Drupal, Drupal, and more Drupal
I haven’t been blogging here much lately, because I am designing our new Web site for our startup, WeArePhotographers.com. Since it is a big web community site, we are using a CMS system and have chosen Drupal. I am amazed by the flexibility and complexity of the tool, but firmly believe it will be the answer for future Web development. Tools, like Dreamweaver, will be having a hard time.
As for personal blogs like this one, I think Rapidweaver will still be sufficient. This was a nice break from the complexity of Drupal, but back to the big design!
Tiffen Dfx - Filter Options Galore
I recently purchased Tiffen Dfx V2 Standalone Edition for my Macbook Pro. It comes with over 1,000 filters and special effects for post-processing your photos. While many effects can be recreated in Adobe Photoshop, the ease-of-use to try different effects makes this program a winner at only $99.95 for the standalone edition. It is the equivalent of buying 2-3 actual filters to put on your camera.
There is too many different filters to describe here, but the filters are categorized by filter function: Film Lab, Gels, HFX Diffusion, HFX Grads/Tints, Image, Lens, Light, Photographic and Special Effects.
So what can this software do? Let’s look at these before and after pictures. I took a quick grab shot of a raven at the top of the tree. It is not an exciting photo, but some interesting composition with the location of the bird and the branches of the tree.
Before
After
I used
several filters to create the after image. First, I used the “day for
night” filter to make the image look like it was
taken at dusk. Then, I added a layer and used a Gel
filter to darken the blues in the photograph. Another
layer with a grain filter gave it the feel of a film
shot and finally, a vignette filter caused the blur
and darkening at the edges.
The software allows you to compare different filters
easily and to select and mask where necessary. Also,
you can change the opacity of each layer. It is a
very flexible program that unfortunately does have a
Windows legacy and can be seen in some of the menu
structure. Nevertheless, definitely worth testing on
its 15 day trial; though I warn you that you might
likely end up buying at the end.
MacHeist Bundle Update (2)
Update on the Update! (4/6/09): MacHeist 3 Bundle is fully unlocked. They are over $500,000 in donations to charity so The Hit List and Espresso have been unlocked. There is only one day left for the Bundle Sale so act quickly to get 14 applications for $39.
Here is another update on the MacHeist Bundle 3.
BoinxTV has reached the unlocked stage as the sales promotion has generated over $400K in charity donations. The new mega-unlock point for the final two applications (The Hit List and Espresso) is $500K and there are two days left on this application promotion. As of Sunday 4/5 AM, there is about $95K to go.
If you are on the fence on this promotion, now is the time to act. We can all get the final two applications. I can tell you from experience that I have used these applications much more than I expected. LittleSnapper has replaced Skitch...Picturesque is my quick phone beautifier...and World of Goo has wasted too much of my time already! Finally, I have used WireTap Studio, Kinemac, and BoinxTV to help with my new Web startup, WeArePhotographers.com.
MacHeist Bundle Update
Update on the Update! (4/4/09): MacHeist has just added for all customers another application to their bundle, Times. It is an unique RSS reader that organizes the feeds into a visual newspaper format. Normally, it sells for $30. I will give it a look; though it will be hard to get me to shift from NetNewsWire due to the iPhone client and synchronization with NewsGator.
You will need to hurry though. There is only three days left in the MacHeist 3 Bundle!
Just a quick update on the MacHeist 3 Bundle. They have added two additional applications to the bundle: Delicious Library 2 and Multiwinia. If you have purchased the bundle and tweet about it on Twitter, you receive the gifts. Don’t be surprised if you are hit with a bunch of tweets saying:
I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE! http://mhtweet.com/g4Flrc
So what are these new applications?
Delicious Library 2 is a great way to catalogue all your media. It won tons of awards several years ago and can use the iSight as a bar code reader. My entire book library is organized using Delicious Library 2. I highly recommend it.
Multiwinia is a shooting war game
where you command stick figures to fight your
friends online. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it
looks fun. Certainly, it will be an attraction to
buyers who have complained that there isn’t enough
fun applications in this year’s bundle.
