Month: October 2007

An Easier Path to HDR Photos

An Easier Path to HDR Photos: In the example shown above (photos by Barney Streit); the top photo is the regular correct exposure for the building, which was shot in direct harsh mid-day sun. The bottom photo is the HDR image which displays a much broader dynamic range. That image was processed in Photomatix Pro, from nine separate photos (all shot on a tripod), each with a different exposure (bracketed in the camera) to capture the full range from the darkest possible shadows to the brightest highlights.

You can download a trial version from the Photomatix Pro Web site (click here), and here’s a link to Barney’s NAPP online portfolio, where you can see more of his HDR work. My thanks for Barney for the use of his images, and for turning me on to this very cool program.

[Hmmm.]
Source: Photoshop Insider

WorldCat

WorldCat: WorldCat is a publicly accessible online interface to the holdings of all types of libraries throughout the world: currently 57,000 libraries in 112 countries. Tell it what book you’re looking for and your zip code or city, and it will pinpoint the nearest library that has the book. Same goes for magazines and journals, video and audio formats. The ability to locate an obscure book is invaluable; but it’s also tremendously useful for anyone living in a region with more than one nearby library. [Cool.]
Source: Cool Tools

The plantation the TV networks have created for them

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: A boring rant: The producers of content don’t like the TV network system but can’t quite see the way across the divide into my digital world. Some musical artists, like Prince, are figuring it out, but they’re isolated examples. Trust me, however, when I tell you that TV and movie people will figure it out too. These are not stupid people. And they are not un-greedy. Which means their desire for more money and more control and more freedom will lead them to apply their energy into figuring out how to get out of the plantation the TV networks have created for them. They will break free. Mark my words. [Er umm I may be on the wrong side of this issue all things considered… bring change from within?]

iMac Aluminum

iMac Aluminum: For those 24″ iMac owners considering purchase of a VESA mount, I’ve posted some photos of a mount I got from Ergomart. I purchased the SAA2415, which handles monitors up to 41 lbs. The SAA2718 will handle monitors up to 33 lbs. The cost of both is roughly the same. The 24″ iMac weighs 25.4 lbs.I decided to go with the beefier model, but now that I see how industrial-strength they are, I might go with the lighter model if I were to do it again. Give them a call and ask their advice, they’re friendly and knowledgeable. [Hmmm. This might work…]

Appliances or platforms?

Staff Roundtable: Apple Should Do No Harm to iPhones: Similarly, although Apple apparently attaches no importance to enabling independent applications, users (like Glenn and Joe, and many others) disagree. Apple needs to understand that the iPhone will be a platform whether or not Apple likes it, and managing that process will prove more effective and lucrative than ignoring it (or fighting it, which will just generate bad press). Perhaps Apple should learn from Microsoft, which listened to its customers and will be selling Windows XP for six months longer than previously announced, due to anemic uptake of Windows Vista. [Not only will Apple lose, but all these appliances can become platforms which can be far greater sources of revenue if only Apple would learn from its past. All sorts of folks can use these things as appliances and enjoy the Jobsian experience. Others can hack and add all sorts of stuff, and make these devices what they want. Jobs has to learn to let go.]
Source: TidBITS

Staff Roundtable: Apple Should Do No Harm to iPhones

Staff Roundtable: Apple Should Do No Harm to iPhones: Now, I hold no truck with the notion that companies have constitutional rights. That’s part of the erosion of personal liberty in favor of so-called corporate rights that began in earnest in the 20th century. (You can read Peachpit Press founder Ted Nace’s book “Gangs of America” on this topic; it’s a free download.) But you have to admire the chutzpah that lets a cell carrier assert a constitutionally guaranteed right to prevent choice among its consumers as a matter of “speech.”

The FCC replied in its rule-making on the matter, “To the extent that a choice of device or application implicates First Amendment values at all, we think that our requirements promote rather than restrict expressive freedom because they provide consumers with greater choice in the devices and applications they may use to communicate.” Well put – and rather radical in its true conservatism. [Chutzpa doesn’t begin to characterize this sort of thing. Which of our presidential candidates has something to say on this issue? I’ve so much research to do…]
Source: TidBITS

Nine Inch Nails Becomes a Free Agent With No Record Label

Nine Inch Nails Becomes a Free Agent With No Record Label: Yesterday Trent Reznor wrote an amazing post on the Nine Inch Nails blog stating that he no longer has a record contract and that NIN is now a free agent.

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.

This, along with Radiohead’s pay what you want release of their new album “In Rainbows”, are both signs of big changes to come in the record industry. [Finally. One of the reasons I left the music business was to learn enough about business to understand the record label model, and why it wasn’t working for so many talented folks I met. Then, when it became obvious that the disintermediation that the internet can provide makes it possible for things like the above to occur, it’s taken a long time for it to happen with major acts. That’s understandable. When a group becomes a break out smash without any help from the old mechanisms, that’ll be the next step.]
Source:

Recording Artist: ZFS Hater Redux

Recording Artist: ZFS Hater Redux: MWJ has responded to my last post, Don’t Be a ZFS Hater, with a post of their own: You don’t have to hate ZFS to know it’s wrong for you.

I don’t like the point-by-point quote and response format — it’s way too much like an old-school Usenet flamewar. So I will simply try to hit the high points of their arguments. [Good stuff. I can tell this. People I trust about this level of systems are really happy about ZFS.]