Google Wave: The End of the Wild Web
There will be many – many – blog posts written on Google Wave, and there already have been so many created, that I’m sure this one will be lost in the void, but for whomever keeps ‘The Record,’ add me to it saying: “Google Wave will revolutionize communication.”
I’m throughly shocked by the number of naysayers out there. The reaction on Twitter after the announcement, and the excellent review of the event on TechCruch, was mixed. Some were just as enthusiastic as me, but many have the wait-and-see attitude that, to me, doesn’t recognize the pure awesomeness that is Google Wave. There are only two obstacles Google Wave has to overcome to become as widely used as Google Search that I can see: market penetration and standards adoption.
HTML5
The switch to Wave is going to rely on HTML5, a standard that has been 5 years in the making. That’s a really long time coming. The same year the standard got it’s start gave birth to Facebook, Gmail was still new, and IE was still 91% of the browser market. In Internet terms, HTML5 has been in progress since the middle ages.
Changing the basic language of the web is a drastic change, and we need to be sure that the standard is right. Yet, surely we can adapt to adding new standards at a quicker rate? Because all “modern” browsers are open-source, and have a track record for continuous innovation, it’s inconceivable to me that was couldn’t innovate on a faster scale.
Five years is an awful long time, and it’s incredible how much – of the draft spec – the browsers are already supporting. HTML5 will bring about a friendlier internet – one that feels like a desktop experience. We have the technology to deliver that – why wouldn’t we?
You Can’t Make Abundancy Scarce
My brother sent me an email tonight after he heard, Peter Fader speak. Fader is a professor at Wharton School of business at UPenn “doing datamining - they call it marketing.” Apparently, my brother found this talk inspiring, ending his first email in our resulting exchange with:
…he made some damn good points about the subscription model. b2c already is doing ok (campfire, github, etc.), it's time for consumers to pony up. His bottom line: if facebook decided to charge you $10/month, you'd pay it. No questions asked.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, or know me, or have listened to some of the top minds in this ‘new media’ business, you’ll be pretty easily pick out how totally my brother has drunk the kool-aid of the bass-akwards mind fuck that the ‘old media’ folks try to sell you.
First there was the stone age
Deep breath.
Let’s try to break this down: We are now in the information age. Where once the pinacle of technology was an iron sword, the new tech is information.
Our economy is based on the trade of IP, and yet, paradoxically, the internet has made information practically infinite. Therefore, attempting to make money by controlling the amount of information is doomed to fail.
Put another way: controlling the scarcity of something that isn't scarce can't work.
History is not a good guide here: The internet is a fundamental shift from anything we’ve experienced before. It’s as revolutionary as the printing press and as radical as the written word. It’s both asynchronous and instant two-way communication.
Lightroom or Aperture?
Image via Wikipedia
This gets filed under the old news category, but I thought I'd share a demo I did on Lightroom several months ago. (oh, and that's my first submission to slideshare!)
‘New Media’ Chaos
I have too much going on in my life right now. I'm back at school and shooting a ton. Not only shooting, but I'm back to editing.
I have created/taken the position of "Exponent of the Evolution" at The Daily Orange, my student newspaper. I had previously served a year as the photo editor for the paper, and has sort of assumed that my time there was up.
Little did I know that the opportunity would arise to use a lot of the knowledge that I've linked to and talked about on this blog in the 'real world' (however real an independent daily college paper is).
As the Exponent of the Evolution, I have 3 areas of responsibility:
- Promotion and advocacy of 'new media' at the paper. Blogging, audio slideshows, video, podcasting, video podcasting, etc.
- Establishing and expanding the paper's online precense. This can be simple, like promoting the website in print, or publishing headlines on twitter, to more complicated things like the creation of a new CMS for college papers.
- Monetizing. I serve as an advisor to the business side of the paper for online ads. Best online ad practices, new revenue streams, etc
The good news is this: this job has never existed before, and it desperately has needed to. It is critical for the survival of newspapers in the internet age to adapt to the new, online world. At this point, no newspaper has done it successfully.
Papers like The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, have made leaps in the online realm, but none of them are able to sustain their operation entirely off revenue from the online side of the business. If print is dead, it is critical that newspapers, as the sole remaining journalists, figure out a revenue and distribution model that can maintain them.
