Welcome to my technology blog!
Nothing pleases me more as a photographer than to see my work in print or on display. At this year’s Photoshop World Vegas my Egyptian themed shot was used in Westcott’s ad in the Photoshop World Conference Schedule/map book and the good folks over at Metal Mural had one of my images on display in their booth. See more of my work in print here.
I also caught this one!
It’s that time of year again. It’s time to head out to one of my favorite shows – Adobe Photoshop World. As usual I have a slew of classes that I’m teaching on a variety of topics. Everything from using the iPad in your Digital Photography Workflow, to InDesign classes for Photographers and Designers, to Importing and Managing your Images in Lightroom 4. Also while I’ve got your attention, the class that I’m doing on creating Interactive Portfolios is based on using InDesign to create Interactive Portfolios for Tablets, not websites.
I look forward to seeing you there!
We are excited to announce our plans to optimize a selection of our products to display your content on HiDPI displays, including the Retina Display available on the new MacBook Pro! Learn more on our blog
Adobe Revel is Adobe’s Photography Cloud Service. There’s currently a desktop Mac version and an iOS Version. With the Revel Service you can add photos from any device, do non-destructive enhancements and see those photos on any device. While Revel isn’t new, the 1.5 update adds the one feature that I’ve been waiting for – ALBUMS! Now that I can organize my photos in Albums (I know, simple concept right?) It just became much more useful to me.
Adobe Revel as a stand alone product/service isn’t that interesting for my workflow. However, with the updated Lightroom 4.2 (RC) Publish Collection plug-in I can now create Smart Published Collections that mirror my Portfolios (Collections) in Lightroom.
This means that when I update any of my portfolios (collections), all I have to do is press the Publish button in the Revel area and those portfolios are sync’d to the cloud and therefore my iPad, iPhone and other Macs.
There are some really great Portfolio apps for the iPad out there that do all kinds of cool things. Many let you customize them with your own brand, they have nice transitions and they allow for music to play during the show. GREAT! However, where most of them fall down is the difficulty in updating or keeping the portfolios current. For example, one of my Portfolios called “Recent Work” It has 24 images in it and after each shoot I put 1-3 images in and remove the oldest ones keeping it at 24. This takes two seconds in Lightroom. Now getting most Portfolio apps to reflect that update is often a very manual process. With Revel, I hit the Publish button on my “Recent Work” smart collection and my iPad is updated!
Well no! Most things aren’t perfect. Revel on iOS was not designed to be a portfolio app! It doesn’t have branding, music, transitions, etc. However, those kinds of things are much easier to add over time than getting the workflow right and getting the workflow right is the most important thing for me. Lightroom 4.2 with Revel 1.5 Album support is just about there.
You can download the Lightroom 4.2 RC build from Adobe Labs. It also includes:
New Camera Support in Lightroom 4.2 Release Candidates
You can learn more about Adobe Revel here. Please note that Adobe Revel is a paid service and you can try it for 30 days at no cost.
Get Revel for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch here.
Get Revel for Mac OS X here.
CrashPlan is my offsite/cloud backup of choice! I love the service and it has even saved my bacon a couple of times since I’ve been using it. Now it’s on sale for 20% off through Sept 8, 2012. Check it out here.
There are two types of computers users: those who have lost data and those who are about to lose data – BACKUP!
What good is your backup if it’s sitting next to your computer and you have a tragedy (fire, flood, theft, etc.)?
We’re very excited to announce the release of a new set of Adobe Illustrator features exclusively to Adobe Creative Cloud members and customers subscribed to Illustrator. These new features are being released to Creative Cloud members now, delivering on our promise that Creative Cloud members will get early VIP access to our latest innovations, including new features in our desktop software.
The three new features are focused on improving productivity, and will let you automatically package Illustrator projects and their related files for fast and accurate hand-offs, quickly unembed images that have been placed and embedded into Illustrator files, and more efficiently access information in linked files. To get these updates, just open Illustrator, and from the main menu, choose Help > Updates. Or download Illustrator for the first timehere.
To learn more visit the Illustrator or Creative Cloud product pages. If you aren’t a Creative Cloud member, or are signed up for the free Creative Cloud membership and want access to these Illustrator features, you can become a paid member here. Current Creative Suite customers can join Creative Cloud and get 40% off their first year of membership, and pay just US$29.99 per month for the first 12 months. See if you qualify.
See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version:
Seems to be a day of sweet deals. Amazon has dropped the price of the Nikon D7000 (my current travel body) signficantly. Check out this recent Nikon D7000 Price Drop here.
There’s even a bigger Price Drop on the Nikon 1 V1 here.
