Archive for the 'Software Discussion' Category

15 kilos of passion

Published
by
djaef
on July 18, 2008
in Software Discussion and photography
. 0 Comments

It’s a good thing I go to the gym. I can feel I’m going to have to make it more regular though. After a recent upgrade and expansion of my equipment, my Lowepro backpack weighs a tonne… I haven’t weighed it, but judging by how much my seven year old boy weighs, I think we are talking about 15 kg. Sure enough, that’s two DSLR bodies, and about 6 lenses and a flash and accessories, but hey, a photographer needs all that if he’s going to be prepared. It’s a very hard decision to make to just go out with one lens. Of course it depends on what you’re doing. I just went to my kids’ sports day and I could easily have just taken the camera and 70-200 along. That’s all I used after all. But on many jobs you might need to change from wide angle to zoom, so covering 16-200mm takes a fair few lenses. And if you believe in backup, an extra body comes along too. And all of a sudden, you need to be very strong. It’s not so heavy, but after a few hours you collapse into the car with exhaustion. I suppose niche photographers have an easier time with it, knowing what they need. Also it could be a personal thing, and many photographers might just decide that they can’t be prepared for everything and only take a limited range of gear. I’m still figuring all that out, so at the moment, I take everything but the kitchen sink along with me and I see what I use.  It’s be interesting to hear how others decide what to take / split their gear etc. There’s even a slot in my backpack for a laptop, and while I don’t have one at the moment, I’m considering getting one, but that would add another 3-4.5 kilos, depending on whether I went 15.4 / 17″. I’m beginning to see a need for an assistant. :) I’d better go and earn some income then…

Pixelpost

Published
by
djaef
on July 7, 2008
in Blogging, Software Discussion and photography
. 5 Comments

My other blog, my photoblog, runs on Pixelpost v 1.7. I’ve been using Pixelpost for nearly two years now, but have only recently upgraded to the newest version. As far as photoblogging applications go, I think it’s the best one out there (certainly the best one I’ve found.) It’s free, there are a lot of templates to change the design, and there’s a great community of users.

But that’s not to say I don’t have issues with it. I do. I simply don’t understand why it has to be so difficult. The answer to that may simply be ‘because it’s free’, and if so, then fine. But maybe that’s not the entire answer…

I have been dabbling in web design for a few years now, and while I’m not a born coder (never will be) I can write html and have a decent understanding of css. I’ve even managed to design and make several really nice looking standards compliant web sites. But Pixelpost is not a simple website - it’s complex. It’s a mixture of html, css and php, running on a MySQL database. I imagine most people can get it up and running, and even change templates, but modifying it is not for non technically minded people.

And that’s where a few interesting questions pop up. Who is this application designed for? Photographers is the obvious assumption I make. And I don’t make a distinction between amatuer and professional, as a photographer is a photographer. But it would almost appear, looking at the application from a technical perspective, that it has been made for ‘code heads’ instead of photographers. Even my most generous interpretation is that it has been made on one level for photographers (the basic out of the box experience) and has a whole lot of extra functionality possible to those that can get really techy with code. And that’s why I think it’s frustrating.

I want a photoblog that doesn’t require I have a PHD in php, javascript and CSS, but I also want one that’s easily customisable. Maybe I just want too much. That’s the most likely truth. Especially as it’s free. But I wish that the code head developers would realise that most photographers are not necessarily good at coding, and that an application that was easier to customise would attarct a better level of photographer, and increase the market share. In my browsing, I have certainly found a large number of fabulous looking sites with pretty ordinary photos, and also a whole lot of sites that needed some design and attention, but that had great photos. It’s not until you put both together, like J.R Photoblog that you really get a fabulous product.

I know that I’m mostly jealous. It blows me away what some people can manage to master. That’s why I want Pixelpost to make it easier for us lesser talented mortals to compete.

Windows Vista and the need for patience

Published
by
djaef
on May 10, 2008
in Software Discussion
. 1 Comment

Vista is broken

Vista has not had good press since its release. And I can see why. Despite the eye candy Aero interface, it’s what’s under the bonnet that counts, and a lot of reviews certainly point to deficiencies in Vista when compared to its immediate predecessor, XP. I ran XP Professional from the start and at least from SP2, it was a really good, stable OS. Maybe it’s worth remembering that. XP had loads of blue screens of death before the first service pack, that’s for sure, and it wasn’t until SP2 that it became a really stable, first class OS.

