Software "Updates"

Yesterday was all about Realmac Softwares RapidWeaver.

I have used RapidWeaver since version 3.5 and I have followed along the sometimes bumpy ride of updates, right up until version 4+

Version 5.0 was released on December 1, and apart from the usual bug fixes and a “resource” feature (single folder storage of all your websites assets, replacing per page assets), there was not a lot that I could see to recommend it as it was a paid upgrade.

Then along comes the Mac App Store, and RapidWeaver 5.0 is now priced at £23.99. At that price, an upgrade was definitely in my near future.

So, do I upgrade using the untried and untested Mac App Store route, or I do bite the bullet an pay a few extra pounds and stick to the more traditional method?

To test out the Mac App Store I bought a copy of GarageBand 11 to see what would happen to my installed GarageBand 09. I suspected that, as the user has no control over the installation destination, then it would overwrite my existing install - and that is exactly what happened.

So for RapidWeaver, I chose the traditional route. I saw the price at £26.62 and thought, “OK, that’s a few pounds dearer than the App Store” - but of course Realmac had chosen not to display the VAT along with the price, which was a nice surprise when I got to the checkout.

End result was I got RapidWeaver 5.0 from Realmac at £31.94.

Oh, and by the way, after downloading the software I found some obvious bugs that shouldn’t have made it out into the world, and found that I had been pointed to the initial 5.0 release, not one containing the bug fixes Realmac brought out a few days later (V 5.01, then V 5.02). An update from within RapidWeaver brought me up to the latest version.

So, was it all worth it? Like most things, it depends. I regularly maintain 6 web-sites, and occasionally work on about a dozen more with RapidWeaver so I can’t afford to have it not work properly. Thankfully, I can run both V 5+ and V 4+ on the same machine without too many problems - you just need to be rigorous in keeping the project files separated! (And having both installed was another reason why I should have gone the Mac App route!) Also, you must upgrade to the latest versions of all your plug-ins (preferably before you install V 5).

If you maintain many websites with RapidWeaver on a professional basis then be cautious - there are still issues lurking about with the V 5 “upgrade” that could cause your re-publishing time to be very much longer than you are used to, and also colour picker problems - but Realmac say that they are working on these problems.

Incidentally, there were separate issues with the App Store version as well, which means that the App Store version is now on V 5.03, while my version number is V 5.02. Hopefully this will all come together in the near future.

If you upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.6 and have the Mac App Store then go that route. If you are still on 10.5.8 then you have to go the Realmac website route.
Assuming, of course that you want to upgrade given the issues.

For your reference:
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/forums/index.php/forums/viewthread/42058/
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/forums/index.php/forums/viewthread/41461/

I have downgraded to the latest V 4 release, and that’s where I will stay for my production sites. I will still experiment with V 5, but I will not use it for anything important until the bugs are ironed out.

Bottom Line: RapidWeaver V5+ wasted a lot of my time - and while it cost me money too, the time lost is something I can never recover.
Not happy.

A pleasant kind of madness...

I am an aspiring photographer.
Some days I think I could approach world-class. Others, meh!

So today I left the house while it was still dark, rugged up warm against the cold (-5.5C) and proceeded down to the shore, where I set up my tripod and camera and started to wait for the light.
I was about 45 minutes early for sunrise.

So what does one do to pass 45 minutes in the cold?

Simple - one puts in ones earbuds, starts up the 60's classics playlist on the iPhone and dances.

Yes folks, if you hear of a crazy person standing on the shore before dawn, doing an incomprehensible series of movements that might, in some far out place in the world, be construed as dancing, then I was that person.

And you know what? I had a ball!

And I even got this - not world class, but I like it.



As I say, a pleasant kind of madness.

Web Makeover

I was bored with the look of my website.
I was using Rapidweaver with specific plugins for my photo album and I was bored with that, too.
I couldn't see my photos on my iPhone or iPad from my website (no Flash), so I looked around for an html only photography gallery type generator.
Turns out I had one all the time - Aperture 3 does "web pages" and "web journals".

In Aperture 3, select some photos, select new from the Menu, choose Web page or Journal (the journal allows you to add text blocks to your pages), set up your options and then "export" it to disk (or MobileMe, of course!)
So, that's what I did.
Then using Rapidweaver, I took my existing site, changed the theme and removed the unused pages plus my photography pages. I put in a "placeholder" page for the Aperture 3 webjournal, then exported the site to disk.
I used cut'n'paste to move the content of the source of the webjournal to where the source of the content of photography page would be, and then moved that file into the exported webjournal. I then moved the whole of the webjournal site over the top of the placeholder photography page in the Rapidweaver site. End result was that I had a lovely themed photography journal, integrated into my sites new theme.
Some css tweaks were needed to get the navigation working correctly on the webjournal pages, and I haven't as yet, themed the individual photo pages, but the end result looks fine to me.

