Category: Where’s Terry White?

Come check me out when I’m out and about in your area!

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CS3 Government Briefing in DC

I’m here in Washington DC at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for the Creative Suite Briefing for US Government. We have over 500 people registered for this event. I’m here with my colleagues: Dave Helmly, Steve Whatley, Jerry Silverman, Tim Conrad and Clint Funk – showing the Creative Suite 3 Master Collection. This full day event started out with a really enthusiastic showing of Acrobat 9 and Photoshop CS3 and then breakouts this afternoon for Web and Video.
I’m posting this blog entry live using Adobe Contribute CS3 during my keynote address.

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A Weekend With Mary DuPrie

Carly shot with the Nikon D700 and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens

 

As many of you know, besides gadgets I have a passion for digital photography. I’m always learning something new. This past weekend I spent two full days with well known photographer Mary DuPrie. Mary is the master when it comes to directing and posing models and she’s also great when it comes to lighting, photo retouching and photography in general.

 

About the workshop

Mary offers these workshops quarterly and they are limited to FOUR photographers. That’s right, ONLY FOUR. Talking about personalized attention. As a matter of fact she is so adamant about this rule and class size that we missed her last regularly scheduled one because it was already full. Luckily she was able to accommodate not only myself, but my buddy Scott Kelby who flew up for the weekend to attend with me. Mary spent most of the first day giving us lessons on how to direct and work with inexperienced models. We even had a volunteer. David Teng brought his girlfriend Genevieve (‘Gen’) along and she graciously allowed Mary to show her how to model. Gen was perfect because not only had she not modeled before, but she really doesn’t like having her picture taken at all. So we got to see first hand how to work with someone from scratch. I didn’t bring my laptop the first day, so I really got a chance to give my iPhone’s Notes app a workout. I picked up a ton of tips on the first day that I will definitely be using from here on out.

After we saw how Mary works with models, we got a chance to see how she does one of her favorite beauty light setups. While I would love to go into great detail about this setup, it wouldn’t be fair to Mary as this is how she makes her living.

Mary DuPrie teaching us one of her beauty lighting setups which was used to capture the shot of Carly above

 

That aha moment

Any photographer that works in a studio often will tell you that it get’s kind of old shooting against a white background. I gotta admit that I was starting to cringe at the idea of doing more shoots in the studio. It’s summer and I want to get out more. However, I learned that you can do some amazing shoots INSIDE if you have the room and the right props. Mary is the queen of props. Here studio looks like a Pier 1 and Ikea store combined. You name it, she’s got it! She told us that we would be doing a “beach shoot” on the second day and I was like “yeah whatever, I’ve done swimwear shoots before.” I had no idea that she really intended to create a set from scratch that actually looked like a beach! It was truly amazing watching this thing come together. For a moment I felt like I was on a Hollywood set. This taught me that with a little imagination, you truly can create any kind of setting you want without having to always travel to a location. You also don’t have to spend a fortune on this stuff either. As Mary would say, “you’d be surprised by what people throw away these days” 🙂 Another eye opener for me was how much and how well she uses her Westcott TD5 Spiderlites. I will definitely be using mine more after seeing how she uses them.

Tiffany Stone shot with the Nikon D700 and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens

 

All-in-all it was two long days that were well spent and well worth my time and money. I got to hang with my buddy, meet some great photographers (Blake Discher and David Teng) and models (Tiffany Stone and Carly) and I got a chance to take my new Nikon D700 for spin. I also can’t leave out Tammy Pore, the makeup artist who did a fantastic job.

The workshop was also quite fun. By the second day we were probably doing more laughing than shooting at times, but that was so what I needed after a long work week. So, it was truly a great weekend. Now I realize that not everyone can get to one of Mary DuPrie’s workshops in person. No worries, she has three DVD’s available on her techniques. It was one of these DVDs that lead me to want to know more about how she does what she does. Also be sure to check out Scott Kelby’s write up on the workshop. He went into more detail and has some interesting perspectives on it too.

All of the shots above were processed through Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.

As you can see David doesn’t like to have his picture taken either 🙂 (just kidding David, but I couldn’t resist.)

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Monster Mash at ADIM 11

Yesterday we kicked off the ADIM conference here in San Jose California! ADIM is the Art Directors Invitational Masters Class. This annual event brings together some of the most creative minds in the world for 3 days of hands-on instructional courses dealing with photography, illustration, design and more. Each year there is theme and this year it’s Classic Monsters. The master mind behind this event is none other than Adobe’s Creative Director, Russell Preston Brown (pictured above to my right).

