Goofing off again

Adam from Simian Fever snapped this photo of Christina, me and himself at the Bigfoot Lodge in San Francisco on Saturday night. The wife and I are both working this weekend but decided to go walk around the 'hood for an hour or two. We'd never met Adam before but as you can see -- fun guy. Adam, click it for the scary-big original size, and thanks again! Link to this entry Posted on 11/18/07; 5:50:18 PM

The NDC Effect

Sigh. It's impossible for me to praise Natali Del Conte's incredible watchability on video without someone making it into some creepy middle-age-guy-stalks-young-lady thing. One of my editors is still in the doghouse with me for adding an overtly sexual comment to something I wrote about her -- nice edit, frigtard. Nonetheless, Natali's just great onscreen. She's from planet Venus, but she's got an accessible diamond-in-the-rough vibe. Pronounces Latinos flawlessly but dings cellphone makers for pandering to La Rasa in press releases. She's like that in person, too. The NDC Effect, which science can probably measure, makes people act all stupid around her. I wonder if she wants to be a gossip blogger? Link to this entry Posted on 11/18/07; 5:36:07 PM

Scoble goes nuclear on new Apple operating system

I haven't had any problems with OS X Leopard other than needing to buy Photoshop Elements again. But Robert Scoble has had serious problems and is blogging his usual over-the-top reaction. Which is great, because it's fun to watch the Apple zealots pile on him instead of me for a change. Go Robert, go! Link to this entry Posted on 11/18/07; 5:27:54 PM

New Mac OS X Leopard makes computing much more visual

(Click the image to see it at giant size) A dry read of the feature list in Apple's latest operating system doesn't do justice to it. You need to fire it up and play with it. They've broken the graphics out from the application silos, so you can: Get an instant view of attachments in your email. Even Keynote (Apple's answer to PowerPoint) slide stacks open as fast as still images, and you can scroll through the preso on the spot to review it. See an visual grid of all your documents, with readable thumbnails Flip through big thumbnails (or whatever they're called) of files in the same format used to flip through album covers on iTunes Drag your browser tabs around to re-order them, and tear off individual tabs to become their own browser windows Select part of a Web page to save a screenshot to the Dashboard. Set up multiple virtual desktops, aka Spaces. Nothing new, but wait'll you realize you can drag and drop app windows among them using a grid layout of all your spaces. Generally, there are thumbnails and visual info for almost everything, including Word files but not PowerPoint. I've resaved all my work PowerPoint stacks as Keynote so I can quick-scroll them. iPhoto has much more of a visual grab-and-view interface. The graphics are well optimized. I have last year's slowest Mac mini and only sometimes does it hesitate. Yes, of course, this makes me want to go buy a new Mac. My 2004 version of Photoshop Elements won't run on Leopard. And the took away the floating analog transparent clock I relied on. None of the aftermarket apps are as pretty as Apple's was. On the upside, the new version of Photoshop I had to buy ($70) has greatly improved the automatic tools for improving candid shots. Link to this entry Posted on 11/18/07; 5:23:58 PM