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On a day when I hear that Aperture 3 will not ship until May, 2010 ((Don't believe it - it's just the far-in-the-distance date of an Aperture book, and not even soft proof of anything except a slip-up or a guess by someone at Amazon.com.)), Adobe offers up Lightroom 3.0 Public Beta. The download is here.

Features:

• Redesigned Importing - I like Aperture just fine here, and particularly like how it manages my images.
• Drag and Drop Publishing to the Web - I can do this too, but it might be nice on occasion to have it be simpler than relying on plugins (as with Aperture).
• Pro-Level Noise Reduction - Depending on how it works, either "eh" or "yes, please!"
• Built-in Film Grain Feature - Cuz you'll use this feature, what, twice, ever?
• Better Vignetting - "Eh."
• Export a Slideshow with Music - "Eh deux."
• Real Watermarking - Aperture's watermarking always leaves me guessing so much I simply opt not to watermark, so this might be good.
• Create Print Layouts Everywhere - I don't print.
• Change Background Color for Prints - I still don't print.
• Collections Panel is now in Develop Module - I'm still not entirely sure I like the idea of having "modules" to begin with.

I'll download it, but I'm not even sure I'll install it.

What are your thoughts?

Oh, and where the heck is Aperture 3.0? Or even any chatter about it? Why can't Apple do something public like this ((And before anyone responds to this part, I know why, and I still think it's a stupid reason.))?

P.S. 68.1 MB for Mac OS X, 120 MB for Windows, both as .zip files?

Alternative title: "Everything Wrong with Microsoft":

Seriously?

P.S. Microsoft even poached store managers: Lisa at Apple, Lisa at MSFT (thanks ap).

So the wisdom teeth I said I needed to have removed? They came out today.

I went with nitrous because it seemed like one of those decisions that you can regret later on… after it's too late. Turned out I really wouldn't have needed it at all.

Both teeth popped out in about thirty seconds. They pried into the "inter-ligamental space" (or something like that), wiggled them a little, and popped them right out.

I took 400 mg of Advil already (this may be enough I'm told), but if I want to live out any Greg House fantasies I have a vicodin prescription ready and waiting.

The fridge and freezer are stocked with puddings and ice creams. I have gauze soaking up any remaining blood, and I should be good to go. I'm going to take it easy over the next few days, and perhaps I'll update this post if anything strikes me. But right now, things seem fine (knock on wood).

P.S. I really hate having gauze in my mouth. I have a hard time resisting the urge to swallow.

I like the recommendations. I've always used SoundTrack Pro, but I may look at getting a boom, an XLR mic, and the M-Audio stuff eventually.

On the bright side, my wireless mic finally shipped. It should be here Monday.

Let's see…

I don't need an iMac. We have three laptops and one Power Mac already.

I use my Xbox 360 and Rivet to stream movies and music and things to my TV, so I don't need a Mac Mini.

We just got a MacBook, so we don't need that.

A new remote? I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've used the one I have.

Magic Mouse? I need buttons, like the 10 or so my Logitech has.

Guess my wallet stays in my pocket this time around. 🙂

If you are a Flash developer looking for a project, please get in touch with me.

If you know a Flash developer looking for a project, please get in touch with me.

🙂 Thanks.

They're everywhere, I know. I wrote about some earlier ones here and today I discovered a new case in Preview.

Dragging a proxy icon to the trash did nothing. But opening the trash and dragging the proxy icon to the trash can's window properly moved the file to the trash.

Perhaps now that things like the Finder are re-written and, presumably, up-to-date, and Snow Leopard in general was a "fine-tuning" type of release, Apple engineers can focus on the little things that drive some people nuts. Proxy icons would make that list, I'd have to think.

I have two Alien Bee 400s, but I may just have to replace them with an Einstein 640ws in early 2010. Rob Galbraith shares more here.

Here's what I need to be able to do:

1. Play video via Flash, including support for slow-speed and frame-by-frame playback.
2. Position a second layer of Flash above the movie along with some basic drawing tools.
3. Save the drawings (lines, circles, etc.) to the proper spots in the video in such a way that the drawing objects will appear or disappear at the appropriate times in playback.

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I wonder if Snow Leopard's propensity for "losing" USB devices is related to the AppleEvents bug I wrote about yesterday.

It seems like it could be, right?

P.S. Snow Leopard lost my keyboard twice today. Both were coincidentally after I had switched Spaces with a keyboard shortcut (ctrl-1, -2, -3). Yesterday it lost my mouse while using Aperture's spot correction tool.

So five years ago I wrote a very short post at The Sand Trap detailing an interaction I had with an online retailer. It's here.

Go ahead and read a few of the comments. I'll wait. Note how the guy was sued by the Illinois Attorney General late in 2007.

The guy recently discovered this five-year-old post and is now harassing me via email. I've asked him to stop, and then blocked him in my badmailfrom file.

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As I tweeted, I'd like to host an online moderated chat tomorrow and I'm looking for some recommendations on some good websites to use.

I'd like to host a chat tomorrow with two guests who can talk freely and x "viewers" who can ask (moderated) questions. Recommendations?

The fall-back plan is to ditch the guests and just use AIM, but I'd much rather do the moderated chat with guests.

So, recommendations? I'm not opposed to paying a little if it's a good service.

Update: To clarify what I want: I want three people (myself included) to be able to type freely. I want x number of people who can view everything and post questions to a moderation queue for my approval (or discarding). I don't need screen sharing, video, voice, etc. I do want to save the log of the entire chat for editing and posting as an article later on.

Yes, please!

P.S. Isn't this more like "Spaces" than "Exposé," though?

P.P.S. I also agree with this and disagree with Tog.

Aha! This explains why some of my AppleScripts have said they have "timed out." Specifically, I have an AppleScript that scrapes a few forums and opens every thread to the first unread post. It's a simple script but it still sends 10 to 20 "open URL" AppleEvents every time I run it (along with AEs to get the source of the page, etc.).

It made no sense to me that the event would "time out," but now it's clear… in what sense it's timing out. It's never coming back. It's a "lost packet" in a way.

Hopefully this can be fixed soon.

With two DirecTV DVRs, each having equalled and even surpassed the TiVo(s) they replaced, things have been going along swimmingly. We're recording everything we want, including Penguins hockey games, and not missing anything.

But, as with all things tech, I'm not satisfied. There are two features I'd love to see implemented.

The first is sharing of content from the hard drive of one DVR to the TV attached to the second. DirecTV already supports sharing content with your Windows PC - though it doesn't work within Parallels and might never be available to Mac OS X users - so why not share recorded content from one DVR to another? There are occasions when I'd like to lie in bed and watch something I recorded in the living room. It'd remove the "where?" question from the "I want to record this show" process.

I don't expect this to go over the cable, so network connectivity could be a requirement, just as it is with the DirecTV2PC software.

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