March 2008 Archives

Adobe released Photoshop Express to the masses - online as a beta web service. I wandered over there and took a look at it. It has its ups and downs, but for the most part I think it's a pretty good offering. Some initial critiques suggest that it's a pretty decent offering.

You're going to need an email account to sign up. After you've validated the email account you can start working with the service. The first thing I did was upload a picture that I took of the tree in my front yard on a rainy day.



It's your standard picture.

After you've uploaded your picture to your library, you can select from a variety of actions to take with your uploaded image.




I chose to edit the image and use a number of the available edits. Here's a screenshot of the editing screen using the autocorrect feature.



By hovering over the smaller boxes located at the top of the workspace, you can instantly see the effect applied to your image. All told I applied autocorrect, exposure, pop color, and sketch effects to my photo. In the end, this is what I ended up with:




Not bad, as far as I'm concerned. Once you're done, you can email it, embed it, or download it, to name a few options. I chose to download it to my laptop.

Overall, I think this service is a pretty good deal to the average user. It's very simple to use, available wherever there is a connection to the Internet ( I used the wi-fi connection at my local library ) and, of course you can't beat the fact that it is FREE. This is great for those unwilling to shell out $100 - $800 for software belonging to the Photoshop family.

On the downside ( I gotta be fair ) you may only use JPEG images with Photoshop Express. That is a bit of a limitation, but most consumers will upload images taken using their digital cameras, so that shouldn't be a huge problem.

Photoshop Express allows you 2 GB of storage space. I imagine that it won't be long before people will exhaust that allocation. I expect that after a period of time a premium account option will be rolled out so that people will be able to purchase accounts with more storage space and perhaps, other types of effects.


I both love and hate Wednesdays. 

On the one hand, they are good because it marks the middle of the week. Only two more days to go and the weekend is here. 

On the other hand, Wednesdays also serve as the day that meetings should be held. I usually have one at 9 am and another at 1:30 pm. The meetings rarely touch on anything that impacts me. The 9 am meeting generally lasts an hour and a half, has no real agenda, and often doesn't end when it is supposed to. It is inherently evil and must be destroyed.

The 1:30 pm meeting is almost as evil, but only to a lesser degree. I'm forced to attend this meeting with people I very rarely interact with. What's really comical is that now, almost a year into this job, it's clear to me that I have not been accepted as "part of the team." So, this meeting, while usually short and very brief, is still an exercise in tolerance on my behalf.

One week later

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Our seeds are sprouting.

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You talkin' to me?

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I know there ain't nobody else around so you must be talkin' to me.

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Where'd they all go?

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Overheard while a certain someone took their daughter to cheerleading/gymnastics class:

Dad: Why are there no cars in the parking lot?

Daughter: I don't know? Oh wait! Remember, it's spring break so there's no classes tonight.

Dad: So you mean we don't have to go tonight.

Daughter: Well, yeah ( like dad hasn't a clue ).

Dad: Well then I guess we don't need to go.

Daughter: Duh . . .


Monday

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It took everything I could muster to drag myself out of bed this morning. As I made my way into the shower I could hear the low rumbles of thunder followed by the soft tapping of rain on the roof. I love rainy days. I especially enjoy them when it's a bit warmer outside, but it was a nice start to the week.

If I wouldn't have overslept I might have missed it since I'm trapped, working in a windowless basement.

Seedlings

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Our project for the summer, should we choose to accept it, is to plant a garden. We started this weekend by planting a few seeds . . . tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, onions, pumpkins, and watermelon.

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Pomponderance

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Currently contemplating all things physical, metaphysical and otherwise meaningless in the grand scheme of things . . . just because I can.

My healthy heart

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According some recent research, owning a cat can reduce your heart attack risk by one third. No idea how or why it works, but here's to a long life . . .

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From the office

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This is just a shot from the office in which I happen to share a cubicle.


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I'm trying out a new feed reader this week. I wholeheartedly intend to try it all week long, too. I've grown accustomed to using Google Reader for following the blogs, news, and any other feeds I find. However, lately Google Reader's just not doing it for me. I tried the new and improved version of Bloglines, but still was left wanting a bit.

Not long ago, Feed Demon ( a product from NewsGator ) was released as a free download. I kind of spaced it off, but decided to try it out yesterday.
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This is a screenshot of Feed Demon in the wild. As you can see, it lists your available feeds to the left in a collapsible pane with the text from the feed in the larger window on the right. A pretty common layout for most feed readers.

Feed Demon allows you to start out with a bunch of popular feeds from various categories like news, entertainment, gaming, technology and gossip. I went ahead and let it subscribe me to all the feeds it recommended as I can always get rid of them later.

You can also add feeds that you subscribe to by importing an OPML file. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work using the OPML file that Google Reader allowed me to create. So I ended up importing all the subscribed feeds from the Bloglines account since I had used it when I started using Google Reader. That worked just fine.

Certainly, there are times when you want to use a web-based feed reader and times when a desktop reader is more appropriate. The nice thing about Feed Demon is that you can synchronize your desktop Feed Demon with an online account - NewsGator Online. The interface is very much like the desktop version of Feed Demon - although the desktop is packed with many more features. Regardless, either version will be aware of where you left off.

One week without using Google Reader. Is it possible? I'll let you know.