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Pre & WWDC: My Thoughts

CATEGORIES: Living In Layers | RC | June 09, 2009

Happy Tuesday everyone! Monday got a little out of hand over at the office, and with that and waiting for all of the WWDC stuff, it’s been information overload. Now that it’s all done, we can sit down to the news.

Unobtrusively Watermarking Your Images
Matt Kloskowski goes through a process of watermarking your images. It’s a quick little video, and if you want to learn how to protect them, make sure you click on this link!

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The Palm Pre
It’s been a tech phone weekend, and finally, both the Palm Pre and the Iphone have been released into the wild. The Pre was released Saturday morning, and I made the trip over to the Best Buy to go check it out. As much as I really wanted to see the Pre work for me, I think I knew in about 5 seconds that I wouldn’t get one. I opened the keyboard, set a new text message, and tried to type with one hand. The typing (for me) felt so cramped and precarious, I thought to myself, “This isn’t going to do it for me.” And in that second, [poof], all of the Pre’s mystery was done for me.

The phone looked nice, felt OK (despite the plastic-y feeling), but it just didn’t feel all that compelling. I send mail and texts from my phone almost more than I actually talk on it. As much as I don’t like it, the LG Voyager has a keyboard where I can rip about 40 words a minute with two thumbs.. this just wasn’t going to do it for me. On Monday, someone came in to talk about their first 48 hours of Pre ownership.. and let me tell you.. this person’s a die hard Palm guy, and HE wasn’t happy. I wont steal his thunder.. but when he’s ready to talk about it, I’ll totally point you guys over to what he says. I think I’d still be willing to give it a shot.. but the problem here is that I wouldn’t want to give up what I have to do it. I’m sure that there will be many people who’ll feel that way, and to think that a slightly bigger keyboard would have done it.. I still soo want to like it.

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The Iphone
WWDC comes along, and the Iphone 3GS is announced. Twice the amount of power, twice the amount of memory. Increased 3Megapixel Camera and Video. That was pretty much in line with what I thought was going to happen on the Iphone front, so I have to think that my reasons for not owning one are becoming smaller and smaller. Horrible as it is, the only reason that’s really kept me away from the Iphone is the fact that it is such a bad phone in my area, and that blame falls square on the shoulders of AT&T. There’s been grumblings about Iphone going to Verizon for a long time now (and nothing’s changed there) , and if/when that moment comes, there are going to be legions of people that will gladly pay their termination fee and just walk out of AT&T. You know, there’s got to be some people at AT&T profiling customers saying to themselves “Well.. there is X% of our customers that think we are so bad they’d leave and pay us the charge.. that CAN’T be good”. Till then, I might just grin, bare it, and jump.. not yet tho..

For both the Palm Pre and the Iphone, the news that I was really waiting for was any news on Flash for either of them. Nada.. *sigh* guess the wait is still on.

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The Laptops
Brighter than the Iphone news out of the WWDC were the announcements of lower priced Macbook Pro laptops, including a new 13 incher! I don’t know why, but I’ve never really liked the 15inch size Macbook Pro. I’ve always wanted something either a bit smaller or a bit larger. The 17” does great for Video Editing, and the 13” is great for web work/work on the run. I don’t think I’m due for a laptop upgrade any time soon, but if I do, those are going to be the two decisions.. and I find it interesting.

On a web design note, it’s important to know that Safari just released version 4, promising a bunch of new updates and performance upgrades. Probably a good idea to get out there and update those browsers now.

The one bright spot for me? Snow Leopard. Most specifically, having iCal, Address Book, and Mail offer Exchange support. That’s a pretty decent offering, and at 29 bucks for the upgrade, it cant be beat (though I have to say, offering a new OS at 29 bucks makes me think it more a patch than a OS release)

Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question: What is the name of the Lightroom 2 Tutorial in the current edition of Layers Magazine, and who is the author?

The Prize:a 100 dollar gift card courtesy of our friends over at Artistic Photo Canvas! Believe me, you -want- to get

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