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iTunes HD or Blu-ray?

ituneshd

In case you missed it, Apple just recently started selling movies via iTunes in HD. I’m not sure why it took so long for this to happen, but I would bet money that it had more to do with Hollywood than Apple. When you look at the severely limited number of HD titles for sale, we can only look to Hollywood and their relentless need to control everything to blame for this. Nonetheless, HD movies are now available not only for Rental (which Apple has been doing for over a year), but also for purchase. Like most things on iTunes, the number of titles will ramp up quickly. So this now leads me to my question:

iTunes HD or Blu-ray?

Let me remind you that I no longer just buy movies just because. One day I noticed I had a few movies in my collection that were still in the shrinkwrap. It hit me that I just rarely have the time or desire to watch movies that I’ve already seen. So whereas before I was buying just about every movie that I liked, today I would have to really really really really really like a movie to actually buy it. I have to weigh the cost of the movie vs. the number of times I’m likely to watch it again. Even if I want to watch a movie again, I have to ask: is it cheaper just to rent it again than to buy it?

Any recent movies I’ve purchased (and it’s only been a few) have been in Blu-ray format. I figure that if it’s good enough to buy, then I want it in the best possible format. Owning a movie in Blu-ray though does present a couple of challenges. For one, it can only be played in a Blu-ray player. So that limits me to watching the movie at home and not on the road on my laptop. That also limits the number of friends I could loan the movie too. A few of the movies I’ve purchased came with Digital Copies. So that at least takes care of the “take it on the road” problem, but due to copy protection/DRM I still can’t loan the movie out to friends.

I had a chance over the weekend to buy my first HD movie via iTunes and the process was as simple as buying any other item on iTunes. I was pleasantly surprised/reminded that when you buy HD content on iTunes, they automatically include a smaller standard def version for your portable devices (iPhones/iPods) and to take on the road with you. While this does make the download bigger (you’re downloading two movies instead of one) and take up more hard drive space, I welcome this. I purchased Transporter 3 (not because it’s all that great of a movie, it was just that the number of available titles in HD for purchase right now is severly limited). The iTunes HD version is $19.99. The Blu-ray price is $25.99 and does include a Digital Copy.

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The iTunes HD version weighs in at 3GBs of drive space plus 1.1GBs for the standard def version that’s included.

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Which is better?

That’s the real question isn’t it? That’s also probably why you’re reading this. Unfortunately “better” depends on what you want. So let me give you the pros and cons and you decide for yourself:

Blu-ray

Pros:

Full HD quality 1080p, extra content (outakes, bloopers, commentary, etc.), BD Live – access to online content from within the movie including games, online communities, extra scenes, etc. Can share with friends/family who have Blu-ray players.

Cons:

Costs more per movie, requires a Blu-ray player, most laptops don’t have Blu-ray drives for watching on the go and not all titles include a Digital Copy. Takes up physical shelf space to store the discs. You have to either go out and purchase or order online and wait for the disc to arrive. Discs can become scratched and unplayable.

iTunes HD Movies

Pros:

Costs less than movies on Blu-ray, can purchase and download right in your own home, comes with a copy for your other devices (iPod or iPhone).

Cons:

Not the highest quality HD (only 720p), takes up hard drive space to store the movies (3GB for the HD version, 1.xGB for the standard def version), not sharable with others outside of your home due to DRM copy protection (when will Hollywood learn the same lessons that the music industy learned and do away with DRM?). Not burnable to optical media a video DVD/Blu-ray disc (again because of DRM protection).

The Bottom Line

Things just keep getting better as iTunes, TiVo, Netflix, Cable/Satellite companies continue to compete for our business. Having the ability to buy and download an HD movie right from my TV with Apple TV or from my computer is pretty sweet. Although iTunes HD movies are not full 1080p, I love the fact that they don’t take up any physical shelf space in my home. This also means that they are instantly available to all of my TV’s (via Apple TV streaming) because they are stored on a central media server (an iMac). Also keep in mind that 720p is still better than standard DVD quaility. So on those rare occassions when I think a movie good enough to actually own, I’ll probably look first to buying it via iTunes in HD format before going to Blu-ray now. If it’s a movie with the ultimate in visual effects and would really pop in all of its 1080p glory then I might consider owning it on Blu-ray. For right now my plan is to continue with Netflix and renting on Blu-ray for most of the movies I watch and renting on iTunes for those spontaneous moments when I just want to watch a movie that’s not physically sitting in my house/library. If iTunes ever offered a subscription rental service for movies my love for Netflix would be in serious jeopardy. I’ve recently cut my plan back to have less movies at home because they sometimes just sit here for weeks at a time when I’m too busy to watch them. This is one good thing about the pay as you go iTunes Rental model. You only pay for a rental when you’re ready to watch it!

