Good Morning.  As I’m working very hard to get my Wedding Photography business off the ground I’ve also been searching through cyberspace to find interesting things to share with you all.

Joe McNally has a NEW blog. Add this one to your favorites and blog reading routine. Joe McNally is sharing his photographic world with us and if you’re smart you will absorb everything he mentions. Mr. McNally’s wealth of knowledge is priceless so do check out his blog when you have a chance.

Also, If you want to walk through the mind of the “Master of Flash”, LOL, pick up his books, The Hot Shoe Diaries, and The Moment It Clicks. You will be a better photographer once you are finished reading these books.

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Last year I didn’t have time to participate but this year I’m all set to go. Scott Kelby’s 2nd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk is July 18. I’m signed up for the Greenport, Long Island walk. I’m looking forward to meeting and learning from fellow photographers and taking some interesting photos. I urge you to sign up. It really sounded like everyone who participated last year had a great time. For more information visit their website here. Also, check out last years photos from the walk here.

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So let’s talk about onOne Software. I use onOne software almost everyday of my life. I use their software to increase my productivity and raise the overall quality of my photos. However, onOne has just introduced DSLR Camera Remote for iPhone and iPod Touch users. The ability to control your camera wirelessly has amazing potential. You can place your camera at angles and in place where you have not be able to go before or you can simply be in two places at once. You should want the “Real World Example” video from onOne to really get the idea behind this amazing piece of software.

Watch the “Real World Example” Video Here.

There is a Professional and Lite Edition of the software.  They each offer different options as shown below.  The Professional Edition costs $19.99 and the Lite Edition costs $1.99.

Currently this software is ONLY available for Canon users. I didn’t see a release date on a Nikon version however I’m sure onOne is looking into if not developing the Nikon version already, IMO.

Canon Camera Compatibility

DSLR Camera Remote supports most current and previous generation Canon EOS digital SLR cameras.

Supported Canon cameras (as of June 5, 2009) and connection types:

Firewire Connection:

- 1D Mark II
- 1Ds Mark II
- 1D Mark II N

USB Connection – Camera Must Be Set to PC Connection, Firmware must be up-to-date:

- Rebel XT/350D/Kiss Digital N
- 20D
- 5D

USB Connection – Camera Must Be Set to Print/PC (PTP):

- Rebel XTi/400D/Kiss Digital X
- Rebel Xsi*/450D*/Kiss X2*
- Rebel XS*/1000D*/Kiss F*
- 30D
- 40D*
- 50D*
- 5D Mark II*
- 1D Mark III*
- 1Ds Mark III*

*Indicates camera support for LiveView preview mode.

Looks like we’ll be able to do a lot of damage, creatively speaking, with the DSLR CAMERA REMOTE from onOne. Read more about the product here.

That’s all for now. Have a great day.

~ Jarrod

Really, we have all been there!!

Introducing the very first, 5 QUESTIONS!

Something I’ve always enjoyed while surfing the net is when creatives share some of their thoughts, tips, history, etc… So I decided to begin this segment. I’ve been asking various people to participate in 5 Questions and our first guest is Stephen Tiano, a freelance Book Designer, Page Compositor and Layout Artist out of Long Island.

So, here it is, ENJOY EVERYONE.

How did you get started in the layout design business?

It really was a matter of chance, in a number of ways. I was probably set on the path to some involvement with publishing at a very young age. Like when I discovered I simply had no facility for drawing and put aside my crayons at about the age of four. I clearly remember crayons being for my younger sisters by the time I was six or seven. I just had no use for them. As I’ve often said, between my blog and any number of other venues, I wrote my first story before i turned five, a little thing called “The Lost Boy,” about a kid who wandered off on an adventure. I even remember a line from it: “His mother knew ____ [don't remember what I named the boy] had been in a hurry, because he had not finished his breakfast.” Not very polished, two uses of really passive language, but I wasn’t even five years old.

So my job options were rather limited from the start, since I decided I would write so early. I dragged out college, alternating classes with travel and menial jobs, getting seasoned and collecting experiences to write about. I wrote and suffered the angst of rejection slips from the time I was thirteen until my very early twenties. Then I was thrown a curve ball, getting involved with a girl who made me so happy I lost the itch to write. I feigned intent to “get back to it,” but the truth was that my self-discipline went out the door. And when we split up, I never did find my self-discipline for fiction again.

Read the rest of this entry

MobileMe Gets Updated

I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it for myself. Apple has updated it’s MobileMe service to include “Sharing Large Files On iDisk”.  Maybe some of you remember when MobileMe was originally introduced as the major upgrade to Apple’s .Mac service and we were introduced to this file sharing ability . Unfortunately, due to the unsuccessful way in which Apple released MobileMe, users didn’t have access to this feature until now. This does compete, “a little”, with Dropbox. However, I think personal preference will win out in the end. 

