Category Archives: Software

Topaz Webinar

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I woke up to a lovely surprise yesterday — a nice email from the good folks at Topaz Labs. If you follow my blog or photography you might have come across the photo here at some stage back when I was writing about India. This was shot with my old Canon EOS 40D and then graphically treated through Topaz Adjust to bring out the subtle details. Nichole Paschal from Topaz wrote me asking if she can use this image during her Webinar that is to be held on Monday July 18th (18/07/2011) 3PM CDT or (1pm PDT, 8pm GMT) or Tuesday July 19th 6am AEST. Thanks Nichole :)


Old fashioned Cooking in India

But what is Topaz Adjust?

Topaz Adjust is a Photoshop plugin that bring out dynamic enhancements to photos and makes them look ‘true to life‘. It makes your images pop and brings out the depth and colour in the most trickiest of situations. If you’d like to find out more about Topaz Adjust here are some reviews from Trey Ratcliff and Scott Kelby.

Don’t forget to register your interest for the Webinar should you be keen.

fixoutlook.org – have your say

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Its not much of an original post when you copy paste information, but sometimes you *have to* remind giants that sleep at the wheels inconveniencing and killing healthy competition and growth in the IT industry. Yes you guessed it I’m talking about Microsoft. Minutes ago I got an email from Campaign Monitor and The Email Standards Project. And soon I post the message you’ll know what I mean. I quote:

Microsoft have just confirmed they plan on using the crippled Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010.

This means for the next 5 years your email designs will need tables for layout, have no support for CSS like float and position and no background images. Not to mention the long list of bugs and quirks that break the simplest of layouts.

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iPhone OS 3.0 software update

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The iPhone OS 3.0 software update is here. While I must admit I havent played around to check every little update feature yet, the Spotlight search in itself is a big time saver. Cut, Copy & Paste alone save a lot of retyping and mulling over dreaded typos. That is a mega saver, add to that the fact you can type in Landscape which implies lesser typos. Voice Memos – brilliant idea, Internet Tethering will be another hidden gem when you want to get connected easily.

Updating the new software for iPhone was absolutely pain-free and it was over in a couple of minutes. Apps seem a lot more responsive and start and close quicker. The only downside some apps in the App store are still not OS 3.0 ready but thats just a matter of time. :) Go get your update, its worth it.

My only concern was if Flight Control didn’t work — but it DOES just fine! Just between you, me and the gatepost my score last night was 87! 8-)

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Amazing iPhone

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iPhone App store picAt long last I’m a proud iPhone owner and like the rest who has tapped into the power of iPhone I am in sheer, awe, delight and joy of this marvel of technology!

Think I’ve done well to fight the temptation for a whole year since they were available in Australia around July 2008. Over the years I’ve had quite a range of mobile handsets but nothing has ever come close to the goodness of what apple brings in an iPhone. Really nothing comes close or is comparable to the iPhone! It is a masterpiece. A marriage of technology and superb interface. It is a love story of epic proportions if such a phrase could be used to describe a ‘gadget’. it just is! I’m truly floored by the design, the finish, the response, the crazy addictive App Store where thousands of people across the globe write jaw dropping Apps. It has considerably cut down my time in front of the computer! And dare I say I’m loving every bit of iPhone juice I can have.

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Safari 4 beta and refresh button

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safari_4_beta_screengrab

For a good few months, probably a year or more I had been using Firefox as my main browser. But since the update of Safari 4 Beta I turned by head back to Safari. i dont dislike Safari 4, its just that Firefox’s add-ons and Greasemonkey scripts are a huge timesaver. While most things remain just as excellent with Safari the one that really annoys me is not having the stop/refresh button. Grrrrrr! It is now right next to the RSS icon. God forbid you want stop loading a page and you click the RSS icon instead of the Stop/Refresh icon.

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Flickr Tools

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Do you like taking photos? Do you have a Yahoo account? If the answer to the above are ‘yes‘ chances are you also have a Flickr account and post photos there. Yahoo lets you sign on to Flickr using your yahoo ID. My main weakness to Flickr is that there are lots of enthusiast photographers posting photos and discussions to better their skills and knowledge. Looking at other peoples photos often gives me a perspective into the photographers world of image composition, layout and execution of the process. Its very addictive and informative and caught unaware you can spend hours even before you know it. And this quest surely corroborates to heighten the photographic eye.

