Various and Sundry: Now Everything But Photography

I’ve been listening to an awful lot of photography podcasts in the last couple of months. More than any sane man should do.

The one thing that I always find fun is hearing opinions from a year ago — or even six months ago — that have completely changed in the present. The best example I can give of this is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. When it first came out as a public beta a year ago, people complained that it was slow, that it was a hobbled version of Photoshop, that it didn’t really fit in, and what can it do that Aperture can’t?

Of course, this was only the beta. By the time the product was released this past spring — and the subsequent major .1 revision followed shortly — I’m sure it was a different program. Ask any Lightroom book author. They all had to rewrite their books two and three times between the first beta and the final release.

I don’t point this out to laugh at those who were wrong or who didn’t have a clue. They were honest and forthright in their opinion. Subsequent marketing and fine-tuning of the product helped to reshape opinion. Perhaps due to its connections to the industry-standard Photoshop (it was added to the official product title at release), it’s been adopted by a large number of photographers, both pro and amateur. One recent survey has it at greater popularity to Aperture now.

One has to wonder what Apple is doing about an Aperture 2.0 right now. Lightroom is the first serious contender in that space for Apple, and Aperture is looking old and creaky. It needs an update. I suspect we’ll see one in the months ahead and I suspect it’ll require Leopard’s built-in graphics handling whizbang features to work.

Lightroom has single-handedly change my attitude and perspective on photography. It’s Photoshop for the rest of us, and may even prove to be the open door into Photoshop, an otherwise large and scary program that I just don’t comprehend. (I can do Illustrator. Photoshop baffles me.)

Rambling, rambling, rambling.

Happy NaBloWriMo!

It’s been three weeks since the Harmony 880 Universal Remote dropped at my doorstep, purchased with the funds from all the Amazon shopping you fine folks did through this website over the summer. Thanks again. Now, as promised, my thoughts on using the thing:

It’s been in daily use at VandS World Headquarters for long enough now that I can’t live without it anymore. Being able to switch between the TiVo and DVR boxes (as well as a DVD player and the Wii) is the biggest advantage of the remote. I don’t need four remotes sitting out on the coffee table anymore. The Harmony remote sits docked in its wonderful recharger when not in use on an end table next to the couch, and keeps the battery continuously fully charged.

The hardest part has been learning the new key layout. I could run the old remotes without looking at them for most functions. Their keypad layouts were all distinctive, and the keys well marked and separated. The Harmony remote, obviously, has the same organization of buttons for each device, though their functionality differs a bit from device to device. The backlit screen does a great job with the keys unique to the device I’m trying to control, but they require a good looking at to find the proper button to push. The buttons are small, but each has its own “bump” for your finger to latch onto.

The buttons, themselves, are nice. They CLICK. They’re not rubber chiclets like on the lesser versions of the same remote. They make a satisfying click when you push them, but your hand can also slide across them easily enough. There’s a little nipple in the middle of the keypad that helps you center your finger, if you think you’re good enough to push buttons without looking. I don’t recommend that all that much. My fat fingers occasionally still miss the PLAY button and hit the PAUSE button underneath. It doesn’t happen that often, but it is a point I have to bring up. They cram a lot of keys onto this one remote, so the size shrinks up considerably. The four major keys above the numeric keypad are slightly larger and bring you to the MENU, EXIT, GUIDE, or INFO. Volume and Channel changing buttons are above that and slightly larger, though narrower. Still, it’s anther satisfying click when you push them. You KNOW you hit the button.

The preprogrammed special keys on the display screen have their ups and downs. There can be multiple screens worth of options here, but I find myself using the first screen almost exclusively. The TiVo’s 30 second skip button is one big exception to this. The button to control the aspect ratio on the TV (”Zoom,” “Wide Zoom,” “Normal,” etc.) shows up in the same position across all screens. That’s all preprogrammed in for me. While I’m sure there are likely ways to move that around if I wanted to, it hasn’t been a big problem. So I let it go. The order of the options seems decent enough.

The remote saves a lot of fumbling around and a lot of space. It’s a powerful thing that I know will stick with me through future home electronic purchases, and does everything it promises. What more could you ask for? The biggest hang up has just been in getting my hands used to the feel of a new remote. You don’t realize how accustomed your mind and hands are to specific divergent remote layouts until you remove them all and replace them with something new. That’s an adjustment, but it’s getting easier with time.

