I thought I’d post my photography shooting stats each month so I can keep a tab on how my photography is coming along. A few of you who have asked for more personal and “statty” posts should enjoy this too.
Images Taken: 1,685
Images Kept: 966
HD Space Used: 5.57GB
Average Shots Kept Daily: 31
Shots With 18-55 Lens: 856
Shots With 75-300 Lens: 101
Shots With Other Cams: 9
Wow, in two days 2007 will have come around and another year in our lives will have passed. Our lives are stressful enough without having the computer creating even more stress, so here is a quick New Years checklist to get yourself organized, ready, and prepared for 2007.
Clear your inbox to zero messages
You can use some of my tips to get organized with your Mail application in this post. This will help reduce stress and the only Mail in your inbox will be from the New Year.
Tidy your desktop, leaving only devices
Clear up all the clutter on your desktop by filing items to their applicable folder/s. This will give you a clean working space to begin the year with.
Organize your dock
Scan your dock and drag out any applications you use very rarely. If you have applications in your dock that you dont use much, but still want super fast access too, consider installing OverFlow. Another task to complete is zapping un-used applications with AppZapper.
Review your contacts
Pop open Address Book, Adium, and iChat; to review all your contacts, deleting ones you no longer need or are not in contact with anymore. In iChat and Adium, create groups for your contacts based on importance, which will make it much easier to scan and see who’s online.
Clean up your iTunes playlists
Most iTunes users will have dozens and dozens of playlists, these are very handy at times but can slowly clutter up your sidebar. Sort through each and every one of your playlists removing what you can. Another cool thing to do with iTunes is create a “Best Of 06″ Smart Playlist. The criteria being: Year 2006, Rating 5. This will group all the tracks in your library that were released in 2006 and are rated 5 stars.
RSS Reader tidy up
Go through your RSS reader and delete any blogs you dont particularly like anymore, or ones that haven’t been updated in a long time. If you dont have too many items to delete, create a folder system for your feeds which will help you sort through them more quickly.
Backup your data
On a final note, the worst thing that can happen to you is data loss - so backup now! Buy yourself an external hard-drive and archive/backup all your documents, pictures, movies, and sites from the previous year using a tool such as SuperDuper! If you dont want to fork out for a new HDD, connect your iPod to your computer and drag your most important data onto it’s icon; this will create a copy of it on your iPod to use as a backup.
To celebrate the New Year let’s have a little fun, once you are finished organizing, upload a picture of your desktop to Flickr and post a link in the comments below.
I’ll randomly select someone to win a free copy of a training video for an Apple application (thats all the details I will provide..) which is currently in the works.
2006 was a great year for myself, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you all and hopefully teaching you a few things along the road. 2007 will be a big year, not only for me but for Apple. I cant wait to see whats in store - see you in 2007. Happy New Year.
Update:The three winners for the copy of a secret training video are: Mike Vitoroulis, Smaran, and tomnook10.
Related Resources
Nowadays search engine optimization is the hottest game on internet. Many SEO companies are offering their services. Even some professional hosting companies are offering the services of SEO. These companies also sell domains and offer affordable affiliate marketing services. When it comes to PPC search engines, these companies also offer good service package for their clients. In this entire game client must have a PC backup for any future mishap.
It’s come to the time to wind down and review and look at the year which has almost passed. I’m doing a little review of what technology purchases I made personally this year. In other words this doesn’t include birthday or Christmas gifts, only objects I bought myself.
MacBook Core Duo
I had been eyeing up a laptop for a long while. My initial plan was to purchase a MacBook Pro, but when the MacBook’s were released I couldn’t resist getting the cheaper model. It has an awesome glossy screen, small form factor, great specs, at one great price.
Cash Dropped: $2350
iPod 5th Generation 60GB
My iPod 3rd generation died this year, and I was lucky enough to have bought an extended warrenty with Dick Smith Electronics when I initially bought it. I sent it in and got a message back “damaged beyond repair”, and an offer to swap it for a 30GB 5G iPod, I paid $120 extra and got the 60GB.
Cash Dropped: $120
iPod nano 2nd Generation
I only bought this iPod about a month ago when Nike sent me the Nike+iPod sports kit to review and I didn’t have a nano. I love my nano and take it with my everytime I go running now, it’s really a wonderful iPod to have in the collection.
Cash Dropped: $265
Sony DSC-S600
Mid-year a new store called Noel Leeming opened in my town, and they had opening day specials. I queued up at 7AM to get into line to buy a new digital camera. The deal was limited to 5 cameras at $199 and I was lucky enough to get one of them.