Since this is already a bit of a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness post written at 6am out of pent up guilt for not writing a real post for so long. Let me provide a list of what I have done for the DO:
- Twittering of all headlines @dailyorange. Our popular sports blog gets special designation for it's posts (as do videos).
- Establishment of Final Cut Pro as our go-to video and audio slideshow editor. The result, as a movie, has a superior quality over soundslides or slideshowpro.
- Our sports section has been publishing 'graphics' prior to games that give details on players, what to look forward to, who to watch, etc. We're trying to move this to an interactive, online, format.
- I've developed a hypothesis: the lone reporter/photojournalist is dead. Instead, reporting will be done in teams that function like (pardon the analogy) terrorist cells. They will be largely autonomous, have a mission (a beat), and be comprised of a small group of people who have unique skills.
TV media has been doing this for a long time – they always send out at least a camera man and a reporter.
These teams will consist of 2-3 people (with an editor back in the office) who need to have 5 skills between them. Those skills are: 1) video 2) audio 3) photo 4) writing 5) 'personality. The last is a poor term for describing the person who is the 'on camera personality' – the person who is the front man for the team – recognizable to the public. These skills can be divided in any manner among the 2-3 members of the team.
I've been working on this 'hypothesis' for months now, recognizing that in this new world it is impractical to expect a single reporter/photog to be able to deliver a complete multimedia piece. Non only is it impossible to shoot video, sound, and photos at the same time, but it cannot all be complied on deadline. Having a team of people working on the same project allows them to deliver a complete multimedia package for every story – on deadline.
The point: I've decided to test the hypothesis: I have a 3 person team (who's beat has yet to be determined). At this point, they're producing a video a week on a chosen topic. We'll see where this goes. - Our sports section now has 2 video podcasts: On the Beat and Just Le Jus. Publishing 3 times a week, I'm hoping that this sort of thing will spread to other sections of the paper (working on Opinion).
- I'm the front man for the DO at coPress, a collective of college newspapers who are developing an opensource, custom, content management system for college newspapers. I've written the first blog post of coPress here. This is a move to get our paper off College Publisher, and onto a more workable CMS – a critical goal for the long-term sustainability of our paper.
- I've hired a couple of web developers (well, had hired, looks like I'm going to have to fight the board on this one) to help develop our CMS. This marks the first time the DO has hired someone specifically to develop code for our site. The sports graphics are a good example of the power that this brings.
- We are now using vimeo for all of our videos. It's a flexible system that allows HD content hosting. We'll have our own branded player eventually, but for now, this is a great, turn-key solution.
- Google ads don't make a ton of money, but they are something, and provide great filler for when we can't sell local ads.
- In order to figure out who is visiting our site (and how), it's critical to have a good suite of analytics software. We're now using Google Analytics.
- Our sports section has been live blogging for about a year now from games. I'm trying to get this work ethic expanded to other sections.
I think that's the list for now. We're/I'm working on doing more. I was just approved as a full time hire, but I'm still doing the job of more than one person, and could really use additional staff to make this all work. I'll end by sharing a very rough audio slideshow I did for a local walk for cancer.
Light the Night from Daily Orange on Vimeo.
I Leave for a Week!
I leave for a week to go backpacking (and photographing … as much as one can while being exhausted), and Adobe goes and releases Lightroom 2! What a treat to come back to! My favorite reviews here and here.
My favorite new features:
- filter bar
- localized corrections
- it's a localized correction, but the graduated filter wasn't in the beta, and is AMAZING
- keywording interface
There are of course other new features too!
Oh, and photos of the trip coming soon.
MobileMe Reviewed
I've just gotten my hands on a full MobileMe account (thanks Ramon!) and I thought I'd take the opportunity to compliment and complain.
Features Not Working
As of this writing, the following features of me.com are not working.
- Backup software (download link redirects)
- According to the System Status: Homepage & Groups is currently not operating
- Still experiencing system slow downs, especially when accessing account settings.