I had a great day teaching Acrobat 8 shared reviews, Acrobat Connect and retouching techniques in Photoshop CS3. I also want to thank all the great people I met in my class!

Instructors and attendees really getting into the theme 🙂

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Did you forget something?

A funny thing happened on my way to San Jose this week. Well actually the last thing I was thinking about on Saturday was laughing. I left for Detroit Metro Airport early Saturday morning. I got to the airport with my usual two bags. My suitcase and my large laptop bag. Since I planed on doing some shooting once I arrived in San Jose that afternoon I also had a fair amount of camera gear too.
I’m no stranger to TSA "bag checks". In other words I have a lot of electronic gear, batteries, etc. that sometimes triggers the x-ray person to call for a "bag check." Normally I can predict which items are going to cause problems and I take them out ahead of time and put them in a bin. So I had two bins. One with my jacket and misc. electronic gadgets and one with my laptop all by itself. Well apparently I didn’t take out enough stuff and I got pulled aside while they performed a detailed search of my laptop bag. So this meant gathering up my two bins and walking over to the TSA desk. Since I didn’t have enough free hands to carry the bins separately, I stacked them on top of each other.

 

 

Red Alert!

You know how they swab your bag/items with the little cloth and put it in the machine to check for explosive residue and other elements? Well mine turned red and the alarm went off! I just knew it would be a matter of moments before two guys came up and hauled me off to some dark room. However, that didn’t happen. I did get a pat down and continued checks on my bag. The TSA guy was nice but a little freaked out and even went to his supervisor for advice. They tried another machine and everything came up green and I was on my way. So I put all the stuff back in my bag from the bin.

 

Nice flight

The flight was uneventful and I just watched a movie on my iPhone, read a magazine and listened to music. Once I got to San Francisco I used my regular car service to get me to downtown San Jose.

 

That sinking feeling – 40 minutes of panic!

Once I got to my room (about 5 1/2 hours later from leaving Detroit Metro). I decided to pull out my MacBook Pro and do some testing with my lighting while shooting tethered. I unzipped it and looked down and didn’t see my MacBook Pro. My immediate thought was, "oh I must have taken it out already and it’s on the desk behind me – right?" So I slowly turned around to see that it wasn’t there! Then I thought, "oh it’s on the bed behind the bag!" It wasn’t there either. My heart sank! I started freaking out wondering if at any time did I not have control of my bag. Then it hit me that I never put my laptop back in my bag at the TSA desk 5 1/2 hours ago! OMG! It was in the second bin on the bottom of the first one.
I pulled out my iPhone and called information frantically seeking the number for the Detroit Metro Airport. I got the number and of course NO ONE ANSWERED! No recording, no busy signal, just NO ANSWER! I called back 3 times and it just rang! Then I called information again and asked if they had a different number. They did, I called it and got a FAX tone! GREAAAAAAT! WTF! I called and asked for the number to TSA. "What’s TSA?" OMG! You’re kidding me right? I was really freaking out at this point! So now I called Northwest Airlines and begged for them to either give me a number for the airport that someone would answer or call them for me. Luckily I got a NWA rep that felt my pain and went out of her way to try to get a human being at the airport. She did reach one person who informed her that when items like laptops are left at the security check points, they are turned over to the police. She then found the number to lost and found. I thanked her and called that number only to hear and I kid you not – "our office hours are Monday through Friday from 9AM-5PM, please call back during those hours!" I was dying at this point! So I remembered what she told me about the police and I called and got the number to Michigan State Police and called them. Mike answered the phone and checked his computer log and yes someone turned in an Apple laptop around 8:30AM that morning!!! I had already asked my wife to head to the airport because I wasn’t getting anywhere on the phone. So I called her and had her head to the police station instead.

