Posts

Posted on

Thank You Warsaw, Amsterdam, Moscow, Istanbul, Sydney & Melbourne!

The second leg of our Adobe CS 5 Evolution Tour has ended and I'm getting geared up for South America next week. I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has participated in the tour those far. We've had a blast presenting to over 9,000 fans/customers thus far in the various regions around the world. In some cities the events were webcasted to thousands more who couldn't be there in person. The tour has been a great success thus far and I'm really looking forward to continuing it next week. Here are some highlights:

 

Six stops in 18 days!

 

This leg of the tour started off in Warsaw Poland with an amazing sold out crowd! People were literally lining the walls and sitting on the floor off to the side of the stage.

 

 

Photoshop/Camera RAW never looked so BIG!

Continue reading “Thank You Warsaw, Amsterdam, Moscow, Istanbul, Sydney & Melbourne!”

Posted on

Nikon ME-1 Mic for DSLR Video

 

I love my Nikon D7000 DSLR camera. I hate the built-in mic. While the camera takes both great stills and high def 1080p video, the built-in microphone…well um…yeah…sucks! It's barely adequate for an interview and the 11Hz mono audio is pretty much useless for anything else. While I've been happy with my Rode VideoMic and VideoMic Pro, I was intrigued by Nikon's announcement of the NEW ME-1 Mic because of its small size. The ME-1 is about half the size of my VideoMic Pro and that makes it much better for travel. Keep in mind that my D7000 is my travel DSLR. I use it more on the road than I do at home. That means that if I'm I recording a video I'm most likely recording it on the road too. On my last international tour I had no room for the VideoMic and of course as luck would have it I had to do an impromptu video recording in Australia. The video looked great, the audio was…"meh." The whole time I was kicking myself for not bringing the VideoMic Pro. The ME-1 had shipped, but hadn't arrived before I left home to go my trip. 

Note: When you plug in an mic to the Nikon D7000 you get Stereo/Mono audio at 48kHz/16bit. 

 

ME-1 Pros and Cons

Continue reading “Nikon ME-1 Mic for DSLR Video”

Posted on

BlackMagic Intensity Pro: Capturing an iPad 2 Demo via HDMI Out

One of the main features of the iPad 2 that I use the most over the iPad 1 is the ability to mirror my desktop out to a projector when doing demos. I've been using this feature extensively on my latest Adobe CS5 Evolution Tour. You can use either the original Apple VGA Adapter or the NEW Apple Digital AV (HDMI) Adapter. While this works GREAT for live presentations I also wanted to take advantage of it when recording tutorial videos or App reviews. The problem was finding a solution that allowed me to take either the VGA out or HDMI out of the iPad 2 back into my computer.

 

BlackMagic Intensity Pro to the rescue

Continue reading “BlackMagic Intensity Pro: Capturing an iPad 2 Demo via HDMI Out”

Posted on

Ever hear someone say “I should have backed up my Music!”?

 

I have had both friends and family members lose data over the years due to crashed hard drives. In almost all those cases they didn't have a current backup or a backup of any kind. In the case of my sister we were able to at least get her music back using a 3rd party App that allowed me to recover it from her iPod. Although Apple has allowed us to freely re-download our iOS Apps as many times as needed, iTunes music content was always a one-time download. Of course in some cases pleading your case to Apple directly would get you a special one-time re-download of all your purchased content curtesy of a caring human being at AppleCare. If this has ever happened to you, you'll be happy to know that you can now get it all back!

 

iTunes in iCloud

Yesterday Apple turned on a few of the iCloud (beta) features that allow you to grab any of your purchased Apps, Music and iBooks on any of your iOS devices. If you grab the iTunes 10.3 beta you'll be able to do the same on your Mac or PC too. Since Apple keeps a history of all your purchased music, it should all be there and available for download.

 

What Else Is New?

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, iOS 5, iCloud and more…

A lot of things were shown off yesterday and it will take a little time to make sense of some of it. While iOS 5 doesn't give me all the things I wanted from my wishlist, here are the things that got my attention and that I'm most excited about.

Watch the entire Apple/Steve Jobs Keynote here.

