Digital Photography Step by Step

I have said this before, but this time I'm fair dinkum! I WILL increase my photography skills to the point where I can consistently produce good quality photographs.

To that end, I'm going through Tom Ang's excellent book, Digital Photography Step by Step. The book is clear and well presented and, as the name suggests, takes you through the process step by step.

Although I'm only a little way through the book so far, I've already learned some useful information about my camera.

I'm using a Pentax K100 D. It is a few years old but it is a good solid camera and should be more than adequate for my needs at this point.

Wish me luck!

Things

Over the years, I've tried a number of task manager and to do list applications. Some have been quite good, but until recently I've never found one that really ticked all the boxes for me, so to speak. Enter "Things", a fantastic task manager app for Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Although simple to learn and intuitive to use, Things, has a lot of great features. It allows you to easily create to-do lists of various kinds, set up projects, schedule tasks for future dates, create "Areas" to help manage different areas of your life and a lot more.

One of app's best features for me is the way it syncs seamlessly between all of your devices. I have the app installed on my iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone, so my task and project lists are there right with me whatever device I'm working on.

Being a pretty disorganised sort, I've found that using Things really has increased my productivity and helped to keep me on track. I really do love it!

That said, it is quite expensive, especially if you want to set it up on several devices. The cost may put some users off, given that there are plenty of free or low cost task management apps around. But, for me at least, it's worth every cent.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Testing Blogsy

I've just downloaded and installed Blogsy on my iPad. Blogsy is an app that allows you to blog on the go from your iPad. Right now, I'm still finding my way around the app, so this is something of a test post. But, so far at least, I like what I see.

Posted with Blogsy

Task Manager Tabs Done Gone!

So I'm fiddling around in Windows Task Manager, probably trying to kill some unresponsive app:



Suddenly, all the tabs and the menu bar on Task Manager suddenly disappear. What the?



Scratching head. Google the issue. Ummm, must have doubled clicked in the wrong spot. My bad!

If this happens, just double click somewhere on the border of the window and your tabs and menu will come on back:

Decision to Defect

Momentous news! After more than a decade of being a purely PC person, - that is, a staunch and steadfast user of Microsoft Windows - I've made the decision to defect. Today, I ordered my brand new iMac. Being something of a hopeless geek at heart, I'm actually quite excited. I can't wait to get my hands on the new machine. It arrives next week.

So, why the change of heart after all this time? Well, to be honest, I've actually been flirting with a couple of attractive members of the Apple family for quite a time. Of course, I mean my beloved iPad and iPhone. And, once I take delivery of my gorgeous new iMac, the Apple trio will be complete.

The great thing about combining this trio is that they all get on so well together! Well, that's what I've been given to understand by the research I've conducted in preparation for the potential switch. So, theoretically, I can be working on one device and then seamlessly switch to another in the trio and continue where I left off. Via Apple's iCloud technology. And, I should be able to access any of the information I need from any one of my three compatible devices.

I admit to be pretty impressed with the way Apple does things. Their technology, in my experience, is slick, intuitive and easy to use. And, it looks great as well!  Just as an example, I'm writing this in Pages on my iPad. Of course, the app does not have all of the functionality of a word processing powerhouse like Microsoft Word. But, for general purpose applications, it has everything I need.  Plus, the interface looks terrific, all of the functionality you need is easily accessible and the app is just a pleasure to use. This experience is typical of the Apple apps and devices I've used

That said, switching my main workflow from PC to iMac is going to involve a fairly steep learning curve and there is bound to be some setbacks and frustrations along the way. So, to smooth the way a little, I'll be leaving my current Microsoft system up and running while I learn some Mac basics. Then, when I'm good to go, I'll start moving over to the new system. I'll be allowing a month for the full transition. Or more if required. Good things should not be rushed. But, it should be exciting and interesting in a geeky sort of way.  Wish me luck! 

© Matthieu Riegler, CC-BY, Wikimedia Commons

Riding the Cloud

Cloud computing seems to be on everybody's lips these days. Of course cloud computing has been around in various forms for years, but with more and more cloud services coming online, the concept and its potential benefits are now rapidly infiltrating the psyche of everyday computer users.

So, that's why I've been thinking a lot lately about "clouding" all of my online activities, so to speak. Or more precisely, using cloud computing to efficiently integrate my online life across all of my applicable devices.