 

A happy ending

My wife picked up my MacBook Pro that evening from the Michigan State Police station. One of my colleagues was heading to San Jose the next day for the same conference I’m attending and he met with her to pick it up so that he could bring it out to me. I’m typing this blog entry on it and all is well. However, besides actually forgetting to put it back in my bag, it really reminded about some common sense things that we should all do:

 

What you should do besides not being forgetful

First and foremost I had done a complete backup the night before I left. So I had a backup at home. However, now I’m thinking I should also travel with a backup drive too. Even if I had lost my laptop for good and was willing to go out and buy a brand new one that day, my backup would have been at home (on my Time Capsule) and I would not have been able to restore until I returned home days later, which would have meant a very unproductive week! Also before I leave the house I just close the lid and let my MacBook go to sleep. So if someone had stolen it, all they would have had to do is simply OPEN THE LID and they would have access to everything! I do have a password set for login/boot up, but I didn’t have the feature enabled that requires a password upon waking from sleep/screen saver (I do now!).
Lastly, I plan to tape my business card to the bottom of it. The police had no way to know who was the owner and who to call? There was nothing on the outside of the laptop itself that identified the owner! Mike from the Michigan State Police told me that they get 3-4 laptops a day! – WOW!

Lesson learned and it will NEVER happen again!

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Photoshop World ’08 – East – Wrap up!

photo by R.C. Concepcion

 

I had a blast at this year’s Photoshop World in Orlando! Being a Trekkie and having a Star Trek based theme was also a bonus. I wanted to take a moment here and THANK all the attendees that took time to come up to me and tell me that they appreciated the work that I was doing. I couldn’t believe how many readers of this very blog were at the show. It was great to hear all the feedback.

 

If you missed the show you’ll definitely want to check out my Creative Suite Podcast today for the special Photoshop World Keynote Episode. For those of you who were at the keynote, you’ll note that I had to leave out the funny spoof videos as they will be shown again at the Vegas show in the fall and I didn’t want to spoil the surprises. However, you will see Adobe’s SVP Johnny L. and Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty show off the latest and greatest Adobe technologies including some sneak peeks at CS4 technologies.

 

Also whether you were at the show or not, you’ll want to check out the Photoshop World Blog which has several highlights and photos from the event. There are only two shows that I actually "enjoy" working/attending and those shows are Photoshop World and Macworld Expo. So I hope to see you in September at Photoshop World in Las Vegas. As you would expect, I bought some photography gear at the show and I’ll be reviewing it in the coming days. So stay tuned.

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Great turnout here at Photoshop World Orlando

Teaching Intro to InDesign CS3 at Photoshop World in Orlando – Photo by R.C.

 

I gotta say that I’m having some really good classes here in Orlando at Photoshop World. Yesterday, I had standing room only in the Adobe Theater on the show floor as I was showing the NEW Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Public Beta and today I had about 300 people in my InDesign CS3 class.

There are about 2,700 people in attendance at this year’s east coast show. Everyone I have talked to is jazzed about the show and all the things that they are learning. I want to thank all of you who took the time to come up to me and let me know that you enjoy this blog and my Creative Suite Podcast.

Well back to work! I have one more class today and Midnight Madness tonight 🙂

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AT&T and Verizon 3G cards compared

I’ve been a long time fan of Verizon’s EVDO network. I was a fairly early adopter and have been quite happy with the service. However, there is one thing that has led me to have to look at an alternative network and that’s the fact that I’m traveling abroad more and more for work. Verizon’s EVDO network is great in the states, however it’s practically non-existent outside of the US.

So with that in mind I signed up to get a AT&T 3G card through work. At the time I ordered the card, the ExpressCard version was not available to us to order. So I went with the USBConnect 881 card. While I would much rather have an ExpressCard version simply because it fits better into the MacBook Pro, the USB version works with computers that don’t have ExpressCard slots and it’s not that bad.

Before I have my Verizon card turned off, I decided to do some speed tests in various locations before my next international trip. I went to Miami for a conference and I fired up both cards and did some tests at my favorite internet speed testing site, speakeasy.net/speedtest/. While I was in Miami, I got these results (tested against the Atlanta server):

Verizon EVDO speeds using a V740 (rev.A) card

AT&T USBConnect 881 card

 

Next I traveled to Seattle for a week of meetings and here’s what I got (tested against the Seattle server):

Verizon EVDO speeds using a V740 (rev.A) card

AT&T USBConnect 881 card

The speeds vary from location to location. However, AT&T’s upload speeds seem consistently faster than Verizon’s.

 

Traveling internationally

Sunrise in Marbella Spain this morning (makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn’t it? 🙂 ) If you’re interested in exactly where this shot was taken, check out the embedded GPS metadata in the shot or simply click on it above.

