Archive for May, 2007

Newer Entries »
Comments Off

Apple share is 4th for notebooks and 5th for desktops


2007
05.14

Posted in Apple | Comments Off


Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About
Bloomberg provided March 2007 marketshare numbers from the NPD Group.

It revealed that for March 2007, Apple was ranked 4th for notebook sales (9.9%), 5th for Desktop sales (7.7%), and #1 for MP3 Player Sales (68.9%).

BetaNews provides a historical perspective on these numbers.

Apple’s 9.9% marketshare brings Apple back into the top 5 notebook retailers after it had dropped out in February. Apple’s notebook marketshare had been as high as 10.1%, however, in January of this year. The 7.7% Desktop marketshare, however, does represent the first time Apple has placed in the top 5 desktop retailers.

The MP3 marketshare, however, was a decline for Apple, who lost marketshare to SanDisk and Creative.</blockquote

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Best Workflow for Raw images uses DXO, CS Pro and Noise Ninja


2007
05.13

Posted in Digital Darkroom | Comments Off

With all these plugins around for photos that do the same thing, it is a little confusing what to use. Here is one fellows view on what to do


Bluejake: Westside, Looking Northeast from 31st and 10th
I use DxO Optics Pro to correct lens distortion (but I don’t use the other features). This fixes all my lenses’ barreling and pincushioning really well. I save files in DxO as .dng files.

From there, I bring them into Photoshop, using Photoshop’s RAW importer. I really like PS’s RAW tools, for white balance. I use it to set shadow
and highlight points, add contrast, etc.

I do the rest in the main part of Photoshop. In PS I make a lot of use of Fred Miranda’s plug-ins, especially his CS Pro (for sharpening), WP
Pro (to shrink to Web size), and BW Workflow Pro (for really flexible conversion to black and white). That sharpening plug-in is better than
the high-end tools I’ve tried, and I compared side-by-side. Fred Miranda actually does special tools for different cameras, that makes snes since there are differences. It only costs $20

For noise reduction, I use Noise Ninja Pro. PictureCode makes Noise Ninja and it is $80 for a Pro bundle of the standalone and the Photoshop plugin. The Pro bundle aloows 16-bit support for scanned imageds and multiprocessing support.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Top PSP Games


2007
05.13

Posted in PSP | Comments Off

Calvin really likes the PSP but has lost all his games. Gamespot.

Sid Maeier’s Pirates got an 8.6 and is wonderful on the PC.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

New MacBooks next week or certainly by June WWDC


2007
05.12

Posted in Apple | Comments Off


Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About
ThinkSecret updates with claims that both MacBook and MacBook Pro updates are coming sooner than expected. (As an aside, Anandtech has seen no real world performance improvement with moving to this chipset, which means that used or refurbished MacBook Pro’s could be great buys, the only big thing will be if there is a shift to an LED screen from LCD in the 15″ MacBook Pro).

The rumor site had previously pegged MacBook Pro updates for WWDC, but now expects an announcement “as early as Tuesday,” echoing a previous page 2 rumor by Gizmodo. The new MacBook Pro is expected to utilize features from Intel’s recently introduced Santa Rosa chipset.

Appleinsider concurs with this report with their own claim that the MacBook Pro will see features such as “faster front-side bus speeds of 800MHz, and second-generation Core 2 Duo mobile processors that scale up to 2.4GHz.” They also believe the new MacBook Pro will house the new LED backlit displays. Appleinsider, however, gives no time frame for the revised Pro laptop.

Meanwhile, based on dwindling supplies of the consumer MacBook, ThinkSecret believes we will see a MacBook update in the near future, but they can only speculate that the MacBook may utilize the Santa Rosa chipset. However, they do not believe that the new MacBook will incorporate LED screens. Appleinsider is more confident that the next MacBook revision will not introduce any new features (such as Santa Rosa) and instead be a very modest update.

