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» Worldwide Photo Walk, Saturday August 23rd

On Saturday, August 23rd there will be a worldwide photowalk held in promotion of the upcoming Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. I’m going to be hosting the one in my home city of Gothenburg, Sweden. Go and check out the full deal over att Scott’s Blog and view the video below that explains it as well. I haven’t finalised the details for the walk here in Gothenburg just yet but they will be in a day or to. So if you want to join in my photo walk, check out the page here.

Tags: Gothenburg, Photowalk, Scott Kelby, Worldwide |  Print Post     

» Brand new iPhone Center revealed!

I’m proud to release a brand new iPhone Center on the site which holds tips and tricks on the iPhone as well as reviews of iPhone applications. We have many tips and reviews up already but we plan to expand on the center as time goes! Click on the image above or follow the link here to the iPhone Center and please give your comments on it!

Tags: Apple, Bernskiold Media, iPhone Center, Reviews, Tips |  Print Post     

» Wednesday News

A lot has been happening in the tech world, especially since the iPhone 3G release. I’m going to try and focus a bit less on all iPhone news and instead go in on the other things that’re happening.

• What is the world coming to?! A father of three got complaints from other parents when he was at a park with his sons taking pictures of them. He was accused of being a pervert and even for taking pictures of children and putting them on the internet. The whole story ended with the father getting a police officer to confirm to them that he was doing nothing wrong. Read the full story.
   
• Last week I told you about the interview Scott Kelby did with attorney Ed Greenberg. Well this week on this weeks Photoshop User TV, Scott is doing a follow-up interview with photographer and copyright advocate Jack Reznicki. It pretty much takes off where we left with Ed last week and finishes up the major concerns a photographer and graphics designer might have. Scott has the interview clip on his blog.
   
• A buddy of mine turned me onto a very cool site called woork. On the site Antonio Lupetti talks about different techniques, scripts and css styles to make cool web things. The posts are always interesting and contains great information overall.

Tags: Antonio Lupetti, Copyright, Jack Reznicki, Law, Photography, Woork |  Print Post     

» My first thoughts on the iPhone 3G

Finally I did get to get the iPhone 3G after a long wait. We didn’t have it here in Sweden before and now it finally is. This first look is really at everything except the phone part. That’s because my number is in transition from my old service provider (Telenor) to the new (Telia). It’s going to take a week more and until then I can’t test the 3G speed nor how the phone works.

This review will obviously so far be based on everything else but the phone part with another second review coming of the phone features when I get to try it out next week, and then a mixed after that!

My Personal Buying Experience

I can really say that my buying experience was good. Being before both the UK and US in time the Apple activation servers were working properly and the queue time wasn’t that bad. I got in the queue at 9a.m (with the stores opening at 10a.m) and I got out with my phone at 11a.m. It took about 20 minutes to get it activated and all, mainly because of Telia’s servers being slow. Store staff were great, friendly and it all worked out super for me. Activation time through iTunes worked perfectly as well, meaning I don’t have any complaints here.

My First Impressions

Cool! It’s a really cool device that compared to the old phone I was using, blows everything away. There are a few things I really like and a few things I wish were there, but really none that I don’t like. My first impressions of the phone is that it is really cool however.

My Pet-peeves

My main pet peeve is that you can’t copy and paste information in the phone. From webpages to notes etc. This is something which is really neeed and should be able to be fixed with a software update. Wake up and do it Apple! It has been a top request since the release of the original iPhone.

I would also like to see the ability to turn the iPhone around in any application that uses the keyboard. I find the wider keyboard so much easier to type on and I would like to be able to use it, especially for notes.

The App Store

It’s great that Apple has opened up for third-party developers and it is something which should have been available all along. It works pretty good and there are already some applications which I really like (listing them below). I have one big pet-peeve here as well. I don’t like that they are limiting some applications per country. For example in Terry White’s review of the iPhone 3G, he listed some of his favourite applications and I found some I’d love to have, which I cannot get because I’m in the Swedish app store. It sucks and shouldn’t matter!

