Schloss Belvedere

May 7, 2008 by Dan Taylor    4 Comments    Posted under: Photography

I woke up this morning a bit usual than normal (and after a few Jack and Cokes last night, that in itself should have been and accomplishment) and couldn’t help but notice the crystal blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. For our readers from California, this might not seem like such a bit deal, but living in Vienna, a cloudless morning is something to celebrate. My mind immediately thought of my camera, and so it was…today I was going to shoot…shoot something…anything.

I’d been meaning to go back to the Schloss Belvedere for quite a while now, and today seemed as good a day as any. Loaded up with my trusty Nikon D100, 17-55mm and 70-200mm, I subway’d/streetcar’d/hoof’d my way up to one of Vienna’s outstanding examples of Baroque architecture.

Getting there early was the key to most of these shots having relatively few people in them. I spent approximately an hour up at the castle taking about 65 shots.

This was also my first photo project done on my beloved mac. When I ordered a bunch of software from the states for the mac, I also came across the Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet. I’d worked with a designer in the past who absolutely swore by his tablet, and I figured, hey, for the price, why the heck not?

After using the tablet for only a few minutes, I quickly became accustomed to the features and even started using a few of the buttons at the top (a nifty circular scroll wheel zooms in and out for example). All I can say is…why have I been using photoshop for so long with a mouse? Let me put it this way…compared to the Wacom Bamboo Fun, using a mouse for graphics is like drawing with a rock.

All in all, I think there are a few good shots in there, and I even got a ‘dude…these are good’ from Brent over at abouttheimage.com. Although, he’s also got an eagle eye, and suggested that I needed a faster shutter speed on some of the fountain images. Jerk.  But if there’s a guy who knows his f-stops, and who’s opinion I vaue greaty when it comes to imagery, it’s Brent. You can find more of the photos over in the Photo section of TurntheScrew, or visit my flickr page for some larger resolutions.

My favorite photo of the day:

nOqo world’s smallest mac

Apr 29, 2008 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Technology

nOqo, makers of the ultra small, ultra hip mobile commuting solution have a bit to celebrate today. Over at the Oqo forum, OqoTalk, a user by them name of TRF has posted that he’s successfully managed to hack the OQO to run Leopard.

The OQO Model 02 is frequently used by a number of mobile professionals who need to capture, edit, produce, blog or access information in real time. The OQO Model 02 is used by professional photographers for example at the Superbowl to provide real time uploads of their images to media outlets who then in turn can publish these images within seconds.  By hacking the OQO to now run Leopard, profs can now use their subnotebook with an operating system that they’re most used to/familiar with.

While boot time takes about 2.5 minutes, once it’s all up and running, the user has virtually all functions of a standard notebook or desktop OS in the palm of their hand. The only component missing is WWAN access which TRF is now testing.  Watch the fuzzy cam video here.,  Skip MacBook Air…OQO now the worlds smallest Mac

25 mac apps you can live without, but shouldn’t

Apr 23, 2008 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: Technology

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I might have accomplished my mission. Bigbluebottle has finally jumped into the game! Sure, he’s got bigbluebottle.com and a few other smaller blogs that he works on, but nothing that I would consider ‘taking the plunge’. Bottle’s got a head chock full o’ information about the tech and IT world, and I’ve been urging him for a while now to leap into the frying pan with the rest of us, and start contributing content to the world wide internets.

Let’s call this first entry a super soft launch of his new venture allogeneo.us. Spiffy URL name as well I might add. Very web2.0y.  Bottle’s managed to kick this one off with a bang, providing us with 25 mac apps you can live without, but shouldn’t. A selected excerpt:

Multimedia:

• ImageWell: If you just don’t have time for all the nuances and intricacies of Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, and just want to do some very basic image manipulation, use ImageWell.
• Audacity: At first, I’d have labeled this as a basic audio file editing tool, but since it supports VST plugins, you quickly learn that this little free tool has a LOT of power behind it.

• Blender: This one is a bit more of a niche product. Very powerful 3-dimensional modeling too.

Read the rest of this highly useful article over at allogeneo.us. And congrats B, welcome to the party!