Category: Computing

General computing with a bias towards Unix, OS X, Apple products, for use in Music and Photography

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Photographers iPad Tools

While I do not have an iPad yet, I like many other photographers can see the use they can be put through.

While some consider it useless, and label it a toy, unable to be used for real work, a joke for professionals, many people think its great for when you cannot take the trouble to carry a laptop.

To be honest when travelling I sometimes take Medium Format Camera equipment, 35mm equipment, lighting equipment and heavy tripods and light stands.  Sometimes the last thing I want to add is a laptop.

Yesterday I spotted a posting from Adobe about a beta Photoshop App (see Chris Bennett’s Blog Post).

Photoshop is not one of the key apps that would make me buy an iPad but if someone released the Library Module of Adobe Lightroom then I would be buying an iPad like a shot.

http://blog.photosmithapp.com/

Well that day may well be nearly here.  Check out the Photosmith Blog.  This seems to offer what I want.

For heavy image work then a laptop in the field in not really the tool.  Heavy image work is a job for back in the office/home with a powerful computer and controlled lighting conditions in the room, and a calibrated monitor.  No, in the field its evaluating your work, making picks, keywording, metadata and quick adjusts to help you evaluate the shots.

When this gets released, together with some of the tethering apps that are coming out; Elinchrom’s and Hasselblad’s remote control apps then the iPad will be coming with me, out in the field and in the studio.

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Happy Birthday Mac OS X

OS X - Ten Years Ols

I just found out that its the Mac OS X Operating System’s 10th Birthday today.

Its certainly come a long way.  While at work I use Windows, Solaris, Redhat and AIX, at home I stopped using Windows as my primary operating system not long after Windows XP was released.

Working my way through various versions of Linux before finally settling happily on Fedora Linux.

Well that changed when I decided to buy Caroline a Wedding Present of an Apple Powerbook.  OS X was just so easy to use, never getting in the way and just letting you get on with the work at hand.

While Apple users may like to claim Mac’s never crash this is not true but they certainly do not crash often, certainly an improvement on Windows, NT4, 2000, XP and 2003.

Through what little I have used Windows 7 it to looks very good now but I think i’ll stick with OS X for a few more years.

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English Heritage – iOS app

We are members of both the National Trust and of English Heritage.

Now the National Trust have for some time had an excellent free iOS app for finding places to visit nearby and getting information about them.

Finally English Heritage are also joining the 21st Century (that’s nearly funny) and are releasing their own app, due in April.

Hope it’s free like the National Trust App.

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WordPress for iOS

Just a quick note to let you know an update for WordPress for iOS has been released

Using it now to post this. Interface is improved and I look forward to trying it out in anger.  The previous version did crash fairly often and once even lost me a post that I had previously posted.

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Standards – a quick rant

When it comes to standards and companies not following them, I could have a good old rant about many top companies, computer and software companies being the worse.

The other day a photographer friend of mine was demonstrating his new photo editing software.

While key wording and adding other important metadata, we wondered where it was writing this data.

As I suspected, it was using a sidecar file to accompany the jpg’s and raw’s.

What really rilled me was instead of using an xmp sidecar file (an open standard developed by Adobe) which many other software programs can read, not just Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw, it uses it’s own proprietary format.

Why!  Lock in, thats why, but the worry is, will the companies own future software support their own proprietary formats, past history suggests not.

From Wikipedia:
XMP sidecar files. For file formats that have no internal support for XMP data, the data is stored in separate .xmp files with the same base file name. Many photo cataloging applications have support for this file format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform

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Elinchrom IOS App

During my recent research into studio flash equipment, I came across an announcement by Elinchrom.  They are planning to release an app to control your Elinchrom Flash heads.

No real details yet but another posible reason for a photographer to have an iPad around.

Oh and don’t forget, iPad2 released today; at least in America. Oh well just have to wait.  Still tempted.

Decisions, decisions:

iPad2 or GF1; We will just have to see.

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Apple’s iPad update – iPad2 and ios 4.3

Well as expected Apple announced their iPad update, the new iPad2.  I am sure the Apple haters will trash it and the Apple lovers announce its the best update since sliced white bread.

For me these devices are more about what you can do with them and that means the applications.

As a Hassleblad medium format camera user, I received an email from them today, announcing there new iPad app which basically allows remote control and viewing of the taken image from your Hassleblad on the iPad.

With apps like this, a great 9.7 inch display, then not only does it make a great device for showing photos to clients but a productive and creative device too.

Looks good. Will I get one.  Don’t know, there are still a couple of apps I would like to see, are you listening Adobe and Elinchrom!

Update: New iTunes available now to support the new features.

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Lightroom – Importing Presets

Installing Lightroom presets can be a little tricky but as Mat from Lightroom Killer Tips has recently found out, there is a far easy way;  Just Drag and drop the preset file on to your Lightroom icon. Thanks Matt.  Another great reason for having a Apple Mac, it just makes things so easy for you.

If you’re a Windows user then double click the preset file. It will most likely say it does not understand the file type. Associate the file type with Lightroom and then double click will install it.

Have not tried it in Windows, as I do not have a Windows machine handy to test it on, only Apple Mac’s, Linux, and Solaris at present. Must rebuild that Windows 7 test machine of mine.

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How to Test a WordPress Theme

If you new to WordPress and blogging then your possibly having fun playing with different themes, customising you blog to get the look and feel you want.

Playing with your live site and affecting your visitors is probably not the best idea.  You need to be able test without impacting on your visitors.

A quick google round the internet soon found the answer, a plug-in that enables the admin user to test a different theme, then what the other users are seeing.

http://www.dnxpert.com/2010/05/26/how-to-test-a-new-wordpress-theme-without-affecting-live-site

Check it out you might find it useful.