Anyway, I think Vista has lots of improvements in lots of areas, but I also have my pet hates. The almost non stop UAC requests drive me crazy, and I was annoyed at first that some of my older programs wouldn’t run correctly on it. But worst of all was my experience with the Security Centre, and it’s really that I wanted to talk about.
Continue reading ‘Windows Vista and the need for patience’

Flash based gallery production tools

Published
by
djaef
on April 29, 2007
in Software Discussion
. 0 Comments

I was going to write a small post on a new free Flash based tool from Airtight Interactive called PostcardViewer. But once I got started I thought it’d be better to expand it to review a range of Flash based tools designed for exhibiting photography on the Internet.

Of course there are many more options than just Flash based ones. There’s nothing wrong with a good old html gallery, or a html one jazzed up a little by some JavaScript. The trouble with these however, is that there are not very many good gallery production tools for making html galleries. Many might disagree, and sure Photoshop can whip up a gallery in no time, but they are not the most attractive and customising them is not easy for the amateur.

I’m not a fan of the overuse of Flash that we saw through the nineties. It was a case of technology for technology’s sake, and designers went completely overboard. But the pendulum has swung back somewhat in the last few years, and I think photo galleries are examples of a good, restrained use of Flash in web design today. So, looking at Flash tools, here are a few of the more popular and most common.

A very popular tool, and a great place to start is PostcardViewer’s older brother SimpleViewer. It’s popular for a number of reasons. First up, it’s free! Secondly, there are a wide range of ways to use it, both for generating your own content and putting it up on a website, or looking at others’ content with it (Flickr for example allows sets to be viewed with Simpleviewer..) For absolute technophobes, it’s still going to a bit of a struggle to get it happening, but then again absolute technophobes would probably not be within a kilometer of the Internet. For anyone with just a little courage and the ability to follow instructions however, it’s a piece of cake. For an advanced internet user, it’s almost too easy and hard core coders will not even bother because they want the challenge of something at least as difficult as Pixelpost (which is actually not that difficult, especially for a coder!) And the punters have voted. Simpleviewer is almost ubiquitous on the internet. There are a lot of people using it, because it is simple enough that anyone that can follow instructions can get it to work with a minimum of fuss.

PostcardViewer is another simple idea from the same developer. Check out the demo. I love the idea, and for certain projects, it’d be perfect. On an technical level though, it didn’t impress me because of the end quality of the images. As you can see in the picture below, they have a jagged edge through them at full size. It may not bother a lot of people but people keen about their photography probably won’t like it.

a screendump from postcardviewer
(note the jagged lines around the signs)

Flash presentations seem to have a weakness there. I don’t know Flash well enough as to guess why, but many Flash presentations suffer from image distortion of some sort. It’s likely to do with resizing images and the way Flash handles that resizing. Not all Flash presentations suffer from that issue, but some certainly do and it’s an annoying detail.

Another high ranking option in Google is Imagevue. I don’t know how many people use it, but I have seen the site before, and its ranking would give it a lot of visitors. It all looks very well made, but its over the top techie look doesn’t appeal to me at all, and it costs $54US for a license. Maybe for some, but not me.

Looking on google for flash based image gallery, I realise this task is hopeless. There are squillions of flash based image gallery generators, from the simple to the hopelessly complicated. The trouble is there are SO many good options these days. And the really good thing is that usablity is improving. I don’t know about you, but I think a lot of php based blogging options are simply too complicated for the vast majority of punters to get interested in. Only a very small percentage of users want to struggle with configuring anything in any sort of scripting environment. Even html is beyond the vast majority. To get good reach amongst the millions of amateur and professional bloggers / photographers, you need software that is EASY TO USE.

Or you need to pay for it. Foliolink is an example of a service where you get a whole website, which is essentially one big Flash based gallery. Lonna Tucker’s web site is a simply exquisite example of what you can get. But then again, it’s more her brilliant photography that is so dazzling, but the gallery is pretty cool as well. But the service is pricey - several hundred dollars a year. For a professional, this is of course peanuts, and it’d no doubt be tax deductable, and it looks like a great option if you are not interested in “rolling you own”.

For the slideshows on my parent website, I ended up having a go at a product a friend supplied. It’s called Slideshow Pro. It costs $25 for the basic version and $25 for an interface which is a bit dodgy really, because if you use the basic package, it’s all hand coding. It’s based on Ajax, and it makes cool slide show type galleries, but it’s got a lot of room for improvement. Still, I like the look of this one.

It’s an area where there is so much happening right now. I am the type not to want a purchased package and like to get my hands dirty. So in one way I’m very happy with a blog like pixelpost, which in itself is a very useful photo gallery. But if you want Flash based, and you have the cash, I haven’t seen anything better than Foliolink myself.

Beware, it’s a jungle out there…

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