My iPad to me is also an indispensable tool. At first I bought it because I’m an Apple-Whore who loves their gadgets and it was a great way to get me away from my laptop all the time. But then I found it to be extremely fast, useful and part of my workflow. I use it with the camera connection kit on the go to import photos, preview them, delete the ones I don’t like, and when I get home, I connect it to my mac and import to Aperture.

iPhoto for iOS

So when iPhoto for iOS came out, I was very excited. I thought that would be one hell of a compliment to how I work. I have to say my expectations for it where in the wrong direction. I was hoping for something with the usefulness of Pixelsync, where I could do all the star rating and keyword assignments to photos, so when I sync, the work is done, and be able to make simple edits on the go, that would also sync when I get home. iPhoto for iOS failed on that front completely, but it is in alignment with what it is supposed to be.

The other iLife apps on iOS were built to be stand-alone apps that would sync to the cloud, or share on various web services. iMovie lets you create movies right on your iPhone and iPad, and Garageband too, and send them around quickly and easily. I think you can sync your projects with the Mac apps too but i can’t seem to see anything about that on the site. This is the same for iPhoto.

The app itself is pretty cute, and does a few things nicely, but others in a very gimmicky way. Its pretty amazing that you have advanced features like brushes to dodge and burn specific areas in an image (not available on iPhoto for mac), but the cutesy interface with the brushes popping up and fanning out takes some time to get used. And if your used to graphs and histograms to adjust brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights and saturation, you will have a bit of learning curve to get acquainted with the interface Apple picked for those adjustments.

The journals feature is very interesting, and its kinda cool to be able to create a photo album from your iPad and be able to share it online. Its quick, simple, easy though sometimes a bit awkward, but fun. And I think it something that from time to time, I will be using.

One thing I love is the ability to share or “Beam” a photo to another iOS device. That was always the most annoying thing about iOS is that to send anything to anyone, you would need to message or email it to them, even if they were next to you. This should really be part of  iOS and not a feature in iPhoto. Beam a contact, photo, video clip or anything really!

I am impressed with the feature set it has, it is pretty on par with some of the better or best apps out there for photo editing, without some of the limitations, I’m looking at you Adobe Photoshop Touch and your 1600x1600px limit! I’m still playing around with it and getting used to it, and trying to figure out how it will fit in my workflow. How it will work with the iPad Camera Connection Kit, and how to get those modifications and edits in to my Aperture library and be able to continue with more serious enhancements to my shots.

With all that, I’m thinking maybe, iLife and Aperture will be updated in the summer with more iOS integration when Apple Mac OS X Mountain Lion comes out. I also hope that there is an new version of Aperture that works better with iOS or at least a version of Aperture for iOS.

Clips from the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color—particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.

This film will be released in Fall/Winter 2011. Please “Like” the Dark Girls page on Facebook, we will keep you updated with news there.

Directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry
Produced by Bill Duke for Duke Media
and D. Channsin Berry for Urban Winter Entertainment
Co-Produced by Bradinn French
Line Produced by Cheryl L. Bedford
Edited by Bradinn French

Thoughts

This video was tough to watch as it brought a hidden reality of what people, and especially women of colour go through with their self identity. Racism is a serious issue, and it effects all of colour, but its implications on how we view our selves and its impact on our psychology is not highlighted as much.

I went for a shoot in the Old Port of Montreal and stumbled on this toy shop and I couldn’t help but take this shot to show my appreciation to all the black women and all of colour. I love you all and just wanted to say your are all beautiful and angels in my eyes.

It first showed it’s true colors when I updated my work MacBook to the latest version of OS X and the whole thing died on me. Pulled every trick in the book to revive it, but alas, it was done for. So while I waited for the sys admin to trying and figure out what to do with it, I relied on the iPad to continue working, and it came through with bright and shining colors.

First off, it saved my ass in being able to email back clients and coordinating work. If that was the only thing I needed to do, it saved my ass. But it went further, and got me on the file sharing network, and I could edit reports with iWork, instant message with the team, update my calendar and more. It was amazing that no one in the office noticed I wasn’t on a laptop only until they came over to ask me a question and realize that I bought the new iPad and ooohed and aaahed in amazement at how thin it is.

But that was work, and now I find myself using this bad boy as my main device at home. I even stopped brining back my work laptop and doing everything I need on the iPad. My favorite use for it is when I go out for a shoot, and want to really see what I got without having to sit at the Mac mini at home in my room. I just plug in the camera connector kit, slide in the SD card, import the photos and I got instant large screen viewing of my pictures. Great for triage, and only keeping the best shots of the day. Also comes in handing when I’m not sure if you got a good shot and can’t tell from the small screen on the camera, I get a better view on a large screen without too much hassle. Though I would love to be able to do some preliminary work on photos right on the device. Rating photos, light and basic touch ups here and there. Would be a great workflow tool before I go in to Aperture on the Mac.

On a day to day basis, I use the iPad for emailing, calendaring, Facebook, Netflix, reading on the kindle, instant messaging and doing some light research and blog updates. With more and more specialized apps that take the interface beyond expectations, I see this as being my main tool and only going back to a laptop or desktop for when I need to do really heavy work like intensive reports and spreadsheets, photo editing and design intensive tasks.

So far, I’m loving this bad boy and how it’s changed the way I do things, and its so much lighter than lugging a laptop around. Best part is you don’t have to take it out of your bag when going through security checks at the airport. Bonus!!

