Photoshop World this week!

Photoshop World is one of the few shows I look forward to working each year because I have such a good time reconnecting with friends and customers. It’s really a treat being around a couple thousand users of your company’s products and the level of learning at this conference is second to none.

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Logitech Harmony Adapter for Playstation 3

harmonyps3 

Although I’ve had a Playstation 3 in my home theater setup pretty much since they introduced it, there has been one thing that has always bugged me about it and that is that there really wasn’t a great universal remote solution for it. Granted I’ve used work arounds such as the Nyko Playstation 3 remote/adapter, but it didn’t allow for 100% control over all functions such as power on/off. It also occupies one of the PS3’s USB ports. So needless to say, I was happy to see Logitech come out with an adapter that is 100% functional!

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iPhone MMS is here for AT&T customers! Sigh…

carrierupdate

As promised (late!) AT&T/Apple released the necessary Carrier update to allow MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

When you plug your iPhone 3G or 3GS (not compatible with the original iPhone) into iTunes,  and check for updates you should now see the update for Carrier Settings is available. I downloaded and installed the update which only took literally about 10 seconds to download and install.

updated

I didn’t notice any change at all until I powered the iPhone off and back on again. Once the iPhone came back up the preferences were there for MMS as well as the Camera icon in the Messages window.

 

It’s not soup yet

MMSprefs

As I expected everyone must be doing this all at once and of course testing it all at once and the servers are slammed!  From my iPhone 3GS I get an error each time I try to send an MMS message although regular SMS messages go through. AT&T warned some customers (via an SMS message yesterday) that it may take time for the feature to actually work and it wouldn’t affect sending SMS. Well I’m seeing that "not working" that they mentioned. I tested another iPhone here and tried using it to send my iPhone an MMS and while it did send, I still haven’t received it yet on my iPhone 3GS (10 minutes has past).  So once again we/I wait….

   MMSsending       .MMSerror

 

UPDATE! Turns out my initial sending problem was AT&T account related (old data on the account). Called them and they corrected everything. All set now.

 

What’s your experience been with this update/feature?

iPhone App of the Week – PhotoScatter

photoscatter

I share a lot of pictures on various services. The ones I use the most are Facebook and Flickr. Sure I use Smugmug, MobileMe, Photoshop.com, Twitter, my own blog and others, but Facebook and Flickr are the ones I use the most often. Although I love the features of MobileMe, Smugmug and the others, the people that I share the most with are all on Facebook or Flickr. 

 

Shoot it once, upload it to many

pscatt1

Photoscatter aims to be the only photo uploading app you’ll need. With Photoscatter you can upload to:

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • ShutterFly
  • PhotoBucket
  • Picasa
  • Twitter

all at the same time! Of course you can choose which services you want to upload to on an image by image basis. 

 

This app is ideal for me. If I’m at an event and want to share a quick snapshot from my iPhone with all my friends, I can shoot it and upload it to Facebook, Flickr and even Twitter all at once.

pscatt-take-choose     |pscatt-picture

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iTunes 9.0.1, a closer look

 itunes9_main

iTunes is one of those apps that’s usually open on my computer throughout the day. I’m either using it to update the contents of my iPhone or simply playing music in the background. I really like the new features of version 9 and I am a fan of the app in general, however there are a couple of things in iTunes 9 that make me cheer and sigh at the same time:

 

Genius Mixes

geniusmixes

Genius Mixes is a new feature that compliments the previous feature of Genius Playlists. This feature however is completely 100% automated. So much so that you can’t even see which songs are included in the Genius Mixes, which are automatically generated.  I can live with not seeing the contents as for the most part the mixes are pretty good and play songs that I like, but haven’t listened to in a while. However, every now and then a song will start playing and I’m like "how the heck did that get in there?" For example, in one of my Jazz mixes, a Christmas song started playing. Of course I can just skip right by it, but it begs the question: "why can’t I simply choose songs in my library to NEVER be included in a Genius Mix? I know, I know, if I want more control that’s what Genius Playlists are for. I hear ya! However, for some reason I just really like the automation of the Genius Mixes more, I just wish that Apple would give SOME controls over it. 

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