Purchase Any of these 3 Adobe Products
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| Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 |
Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 10 |
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 |
| And receive a promo code from B&H via email to save $400 on a purchase of an Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Windows or Mac. Email might take up to 48 hours. Promo Code must be used By August 31st (PLEASE NOTE This offer is not listed on the B&H WEBSITE)
The $400 Saving on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Windows or Mac will also be available to anyone who has purchased any of the 3 adobe products mentioned above from B&H in the past. An email will be sent to those customers. |
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Now that Apple has quietly added Hulu Plus to Apple TV (just reboot your Apple TV and it will be there). You have a choice in streaming TV/Movie Content Providers. I have been a Netflix customer for many years. I became loyal to Netflix on the day I saw the first ad that stated “no late fees!” I was so tired of Blockbuster and Hollywood video constantly charging me if my DVD wasn’t turned in on time. Yes being late is my responsibility, but watching movies by a certain day of the week didn’t always work for me. The Netflix model was much better. Keep it as long as you want. Those days are behind me. I don’t get DVDs/Blu-rays anymore in the mail. I do however stream Netflix content to my Apple TV and my iPad. Granted, it isn’t the quality of Blu-ray and you don’t have the latest movies to stream right away, but I can usually always find something to watch when I have time to watch. I don’t have to wait for a disc in the mail and I don’t have to return anything either. Yep, I’m a streaming kinda guy now.
I wasn’t interested in Hulu Plus at all! I didn’t see any advantage over Netflix, but I decided that since it was now built-in to my Apple TV I’d give it a shot. Let’s go through a comparison now.
Price – Hulu Plus is $7.99/month for unlimited watching and Netflix is $9.99/month for unlimited watching. The different is Hulu Plus still has commercials that you are forced to play before the program starts and usually in the middle of your show. There is no way to skip these ads. Right off the bat I have a problem paying for streaming AND seeing ads too! Netflix also offers plans that will include DVD/Blu-rays too. So for $17.98/month you get unlimited streaming AND 1 Blu-ray at a time (keep as long as you want with no late fees). This is the best of both worlds because you can still get a current movie on Blu-ray and stream everything else. I would have to give the price advantage to Netflix even though it’s $2 more, it doesn’t have ads.
Content – both Netflix and Hulu Plus have thousands of shows and movies, but the Netflix has more! More doesn’t necessarily mean better, but more is more. When you are looking for something to watch, chances are you’re more likely to find something on Netflix. Again Netflix has the advantage here especially if you’re more into movies. I would say that if you are more into TV shows you might like the Hulu Plus experience and content list a little better.
On Apple TV – As far as Apple TV is concerned the experience is about the same between the two services. You can search for shows by name, browse categories and see your recently watched shows.
Going mobile – both Netflix and Hulu Plus have mobile Apps that let you stream content to your iPad or iPhone/iPod touch. I’d call this one a tie.
Ultimately you will have to compare for yourself. I have no idea what shows or movies that you will be most interested in. For me the winner is Netflix if for no other reason I can’t stand the commercials on Hulu Plus. Luckily both services have trials. Again even when it comes to trails Netflix has the advantage. You can try Netflix for 30 days. You can try Hulu Plus for 1 week!
Déjà vu! It’s like 2010/iOS 4 all over again. A couple of years ago Apple updated iOS to include data tethering. This would allow you to use your iPhone’s data connection on another device like your laptop when you’re out and about. Not meant to be your main internet connection, but a nice plus for travelers that need to connect to the internet from their computers when there wasn’t any free WiFi hotspots available. Of course this was great unless you were an AT&T customer. Not only did it take AT&T forever to turn on this feature, but when they did they blocked it from existing customers that were grandfathered into their original unlimited data plans. They feared that all those users now tethering their laptops would bring the AT&T data network to its knees. They were probably right! In order to get tethering you had to be willing to leave your unlimited plan and sign up for a new Data Pro plan and pay extra for tethering.
Apple announced that when iOS 6 comes out this fall that you’ll (finally) be able to use FaceTime over a 3G network. I never really understood why this wasn’t available sooner since there are so many Apps on the App Store that let you do this today. Nonetheless, its’ coming, but wait for it….once again AT&T is saying no no no to those of us who are on unlimited data plans.
Not only that, they’re saying no to everyone on any existing plan! If you want to use FaceTime over 3G you’re going to have to switch to their newly announced Mobile Share plans. This of course didn’t go over well with customers and AT&T all but admitted that they fear that FaceTime over their fragile 3G network would cause everyone harm.
You might remember that when the New iPad came out that I switched from AT&T to Verizon for that device. Since then I’ve been enjoying tethering at no additional cost and I’ll likely enjoy FaceTime on it too over their fast (almost everywhere in the US) 4G LTE network.
FaceTime is great and I’ve always wanted it on my 3G/4G network, but I’m grandfathered into a corporate unlimited data plan that my company won’t be changing anytime soon. FaceTime only works with Apple iOS devices and Macs. Skype works with Macs, iOS devices, Windows, and Android devices. It works today over both WiFi and 3G! This means that I can video call just about anyone I know for FREE TODAY! I don’t have to wait for iOS 6 and I don’t have to switch plans, carriers or anything else. Is it as nice as having video chat built-in to the OS and tied to a person’s phone number/email address? No, but it’s more pervasive and less restrictive, available today and works over AT&T’s 3G network (go figure).
You can get Skype for your computer here.
You can get Skype for iPhone/iPod touch here
You can get Skype for iPad here
You can get Skype for Android here