MobileMe got off to a rocky start. The dotmac website stated that they system would be offline from 8pm-2am beginning Wednesday evening (Jul 9) to facilitate the transition. The presumption was that me.com would go live at 2am, which did not happen. Me.com went through periods of service and through Friday (the day of the iPhone 3G launch). The system became fast enough to be usable on Saturday (Jul 12, the date
It's so shiiiinyyy
Let's get this clear, me.com is pretty. Really, really pretty. It almost feels like a desktop app. You can use keyboard shortcuts just like a desktop app (replace ⌘ key with the ctrl key and you already know the keyboard shortcuts). You can drag and drop just like a desktop app. Windows slide down just like a desktop app. In case you didn't get it, it feels like a desktop app!
Switching between modules requires a load time, but actions within any one of the modules doesn't seem to incur a load time at all (very cool).
Based on SproutCore, MobileMe feels quick. Yet, there are still a few remaining speed issues. I've tried to upload over 5GB of photos to my iDisk via the desktop interface and the transfer has taken 9+ hours to get half way; reading another 9 hours to complete. (This upload later failed; twice.) Accessing the 'account settings' section of the web interface is hit or miss. Sometimes it pops right up, sometimes it just displays "loading" for eternity. No doubt, these are both symptoms of a freshly launched app, nonetheless, they are annoying.
iDisk
iDisk web interface.
The iDisk webapp works much as you'd expect. It's the same column interface that Finder has. Clicking on a folder reveals the files and directories contained. I haven't figured out the pattern yet, but sometimes the app displays a loading icon you click on a folder, and sometimes it doesn't. Also, the app gives no indication that you've clicked on an empty folder. In contrast, Finder tells the user that a directory has "0 items," the iDisk webapp has no visual indication, and frequently left me watching the computer screen hoping something would load.
The interface does not allow for previewing of files. Click on a jpg and the app will tell you that it's a jpg, but it doesn't display a thumbnail. The system also does not recognize RAW files. It would be nice to have a 'quicklook' like functionality so that a user didn't have to download a file to see what it is.
 |
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| .jpg: no preview | .nef: not recognized |
Preferences for iDisk are extremely simple. You have the choice of displaying a 'Simple Folder Layout' - only Documents, Public and Movies are shown in iDisk home. The app behaves as you'd expect it too, and in someways is more responsive than the desktop plugin. Which is continually having connection issues. It seems that my iDisk can't stay connect for more than several hours at a time – no big deal until I try to transfer several gigabytes of files.
Deleting files on the iDisk via the desktop takes a very long time. But, the process is fast on the web app, and the changes are reflected nearly instantaneously on the desktop side.
In addition, I was surprised to see the webapp lacking two key features. 1) It is not capable of uploading directories, even though it can upload multiple files. The help instructs users to compress (zip) their directories first – what a poor solution. 2) Even though Contacts and Mail have instant search, iDisk does not. erm… makers of Spotlight – HELLO! I'd like to be able to search my files online too please. K, thanks.
I was impressed at the integration, but constantly frustrated by webapp limitations and the glacial communications times when using the desktop interface. iDisk is not ready for large file transfers but with luck, Apple will fix the bugs and speed will increase in the near future.
Gallery
Gallery web interface
Gallery is the me.com interface for hosting your photos. Think of it as the web based iPhoto.
The frontend is the same that users have come to know and love. It's extremely fast, good looking and offers a variety of options to viewers.
Uploading to Gallery
Uploads are very quick and the interface not only allows the user to upload multiple files at once, but has the option to add more files while an upload is in progress - nifty!
It's possible to sync Gallery with either Aperture or iPhoto but, in my opinion, there is one glaring sync error. Apple gives MobileMe users 20GB of storage to divide between email, iDisk, Gallery, and Backup. 20GB may seem like a lot but when all of these services are taken into account, the space goes fast. Ideally, MobileMe could offer users a complete cloud storage solution for all data. 20GB is simply not enough to accomplish that.
Following that logic, Apple should allow Gallery to use photos placed in the Pictures folder of iDisk. Not only would this ease the storage constraints, but it would simplify the interface between the two apps.
It's worth noting that Gallery has no photo editing capabilities or instant search. I don't think these are features that many users will miss, but as search is a key Apple technology and web-based photo editing is becoming more popular, it would have been nice for Apple to through those features in.
And that is as far as my complaints with Gallery go. It is otherwise and extremely well designed and extremely responsive app.
Calendar
Calendar web interface
Entering info into an event is a bit different on the web than in iCal.
