February 27th, 2005
The website of NOWGSM is about as bad as it gets… but they do sell the very-clever-if-it-works Super Sim 16-in-1 device.
A lot of photographers who travel a lot end up with a load of local pre-paid / pay-as-you-go SIM cards for different countries. This device should let you clone up to 16 different SIM cards onto their one special SIM card, and then you can switch between the different accounts. It appears, at least from the picture there, that if you have a smartphone like the SonyEricsson P910 (or maybe others too) then you can switch between lines via a menu.
Note that it doesn’t work on all SIM cards, and may be illegal in some countries.
February 27th, 2005
As written previously on this site, the Olympia dualphone is a good-looking cordless phone that lets you make calls via Skype or via normal landlines, all from the same handset.
It seemed like ordering one was a bit difficult, but now there is a UK supplier i-fones which is currently selling them at £79.95 inc. VAT - which makes it pricier than the Firebox phone but you get a lot more for your money. Sadly it remains a Windows-only product.
If anyone’s actually got one I’d be interested to know how it performs.
February 24th, 2005
10 x 10 is an interesting site that trawls various news sources on the web (currently Reuters, BBC, & New York Times) and each hour presents via an innovative flash interface a grid of the top 100 world images that hour, ranked in order of importance, reading left to right, top to bottom. Along the right edge of the screen are listed the corresponding top 100 words, one for each image. There’s a full explanation of how it works here.
February 22nd, 2005
I recently stumbled across an online magazine produced by Getty Images called “Edit” which has some quite interesting photo features and suchlike. They describe it as “A magazine by the people who create images, for the people who use them”.
February 20th, 2005
This site has been going for about four months now… and I’m curious as to how many people are regularly or occasionally reading it because it does take a fair bit of effort to keep it going. So if you do, would you be so kind as to leave a comment on this post to let me know, along with any opinions you might have about where it’s good or where it could be improved…
Thanks
Ben
P.S. - To send a comment you have to enter your name and email address (to help stop spammers, of which there are many), but your email address will NOT be made publicly visible on the site.
February 20th, 2005
Dan Chung has gotten his hands on a pre-production Nikon D2X and written a small hands-on review of it, which is favourable overrall but notes a diagonal-line noise problem at 800ASA. Of course this is a pre-production model so one can’t be sure if the final camera will be the same. Whilst on the subject, there’s also a DPReview article on the D2X.
February 18th, 2005
As written in a previous post, there’s a few solutions to using Skype for VoIP services that enable you to use a “real” phone. The latest attempt, and seemingly quite good, is the Firebox VoIP Cyberphone which can be yours for thirty pounds. Nice design, and looks good to use. The only disadvantages are that you still need a computer switched on for it to be plugged in to via USB - no plugging it straight into your router - and there’s no mac support which is very disappointing.
Firebox VoIP Cyberphone
Review of it by The Register
Review of it by Engadget
UPDATE 04/04/05: These phones are rebranded versions of the Cyberphone K and are also available from the UK retailer Maplins.
February 16th, 2005
Panic’s ftp client Transmit has been one of the Mac apps that’s been around for as long as I can remember, and I know a lot of photographers use it, so if you do you’ll want to check out the latest version 3.
February 13th, 2005
Those wanting a handy overview of the legal rights pertaining to photographers might want to check out these two sites, which have downloadable pdf leaflets. I haven’t examined them, as I don’t live anywhere with legal rights for photographers any more, but here they are:
UK Photographers Rights Guide
US Photographers Rights Guide
February 11th, 2005
The winners of this year’s World Press Photo contest have been announced. Photo galleries of the winning images can be found here.
February 4th, 2005
Adobe has released an update to its Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop CS, now up to version 2.4, which includes updates to support Raw files from the Canon EOS 20D, PowerShot S70, PowerShot G6, and EOS-1Ds Mark II.
February 2nd, 2005
Sometimes you need to send very large files to people, and even if your email server supports large attachments, the likelihood is that theirs doesn’t. Ideally one would use ftp but that involves logins, passwords, etc etc… and for a one-off sending it may not be worth the hassle.
However I’ve recently come across a great, free, service called YouSendIt that lets you send files up to 1GB in size to anyone anywhere. Basically you upload the file via a web browser to their server, then the server automatically emails your recipient (or multiple recipients) a link to the file where they can download it from any web browser. The file is automatically deleted after seven days, or it can be done manually. And there’s even a secure service so that the transfer is encrypted over ssh. All in all a very simple and efficient way to transfer very large files.
YouSendIt (Standard)
YouSendIt (Encrypted)
