Attack Clouds

So, How exactly do you teach clouds to attack? There must be a night-school class somewhere.

• More Cloud Photos
• Even More Clouds Photos

Morgue Files

I discovered this wonderful website with free images for the downloading. The images are free for corporations to use. NICE! Don't worry about quality, these images are well composed, and nicely finished. Just make sure you give credit to the photographer!

• CLICK HERE for the photographer's link
• Morgue Files

Chap-ec-tomy

Click on the image to see the larger version... now take a look at her shoulder.... where is the dude? Call a medic, he left his left hand behind. YIKES!!!

chap-ec-tomy
[tchap-ek-tuh-mee] –noun, plural Photoshoppery.
the excision of extraneous male[s] in a photograph of a model. Origin: 1990–95; CHAP + -ectomy

The good guys over at Photoshop Disasters always make me laugh. To think, there are professional companies out there who don't hire professional illustrators. Glitches like this are indeed funny, but really do sabotage a real world marketing budget.

Check out more of the Photoshop glitches at PhotoshopDisasters.com

Several LinkedIn Buttons

LinkedIn has several buttons which can be pasted onto Blog pages (look Right) or added to the bottom of your email signature line. It appears the link to these buttons has shifted around on LinkedIn and now is hard (if not impossible) to find. I've included a few buttons for you to copy & paste and use yourself. Happy connecting!

Adobe CS4 and Photoshop Extended.

Finally got my version of Adobe CS4 installed tonight. It was a large install and took several hours from start to finish. Not too bad, but still time consuming.

I'm really excited about Photoshop Extended. I've never used the 3d version before. Supposedly, I can take a 3d model and paint directly onto the surfaces. I'm anxious to give it a whorl. My only reservation is that I'm use to texturing models within the 3D app. I'm hoping there will be a connection of some sorts I can use to bridge the texturing between the applications.

Have you used Photoshop Extended? If so, send me an email and let me know what you think.

I've also come across this review of CS4 over at MacWorld. Not a bad read.

The LinkedIn Love

I've spent some time time uploading my resume and poking around LinkedIn. I've quickly discovered the potential with the service. Not only is it a business/social website, it allows for connecting with people you know on a business level and do web based networking. It has been done well in the attached video...



LinkedIn allows members of the community to stay in touch with each other, and a variety of tools for meeting new people. Visit my LinkedIn page at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickhoesly

Windows 7 faster than Vista

Life hacker points to a review of the upcoming Windows 7. The reviewer points out that Windows 7 is faster than Vista. Some to-do was made of this... but in reality, every new OS needs to offer something new, and better than the previous version for anyone to justify buying the OS.

I'm happy Windows 7 is faster than Vista... though I would expect it to be just so.

Books to help fall asleep. Humor Compitition.

Before & After magazine (a wonderful magazine to help spark creativity and improve design) has come out with a very funny 'assignment'

They called out for people to design the cover of a book that you’d keep near your bed to read and fall asleep. They received over 150 covers.

Some covers are indeed boring, however some have a spark of humor that rings out due to minimalism. Check out the covers at Before & After.

CG Interview

Nice interview with Haydn Shaughnessy.

Interview
Website
His Blog

Sketchup 7 has been released for all.

I'm happy that Google has updated the software. I was very worried no updates would occur as, shortly after Google acquired SketchUp from @Last software, version 6 was release. Very little has been supported since that time, with only minor point updates occurring. I personally thought the software was in deaths grips. It seems Google does indeed have an interest of keeping the software alive. I'm sure everyone appreciates this!

It appears most of the updating has been on the Layout extension of Sketchup with a few updates to the core application. I'll be digging deaper into the application and will soon learn of all the changes.

Download your free copy of the software and check it out also.

3rd post from iPhone

Our dog Shala.

$1.49 Gas Prices

I think that prices were around this price when Bush came into power. Kind of a book-end paradox for the American public.

My first post from my new iPhone

EDIT: The posting from the iphone for this entry did not work. Got to find another way...

The 50 Plus Acquisitions of Google

Wikipedia entry listing of all of Google's acquisitions. Wow!

read more | digg story

10 Gadgety Reasons To Love America

God bless our consumption

read more | digg story

BIM Proto-Buldings

John Tobin has written a wonderful article discussing the old and new uses of BIM building creation. His whole article boils down to using the software to not mimic or describe a building, but to actually build a digital building. It's a very compelling argument as many of our document discrepancies can be realized by creating building documents not just in 2D space but in real-time 3D space.

Buildings are intensely complicated, and so immense, that the most reliable way to convey design intent has been to rely on drafted views which try to describe their configuration. As a result, the architect’s work has traditionally become an exercise on paper trying to represent something that has a different, more physical reality.