Calendar isn't quite as slick as iCal, but it's still the slickest calendar interface I've seen to date. It has all the simplicity of gCal with fewer pages loads. (Less pages loaded means the app is faster.)
Notably, Calendar falls into the class of MobileMe apps that could use instant search and curiously doesn't have it.
While Calendar has no trouble syncing your iCal calendars, it does not import your subscription calendars. I can't fathom why this is, but it sure is annoying to not have holidays visible.
Aside from the different info panel (see photo, right), Calendar does maintain an interface virtually identical to iCal. This means that Calendar shares the same flaw that I find with iCal - it has poor support for ToDo items. As a simple list, ToDo is horribly uncomplicated and hard to use. There's no way to attach a todo to an event, one can't postpone todo items, and there is no method to group tasks with multiple calendars. Nonetheless, Calendar does what it's supposed to do elegantly and without trouble.
Contacts
Contacts web interface
Contacts should be the simplest app in the suite. Or at least, it makes sense to me that a simple database interface would be ease to do. …so of course, it fell to the bottom of the maintenance list.
My first sync (on Friday) caused some of my contacts to duplicate. I'm not sure why some duplicated and some didn't, but it was sure annoying and not what I expected from a first class sync app. Once I got that problem taken care of, I headed over to the webapp and tried dealing with my contacts there.
As with the rest of the me.com apps, Contacts online is very similar to contacts on the desktop. One glaring thing that is missing the smart contact groups. Normal groups show up online fine, but it's a strange thing to be missing when the instant search works so well. (whoohooo! instant search!)
One strange bug I encountered was that editing a contact name didn't always update the name in the contact list.
I won't say that Contacts is bad, far from it - it looks to be a promising web interface. But, it sure is buggy.
Mail web interface
Let me start by saying this. I really prefer desktop apps for email – I want the ability to search and write messages while offline. To accomplish this, I use Apple's Mail.app. But, I've used Yahoo, AOL, gmail, Comcast, squirrel mail, and a host (20+?) of other email webapps.
Let me say this, for all it's simplicity and flash, the new MoblieMe email app sucks. I like the instant search, but aside from that, there are a lot of serious flaws.
Mail doesn't import other email accounts. The reason I so like Mail.app is that I can have a ton of email accounts in it. I've got 6 active right now. They all do different things and I don't want them confused. Now maybe I'm unique in that respect, but I still want Mail's web interface to show those other accounts. I was quite surprised to find that it didn't. After all, gmail does it.
Mail doesn't support smart folders. Not too much of a surprise in light of Contacts not supporting smart groups, but very disappointing. But, Mail has instant search!
New Message opens a popup. Really Apple? really? Didn't you learn anything from AOL's mistakes and Gmail's success? Lets keep everything in one window, mhhhkay?
New Message doesn't auto-complete the "To:" field. Granted, I ran into this problem when I clicked on the address book, but that doesn't indicate that auot-complete wasn't working. This seems to be an obvious feature that everybody uses.
I count myself lucky that I don't depend on me.com as my primary email. The webapp is easily the weakest in the suite, and needs quick updating.
Other nifty things
In general, the help provided is very good. Clicking on a help link or pressing [ctrl+?] launches a new popup (appropriate in this case) which loads faster than OSX help windows do!
I did all of my testing in Safari Version 3.1.1 (5525.20), so your mileage in a different browser may vary. I'm very interested to know how IE deals with me.com.
You can set me.com to remember who you are for 2 weeks at a time, a good security measure.
This is way improved over dotmac.
It's possible to setup your own domain name to point to your homepage. That means you can get your iWeb site to live at its own URL.
Users can set how they divide storage between their email and their iDisk –very handy!
Aside from where I specifically mentioned, the me.com is fast. Load times are negligible and speed should only increase as Apple works out the kinks.
Syncing a computer with MobileMe is similarly speedy, I could be mistaken, but it seemed snappier than the dotmac sync.
What I really think...
I'm horribly disappointed with iDisk. I really expected better from a cloud storage solution. For now, I'm sticking with Wua.la. I don't doubt that Apple will work out the kinks, but right now, it's broken.
Gallery, Contacts and Calendar are really nifty apps that are well done, but have several bugs.
Though usable, Mail needs a lot of work. Stick with gmail, Yahoo, or a desktop client.
Now for the million dollar question. Is it worth $100 a year?
