(or “Shit Clients Say”)

My significant other is a fashion photographer and retoucher. She recently had a conversation with a new client who’s runs a hair salon. It went like this:

Hair Bloke: Hey, I’ve got a lead for you. Do you retouch passport photographs?
My GF: Not usually. It depends what they want.
Hair Bloke: Just retouching. Blemishes removing – that sort of thing. I know three people who want it doing before their holiday.
My GF: OK
Hair Bloke: There’s a place in town that does it for $7. Can you match that?
My GF: No, sorry. My hourly rate is quite a bit higher.

(Pause)

Hair Bloke: So, how much does this Photoshop thing cost then?

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/Ao3n6FGhJw5

There was a brief moment of euphoria, wasn’t there? iBooks Author was going to be a game changer. In a digital publishing landscape that is either expensive (Adobe Digital Publishing Suite) or clunky (Kindle Direct Publishing), iBooks Author was going to be free and easy.

And then people remembered who they were dealing with. Apple – the company that pulled Adobe’s hair until it was forced to abandon Flash on mobile platforms… And then we started looking at the terms and conditions. That’s why I’m using the past tense.

Let’s back up a bit. iBooks Author is a simple, digital book creation tool that enables authors to pour text, images and interactivity into modular templates. It understands things like chapters and content tables, so you don’t have to kludge them together in Word or InDesign. Best of all, it costs authors nothing at the point of use.

The iBooks Author announcement was the tasty filling in the middle of Apple’s new education initiative/sandwich announcement. Short version: “Textbooks for everyone!” they cried. Everyone with an iPad.

So, yeah, though iBooks Author could be a great tool for any kind of digital book – or even magazines – textbooks for schools and colleges are the intended output.

And that’s where we come to the EULA. +Devindra Hardawar was the first person to pop his hand up and say that maybe iBooks Author wasn’t so cool after all: http://goo.gl/trnMV

+Suw Charman at Forbes developed the theme: http://goo.gl/ed1j0

The EULA says that if you want to make money from the books you create with iBooks Author, you have to submit them to the iBookstore. And, as many App-makers have discovered, your work may not be accepted. That’s a lot of effort for no return. Furthermore, you can export files as PDF from iBooks Author – but the EULA says that if you do that, you can only give that work away for free.

If you really want to know all the nuts and bolts +Matt Gemmell has a super-dooper blow by blow blog post, free of sturm und drang, over here: http://goo.gl/gF9lb

Let’s be positive about this though. iBooks Author is actually pretty nice. As easy to use as Evernote or Bento and satisfyingly free of the real-world textures Apple seem determined to bolt onto every interface post-Lion (GarageBand, Address Book, etc)

If nothing else, iBooks Author is a significant wake-up call for costly pay-at-the-point of publishing services like PugPig, Adobe Digital Publishing Suite and Aquafadas Digital Publishing. Apple’s EULA is, of course, a land grab to make profit from their closed platform. But the cost to publishers is mostly invisible, because it’s taken from profit (like KDP).

iBooks Author = Free + Easy. But you dance with the devil by the pale moonlight.

What’s required, to break this deadlock? Maybe an open, browser based publishing platform. HTML5-powered. Subscription based. +Netflix for books. +Spotify for magazines.

Zinio’s not it. They only deal with established publishers and make sneaky deals out of sight of mere mortals. Issuu (www.issuu.com) is almost there, with an HTML5 powered Android reader and a (rejected) Apple reader app. But Issuu – and many of its ilk – lack front-end creation tools and the browser version is Flash powered.

Who’s going to fill the gap? Publishing industry asplosion in 10,9,8,7…

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/TYNbnjpRjGs

Paul, welcome to 1992.

Reading futurists getting linear media wrong has been a hobby of mine for a quarter of a decade…

Paul begins by saying that it shouldn’t take much to kill Hollywood, as it’s already dying.

“Hollywood appears to have peaked,” says Graham, “If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline.’

But Hollywood is not dying. It is merely adapting to becoming a category.

Calling for the development of “new forms” of entertainment won’t contain the stranglehold of Hollywood. New forms of entertainment eat into the pie… but the idea that everyone will gladly and gleefully switch to RPG style, immersive movie narratives is specious. It’s predicated on the logical fallacy that – if only they could – people would prefer to author their own content.

