Attention Deficit David

Tech Blog Fail

I have a google alert set for anytime my name goes up somewhere. It snagged this blog post today, which looks like it was translated into several languages before going back to English. Made me laugh, thinking of what life would be like if this were the way real apple press releases sounded.

Apple Touches Up Aperture Photo Toolset

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) hang by the haunch of released the second torso magazine of its professional-grade photo editing and guidance submission, Aperture. The peace heaving 100 latest features delimited by to Aperture 2, plus a more streamlined user interface and an entirely new photo processing engine.

"Many of the apex admired photographers on occupation all done the world trust Aperture to direct, expurgate and deliver their similes," noted Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of application feature marketing . "With its simpler interface and belittle fee, a being can lift to the climax front of Aperture's will." Key enhancement embrace new imaging tools in favour of spike aware repossession, color vibrancy, provincial bite definition, soft-edged retouch, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning. The new user interface let user navigate involving Viewer and Browser mode beside a distinct knob decision, Apple said. Screen clean estate has be maximize for images with an all-in-one heads-up exposition that allows users to toggle between library, metadata and adjustment controls in a single tabbed examiner.

"The initial major point tackle in Aperture 2 be dash -- the undamaged program's been overhaul to deliver a major speed tonic, gratitude to optimization of the underlying database, and the new Quick Preview make Aperture one of the fastest programs in circle for summarily select from tens of thousands of previews," David Schloss, a executive photographer and device of the Aperture Users Professional Network, tell MacNewsWorld.

That speed, which translate into increased prosperity, is a key hew for hoi polloi pro.

"What I find is, anything I have in Aperture I can access more glibly and catch out the door faster," Jim Richardson, a freelance photographer who shoot for National Geographic magazine, told MacNewsWorld.

"I'm sitting here, and I've get 41,000 images here one overhang. I'm scrolling fluff with 41,000 images and the eyeshade is keeping up with me. Before Aperture, I would have got to firm it -- take my 2,000 select out of the 41,000 -- and presently I don't have to. I'll be interested to see how it is when I have 500,000 -- we'll see if it's stagnant this substantially joviality," he said.

Down on the farm

Thanks to my good friend Josh I'm out in California working some Aperture magic on a photo shoot for a cycling team. Today was an early start, 4:30 am wake up for a 5:30 am roll out. (Tomorrow is even earlier.) We drove about an hour to a scouted location and started getting ready to shoot a part of the 50+ person squad.

I spent a lot of my day in an RV doing Aperture work, and quite a bit of problem solving (two people who haven't worked together, plus rental gear=hectic) but it really was a great day. There's a fantastic crew working on the set, my team is stellar and they're turning out great images.

During one of the breaks in the most-scenic-location-I've-been-in-the-Continental-West-Coast I wandered behind the barn next to which we were shooting and found this beautiful old tractor. We're on a working farm, so this guy still pulls and plows, and it's a great reminder of our agricultural roots.

Tomorrow will likely be an easier day, as there are fewer people on the squads we're shooting, but you can never tell with live outdoor shooting. This morning it was pouring and then the skies cleared up and this is what we got.

For my daily inspiration message we passed one of the team members on our way home—he was (after a full day shoot) riding his single-speed home up US 1 and US 101 to the hotel where we're staying, more than 40 miles away. We pulled over to see if he needed a ride, as he was setting out merely thirty minutes before dark but he waved us off assuring that he had enough lights (in the form of the rear blinking one). More power to you dude, safe home.

Not surfing is hard work

To round off the massive—though not as massive as last year's—travel schedule, I decided to take a quick trip to Hawaii (thank you recession for the stupidly-cheap fare) to shoot some video as a prototype for a job we might be doing soon. I'm in Honolulu at a nice hotel right on the beach.

Today I hooked up with my friend jeff Flindt, surfing photographer extraordinaire who lives up on the North Shore. Next week is the big surfing competition up there, and I shot video of Jeff going out to paddle around in the water as he shoots surfers.

Jeff's been doing this for 11 years, so he's got quite the hookup. I don't know surfing from podiatry, but I do, having shot the mountain bike scene for a few years, appreciate just how awesome it is to be able to completely integrate oneself as a photographer into a sport. Jeff is part of the culture, and he took a lot of time out of his schedule today to bring me over to the Quiksilver team house and introduce me to everyone there from the surfers to the "staff," and they're all great, friendly guys. And since they were nice enough to allow me to take pictures from their porch (and generally get in the way) I shall now type their name a few times, and give you a link to their site. Quiksilver, Quiksilver, Quicksilver.

I don't know the surf scene enough to know how important the guys I was hanging out with actually are, but I can tell many of them are really important, and they were all friendly enough to let a stranger just hang out with them.

I had to get up at 5 in order to get up to the North Shore in time for "first light," which wasn't so hard for me because due to jet lag my soul is still somewhere over Wyoming en-route to me, so my body just felt like it was getting up at a normal time.