Cash Dropped: $199
Canon EOS 350D
I quickly outgrew my point and shoot digital camera and realized photography was a hobby I loved and one I really enjoyed. I decided to upgrade to a DSLR which I could purchase lenses for and continue to pursue and learn photography.
Cash Dropped: $1250
Logitech USB Headset
Earlier this year I was working with MacZOT recording daily podcasts. I wasn’t happy with the audio quality been recorded with my iMac’s built in microphone, so taking Brian Ball’s advice purchased a Logitech USB headset.
Cash Dropped: $90
I have a few purchases planned for 2007 already. I’d like to update my setup around WWDC time (if I have the cash) to a Mac Pro with an Apple Cinema Display. I also want a 250GB External HDD for use with Time Machine, and a Canon 50mm 1.8 lens.
What technology purchases did you make in 2006, and do you have any planned for 2007?
Each and every Friday I post a desktop wallpaper for all the Mac users out there. The image is taken using my Canon 350D DSLR. Photography really interests me and this gives me a nice way to showcase some work, while giving readers something for nothing.
The wallpaper is sized at a resoultion of 2560×1600 pixels, big enough to be used on a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display, so no-one will miss out. No watermark has been applied to the image either, so play nice, I’m trust worthy that no one will steal my work.
Today’s desktop caption is: Lake Pillar.
Feel free to leave any comments about this wallpaper below, it’d be nice to get a comment or two from people who decide to use it, have a great weekend, and enjoy!
Download it here.
At the moment there’s a lengthy discussion going on at Lifehacker about software that their readers have purchased this year, technology blogger Paul Stamatiou decided he would turn his purchases into a blog post, so I’m doing the same.
Here is a list of the applications I have paid for this year and am planning on purchasing next year. This list is only around a 1/10th of all the software I’ve obtained this year - as a Macguide employee I get lot’s of free software.
Cha-Ching
Cha-Ching is an excellent application to manage your personal finances. It actually makes earning (and spending) even more fun by allowing you to add things such as images and tags to your transactions.
NewsFire
My RSS reader of choice, NewsFire allows you to catch up on your RSS news within a slick, simplistic interface.
Transmit 3.5
I needed a reliable FTP application when competing in the Netguide Web Challenge, since then it’s turned into an application I use daily.
Ecto
I bought Ecto a few months back to help me write blog posts, but have now switched back to using the WordPress Admin due to the ability to preview posts live.
Pukka
I purchased Pukka to help me upload bookmarks to Del.icio.us, but now I am bookmarking with a site called Ma.gnolia, which takes del.icio.us to the next level with many better features.
Apps I Will Be Purchasing In 2007
Adobe CS3 Educational
As I spend most of my time working with images, Photoshop is a must, so CS3 it is.
Microsoft Office 07 Educational
The current version of Microsoft Office (04) runs like a dog on my Intel Mac’s, Office 07 will be a must have upgrade for me as I do so much writing for various publications. (my main writing application will remain Apple Pages).
Tubular
This is one interesting application that communicates with the YouTube back-end and allows you to do things such as download videos to your iPod in one click.
iShowU
I have lots of plans to experiment with screen-casting next year, in my opinion iShowU is the best application to complete this task.
Xtorrent
When Dave Watanabe gets around to releasing a final version of his latest application Xtorrent, I’ll be first in line to purchase the bittorrent application of the future.
I’ve been asked numerous times by email as to what my photography workflow is. I thought I’d start with my “In The Field” workflow. Workflow will change on a person to person basis, so what I’m doing might not be the best solution in your case, but for what I do it works very well.
Step One: Take Images
My first step in the field is to complete my photo-shoot with my Canon EOS 350D, equip with two lenses, the Canon 17-55 1:3-5.5 and Canon EF 75-300 1:4-5.6 III - saving images onto my 2GB compact flash card.
Step Two: Empty Card
When the shoot is finished, I connect my CF card to my USB card reader (I need a new firewire card reader) - and I wait for the images to import into Aperture.
Step Three: Apply Metadata
When the images have been pulled into Aperture, I go through them and apply metadata. I fill the following fields at this stage: credit, copyright, and keywords.
Step Four: Rate Images
The next step in my workflow is to sift through my images as quickly as I can, rating them on the fly. Images with 5 starts are absolute favorites, only around 5% of my images make this status. Images with 4 starts are very creative and entertaining images, and 3 star images are photos I like and wouldn’t be ashamed to show people. I rarely apply 1 or 2 stars to my images.
Step Five: Export & Import
When I get back home to my studio machine, I export the project/s off my MacBook, then import the project to Aperture on my main desktop. This will keep all the ratings and meta-data in-tact and leaves me with one final step, to edit the images, and send them on their journey.
