November 02, 2008
Aperture 2
With the tremendous functionality of all the software that comes included with every Mac (the iLife suite), one tends to forget that Apple also makes pro versions for more serious users. Aperture 2 is the pro complement to iPhoto and it's a fabulous piece of software. In a nutshell, it's workflow software for the serious photographer. Something of a digital darkroom. Priced at 199 € (or 199 $ in the USA), you get a whole lot more functionality than iPhoto gives you when it comes to tweaking your images. It's all the more so if you've shot your images in the RAW format. In this case, it's really amazing the degree to which you can correct and enhance the images you've captured. It's also fast, makes great use of screen real estate, and very logical in the way it helps you work through many pictures fast (a problem we all face considering the free nature of digital photography).
Apple has made for Aperture a dedicated video tutorial site to get you to learn the whole thing quickly and efficiently. It's very well done avoiding you hours of reading boring manuals. Online learning is now really a fact of life.
I'll finish by saying that you can find all the information about Aperture here and that if you own a DSLR (a digital reflex camera) and are serious about your photography you should buy this.
Posted by ridelightning at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2007
The Information Revolution
Every once in a while, I find something that reminds me why I still like information technology and how much it changes our lives. Watch this fabulous video by Michael Wesch :
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August 22, 2006
Leica C-Lux 1 : Sharing Magic with Henri Cartier Bresson
Who hasn't dreamed one day of being Henri Cartier Bresson ? The man, whom the french call "l'oeil du siècle" (eye of the century), is widely regarded as one of the very best photographers of the 20th century. The adventurous life he led only added to his mystique. Henri Cartier Bresson was also synonymous with Leica, the famous german manufacturer, as he was always carrying at least one M-series Leica camera. His notoriety was a very big contributor in making the legend of Leica and the iconic pictures of Bresson with camera(s) could almost serve as advertisements for the brand. More after the break...
Leica, like many traditional camera manufacturers, has had a tough time of late due to the rise of digital photography. A couple of years back (and still not entirely impossible) the company almost went bankrupt. Panasonic, through a real stroke of genius, allied themselves with Leica to gain what is now much more than a foothold in the camera market (of which they were absent). Basically, Panasonic makes the camera and they use Leica optics (which are fast and high quality). They also payed significant attention to design and quality (typical Leica trademarks) which really gave them credibility. Leica, beyond their traditional range, also sell these same Panasonic Lumix cameras which they repackage under their own brand. They are however working on releasing a digital version of their enduring classic M-series camera which should be released towards the end of this year (more detailed information can be found here). This will be quite a challenge and one that I will be following with interest ;-)
I just bought an ultra-compact camera from Leica : the C-Lux 1. It's a jewel of a camera and I love it. You can find all the details about it here. Suffice to say that it's fast, has a big screen, feels solid and is beautiful. The Panasonic version is called the Lumix DMC-FX01. It got a very nice review at dpreview.com (the best site for digital photography reviews on the net). I bought my Leica at Colette, the absolute temple of trendiness in Paris (who wouldn't dream of selling a Panasonic...). The Leica did however cost a lot more than the Panasonic which I saw later the same day in another store (almost 200 €...). There was no difference that I could notice except for color (Leica is black and Panasonic is silver) and the software that comes with it (Leica comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements, Panasonic with their own software). I think that the premium I paid had more to with Colette than Leica but to their defense, the shopping experience at Colette is one of a kind.
It's a great little camera, I carry it with me everywhere. Every time I pull it out, that little red Leica logo lets me share some of that Henri Cartier Bresson magic.
Posted by ridelightning at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 26, 2006
After Outsourcing, please welcome Crowdsourcing
We have all been confronted with the various "benefits" of outsourcing in this era of globalization. We have had Indian operators answer the phones on various call center tasks and most of our tee shirts and baseball caps are now made in China. We have benefited from this as consumers (cheap goods and services) while we have been questioning this as workers (will my job be next to go?). This is the subject that Thomas Friedman has explained so well in his excellent book: The World Is Flat
The next new thing: Crowdsourcing. Wired, in a typically excellent article, defines it as “The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D ». These spare cycles are even less expensive than the low cost corporations of India or China since what's being sold is something that had no exploited value before. This is again a new way in which the web monetizes society. Welcome to more of Web 2.0 !
Jeff Howe, the author of the Wired article, has devoted a blog to this subject : crowdsourcing.com.
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June 26, 2005
Ransom Notes
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February 20, 2005
A walk down Memory Lane
In this blog, I've already mentioned several times the rapid pace of technological change as a phenomenon that typifies our modern society. Nothing illustrates this as well as this article on the top 100 gadgets of all time in Mobile PC Magazine. For any person over thirty, this walk down Memory Lane will bring up many reminders of past sessions of techno-lust. The speed of progress is almost quantified by some of the dates on these gadgets : the dates are recent but the gadget seems prehistoric ;-) All in all, a moment of cool retrospection !!!