I’m just glad to be living in a time where we have so many options for in home entertainment. I can see the day coming in the not too distant future that my DVD racks become a fond memory. I’ll either have all of my favorite movies streaming from my media server or available for instant renting/viewing over the internet. Hard drive space is cheap! I’m almost there today,  building my home media center with Netflix/TiVo HD and Apple TV. Life is good!

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iPhone App of the Week – Twittelator

twittelator

I like to keep up with my friends, families and colleagues online. One of the easiest ways of doing that is via social networking sites. I’m a fan of Facebook and now Twitter. Twitter is cool because it’s all about status updates and that’s it! Short, sweet and to the point. What are you doing right now? PERIOD. You can even include a picture of what you’re doing right now. Each “Tweet” (post) is limited to 140 characters.

The iPhone is great for this

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Since I’m not sitting in front of my computer 24 hours a day (contrary to popular belief), it’s great being able to send Tweets while I’m on the go directly from my iPhone. As you might imagine there are multiple apps available for posting to Twitter. I counted a half dozen without trying to count. Without knowing anything about these apps, I settled on Twittelator. It was free and ad free and seemed to have a straight forward interface.

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It wasn’t the highest rated, but again it just seemed to do everything I would need in an easy way. I was right. Twittelator is very easy to use. Once you setup your free account at Twitter.com, you input your account info right into Twittelator. From that point on each time you launch the app you’re taken to your Friend’s Tweets, which will also include your Tweets. Tap the little voice bubble icon at the bottom and key in your status update (Tweet). Want to add a photo? Tap the camera icon to either choose one or take one on the spot. Hit the send button and away it goes.

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You can view your Tweets, Replies, Friend’s Tweets, Top Tweets, etc.

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Again, I don’t know what else I could want. I will eventually try out some of the other higher ranked apps, but for right now this is the one. It works perfectly for me, no problems to date.

The Bottom Line

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Being that this is the first iPhone Twitter app I’ve tried, I don’t know if it’s the best or not. Certainly, it does what I need it to do and so far haven’t once wished for something it doesn’t do. However, I wanted to see why it only had a 3 star rating (out of 5) on the App Store and I read some of the customer reviews. I don’t usually pay that much attention to star ratings unless they are only 1 or 2 stars. The one thing I saw that I hadn’t considered, again because I was using it to do one simple task was that it doesn’t seem to support Twitter’s direct message feature. A direct message on Twitter is basically a way of sending one of your Twitter friends a private message. I could certainly see why you would want that in your iPhone version of Twitter if you used it a lot. I don’t, so that’s why I never even thought about it not being there. Others have complained about slow scrolling in the past versions. Seems like they’ve address scrolling in general in the latest rev.

Twittelator is a Free download from the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch. There is also a professional version, Twittelator Pro for $4.99. Although the paid version does a lot more, I’ll probably stick with the free version because it seems to do all that I need.

Here’s a tip! If you use Twitter and Facebook, check out the Twitter application for Facebook. Once you install it on your Facebook Profile, any Tweets you make on Twitter will automatically update Facebook status. This is great because I only have to post in one spot – Twitter (or Twittelator).

Follow me on Twitter

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Thanks for Attending!

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I want to give out a thanks to those of you who attended my online Photoshop Essentials session last night. We had attendees from as far away as Norway (midnight their time) As promised for those that couldn't make it, here's the URL for the recording to watch at your leisure. I will definitely work on better audio (using a better mic) for the next one. Thanks again! Look for more of these in the future.

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iPhone 3.0 – What’s my take on it?

I always welcome any update to my hardware that’s going to give me more capabilities. I especially look forward to those updates when they are FREE! So Apple’s iPhone 3.0 announcement yesterday was welcomed news. Granted, we still have to wait a few months before the new 3.0 OS ships this summer, but I’m excited with the new features that they are promising. Now keep in mind that I think that many of the new features are in the “catch up” or “about time” category. However, they are welcomed nonetheless.