I’m very curious to see how you work with images when in the field so I can improve my ever changing workflow. So feel free to chip in below and leave me a note.
Well guys, thats another Christmas gone. I had a great time with my family in Auckland, and also picked up a few cool new toys. Here’s an overview of a few of the tech items I received over the holiday period.
Canon 75-300mm Telephoto Lens
I’ve been wanting a telephoto zoom lens for quite a while now, and yesterday I got one. The lens I received was the Canon EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 III. In more simple terms, it will get me really really close to sporting action.
I cant wait to test out this lens in the upcoming domestic cricket season.
2GB Compact Flash Card
I’ve been shooting with my Canon 350D for the past 2 months using two 128MB CF cards. Yes, I can see you cringing through the screen, it was very difficult having two cards which only held 24 RAW photos in total.
WIth this new card I can hold over 500 JPEG images, or over 225 RAW images. Great for a full days shooting with the telephoto lens at sporting events.
Manfrotto Monopod
This is just like a tripod, except it’s like one tall walking stick. It will be paired and used in conjunction with my new telephoto lens when shooting sports.
It should help me keep my shots steady and sharp. I used it a little yesterday afternoon while shooting some birds, and the results were very satisfying.
As you can see, photography gear was a hit on this years list. (I also picked up a few things like a new bike, Nike+iPod armband, and cash..) There are still a few items I still want to purchase (but my birthday is coming very soon, on Feb 9th). Further down the line, I want to upgrade my computing setup, so the saving starts today.
What did you pick up for Christmas?
Often when I am sitting at the computer and have to work, I get distracted by all the other things going on in life and this often drains away all my motivation and inspiration from writing the masterpieces I know I can.
How do you get inspired to write? I personally didn’t know, until I found that reading others sites generally gave me the drive and determination to keep churning out top notch content. Thats when I realized, all I need to put words onto paper is to put words into my head.
I sat down and made a stack of cards with motivational phrases on them and sat them in a little card holder on my desk. Every time I lack inspiration I take a glance at the card of the day, and it provides me with enough drive to get started. From them on I’m alone and the rest just flows.
How do you keep inspired?
Most of you will have seen the above icons by now, if not, these are the new icons Adobe are using with their creative applications in Creative Suite 3.
I’ve seen so many different opinions regarding these icons over the last 24 hours, so I thought it was my turn to chip in with a word or two.
When I launched the beta version of CS3 I noticed the icon and my first thought was ” these are placeholder” icons. Boy I was wrong, these are confirmed to be the icons that ship with the final versions of Adobe’s applications.
It’s a large change from the typical icons we are so accustomed to with CS1 and CS2, these are a radical change, and in the wrong direction. If your software is made for creative professionals as small as it may seem, having a creative and intriguing icon is a must to say “we mean business”.
I just hope Adobe realizes this before they ship the final version of Creative Suite 3, because I dont want these icons hanging in my dock. What do you think of the new icons? Love or hate?
Hey guys! I’m back home now, this a little extra baggage. That baggage would be a large trophy. We won the tournament!
Each and every Friday I post a desktop wallpaper for all the Mac users out there. The image is taken using my Canon 350D DSLR. Photography really interests me and this gives me a nice way to showcase some work, while giving readers something for nothing.
The wallpaper is sized at a resoultion of 2560×1600 pixels, big enough to be used on a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display, so no-one will miss out. No watermark has been applied to the image either, so play nice, I’m trust worthy that no one will steal my work.
Today’s desktop theme is: Darkness.
Feel free to leave any comments about this wallpaper below, it’d be nice to get a comment or two from people who decide to use it, have a great weekend, and enjoy!
Download it here.
Are you still in the search of an excellent news-reader but haven’t found it yet? NewsLife may be the answer to your problems.
NewsLife is a new RSS reader made by ThinkMac Software. NewsLife lets you organise all the websites and blogs you get your daily news fix from just like a list of bookmarks. If you know how RSS works, then I wont bore you with the details, but in short, NewsLife allows you to “bookmark” sites and it will notify you of any new content that is posted.
It’s interface is very similar to popular RSS reader NewsFire, apart from a few cosmetic differences. One thing I like about it is the sidebar to the right of the main window, it allows you to search articles, sort them by different criterias, and even drag stories and add them to a “NewsBin” for later reference.
NewsLife has been designed from the ground up to focus on being genuinly easy to use - it doesn’t try and replace iTunes or your web browser, it’s designed to fit seamlessly into your Internet experience, and to make it better. I would recommend it to anyone new to RSS, or someone who likes to work in a very simple application environment.
