PicLens
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 12:00 PM
I stumbled across this really cool browser plug-in called PicLens. Basically, it takes just about any photo website (Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa) and allows you to view the photos in a full-screen browser/slideshow.
The interface kind of reminds me of the full-screen view in iPhoto, with a little bit of "coverflow" thrown it (it’s definitely Mac inspired). It works with all major browsers, and even works with the Apple Remote (assuming you have a newer Mac that came with the Apple remote - I haven’t tested this feature yet, as I have an older iMac).
What’s really cool is that if you browse to a Flickr profile, say http://www.flickr.com/photos/9970718@N03/, and launch PicLens, it will load all of the photos from that profile (not just the ones on the first page). It does the same thing for tags (on Flickr, at least), making it extremely easy to browse, say http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cat/ or http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/chicago.
It’s really easy to install, and doesn’t seem to take up much resources (although, I can see this being really slow on older computers).
My only complaints have to do with some usability issues. First, when you double-click on a photo to see it larger, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. There is a thin little bar beneath the photo to indicate that it’s loading, but it’s not very noticeable. There really needs to be greater visual feedback as to what’s going on (even just making the bar a little bit thicker would help). Then, after the photo loads, it doesn’t enlarge right away - you have to double-click it again! (Although, this doesn’t seem to happen each time.) Third, after you’re done viewing the photo you have to double-click it to shrink it back down and return to the browser wall. I hit the Esc key to do this, which exited PicLens entirely.
Hopefully they’ll correct these minor issues in an upcoming release, but in the mean time it is still worth checking out.
Apple TV Redux
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:19 PM
So, the big news from Macworld Expo ‘08 is the revamped Apple TV with HD movie rentals. At least, that was the big news for me - the MacBook Air is cool, and I’m sure it will be a huge seller, but I don’t consider it “Big News”.
I’ll probably end up buying an Apple TV now that it has the rental service. Eventually. (There are other things that I need/want before this - it’s really just a toy, after all.) But, in the short term, I hope it gives a kick in the pants to Comcast and their “OnDemand” service - especially in the realm of HD. If you don’t have OnDemand, or haven’t used it for HD content, it’s greatly lacking (but has been slowly getting better). With the “new” movies that come out, the selection that’s available in HD is lacking (again, it has been slowly getting better). One thing I haven’t been able to understand is some of the choices for movies that are available in HD. Most of the time the big, “spectacular” movies - the ones that should be visual cinematic treats - aren’t always available in HD, and movies that I could care less to watch in HD are, of course, available in HD.
Like I said, Comcast has been getting better with this, and hopefully the Apple TV will force them to improve their HD selection. Also, this will hopefully force them to lower their pricing for both HD and standard def movie rentals, since Apple is coming in lower than them in both categories.
I should mention, by the way, that Comcast does have quite a bit of free content available in HD (not to mention standard def) - older movies and current TV shows from various network - so that’s a huge plus. I certainly don’t mean to bash Comcast’s OnDemand service, I just sincerely hope that the competition forces them to improve an already decent service.
Netiquette by Force
Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 08:25 AM
If you’ve ever spent any time reading comments on any websites/blogs (particularly anything dealing with “Politics”, “Religion” or “Mac vs. PC"), you’ve got to think that this is a good idea:
I love this, from the FAQ:
Isn’t filtering stupidity elitist?
Yes. Yes, it is. That’s sort of the whole point.
Now, if only someone could come up with a real-life stupid filter.
Why NOT to by a Dell
Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:50 AM
No, it’s not just because Dells are crappy computers, there are deeper reasons not to buy from Dell:
(I thought the article was going to be about their poor quality or bad service. It turned out to be something else altogether.)
Flickr Badge Revisited
Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 09:38 AM
Well, I ended up switching to the HTML Flickr badge due to the interference with the Lightbox effect. I tried updating to the latest version of Lightbox to see if it would fix the problem, since one of the revision notes said that it keeps Flash in the background, but it didn’t. I’d rather have the Flash badge, it’s just so much nicer, but what can I do? I’m going to write to the author of Lightbox, but who knows if I’ll get a response.