Whenever Apple releases a major update to the iPhone, the first thing I do is go back to my “iPhone Wish List” and check off the wishes that have been met.

My friends are already asking me “what do you think of the 3.0 announcement?”

Here’s what I know so far (in no particular order)?

  • Create Meeting Invites in Calendar
  • Shake to Shuffle
  • Encrypted Profiles
  • Anti-Phishing
  • Wi-Fi Auto Login
  • Stereo Bluetooth
  • YouTube Accounts
  • Safari – Auto Fill
  • Notes Sync
  • Search from a single location ala Spotlight
  • Search in Mail, Calendars, iPod and Notes
  • CalDAV and .ics Calendar support (subscribe to iCals)
  • Voice Memos
  • MMS messaging
  • Forward SMS Msgs.
  • Landscape Mail, SMS, Notes
  • Cut, Copy and Paste (both built-in and 3rd party apps)
  • Streaming Video APIs
  • Push Notification
  • Turn by Turn Directions (now possible by 3rd parties)
  • Google Maps Directly in Apps
  • Accessories – APIs to talk directly to accessories (Bluetooth and Wired)
  • Peer to Peer Connectivity –  Bluetooth (Bonjour, No Pairing Required)
  • New App Store Purchase Models:

Subscriptions
Additional Levels (like for games)
New Content (like for news stories, books, etc.)

* API = Application Programmer Interface

Here’s my old wish list

The items crossed off in Red are coming in 3.0. The other crossed off items came in 2.x or before.

1 – Ability to use My OWN ringtones (sounds, music, etc.) The iTunes store will NEVER have some of the sounds I want to use.
2 – Sync Notes to the computer
3 – Cut/Copy Paste system wide
4 – Email anything (besides notes, photos URLs) Contacts, maps, directions, voicemail messages as attachments, etc.
5 – MMS (Multimedia Messaging – send pictures/movies directly to another phone)
6 – Consolidated Mail inBox and an easier way to jump between accounts than going back, back, back
7 – Flash support in Safari (this is now my number ONE request).
8 – Video and Voice (Memo) Recording (3rd Party)
9 – Color coded or Separate Calendar views (just like iCal does today)
10 – Searchable Contacts (there but still needs improvement)
11 – To be able to assign ringtones to groups of Contacts (it’s really a pain doing them one-by-one)
12 – Wireless Syncing iPhone to Computer over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (MobileMe Push)
13 – Voice dialing (3rd Party app)
14 – Dial-up Networking/Tethering (use the iPhone as a modem)
15 – iPhones on AT&T corporate plans (discounts or not, I shouldn’t have to setup a personal account to use the iPhone on AT&T)
16 – Landscape Keyboard entry in all the apps
17 – Additional Audio email attachment support for files in Vonage (u-LAW encoded) WAV format
18 – Email to a group of Contacts
19 – iChat/AIM built-in (3rd Party)
20 – Calculator CE (clear entry) key
21 – Native Microsoft Exchange support (MS Direct Push or 3rd party support).
22 – Wireless stereo music playback over Bluetooth and AirTunes
23 – A one button Redial feature (example: triple tap the Home button)
24 – A “Dialed” list in addition to “Recent” and “Missed Calls”
25 – Ability to play music directly from the Slideshow feature
26 – Built in Unit Converter (3rd party app)
27 – To Do’s, sync’d with iCal/Outlook
28 – Password/Pin protected Notes
29 – An option that lets me choose what screen I land on when I wake my iPhone; it can either be (a) whichever I screen I was at last, like it does now, or (b) I can choose to always start at another screen (like the phone favorites, or the Home, etc.).
30 – Being able to rotate Mail 90 degrees
31 – Keynote app (now with TV out, you could use your iPhone for slide presentations without needing your laptop)
32 – Pseudo GPS based on cell towers to tie in with Google Maps feature (iPhone 3g includes a real GPS too)
33 – General file storage like a USB drive (Enable iPhone as a Hard Drive)
34 – Support for Stereo Audio over Bluetooth headphones
35 – Support for a Bluetooth Wireless Remote AND the ability to use the iPhone as a Remote
36 – Sound Profiles (example: I would create a profile that turns off all sounds except incoming calls for traveling)
37 – Auto dialing of a string of numbers/pauses (ie. you dial your company voicemail and tap a button to dial your ext. and pin)
38 – Built in “Movies” widget (show times, buy tickets, trailers) Yes I know there are good web based ones. Having one built-in would be faster to access and could remember your settings. (3rd Party)
39 – Safari password remember/store feature (Keychain for the iPhone)
40 – Multiple email signatures (also the ability to assign default ones per account)
41 – Mail spam filtering
42 – Mail Rules
43 – Full Bluetooth support on the Mac (Browse the device, dial from Address Book, etc.)
44 – Delete multiple items at once such as emails
45 – iPod songs as Alarm sounds
46 – A true RSS reader (the one in Safari desktop would be a good start) (3rd Party)
47 – Call duration display
48 – SMS to multiple Contacts
49 – .Mac Push Email (Now MobileMe)
50 – The ability to direct ALL of the Audio sources over Bluetooth (such as email attachments, audio on web pages)
51 – Built in Dictionary/Thesaurus (3rd Party)
52 – Add a “.com” button on the MAIL keyboard as well.
53 – view PowerPoint attachments and now iWork files too.