I wouldn’t trade this remote in for anything. It’s a necessary addition to any serious home theater or home entertainment set-up.

Now, go click on the Amazon MP3 store banner above and buy yourself an album or two. I have a camera to buy next. . . ;-)

Related Links:

• Wherein Augie Begs Your Indulgence and Support (10 July 2007)
• Changing My Mind on the Harmony (23 July 2007)
• More on the Remote (09 Aug 2007)
• Here Comes The Harmony! (28 Sept 2007)
• Harmony 880 Unboxing (01 Oct 2007)
• Remote Set Up (04 Oct 2007)
• Harmony Remote – Fixing Issues (04 Oct 2007)

You kids today.

You think the internet has always just been there.

You think IM on a phone is a standard option.

You think video has always been a download away.
And you haven’t a clue what ^H^H^H^H^H^H means, anyway.

I pity you.

Microsoft aims patent guns at Red Hat – vnunet.com

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property.”People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.

You’d think after the SCO disaster, this wouldn’t be a road Ballmer would want to walk too far down. It would really put Microsoft on an even keel with the likes of SCO and the RIAA.

Idiots.

It turns out that not everything was working perfectly.

The TiVo lacked functionality beyond using the “MENU” button as a TiVo button replacement, and then using the arrows and hitting the “OK” button.

I plugged the remote back into the computer, loaded up the Remote software, and went straight to the settings for the TiVo. It was easy enough to tell the software what buttons were missing. After that, I was able to point the original TiVo remote at the back of the Harmony 880 and push the TiVo buttons as the software asked for it. It sensed the commands I was pushing, and learned them instantly.

I was also able to fix a few other things along the way. I could rename the Actions. Instead of “Watch a PVR,” for example, I could click the “HDTV” option. (I always watch TV through the cable PVR box.) Instead of “Play Game,” I could click on “Nintendo Wii.”

I was also able to reorder the Actions, so that the most popular “HDTV” option was at the top. Then, I was able to select favorite channels. Clicking on the “Media” button displayed those options on the screen. I was even able to associate images with each channel. A quick Google search gave me the NBC logo for channel 704 — the HD NBC station. The FOX logo was associated to 705, ABC logo 707, etc. Those are the easy to remember ones. I’ll have to get to the favored cable networks next. The end result isn’t the slickest thing in the world as the logos are squished down to fit the available screen space, but it’s a bold and easy way to get to the channels I use the most.

As always, more to come in the days ahead. . .

rsizr – intelligent image resizing

You may remember my linking to a story in August about a new way to resize images by eliminating duplicate adjacent pixels. It allowed you to keep all the items of major interest in a picture while shrinking it down.

You can now give it a spin. Go to that website, and feed it a picture of yours and watch it do its magic. It’s amazing. It’s not right for all situations, mind you, but it’s certainly a lot of fun to watch. There’s even a GIMP plug-in for it now.

I had been told that the remote might not work on the first go around and that it might take some patience to get it going. I’m glad people warned me of that because the whole process felt a lot smoother than it otherwise might have. (Expect the worst and something easy will seem like grade school addition.) There was only one minor bump in the whole thing, and it was minor. We’ll get to that in a moment.

At the start, Harmony supplies a little worksheet for you to write down the brand and model numbers of all the equipment you want to program in. For me, that’s the TV, the cable box/DVR, the TiVo, the upscaling DVD player, and the Wii. Pulling the model numbers off of those was easy enough. (Brand: Nintendo. Model: Wii) I plugged the remote into the USB port with the cable that came with it, and installed the program that came with it to program the sucker. It downloaded a few updates, asked to reboot the machine, and then went straight to work. The installation program is a Flash interface thing. You need to get used to pressing buttons that don’t “feel” any different when they’re pressed, to the point where you have no clue if it worked or not. (Contrast that to the clicking sound you get when you push a button in a website, or the way the button changes colors or loses its drop shadow to indicate it was depressed for a second.) It’s a minor thing, but it did lead me to click “Next” a couple times too many along the way.