- Do you need to host a website or share you pictures online, but have little technical know-how?
- Do you already have a dotmac email address?
- Do you want a really slick way of showing off your photos and videos?
- Do you need a really simple way to sync two computers?
- Do you want a set-it-and-forget-it strategy to get an offsite backup of your most essential data?
If you answered yes to any of the above, give me.com a serious think. Note I didn't ask if you need a way to get your calendar, or contacts, or email, or photos, or data, online. There are free solutions for all of these, they're just far more manual than MobileMe.
I really appreciate the approach of MobileMe. And incase you didn't catch it, the interface is slick! I trust that once all of the bugs are worked out, life @me will be really sweet.
A totally arbitrary rating, for those that need a number: 7.45/10
Update
AppleInsider raises an interesting point that I completely missed. MobileMe is marketed as a push solution for all your devices, and it fails at this goal. Though changes made on an iPhone are apparently recognized instantly by the cloud, changes made on a Mac still need to be synced. That is not a push solution, not at all. I suspect that the next version of OSX aliviate, if not fix this issue with support for exchange built into all the necessary apps. Nonetheless, it is a severe disappointment to not have push now – as was promised. Syncing is a 2nd class solution, especially when it duplicates my contacts!
Update 2
Check out this for a great look at how Apple is fixing the problem.
I Know What I Want!
attn: John Nack
Black Stroke!
Oh, and by the way, lest I forget: yes, we’re changing the default stroke color to black. Just thought you’d want to know.
-Photoshop Insider » It's Guest Blog Wednesday Featuring: Photoshop Senior Product Manager, John Nack
Thank god! That red stroke is just plain annoying.
(Yes, that is a forum topic about the stupid red stroke default on a site dedicated to people who typically complain about broadband speeds. That choice is clearly unpopular.)
The quote ends an article that is an interesting read if you're curious about the direction Photoshop is developing.
It's written by one of the top dogs in the Adobe world, John Nack (sorry couldn't find a wikipedia page), who has a blog of his own, which is interesting reading in its own right.
Nack's article argues that Photoshop developers know what users want better than themselves. He uses the classic example of the history palette and history brush coming out of the comparatively simple user request for multiple undos.
Adobe, what's wrong? You sick?
Yet, he also protests Adobe's finite set of resources,
Much to my eternal frustration (and probably yours), we’ll never have enough time to implement even 10% of the good ideas that come our way.
…and that his team puts in a lot of backend work which doesn't immediately benefit the average user.
These things take a while. (I’m reminded of the line, “It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level, I’m really quite busy.”)
I'm perfectly willing to grant that Adobe can't hire every developer in the world. I also grant that backend coding is a lot of hard work. And, I certainly am not going to argue that, "what customers say they want and what they actually need often differ." (By the way Mr. Nack, that "cellular level" line is used to refer to lazy people who actually are doing nothing.)
Yet, Adobe should be leading the image editing development sphere, not slowly adopting it's technology. 64-bit apps are not a new thing, Apple's Aperture has had the ability to leverage the GPU from it's first launch, Carbon is on it's way out, and Photoshop is facing all sorts of problems because Adobe hasn't ported it over yet.
What happened to the desire to lead the way? Remember when the Healing Brush was introduced in Photoshop 7? That was an awesome new feature. It also came with the shiny new file browser.
...Which is where we start to get into trouble, the file browser was poorly implemented, and its successor, Bridge, is still slow. And, It's not like a file browser is a radical new idea. It's a pretty basic thing that Adobe has only managed to get right with Lightroom.
It seems like every creative I know is on a Mac or, like most people I know, switching to one. I can't remember the last time I even saw Photoshop on a Windows box. If you're spending so much time under the hood, why can't Photoshop CS4 be 64-bit on the Mac?
Some Cough Medicine
My complaint is this: Adobe, I don't care what resources aren't available to you. You're the top dog in this market by a long shot. If you don't have resources, get them. Not having competition seems to have made you lazy, and operating at the cellular level isn't enough.
Enough with the excuses, you've proven that you can produce a great 64-bit, Cocoa, app that intelligently employs Smart Layers, utilizes the GPU, has a fast file browser, and is capable of implementing user feedback. Lightroom.
