I normally edit photos using Photoshop. However, I understand the average user is not going to spend the money, especially in this slowing economy, to obtain a professional photo editing tool to edit their everyday photos. In that spirit, I want to begin messing around with more accessible photo editing tools. Here’s my first pass.

Note: I highly recommend you click on the images and check out the larger versions of the images.

First the original,

And then the edit,

I tried to bring out the greens and darken the water a bit. I increased the contrast to bring out the detail in the gravel. The goal was to add some dimensionality and depth to the image. Here are some detail shots (original on the left, edits on the right) …

iPhoto did a nice job with the photos. However, I really missed being able to mask pieces of the image.

paraphrased …

“Think of yourself as a museum curator. A museum curator’s job is to say no. If their job was to say yes, they’d manage a warehouse. Don’t be a warehouser. Say ‘no’ to more things that you say ‘yes.’ Build a curated collection of features.”

CERN’s Hadron Collider (LHC) has been turned on! While many expect this machine to bring us to whole new levels of understanding our universe, let’s not forget the indelible impact CERN has already had on mankind. In an effort to facilitate the sharing of information amongst researchers, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau birthed the World Wide Web. It was all done on world’s first web server, a NeXTcube. NeXT was a company founded by Steve Jobs … yes, that Steve Jobs. The work done at NeXT also provided the foundation for Mac OS X.

Here’s to the future fruits of this endeavor having as significant an impact on society as those to which we have already been witness. Here’s to game changers and visionaries!

Like many people yesterday, I was excited to check out the well funded, new search engine from the former Googlers. Cuil was supposed to be the challenger to Google’s search throne. Their launch yesterday was more about a company missing an opportunity. They received a fair amount of press, which not only got me to visit their site but also a fair amount of my less technically inclined friends. 

While they claim to have a largest index, the results are anything but good. Cuil … it’s not the size of your index, but the quality of the results. Cuil fails miserably exactly where it was most likely to engage new users. They seem to have failed to ask themselves a most basic question,

What are user’s likely to search for when using a new search engine?

People search for themselves or for something they know. The whole idea of Google-ing yourself is obviously not a new one. Whether to satisfy a curiosity or for privacy purposes, few have not broken down and indulged in this bit of quasi-ego-maniacal activity. It’s an exciting activity that is often revealing and usually in an unexpected way. Cuil totally misses the boat. 

Searches performed for the names of a couple of people I know provided absolutely no results. These same names in Google and Yahoo provide a hearty amount of results, as these are people who regularly blog. In addition, a search for my company’s name provided results that we were anything but focused. Google and Yahoo provide much more focused, quality results.

If Cuil is to really make a challenge, they sure got off to a really bad start. They totally missed on a wonderful opportunity to make a great impression on the most significant amount of traffic they were likely to receive for free. In addition, they garnered a whole bunch of bad reviews, which will make their goal of overtaking Google all the more difficult. 

“An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant” is an interesting post at seattlepi.com. It contains an email sent by Gates in January  of 2003 after attempting to locate and install Movie Maker. It’s interesting read; Gates go on about the quality, more specifically the lack thereof, of the user experience. Given my recent disappointment with trying to install the WorldWide Telescope, I find it interesting even Bill Gates himself has problems using the products his company produces. 

New Rule: Never deliver something I can’t use. 

I really enjoy the “Save All” function in Visual Studio (2005). With a simple Ctrl+Shift+S, you save all open documents. The same functionality exists in Adobe Dreamweaver, but you must use the file menu to access it. I am a keyboard shortcut freak. I like quick execution of certain functions. Luckily, there is a way to create custom keyboard shortcuts in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 (Mac version). 

1. Go to Dreamweaver > Keyboard Shortcuts …
    
2. In the Commands Window, go to File > Save All
3. Click into the Press key section
4. Use your keyboard combination
   Dreamweaver has a real nice validation system that will inform you if you are overriding any other command. 
   
5. The default sets can not be adjusted, so you will be prompted to create a new one. Select [OK]
   
6. Enter the name of the new set
7. Select [OK]

Voila! 