It also includes some great little features such as “Speck Article”, which will read the article out loud to you. And other features such as Digg this, and add to Del.icio.us, all valuable timesavers.
Personally I’m sticking with NewsFire, what about you?
NewsLife is currently in beta, and can be downloaded here.
Each and every Friday I post a desktop wallpaper for all the Mac users out there. The image is taken using my Canon 350D DSLR. Photography really interests me and this gives me a nice way to showcase some work, while giving readers something for nothing.
The wallpaper is sized at a resoultion of 2560×1600 pixels, big enough to be used on a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display, so no-one will miss out. No watermark has been applied to the image either, so play nice, I’m trust worthy that no one will steal my work.
Today’s desktop theme is: Fence.
Feel free to leave any comments about this wallpaper below, it’d be nice to get a comment or two from people who decide to use it, have a great weekend, and enjoy!
Download it here.
I’ve been browsing Flickr alot recently and have seen hundreds upon hundreds of photos from Apple’s Photo Booth. I really dont know why anyone would bother going through all the hassle to take photos, export them, then upload to Flickr. They dont need to go through that pain anymore, because FlickrBooth will do it all in one painless click.
FlickrBooth is a simple little plugin for Apple’s Photo Booth. To set it up, download the plugin here, install it by extracting the files in the installer, and snap away!
FlickrBooth is an Intel only release, and requires you to have an Intel Mac, Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and Apple’s PhotoBooth (a given).
Get it here and upload away.
Recently while browsing Flickr I came across an image from user Shaahin. The image was a Photoshop mockup of what he wants an Apple mail application to look like.
He says: These days every new Macintosh app looks like Mail.app, so I was thinking about a unique logo for the application, to give it a different look. That name is chosen just for fun, it sounds classic.
I really like the look of this, and hope Apple will do something a little different for Mail 3.0 in Leopard.
After taking the plunge on a DSLR and moving to Aperture, I am demanding a machine with more power to edit my images and perform system intensive tasks such as editing video and audio content. I have a few gripes about my current setup, firstly, the RAM restriction. I can only install up to 2GB of RAM in my iMac (currently at 1.5GB). The screen is also far too limiting now I am using Aperture, 17″ just doesn’t cut it anymore, I want to move to a 1920×1200+ resolution display.
So today I decided it was time to start saving for my next workstation. I originally priced up a 24″ iMac on the NZ educational store, then I realized I could pick up a Mac Pro for a similar price. The only downside to the Mac Pro is I will need to further splash on an Apple Cinema Display, most probably the 23″ version.
The iMac with the following specs runs in at $4,236 NZD.
The Mac Pro with the following specs runs in at $4,251 NZD.
The plusses I can see on the iMac system is not having to buy an external display, therefore saving money, and having more RAM to start with. But with the Mac Pro the advantage list is much longer. A more powerful Mac, expandability beyond my dreams, it will power up to 7 displays, and will last me much longer.
The only problem is the Mac Pro will run me in with another $1699 charge, the 23″ Apple Cinema Display. Would that be worth it for the expandability of the machine and the super long life it would last?
I wont be making the purchase until at least WWDC 07, but I like to set goals. What do you think, iMac or Mac Pro?
Next Saturday I am going to be away for a week on a cricket tournament, we have been instructed to bring Monopoly money with us for some late night poker games to see who is champion among the team. The only problem is I have no idea how poker is even played, let along having the skills to blow away the competition!
This is when Poker on a Mac, an Online Poker resource that caters towards Mac users came in helpful. The site is full of reviews of Mac poker rooms, online poker strategy guides, and Mac poker news. The news didn’t interest me much, but the strategy guides will have me rolling in the gold (okay, monopoly money…) in no time.
Now how is this site different from all other poker sites, and why am I going to this one to learn. The main reason is no advertisements, yes, you heard that right. This must be the only poker site on the web which isn’t full of annoying “spammy” advertisements or pop up ad’s.
The site layout is clean and easy to navigate. Want to play poker? Sure, one click and you have a list of Mac compatible poker rooms complete with reviews (did I mention all the content on the site is 100% original?).
The creator of the site stays in touch with all the major online poker sites, and is usually the first to find out if or when a site is planning to release Mac software. PokerStars (the largest poker site on the web) is working to develop Mac software in 07, which is really exciting news for online poker players.
The site has certainly helped me brush up my skills, and I’m hoping to be tough competition when I’m away for cricket tournament.
Disclosure: I will be receiving $30 for this post.
Cha-Ching 0.4 has been released as of today, previously written about here and here, version 4 includes these following changes.
Get the update here. You can buy Cha-Ching for $14.95 during the beta period, once it’s out of beta the price rises to $24.95.