Your ability to improve upon user feedback is important, keep that up. Yet, the following disturbs me a bit:
It’s interesting that faster performance didn’t rate higher on the list. [of top ten requests] On the one hand, I’d like to take this as a good sign that our work in CS3 to speed up Photoshop’s launch time, take advantage of multi-core systems, etc. has paid off & that people are happy. On the other, there’s no such thing as “too fast,” and quicker performance is the best possible feature: there’s nothing to learn. Therefore I think all the muscle we’re pouring into R&D to leverage graphics hardware acceleration & 64-bit computing will make folks happy.
Mr. Nack, I do indeed want Photoshop to be as fast as possible. It does need to go 64-bit, it should be able to use the GPU, it should be a Cocoa app. But I expect all of this to happen without a cost to the user. Adobe via Mr. Nack seems to be resistant to adopting all of these technologies.
I hesitate to say that Photoshop is 'fast enough,' but if you're creating a list of priorities, speed isn't in the top 10. Lightroom's technologies are (7 of the 10 features in the top 10 list). A real noise filter is.
Oh sure, I want speed. I want the 3.5 gig RAM limit removed (you need 64-bit for that), but these are all things that I expect from any company that is keeping pace with technology. I also expect that once you've developed technology for one application, it can appear across all of your apps. Don't sacrifice one expectation in the name of another. They both need to happen concurrently.
Go back to surprising us with cool new features. Stay ahead of the curve instead of slightly behind. We want more surprises like the Healing Brush. We don't want to be told why waiting to get what we want is a good thing.
Adobe, you're doing better now than you ever have before. Just because you have a virtual monopoly, you don't get to slack off. There are companies biting at your heels.
Things aren't that bad…
Sure, that top 10 list wasn't a scientific sampling. Yea, it was probably weighted down by non-profesional users of Photoshop. Still, it's sampling of the market, and Adobe attention is warranted.
Photoshop is still best in class software. I still prefer Lightroom for my photo workflow needs. Adobe's efforts with Flash are highly appreciated. InDesign is my goto app for all layout work. I'll even use Bridge in a pinch.
Adobe products are fantastic, but I'm discouraged. I feel like Adobe needs a Canon.
Update:
It seems that Adobe's Acrobat Reader 9, which has just hit the wild, is a good example of Adobe getting lazy.
Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog » Preset Templates in My Lightroom Plugins
As another example, consider the template:
{Location}-{Country}-{State}-{City}-{Caption}
for a photo that has “Location” and “Caption”, but no “Country,” “City,” or “State.”. Assuming that location and caption are “Home” and “Having Fun” respectively, it becomes:Home-Having Fun
which is better than it would be without these special rules:Home----Having Fun
-Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog » Preset Templates in My Lightroom Plugins
Sweet!!! This is a much need addition to Adobe Lightroom. The current ability to place metadata fields just about anywhere is very cool, but poorly implemented. It appears that Mr. Friedl has managed to fix this inadequacy – I'd love to see his solution made into a plugin that any other plugin can call / see Adobe adopt it.
Mark Hamburg Leaves Adobe – LightroomNews
I don’t think one can downplay the significance of Mark’s departure because the contribution he made to the development of Photoshop and Lightroom has certainly been enormous and it goes without saying that his presence will be missed at Adobe.
-LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Mark Hamburg leaves Adobe
I've heard of Mr. Hamburg before, and know him to be a prime instigator behind a lot of Adobe's success.
As for what Mark is going to do next, it is known that he is now going to Microsoft in Seattle, and that his future work there won’t involve digital imaging, but instead be focussed on the “user experience”. So remember Jeff’s advice and be careful what you wish for!
That I didn't know (unsurprisingly). All I can say is… godspeed Mark, may Redmond treat you well. (though I have my doubts).
UPDATE: I re-read this post the morning after I wrote it.
NOTE-TO-SELF: Proofread at least twice before posting when you're tired.
Real UPDATE: Further news from photoshop news. Apparently, Mr. Hamburg is going to be working on revolutionary new OS interaction methods. Seems like this is the hot field for programming geniuses to be in nowadays. And it makes sense. The last/only great evolution we've seen was the mouse/desktop analogy paradigm. I'm not sure if Microsoft will be the company to come up a new way of interacting with a computer, but here's to Mark's efforts!