If people craved interaction so much, choose your own ending novels would have taken over in Dicken’s time. But they didn’t, because there’s still a market for linear, authored entertainment – and there always will be. As long as people want to be surprised and entertained or moved or manipulated – they will put their trust in the hidden and skilled hand of the director or author who can do it for them. Just as – now – there will always will be a market for games and interactive entertainment, and user generated content.

Different strokes, different folks.

Killing Hollywood is cutting off our noses with Freddy Krueger’s five bladed glove. What Hollywood truly needs to learn is how to do digital distribution. It’s not the content that’s outmoded – it’s Hollywood’s delivery systems. Don’t mix ‘em up.

In the meantime, we have an uneasy truce. They keep making awesome content, we keep stealing it – until they find a better way to get it to us.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/bCnQ46Ywd7m

It may be the first “full course” – but it’s not the UK’s first provision. I know because modules I developed for BA Journalism and BSc Photographic Journalism at +Leeds Metropolitan University had workshops on smartphone photography and mobile media a year ago…

Smartphones (Android, iOS) are core tools for journalists and creatives now, offering us the ability to take photographs in situ, record video and audio – even file copy. Your phone’s an Internet connection, a memo pad, a contacts book and – well – a phone. No journalist should be without one. No one who makes any kind of content should be without one.

But it’s nice to see the rest of the world catching up

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/jW7njHwvTSu

You don’t need a crystal ball or a degree in tea leaf divination to know that brand + price point x Amazon’s attention to detail (and distribution back end) is pretty much destined to equal TEH SPARKLING SHINY AWESOME.

But I have a crystal ball and I will make the following rash and baseless predictions, based on hunches, intuition and being two cabillion years old in Internet years.

* The Kindle Fire won’t kickstart a secondary tablet market. It will be the secondary tablet market. People who didn’t consider a tablet before will consider one now.

* The Fire will burn some of the iPad’s sales – because the price point and Amazon’s distribution chops will slurp up a lot of impulse purchases:

Tablet devices for kids.
Second tablets.
Student tabs.

The choice in this category before was either “yuck-don’t-want that expensive-thing-I’ve-never-heard-of”… or iPad.

* The Kindle Fire will be the Christmas must-have for adult gifting. Just like the Kindle 3 was last year. Also, “gifting” is my favourite word today. Typing it feels chewy and nice.

And, I know, I know – the Kindle Fire isn’t quite an Android tab, like your proper Android tabs. Like the Xoom or Galaxy or Eee Pad. But you know who doesn’t care about that? Your Mom.

And your Mom shops at Amazon.

It’s way into November and, like many geek-men, I’m growing a moustache to benefit men’s health charity Movember. All proceeds go towards cancer research.

If you haven’t already donated to Movember, please consider donating a couple of dollars to me. It’s a really good cause.

It doesn’t have to be much. I suggest the price of a beer. Just one beer. In the immortal words of Bob Geldof “Don’t go to the pub tonight. Stay in and give us the money.” Here’s the link.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/hfSCHby5bh3

Yeah, like, I’m excited for Tintin. He really deserves to be in 3D and made into a film written by Stephen Moffat and directed by Peter Jackson and Spielberg. I’m excited for Tintin. You fictional character, you.

Just stop it.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/KnLnSK4gyA4

Still, unless I’m completely mistaken, Storify lacks user search for Storified content… You can search for Storify content when creating a story, but not when landing on the front page as a consumer.

Am I mistaken? Is it hidden somewhere in plain sight that I’ve missed? If not, it seems like a fairly fundamental UI omission.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/dSzNTivv6N5

I struggled with the open source Synergy for a while and found it a bit on the glitchy/IMPOSSIBLE TO CONFIGURE side (especially in a mixed 64/32 bit Mac/Windows environment, which is where I live).

ShareMouse, launched at the end of August, is install-and-use-tastic. I put it on on a Hackintosh and a Win 7 PC. The “monitor manager” window lets you virtually position your screens. To switch between them you just keep going when you hit the edge of your monitor – just like any shared set-up. And, you can drag and drop files between screens too.

Currently in beta so, therefore, currently free.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/DUEYV4uZbJd