Time from start to finish? 4 hours.

And the moral of this story? Well, I would say:" Choose your tools well"

Weekend Shoot

Yesterday I went to a local (man-made) pond where the local model boat club sails their creations. Sometimes it's serious racing, and sometimes it is just for fun.
I got there when most were heading for home and only a few die-hards had boats on the water.
Not to be deterred, I smiled, asked permission to shoot (you don't need to, but it's just manners to do so :-) ) and started.
So, we had moving subjects, unpredictable winds, varying light (intermittent cloud cover), swans, a new lens, and the background(s) were not great.
All the ingredients of a fun shoot ;-)

To see some of what I came up with, I put them here:
http://web.me.com/shanek54/ModelBoats/Photos.html

After about half an hour, I started talking to one guy whose boat wasn't in the water. We chatted about the boat and he was saying he made models for fun and he would bring down his air-craft carrier model one Sunday. It is 8+ feet long! I sure hope I am around that Sunday!

All in all, a pleasant Sunday and I got some practice with my new lens.
For the gearheads, I was using my Pentax K200D with a consumer zoom lens, the Pentax smc DA 55-300 f4-5.8.
Most photos are F7.1, ISO 100 - shutter speed varies. Website photos are low-res jpgs.

As I normally do with personal shoots like this, I make the photos available to anybody in that local club that wants them, with the only proviso being that if they use them for their website or for club promotion, then I get a credit ( © Shane Kelly ).
That's fair, no?

More on Photographic Competitions

I have spoken about Photography competitions before - but only about the local "League" ones. Today, I am going to talk about a competition run by a commercial entity here in Scotland.
The Whitelee Windfarm is currently "planting" huge windmills over the Eaglesham moor, about 20 minutes from central Glasgow. They are owned (apparently) by ScottishPower, and are making all the right environmental noises on their web site. I have no issue with this aspect of their operation.
What I do have issue with is the use of a "photographic competition" that is nothing more than a "picture rights grab".
Whitelee (or ScottishPower) have decided that getting amateurs to submit photographs in the hope of winning a £130 point and shoot camera is the best way to get images that they can then use for publicity purposes.

Nothing wrong with that, you say?
And I might have agreed with you if I had not read the "Terms and Conditions" closely.

Number 13 states:
"All entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party. The entrants must be the sole owner of copyright in all photographs entered and are responsible for obtaining all third party permissions to the taking of the photographs and use of those photographs in accordance with these terms and conditions. In particular, you represent and warrant that consent has been obtained from any clearly identifiable person appearing in any image to the taking of the image and the use of that image in accordance with these terms and conditions. Further, entrants must not have breached any laws when taking their photographs."

So, it needs to be your own work - fair enough. You must have had permission to enter and shoot on the land from which you took the photo, and if there is a recognisable person in the shot, you need a model release. And lastly, the photograph must have been taken lawfully.
Simple for a professional, onerous for an amateur.

Lets look at number 14:
"Entrants must not have offered any of their entries for sale or been paid for any publication of any of their entries. In addition, all images submitted must not have been published elsewhere or have won a prize in any other photographic competition."

So, basically, they are looking for new images that have not been published, even on your own website, or your flickr or facebook page. They want you to go out and get new pictures for them.

Lets see what no 15. says:
"Entrants will retain copyright in the photographs that they submit to the competition. By entering the competition all entrants grant to ScottishPower Renewables a royalty-free worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual right to use, publish, reproduce and exhibit any or all of that entrant's submitted photographs in any media format in any of its publications, websites and/or in any promotional or marketing material and to grant such rights to any third party to do same. This may include, but is not limited to, use of the photographs in accordance with paragraph 12 above. No fees will be payable for any of the above uses or for any of the rights granted by entrants hereunder. Entrants whose photographs are one of the Top Ten also agree to take part in post-competition publicity. While ScottishPower Renewables makes every effort to credit photographers, including in printed reproductions of their work, it cannot guarantee that every use of the photographs will include photographers’ names."


