Appleinsider has gotten their hands on a large patent filing from Apple that we haven’t seen before, and it’s loaded with plans for how a multitouch interface would work on a tablet Mac running full-blown OS X. It covers how small interface buttons will be handled, iPhone-like scrolling through lists, details on a full multi-touch keyboard, and a nifty pop-up scroll wheel. And on top of all that, it seems like it’ll even work if you have freaky alien fingers! Let’s take a closer look.
This has nagged me for soooo long! I use Winamp, which has its own context menu integration, and I find myself accidentally opening a folder to play in Windows Media Player all the time…
Leave my context menu alone! If you just let it go wild, every program in the world wants to install some option there. Windows Media Player not only puts itself there, but integrates itself throughout the shell. Actually removing this integration is surprisingly easy!
Remove WMP Integration: 1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type in regsvr32 /u wmpshell.dll
4. Click Enter
Easy!
I found this comic while digging through my Flickr account to clear out the non-photo material, and thought this was an excellent commentary on the industry…
Following up the post on 10 Really Useful Flickr Greasemonkey Userscripts from the other day is this great article from howtoliveonline.com that lists 25 great Greasemonkey scripts for Flickr users:
Flickr is a nice, popular online photo sharing tool. Here is a collection of tools and scripts that will enhance your flickr experience.
Enjoy these collection and feel free to suggest any useful script or additional tool that I might have missed.
Scripts to enhance Flickr browsing experience:
Tip: To install these scripts, you must get Firefox browser and Greasemonkey extension [Read a 30 sec description on GM]. Once you install the Greasemonkey, you will see a smiling monkey icon on the right-bottom corner of your browser. These scripts need to be automatically installed when you select install option.
In my continuing search for new and interesting articles due directly to my incredible fascination with North Korea (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea), I recently found an article in Esquire about the monstrous Ryugyong Hotel, a vacant skyscraper hotel that was originally meant to be a shining symbol of the prosperity of the DPRK but has sat empty and incomplete since construction ceased in 1992 (construction began in 1987).
According to Wikipedia,
The Ryugyong Hotel (Korean: 류경호텔)(or Ryu-Gyong Hotel or Yu-Kyung Hotel)[citation needed] is an unfinished concreteskyscraper. It is intended for use as a hotel in Sojang-dong, in the Potong-gang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. The hotel’s name comes from one of the historic names for Pyongyang: Ryugyong, or “capital of willows.” Its 105 stories rise to a height of 330 m (1,083 ft), and it contains 360,000 m² (3.9 million square feet) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city’s skyline and by far the largest structure in the country. At one time, it would have been the world’s tallest hotel.[1]Esquire dubbed it “The Worst Building in the History of Mankind” and noted that the government of North Korea has airbrushed the building out of pictures. The Christian Science Monitor called it “one of the most expensive white elephants in history”.[2] Over the years, the skyscraper has earned such nicknames as the “Hotel of Doom,” “Phantom Hotel,” and “Phantom Pyramid.”[3] Construction began in 1987 and ceased in 1992, due to the government’s financial difficulties. The unfinished hotel remained untouched until April 2008, when construction resumed after being inactive 16 years.[4]
The Esquire article has a bit more scathing review of this enormous structure:
A picture doesn’t lie — the one-hundred-and-five-story Ryugyong Hotel is hideous, dominating the Pyongyang skyline like some twisted North Korean version of Cinderella’s castle. Not that you would be able to tell from the official government photos of the North Korean capital — the hotel is such an eyesore, the Communist regime routinely covers it up, airbrushing it to make it look like it’s open — or Photoshopping or cropping it out of pictures completely.
Even by Communist standards, the 3,000-room hotel is hideously ugly, a series of three gray 328-foot long concrete wings shaped into a steep pyramid. With 75 degree sides that rise to an apex of 1,083 feet, the Hotel of Doom (also known as the Phantom Hotel and the Phantom Pyramid) isn’t the just the worst designed building in the world — it’s the worst-built building, too. In 1987, Baikdoosan Architects and Engineers put its first shovel into the ground and more than twenty years later, after North Korea poured more than two percent of its gross domestic product to building this monster, the hotel remains unoccupied, unopened, and unfinished.
But, since the Esquire article was posted, there has actually been construction activity, for the first time in 16 years!
SHENYANG, China, May 19 (Yonhap) — North Korea resumed the construction of a highrise hotel building in Pyongyang last month, which was suspended for nearly 20 years due to funding problems, informed sources here said Monday.
The construction of the luxury Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987 with French capital and technology for completion in 1992. The 105-story building has long been left uncompleted since early 1990s amid North Korea’s chronic economic problems.