“The process is a simple matter of going to iDisk on me.com, selecting the file you want to share, and clicking the Share File button. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.”

Apple even posted a small video tutorial on how to use it. Here is the link to the video. 

Ok I have some issues with this feature:

The passwords are case sensitive which I know isn’t such a big deal and is probably the norm, however, it’s one more thing I need to inform my clients about and the easier it is for our clients the better we look. Also, when using the password feature you are connected to MobileMe via your browser.  However, MobileMe ISN’T compatible with Windows Internet Explorer, which unless your PC using friends, coworkers, or clients are running Firefox, they won’t be able to access the password protected files. Fear not, if your files do not need to be password protected the download will just begin without any problems. Also, you might want to password protect the actual file to get around this “issue” as well. 

For more information on MobileMe updates, you can subscribe to their blog.
You can purchase MobileMe from Amazon.
 

AppStorm Blog

I stumbled onto the AppStorm Blog which is a great blog for Mac users. Basically, it reviews and suggests applications for all different uses. I think this is great. The article which got me interested in their site is “12 Mac Apps for Running a Freelance Business”.  You should check out the article and the site in general. 

iPhone Trick

I found a cool iPhone trick the other day. Now, it’s new to me so I thought I would share.  Like most of the iPhone users out there I have a few screens filled with apps.  Well, say I’m on  screen number 3 and I want to move back to the first screen.  Normally I would slide the screens over until I got to the first screen, a.k.a. the home screen. But a quicker way is to just press the home button once and the iPhone will jump to the home screen. It’s a pretty neat trick that I use a lot now. Enjoy!

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Check this out.  I recently bought an app for my iPhone called Color Expert. Why? Because my printer was using it on his iPod Touch and I said, ” Hey, what is that?” Once he showed me what Color Expert was I had to have it. I bought it ten seconds later, and I have to say it’s been a great tool and I’m very happy with it.  

If you haven’t guessed it by now Color Expert, from Code Line, is an interactive color wheel, swatch library that helps us creative types pick and identify colors. Last week my boss came up to me and said we need to copy this label, the printer lost the artwork that was given to him TEN years ago.  So I needed to identify the colors used on the label. I whipped out the iPhone, started up Color Expert , took a photo of the label and Color Expert identified all the colors I needed. I translated them into Pantone colors also via Color Expert and I was off and running. It is a serious tool that saved me a lot of time trying to match up the colors using my swatch books. Using Color Expert to identify colors is only one of some really cool features, such as being able to email Adobe Swatch Exchange Files, adjustable color schemes, hex values and a lot more. 

Right now Color Expert is in Version 1.1, which is really 1.0 and a free update once you have installed the software. It costs $9.99, which will pay for itself the first time you really need / use it just in the time it saves you. Here is the link for Color Expert on the App Store by Apple and Code Line’s website link is here. 

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If you have been living under a rock, or if you haven’t heard by now the Kindle 2 is out from Amazon. Personally, this doesn’t affect me in any fashion. However, I think the logic behind the technology is amazing and most of my college bound family members are REQUIRED to have one to download their textbooks instead of purchasing them, which saves the environment and puts a little bit more money into the pockets of the Nation’s future. You can read all about it from Amazon,  here is the link.

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Have a good day everyone!

So, as I surf around this world wide web of useful and useless information, youtube videos, and endless ways to shop. I stumble upon Dropbox.  This is a great tool for keeping files  in sync across multiple computers, which for professionals, especially creative professionals, is extremely helpful. 

Basically, once Dropbox is installed, Mac Win and Linux friendly btw, on all your computers, you have a folder appropriately named “Dropbox” which is then synced to your account on the Dropbox server. Your online user account gives you access to your very own web interface, where you can access all your synced files from any computer. Another great feature is that you can share a file with another Dropbox user. One feature I use all the time is the “link” feature. This is when each file in my Dropbox account is given a unique link and can be shared.  This has worked wonders for me when dealing with printers because I just email the printers the link to a zipped project file and they have everything they need to complete the work. 

Are you ready for this… a basic account is FREE!!!  Everything I mentioned above I did while using my basic account.  I will be upgrading to a pro account which would give me 50GB of storage over the 2GB of storage the basic account supplies me. The cost for the pro account is $9.99 a month or $99 a year. 

Seriously, this is an amazing tool for every professional. However, I will recommend this service to every creative professional because it’s just that cool and useful. There are a few other features Dropbox offers but I have to say I’m stuck on the syncing and linking features. Truly amazing! 

Have you ever started a job and then the client / boss walks in and asks you to do something to said project that is so outrageous that you want to turn to them and say, “It’s a mouse not a wand.” Yep, me too.

I’m really working on getting this blog up and running. Along with the portfolio updates and the tutorial posts the total package should be complete within a week. 

I want this blog to be the home page of my main site and build everything else off from there. I just hope I get everything ready soon. Time will tell. There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. 

Here is a cool Typography site to look at.