February 23, 2007

Adobe Lightroom 1.0: My Initial Impression

Filed under: Life — Benjamin Chodroff @ 7:51 pm

I have been on a quest these past couple years to improve my digital photography workflow. I shoot strictly in RAW these days because the post processing possibilities are just as important as getting the right shot. Unfortunately, I feel that RAW support has been poorly added to most applications. Instead of quickly allowing photographers to work with the photo, it must be first imported into a lesser format so that the application can work with it.

Adobe has always been at the forefront of photography applications and their newest release is Adobe Lightroom. It features unprecedented RAW support and acts as a digital photo studio to work specifically with RAW photos. I must say that I think the overall motivation behind this application – to finally create the ideal RAW photo workflow – is a worthwhile endeavor. However, I think Lightroom needs some changes before I’m willing to plunk down the $200 Adobe is charging. Still, I think this application is an improvement over using Adobe Bridge and I am going to continue to work with it.

My biggest gripe is speed. I hate, hate, hate photo applications that initially show a slightly blurry version of the photo before showing the highest quality of my photo. You end up having to wait nearly a second before the photo is in full resolution. This bugs me to no end. I am using a very powerful machine (Dual-core 2ghz with 2 gigs of ram) and I really do not want to have to deal with waiting. The first thing I do when I download a couple hundred photos is I fly through them all and delete the photos that are out of focus, poorly shot, or just undesirable. Adobe Bridge seemed to render the photos must quicker – and that is surprising. Perhaps there is a setting I am missing. As I change the settings on a photo, such as the contrast, I have to wait for the application to “redevelop” the photo. It’s just too slow to render and because of that, I am going to stick with my Bridge and Photoshop workflow.

My biggest compliment is the fact that they put all the “developing” tools right at my fingertips. I can adjust the exposure, contrast, and see vital photo histograms right from one window. It is really beautiful to “turn off the lights” and the GUI goes dark except for my photos. I also like not having to go through the process of putting photos into Photoshop unless I really need to. Although, Adobe Lightroom makes importing photos into Photoshop a click away.

This is the first release of Lightroom and I am hoping that the next release will address the rendering speed issues. Sigh, if only I had a Mac…I would love to use Aperture in Windows.

My new photography business card

Filed under: Life — Benjamin Chodroff @ 1:02 am

February 14, 2007

Deleting files in Vista – what the hell is going on?

Filed under: Ideas — Benjamin Chodroff @ 11:27 pm

So, if you delete a file – it’s deleted right? OK – so it first goes to the recycle bin, but really, it shouldn’t be visible to applications. Not any more – at least in Windows Vista. Is this the “Previous Version” feature gone wrong?

I can access the file in question via Mozilla Firefox and a number of other non-MS applications, but it is invisible to see in Internet Explorer and command prompt. I’m going to try to recreate a working example of this problem so others can see it…

Agh – I can’t for the life of me recreate another working example. However, just be warned that if you experience bugs in an application running in Vista where it seems to be pulling data from a nonexistent file, that file might in fact still exist! The way I ended up solving my bug problem was by using Mozilla Firefox’s “Open file” dialog box to surf to the problematic file, and then deleting the file by right clicking on it. Psycho! The weirdest part was that while I could plainly see this file in the dialog box, using Internet explorer or any other Microsoft application hid the file from me – and I have “show hidden files” enabled!

February 13, 2007

Running IBM ISSI with Microsoft Vista to get Lotus Notes 7 or 8

Filed under: Job — Benjamin Chodroff @ 3:06 pm

Now that I am running the AT&T VPN client in Vista to connect to IBM, the next step is to get my work tools installed.

I went to the IBM Standard Software Installer webpage and installed the standard client for Windows XP. It installed correctly, but the only way I could get it to actually run was to run the browser (Firefox or IE7) as Administrator so it could launch the program that installs the application. [Reminder: to run a program as admin in Vista, right click the executable and select "Run as Administrator" – some links won't display this option – find the physical executable if necessary].

Once I run the browser as Administrator, I can launch the ISSI and it begins to grab the packages. The only problem is that when I try to log in using my IBM intranet username and password, I get this error:

ISSI Logon: Server error validating logon information. This error can occur if the time and date on your workstation is incorrect. Check the time and date on your workstation and correct if necessary. Select OK to retry logon or Cancel to Exit.

Of course, my time and date are set correctly (Unless Windows Vista now uses GMT as the internal clock – and that’s causing the error? Maybe?) Most likely, it’s a bug and I’m just out of luck until they write a real ISSI client for Vista.

Screw ISSI – I never liked it. A package manager should never stop the power user from getting the actual files they’re looking for. I’ll just hunt down the executable the old fashion way and try installing Lotus Notes manually.

Waste of time? Maybe.

Updates:

I just read on an internal forum that Lotus Notes 7.0.3 is expected to be fully compatible with Windows Vista.

IBM literally just launched an internal early adopter program for Lotus Notes 8 – which probably supports Windows Vista? Here’s the internal signup page http://reswat2.research.ibm.com/projects/notes8/noteseahome8.nsf

I found the reason for the ISSI error in Windows Vista:

“ISSI cannot work in Windows Vista at the current time because of a bug in
IBM Tivoli Directory Server running on bluepages.ibm.com, which prevents
secure LDAP authentication from working for applications running on Vista
which use the Windows LDAP APIs.”

February 12, 2007

Capital One – Credit Card with No International Exchange Rate Fee

Filed under: Hacks, Ideas — Benjamin Chodroff @ 8:02 pm

While traveling abroad, one of the quickest ways to rack up a bunch of fees is to use your credit card while marking purchases. While it’s true that many credit cards offer cheaper exchange rates than touristy shops, the additional 2-3% exchange rate fee that most credit card companies charge can quickly add up. In fact, those rates add up to about 2-3% of all your purchases. Imagine that. The convenience and safety of using a credit card is often better than using ATM card, but who wants to pay those fees?

I went searching online tonight and learned that Capital One is reportedly the only credit card company that charges absolutely no exchange rate on international purchases. I applied for their Capital One® No Hassle Miles™ Visa Signature® card, which has no preset spending limit and
Fly any airline, anytime–no blackout dates or seat restrictions, and VIP dining privileges and access to “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.” Cool. All I wanted was the no exchange rate fee, but that sounds fun too. The APR is high, at 13.9%, but what type of idiot doesn’t pay their credit card on time – especially when I have other credit cards that offer 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 12-18
months.

The quickest way to apply is online, but I like double checking my investigations with a real human. The credit card application number for Capital One is 1-800-695-5500. Besides, the best part of the whole process is telling the person to read the rates and disclosures as fast as they can while timing them. My application handler laughed when I told her that she came in at 3 minutes and 23 seconds. That’s not bad, but I’ve seen better. Maybe next time she will try harder.


 

Older Posts »
Copyright 2008, Benjamin Chodroff.
Site design by Flique Creative, Cleveland, OH