Posted on

10 Things I Want To See in iOS 5

I've been an iPhone (iOS) user since 2007. Yep, that's when the 1st iPhone hit the scene. While the iPhone back then was revolutionary I still had a running list of improvements that I wanted to see. I even went back to dig up my original "50 Ways To Make The iPhone Better" post to have a look to see what was still missing today in iOS 4?The good news is that the vast majority of my original list has either been addressed via iOS updates or 3rd party Apps. Four years later I'm asking myself what do I still want? Having looked at the current iOS 4, 3rd party Apps and the Android platform, there are still a few things I'd like to see:

  • Over the Air Updates – It's time to cut the cord and receive iOS updates over the air. The only time I should have to plug in a sync cable is when I'm doing a full restore or if I want to have things go faster. Android already has this.
  • WiFi Media Syncing  –  I would be putting it mildly when I say that it totally sucks having to plug in a cable anytime I want to sync a new playlist, movie, podcast, etc from my iTunes library to my iOS Device. Apple let's you download gigabytes of data from the iTunes store directly to your device via WiFi, why not allow syncing of your OWN media via your OWN WiFi network? Long overdue!
  • Multiple Mail Signatures – We've had multiple email accounts since day one, but only one email signature since day one. Yes there are 3rd party Apps to work around this, but this should be built-in like it is in Mail on the Mac OS X desktop.
  • Set a 3rd Party Browser as your Default – Mobile Safari is cool, but iCab blows it away! I could easily make a list of 10 or more things I'd like to see in Safari. However, I've found all the missing features I wanted, in iCab. While Apple does allow you to download and use 3rd party browsers, you can't set them as the default browser. This means that any tap of a link inside another App always launches Safari instead of your preferred browser.
  • Spam Filtering – Need I say more?
  • Widgets – One thing on Android OS that I really like and wish were in iOS is the concept of Widgets. These on screen "widgets" show you information (current weather, latest tweets, email subjects, etc.) without having to launch an App. iOS really needs this!
  • Sound Profiles – This one goes way back to my Treo days. Mute is not enough! I'd love to setup profiles that will allow vibration, emergency calls to ring through, silence (no vibrating), etc. etc. If this were a "smart phone", it would be possible.
  • Notification Schedules – Currently, Notifications are either on or off. I'd like to setup a schedule in which my device doesn't make a sound or pop up a notification during night hours or meetings. Sure I can just turn them off, but then I'd have to remember to turn them back on.
  • Email a Group of Contacts – If I email the same 3, 5 or 10 people all the time, why do I have to manually enter their names in each new email? Group support in Mail please!
  • Ability to Assign Ringtones to Groups of Contacts – one of my oldest requests! Although we got custom ringtones years ago, there is still no ability to assign the same ringtone to multiple contacts (groups) at the same time. It's still a painstaking one-by-one task.

 

Why not just switch to Android completely?

I actually have an Android based tablet (Motorola Xoom) and phone (Motorola Atrix 4G). Like comparing ANY two things, there are going to be things I like in one that aren't in the other. So it's no surprise that there are things I like in the Android OS that aren't in iOS and vice versa. I have the luxury of being able to use any device I want whenever I want. Overall though (at least for now), I find iOS to have MORE things I like about it than Android. Sure, Android OS answers the majority of my list above, but I could easily come up with a list of 10, 20 or 30 things that are missing from Android OS that are currently in iOS. Not to mention a huge existing investment that I have in iOS Apps that I'd be leaving behind. Even if I were willing to leave my Apps behind, Android Market doesn't have all the same Apps or equivalents for all the Apps I use. There is NO PERFECT! Just like there are things I like even in Windows 7 over Mac OS X. I use Mac OS X most of the time because it has more things I like over Windows, but Windows 7 is only a reboot away when needed.

 

WWDC Kicks off Today

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference kicks off today with news around iOS 5 as well as iCloud and maybe even some hardware announcements. It will be interesting to see how much of my remaining wish list is addressed.

Continue reading “10 Things I Want To See in iOS 5”

Posted on

Twenty Million Downloads and Counting!