I have Mail set up with many Smart Folders which help me sort my Mail by specific rules without moving the original message. All of my original messages are stores in one big folder called “Archive” (which currently is home to 3146 messages).
Whenever I am finished with an email, either reading, replying to, or taking action with it, I just drop it into this big archive folder. If I want to find something I use my Smart Folders or Spotlight. Using this one big folder scheme saves me time when I’m filing my messages in Mail.
How do you have folders set up in Mail to store your messages? Do you drop them all into one place and use Tiger’s revolutionary technologies to access them, or do you sort them as you go into different folders?
Each and every Friday I post a desktop wallpaper for all the Mac users out there. The image is taken using my Canon 350D DSLR. Photography really interests me and this gives me a nice way to showcase some work, while giving readers something for nothing.
The wallpaper is sized at a resoultion of 2560×1600 pixels, big enough to be used on a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display, so no-one will miss out. No watermark has been applied to the image either, so play nice, I’m trust worthy that no one will steal my work.
Today’s desktop theme is: Green Leaves.
Feel free to leave any comments about this wallpaper below, it’d be nice to get a comment or two from people who decide to use it, have a great weekend, and enjoy!
Download it here.
You have an overloaded inbox, many messages need replying to, many need reading, and many just need filing. This is where Flagging your mail can come in handy.
Go through the messages in your inbox and for each message that requires action or you need to reply to it, flag it. This will display a neat red flag icon next to the message, making it easy to spot when scrolling.
While you are at it, set up a smart folder in your mailbox which displays all of your flagged messages. This will make it even easier to sort through the stacks of messages you need to get through.
When you are sorting through thousands, if not tens of thousands of email messages, finding the exact one you want gets a little difficult. Sure, you have Apple’s amazing Spotlight technology waiting on hand to help you out, but if you want to compile large lists of messages with a certain similarity, Smart Folders is the best option.
The image to the right of this paragraph is the list of the current Smart Folders I have set up, I plan to ad more after this very post is finished, but this is my basic setup. The “Today” folder is very handy so I can see all the messages I have received today, and I have many other folders like “WordPress” which shows all the comments posted on my blog.
Here are a few ideas for smart, Smart Folders.
What smart folders do you have set up?
I decided it was time for a reader project, so we can get our email inboxes sorted for the Christmas holidays. The last thing anyone wants over Christmas is to be stressing over their email overflow.
As a team we are going to help each other out to clean out our inboxes and get our Mail application sorted and cleaned. Over the course of this week I will be posting tips and tricks on how to manage your Mail application, your workflow, and more.
Your job is by the end of the week to be happy with the state of your Mail application, and have it set up so you can be much more organized. The first step is to start by taking a snapshot of the current state of Mail, upload it to Flickr or other sharing site, and post a link in the comments so we can see your mess.
The before you get started, read this extremely popular article I write a few months back on “6 Ways To Organize Your Mail Application”
Watch out for many tips and tricks coming this week, let’s get our inboxes sorted!
Want to help me announce this project? Then copy and paste the following text to your own blog to help spread the word and extend our knowledge around the blogosphere.
“Want to get your Mail inbox sorted and organized before the holiday season? Then head over to GlennWolsey.com where he is running a Reader Project to clean out your Mail inbox and get organized. He will be posting tips and tricks over the course of the next week to help you on your way. To get started, hit up this introduction blog post, and then read this initial post full of tips and tricks.
Mac App A Day launched this morning with their first free giveaway for TuneX, a utility that allows iTunes access from any application. Very nice. They plan on giving away 5000 copies of a different applications every day during the month of December.
Today’s application TuneX is a easy to use application that allows you to access iTunes through any application on your computer. It is designed around the idea that it will take up only the minimal amount of screen space by sliding underneath
the menu bar when not in use.
This controller gives you access to the most fundamental features of iTunes such as Play/Pause, Back Track, Next Track, Volume and more from with in any running application on your computer.
Pick up your copy of today’s application here.
Each and every Friday I post a desktop wallpaper for all the Mac users out there. The image is taken using my Canon 350D DSLR. Photography really interests me and this gives me a nice way to showcase some work, while giving readers something for nothing.
The wallpaper is sized at a resoultion of 2560×1600 pixels, big enough to be used on a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display, so no-one will miss out. No watermark has been applied to the image either, so play nice, I’m trust worthy that no one will steal my work.
Today’s desktop theme is: Pale Leaves.
Feel free to leave any comments about this wallpaper below, it’d be nice to get a comment or two from people who decide to use it, have a great weekend, and enjoy!
Download it here.