I work in a mixed pc/mac environment using an online task and project management tool, which offers some rudimentary milestone scheduling features, and we use Exchange 2003 for our email and calendaring. I know, its old, and its almost deprecated, but until we upgrade, its what we have. But even if we upgrade it doesn’t solve the problem.

The problem is in open standards adoption of CalDav on Windows/Outlook, and the Mac’s implementation of exchange calendars in iCal and Entourage/Outlook for mac.

Windows and Outlook

In Outlook for Windows, unless your using exchange, there is very little you can do out of the box to get a could synchronized shared calendar solution. Sure you can use google calendar with a plugin, but thats not really ideal now is it.

Mac and iCal

iCal is great and I love it, and use it extensively with MobileMe. I have a whole bunch of calendars synched with my iPhone for scheduling on the go, and i cant live without it.

What gets my goat is that it doesn’t support older versions of exchange. It also frustrates me when sending and accepting meeting requests to pc’s. Its either outlook on windows cant read or open them, or it doesn’t get my meeting request replies. I don’t know if this problem is solved with a newer exchange server or not, but at the moment, is killing me.

Mac and Outlook

I’ve played around with Office 2011 Outlook beta, and i love it. I love how similar to Outlook on PC, and its spectacular. My beef comes down again to the fact it doesn’t support older versions of exchange, and again it doesn’t support CalDav. So i cant get my google or MobileMe calendars on it. Which cripples it severely for me.

I know this is a bit of a rant at the state of things, but it doesn’t seem like there is any planned future updates for some applications to improve this. iCal for mac may get an update soon in the next Mac OS X update that might solve this. I doubt Outlook on Windows will start supporting CalDav anytime soon, coz they would have already. As for Outlook for mac, turns out they left out that feature on purpose because they wanted to concentrate on exchange functionality first. So it maybe an added feature in future update. But until then, i cant use it much.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on getting a working Mac/Windows shared calendaring experience going smoothly?

They played a tough game against the rough and tumble Dutch, who broke records in their foul play, but they managed to persevere against their impeccable defences, through a full game and 30min of extra time. They kept ball possession and pushed as hard as they could until Iniesta siezed the chance and scored an amazing winning goal in the final moments.

I have to say though, it was the longest and most boring game of this tournament. The fouls in their brutishness kept us entertained as my friends and I watched while having a late breakfast at my place. Cheering for Spain had its ups and downs, with worried faces looking on, as close calls had Robben masterfully passing the Spanish defences but not following through. Both teams had ample opportunity many a time, but no follow through left us screaming in frustration.

Spain’s game play wasn’t the most stellar through the tournament, and teams with better score such as Germany (4-0 against Argentina and England) were favoured. I think they scored the least goals with the most victories. In the end it was a well deserved effort, that yielded them the championship.  It’s good to see the cup in the hands of a new flag.

A little tid-bit. If Spain had lost, New Zealand would have been the only undefeated team in this World Cup!

My team, the NZ All Whites, though doing an amazing job not loosing any games, it just wasn’t enough to get through without winning. But they did make it on top of the defending champions Italy, and that makes it one hell of a year for NZ, whose football presence is negligible.

The first game in the round of 16, Ghana vs USA, was one hell of an intense match. I was in a Portuguese restaurant watching the game, rooting for Ghana, with everyone else chanting for the USA. The owner had put some money on the US, and lost it as it tied 1-1 going on to extra time. But Ghana came back strong with a stellar goal that destroyed all hopes for the US to get to the next round.

I’m not a big Germany fan, and not a big England fan either. Out of the two though, it was clear that Germany was the better team, which was proven by 4-1 lead. I guess the German psychic octopus is psychic after all. Now the Germans are poised to go against the winner of Mexico vs Argentina.

I’m rooting for Argentina on this game, coz I want to see the Maradona coached Argentina face Germany and redeem themselves from last world cups loss. I was in a pub in downtown Auckland 4 years ago cheering for Argentina in an overwhelmingly German crowd at 4am. Lets just say there was a lot of yelling, and I called in sick the next day, only to be blackmailed by a work mate coz I ended up on the 6 O’Clock news running around wrapped in the Argentinian flag.

Now that my NZ is out, I’m cheering on a case by case basis, with no clear favourite to win the cup. Ghana is Africa’s last hope on pushing through to a historic quarter finals if they beat Uruguay. I would love to see Argentina win, and wondering if Maradona will hold his promise to streak in the nude if they won.

Whose your favourite team, and who do you think will win?

Update: Looks like it is Argentina vs Germany! Go Argentina!

I’m one of those people who is pretty much accessible on most of the available channels, to the point where some friends panic when I don’t answer the phone after a few attempts, or get frumpy when I don’t email or instant message back promptly.

I have to say, it’s becoming quite the chore to manage all of these channels, but you find a way to filter the noise, keep things sane with good tools and habits.

What happens though, when you encounter someone who isn’t as connected? Those who find cell phones intrusive and can’t stand text messaging. They don’t get the point of Twitter ( I sometimes don’t really), and Facebook is just too open and scary with too much information for their taste. How do you communicate with those who aren’t connected?

How do you handle people who are hard to reach? I just try and try again!!!

But there is no real security
in what is no longer meaningful.

There is more security
in the adventurous and exciting,
for in movement there is life,
and in change
there is power.

- Alan Cohen

Thanks Louisa