Posted by ridelightning at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 30, 2004
Notebook for Macintosh
Talk about a cool piece of software : Notebook from Circus Ponies Software is ... exactly what the name suggests : a perfect notebook. It is the ideal repository for all that information that we get in this digital age of ours. MP3s, movies, web clippings, emails, scanned articles, PDFs are all everyday fare and I have longed for a solution where I could somehow store them in a way that makes sense but that also gives the possibility to retrieve, sort, classify them in a familiar way. We have all kept various forms of journals, agendas, notebooks, scrapbooks in our life. We know how to use them. They are familiar. This application takes that well known tool and applies it to the digital lifestyle. It does so exceedingly well !!! Check it out ;-)
Posted by ridelightning at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 08, 2004
The Best Smartphone Today
After years of walking around with a phone, a palm PDA (and a camera), I've bought an all-in-one smartphone: the Sony Ericsson P910i. There are tons of good reviews out there so I'm not going to write another one. I will just give you, after two weeks of usage, my first impressions in a pro and con list:
Pros
1) It's first and foremost a great phone (great sound, reception and autonomy)
2) Beautiful and clear screen
3) Very complete software delivered with it.
4) Syncs easily with PC and Mac !
5) The little keyboard is in fact really functional.
6) It really does replace the PDA of which it has all the functionality except WiFi.
Cons
1) It's not that light (155 g).
2) It's sort of bulky.
3) It feels fragile (I'm told it's not but...)
4) The processor feels a lot slower than my Palm T3
5) The interface is a little less intuitive than Palm OS (you do need the manual...)
6) The camera is a joke
Conclusion : Do I regret the purchase ? No. It really does replace two items in favor of the one I never leave at home. Am I really excited about this product ? No. The software is just quirky enough to aggravate me. An iPod is a much better designed gadget. But for right now, after my own little market research, I do thinks it's the best smartphone available on the market. There is however still room for improvement.
Posted by ridelightning at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 13, 2004
G5 PowerMac : A performance beast
This week, I received my latest Macintosh computer : a dual processor 2Ghz Powermac + 23" screen. I have been a Mac user since 1991 and have owned about 30 different Macs since then. I'm something of a fanatic (though show me a Mac user who isn't). I buy high-end Macs and don't keep them too long which gives me the possibility to stay abreast with technology. I always have one desktop and one notebook (and yes, I also have a PC....).
This latest Powermac is a real beast. It's huge and it breathes power in it's aluminum body. And the specs are truly incredible : two 2 Ghz G5 processors, 2 Gb RAM, 128Mb graphics card, 250 Gb hard disk, bluetooth, WiFi, 8x DVD burner. I haven't really done anything very intensive on it yet so I can't really say if it's as fast as it looks but all the benchmarks on this machine seem to be promising. One very good thing about it (definitely compared to earlier powermacs): it's very quiet. The screen is a real joy to use. It's bright. It's huge. On the picture, I put my notebook (12" screen) next to it so you can compare. It took me a few moments to get used to it's sheer size. I've never had this big a screen and I can still remember what it was like to work on 640x480 resolution so imagine 1920x1200 ;-) . But as the nature of progress requires, you immediately adapt your way of working to what you have available to you and enjoy the newfound advantages.
One last thing. The coolest feature that this machine came with is the migration functionality. When you start it up for the first time, it asked me "Do you own an older Mac". Upon answering yes, it then proposed to transfer all of my existing documents, apps, settings etc... by simply connecting the old mac to the new one with a firewire cable. It worked flawlessly and one hour after having set up the new machine, I was ready to go. My applications, documents, bookmarks, passwords, email accounts, digital photos etc... had all been transferred and set up. Anyone who has changed computers often can identify with the huge hassle it represents. Not this time ;-)
Posted by ridelightning at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2004
Nikon D70 is Awesome !!!
I bought a Nikon D70 in Tokyo and (compared to Europe) at a good price: 1150 € for the camera, a Nikon G 28-80 zoom, a Nikon G 75-300 zoom, 256 Mb Compact Flash card and a tripod. I have started using this camera and I have to say it's simply awesome. A true digital SLR... It's fast, it has instant on, the battery lasts forever and of course and most importantly the pictures are great. It's one of those instances where you take the thing out of the box, start using it, and for a brief moment, feel like a pro ;-)
For those of you out there who want all the tech details check out this great review .
