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Sunday, July 20, 2003 |
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Totally Tasteless Photoshop ElementsI was just sitting there quietly minding my own business, when Bettina Faltermeier at McGraw-Hill/Osborne let me know about some of the company's new books. With a title like Totally Tasteless Photoshop Elements, this was a book I had to look at. It was not optional. When a box with the book showed up this week, I already had most of this week's show ready, but I thought I'd glance through the book. It was then that I noticed the author, Wally Wang, is listed on the cover as a "stand-up comedian and author". I've never read a software book by a comedian before. So I started leafing through the book. The first thing I noticed was on the copyright page: "The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc." I've never seen a computer book with a disclaimer like that. So then I read the foreword: "This book is dedicated to everyone who loves the idea that they can use their computer to alter their digital photographs -- but who hates the idea of having to learn the so-called user-friendly commands of a program like Photoshop Elements, which was supposedly designed for novices but feels more like it was designed for rocket scientists." And it only gets strangerFirst ... no, I already did "first". Second, there are the pictures. Third, there are the words. Those are the components used in most books, but these are odd. If you're a Bush (either one) Republican or a Clinton Democrat, you'll probably find something to offend you in this book. If you're disturbed by photos of atomic bombs exploding, gigantic squirrels gnawing arms off people, Richard Nixon with a big red clown nose, a Chinese merchant skinning a snake, a man giving beer (even good beer) to a monkey, or gigantic roaches crawling on a birthday cake, this book may not be for you. If you don't care for jokes about how little geography Americans know, the real story of how Gulliver put out the fire at the Royal Palace (it wasn't by spitting on it), or comments that somehow combine Darwin, Congress, and HMOs, this may not be the book for you. But if you want to learn how to make Photoshop Elements (or Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint, or Jasc Photoshop) do fun, interesting, humorous, and gross things with your photographs, this is absolutely the right book for you. And it's not really "totally tasteless" because the book contains probably at least half a dozen photos that won't gross you out. This probably isn't the book most people would buy for an adolescent boy, but most adolescent boys have seen far stranger things that Wally Wang presents in his book, and the book has exactly the kind of (juvenile) humor that will hold an adolescent boy's attention long enough for him to learn something from it. (After all, look how well it held my attention.) I said you can use this book even if you don't have Photoshop Elements and I almost meant that. You'll have to understand the different terms these applications use to describe the same task and you'll find that not all image editing programs have exactly all the features Wang describes. But close enough. And because Wang is a stand-up comedian, his pictures and his drawing skills are no better than yours. In other words, you'll be able to follow the author's instructions and produce an image that looks even better (or possibly worse) than what he did. Along the way, you'll learn how to lighten and darken poor images, how to fix flaws in photographs, how to publish and share your images, and how to replace a cheerleader's head with a cat's head. (Remember the old movie "The Fly"? Hmmm.) Along the way, you'll have a lot of fun reading the book. If you don't have much of a sense of humor, there are lots of other books out there that will tell you about Photoshop Elements. But if you're a little warped and you want to learn Photoshop Elements, head down to the store right now and buy this book! You'll find Totally Tasteless Photoshop Elements at bookstores or you can check it out at www.osborne.com. [Fill in your name], television producerTime was, if you wanted to be a television producer, you had to have a script. Then you needed about 27 bazillion dollars worth of equipment, at least a dozen people to run that equipment, and a big building to put it in. How things have changed! Now you need a digital video camera ($500 and up), a computer ($1500 and up), a way to get the video into the computer ($0 to $200), and a program to edit the video ($0 and up). In other words, you could be working on your own video projects for no more than $2000 -- and that's if you have to buy the camera and the computer. I'm not suggesting that your videos will be of the same quality as those seen on network television. The content and plot might be better, but the technical quality -- even with a digital camera -- won't quite reach "broadcast standards". But that's OK, you'll be watching at home. The exciting thing about some of the new products is that they allow you to take your old VHS or Beta tapes (as long as you have something that will play them) and load them onto your computer. Once they're on the computer, you can edit them and save them to video CD (or to a DVD if your computer has a DVD burner). Adaptec is one of the big players in the market and I spoke recently with
Brian Pridgeon, product marketing manager for Adaptec's Desktop Solutions
Group, about a new line of products that are designed to make the process easy
enough that literally anyone can be a video producer ... For more information, see www.adaptec.com. Danger, Will Robinson!Last week, I told you about a couple of security updates you needed to obtain from Microsoft. One was considered critical, the other less so. This week, there are 3 more security problems (depending on your version of Windows, you may not need 3 updates) and one of these is worse than any we've seen for a while. Security Bulletin MS03-026 deals with a bug that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows® and gain control of it. This problem affect computers running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003. Security Bulletin MS03-027 affect only users of Windows XP (Home and Pro). The bug is in the Windows XP shell. It could allow an attacker to compromise a Microsoft Windows XP-based system and gain control of it. The Windows shell provides the basic framework of the Windows user interface. It is most familiar to users as the Windows desktop. Security Bulletin MS03-028 probably affects few listeners. It is only for users of the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 (ISA Server). This bug could allow an attacker to run programs and access data on a computer running Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000. This issue only affects computers configured to use Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 to connect to the Internet. These are good examples of why it's a good idea to manually check windowsupdate.microsoft.com on a regular basis. Nerdly NewsCisco in deep CriscoCisco makes routers that pretty much run the Internet. This week a big security problem was found in some of the company's popular routers. The problem has been identified and patches are being put into place. In some cases, the change has caused additional problems. Some websites have not been available from some locations. It's a spotty problem and I haven't seen it, but it could happen over the next few days. If you see the problem, at least you'll know what caused it. The Carnegie Emergency Response Team (CERT) at Carnegie Mellon University posted this message: By sending specially crafted IPv4 packets to an interface on a vulnerable device, an intruder can cause the device to stop processing packets destined to that interface. Cisco advised its customers: A device receiving these specifically crafted IPv4 packets will force the inbound interface to stop processing traffic. The device may stop processing packets destined to the router, including routing protocol packets and ARP packets. No alarms will be triggered, nor will the router reload to correct itself. This issue can affect all Cisco devices running Cisco IOS software. This vulnerability may be exercised repeatedly resulting in loss of availability until a workaround has been applied or the device has been upgraded to a fixed version of code. Sales up, profits downIf this keeps up, Apple's success will put it out of business. The company posted a sharp decline in profit this week even though sales were up significantly. Net income was down 41% to $19 million for the 3rd quarter. That's down $32 million from last year's figures. Revenue was up 8% though, hitting $1.55 billion, Apple's best performance in nearly 3 years. Apple had predicted during the spring that 3rd quarter sales would probably not beat 2nd quarter sales ($1.47 billion) but that turned out to be wrong. Apple introduced a lot of new products this quarter, so there were probably substantial R&D and manufacturing start-up costs. Overall the company seems to be continuing on target for a brighter future. Let us know what you think about this program! Write to: |
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