It has been a while since my last post but this one is hot!
Adobe has just launched Photoshop Express Beta:
https://www.photoshop.com/express
It is a free mini Photoshop for basic photo editing and you get to store up to 2GB of photos on their server or load images from facebook, Photobucket or Picassa. You can also create galleries to share your photos with your own url:
I did not work on this product but heard all the noise around it and this is very exciting news. I think it is a great time for Adobe to enter the web applications world and this tool will be very useful for lots of people.
The team has been working so hard on it and they were able to put together a great product in record time. Congrats!
On my way back home from SF to Oz I stopped in Tokyo for 2 nights. The place is everything I expected and more but the pregnancy stopped me from trying the great sushi I was craving for...
When I arrived I dropped 2 of the bags I did not need at a storage room right in front of the JAL check-in counters for around $3.00 - $5.00 per bag per day. Then there were 2 options to get to the city, by bus or by train. The bus service is called Airport Limousine and they stop in every major hotel for around $30.00 and it takes between 1 1/2 and 2 hours.
The train is about the same price but a bit more "rooting" around. If you have a heavy bag I would not recommend since I did not see a lot of escalators going down as much as I saw going up... of course you can always take a cab for about $300 bucks!
I stayed at a very economical place in a suburb called Ebisu for about $95.00. It was cabin like space but for a quick sleep and shower it was fine. They had a Tv and free broadband and cross the street from the train station. Major hotels charge at least $300 bucks for a small room with a bit more luxury... I took the bus to the closest major hotel and a cab from there for $7.00.
My Saturday started taking the JR to Shabuya where I got my first glimpse of the big flashing buildings. There is so much to do is hard to focus so I got a cup of coffee at the starbucks and sucked it all in sitting from the top floor looking at the see of humans. Next door there was a hidden building 109 and every floor had really trendy clothes I could not buy but fun to watch.
Next I went to check out a temple Senso-ji. As soon as you get out of the station you have a few blocks of great shops. I stayed away from the main street at first and instead took the back alleys where I found more interesting shops with less touristy souvenirs. The temple was nice and beautifully built. Right in front of it they sell these bean jam fritters that were amazing for 1 buck. After all the walking I found a massage place and got myself a foot bath and massage that recharged my poor feet for about $40.00 but really worth it.
From there I decided to head out to the famous Akihabara area know as Electric town where all the geeks go shopping. In a few hours I only got to check out about 3 buildings out of dozens since each building has floors and floors of eletronics, actions figures, toys etc... it was amazing.
By this time I was pretty dead and full of shopping bags and wish I could keep going... I was not very lucky with the food.. most places did not have an english menu and because of my state I could not be as adventurous as I wanted to be. I was hoping to have dinner at a place called New York Grill (I know... it would have been safe) but I was not going to drop 200 bucks on a 5 course meal on my own so I head back to the hotel.
Next to the hotel there were quite a few interesting restaurants in an alley. I went up the Irish pub where they had a nice live band playing. I tried ordering from pictures across the streets but it turned out the picture was not chicken :) and pork instead, no luck with food... went to bed.
Next day was rainy and cold but I went out to the area where I was looking for the crazy chicks dressed up but it was a bit early for that.. nonetheless I found some great shops and a place called Kiddyland took me hostage for a couple of hours where I bought some fun little monsters for baby Walsh. I really wanted to check out Shinjuku but all I had time for was a quick lunch in Roppongi before heading back to the hotel to catch the last bus to the airport at 4:30.
It wasn't enought time but it was something, I really hope to go back one day...
It has been a few years but we finally had our Brazilian Holiday! We stopped in Miami for 2 days before heading to Rio. In total it probably took us about 37 hours to get to my home town but totally worth it. We had to fly Brisbane > Sydney > LA > Miami > Sao Paulo > Rio de Janeiro. Part of our tickets we booked with www.brol.com. They have pretty good deals and can also help with hotel reservations with a discount. Once we arrived in Rio we stayed a few nights at Hotel Praia Ipanema. All their rooms have the Ipanema Beach view for a good price compared to all other ocean hotels. Of course one of the first things I had to do was eat as many "pao de queijos" I could fit in my mouth to satisfy my baby cravings followed by an original açai... Here are a few other places we checked out:
I forgot how great album covers are... nowadays you hardly get to look at them anymore. With my new family edition (AppleTV) this is no longer true. It is such a good feeling when you see a really good cover design or to put an artist face to the song!
For this reason, I took a couple of weekend hours and organized my playlists and found 99% of my covers. They play beautifully on the TV while the songs play and the wine bottle finishes.
At first I thought I could save time and support devs by purchasing a $10 bucks shareware that claimed to find it all for you. If you are a weirdo like me, you probably have some weird music in your library and no, the software did not find it all, neither did iTunes.
You can try to use iTunes to find a cover:
1. I usually have iTunes Store open because by selecting a sing I can see if the album is available on the store and if it has an album cover associated to it. If thats true..