Picturesque is very cool!
I really like Picturesque which I recently picked up as part of the MacHeist Bundle. It isn’t a full-fledged photo editor, but allows for quick enhancement of a photograph. It does four things really easy and well: (1) creating cool 3D perspectives, (2) producing awesome reflections without any need for layers, (3) introducing some curves to the photo without using masks, and (4) adding shadows, glows and frames around your picture.
For a presentation that I was preparing, I needed an image to illustrate something happening every 12 seconds. I took out my Nikon D40 and took a picture of the stopwatch on my iPhone on a blank piece of paper using daylight from the window. With Picturesque, I added some of the enhancements I mentioned above and made an awesome image with significant impact. This tool won’t replace Photoshop, but it is great for blogging, newsletters, presentations, etc.
MacHeist 3 Bundle
Update (3/31/09): MacHeist has juiced up their bundle by adding Cro-Mag Rally for all customers. While a little “retro” (i.e. dated), Cro-Mag Rally is made by Pangea and has seen a revival with its iPhone version. Another reason to purchase the bundle if you are into prehistoric rally games!
I recently purchased the MacHeist 3 Bundle that is currently for sale. There is an excellent mix of applications in the bundle and it is definitely worth a look. At only $39 it is practically a steal if one or two of the applications are of interest. Here are the applications in the bundle and my take on them:
iSale ($39.95)
iSale is a application for eBay that allows you to make a professional-looking auction. I am not much of an eBay person and have not testing the application.
Picturesque ($34.95)
Picturesque is a cool-little application that allows you to easily manipulate photographs by changing its perspective, adding a reflection, creating a frame, etc. It is not a full-fledged photo editor, but adds some neat tricks. I would not pay $34.95 for it, but, as a bonus application, it is a winner.
SousChef (30.00)
I haven’t loaded SousChef, because I am already deeply into MacGourmet Deluxe. I didn’t think that I would be into a recipe management software, but it has been a real benny in the kitchen.
World of Goo ($20.00)
World of Goo is cool. A must play. Enough said.
PhoneView ($19.95)
My iPhone has become my lifeblood. This application allows you to get at the data stored on it in an easy fashion. That is a winner in my book.
LittleSnapper ($39.00)
LittleSnapper lets you store and annotate screenshots or web page captures. Previously, I was using Skitch for this functionality, but no longer. LittleSnapper is much better and made by Realmac Software, the company that makes Rapidweaver - the software I use for this blog.
Acorn ($49.95)
Acorn is a simple-to-use photo editor. I haven’t tested it out, but I won’t be using it. Instead, I will stay with Pixelmator - the software I got from last year’s MacHeist bundle.
Kinemac ($299.00)
At $299, Kinemac was definitely included in order to bump up the value of the bundle. However, it looks like an easy 3D animation package. I will be using it to create animations for videocasting with BoinxTV and uStream TV.
WireTap Studio ($69.00)
If you want to record any audio which is being played by your Mac, then Wire Tap Studio is the software. I can see how it would be very useful for podcasts, capturing Skype conversations and for making custom ringtones. This app was unlocked when the charity contribution hit $100,000.
BoinxTV ($199.00)
I really want BoinxTV. It is a great software to create and edit videocasts in a live-to-disk or live-to-internet method. Right now, this application is not yet unlocked and requires $400,000 in charity sales. I am hoping that we reach this level before the sale ends.
The Hit List ($69.95)
The Hit List is a software package for to-do lists and “Getting Things Done.” I already use Omnifocus for this and won’t be changing, particularly since The Hit List doesn’t have a iPhone client. This application is also not yet unlocked and its unlock level has not been announced.
Espresso ($80.00)
Espresso looks like an excellent new web development tool that will compete with Coda. I am sure that this one will be a big draw for people if we get close to the unlock level. It will be unlocked at the same time as The Hit List.