My GPS totally crapped out on me, the first time I haven't been able to find a place based on its directions (and if I had read the manual, I'd have been fine—I couldn't figure out how to enter an address with a dash, like 56-305 Something Street. As a result I ended up on a spur road about 5 miles away from my destination, in the dark, having to call Jeff.

The day's shoot was great. I don't usually shoot video but since we don't have a second shooter here, the gig was all mine. Jeff's got some cool gear, including custom-made waterproof housings and it's fun to watch him get geared up. He spent a good few hours in the water, during which time I lugged around his 600mm lens and shot surfers and local surfer-watchers alike. Picture for those who like to ogle boys is here, girls with tattoos is here.

Jeff took a break at about 1:00 p.m. and we headed over to a great plate lunch, something I hadn't heard about until our President-Elect talked about it on T.V. The joint we hit today was a bit more upscale than most, very good food, very plentiful, very cheap. Lots and lots of surfers around, including many clearly baked dudes with incredible-looking women in tow.

Jeff pointed out the entrance to where the Lost beach is filmed, pointed out the Foodland grocery store where he saw the guy who plays Locke, and pointed out all the team houses, of which there are plenty. We went to the Oakley house and I talked an Australian photographer through some OS X issues for a while. The house is modern and well appointed, not really what you'd expect from a surf promo house, but definitely in the aesthetic of the Oakley brand.

Because its such a great promotion, each of the team houses is stocked with free beverages from companies like Red Bull and RockStar. I had a free, gigantic RockStar at the QuikSilver house and about ten minutes later wanted to punch a pony in the kidney, the shit is so powerful.

After lunch I drove around the remaining circumference of the island around looking at the water, which was directly outside my window for more than twenty miles before I headed up into the mountains and directly into rush hour traffic, which my GPS then got points for helping me avoid.

Then I started to flag after the day's moving around, but I suffered through another sunset (completely different than yesterday—where the hell did all the boats come from) and another Japanese meal in a place where I was the only caucasian.

Tomorrow I think I'll shoot some video from a hike up Diamond Head, more B-Roll for the video we're doing, and then at night I'll go back up to Jeff and shoot some more talking head of him. This paradise thing can be really exhausting.

Just in case you've decided that you hate me now because of the travel, here's a diversion. I was talking on IM tonight to a friend of mine from the PDN days who is now, with her husband, doing a project where they travel Asia shooting spas. Yes, I said that right, their job is to photograph spas. Then my friend Martin from Apple told me about an expedition a mutual friend from National Geographic is doing where they're taking some eighty people in a converted 757 around the world (in 24 days) to shoot some of the most incredible places on earth. It only costs a hair below $60,000. So there.

Apple at the Olympics

My coverage of Apple's support at the Olympics is up online here at MacCentral.com and is featured here on Apple's Start Page/Hot News page. This marks my third feature appearance on Apple's big ol' news blast.

I'm on the (digital) radio, woo ooh.

Here's a link to a radio show I was on recently, talking about Aperture. I'm on the second half.

http://www.insidedigitalphoto.com/radio-programs/idp-radio-apple-aperture-21-aupn

iPhone to the stars

This week I'm in Washington, on the Microsoft campus for the second annual Professional Photography Summit. (Marking air mile 56,000 for the year, for those of you playing the home version of Frequent Flyer Hell.) Microsoft brought a bunch of actors in to talk, part of a group that are lobbying for different rights for celebrities who are photographed. Don't ask. Really.

Anyhow, mind you I'm at the Microsoft Campus at a Microsoft event, and while I'm standing in the hallway putting away my iPhone, actor Joe Montagne's daughter comes up and takes a look at the phone. (She's, I think 16? Perfect market for a device like this, right?) "OH MY GOD" she says, "is that the iPhone?" which precedes the request for a demo, as always. So I'm showing off the iPhone to her mostly, but also to Ernie Hudson, Joe Montagne and Joey Pants. I show off a movie, scrubbing through it, changing the volume. I switch to photos and show her flicking through photos and then pinching to zoom in. Which is the point at which she squeals with surprise. (That demo on the Apple video was actually the same thing that convinced several people I know to get the iPhone.)

One of the Microsoft guys running the show comes over and says, jokingly, "what's with this Apple product at a Microsoft event? "Yeah," says Joe Montagne, "it's like looking at bar mitzvah pictures at Hitler's house."

That's one hell of a good line.

Climbing the Hill

Climbing the hill, originally uploaded by davidjschloss.

I'm in California working on something for the new project I'm rolling out in March (I still can't talk about it officially until all the papers are signed) and I'm having an interestingly great time.

Years ago I launched a dot com, an online publishing company that was centered around a mountain biking website that was launched very early in the dawn of the 'Net. For a long time I spent my warm-weather weeks driving or flying to mountain bike races all over the continent and reporting on them in real-time. The site was called GearHead.com, (later sold to a bunch of asses) and we were one of the first sites to ever to live race reporting, and we pioneered things like getting digital photographs up to servers from dial-up lines in West Virginia.