So, I have waited patiently a whole week for Adobe to make my purchase of Creative Suite 3 available for download. I previously ranted on how unfair it was of them to have no downloads of any version of any product available for download, trial or otherwise, during this period. Now, here it is the Monday Tuesday morning afternoon on which they were scheduled to deliver. Do I find the my download available? No! Are there any downloads available? No! 

Adobe hasn’t updated the delivery date on the order yet, but I am not holding my breath.

Support on their end is once again clueless. The watch continues … 

(For details on the phones being reviewed, visit BlackBerry v iPhone: Introductions.)

Round 1 compares these two “smart phones” with respect to their core function, as phones. Both are far more than mere phones; they are communications devices. However, their principal function is still to make and receive calls. One may imagine them to have more in common regarding such a core function, but I found many differences in my use of these two devices as phones.

My Blackberry provides out of the box voice recognition that is impressive. I never had to program the pronunciation for any name. The phone’s numbers are differentiated from their alphabetical counterparts by shading that is subtle and effective.

Initiating a call is also extremely simple. I simply begin to dial a number or a letter. The phone directs me to the proper screen and dynamically filters my address book to help me expedite finding the correct phone number.

The iPhone’s phone functionality leaves much to be desired. There is no voice recognition software on the phone, a pretty standard feature on even the most basic feature phones. This really annoyed me last winter in NYC. To make a phone call while outside, I had to find the desired person using a sub-optimal address book that does not even have a search box. This was exacerbated by having to remove my gloves in the cold weather to navigate the address book, as the touch screen required what little heat remained from my cold, bare fingers.

The omission of a search field in the Address Book, looks to be addressed in v2.0 of the firmware, scheduled for release next month; however, this should never have been a problem, especially on a phone at this price point. There is no word of speech recognition, but hopefully something will be rolled out before next winter. On the positive side, speaking to someone and hearing them speak in both ears feels more natural. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only good aspect of the Apple product as a phone. 

The winner of round 1 … BlackBerry!

Up next, the providers of those phone services, AT&T and Verizon Wireless

Daaang it Microsoft! I want to like you. I anticipated the launch of the WorldWide Telescope. I thought to myself, “now there’s something cool they are doing.” And then, I get this …

Now, I am running a MacBook Pro with 256 MB of NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. I am trying to run this out of a virtual image of Windows Server 2003. 3d Graphics and a plug-in whose installation I just endured? Are you kidding me?

I had forgotten the joys of getting geeked out on figuring out what contrived interaction Microsoft had chosen to perform something in the OS. Once upon a time, I found pride in “roughing it,” on my way to some invisible merit badge. Microsoft, please make it easier … Vista no … Allow me to see what cool things you’ve made. I want to see them. Can you help me?

We bought a couple of Macs for the office. One of them went to me; I am migrating from an older Mac. Another person is migrating from a PC. I used the Migration Assistant to move all my data and applications from my old Powerbook to my new Mac Book Pro during the setup process. It was the easiest “move” I have ever done from one machine to another. It was like I showed up at my new house and they had adjusted the lights to just the right levels and plugged in everything.

In helping the person migrating from the PC, we used iChat’s wonderful screen sharing capabilities. The screen sharing is just amazingly powerful in its simplicity and ease of use. We are able to effectively communicate about the challenges by so easily sharing the same space … a common.

This drive for a common also allowed me to easily “move” myself and all my settings; I barely skipped a beat, for to admire some of the new tools. However, a small challenge was encountered while helping the other employee configure Mail. She asked where she could click to check for new mail. I did not immediately notice the [get mail] button because it was in a different place in her default configuration; my Mail had the buttons arranged in the same way they had been arranged in my version of Mail 2 on the old Mac. She had the default configuration for Mail 3. It took a second, but I knew it was there. In this scenario, my common got in the way because it differed from the base common. Ponder the following questions,

• Are customization capabilities a matter of providing choices or simply a result of bad design?
• Am I better served by a limited set of options, or a limitless set?

I guess part of the answer lies with how easy it is for me to do the most basic things. This is part of the reason why I am once again impressed by the quality, performance and attention to detail found in Apple products. Why should I accept a long, difficult migration as just part of life when getting a new machine? Plug and play moves via the Migration Assistant.

To change the arrangement of the buttons on Mail3 to their default configuration,

1. Select View > Customize Toolbar …
2. Drag the default set into the toolbar