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» Hot Friday News

I really must call today "Hot Friday" because here, that’s exactly what it is with warm temperatures here. The news and goodies for today are pretty hot for themselves as well so there is no sparing on the hotness

• if you are in the Philadelphia area in the US and you are interested in Photoshop and the Creative Suite  don’t miss out that Matt Kloskowski is coming to the Philadelphia Downtown Marriot on June 3rd with some other cool presenters in a free seminar about the Creative Suite 3. You can view the seminar page for more details and to sign up!
   
• Recent rumours suggest that Apple might be renaming and revamping its .Mac service. If they did it would really be a welcome upgrade since honestly the service isn’t that much to be excited about, at the moment.
   
• If you are looking at starting a photography portfolio website now at the start of the summer and want a unique website with unique design check out the portfolio package from XLD Studios. We have also a special discount code that’ll grant you 15% off the package, just enter the code "BM0806" when you are signing up. The offer is valid through June 30th! (If you are not looking at that level of uniqueness, just wait a couple of days for an exciting package from them )
   
• Some users of Adobe products are reporting file corruption when working on network stored files and blames it on the latest 10.5.3 update to Leopard on the Mac. (PC users are not having the problems). Adobe blames the corruption solely on Apple and the updates they did in 10.4.6.

» Thursday Quick-News

• Over at Photoshop Insider, Scott Kelby posted a very good post with what he wants to see in the next version(s) of Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s some really good ideas that I really like and agree on.
   
• If you are a keen photographer you should have checked out JPG Magazine and if not, then you should go ahead and do that right now. It’s a really cool photography magazine with contests and featured amazing photography.
   
• The Mac program Delicious Library has been updated to its second version featuring a lot of new updates and cool things. It’s only available for Mac OS X 10.5 and if you are interested in it and you are not using Leopard, you can still purchase the older version for use with Panther and Tiger. You can purchase a brand new copy for $40 and an upgrade from the old runs for $20.

 

» Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5.3

Apple has announced the availability of Mac OS X 10.5.3 right now in Software Update. The update weighs in at a 420mb and features a lot of fixes. Among the updates are a few fixes for Time Machine and Time Capsule as well as updates to Spaces, Mail, iChat and a few others.

» Wednesday News Stuff

One would think it would be very hard to exceed the happy news from yesterday with the cool CS4 betas and the news that the iPhone is coming here to Sweden. There are however some pretty cool stuff running today as well!

• Backing up is really important to do and yesterday Scott Kelby posted his backup stratergy on his blog which is really a good one. Last Friday he had another post about backing up and the importance of doing do (sharing a nightmare story) and I call today another backup Wednesday because it is really important!
   
• About a week ago the talented artist James Quantz Jr. redesigned his site to make it much cleaner and simpler (and more stylish) to us viewers. I really think it turned out rather nicely and I think you should all go and look at his new site if not just to sit a while in awe to look at his work!
   
• If you’ve been paying attention to this site a bit recently you’ll have noticed a little change in the sidebar and overall width of the site. I’ve expended the width so I could fit a larger sidebar with two columns instead of extending the old one to be even longer. With it I also added some new sidebar content such as a twitter summary of my twitter page and a brand new poll and countdown. Some minor new cool things
   
• If you are trying to download trials from Adobe’s website you’ll be greeted with a not so nice statement that they are unavailable. Over at InDesignSecrets you can read what you can do and why this is happening.

» Three CS4 beta products available in Adobe Labs!

Adobe has released the beta versions of three CS4 applications in the Adobe Labs today! It’s Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth that we get to take a look at right now and like usual, you need to get a beta serial for any of the applications if you want to use it longer than the two day grace period. The beta serial is easily obtained if you have either a product serial or a suite package serial where the product is included! The new products features a little interface change to now suit the Adobe way of things that was in most of the CS3 applications except the newly purchased Macromedia ones.

» Wednesday Stuff

 

Third time a go this time then? I’ve been trying to post this post three times now and all times I’ve accidentally quit the window in one way or another, causing this one to close and loose all writing.So lets try one more time now then.

• Scott Kelby has turned his recent "No-Blog Wednesday" into "Guest-Blog Wednesday" and about time as well, we were definitely missing something on Wednesdays (nah, just kidding Scott, you deserve your break). Anyway, this first week it is Vincent Versace who is doing the blogging with an article about "how to take better photos".
   
• The Orphan Works Act are coming closer to a vote all the time now and I’m getting an article written on its basics and possibly getting that up this week so keep your eyes on the site.
   
• I came across a cool flash component called 3D Wall. It basically lets you create a 3D Wall with photos as a slideshow in flash. All in all it is a pretty cool thing I must say and very simple to do. It’s available for $99 from their website.

» New Kelby Training classes this week

 

Kelby Training has this week not just released one, but an amazing number of three new online classes this week! And just because I like Kelby Traning and the guys (and gals) over there are amazing and doing an incredible job (and they are good people as well), there’ll always, every Friday, be this Kelby Training column (if more than one class is added, if there one new added, it’ll be in the news post, unless it is seriously cool)!

Layers styles in Photoshop by Corey Barker

The first class this week to go online is a really good class about Layer Styles done by Corey Barker (the Photoshop Laddie!). It is covering the basics on what you need to know in regards to layer styles and how to work with them as well as what the options are. Swing by the class details today!