Navigating through a series of Drop Down and Text boxes was easy enough. Click on the TV icon, drop down to Sony, key in the model number, and click submit. The TV gave me one problem in that there were three possible choices that were variants on the same TV. I chose the first one, and it’s what I’m using to this day. It does everything that needs doing on this TV.

Repeat for cable box, DVR, etc. The Nintendo Wii prompts a reminder that the remote control can’t be used as a Wiimote, since it’s not a Bluetooth device. It does, however, turn on the TV and set the TV’s input to the proper selection.

You will need to know which device is plugged into which input on the back of the TV. I copied that down from the menu screen of the TV, so it wasn’t a problem.

After that, you’re asked to create “Actions,” which is the nice way of saying what keypresses will cause what things to turn on/off. One at a time, I set each up to turn on along with the TV, and let the TV look for that thing’s input. In other words, turn on the DVD player and the TV, and look for the DVD wire inputted into the TV. (You even have the option of ejecting the disc tray on power up, if you wish.) Simple. If I switch to the DVR button, the DVD will be shut down and the DVR will be powered on with the TV pointing there, too.

Then, the remote urges you to try those actions to check that everything powers on and is tuned to the right thing. If so, click on the OK option button next to that part of the screen. Click click click. Work work work.

In one case — I think it was the TiVO — the unit didn’t turn on. The remote asked me some simple yes/no questions and adjusted itself perfectly. (”Is the TiVo on?” No. “Is it on now?” Yes. “OK, all set.”)

From start to finish, it probably took me all of a half hour. If I had to do it again, I could probably halve the time. I could have gone back in and tried the other TV settings, but why try to fix what already works?

I set up the feature in the Settings menu to turn the remote on automatically when I pick it up. It has a tilt sensor doohicky inside so that it can sense when it’s being picked up. The backlight and screen turn on to make it easier to choose an action. Very handy.

Also, you can add wallpaper and change the background image on the screen. I haven’t done either yet, but I’m looking forward to adding family pictures to the slideshow. Then, as the remote is charging, it’ll cycle through some pics of the nieces and nephew. I think my wife will like that feature. Heh heh

NEXT WEEK: General Usage. I want a few days to spend with this before I review it. So far, though, so good. Everything’s working.

I put together this link dump last week and then lost it. Whoops.  Here we go:

• Amazing pictures from a recent space walk. The color and clarity are spectacular.
• Billy Joel to play Shea Stadium in 2008. I hope they schedule it in October, when the Mets aren’t playing. ::duck grin run::  (Like I said, I wrote this last week. How true it was. . .)
• Ultimate prank? Man sets up friend with marriage proposal at Yankees game.
• If you value your sanity don’t watch Microsoft hype DOS 5.0 with a rap video. You’ve been warned.
• Some screen shots for the Wii Table Tennis game. Pretty impressive for the Wii.
• How to stay rich: Use your Ferrari for a $5,000 loan. It works.

How do you know when someone is a Mac guy?  He posts UNBOXING PICTURES!  Of a universal remote he hasn’t even attempted to set up yet. . .

More to come in the days ahead. . .

You may remember my desperate plea over the summer to click on the Amazon links on this blog before buying anything, in the hopes that the commissions I’d earn on those sales would eventually add up enough to pay for a new universal remote control for my new HDTV.

At long last, the Amazon Associates gift certificate has come in from that initial flurry of activity. Thanks again to one and all who did their shopping after clicking on one of the ads here. Between that gift certificate and one or two other much smaller ones I’ve been saving up for just this occasion, I was able to order the remote last night at no cost. It also looks like the price dropped since I originally looked at the remote in July.  As a bonus, my free demo Amazon Prime membership didn’t run out until last night at midnight, so I should have it in hand on Monday.

As promised, expect a full review of the puppy late next week or early the next.

It’s just like Mom always tells you – if you save up for a long while, you’ll appreciate it more when it comes.

By the way, the Amazon banners still function the same way for me. Feel free to use them to help support this blog. It even works in the new MP3 music store. But I won’t be bugging you about it again for a while. Feel free to support your other favorite blogger in the same manner, if you wish. On behalf of all bloggers everywhere: Thank you for your support.