 

This week I’m in Marbella Spain for meetings and while I have a very good Wi-Fi connection at the hotel here, there were a couple of times I had no access and used the AT&T card. So I decided to run a test here too and here’s what I got (tested against the New York server):

As you can see 3G speeds are not the same everywhere. Although the driver reported that I was on a "3G" network here, the speeds were dramatically slower than what I was getting in the states. Although slower, the speed I’m getting here in Spain is fine for email and general web surfing.

 

 

Mac compatibility?

The Verizon cards are directly supported by Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard. This is a great thing because it means never having to worry about installing or updating drivers. You just plug the Verizon card in and activate it directly from the menu that pops up in your menu bar. However, this is not the case with the AT&T USBConnect 881 card or the AT&T ExpressCards. With the USBConnect 881 card I had to go download the free driver from Sierra Wireless. The instructions were pretty clear on where to download the driver right in the packaging that came with the card. However, this driver seems minimal at best. I find that I have to launch and relaunch it a few times occasionally to get it to actually connect. Once it does connect it’s pretty stable and stays connected for me. I’m surprised that Apple doesn’t support the AT&T cards natively in the OS like they do for Verizon cards considering their relationship with AT&T with the iPhone.

Sierra’s Mac driver

 

What about the costs?

3G wireless cards/plans aren’t cheap. However, if you travel regularly you could easily justify one if you regularly pay for hotel internet access which ranges from from $9.95-$24.95/day. Of course some hotels have free internet access, but unfortunately that’s not the norm. The Verizon V740 EVDO card/plan goes for $59.99/mo. ($79.99 for the card if you do a 2 year contract or $204.99 if you do a 1 year contract). Verizon also offers a USB solution. Although Verizon claims their service to be "unlimited", there are in fact limits and if you hog too much bandwidth, you could get your service suspended. Check out the 3gstore.com site for best prices and info.

The AT&T card goes for $60/mo. (5000MB/mo. max bandwidth without paying overages) When roaming in Canada – 0.015/KB, when roaming internationally 0.0195/KB. The card is $49.99 with a 2 yr. contract and after rebates. You could just buy the card outright for $299.99 with no contracts.

 

The Bottom Line

If you spend more than 7 nights a month in hotels paying for high speed internet, getting a 3G wireless card is a no brainer. If you travel internationally, then you’ll want to go with one of the AT&T cards. By the way, the hotel internet here in Spain is € 19.95/day (including local tax) which works out to be $30.63/day US! If you only travel in the US, then Verizon has the better coverage at the moment than AT&T.

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Macworld Expo wrap up

It’s that time again. The time where people ask me, "so how was Macworld?" My response – "it was cool!" This year’s Macworld didn’t pack very many surprises. Most of the announcements by Apple had already been rumored (some with amazing detail). There wasn’t very much at the show that blew me away. I had a good week packed with presentations and I feel personally that I got a lot done and showed some really cool Adobe technologies. So for me personally the show was "cool!"

Sitting with my Adobe buddies Seb, Dave, Colin and Adam – waiting for the keynote to start.

 

So let me answer what you’re really asking: What did I think of Steve’s "4 things"? Alrighty, let’s take them in the order they were announced:

 

Time Capsule

I think this is a cool product that complements Mac OS X Leopard and makes it drop dead simple for people to not only set up a Wi-Fi network, but also to share a built-in hard drive, backup all their Macs and share a printer if they choose to. It’s hard to go wrong with this product. My only concern as a power user is the speed (or lack there of) of backing up over Wi-Fi. I tried it from my MacBook Pro to another Mac over 802.11n using Time Machine and it was just too slow to do regularly. Now keep in mind that I’m an MS Entourage user who’s main identity weighs in at 3.74GB. So that’s a big chunk of data to be backing up each hour. The average user won’t have that problem. So I think Time Capsule will be a hit!

 

The iPhone 1.1.3 update

I always welcome more iPhone features that are available for free. So how can I complain about 1.1.3? I still have about 46 things on my list of 50 ways to make the iPhone better. 1.1.3 gave me SMS to multiple users and a customizable home screen. The additions to Google maps with the sudo GPS feature rock! I also like the new lyrics support in the iPod app and IMAP support for GMAIL accounts. I know this stuff takes time, however I do wish Apple would come out with these updates on a monthly basis. There are still several things I want on my iPhone. I’m also anxious to see what 3rd party developers come up with once the SDK ships next month. Things should really start to heat up then!