Basically, you give up all rights (except copyright) for any use of the image forever, while ScottishPower go on using it for nothing in any form (even ones not invented yet) - and they can assign the right to use it to third parties (i.e. anyone else they want) - and this not only pertains to the winners, but to all entries. On top of that, the top ten have to help publicise the windfarm, and it is not even guaranteed that you will get a mention!

Let's put this in perspective.
The conditions of this competition would not be accepted by a professional photographer without a substantial fee - the licensing provisions are simply too broad. They negate the use of the image for any other purpose that might earn the professional some income - nobody wants to use an image closely associated with another business.
So Scottish Power have decided it is cheaper (both in terms of publicising their Windfarm, and in getting some images that they can use for any purpose forever) to offer a pitiful "prize" instead of paying out £1000's per image to a professional.

Bottom line? You're legally responsible for everything about the picture - if you are not in the top ten you get nothing, and your pictures could still be used under the conditions stated above. If you are in the Top Ten, but not in the top three, you get a "goodie bag" with unknown contents. What's the bet it contains promotional material for ScottishPower?

If you want to enter the competition under those rules, then go ahead. I think you're crazy, but that's just my opinion.

Why do I care?

I have wanted to "do photography" for many years. I remember being fascinated by the strange numbers on the lenses of the old film cameras that I used to see in my grandmothers garage (they belonged to my dead grandfather). When I got a bit older I got an old box brownie (second hand) but we couldn't afford to get the photos printed. I used to use that camera to pretend to take pictures.
Fast forward to today. I can afford a digital camera and a selection of lenses and other gear, and I am taking more photos than ever before. Sometimes I even think I've got a keeper.

Now, I am not a "joiner" - I don't join clubs unless they have a purpose relevant to what I need ( I was a member of several Chess clubs, when I fancied myself as a decent Chess player - now the goddamn GNU Chess programs beats me all the time!) and I have never joined a sports club or Gym or for more than a few weeks ( all that sweat and effort! ).

But I have joined a photography club.
And I put my pictures in to be judged in the local "League" competition.
And inevitably they get panned - sometimes on technical grounds, but mostly on "artistic grounds".
And that's fair enough, for the technical reasons.

But what most annoys me is the "artistic grounds". We all know that beauty/art/whatever is in the eye of the beholder, and my head tells me that the judge is applying his criteria and his experience to a picture, and that it is nothing personal, but my gut tells me the bastard doesn't know what he is talking about.

And you know what - both reactions are correct!

My head is right - it is not personal - from the judges point of view, and my gut is right - it is very personal to me.

So, the bottom line is, I learn from the technical critique, and I get an insight into what another person thinks of my pictures "artistically" - and if I ever want to improve my pictures "artistically" according to someone elses criteria, then I can. But I won't. It's my "artistic" vision and I will continue to follow it. It might be judged to be crap by the world, but it says something to me ( and about me, for all I know!).
If you are going to "do photography" for your pleasure, then do it the way you want.

Participation

I spend a lot of time on-line. I look at hundreds of blog sites and hundreds of photos each month. I read dozens and dozens of articles on everything under the Sun - from the best way to live in a van to the progress of the Large Hadron Collider. I read tweets (hundreds and hundreds) and occasionally tweet something myself. I email. I surf. I flipbook.
In short, I consume. I consume in vast quantities, and I want more - and more - and more AND I don't want to pay (well, alright, a little bit - but not that much!).

In a second or two when I was not slurping up the products of someones else efforts, I thought:- "What would happen if everybody just produced ONE thing?"

Well, the internet would be a vastly more interesting place, for one. It might take some of the pressure off the inveterate producers of digital goodies, as well. It could help convince those organisations that simply moved their "real world goods" to the Internet (and continued to charge "real world" prices) that they don't own the game anymore. And, if you did it, it might even make you feel as though you were part of something bigger than you had ever been a part of before.

So, i just produced something - a slideshow of my photography set to music and themed with "a calming, tranquil" goal in mind. Each photograph is from Scotland, and while not technically perfect (is anything?), they are some of the ones that "stick in my mind" - for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, here it is, in a form suitable for an iPod/iPhone and one for the iPad/Mac/AppleTV and for all you HD fans, here's a 720HD version. The first is around 46M and the second is just under 160M, while the third weighs in at 272M. Large sizes, I know - but to make what I wanted I wasn't going to compromise (and spare a thought for me - I uploaded them from a 448k uplink :-( ). If you are a Windows user then either transcode them to your preferred format or install QuickTime for the PC.

If you like it, leave a comment. If you hate it, leave a comment.