I recommend this bundle. I think there is a lot of good applications in it at a very favorable price. Here is my referral link to the bundle. For full disclosure, if two people buy through my link, then I get two additional applications: Ambrosia’s Pop-up and Koingo Utility Package. By the way, any bundle customer who refers two additional purchasers can get this software as a bonus.
iPhoto 09 - Initial Impressions
I have been using iPhoto 09 for about a day. I am happy with the three major improvements that Apple made: Faces, Places and Improved Editing. However, as usual, Apple dropped the ball on a couple of things.
First, with Faces, it is too difficult to got through my thousands of photos and find and check the photos for the face recognition. I cannot find a way to sort the photos in a smart album by unidentified faces. If that was available, then one could easily add the appropriate name. Also, I cannot find a way to add a name to a face that is misidentified when confirming names. It could be a learning curve issue, but it would have been good to get those features.
As for places, it works
great if you have the GPS coordinates in the photo’s
EXIF data BEFORE you
import it into iPhoto. However, if you did not have
the GPS coordinates in the EXIF data, it is a bearish
manual process to add them with iPhoto. Also, if you
use a tool like Geotagger or HoudahGEO to modify the
EXIF data within the iPhone Library, there is no way
to tell iPhoto to update its database. Finally, any
input into the iPhone database of GPS information is
not inserted into the underlying files EXIF data
within the library.
All this technical mumbo-jumbo aside...please make
sure you have the GPS coordinates in the photo’s EXIF
data before you import it into Photo. So, in short,
the new Faces and Places feature is great going
forward, but Apple dropped the ball on utilities to
make it easy to migrate your existing photos within
the iPhone library.
The Future Death of Television
Today, I have seen the death of broadcast TV. For more than 2 hours, I watched the Tour of California on Versus, suffering through their endless amounts of commercials. It turned out that the stage finish was delayed by about 20 minutes and, instead of staying until the end, they cut away to a hockey game.
Completely frustrated, I went online and it turned out that the Amgen Tour was broadcast from this Web site, see below. Note only did they have video and audio UNTIL THE FINAL SPRINT, but also they had play-by-play...GPS tracking..chat room...standings...etc. This is the future of media entertainment...Versus and its ilk are walking dead!
Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook
Amazingly, I haven’t had a blog entry here in more than two months. Boy have I neglected this blog! I apologize.
With Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook, I am wondering if blogging will die over time. More people can get an instant update from me on those streams. We are definitely seeing a transition in my online activities.
Also, with my new social networking startup, I have been spending much more time building a network and business plans than blogging on the net. There is a definitely bandwidth limitation on a person’s ability to invest in a blog-worthy article.
I will start to blog more...my Omnifocus GTD keeps nagging me to do so!
Beware of Zeptopad V1.5 Upgrade
Yesterday, I upgraded a drawing application, Zeptopad, that I have on my 3G iphone to its latest version V1.5 using the standard mechanism within iTunes. The upgrade went as planned, excepted I was faced with an unpleasant surprise. After the upgrade, Zeptopad had wiped out all on my previous drawings!
I really like the drawing program, but data loss from an upgrade was not in my plans! Fortunately, I didn’t have anything critical on the drawings and they can be recreated, but it does shake my confidence in the program. Too bad since it is a nice program.
If you have Zeptopad on your iPhone, you should export the drawings to your photo roll before you upgrade. Unfortunately, you cannot import them back in a full-size afterwards. I do not know if there is a technical hack on a jailbreaked iPhone to get at the drawings to protect them.
Anyhow, you should protect your drawings before you update to Zeptopad V1.5. Otherwise, they will be lost in the upgrade.
Slow Syncs with Omnifocus and Your iPhone
Fortunately, Omni Group is planning a new version of Omnifocus for iPhone that will solve the problem, but hasn’t appeared yet in the App Store. If you can’t wait like me, there is an AppleScript workaround provided by Omni Group at this link.
It solved the problem and I am happy again. If you are a serious GTD user, you should check out Omnifocus.
UPDATE 8/13/08 --- Omnifocus V1.0.3 is now on the App Store and supposedly fixes the Sync problems.
Some Fun with Words
Occassionally, you come across a
fun site. Wordle is just that.