“North Korean authorities restarted the construction of Ryugyong Hotel in April,” the sources said, quoting those who recently returned from trips to Pyongyang.
Orascom Telecom Holding of Egypt is North Korea’s partner for the construction, the sources said. “If completed, the hotel will be used as an accommodation for foreign investors and visitors, a business center and an international convention center among others,” a source said.
The 330-meter hotel is expected to be the world’s tallest when completed.
Now, given that the secretive country is notoriously restrictive to tourists (except during the Arirang Games), such an investment seems like an odd choice, but it looks like there’s another motive…
Traders in Shenyang, China with ties to Pyongyang say the North has now found that funding, partnering with Egypt’s Orascom Group. Orascom has publicized significant investment plans for North Korea in the last twelve months. Orascom Telecom Holding announced on January 30 of this year that it had been granted the first-ever commercial license to provide WCDMA 3G technology-based cellular service to North Korea, and put forth plans to invest 400 million USD to create a nationwide infrastructure.
This deal followed on the heals of Orascom’s first venture into DPRK investment, announced in mid July, 2007, when Orascom Construction Industries purchased a 50 percent stake in the North’s Sangwon Cement Factory near Pyongyang. This venture involved the injection of 115 million USD, which is being used to modernize the facility and increase production capacity from 2.5 million tons to 3 million tons per year.
…which is another odd move, considering that citizens in the DPRK are not allowed to own cellular phones.Or maybe they will be allowed to?
Earlier this year, the company said that it expects to sign up an initial 100,000 subscribers when it launches its new GSM network in North Korea. Speaking on a conference call, CEO Naguib Sawiris said that the service would start in three main cities in the country and the company will then pause to assess the impact.
The company aims to spend an initial US$200 million on the network over the next twelve months, with US$100 per year for the two years after that.
Whatever the case may be, this hotel fascinates the hell out of me. I’ll keep you readers posted, of course, as soon as I stumble upon more info. In the meantime, here’s a couple video “tours” of the hotel.
It’s a bit surprising to me how quickly Canon is skipping over the 40D; I purchased a 30D at the end of its sales life (and was able to get the nicer 28-135mm lens shown below as part of the kit), right before the 40D came out, just about a year ago..
Canon today strengthens its EOS range with the addition of a powerful new digital SLR: the EOS 50D. A newly designed 15.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor delivers ultra-detailed, low-noise images – ideal for large-scale reproduction or creative cropping. Canon’s new DIGIC 4 processor is fast enough to allow up to 6.3fps continuous shooting, in bursts of up to 90 JPEGs with a UDMA card. Used with Canon’s wide area AF system, which locks onto subjects with 9 individual cross type sensors, stunning action sequences can be captured – even in low-light conditions. A new 3.0” Clear View VGA LCD provides extra-large and wide angle-of-view image review, with plenty of clarity for accurate focus checks in playback. By switching to Live View mode – which displays a real-time image on the LCD – photographers can enjoy simplified shooting from awkward angles, or connect to a PC for remote shooting.
Yesterday, I attempted to move some of our content from a local filestore into our main subversion repository. I copied the files to my computer, all 22472.67 megabytes of it, and used TortoiseSVN to import the data to our repository.
Being that it was over 22GB of data, I expected it to take a very long time, and it did, 310 minutes and 3 seconds (approx. 5.2 hours). What I didn’t expect was that TortoiseSVN neglected to check for commit/import requirements *before* the import process and waited 5.2 hours, after all the data had been transferred, to tell me:
Error: WHOOPS! Insufficient Log Message. Must be greater than 10 characters.
Wow. Whoops, I just wasted 5 hours of my computing time and network bandwidth to import 22GB of data that was immediately reverted *after* the whole process should have been completed.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Subversion to death, and TortoiseSVN is an awesome client. This behavior, though, seems pretty ridiculous to me.
I’ve seen a *lot* of hits on my post “Visual Studio 2008 Is Pretty Damn Slow…“, which means that a lot of you are probably still experiencing speed issues with Visual Studio 2008. In regard to this, I thought it might be prudent to post information about the recently released Service Pack 1 for VS2008 and where to find it:
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 significantly improve the developer experience during the development process, and at runtime. These improvements address top issues reported by customers. For more information, see Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.
I haven’t tried using my favorite XP junction tool, NTFS-Link, since I upgraded my home computer to Windows Vista, and I’m a little apprehensive since the filesystem has changed a bit. Nonetheless, if you are still using XP, NTFS-Link is an excellent tool for those of you already familiar with symbolic links via other operating systems, such as Linux.