 

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to take a moment and share some exciting news (well exciting for me anyway), my Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast has just hit another major milestone! I just passed the 20 Million Download mark. That's right! My videos have been downloaded over 20 Million Times! Woohoo!  I want to thank everyone who has subscribed, watched, downloaded, tweeted about and come up and thanked me for my podcast episodes in the past!

 

Still In the Top 10 of All Software How-To Podcasts for 4 Years Straight!

While reaching the 20 Million Mark is great, I'm even happier that my podcast is and has been in the Top 10 of ALL Software How-To Podcasts on the iTunes Store for 4 years straight.

 

Get the Apps

 

Back on April 14th 2011 I announced the long awaited "Learn The Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White" App had been updated to be a Universal iOS App, which means that you now get to see the videos in all the iPad 10" glory without having to screen double them. The App is now available on the App Store and is of course a FREE update to anyone who already had it.

If you're new to the App, the advantage here my regular podcast is that many of the episodes have Exclusive Bonus Clips. These clips can only be seen in the App and aren't published anywhere else. Often the Bonus Content includes additional tips and techniques or expands in an area where the regular episode left off. On the iPad these Bonus Clips are highlighted right below the regular episode so you'll more easily be able to identify the episodes that have Bonus Content.

There are literally hundreds of videos available on the various Creative Suite Apps all the way back to CS2. Thankfully the App has a built-in Search feature as well as the ability to Star your favorite episodes and download the ones you want to be able to watch offline.

I want to personally thank you for your support in my podcast as well as my App!

See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here for $1.99:

Learn Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White - Wizzard Media

 

Continue reading “Twenty Million Downloads and Counting!”

Posted on

Slickr Flickr Pro for WordPress

[slickr-flickr tag=”Australia” type=”slideshow” delay=”6″ items=”33″ size=”large” width=”650″ height=”488″ border=”on”]

I'm still trying out different methods of posting multiple images to my blog. Last week I showed you the extremely cool LR/Blog plug-in for Lightroom that allows you to post images directly from Lightroom to your WordPress blog. While the LR/Blog plug-in does exactly what I want it to do when I have a few images here or there to post, I was looking for another solution to post a "gallery" of images. Ideally I wanted to take the photos that I post to Flickr.com and have them displayed on my blog. This would make my life even easier since I can post to Flickr directly from Lightroom 3 anyway.

 

Flickr already does this

If you have a Flickr account you can set it up so that you can post a photoset directly from Flickr to your Blog! See an example here. However, there really isn't much control over it and it's IMMEDIATE! The minute I clicked "Post", it made a new blog post and released it without any warning. Again, there is nothing wrong with this and for many this simple solution will be just fine. As a matter of fact I could so see doing this while on the go or when returning from a photowalk and just letting the image rip! However, if I'm writing a more detailed post and I then want to include the images in that post then I require a little more control over layout, delivery and timing.

 

WordPress Plug-ins for Flickr

I started looking a few different WordPress plug-ins. Sadly almost all of them disappointed me in one way or another. Either they didn't allow me to simply choose a photoset (Flickr's term for a gallery) or they looked like crap in terms of display. I settled on Slickr Flickr Pro (at least for now). This plug-in offered the closest set of features to what I was looking for. While it oddly doesn't allow you to specify a particular photoset, it does allow you to select images via Tags. If you want to include a selection of images in a post, just tag them all with the same Tag and Slickr Flickr will use those images. 

You can display the images as a gallery (like my Australia Post) or you can make a self running slideshow like my images above. The Pro version allows you to go past the image count limit as well as it offers more customization features and better support. This is not the end all be all solution, but it works for now.

 

Yes I am actually in Australia

I took the photos above the last time I was here in 2007. I haven't had many photo ops on this visit, but I am looking forward to seeing you in Melbourne, tomorrow!

CS5 Evolution Tour

Posted on

What to do when Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill Doesn’t Work

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWK5cpn3ipY

 

In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast I'll show you a couple of techniques to use when Photoshop's Content Aware Scale and Content Aware Fill doesn't work. While Content Aware Scale and Content Aware Fill are magical technologies, they don't always work perfectly depending on the image. These tips will help you get better results in those cases!

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:

Learn Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White - Wizzard Media