Yesterday I landed in San Francisco with Wil, my friend/coworker and we set out to the city to prepare to do some race coverage and media support and suddenly I was transported back a decade to the days when I'd travel with the media caravan from town to town, taking over an area for a few days and moving on.

This trip so far has been strangely emotional for me. It's great to be launching a new part of my life with cycling as the backdrop (and indeed I chose this race because it fits both into my new job and into my favorite activity) and I've fallen right back into the fold. There have also been some nice perks.

Yesterday, for example, I had the privilege of having dinner with the famous photographer Graham Watson and Darach McQuaid (brother of UCI president Pat) at a great restaurant where we downed a good bit of wine. This morning I got up to head over to get credentials and hit the course, shooting from the starting block and then catching a ride in one of the team cars up the hill to Coit Tower to walk up the remaining 800 meters to the finish. Some great vantage points, although the misfiring shutter on my camera is really causing me some issues. (I can't shoot above 1/500th of a second).

Not everything is cycling though. On the way back from Coit Tower, I passed by a woman sitting at the Fog City Diner having a meal who was applying makeup from a gigantic compact with the words "Lauren Hutton" on it. It was a truly large compact, the largest I'd ever seen and in fact I'd say it was pushing the boundary of the very term. Then I glanced up to see what sort of woman would be applying makeup from such a large object, and realized it was actually Lauren Hutton.

Yesterday, Wil and I were out walking to dinner when we stumbled upon several dozen of the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, out for a jaunt, I suppose, away from their famous perch. A few dozen people were hanging out around the trees, many with food for the birds, including apples on long sticks, nuts, and more. The parrots, hung from trees, landed on shoulders, dropped onto people's heads, etc. It was really a surreal and beautiful experience. Dozens of people astounded by the colorful birds that just happened to be in a park in the middle of a city.

It's a terrific trip so far and bodes well for the rest of what I've got planned for the next years of my life. More on that in March.

My Steve Collection Is Complete

Yesterday I was riding my bike in San Fran, when I rode by YAFGOAS (Yet Another Fucking Guy On A Segway) and as I did a double take I thought that dork looks like Steve Wozniak.

I sort of shrugged it off—while I'm here for Macworld, Steve Jobs and Woz aren't exactly the best of buddies.

Today I read a Gizmodo post with a shot of the same hefty dork on the same Segway at Macworld, and lo-and-behold, it's Woz.

You sort of need to be a geek to appreciate this.

A Very Obsessive Thanksgiving To You

I'm not often obsessive, thankfully the gene that turned the houses of my parents into dueling junkyards usually only appears in me as a desire to get things done right fucking now when they're bothering me.

On Thanksgiving though, that approach doesn't usually work, resulting instead in a big pile of food that's ready at the wrong time. So for the last few thanksgivings I've turned to computer assistance to help plan my meals. It's been excel the last few years, but this year it was iCal.

Behold! A day's worth of cooking in order, timeline based! Now you too can play along with our home cooking game, Schlanderson Thanksgiving®

Want To Run Windows On Your Mac? No Problem

Crossposted from my entry at musings.bluepixel.net

From PDNOnline.com

Apple announced Boot Camp, software designed to allow owners of Intel-powered Macintosh computers to run Windows XP on those machines. Apple's software solution will allow users to create a Windows partition on their drive, which the user can boot into at startup time.
The software requires that the Boot Camp Mac be running OS 10.4.6 (released today) and walks installers through the creation of a driver disk, allowing Windows on the Mac to use Bluetooth, Airport, and other Mac-specific hardware.
Boot Camp is free, and is still in beta. It can be downloaded from Apple's Boot Camp page.

This is huge. Not huge for many dyed-in-the-wool Mac users mind you. But it's cool for the Mac platform. See, I've spent decades helping everyone from creatives to IT folks buy Macs, and one of the things that's come up often is the ability to run Windows on the Mac.

Now personally I want my Mac to run Mac OS, and I'll let my Windows box run Windows. But for people in corporate environments, those in some finance and accounting, heck even my Mother-in-law, the ability to run the occasional Windows software IN WINDOWS is huge.

For years Virtual PC ruled the roost, allowing a Windows emulation mode on the Mac, but after Microsoft bought Virtual PC it sort of lost some steam in the development area.

Now, Apple's got a crop of Macs powered by Intel and will have many more by the end of the year. Not only are they speedy as hell, but they're also now able to run two operating systems. That's a heck of a value.

You'll need to go through an installer process that includes creating a driver disk so that the Windows on a Mac solution can do things like run WiFi and such. But it's a pretty straightforward process and shouldn't take long to do.

Of course you'll need a valid install of Windows XP SP2, but you'd need that for any machine running Windows.