Though many designers continue to use BIM to produce drawings—and a recent industry survey (Top Criteria for BIM Solutions: AECbytes Survey Results, Oct. 2007) favored that issue over several others—this is probably a transitional phase for BIM. We would be better served to look beyond using BIM merely as a more powerful representation tool, and instead to treat the models we create as proto-buildings.

iPhone release date missed

So I predicted with such absolute certainty the iPhone would come out June 20th

Wow was I wrong! But I have to wonder.... why July 11th is the real release date? My ideas are:

• Apple signed some crazy contract with one of the nation providers that they would be able to release the phone the same time as everyone else. And... it took the extra time to get the phones to that nation.
• Apple messed up, and was not ready for the launch and took the extra time to CYA.
• Apple could not stand to sell the phones and make money, and decided to not sell any phones for over 2 solid months (remember the phone was out of stock for over a month, and wont be released for an additional 31 days after the announcement).
• Steve Jobs lost a bet with someone at RIM and was forced to sell the phones later than he wanted.
  

I have no idea why Apple is waiting so long. It makes no business sense at all. If I was a major stockholder I'd be trying to get Steve on the phone. But as I'm not... I'll just keep those calls to myself.

iPhone Review. Good, Bad & Ugly

So..... Last Monday the iPhone was released. I happily watched the release from the liveblogs. but..... Steve seems to have taken a shortcut with the new phone. Here is my thoughts:

The Good

• 3G. Yep the fast fast fast, is good, good, good. I'm hopeful that AT&T will keep up the aggressive roll out of 3G in many more areas.
  
• Price. I like that the phone is subsidised. ATT will get their money back over the 2 years, and this will bring more customers into the iPhone world.
• Applications. So many people have said that apps are nice but web based apps are the way to go. I disagree 100%. I encounter so many areas that don't have wifi, and also many areas where cell phone coverage (and Edge & 3G) is very weak. On-phone apps run no matter what the coverage is like.
  
• Business support. For consumers this means little. For the long term forecast and life of the phone it is a MUST DO. I'm glad Apple started down the business road.
  
• Flush headset jack. Apple sometimes does listen to it's customers. Nuf' said.
• GPS. Wow! I really didn't think this would be on the phone. This is great. Having exact location information is very useful. Some say it's not necesary, but I think a whole big industry will spring up with this one addition. A few examples would be
  
• Geotaging photos.
• Keeping track of where you kids, friends, or spouse is located.
• real time traffic info based on users speeds.
• location based advertising
• calling AAA when your car breaks down, and telling them exactly where your at.
• theft recovery of 100% of the phones
• secure money transfers because PIN usage can be double checked against device location.
• guided city/museum tours displaying info based on real location.
• parking lot space location info.
• theam park maps inside the phone, with google style maps showing you which rides are currently under a 30 minute wait.... and where the nearest restrooms are located.
• coupons beamed to the phone only when entering or passing by a store.
  

The Bad

• Lack of Business Apps. So.... Steve..... this was to be a big rollout for business users, yet ya didn't add any intigrated business apps? Business people need a good note taking app, a robust ToDo app, a calender that is very flexible, a 5 star contact manager program & the ability to read and edit MS Office documents. I know, the app store might fill in the gaps... I have my doubts. Native apps from Apple will always run smoother than add-ons.
  
• Price. Apple dropped the price (via AT&T subsidy) but failed to keep high end products. There are users who need to basic level phone at a basement level price. There are also those people who would spend $500 on a phone (just look at the initial release of the phone). A more feature intensive phone coupled with cheaper phones would address this issue better.
  
• Memory. Music, photos, applications, data, and games. All this on 8 or 16Gigs is a tight fit. A larger 24Gig or 32Gig device is in order to solve storage problems. Again (back to my last point) there are users who would pay for the extra storage... and I'm one of them.
• Camera. I could rant that 2Mpixel cameras were all the rage 10 years ago, but why bother. I really don't think Apple feels this is a big issue for consumers. I personally carry a nice digital camera, but having a decent camera on the phone would be great for those times I don't have (or forgot) my real camera.
  

The Ugly

• Video. The iPhone can't call itself a great multi media device when basic video is not supported through the camera.
  
• Flash support. Again, Apple can't say this is a true internet device when Flash is not supported. This must be added into the phone!
  
• AT&T. Dang... I know we are stuck with em for some time. I still hate them for trashing the US constitution with the Bush administration. Full time wiretapping?!?!? I'm amazed more people don't care about this issue.
  
• No Data Storage. I really wish the iPhone could store data on it just as the iPods do. It would be nice to treat the phone like a USB drive and transfer files with it. Sigh. I don't think Steve will do this for many years.

So all in all the iPhone is a nice device in a very small form package. Apple did add some nice features that will help push the phone along, but I don't think they addressed them fully. But as the fan-boys will say.... that will all be in iPhone 3.0

Dang! 97 degrees...

Live Blogging the iPhone release

Well the new phone was announced Monday, and I watched the live blogging on Engadget, and Gizmodo. Both places did a wonderful job posting quick comments, and images. I really enjoyed those posts which came every 40 seconds or so.

I have to say that while sitting in Panera Bread, I was so worried that their 'iffy' internet service would come to a halt and leave me sitting in frustration. It has done this in the past... grrrr. Well, this time, it held up quite well.... even if most people were franticly hitting the refresh button every half second.

Kudos to both sites for their great coverage... and Thank You.
Kudos to Panera for their free internet service... and Thank You.