There's been a lot of buzz lately about Microsoft's [NASDAQ:MSFT] new, if belated, campaign to get reluctant users to adopt Vista. What they're doing is the ol' on-camera switcheroo: filming "real" users reactions to a "new" operating system they call Mojave, and then revealing that Mojave is really Vista. The users are supposed to swoon and say things like, "wow, I'm so closed-minded, I had no idea Vista was so great." Or something.
Photography is such a technical subject that many photographers get caught up in it, or snarled up in it, as the case may be. Cameras are such wonderful contrivances that we can get lured in by the latest gadgetry. While it certainly is important to know your camera, the camera doesn't take the photo, you do!
So how do you learn to get better shots and find your "voice" (or eye) as photographer? Are there some practical steps to take?
I believe there are. These are the steps that I recommend to my students, and that I myself have taken along the way:
Apple [NASDAQ:AAPL] hasn't made a lot of customer gripes a priority in the new iPhone OS, and one of the most oft-cited examples is the request -- nay, the whining plea -- for cut and paste functionality. Use an iPhone long enough and you quickly realize that you need a pen and paper, too. But those days may be over, according to a bit of news reported on MacRumors. They're reporting that firmware version 2.1 may have hints about cut/paste buried within its code.
Today is apparently Samsung day here on the Tech Watch blog, partially because your humble blogger attended a fancy Samsung media demo event today in New York's West Village, and partly because the tech gods haven't bestowed upon us anything else of interest today. In any case, on with the gadgets:
LED-lit HDTVs aren't new -- Samsung [SEO:005930] itself had one in production this past year -- but the company's second generation sets are nothing short of breathtaking in picture quality. The old LED TVs (dubbed the 81 Series) has given way to a much-improved pair of Series 9 sets that feature the much-loved 120Hz refresh rate, which makes fast action look less choppy on screen during the kinds of movies that feature cars blowing up and other awesome action sequences.
A couple of weeks ago we heard about plans for a solar-assisted Toyota [NYSE:TM] Prius, and now it seems Nissan [NASDAQ:NSANY] is jumping on the solar bandwagon as well. Reports about the Prius suggested it would feature solar panels to power its air conditioning, but Nissan is taking a less revolutionary step and using the sun's energy to charge a given car's battery. The panels will be made by a company called ICP Solar, which has reportedly just entered into a sales agreement with the European and North American branches of Nissan to make OEM solar chargers.
Turns out that we as consumers can be easily manipulated -- and it's probably happening far more often that we'd like to imagine. A couple of studies released this year draw attention to this. The first demonstrates that consumers are prone to value high price tags – not always because of any intrinsic quality such as better taste, texture, performance or higher comfort levels that the products bearing these prices possess – but sometimes simply because the price is higher.
It seems like every new drool-worthy notebook these days -- from the MacBook Air to the VooDoo Envy -- is sporting solid state hard drives instead of traditional hard drives. If you don't know the particulars of what solid state drives do (and if you have a life, you might not), then you might be wondering why the option to add an SSD, as they're abbreviated, can add a whopping $1000+ to the price of your made-to-order laptop. Read more
I am and have been a long time user and fan of Palm's OS and devices. I have intensively troubleshot, used and owned Palm powered devices such as Sony Clies, Samsung SPH-I300, Samsung SPH-I330, Samsung SPH-I500, Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 700p, Treo 680 and finally the Treo Centro.