See the iPhone 3.0 Presentation Video Here.

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Tuesday Tidbits

I have 3 tidbits for today:

Apple is slated to unveil iPhone 3.0 today

Apple is holding a press conference today to unveil their newest iPhone OS. Nothing is for certain and the rumors are sure flying about what’s going to be in it. So far I haven’t heard anything too exciting. Sure, Cut, Copy, and Paste would be welcomed, but that’s hardly worthy of a full dot release and press conference. So I have to imagine that there are going to be some features that no one is thinking/talking about. I’ve give my take on what they announce after they announce it.

Check out Scott Kelby’s Review of the New Elinchrom BXRI-500 Strobes

My buddy Scott Kelby has posted a review of Elinchrom’s new midrange strobes. As an Elinchrom 600RX owner, I’m very interested in these because they have the Skyport Wireless system built-in. Although I’m totally happy with my two 600RXs, I would consider getting one BXRI-500 as a 3rd light. Scott recorded a cool short video showcasing the new system. Check it out here.

Spend “An Evening with Terry White” tonight!

Happy St. Patricks Day! Tonight’s the night that I will be doing a live Photoshop Essentials demo via the web. Check out the details here.

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Spending an afternoon with the Nikon Coolpix P6000

p6000

My users group gave away a new Nikon Coolpix P6000 at our meeting over the weekend. Before we gave it away, I got a chance to try it (test it to make sure it was a good prize 😉 ) out for the afternoon. I must say that this little camera packs quite a punch. I would guess that this is Nikon’s answer to the Canon G9/G10. This camera is aimed at people that want the best possible quality and feature set that they can get out of a point and shoot camera and just short of a DSLR. This is also the same camera that Phil Shiller showcased during his Macworld Expo Keynote address as being one of the new cameras with a built-in GPS. That feature is key to the new “Places” feature in iPhoto ’09.

Nikon vs. Canon

dscn0018

Without turning this into a Nikon vs. Canon fight (does anyone ever win those anyway?), let me start by saying (again), that I use both. I have Nikon professional DSLRs and Canon point and shoot as well as Canon video equipment. So spare me your my side is better than your side arguments. They’re both good! I’ve just always been drawn to Nikon gear on the DSLR side and Canon gear on the portable/consumer side. When I’m not shooting with my Nikon D700 or D300, I’m using my Canon ELPH 850IS. The problem is that I can’t remember the last time I used it. Not that the Canon is not a great point and shoot camera, the problem is that I’m just using my DSLR more and more. I take it with me when I travel. I use it more on the go than I thought I ever would. The ELPH is nice because it stays in my computer bag at all times. I always have a camera with me.

Why don’t I use the point and shoot camera more?

That’s the real question! I’ve become a control freak. I want complete control over the settings in my camera. While point and shoot cameras do offer manual control, it seems that these options are often buried and not easily adjusted on the fly. Let’s face it! Point and shoot cameras are aimed at people that just want to….. wait for it…… point and shoot! The Nikon Coolpix P6000 changes all that by offering me the same controls I have on my DSLR. As a matter of fact the control dial has basically the same exact settings as my bigger cameras. Also once I’m in manual mode I can easily adjust Aperture and Shutter speed with the jog dial on the back. The other reason I don’t use my point and shoot more is because I really like shooting in Camera RAW. I know that this could easily start another fight/war. So again, if you love JPG and see no reason to use RAW, great for you!