Adobe Releases Lightroom 1.4.1, Camera Raw 4.4.1 Updates
Sweet. Adobe finally corrects their mistake(s). 'bout time.
NEWS! - Adobe Releases Lightroom 1.4.1, Camera Raw 4.4.1 Updates
Cloud Computing Is Well and Good, but It Can’t Beat the Desktop Computer. – By Paul Boutin – Slate Magazine
One of the nice things about Word and Photoshop is that once I fire them up and start working, I can forget all about the Internet for a few hours. Sometimes, my PC and I just want to be alone.
I couldn't agree more. The idea of putting all sorts of applications online is interesting, but not really practical. Photoshop Express is interesting, but it's no more than a proof of concept to me. Perhaps worth having as a tool on an online picture ordering site (like MPIX) as a means of last minute adjustments.
Similarly, gDocs, is convenient if I need to share text with someone as I type it (and see theirs), but it's really not a replacement to Apple Pages, which I do use instead of Microsoft Word.
This guy's basic point is good. Computing through the browser is an interesting idea, but yet to be practical.
The real money will be made when someone figures out how to use these simple apps as they are – not as desktop replacements, but as quick little apps that plugin into simple web apps. The web is about collaboration, make the web apps about that too.
John Nack on Adobe: Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe’s 64-Bit Roadmap
At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa.
John Nack on Adobe: Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe's 64-bit roadmap
So… Windows will get a 64-bit version of Photoshop in CS4, Mac will not. Bummer. Real big bummer.
Lightroom Journal: Lightroom 2 Beta Available
Lightroom Journal: Lightroom 2 beta Available
There's a beta of Adobe's Lightroom 2.0 out!!! Whoopee!
Update: Here's a pretty good feature summary/review of the new Lightroom.
Update2: The above article combined with Adobe's own warnings have convinced me not to adopt this is my primary workflow software yet. (huge bummer) The fact that metadata almost certainly won't carry over and the inability to support LR v1.x libraries is a huge pain. Plus it's not been guaranteed that libraries created in a beta of version 2 can be carried over to the shipping release. I'll just have to wait for beta 2.
Slashdot | Sony BMG Sued for Using Pirated Software
HAAHAHa. hahaha. hehehee. *sniff* Oh dear. wow.
This is a good one. Pretty spectacular actually. Apparently, Sony BMG, strong member of the RIAA, was caught using pirated software on their servers in France. 47% of the software on the servers was pirated. That's quite a bit of piracy there.
Questioned about the fact that this is perhaps the single act of an employee, the CEO of PointDev retorts, "I think piracy is linked to the policy of a company. If the employee has the necessary funding to buy the software they need, it will. If this is not the case, he will find alternative ways, as the work must be done in one way or another."
Lightroom 1.4 – Sucks
I've been holding off finalizing my Italy photos because of the problems with Lightroom 1.4, which of course I upgraded to the instant I got home from Italy. I've been waiting for them to release a fix, for over a week now to no avail. In re-reading the post, I discovered that uninstalling does not require me to delete all my preference files as I had originally thought. I will go a head and put LR 1.3.1 back on (there's not that much of an upgrade anyway), and finish those photos.
...erm but not tonight b/c I'm going to a football match: Brazil v. Sweeden. Should be a fun, wet, time.
LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Adobe Yanks Lightroom 1.4 & Camera Raw 4.4
The Lightroom 1.4 update for Mac and Windows has been temporarily removed from the Adobe.com web site. Those Lightroom users who have installed Lightroom 1.4 should uninstall the update and install Lightroom 1.3.1.(Mac, Win) until a further update can be provided.
LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Adobe Yanks Lightroom 1.4 & Camera Raw 4.4
Ouch. That's no good. There's a bug that affects only Windows users and DNG. There's an Olypmus processing bug. But the killer is a bug in the EXIF timestamping that will modify an original RAW files. Ouch. Get this fixed quick Adobe!!!
AppleInsider | Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software and SDK Beta
This is pretty nifty if you're a iPhone user … even better if you're an enterprise client. Apple's got Microsoft Exchange server in a way that's much better than any Blackberry. If you watch the demo, you get to see the nearly instant communication between a laptop and the iPhone. Oh, and they've got PC level games on this thing now too. Really AppleInsider | Apple announces iPhone 2.0 software and SDK beta