 

iTunes Movie Rentals an Apple TV Take 2

I never understood the concept of buying movies via iTunes! I’m a movie buff, but for the cost of buying a movie on iTunes, I could have a DVD and get a better experience. So needless to say, I didn’t buy very many movies on iTunes (3 to be exact and the first one was a test). Renting movies is the way to go. I have already had my first iTunes rental experience and it didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. As I reported, you absolutely HAVE TO BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET in order to start a rented movie. iTunes needs to connect to the iTunes store online to start the 24 hour viewing period. This is even the case if you are transferring the movie to an iPod or iPhone.

I ran into another problem. Although Steve said that rentals can be moved from device to device apparently those devices can’t be multiple computers. Unlike music purchases, whichever Mac or PC you rent a movie on is the one that you have to watch it on. After I got home from Macworld, I started my movie to see if it worked. It did. The next day, I tried copying it to my Mac mini which is hooked up in my home theater (and is running the latest iTunes/QuickTime) and I got an error stating that it "Could not play the rented movie because it is authorized to play on another computer or device."

The error I got when I tried to play my rental on a different Mac.

 

Although the new iTunes 7.6 allows you to "transfer" your rentals to a compatible iPod or iPhone, there doesn’t seem to be a mechanism to transfer your rentals to a different computer. You can only watch it on the computer you rented on. These restrictions really put a strain on the 24 hour viewing period which at first sounded OK, but If I have to put that much thought into where I rent it, when I want to watch, be connected to the internet, etc., then the viewing period should be more like 48-72 hours.

The biggest problem I see with the service besides the time limits is the fact that iTunes won’t have new releases until 30 DAYS after they come out on DVD. That will seem like an eternity at times. I’m all for iTunes rentals, however in their current state I’m not ready to give up my Netflix account.

Check out the iTunes Store Movie Rental FAQ for more on what you can and can’t do.

As far as the Apple TV Take 2 is concerned I was very pleased that this didn’t require new hardware. The new interface looks slick and it will be great to be able to buy/rent content directly from my TV as opposed to having to download it first on my computer and then sync/stream it to my Apple TVs. I can’t wait for the update!

 

The MacBook Air

When I saw what "The something is in the Air" was, I thought, "wow that’s really neat, but not for me!" I think the MacBook Air is a phenomenal piece of engineering. However, it’s just not strong enough to replace my MacBook Pro and since I don’t need two laptops, it’s just not for me. Some have started to knock it and complain about what it doesn’t have. I say to those users, "then it’s not for YOU!" It amazes me that people beat up Apple and other companies about what a new product doesn’t have. Do you beat up developers for building one bedroom apartments because you have a family of four? No that would be silly. You just find a place with enough rooms for your family. So why should this be any different? The MacBook Air will be a hit with people that want a lightweight notebook that they will primarily use for internet surfing and email They’re not doing a lot of heavy duty processing and they don’t store tons of data on it. It would be great for someone who already has a desktop Mac as their main computer, but want a notebook for going on the road with. The list goes on.

On the show floor at Macworld Expo holding the new MacBook Air – it’s stunningly light!

 

But Terry, it doesn’t come with an optical drive, Ethernet or Firewire. The hard drive is only 80GB at 4,200 rpms. Yup, you’re right – and? If those things bother you, then this isn’t the notebook for you. You can buy an external optical drive that is USB bus powered for $99. You can add Ethernet via a USB adapter for under $30. Sorry no Firewire.

So what do I think of the MacBook Air. I think it will be one hot seller for the market that it’s intended for! Is it for everyone? nope. Am I buying one for me? Not likely.

 

OK, what else was at the show?

Well, I gotta say there wasn’t a whole lot that impressed me this year. Adobe was showing off the new Photoshop Elements Mac 6.0 and that really was cool, but you knew I would say that right. Otherwise, I got a chance to get by the Garmin booth and check out their new Mac apps for their various GPS units. All good stuff. Microsoft was there of course. They shipped Microsoft Office 2008. I’m not a huge Word or Excel user, but I do have to use Entourage for work email. So it’s great having a Universal Binary of this app. There really wasn’t any new hardware that was a must have.

Sarah give up, you’ll never find an iPhone case at this show 🙂

 

If you were looking for a new case or speaker system for your iPod or iPhone this was the place to be! Honestly guys, do we really need this much of a selection for iPod/iPhone cases? There was a vendor in just about every aisle selling them.