From Photo to Graphic Art by Lesa Snider King

I’m a big fan of Lesa’s training but it is hard to get to and find, therefore I’m pretty thrilled to see a class form her up at Kelby Training. It’s called From Photo to Graphic Art and will teach you a number of different techniques to do normal effects to your photos and make them look a little bit different as well as use them in new creations.

InDesign CS3 for Printing by Taz Tally

If you are an InDesign user or rather a new InDesign user and want to be able to learn how to prepare your documents and set them up for printing! Taz is doing a great job with this class and I’d suggest you should go and watch it today, InDesign CS3 for Printing is the name, online now at Kelby Training.

 

» Tuesday News World Update

It’s Tuesday today and I was writing this post at 7a.m this morning, before school, but apparently I was way to tired to hit the publish or save button so I quite lost all post content therefore I need to repost it now. I had my concert yesterday and thanks to my family and my best friends for being there and for being the best support. It was really awesome and went really well.

Olympus Releases E-520

Olympus is today announcing its new camera body, the Olympus E-520. It has got improved AF in LiveView, 10 megapixels, a 2.7" Screen, wireless flash control, 3.5 fps shooting and a built in image stabiliser. It is available in four kit versions, body only (£479.99), with 14-42 kit lens (£529.99), with double kit 14-42 & 40-250 (£529.99) as well as with second double kit 14-42 and 70-300 (£759.99).

Cool website - CSS-Tricks

I found out about this cool website through another blog I am subscribed to. It’s called CSS-Tricks and deals with, well, obviously cool CSS tricks etc. but also points to some good thoughts about image protection and other web related things that you really need to know and be in the loop with. A really good site I must say so keep it fresh in memory.

NAPP & Stuff clarification

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you will know that I like to mention NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) and the gang over there quite often. Now I want to note that I don’t get any kickbacks or anything (apart from the fun of doing it ) when I mention them and I do it only because I’m a member myself and I really like the work they do and their style (plus they are all a really amazing and friendly crowd)! There you have it, the "amazing story behind".

ScreenFlow - Recording Application

I read this on Terry White’s techblog yesterday and it got me a little bit excited. He got turned on to (and in a chain reaction got me turned on to) a screen recording application called ScreenFlow. It’s another screen recording application for the Mac that lets you edit the recorded material right after you’ve recorded it (sadly though you need to export it out after, one of the things I love about iShowU is that you don’t need to do that there) and add callouts and even record from your webcam while you’re recording your screen. Here’s a link to Terry’s review. (If you are a PC user reading this post and hoping for a program recommendation, my recommendation is Camtasia Studio.)

» Friday “Sunshine” News

I think I’ve just about mentioned it in all my blog posts this week! The weather here is fantastic and well, nothing short of smashing and brilliant (I could go on with extreme words like that for too long) which is causing today to be "Sunshine Friday"!

• Adobe has added a new feature to its web based photo editor Photoshop Express. From today you can now import and manage photos that is on your Flickr account in addition to the ones previously available. Pretty cool I’d say if you are using Photoshop Express and Flickr!
   
• I’m getting a lot of questions on how to work with WordPress and how to set it up for certain purposes and I thought I’d start writing a tutorial series about just that. How to work with WordPress, what settings to use, some plugins etc. I don’t have any estimated completion date but it should be within the coming two weeks I assume!
   
• Over at LightroomKillerTips, Matt Kloskowski has a good Lightroom video today about how to backup to another drive instead of your main one. (Your catalog that is) It’s something that’s indeed really hidden.
   
• If you work with the web or are a web designer like me, you probably have heard your share of SEO debates and articles but if you are a little new to the field (or even if you have been there and heard it) you’ll appreciate this article by Nick La over at the Web Designer Wall talking about SEO for Web Designers.

It’s been a long week indeed and it’s been very busy with a lot of things happening, at least for me! Now it is going to be a fun and relaxing weekend in the warm weather. Fear not, I have an article lined up for you guys tomorrow.

I’m going to be away at my cousins confirmation service tomorrow which means I’ll be in a church taking some nice pictures I hope. I might be able to share you some on Sunday!

» Thursday Happenings

It’s another fine day and that makes you happy! However, there is one thing that is bothering me and in the end you guys as well. My microphone that I’m using to record the tutorials with has gone awry and I will need to get a new one (about time I got a good headset anyway). Good thing for you all is that it’s going to improve the quality of the audio. Bad news is that it’ll take me a little while to find a good one and get it shipped here, so meanwhile, all episodes of the podcast and all video tutorials will be halted. Now onto the news!

• Open Office 3.0 Beta has just been released. Being one of the best competitors to the Microsoft Office Package and being free it is a very awaited new release. What’s best for Mac users, is that it has been made to use Aqua, the program frame on Mac and thus you no longer need X11 installed to run it.
   
• Do you deal with customers a lot in your business? If so then David Ziser, famous wedding photographer, has posted a little step by step number guide on what to do when answering the phone with a client on the line. It’s a good read and most of these pointers I myself consider pretty self-explanatory but nevertheless it isn’t for a lot of people.
   
• Scott Kelby posted last week a little review on the Hoodman RAW Memory Cards which has some incredible reliability. Today he posted that he got an email from Hoodman VP of Marketing who was telling a little bit more about the cards. They do sound pretty cool so I urge you to check the post out!