As the Web site describes:
"Wordle is a toy for generating
“word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds
give greater prominence to words that appear more
frequently in the source text. You can tweak your
clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color
schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours
to use however you like. You can print them out, or
save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your
friends."
I ran the tool on my blog and here is the "word
cloud" it
created:
Lots of fun. Enjoy!
Moo Cards: A "purple cow"
If you are in the market for an
innovative way to differentiate yourself, you should
check out Moo cards. As Seth Godin says in his
book Purple Cow, “Cows, after you’ve seen them
for a while, are boring...A Purple Cow, though.
Now that would be interesting.”
Conventional business cards are boring, while Moo
Cards are not.
Moo is a London-based printing
company that allows you to create your own unique and
personal products using stock images or your own
photos from Flickr or your computer. Their minicards
are 28x70mm in size -- approximately 1/3 the size of
a regular business card -- and can have any picture
on the reverse size with 6 lines of text on the
primary side. While they are higher priced than
ordinary business cards, they really differentiate
you.
Since I have been handing out Moo mini-cards, I have
not failed in engaging the other person about the
cards and my background. They are definitely worth
getting.
Fluid & Google: The Death of Office?
If you are an Apple user and
frequently use sites like Facebook, FriendFeed,
Google Docs, etc., then Fluid is a technology that
you need to investigate. Fluid allows you to very easily to run
your favorite web applications as separate Cocoa
applications on your desktop.
I created a separate application for FriendFeed,
Facebok and Google Docs. Why? To manage my workflow
easier and to prevent the situation where an error in
one tab kills my other tabs. The combination of
Google Apps and Fluid is very powerful and has the
definite potential to make Microsoft Office
irrelevant someday. I am not yet ready to abandon
Office; however, the sharing and search capabilities
of Google Apps are very appealing.
I recommend that you download Fluid and try to make
some Site Specific Browsers. I think you will find it
very helpful in the move to web applications if you
are use to the desktop application
workflow.
Starbucks/AT&T -- Why so complicated?
Incredible hassles this morning
trying to register my Starbucks card
for free wifi
support. Firstly, they obviously did not size the
system to handle the demand. Even though I was
entering my proper Starbucks login and password,
the system insisted on coming back with an error.
Then, finally when I got through, it wouldn’t accept
my card that currently has a $15 balance
because...get this...I haven’t used it in 30 days!?!
What about all the soy lattes that I have bought with
cash in the last 30 days? They don’t count.
This is what happens when a corporation treats their
customers like criminals. Obviously, some empty suit
at corporate headquarters is worried that someone may
“free ride” on the wifi network by buying a latte and
sitting there for many hours.
Starbucks just doesn’t get it! Simply provide free
Internet access like Panera, independent coffee
shops, etc. and they will come...and they will drink
coffee. Get rid of these absurd hoops to jump through
and 2-hour limitations. Particularly since your
competition already has!
Starbucks should trust its customers and they will
reward it with their business. Especially those who
already have their loyalty cards!
UPDATE:
I made a special trip
to Starbucks to buy a latte on my card. It was
accepted finally!
Evernote and ShoZu
Lately, I have been using the beta
of Evernote as a way to organize my notes on
the MacBook Pro as well as to have an online copy.
While still a little immature, the
synchronization, search and OCR on photos are very
impressive. Also, the integration with various
platforms (Mac, Windows and Windows Mobile) is
cool.
One thing I was not happy with was
the resolution of the snapshots done by the Evernote
Windows Mobile client. As an alternative, I could
take a higher resolution photo and then email it to
my Evernote email account; however, it would take a
lot of steps. Enter ShoZu.
By making Evernote email my
one-step account in ShoZu, I can quickly take a photo
and send it to Evernote online. Evernote will store
it, OCR it and, when I synchronize with my Mac
application, provide a copy on my laptop. It is quite
cool.
I recommend that everyone should try Evernote and
ShoZu. They are an excellent combination.
What if this afternoon your Twitter feed was offline?
What if this morning your digital newpaper didn't arrive?