I do see advantages to using RAW and you guessed it the P6000 does have a RAW shooting mode. The next reason for the lack of P&S use is probably the big one that’s not easy to overcome and that’s the great lenses that I have. No easy out for the P&S cameras there. However, the trade off is the P6000 can fit in my pocket. The DSLRs can’t!

The P6000 in action

One of the key features of this model is the built-in GPS for Geotagging. This was actually the most interesting feature to me and probably the only other one (besides RAW support) that would even make me think about upgrading my P&S camera. So I went out to run some errands with P6000 in tow. The minute I walked outside, I fired up the camera (I had already turned the GPS feature ON) and I wanted to see how long it would take to aquire a satellite signal from a cold boot. It took about 1 minute 30 seconds. Certainly not the fastst time in the world, but not unbearable either. I then turned the camera off and drove to my first location. I turned the camera back on when I got out of the car the sat aquistion took only about 33 seconds this time. Much better and about the norm. One word of warning though, other reviews I’ve read warned about excessive battery drain with the GPS turned on. While I’m sure having the GPS on does take more power, I didn’t notice any signficant battery drain. However, keep in mind that I only used this for a few hours on a Saturday. The other thing that makes me chuckle is when people complain about the GPS not working well indoors. All I’ll say to this is, ur um DUH! I wouldn’t expect any GPS to work to well indoors! The complaint about it not working well around tall buildings in an urban environment is more of a valid complaint. However, I see that same complaint about most post portable GPS units. I did notice about a 60 second sat acquistion on a downtown street as opposed to 30 seconds, but it did work.

I took some shots in RAW and JPG. There’s a nice indicator right on the BIG LCD screen that lets you know when you have sat signal. There’s no mistaking it. I just had to assume that it was working. When you go to the GPS setting in the camera, you do see the current longitude and latitude. Also when you review the images you’ve taken, the GPS icon will be lit on the LCD if those images contain GPS data. I of course would have no way of knowing if the location was accurate until I got back to my computer.

Speed or not so much speed

Shooting in JPG the speed of the camera was as good as any other point and shoot camera I’ve used. No complaints there. However, shooting in RAW was a different story. There is a noticable lag from the time you press the shutter until you can take the shot while it clears the buffer. This lag was about 3-5 seconds. Yes, even with a fast SD card. So if you’re going to use this camera to shoot in RAW, you’re not going to be shooting anything with fast motion like sports. For portrait or landscape work you’ll be fine.

Overall

I was pleased with the image quality of both my RAW and JPG files. The RAW format is not the standard NEF format that is common amongst Nikon DSLRs. It’s actually NRW. Apparently this is a RAW format specfically aimed at the Coolpix line of cameras. To be honest, I don’t really care what the extension is as long as it’s supported in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW and it is! I brought my shots into Lightroom with no problem. I even converted one of the NRWs to DNG with with no problem.

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The JPEG above actually has the GPS data in it.

I then checked out the GPS data in Lightroom using the Google Maps integration and here’s where it took me. It wasn’t dead on, I was standing about 30 feet from the spot pin pointed on the map, but that’s actually within acceptable parameters for GPS units in general. It may be a little less accurate than my di-GPS Pro, but certainly still usable.

The Bottom Line

If there was a situation where I couldn’t or didn’t want to take my DSLR, then this would be my camera of choice. I like the size and I’m comfortable with the controls. Also the hotshoe should be compatible with my Nikno speedlights, Pocket Wizards, etc. I do wish the RAW capture speed was faster and since I’m in no hurry for a new P&S camera, I may wait for the next rev. My only other complaint with this model is that it comes with a AC adapter that plugs into the camera to charge the battery. I would much rather have an external battery charger (like the ones that have always come with my Canon ELPH cameras) so that I can charge one battery while shooting with another. I’m sure that there’s probably another charger out there that does this, but I would have liked to have seen it in the box. Also at the $499 asking price, I would definitely expect it! Lastly the camera comes with an Ethernet port built-in. I didn’t even bother with trying this out because everything I read was that this is for uploading your pictures to Nikon’s Picture Town sharing site. While that’s all fine and good, if you’re going go through the trouble of putting a high speed ethernet port on your camera, let me use it for other things like a super fast way of downloading my images to my drive or uploading them to other sites beside the Nikon one. I should also mention that this camera does record video and audio too. It does 640×480 video at 30fps. I did not get a chance to test this. However, I did test the voice annotation feature and it worked great! That’s pretty much it! I only had one afternoon with this camera and it does what it claims to do.