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BetterZip your files

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Mac OS X has a built in facility to zip your files on the fly and open them on double-clicking. But the only disadvantage with that is the fact that zipped files created this way add hidden files alongside, eg:

  • ._filename
  • .DS_filename

If you’re sending zipped files to someone on a windows machine these hidden files are of no use to them and worst of all these underscore prefixed files are visible to all and confuse users. In short, there are better ways to send zipped files from your mac. Two applications on mac that do this job really well are:

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Google Chrome and Canon EOS 50D

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UPDATE: Google chrome is now available for download. The Speed and functionality on the beta software is noteworthy. Still working out the beta browser before I write more. It looks promising.

Canon EOS 50D

2 items hot off the press — well actually one of these is no longer hot as I let this sit in my draft way too long. Canon has indeed released its EOS 50D last month. and is already making some news. This would be one fantastic upgrade… for previous Canon DSLR users. There is a huge jump in the image resolution to 15.1 megapixels and a maximum burst for 90JPGs, ISO expandable to 12800, Face detection technology! I was a bit surprise to see that the 50D didn’t come with a 1:1 CMOS conversion. Would have been nice but good still.

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MailPlane 2 for Gmail users

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Here is a little break from all the Hobart talk…

Nearly two years ago, on vacation on the beautiful Island of Corsica, I started to write an iPhoto plugin that was able to automate all manual steps needed to attach a picture to a Gmail message. A few weeks later I gave it to my friends. From their needs and ideas grew Mailplane: A full fledged mail client for Google Mail and Mac OS X.

How about that! Born in France, inspired by a vacation in Corsica. Being struck by an idea that really works when you are on holidays is something to remember. I kinda know the feeling as i get a lot of design inspirations when travelling. Its also because the mind is set aside from the daily drivel. So, what really is MailPlane? Read on.

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MacLoc your Mac

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a snapshot of th eicon of MacLoc, it shows a locked Mac OS X screenMacLoc is a brilliant little app that does a simple thing in style — it locks your screen. And yes there are a 101 ways of doing this without getting yet another app on your macintosh free or otherwise(e.g.: Butler, DeskShade, Keychain, Scripts…) but I like the look of the icon — clean and crisp and happy to click lock my screen with MacLoc when I walk out for a coffee or a much needed break.

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Adobe Lightroom 2.0

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I have been an Adobe Lightroom fan since the early days and having dabbled in it a bit I could tell the power this piece of software had over others in the market — Capture One, iPhoto, iView MediaPro and so on. Still remember buying the first version before I headed to Perth for a holiday last year and then came version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 all with progressive changes until beta 2 landed on the threshold with some very promising additions. Since using beta 2 of the program I have found it IMPOSSIBLE to go back to Lighroom version 1.x so I literally stuck with it right until yesterday when Lightroom version 2 was released! I was quick to buy the upgrade after a quick look at Matt and Scott’s review and my own experience of working through Lightroom beta 2.

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Get Piclens – full screen 3D

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Have you heard of PicLens? if not, this will really make your day! Its a simple way to enjoy your digital media that is images and videos right on your desktop in such a way that you’re not tied down to viewing it within the scope of the browser window. Its clickless browsing, with interactive previews at your finger tips. And most of all its a great way to view media on a big screen… and oh so suave :)

screengrab of PicLens website

Not convinced? Watch the Demo here.
Download Piclens from Cooliris and give it a whirl. You won’t be disappointed.

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Firefox 3

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Its Firefox party time again. Can a browser really make the Web better? Try Firefox and see for yourself. Learn more. If you want to get a quick update on whats new in Firefox 3.

Firefox 3 screengrab

  1. Download your copy and install in case you haven’t.
  2. Once installed, follow these instructions from Mikelao Photography to set your colour management to True(in case it is Flase)
  3. Colour management plug in can be downloaded from Sean Hayes website
  4. Once you have done the above steps confirm its all good by visiting the International Color Consortium.

Firefox away!

Update: If you wish to run both Firefox 2 and 3 simultaneously from your Mac or windows. And in case you want to enable kerning here is hope. If you’re unsure what Kerning is, read up at Wikipedia.