All in all, it was a good show. Last year’s iPhone announcement was hard to top. I think Apple did some good things this year and I’m sure their success will continue throughout 2008! Also check out Macworld’s own Best of Show winners and you’ll see what I mean. Not a lot there that has a wow factor.

Here’s a funny clip that summarizes Steve’s keynote in 60 seconds:

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2008. There’s something in the air.

teaser banner posted at the entrance to the exhibit hall

 

Well today is the big day! I’m here live getting ready for the Apple/Steve Jobs Keynote at Macworld Expo. I’m going to attempt live updates from the keynote using my iPhone. If all goes well you’ll get a blow-by-blow on what’s being announced.

So refresh this page often from 9AM-11AM PST…

8:26am I’m standing in line to get in.

9:05am Steve took the stage, thanked the software vendors for being native intel. MS Office 2008 for Mac is the last major app to be ported to intel Macs. He’s introducing 4 things today!

9:20 am Steve introduced Time Capsule – 500MB $299, 1TB $499 – This is an AirPort Extreme base station with a hard drive built-in. Its a companion to Time Machine backup appliance for Leopard.

9:21 am Steve announced 4 million iPhones sold today – 200th day today since the launch.

9:23 am Great new features being rolled out Today for the iPhone. The iPhone can now find your location. Webclips, Up to 9 total home screens, SMS multiple people, if your song has lyrics, they’ll display.

9:26am Steve is demoing the new maps feature with the “find my location” feature.

9:27am Now he’s demoing the new Web Clip feature for the iPhone. This allows you to ad websites directly to your home screen on the iPhone.

9:30am Now he’s demoing customizing the home screen on the iPhone.

9:30am Working with Google and Skyhook wireless to make the “find me” feature on the iPhone. This is using both cell tower technology and wi-fi hot spot beacon locators to triangulate your position on the map on the iPhone.

9:33am Just demoed bookmarking spots in movies on the iPhone. All of these iPhones updates are available today as free updates. “What can we do for the iPod touch today?” We’re adding 5 apps!

Adding Mail, Stocks, Notes & Weather, Maps with Wi-Fi location. Starting today it’s built-in to new ones. Available as a $20 update for existing users. That was the 2nd thing he wanted to talk about today!

#3 “it’s about iTunes!” Sold the 4 billionth song last week!

Sold 20 million songs on one day on Christmas day. A new record. Sold more TV shows and more Movies than anyone else!

iTunes movie rentals with 12 major movie studios -every major studio.

9:38am Flipping through all the great new titles.

9:39am Launching with over 1,000 films by the end of Feb. Films 30 days AFTER their DVD release (what?). You have 30 days to start to watch it. You have 24 hours to watch it after you start watching it as many times as you want within 24 hours. $2.99 for an older movie, $3.99 for a new release.

iTunes Movie Rentals Launches TODAY! Free update to iTunes – US Today, International later this year.

What about your TV? All of us have tried (MS, Apple, TiVo, Netflix, Blockbuster). We’ve all missed! We tried with Apple TV. It’s not what people wanted.

We’re back with Apple TV 2. No computer is required! It’s about Movies, Movies, Movies. You can rent movies directly on the TV. DVD quality AND HD Quality (Yeah!) with 5.1 surround sound.

Supports photos from your computer AND directly over the internet – Flickr and .Mac. Podcasts directly from Apple TV. as well as Buy TV shows and Music. All of the original features as well.

HD movies are $1 more ($3.99 & $4.99). You can choose either format. Now he’s showing the new interface.

The interface is pretty slick! It’s all about the movies. Now showing Blades of Glory description. You can preview the movie first.

Now he’s renting it. The movies is already ready to play. It’s playing now. So it downloads a little of it first and then you start watching it while it downloads the rest in the background. It looks very impressive! That was DVD quality. Now he’s showing Live Free or Die Hard in HD. Continuing to show the interface of the new Apple TV, including search.

9:50am Still talking about Apple TV and iTunes.

9:54am Now showing HD podcasts streaming on the Apple TV in HD.

9:55am Yep, he’s still talking about Apple TV. Now showing streaming photos and home movies over the web off .Mac & Flickr.

9:57am Oops, there’s a glitch. The Apple TV looks like it locked up only playing sound from a Flickr site, but no photos. Now he’s recapping the stuff you just read above!

9:59am Made a joke about Flickr – “when they’re serving up photos” – chuckle

FREE Software Update for existing Apple TV users! Way to go Steve – you rock!

