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Freebie: Canadian Holiday Calendar

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Modern digital calendars are the best (in my opinion)! However, there are a few minor conveniences that they’re missing compared to their old-fashioned paper predecessors. Most important, smartphone calendars don’t typically include statutory holidays and important events like Halloween and Mother’s Day.

That’s why I created this Canadian Holidays Calendar. I’ve done the work so you don’t have to manually enter all the important holidays. Just subscribe using the link below and you should be on your way. Because I’m an Albertan, this calendar doesn’t contain holidays unique to other countries or provinces.

Alberta Canada Holiday Calendar

 

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Bump it!

bump_icon_512x512_iOSFor quite some time I’ve use an app called Bump. The app gained fame back in the early days of iOS when developers were just beginning to utilize the iPhone’s accelerometer. By simply tapping two phones together, users were able to transfer files via Bluetooth. It was magic! Or witchcraft. Or perhaps we were just easily amazed back then.

More recently, the folks at Bump added the ability to “bump” phones and computers using www.bu.mp. It’s not widely-known, but it’s fantastic and so I’m bringing it to your attention.

I find it helpful at work where I can quickly transfer images from my phone to my laptop. Why not email them to myself, you ask? Well, in seconds – and without a cable – I can transfer a large dump of photos using Bu.mp. Performing that same task via email takes minutes, far more taps, and a few expletives.

Bump is available for iOS and Android (free).

PS: bu.mp doesn’t seem to work with Internet Explorer right now.
PPS: I’ve had great success using bu.mp with my Mac (home) and my Lenovo notebook (office). However, two of my colleagues have been less successful. Your mileage may vary. Let me know how it works for you and how you use it.

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Google Image Search: Track down your photos

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Nothing is safe on the internet. As many celebrities and politicians have learned, it’s impossible to retract a statement or image that has been posted online. Artists and photographers that upload their work soon see it harvested and re-posted elsewhere…usually without proper licencing or credits. I don’t currently make a living off my photos, so I’m flattered when someone thinks my work is good enough to steal.

Over the past few years, one of the most popular file on my site has been a KNVB wallpaper that I made back in 2007. During the 2010 World Cup, it was downloaded hundreds of times (a big deal for this humble site). I imagine the image graced many a Dutchman’s desktop, but I wondered whether it was ever re-posted elsewhere online. I used the following technique to find out.

How-to

  1. Visit Google’s Image Search page
  2. Click the little camera in the search field
  3. Upload your image of choice
  4. Browse your results

Although my image wasn’t as ubiquitous as I might have hoped, it was used as the background to some lady’s about.me profile, a soccer website, and a Heerenveen FC fansite.

If you were able to use this technique, let me know in the comments.

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The best Windows laptop: MacBook Pro

2013-04-25_14-15No, you’re not reading that wrong. Since switching to Intel chips back in 2006, Apple notebooks have been recognized for their ability to run Windows better than many of their “PC” counterparts. Even Microsoft has been known to use the enemy’s hardware for their own OS.

Perhaps, then, it should come as no surprise that the MacBook recently topped a list of Windows notebooks compiled by Soluto. Enjoy…with a grain of salt.

NOTE: I should add that this story is coming to you from a guy that uses a PC to run Apple’s operating system.

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Lightroom 5 vs Aperture 3: Screen real estate

Lightroom-Logo-1024x1024Adobe announced a public beta of Lightroom 5 today so I decided to take it for a spin. As an Aperture user who once used Lightroom (1.0), there’s one thing that really struck me: Lightroom wastes a lot of screen space! This is no trivial beef as it translates into real-world inefficiencies. With everything a little bigger and a little less efficiently laid out, performing the same tasks requires additional clicks and scrolls. When you’re working on hundreds and thousands of images, that adds up! Here’s what I mean:

the Viewer

I’m a big advocate of a content-first approach. I don’t use a photo management suite to admire the interface. Images are the priority. Aperture simply dedicates more space to the photos. To compare and contrast, I opened up an image in both applications to see how they compared. Both were set to “default” views.