Luckily, Windows Vista does include a command-line tool for creating symbolic links, similar to “ln” in Linux. However, it’s not quite as straightforward. Here’s the scoop from How-To Geek:
Using the mklink Command
The command that you need to use is mklink, which you’ll use from the command line. Just type it on the command line to see the options:
C:Usersgeek>mklink
Creates a symbolic link.
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
/D Creates a directory symbolic link. Default is a file
symbolic link.
/H Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
/J Creates a Directory Junction.
Link specifies the new symbolic link name.
Target specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
I bought some new sheets recently, ran them through a regular wash cycle before putting them on our bed, and immediately thought, wait, did I accidentally buy a negative thread count? They were so stiff and almost scratchy. After doing some hunting online, I did the following:
• Washed them on the hottest setting
• Used no detergent (the idea is that new sheets have chemicals on them and detergent just makes it worse)
• Added lots of fabric softener
• Dumped in a cup or so of baking soda during the wash cycle
• Took them out of the dryer as soon as they were dry, rather than leaving them to sit in there for a while
This program looks awesome, and it’s comforting to know that both Download Squad and Lifehacker vouch for it. Check out the details; it might just replace MediaCoder for me…
Quick Media Converter is a Windows utility that will let you convert practically any audio or video file from one format to another. MPEG to H.264? No problem. WAV to OGG? Sure, why not.
Now let’s get something out of the way here. Quick Media Converter is basically just a fancy front end for the open source, command line FFmpeg media encoder. But it’s a really useful front end. The utility offers you two interfaces: an easy mode and an expert mode. In easy mode, you can choose from a number of predefiined formats. So just select the media files you want to convert, and click the Audio, Quicktime, WMV, DiVX, Xbox, PS3, or Wii button to create a file optimized for your system of choice.
In Expert mode, you have much more control over the code choices and settings. For example, in easy mode, there’s no way to convert a FLAC file to OGG. But you can do that in expert mode.
A model release, known in similar contexts as a liability waiver, is a legal document typically signed by the subject of a photograph granting permission to publish the photograph in one form or another. The legal rights of the signatories in reference to the material is thereafter subject to the allowances and restrictions stated in the release, and also possibly in exchange for compensation paid to the photographed.
Publishing an identifiable photo of a person without a model release signed by that person can result in civil liability for whoever publishes the photograph.
Note that the photographer is typically not the publisher of the photograph, but sells the photograph to someone else to publish. Liability rests solely with the publisher, except under special conditions. It is typical for the photographer to obtain the model release because he is merely present at the time and can get it, but also because it gives him more opportunity to sell the photograph later to a party who wishes to publish it. Unless a photo is actually published, the need (or use) of a model release is undefined. And, since some forms of publication do not require a model release (e.g., news articles), the existence (or non-existence) of a release is irrelevant.
Note that the issue of model release forms and liability waivers is a legal area related to privacy and is separate from copyright. Also, the need for model releases pertains to public use of the photos: i.e., publishing them, commercially or not. The act of taking a photo of someone in a public setting without a model release, or of viewing or non-commercially showing such a photo in private, generally does not create legal exposure, at least in the United States.
The legal issues surrounding model releases are complex and vary by jurisdiction. Although the risk to photographers is virtually nil (so long as proper disclosures of the existence of a release, and its content is made to whoever licenses the photo for publication), the business need for having releases rises substantially if the main source of income from the photographer’s work lies within industries that would require them (such as advertising). In short, photo journalists never need to obtain model releases for images they shoot for (or sell to) news or qualified editorial publications.
Photographers who also publish images need releases to protect themselves, but there is a distinction between making an image available for sale (even via a website), which is not considered publication in a form that would require a release, and the use of the same image to promote a product or service in a way that would require a release.
Regardless of legal issues, taking someone’s picture without his/her permission may be considered impolite and may provoke a hostile response, so the photographer should take such matters into consideration and ask permission if appropriate.
This looks like some excellent information about model releases, which will probably come in handy for any of you photographers out there who are planning on shooting portraits for groups such as “100 Strangers” on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/)…
Before we begin, let’s test your basic understanding of when a photo needs to have a model release:
Do I need a release for a photo I took of someone in a public place?
Should I get a release even if the person in the photo is unrecognizable?
Does profiting from the sale of a picture trigger the need for a release?
I’m going to put on a public display. Is a release required?
What if the person is dead?
Do I need a release if the subject is naked?
I have tons of pictures of my ex-girlfriend. Can she sue me if I sold them?
I own a portrait studio. Do I need clients to sign releases?
I took a lot of pictures as a hobby, and now I want to sell them. Do I need releases for all my pictures of people?
To score your knowledge, give yourself one point for each item you answered “Yes,” and two points for each item you answered “No.” In fact, make it three points. Now, total up all your points. If your score is above zero, you have a lot to learn about model releases.