The Nikon Coolpix P6000 13.5MP, 4x Wide Angle Optical Zoom with Vibration Reduction. See the full specs here. Also Amazon has it now for only $357! The price seems to vary daily.

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iPhone App of the Week – Upcoming Events

upcomingevents

If you’ve ever forgotten someone’s birthday or worse an anniversary, then you’ll appreciate this app. Upcoming Events has a basic function and that is to keep track of upcoming birthdays and anniversaries. The cool part is that it picks up the birthdays from your Contacts automatically. However, you can still make manual entries too. So it’s the best of both worlds.

upcoming

I’m a visual guy! So I really like that it uses the contact photo instead of just a list of names like other apps. It also shows you how old the person will be and how many days away their birthday (or anniversary) is. When you tap the app icon to load it, it takes a couple of seconds to come up with the list of upcoming events. This time delay will be dependent on how many contacts you have. I have over 1,000 so I expect it to take a second or two to go through that list.

Once you tap on a particular upcoming event you are then taken to the contact’s record in Upcoming Events so that you can call the person, send them an email or SMS message. Very convenient! I wish it had a tie in directly to 1-800-flowers so that I can just order the flowers too. 🙂

The one draw back

The app works exactly as advertised. However, the one missing piece is that although the app can show you a numeric badge of upcoming events that are less than 7 days away, it has no other way of alerting you. That number is only updated each time you launch the app.

upcomingevents2

This problem is the same with all iPhone apps. It’s not the fault of the developer. Apple doesn’t yet allow for background processing or background notification in 3rd party apps. For example, Apple’s built-in Mail app can check for new messages in the background and update the badge with a new email count without having to actually open the Mail app. This feature is not currently accessible by 3rd party apps. Therefore Upcoming Events has no way of working when you’re not in the app. The badge of “2” upcoming events you see on the screen shot above means that I have 2 birthdays/anniversaries coming up within 7 days. However, that number 2 will not change until I launch the app again. So if I don’t launch the app for 2 weeks, that 2 will never change.

The Bottom Line

This app has a very basic yet important function. Although I would love for it to be free, I also appreciate the fact that time and effort goes into app developement and the developers should be compensated. However, I think $2.99 would be the right price for this app. Nonetheless, it does what I need it to do and I had no problem paying the $4.99 asking price at the time because I simply like the way it works. I will be even happier with it once Apple allows for background processing so that the app can actually alert you/sound alarms when an event is getting closer. Again, this limitation is not the fault of the developer. Their hands are tied until Apple rolls out this important feature. So to really stay on top of things, you need to launch the app and check it on a regular basis.

Upcoming Events works on the iPhone and iPod touch. It goes for $4.99 and you can check it out at the App Store.

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An Evening With Terry White – Photoshop Essentials

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I don’t get to present in front of customers as much as I used to. Also in this economy travel has become a luxury. So I was thinking how could I spend some quality time with you and it hit me: “An Evening With Terry White!” Here’s how it works: I will pick an evening and a topic and do a one hour live session on that topic over the internet. There will be no cost to the attendees, It’s on me (well actually it’s on Adobe).

The First Topic

This first evening will be on “Adobe Photoshop Essentials.” Although this is going to be kind of basic for some, I really want to gear this session towards covering the kinds of things that my friends and customers ask me all the time. Topics like: How to remove someone from a background. How to fix blemishes and other artifacts. How to fix the color of an image, etc. So this session will be made up of several mini-tutorials. I will cover as many of these as I can fit in in an hour. Also realize that in Photoshop there are usually several ways to do the same thing and I only have an hour. So I may not do it the way you would have done it or the way you were thinking. Breathe, it will be ok.

Although I’ll be using Adobe Photoshop CS4, you’re not required to have CS4 to benefit from this session. Many of the techniques I plan to cover will be applicable to users of older versions. However, if you just want to be up-to-date and all, feel free head over to the Adobe Store. You can buy your upgrade and download it on the spot 🙂

When and where? R.S.V.P.?