Lightroom 5: 1366 x 720 (983,520 pixels)
Aperture 3: 1588 x 859 (1,364,092 pixels)

In short, Aperture provides 39% more screen space for displaying the images. Of its available space, Lightroom takes advantage of even less. Adobe enthusiasts may downplay the importance of this, but as one from the “other side,” believe me when I say that it’s frustrating.

the Menus

Another shortcoming of Lightroom’s interface is the layout and design of its menus. In comparison to Aperture, everything takes up more space. As a result you have to scroll, scroll, scroll in order to get at the tools and folders you need. In fact, everything is so large and bulky that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was designed for a touch interface. Lightroom features some exceptional editing tools, but it makes you work for them. And for organizing and managing large libraries of images, I’d much rather use Aperture; that aspect seems like an afterthought for Adobe.

The library navigation pane is just one example of the difference between the two applications. On my monitor (1920 x 1080) the default Aperture layout gives me access to 35 “folders” whereas the inefficient Lightroom navigation panel only provides immediate visibility to 13! Granted, there are ways to customize both applications and there’s always the option to use keyboard shortcuts (which I do), but Lightroom has a lot of catching up to do.

 

Conclusion

I don’t hate Lightroom. The quality of its image editing tools are above reproach. But after my experiences today (and in the past), I find it unfortunate that Adobe hasn’t improved the application interface as much as it has the feature set.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Our Internet dependence

Internet availability in North America and the “West” is ubiquitous. Where there are humans, you are liable to find some means of connection. Over the past decade we have grown utterly dependent. Even our cars and appliances are plugged in.

Today I was forced to switch my iPhone into airplane mode. It was painful. Since it’s a smartphone, it should come as no surprise that it operates best with an Internet connection. However, it goes beyond mere inconvenience. My poor phone was downright dumb without its beloved internetz.

My curiosity was piqued, so I performed an audit of all the apps on my phone, both optional and pre-installed. There are 138, something shocking in and of itself. I then proceeded to categorize each app into one of four groups:

How many of your apps are useless without dear old mother internet? Let me know in the comments.

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Core Receivers (pt 3)

Part 2
Part 1

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iPhone Tip: Alternate characters

To view alternative characters on an iPhone, tap and hold the letter or punctuation. If alternatives exist, slide your finger over carefully to select.

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Review: KelbyTraining.com

There are a lot of fantastic, free resources for photographers available on the internet. Blogs upon blogs are dedicated the craft. But those who learn best by means other than reading and those who lack the time necessary to sift through the tide of information may not find blogs and forums to be a convenient source of information. Of course, colleges or technical schools remain an option (they’ve helped me). However, if your budget is tight and your schedule is varied, a regular class may not be feasible.

About 2 years ago, I came across a fantastic resource called KelbyTraining. KelbyTraining is an online video learning center tailored to creative professionals. The site offers a generous library of video courses covering a wide array of topics (although the majority are related to photography in some way). Each session is professionally produced and taught by respected, industry experts. Over the past month or so (since gaining access to the site), I’ve been glued to my monitor, soaking up as much information as possible.

The $199 annual cost ($24.95/month) is very reasonable when you consider the price of a single course at a local college. Every morning, a set number of free 24-hour trials are made available, so give it a try. The video courses can be streamed from any browser and an iPhone/iPad app is also avialable.

P.S., No, I’m not making any money from this endorsement. :-(

 

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iPhone Tip: Attach multiple images (Rev 2)

A few months ago, I posted an iPhone Tip showing how to attach multiple images to a single email message. Well, times have changed and Apple’s recent updates to iOS have made it even easier! Here’s how.

1. Open up your iPhone’s “Photos” app.

2. Tap on the export button (arrow coming out of a box).

3. Select the desired images by tapping them. Selected images will be denoted by a red check mark.

4. Tap the “Share” button at the bottom of the screen.

5. Select your desired sharing method.Note:The email option will not be displayed if you select too many images. This is to prevent you from exceeding email attachment size limits.

I hope this helps!