Yes, none of these questions have an answer at all, and no, these were not trick questions. These are the most common questions I get from people just like you. The reason the questions have no answer is because none indicate a use for the image in question. Unless and until there is a specific use for a photo, there is no answer. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense to ask the question in the first place. So, if you have already shot pictures, or you are about to shoot them, and you’re concerned about whether you need a release for the pictures you shoot, the answer starts out no. However, if you plan to license the pictures to someone for publication, then a release may be necessary.
And here is where the wonderful world of Grey opens up to you. Is the image to be used in an advertisement? Or, is the image to be used in conjunction with an article in a magazine or newspaper? Understanding the difference between images used commercially or in editorial contexts is only the beginning. And while many people clearly understand that those differences exist, it’s the over-simplification of them that gives a false perception on what you actually need to do. There is a tizzy of what-if’s and exceptions that go to the very core of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. And once you go there, Whoa Nelly! You’re in for some serious, eye-glazingly boring, sleepy time.
To save you from that, I’m going to try to characterize this stuff in ways that are fun, simple, and will make you a millionaire.
Ok, maybe not. But it’ll be easier to understand. The reason why any of this is discussed to the degree that it is, is rooted in one of the most perpetuated fears about photography: that the photographer can get sued unless he gets a signed model release from the people (or properties) he photographs. The source of this anxiety is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the law: they think photographer’s are the ones who are responsible because they take the photo and sell it to someone. But that’s actually not where the real concern is. To address that, let’s ask the most basic question, “who is ultimately responsible for a photo being released?”
All of these are excellent scripts, and many of them are available in the Better Flickr extension from Gina Trapani at Lifehacker, but my favorite by far is the Flickr Follow Comments plugin which makes that atrocity of a page into something sane and manageable.
Flickr, are you listening? The “Comments You’ve Made” page sucks hard. (Otherwise, I love Flickr to death, and everything else is somewhere in the range of pretty good to awesome.)
This post on Useful Flickr Userscripts has been submitted by Martin Gommel. You can see his work at his is a Flickr account and his blog KWERFELDEIN.
Userscripts are add-ons for the Firefox web browser, which dynamically enhance the communication and visualization of certain websites.
To be able to use these scripts you need to have installed greasemonkey on Firefox – this enables and manages the userscripts. If you have greasemonkey in Firefox you can install and use these userscripts instantly.
I posted a related link back in March (Pop-up Flash), but I just recently tried it out and found it to be so useful that it was worth reposting:
Harsh, unflattering flash got you down? Grab an old roll of film and make it all better.
Follow Flickr user natuurplaat’s lead, and turn an old film canister into a flash diffuser! A few strategic cuts make it easy to slip the canister onto your pop-up flash, and voila! Soft, beautiful lighting.
Keep reading and we’ll show you how to make your very own little piece of genius.
This is a great reference on what Flickr Explore is, what Interestingness is, and how to understand both:
What is Explore?
Explore is a Flickr feature with the intent of showing you “some of the most awesome photos on Flickr.” Photos are automatically selected by computer according to a secret algorithm called Interestingness (see below for more about that).
Is Explore a showcase for the top Flickr photographers?
No. It’s for photo viewers, not the photographers. It exists so that, at any moment, anyone who wants to view interesting photos can go to Explore and have a reasonable chance of seeing something interesting. Does that imply that photographs not in Explore are uninteresting? Of course not. There are many, many wonderful photos uploaded to Flickr each day that aren’t selected for Explore. But to serve its purpose, Explore only has to include a small sampling of all of the photos on Flickr (currently at 500 per day or about 0.005% of the daily upload volume). And Explore tries to show photos from as many different people as possible to create a diverse selection.
Explore is for the viewers. It’s a way for Flickr to show the world a sampling of what is being shared there. It’s there for those who are new to Flickr, who are lost in the vastness of it all and don’t know where to begin. It is not a “best of” listing of photographers. It is not a popularity contest.
What is Interestingness?
Interestingness is what Flickr calls the criteria used for selecting which photos are shown in Explore. All photos are given an Interestingness “score” that can also be used to sort any image search on Flickr. The top 500 photos ranked by Interestingness are shown in Explore. Interestingness rankings are calculated automatically by a secret computer algorithm. The algorithm is often referred to by name as the Interestingness algorithm. Although the algorithm is secret, Flickr has stated that many factors go into calculating Interestingness including: a photo’s tags, how many groups the photo is in, views, favorites, where click-throughs are coming from, who comments on a photo and when, and more. The velocity of any of those components is a key factor. For example, getting 20 comments in an hour counts much higher than getting 20 comments in a week.