Lowered the price to $229 from $299 of Apple TV. Software update available for free in two weeks.

Movie rentals can be watched on your computer, Apple TV, iPods and iPhones. “I think we’ve got it all together!” The first studio to sign up was 20th Century Fox. Jim Gianopulos (Chairman & CEO) is now taking the stage.

10:03am Jim is talking about the business model and what everyone wants.

10:06am People will still want DVDs (“Blu-ray looks like the winner”). Showing the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD. This DVD contains a digital copy that can be moved to your iPod, etc.

Now for the 4th Thing! Here it comes.

“Apple makes the best notebooks on the planet” The MacBook Air

The world’s thinest notebook!

10:09am Going over the competition now. 3lbs is a good target!

MacBook air .76″ down to .16″ The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thickest part of the Sony viao. He has it in a interoffice mail envelope! It just took it out. It’s insanely thin!

Full size keyboard – full size display.

13.3″ widescreen LED backlit display – instant on the minute you open. Built-in iSight. Magnetic, no physical latch. Has the ambient light sensor on the keyboard. Multi-touch gesture support on the trackpad.

You can set your preferences for the trackpad. You can rotate a photo by turning it on the trackpad, double tap to then move a window. 3 fingers to switch photos – pinch to zoom in and out all from the trackpad.

1.8″ hard drive. Ships with an 80GB HDD standard with an optional 64GB solid state drive (“it’s pricey”)

1.6GHz core 2 duo standard, with an option to go to 1.8GHz. 60% smaller package for the chip thanks to intel!

10:18am Paul Otellini intel CEO taking the stage and talking about the product.

USB 2 port and Micro DVI and Headphone jack, 802.11n, Bluetooh 2.1 + EDR, No Optical Drive. You can buy a USB powered optical drive fro $99.

Steve is going over the reasons why you don’t need an optical drive anymore. We’re going to install software wirelessly too. A new feature called Remote Disc. So you’ll be able to put the disc in another Mac and use it on your MacBook Air wirelessly! Even on a PC!

Battery life – 5 hours with everything on.

2GB of RAM standard!

Priced at $1,799!

Shipping in 2 weeks, taking orders today.

Now showing the new TV ad for the MacBook Air

Now going over the new Environmental efforts. Mercury-free display with arsenic-free glass, case is recyclable. Retail packing is 50% less volume.

MacBook Air – The thinest notebook in the world! “That is the 4th thing that I wanted to talk about today!”

Now reviewing the 1st 2 weeks of 2008 and their innovation. Recapping the new Mac Pros and everything announced today.

We’re done! Now bringing up – Randy Newman to perform a few songs.

10:31 Randy has just started playing.

So I’m wrapping this post up now and I’ll post more later on my opinions and take on all of the above! Have a great day!

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I’m at Macworld Expo this week!

San Francisco Bay Bridge taken from Coit Tower (download the image, it has GPS data in the metadata)

Coit Tower – one of the coolest vantage points in the city – Thanks CZ for turning me on to this location!

 

I made it into San Francisco yesterday and got a chance to do a little shooting with my buddy Sarah K. before all the Mac (iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, etc.) madness kicks off.

Sarah grabbing some shots from atop Coit Tower.

 

I’m looking forward to the show and Apple has already put up a few teaser banners "2008: There’s something in the air". I’ve already given up speculating on what that could mean because we’ll all know by tomorrow. 🙂

Today is my first ever hands-on lab training session at Macworld. I’ll be doing Adobe CS3 tips and tricks from 2-4PM PST today at the conference. From 4-7PM PST I’ll be at the User Group reception at the Westin.

Tomorrow is the big Steve Jobs keynote address and I’m going to attempt my first ever live blog update. I’ll be putting the iPhone to the test and updating my blog live from the keynote. So check back tomorrow and refresh the page Keynote Coverage Page (which will go up in the morning) from 9-11AM PST for my updates as fast as I can tap them out on the virtual keyboard (please no wise cracks about typos and mispellings OK? 🙂 ).

After the keynote, I’ll be on the show floor hanging out and checking out the latest and greatest advancements.

On Wednesday, be sure to check out my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Workflow session at the Adobe booth as well as my iPhone tips and tricks session at the Peachpit booth at the end of the day.

If you’re here at the show and see me, holler!

Don’t forget to check out my Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 Walkthrough Video!