2. Right click a song > Get Album Artwork
iTunes will grab and save it in the correct place for you.
Otherwise this is a workflow I found to add covers manually:
1. Open iTunes and select any song of the artist, album or playlist from the right panel
2. View > Show Artwork.
3. Make sure the Artwork window is set to show the selection and not the "Now Playing" cover. You can do this by clicking on the small arrow next to the window title.
4. If the cover is not available already, the window should have a "drop" area that reads "Drag Album Artwork Here"
5. Open a browser window and search for the name of the artist or album name. Amazon seems to have almost everything. Make sure you find an image that is large enough, the amazon zoom view works well. Drag that image from the browser into the iTunes drop area.
Now if you find out how to change the artwork of movies added to itunes (not pruchased) so it does not display the first frame always, please let me know!
I have been trying to manage my music collection where I can store my music on my win desktop in the office but listen to it from the tv in the living room and sync my ipod from the same source. We plugged an older laptop toshiba to the TV and shared my iTunes playlist which worked just fine, not great. It takes a little bit to get to listen to your music..and if you are impatient like me every second counts.
The AppleTV seemed to have resolved my music issues.. I am able to sync my win itunes with the device in the living room. I can quickly access my music while cooking and still manage and listen to my songs while working downstairs.
Video Content:
Lots of bitching still and no HD content available from the itunes store yet. You can watch some trailers in HD but who knows which ones they are..You can buy movies for about 9.99 and they are decent quality but don't expect a quick download. If you want to watch it after dinner, start your download in the afternoon. If you are in Australia, you cannot buy any movies or tv shows unless you have an American itunes account, meaning you have a credit card in the US.
YouTube + AppleTV
Upgrading to the latest software version, you get the YouTube add-on and yes the video quality is nasty. I am not a YT junky but when it is easy to access from the couch then yes I did take a look at it (for a couple of hours mind you) and found this guy which I became quite a fan. I was surprised to see the same search performed on the browser and AppleTV, gives you different results and the AppleTV version seems to limit some videos, not sure what the deal is and BTW , typing your search keywords using the remote is no fun at all...
Overall I am pretty happy with it ... sometimes I get the buyer's remorse feeling when I think I should have bought a mac mini instead, replace the toshiba with it, store the music upstairs and share it to the office. John was not happy about switching to mac just yet so I think we made a good decision. Maybe next year I get to convince him to dump win and embrace the mac.
I'm back home in Brisbane and while looking at my expenses, I made a list of places I've been in the past month and highly recommend:
Scomas $$$: If you don't care to mingle between tourists, check out this place at Pier 47. Great seafood but the best is the view.
Incanto $$$$: Very cozy, great wine and food.
Cioppino's $$: Another touristy place but nice to sit out and have a few beers and people watch.
Asia SF $$$: Where the boys dress like girls and the more you drink the better they look. Daily shows.
Mars Bar $: This is the local bar for Adobians...
Tommy's Mexican Restaurant $: At frist I did not know why we went so far out of town for mexican food and tequila until I finished my Carne Assada and had a few clean shots of very good tequila. Apparently this is one of the best tequila bars in the US.
Sugar Cafe $$: This is a great internet cafe / bar. Very cozy and great music. You can sit there for hours and geek away while having drinks and people watch.
XYZ $$$: This is the trendy bar of the W hotel.
Okoze Sushi $$$: Wow the sushi was fantastic but I would have never found this place on my own.
Kim Thanh $$: This place is in a shady neighborhood and nothing fancy about it besides the fresh authentic Vietnamese and Chinese food.
Lobster Shack $$: For 30 bucks you can eat a very fresh 1.5 lbs steamed lobster + beer. I loved it.
Pier 41 $: If you dont mind to eat standing, just order a big dungeness crab and ask the bloke to break it up for you. The best crab legs deal I found in town.
The District $$: I like this bar, they have some tapas and wine. Very cozy.
Oola $$$: This place have great ribs!! and the main courses were also fantastic.
KohSamui $$$: Great Thai food but don't expect great service.
SF Cable Car $: Locals don't usually take the cable car but it is such a nice ride... they have a ride that takes 2 hours and goes over the bridge and around the most famous spots. I quite enjoyed..
I wish we walked towards Pier 41 instead of 39 before... I was looking for plain crab legs standing on the side walk for a while! They were so fresh and a lot cheaper than the sit down restaurant and don't mind the mess, it is totally worth it!
Same deal as Kelly but this past week we launched the Remixer for Nelly Furtado. The winner for Kelly's contest will be announced soon and showed on MTV US. Go on, give Nelly a try!
My mom meet me here from LA to spend the next week and I need to try to get some work done in the office. There will be no way out.. I must show her all the tourists points so tonight we hopped on a cable car and went up to Fisherman's Wharf for some seafood. There is a nice place called Scomas (or something like that) with a fantastic view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.