Now go drink a Bartles and Jaymes.

Strategy Letter VI – Joel on Software

And your programmers are like, jeez louise, GMail is huge, we can’t port GMail to this stupid NewSDK. We’d have to change every line of code. Heck it’d be a complete rewrite; the whole programming model is upside down and recursive and the portable programming language has more parentheses than even Google can buy. The last line of almost every function consists of a string of 3,296 right parentheses. You have to buy a special editor to count them.

The SCO Group Receives Nasdaq Notice Letter

The SCO Group, Inc. (the “Company”) , a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services, today announced it received a notice from The Nasdaq Stock Market indicating that the Company’s securities will be delisted from Nasdaq on September 27, 2007, pending an appeal.

At this point, I think the only thing left to do is lead a rousing rendition of that obnoxious “Hey hey hey nah nah nah good-bye” chant you hear at sporting events, right?

Adios, jerks! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer pack of lawyers.

• One piece of paper. Fascinating images.
• Beijing’s Swimming Center looks like a brick of bubbles. Very cool. You’ll see more of it at the Olympics next year.
• Yes, the Britney VMAs performance is really as bad as everyone says. Complete train wreck time. Take a look. Amongst my questions: “Why does she need a mic pack for lip synching?”
• Guitar Hero III will be available for both the Mac and PC this fall. Now you don’t have any excuse not to own the game. I think the PSP is the only platform left out.
• I love my Sony TV and camera, but everything else they do is one boondoggle after another. Now they (along with BMG and Universal) want to foist “Ringles” on the world – a CD single with ringtone included. No, they’re not kidding. That’s the funny part.
• Adding to my Christmas list now: Jawbone Bluetooth headset. It has no volume control – it controls the noise automatically so you can hear the call with clarity. If that works, count me in.
• The forthcoming SMURFS DVD will include a Smurfs music video. Awww, yeah!
• I’ve got nothing burning a hole in my head to write a lengthy blog post on today. Please accept these links as my apology for that.

• Create your own TV/DVD commentaries. It’s the lastest Web 2.0 site!
• Flash game of the day: Gimme Friction, Baby. Just point and click. keep all the balls above the line. Knock out other balls by hitting them repeatedly. It’s a mind bender!
• A new way to resize images (”seam carving”) allows for natural stretching and contracting, not just shrinking and expanding. It’s a fascinating technique, but purists will loathe it.
• Behind the scenes on THE ROCK. I love that movie. (Link goes to eight minute embedded movie.)
• MIT students create their own Segway.

We all know that DRM — the “Digital Rights Management” stuff that keeps you from pirating digital files, in theory — is evil, and is finally starting to wane just a little, with EMI and Universal dropping it from their music downloads this year already.  DRM keeps you from buying something once and being secure in the knowledge that it will always run.  Apple could — again, in theory — decide tomorrow that they want to break every song you’ve ever downloaded through the iTunes music store with a simple flip of a switch.  No, it’s not likely, but it’s not impossible.

Google recently drove this point home when they ended their video rental/download-to-own program.  (They had launched it a year and a half ago.) They charged you for each video ($2, I think?), but you were forced to authenticate ownership of the video everytime you played it. You needed an internet connection to validate the video before it would play on your machine.  So when Google decided last week to kill off their program, it meant that every video you may have downloaded became an immediate virtual brick.  The file was dead, worthless, useless.  It wouldn’t play anymore.  Your money just went down the drain.

Not completely, though. Google’s not that dumb. They credited the money you paid for those video files to your Google Checkout account, whether you had one or not.  In order to get your money back, you had to spend it somewhere else for something else, AND use Google’s Paypal competitor, whether you wanted to or not.

That didn’t fly too well.  Now, Google has changed their mind and are offering to refund your credit card directly, and are asking those with new credit card numbers or expiration dates to please update their info on-line so that they can do so.  They were hoping the Google Checkout thing would be quicker and easier, and I can understand that.  But it locks their users into another product that not all of them need or want.

As a bonus, Google is letting those users keep the Google Checkout credit, too, and keeping the authentication server running for a couple extra months.

In the end, then, DRM became a double-your-money-back proposition.

It’s still evil, though.

But good for Google for fixing a bad situation they helped to cause.