Some of my favourite applications that I love already are: Twitterific, NetNewsWire, VoiceNotes, SpeechCloud Voice Dialling, AIM and Enigmo (a very addictive game).

The GPS

It works moderately well it works good when it can get contact. Forget it getting contact inside a building or house but outside it does work really good actually. Although no turn by turn instructions (which should be possible) I like it so far. I had it on when going form home to family who lives a further bit down south from us in Sweden and it worked really well and showed everything that it should, including where I was very accurately.

My current opinion

Without having tried the actual phone (which I believe to be great) I don’t think in any way that the iPhone is perfect but it is the best phone out there that I know of. I will sum up the entire phone after I’ve used the phone features as well for a while so expect my full review up next week! Meanwhile, enjoy your iPhone if you have it and if you don’t, check out the features in action on the Apple Guided Tour.

Oh and by the way, a hidden tip. To take screenshots on the iPhone, hold down the home screen and click the sleep/wake button up top

For the best and and best covered review of the iPhone 3G, check out Terry White’s! 

Tags: 3G, Apple, iPhone, Review |  Print Post     

» Wednesday Stuff

Getting right on to today’s news:

• The iPhone 3G launch is coming closer and Friday is the day. The launch time varies across the world from midnight launch events to the regular opening time launch. Already they have been people starting to queue outside stores in different parts of the world and some pre-release unpacking photos are being released. So tell us, will you be there for the launch to get the iPhone 3G? Leave a comment and/or vote in the poll!
   
• As you guys probably know the Adobe trial downloads were unavailable during June but since it is now July, they are back online and you can now download the trials.
   
• A lot of focus is right now set at Apple mainly because of the iPhone 3G. What’s being overlooked though is that late today to early tomorrow their new Mobile Me service will be activated and ready for the world to use. I will have my thoughts up on it once I’ve been able to try it out for a bit.

That’s it for today! I’ll see you back tomorrow for some more extensive blogging.

Tags: Adobe, Apple, iPhone, Mobile Me |  Print Post     

» Late “Last” Monday News

I’ve been very busy today sorting and working with photos from my week away last week and getting back into things so that’s why there have been this little delay in the news post.

• Last Wednesday the ISO group decided to take the Adobe PDF document seriously and approved it as an ISO standard. From now and on the format will be recognised as format ISO32000-1 and it will be controlled by the organisation.
   
• Last week also Google announced that the search engine is now indexing flash! According to their official blog they have now "perfected the algorithm" to now index flash. This is all pretty exciting as it makes SEO with flash a lot easier! Read more about it at Viget Inspire.
   
• Last but not least Nik Software has announced the release of Color Efex Pro 3.0 for Nikon Capture NX 2.0. Existing users can upgrade to the 3.0 version for free. The software is available in a Complete ($179.95) and a Select ($99.95) edition.

And as it turned out a terrible lot of "last"’s

Tags: Adobe, Capture NX, Color Efex Pro, Flash, Google, ISO, Nik Software, PDF |  Print Post     

» The deal about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting

There are a lot of discussions going on always about what you can do and can’t do when it comes to legal issues and photography. As Ed says in the interview, photographers have a trend to ask other photographers to get a simple solution to the problems. Well, most of them aren’t true and most times don’t apply to the situations as you think. Scott Kelby however took a little different approach and asked Intellectual Property Attorney, Ed Greenberg to come on as a call-in guest on Photoshop User TV which is airing next week. Scott posted the clips of the interview yesterday on his blog however. In the interview, Ed clears up the major things about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting.

• Listen to the Interview

Tags: Copyright, Interview, Legal, Model Releases, Photography, Public Shooting |  Print Post     

» Book Tip: Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.Q

Today, I want to share with you something really cool. A friend of mine, Victoria Bampton (aka. The Lightroom Queen) has very recently released an e-book about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The book is really cool, named "Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.W", it’s an F.A.Q with questions and clear, precise answers to them. It’s just a great way to be able to find the quick and clear answers to your questions if you have them and the book really contains most of the most asked questions there actually is about Lightroom. I asked Victoria to describe the book a bit, talk a little bit about her goals with it and why she wrote it. She kindly enough agreed to do it.