Imagine waking up and finding out
that you have zero
newsfeeds pending to
read. What happened...did everyone decide to boycott
the Internet? Could there actually be no updates to
the 34 feeds that I normally follow? The silence is
eery...almost like something out of a horror movie or
a Twlight Zone episode.
Unfortunately, the moment of insanity passes
and Occom's Razor takes over. The simplest
solution is the best...there must be something
wrong with the mechanism that is updating my
NetNewsWire feeds. So I start at the beginning and
assume sleep is to blame and stop and restart the
application. No effect. After hitting the Refresh
All button five or six times hoping that it would
automatically start up again, I decide that I need
to fix it.
Dismayed and annoyed, I vented my frustration by
sending a status update to all my social networking
sites using MoodBlast. Suddenly it dawns on
me...maybe it isn't only me. Rather than searching
the forums to find a solution, I decide to see if
anyone else is complaining on Twitter. No one in my feeds are having
the same problem?!?! However, I do get my news fix
on how Team Slipstream is doing in the Giro.
However, when I go to Summize, I hit the Jackpot! Not only is
there a description of the problem, but someone
has already provided a solution...NewsGator is the
problem and remove the synchronization from your
preferences within NetNewsWire. Suddenly, the RSS
feeds load and I have 104 new feeds to read.
Maybe, I shouldn't be so happy.
This was a very illuminating experience on our
dependence on and the power of new Web V2.0
communication methods...i.e. RSS Feeds and
Twittering. In record time, I was back up and
running...the free and quick dissemination of
information will dominate the future of the
Internet.
Presentation Zen: Buy it!
Every once and a while there is a book I read that just clicks. It simply knocks the ball out of the park. Presentation Zen is one of them!
A very easy and quick read, Presentation Zen offers page after page of excellent advice about how to build winning presentations. Before reading it, I thought I was an excellent speaker. Afterwards, I realized that I was implementing only about 30-40% of the ideas in the book. I cannot wait to prepare my next Powerpoint presentation. How often does someone say that!?!
Garr Reynolds is currently an associate professor at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan and spent many years working there. Consequently, the book has a Japanese flavor to it, which obviously also appeals to me. Some of the lessons are simply profound in their simplicity. For example, the key to a good presentation is two questions: "What is your point? Why does it matter?". I do not know how many presentations that I have attended in my life where the presenter was clueless on these points and just presented what he or she felt comfortable to present regardless of the relevance to the audience.
Another profound point is that the powerpoint slides are there to complement the speaker, not replace him or her. Therefore, every single point should not be on the slides. That is what should come out of your mouth. When the audience is trying to unravel the meaning in a complex slide, they are not listening to the speaker. Keep the slides simple to support the speaker...not replace the speaker.
I also liked the sidebar sections that provide interesting tidbits of knowledge. One cool one is about the Pecha-kucha method. Basically, Pecha-kucha was developed by a couple of expats in Tokyo and consists of presentations, where the presenters are limited to 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds as the presenter tells the story in sync to the transitioning slides. Within only 6 minutes and 40 seconds, you need to tell your story. How's that for getting your pitch down?
What about all these restrictions? Reynolds postulates that the restrictions are actually liberators of your creativity. I agree wholeheartedly, but it is definitely work to get things to be simple. As Mark Twain said, "It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." However, the investment that you make on the preparation makes the investment your audience makes worthwhile.
As for investments, go buy Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. It is definitely worth it. Also check out his blog.
Businessweek Doesn't Want Us to Link to Them
This runs completely counter to the new Web 2.0 Internet. They should be encouraging us to link to their pages to drive clickthrus to their Web site. It increases the possibility of all different social networking engines to highlight their stories in mashup sites. It just goes to show how out-of-touch mainstream media is when it comes to the Internet.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9858916-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Obama Under Attack
Lately, Senator Obama has been becoming much more aggressive both in person and on the Internet to fight off allegations. I doubt it is a good strategy to be so aggressive and further an negative image. To paraphrase the Queen in Hamlet, "Methinks, Senator Obama doth protest too much!"
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/01/obama_mail