This first evening will be Tuesday, March 17 @ 7PM E.T. and it will take place via Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro. Here’s the URL: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/eveningwithterry

Sign on as a GUEST with your real name. While there is no pre-registration required, this session will be limited to 100 attendees. So it’s first come, first served. I advise you to log in 15 minutes before the 7PM start time as I plan to start on time.

Will you be able to ask questions?

There will be a Q&A session at the end. You will be able to submit your questions throughout the presentation in the Q&A pod. I will address as many of the submitted questions as I can at the end. Although I plan to end the presentation part within one hour, I will probably be able hang out a bit afterwards to continue answering questions. This will give people that only have an hour the chance to see the entire presentation before having to leave.

What you will need to participate

If you’re reading this blog, you probably have the necessary equipment to watch this session. You will need a computer (Mac or PC) with a web browser, a high speed internet connection and the Flash Player. The audio will come through your computer’s speakers. That’s pretty much it! There is no software that you need to install. If you want to make sure that your computer and internet connection are up to par, you can run this test. Although the last part of the test checks to see if you have the “add-in”, it’s not necessary to have it for this session. Go ahead and run the test now so that you’ll be ready in time for Tuesday. Also keep in mind that if for whatever reason your connection is not up to par or it’s not going well for you, there’s nothing I can do about it on my end and please accept my apology now.

What if you can’t make it or you’re 101st person?

If all goes well, this session will be recorded and I will post the link to it the next day on my blog. So if you can’t attend or if you don’t make it into the session due to a large turnout, you will be able to enjoy it afterwards at your leisure.

Why am I doing this and what’s next?

Although I can post videos anytime I want on my Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast, nothing beats live interaction. I like talking with customers and this will give me real-time feedback.  If this goes well I will do it again with different topics. If not, well we can’t say that I didn’t try. 🙂 See you on Tuesday!

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Apple shuffles out a 3rd generation iPod shuffle

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Hey it’s Wednesday! Apple traditionally releases new products on Tuesday so as usual no one saw this coming 🙂

Apple introduced the 3rd generation iPod shuffle. No I don’t have one yet. I just woke up to this news like everyone else. So I’m writing this based on what I’ve read and seen so far. The new shuffle is the smallest shuffle yet. Smaller than a AA battery. The first thing you might notice is that the controls are GONE! Well, they’re gone from the case itself. The controls are now on the earphones cord.

The shuffle now gets playlists

The shuffle never had a display which meant that you never had a way to navigate multiple playlists. So the previous shuffle models could only play songs from a single list of songs. That all changes because the new shuffle has Voice Over! Voice Over announces things like the name of the song, artist and you guessed it, playlists. This is a clever work around for not having a display and it also makes it much easier to use for sports activists because you don’t have to look down to make any changes. You can focus your attention on your run or activity.

Specs and the Bottom Line

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The shuffle has 4GB of memory and comes in Black or Silver for up to 1,000 songs. It requires iTunes 8.1, which will probably be available for download soon. While moving the controls to the earphone cord means that they can make a smaller shuffle, it will limit the number of options for using your existing 3rd party earphones/headphones. The Apple store is quoting a 3-5 day ship period. This would be a great iPod for someone who doesn’t want to spend a lot on iPod, but still wants to easily carry around their favorite music and purchases from the iTunes store. While this is probably the best shuffle Apple has delivered to date, I have no desire to get one. I’m quite content with the army of iPods and iPhone that I already have 🙂

The iPod shuffle goes for $79. Apple has posted this cool video guided tour to show the features.

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What an honor. Thank you Westcott!

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As a photographer, I can’t think of a greater honor than to have an internationally recognized lighting equipment company come to you and say “we would like to use one of your images for our 2009 catalog!” As you can probably imagine I just about fell off my chair when I received that very email from F.J. Westcott. You’ve heard me tout Westcott Spiderlites in the past and I’m a big fan of many of their products. Just yesterday in my post about the Joby Gorillapod Focus, I used a Westcott collapsible background for that shot.

Of course my answer was YES! I’ve been on pins and needle ever since and I just got the final version of the spread. My image is the one in the lower right corner. Westcott said that they used 100% Raw Talent in this year’s catalog. I’m very honored and just flat out tickled to be a part of that talent pool.

A PDF version of the full 2009 FJ Westcott Catalog is here. I look forward to grabbing a huge supply of these babies at Photoshop World in a couple of weeks. There’s a small room in my house that needs wallpapering 🙂