Lightroom was officially released on 19th February 2007 after a long public beta period, and it became an instant hit.  The problem everyone had, though, was that it was an entirely new idea, and there was very little information available on how best to use it.  The help files are never the most scintillating read, and half the information wasn’t in there either.  As a result, people flooded the forums looking for information, and a really good community developed around it.  

Over the course of time, I realised that exactly the same questions were coming up time and time again, and whilst a few good books had been published, there was no real reference material.  A lot of people like to dive straight into software without ever reading a book, and just want a reference guide when it all goes wrong.  Others will sit down and read a tutorial book, but when they have a question, tutorial books often don’t answer it.  And if you got stuck, you’d have to spend hours searching the web for other people who’d had the same problem, or ask on a forum and wait ages for someone to help.  

 

I’ve spent so many hours answering all of these questions on a variety of forums, it made sense to compile it into a large FAQ book.  It’s the questions that people ACTUALLY ask, rather than the ones that engineers think you will.  It’s full of answers to questions that everyone hits at some stage, and other questions that you just don’t think to ask, but that make you say "oh, THAT’s how you do it…!!!" when you find out.

 

It’s been fascinating to write - I started out thinking it might be around 50 pages, but it’s just grown and grown, and the 1.4.1 version is now 329 pages, and the 2.0 version will be even thicker.  But the great thing is, it’s laid out in such a way that you can easily skip to the bit you want, and the PDF is fully searchable, in case you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for.

 

So I’m just busy finished off the 2.0 version ready for release at the same time as 2.0…. in the meantime, 1.4.1 version is available for instant download, 2.0 version is available for pre-order on the website, and there’s a discounted bundle if you want the 1.4.1 version right now and to pre-order 2.0 too. 

You can go and read more about this book over at her website, the Lightroom Queen. The e-book runs for £14.95 (which is about $29.95) and you can get it on her website. What’s more cool though, Victoria released a discount to readers of this blog, so upon checkout, just enter the code BM2008 for a discount on the book!

Tags: E-Book, Lightroom, Lightroom Queen, Missing F.A.Q, Victoria Bampton |  Print Post     

» Nikon D700 and SB-900 released!

Nikon has announced two new products today, the new Nikon D700 body featuring a full frame FX sensor and the SB-900 flash which features more power and faster recycling time.

Nikon D700

The Nikon D700 is really like a smaller D3. The looks are almost like the D300 but the inside is much more of the D3 featuring the low noise capabilities in the CMOS, FX sensor. It has unlike the D3 a pop-up flash which can come in handy. You have also the two live view modes, either hand-held or tripod mode. Of course there is also the 3" LCD display and a 51-point AF with 3D Focus Tracking. Something that’s still pretty new to the Nikon line, the D700 has a dust reduction system that sounds pretty good as well.

Read More »

Nikon SB-900

The SB-900 is really a pretty awesome flash head. It features a faster recycle time, it is more powerful than the SB-800, has better software, a larger LCD window and also senses whether you happen to be using a DX or FX camera. It also has a great zoom range from 18-200mm which is pretty remarkable. As a final, you can also choose between three different light distribution patterns depending on what you are shooting!

Read More »

Tags: Nikon D700, Nikon SB-900, Photography |  Print Post     

» Monday Quickies

It’s a very relaxing Monday for me because I’m sitting here in the quietness and I’m just relaxing and enjoying the time. I thought however you guys should get a few quick news updates as always.

• If you are new to CSS coding you should check out this good tutorial on using float elements form the base up. It’s just All About Floats. It’s the base of website coding nowadays and you should really know it.
   
• Apple has gone ahead and released OS X 10.5.4 which fixes a few bugs and improves things overall. You can view all the updates in an Apple Helpfile. The update can be downloaded right from the Software Update.

The image above is a little test macro image I shot while walking around here on the island today. Have a great evening/night/day wherever you are and I’ll see you back tomorrow!

Tags: Apple, CSS, CSS Tricks, Floats, Koster, Max OS X |  Print Post