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I’m teaching at Photoshop World Orlando

As many of you already know Adobe Photoshop World East is next week in Orlando and I'll be there presenting and teaching a couple of classes on the Conference Track as well as doing presentations on the show floor.
 

Wednesday, March 24th

I'm in the Adobe Booth on the tradeshow floor
2:15-3:00 PM – Cool Photoshop CS4 Features for Designers – In this session I'll show some Photoshop CS4 techniques for graphic designers including some integration tips with InDesign and Illustrator

4:15-5:00 PM – Design Across Digital Media with Adobe CS4 Design Premium – In this session I'll show tips and techniques that allow you to take your design products beyond print. Create interactive content and use video more effectively.
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Jawbone MyTalk

A few weeks back I reviewed the NEW Jawbone ICON Bluetooth headset. I continue to be impressed by this headset and it is now my default Bluetooth headset for voice communications. It even works with my WeePhone VoIP App for iPhone. One of the features that I wasn't able to review at the time was the new Jawbone MyTalk service. However, since that time I have been accepted into their Private Beta program. This is the first headset that I've seen or used that can not only be upgraded via your computer, but it can also be enhanced with additional options. One of the first things that I had to try out was the ability to download and install a different voice. You might be wondering why a Bluetooth headset has a "voice?" Actually the Jawbone ICON can give you verbal feedback. For example, if you press the button when you're not on a call it will read back the remaining talk time based on the current charge. I opted for a better voice. I really like The Ace voice. I love the accent 🙂

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Get a Snowflake for Podcasting on the Go

I recently spent a lot of time reviewing various desktop USB microphones for podcasting. Recently I've been traveling a lot for business and I'm not always able to use my favorite desktop mics on the go. Although I've had the Blue Snowflake mic for a while now, I've really been using it a lot lately and I'm reminded of just how great of a Mic this is. I recorded my last two episodes of the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast with it while on the road right in my hotel room. As a matter of fact this Mic lives in my suitcase. That way I know I always have a great mic with me when I'm on the go. 

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Hey! I’m in the 2010 Westcott Pro Lighting Catalog

I just had a chance to check out the NEW 2010 F.J. Westcott Pro Lighting Product Catalog and once again I'm honored to have not one but two of my photos in this year's issue. The first is a beauty image of the lovely Gina on page 8 and the second is of the beautiful Lauren on page  27. I took the Lauren photo at the Mary DuPrie Workshop, so Mary gets the credit for lighting that particular shot.

Nothing thrills a photographer more than seeing his/her work in commercial print jobs (well nothing besides paid work that is 🙂 )

Thanks again Westcott! Now I have to go do some shooting in hopes of making the 2011 catalog. Darn! LOL

Download your copy of the catalog here.


 

 

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See all of your Favorite Sites in One Spot

The concept of a custom "newspaper" has been tossed around for years. However, not many sites really deliver on this promise in a visually compelling or easy to use way. Most frequent blog site and news site visitors rely on their favorite RSS Reader Applications and Sites to see the daily headlines of their favorite sites. There's also Read It Later and sites like it that allow you to take the web pages you want with you and read them later offline. 

Alltop.com may be the one stop news site you've been looking for

Alltop.com does two things for me. Like a newspaper or magazine It allows me to see stories about the topics I'm interested in. Secondly, it allows me to create my own MyAlltop page with just the sites that I want to keep track on. When I featured Scott Kelby in my weekly Tech Profile post, he reminded me that Alltop can be very useful to see all the news you want in one place. This also means that you can discover new sites by checking out the MyAlltop pages of your friends or people you admire. Check out MyAlltop choices here. Then create your own!

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Tech Blog – Site Update, “speed it up!” :)

Hi, this is just a quick note to my readers and many of you who have left comments or sent me messages about my tech blog being slow. First of all thanks for the heads-up. I've been working with my hosting partner (Network Solutions) on these issues for the past week and I think progress has been made. There was a combination of two-three things going on which caused the site to run slower than normal over the past few weeks. The first two being my fault. This is a WordPress blog and with WordPress you can have plug-ins that add enhancements to your site. My problem was that I was running too many plug-ins. The more plug-ins you have the more RAM it takes and I was bumping into the RAM limit imposed by my ISP. This is why you'd sometimes get the weird database connection issues. The second problem was having too much content on the blog coming from other sources (like the RSS feeds on my main page from my other sites). The way my WordPress page is currently setup each external piece of content/feed had to be loaded first before you'd see anything. This could cause the page to take 30 seconds to load (sometimes longer). So I've eliminated a lot of the external feeds until I have some time to have the PHP code looked at. Lastly there was a server outage at Network Solutions day before yesterday that caused my page to fail intermittently. That server has been fixed. 

In my recent testing the page is loading in 10 seconds or less (it's a big page) on my hotel connection. So you should see a huge improvement starting  now. I've also installed a new caching plug-in that should help as well. Thanks for your patience!

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The Best Technology Doesn’t Always Win

 

 

If you've followed my blog then you know that I'm a BIG FAN of TiVo HD! I just LOVE the TiVo interface and I have a few of them in my home (ok more than a few). However, I got an email from a few buddies asking if I was going to upgrade to the NEW TiVo Premiere unit. Quite frankly I said "no". I had heard about the New TiVo Premiere and I had read some of the info, but there wasn't anything that jumped out at me as a must have. Now don't get me wrong. If I was in need of another unit for another room or if one suddenly died I'd be getting a Premiere in a heart beat. However, I didn't see anything that would justify the hassle of selling my old one, figuring out a way to transfer/keep the lifetime service and dealing with Comcast to come out and install the new one. 

 

TiVo posted a $10.2 million quarterly loss

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iPad Pre-orders to begin this Friday

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In case you hadn't heard, Apple will begin taking pre-orders for both WiFi and WiFi+3G versions of the iPad this Friday, March 12th presumably via the Apple Store Online. The WiFi model is supposed to ship on April 3rd (or you can reserve one for pickup). No word yet on the actual date that the WiFi+3G model will ship, Apple says in "late April."

 

Speaking of the WiFi+3G Model

I know that many of you hate AT&T with a passion. I have no passion one way or the other for them. However, in all fairness it looks like their claims of having the fastest (no one said most reliable or best coverage in your area) 3G network has some truth to it. PC World's results are in and in fact AT&T comes out ahead in their results.

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