Review: Jumsoft Keynote Series (pt1)

If you are a user of Apple’s iWorks Keynote program for producing lectures, then you know it is an excellent program with thirty-six basic themes. (I have to admit I still call them slideshows and always seem first to think of 35mm slides and a Kodak slide projector rather than my laptop computer and a video projector) Each theme includes backgrounds and templates for text and images for easy layout. The finished shows can be exported into QuickTime, PowerPoint, PDF, Images, Flash, HTML and iPod versions.

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The Computer, Slow Food and Stone

When Goethe suggests that the artist is a universal character, writer, painter, musician, philosopher and general good citizen, it’s a pity he didn’t have a Mac to organize his production.  Garage Band keeps my music in order and progressing, emails and the Internet help me communicating and stay in touch, Photoshop helps experimentation with images and iMovie looks to give an introduction to the world of moving images. We have the orchestra at our fingertips‚Äînow what can we build from this?

I’m writing from a small village in the Ardeche in southern France. Having just returned from my morning walk up the hill behind my house, I began thinking about a subject  that has been on my mind a lot lately:  How to integrate work and life into a harmonious whole where the work, the place, the people,  time available and the entire natural world hum. It just occurred to me, half way through my coffee that the computer is the tool that can link these elements together. In a way, this seems obvious, but how now, in our troubled times does it work and what can it mean and what can a computer do in this context of ‘going back to Nature’ particularly as it relates to the arts? Apple seems to have  understood this new concept the best, indeed has made it possible.  And here is some background to my thinking. »»

Internet Radio’s 1st Live Music Festival

Internet radio is taking another step forward as a legitimate entertainment medium this month as the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System’s IBS Student Radio Network by Backbone (IBS-SRN) launches the Web’s first live music festival.

IBS-Palooza, Internet radio’s first live multi-venue music festival, will be webcast simultaneously by WIBS, iTunes Radio, and participating colleges’ website, September 19th through the 21st, 2008.  Broadcast Schedule available here. »»

Common Myths for the Macintosh

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Switching to Mac isn’t right for everyone

When I was in California recently to visit my family I talked to my brother about getting my parents an iMac. Daryl had switched to Mac about 6 months ago and loved it and as you can tell if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time I’ve been extremely happy with my switch too.

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Whatever Happened To The “Decisive Moment”?

Photography has been evolving constantly from its birth in 1839. There have been many different kinds of photographs and processes through the years, including the daguerreotype, calotype, ambrotype, tintype, prints from sheet film, prints from roll film, and now images from digital capture. Each process had its advantages and disadvantages but most of us would agree that generally advances in technology have made life easier and better. But in this “Instantaneous, quantity over quality,  throw-away world,” have we also lost the ability to think? »»

Seven Key Techniques For Taking Your Images From Flat To Fantastic

I included the sub-title with the title because I think it makes the subject clearer. I think that describes why Scott Kelby’s book is not just another Photoshop book even if you don’t know who Scott Kelby actually is. If you don’t know, then I suggest you crank up GOOGLE and pick a couple of dozen of the 999,000 entries it says it pinged up for your perusal when you punch in his name. I’ll give you the summation—he knows Photoshop. He knows it very well! »»

Why I bailed out on Windows and switched to Macintosh

It’s kind of funny how things work out. When I originally bought my MacBook three months ago I viewed it as a complimentary machine. Something that would be added to my menagerie of computers. I had been using Windows for so long and it’s use was so deeply embedded into my workflow that I couldn’t imagine another OS displacing it as my primary operating system. I just wanted something new and different.

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2 Days to A Better Website.

When I first got out of school it was still common to run around with your portfolio containing tear sheets and photographs. It was always a pain to collects these, the few copies in hand were precious and almost irreplaceable. I cannot count the times I lost my portfolio. More often than not, I wouldn’t bother to replace the evidence of the work. Oh, the drama. I would end up losing gigs because I didn’t have the tearsheet for this or that. 20 people lined up for a gig, the last thing an art director wanted was to call to verify you had actually done a job like "that". »»

Find Your Passion…

Being artists, we tend to be more passionate about things than those using the other side of their brains. Of course I am not saying you can’t be passionate about numbers, but I have a feeling my accountant gets his kicks away from his nine to five. We are blessed in that Art can truly bring out the passionate side in a person who can see it for what it is.

What is passion exactly? »»