Finally, Appleinsider adds details of the rumored “ultra-portable” MacBook. They believe that this upcoming 13″ laptop model (and not the MacBook revision) will ship with the rumored 13″ LED Panels that Apple has been investigating. The rumor site summarizes the features they believe this “ultra-portable” will have:

Ultra-Portable MacBook

• 13-inch ultra-thin, LED-back lit display
• No optical disc drive
• On-board NAND flash for faster application launching and boot times
• Built-in iSight webcam
• Thinner and lighter than existing MacBook offerings
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n enabled
• MagSafe power adapter
• Target launch late ’07, early ’08</blockquote

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Citizen Eco-Drive Global Radio Controlled Watch


2007
05.11

Posted in Gadgets | Comments Off

I saw these Citizens while on a layover in Japan. They are way cool. They are solar powered and can last for 2.5 years on one charge. They also have dual time zone which I really need. This latest one also has standard time reception via radio waves, so it should theoretically always be accurate in US, Europe and Japan. Its called the Promaster and I’m having a hard time finding it on the core Citizen, although that site is just too flashed and way too hard to use.

A similar model available now is the Skyhawk JR3060-59F, it doesn’t have the radio control function, but looks very similar. Has 22 time Zones, interchangeable analog and digital times so you can see the time in two places at once. The key feature I need. It is titanium and is available for about $280-$300 vs the $500 list. Amazon has a good list of product reviews. The main ones are that the time zones thing is great, but it doesn’t know about daylight savings time. The big ones are though that the crystal scratches a lot, the alarm is very quiet (that’s sort of a bummer, my Suuonto is the same way, so I use my Blackberry) and it doesn’t have a good backlight (the Suuonto I have has, but it is very dim). The plusses are that it never needs winding. Another thing is the band has to be professionally adjusted.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

United Mileage promotions


2007
05.11

Posted in Travel | Comments Off

United is always running strange promotions that require signup. The latest is that if you register at http://www.united.com/chinabonus, you’ll get up to 10,000 mileage points if you fly to China before June 30.

Turns out there are lots of way to track this. MileMaven.com is an awesomely cool site that shows promotions by the various legs, so if you are flying from Seattle to Shanghai, it cuts through all the confusion and shows you on a single SEA to PVG page what the offers are.

That site tells you that there is a target promotion for instance on number of round trips that they describe and tell you to sign up at “:”united.com/myreward”:http://www.united.com/myreward then there is a whole bunch of, if you buy a ticket that costs so much, you get 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 miles. This is expiring today

Powered by ScribeFire.

3 comments

itunes cannot run because it has detected a problem with your audio configuration


2007
05.11

Posted in Apple | 3 Comments »

Keep getting this error and Apple says that you need to uninstall and reinstall Quicktime. Let’s see if that helps.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Helen and John Don’t Shop…


2007
05.08

Posted in Geek | Comments Off

Our buddies Helen and John have a resolution, they aren’t shopping for anything for a year. The Anti-Shopping Year. Good luck to them!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Type in a private jet tail number or airline flight number to find out where it is


2007
05.08

Posted in Travel | Comments Off

If you type in any tail number of any private jet from Landings.com you can search for any N-prefix which are US registered. Then if you type into google, the tail number, you’ll get the registry.faa.gov site to tell you about the aircraft and then you can use Flightaware.com to tell you live where the aircraft is.

BTW, you can also see any commercial jet too by their carrier as well that shows you live where a plane is. So for example, here are where all “United Airlines (UAL):http://flightawar.com/live/fleet/UAL tells you where on a route all United flights are in real time. Amazing.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments Off

Conde Nast Traveler Gold List 2007


2007
05.08

Posted in Travel | Comments Off

The Gold List 2008 An incredible useful list of great restaurants, hotels and around the world. Its pretty accurate actually because it is a reader poll. At least the areas that I know, San Francisco, LA, New York, “Shanghai:http://www.concierge.com/bestof/goldlist/2007/regions/asia/china/1shanghai

I’d agree for instance that the “Pudong Shangri-La is probably the best in Shanghai

I am surprised that Beijing list didn’t include the Grand Hyatt there.

I’ve never been to Cambodia, but they do but John has recommend a bunch there. Surprisingly, two near Angkor Wat the old Raffles and the new Sofitel

Also in Thailand, John said the JW in Phuket and I just read an article about the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai and their Golden Triangle Tented Camp. This place has just 15 tents but is nice.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Newer Entries »