A few more points, don't buy the camera like I did, but get the Nikon Kit camera + Nikon DX AF-S 18-70mm ED lens. This lens is much better than the G series lenses and you get about 50% discount on the lens if you buy it with the camera. I ended up buying it separate which lost me the benefit of my Tokyo price. Last, if you do travel around, the cheapest place to get this camera that I've seen is Singapore (995 € for camera + good lens + 256 Mb Card).
Posted by ridelightning at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2004
Dashboard vs. Konfabulator continued...
A very detailed analysis (which also pointedly ridicules my precedent article leaving me a little abashed) of this controversy has been posted at the following URL:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator
My point of view has definitely changed since reading it though I still think that Apple could have avoided the negative PR by speaking to the Konfabulator people and buying them out (probably less expensive than the negative PR amongst developers...). Hard to say though... Meanwhile, I will continue using Konfabulator whilst eagerly anticipating the release of Tiger ;-)
Posted by ridelightning at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2004
Dashboard - Konfabulator Controversy
I will add my two cents to the Dashboard – Konfabulator controversy.
First, let’s set the stage. Steve Jobs announced and previewed the next major release of Mac OS X codenamed http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/ last week at the Apple Developers Conference. A typical Steve Jobs keynote where this consumate salesman wowed the audience with all kinds of nifty new technology. This new OS was of course compared to the upcoming Longhorn, long overdue, from Microsoft and, in the traditional Mac – Windows rivalry spirit, banners were hung proclaiming « Redmond, start your photocopiers ».
A controversy quickly arose though. One element he presented was Dashboard , a java runtime environment for tiny applications named widgets that run embedded in or floating over the desktop (examples : a clock, a battery meter, airport signal strength, weather reports, stock quotes etc…). The problem : this concept already exists as a freeware named Konfabulator and Apple apparently simply went out and copied it. Apple has already done this several times in the past and the result has often been for the better because Apple has more muscle to develop and promote technology. There has never really been any controversy about this because Apple usually bought the technology or the company that created it. This time they didn’t…
My opinion is that Apple can’t claim some kind of moral high ground versus Microsoft if they do the same to their own developers. Apple should in fact treat these people with great care and empathy as they have so little marketshare that it’s usually a labor of love more than common sense to develop software for the Mac platform. Apple has a huge pile of cash stashed away and should use it in this type of circumstances.
So please, Apple, even if you did develop this stuff internally, it looks too much like Konfabulator for you not to compensate them…. It’s only fair. It lets you keep face. It gives an incentive to all the other developers out there to come out with new and great ideas for the Mac.
Lastly, lest you wonder if all of this is worth the time you spent reading this article, let me just say that I love Konfabulator and that I highly recommend it ;-)
Posted by ridelightning at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2004
Japan Technolust
As the precedent entry shows, I've just spent a week in Tokyo. And as any good technophile, I was hoping to have reached heaven. Well folks, I was in for a very big disappointment. Another example of globalization rendering the world homogenous.
Japanese people love their gadgets and technology but I guess nowadays so do we. In Akibahara district as in Shinjuku, the stores are filled with all of the same stuff we can get anywhere in Europe. Even the prices, strong euro not withstanding, are pretty much the same. Only differences were mobile phones (different system but 2 megapixel camera phones) and subnotebooks. They have a huge and very cool selection of ultraportables but they don't sell for export (no warranty, no english OS or keyboard etc...).
For those interested in seeing what I'm talking about and maybe even buying, check out Dynamism.com for a good selection of top Japan tech that's not easily available at home.
Posted by ridelightning at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2004
AvantGo and Mac OS X : it's possible ;-)
One of the possibilities for getting mobile news that I used to enjoy on my Palm via my Mac was AvantGo and it's large choice of channels. When Mac OS X arrived, AvantGo didn't support it and so I stopped using it. RSS was for me the replacement but I ended up checking if it still wasn't possible... Good news, it is. The solution is mal conduit . It works very well and is free. There is another possibility from Markspace.com (Missing Sync for AvantGo) but it's complicated to configure and I didn't get it to work (I imagine it's possible though...). This product does however have added the added functionality of letting you access the Internet with your Palm via your Mac's connection.
Posted by ridelightning at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2004
And now : an RSS reader.
After creating a feed, let's find a good reader. I use Macs at home and a PC at the office. Since I'm home now, let's talk Mac first.
When one does a "newbie" search for RSS readers for Mac OS X, the one that comes out is NetNewsWire from Ranchero Sofware .
It's not a bad reader and it's the first one I used but I ended up installing another one which I prefer : NewsMac 3 . I find the interface to be nicer (hard to say why though...) even though it doesn't have all the features such as blog posting, wide view etc... that NetNewsWire has. If you're a Palm or iPod user, you might appreciate the sync options that come with NewsMac.
At the end of the day, both are good choices and they're both FREE ;-)
Posted by ridelightning at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)