Alright, so maybe it isn’t exactly free Photoshop as there are not fancy masking and layering options, but Adobe has put up a working public beta of Photoshop Express. Which is a limited web based image editor that also comes with 2GB of storage and can export to both Google’s Picasa and Yahoo’s Flickr.
If you are thinking of hitting up the test drive before registering with Adobe, keep in mind that you cannot upload any pictures to test with as a guest. Luckily though there is a guest album chalk full of neat pictures to screw around with. After fiddling around with this for a minute or two to snag the screenshot I think it would say Adobe may have gotten online image editing right. This is going to be a great tool for those who might need to do on the go editing or some limited image hosting. But I don’t know what the limitations to that might be just yet.
Keep in mind this is an editing tool and not an image creator. So you don’t get brushes or line tools.
Have you played with Photoshop Express? What do you think about? If there is a better online image editor go ahead and share with us why you think it is better.
Today you might see some changes on Atomac, I have taken the time this morning to upgrade our foundation to WordPress 2.5 and now PolyVector is helping me update Mandigo (our current theme) to 1.32 and getting the site to validate. So a few things might stop working correctly, like comments or the contact page. Hang tight we’ll have everything running correctly before the day is done.
If you are interested in WordPress and want to know what’s going on you can check out the WordPress 2.5 announcement along with all the bug fixes and new features. Those of you who might be using WordPress.com to host your blogs this update hasn’t been done yet, but I am sure you’ll be seeing some changes soon.
Update: Looks like everything should be up and running and Atomac is validating. If you happen to catch any glitches please feel free to comment, email or even IM me if you happen to know how. Don’t be too alarmed if a few things still end up moving around though.
So this month I have been stricken with a huge case of “writer’s block.” I think it has been a combination of deciding on what I am going to do with Atomac as far as long term goals go and socializing. Yep, you heard me right….socializing.
This month PolyVector and I have taken on the huge task of cleaning, organizing and zening out our good friend MasterStillie’s apartment. I won’t go into detail, but just like Polyvector and I MasterStillie is a pack rat. Just recently we have discovered the amazing powers of being zen (read that as being more minimal). Naturally when a friend calls talking about how his apartment makes him sad we are more than happy to lend a hand. This has been the social side of our month. We are taking before and after pictures, but I am going to leave the posting of them up to MasterStillie.
As for the long term goals of Atomac, I just haven’t decided. I would like to go more “pro” and perhaps gain a target audience as well as focus more on the tech side of blogging, but I haven’t really figured out what my edge would be and why people would come to read my take on the various gadgets and software around us. The biggest obstacle to consider right now si also money. I don’t have the funds currently to go out and buy whatever is the latest and greatest. I am limited to getting on the things Polyvector and I need and write a review from there. besides that I also take a much longer time with my reviewing process. I don’t feel a gadget can be seriously reviews from a few lab test hours, but at least a month of vigorous real world testing. This would mean less articles out. Filler is something I am trying to cut out of my blogging. But I am rambling here, I will try and get back into the groove that you all know me for here on Atomac and as I get closer to a concrete decision I will of course let you all know. And please feel free to toss comments at me about how you feel Atomac is right now, and where you might want me spending more time on.
If you are interested in the Mac culture, or gadget culture at all that surrounds many people today than now is a good time to get your hands on Cult of Mac and Cut of iPod by Leander Kahney. His publisher, himself, and Wired have decided on giving the books away for free on Bittorent. I have read bits of Cult of Mac and have always wanted to read the entire book. SO check out the official announcement on Cult of Mac (The Wired Blog), and get your copies!
Cult of Mac torrent | Cult of iPod torrent
I know ever single one of you who comes to this blog wants to be an American Idol. I can feel your immense energy spilling over the tubes we now now as the internet. Don’t deny it.
Ok, in case you couldn’t detect the sarcasm in my above text I just had to come out and share the new workshops Apple is throwing out there for all its store patrons. Apparently if you have an itch to be the next big thing here in America and you love being ridiculed by the awesome washed up actors/artists on the judging panel, then the new Apple Idol on ITunes Songwriter Workshop is for you!
If you are truly interested than please check out the official Apple page on when this free Garageband workshop will be held. If some one does attend this just for kicks (I would hope not for a serious session on learning how to be the next big pop star) please do comment.
We recieved another publication this month that had a little snipet featuring RocketDock. This time it came from Japan in the form of a mini magazine book “Designers’ Desktop 3.”
Over on Punk Labs I talked about migrating RocketDock.com to a new server. It seems RocketDock.com has taken over most of our resources causing spotty stability for not only our RocketDock users but all our other sites including Atomac. So yesterday we went ahead and purchased another dedicated server. Here are the specs:
Intel P4 2.8 GHz
2 GB DDR RAM
120 GB Hard Drive
CentOS
Plesk Control Panel
1.5 TB Monthly Transfer
100 Mbps Line
This is pretty much the same server Punk Labs, Atomac and our other projects are currently hosted on.
The server is already up and running and RocketDock.com has been migrated over. It might take a little bit for your DNS to get updated. The way you can tell if you are looking at the old RocketDock.com is if user registration and upload submissions are disabled. We are hoping this drastically improves our server load for all our sites. So far, so good.
When we got our Time Capsule PolyVector and I began a search for Mac compatible USB dongles that would give his MacBook the ability to connect to an N wifi network. PolyVector has a first gen MacBook, meaning it was released before Apple decided to put N AirPort Extreme cards in all their Macs. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t provide an upgrade kit for the MacBooks nor is there an inexpensive USB dongle out there that supports connecting to an N wifi network on the 5Ghz band. So we took matters into our own hands.
I happened to come across quite a few people who were proud owners of the new AirPort Extreme Base Stations that supported N but happened to have first gen MacBooks. The most common work around for getting their MacBooks to support the new N technology was to simply mod it using an Apple AirPort upgrade kit for a Mac Pro (Pre-2008). PolyVector and I decided we would go ahead with this method and see if it would work for us.
The first thing you have to do is make sure you obtain the right part. You must get a Mac Pro upgrade kit with the part number MA688Z/A or MA688Z/B (which is what we used). You can find this part all around the web, but Amazon happened to be selling one from J&R and for $50USD (compared to the up to $300USD for a compatible USB dongle), it wasn’t that bad a price.
The next step of course would be putting the new AirPort card in your MacBook. Thanks to a tutorial from Hardmac we got through the entire disassembly of the MacBook and getting the chip installed with no problem. PolyVector is now enjoying being wireless once again.
Our first MacBook Mod was extremely successful. Phew!
I recently updated the plugin I am using to enable gravatars here on Atomac, and unfortunately it looks like the plugin code for setting a rating breaks the displaying of all gravatars no matter what rating you choose. Because I am too lazy to go in and fix the code (simply comment out the ability to set the rating) I have just disabled gravatars for the time being. So if you do happen to have a gravatar profile, please continue using that email address when posting a comment since as soon as the plugin is fixed (or I get off my lazy bum to fix it or downgrade) gravatars will once again be shown next to the comments.
For those who might not know what I am talking about you can check out this article on what a “Gravatar” is and how to use one here on Atomac. While the post says I am using a code snippet and have edited my current theme I switched over to the use of the Easy Gravatars plugin.
Update: Looks like it wasn’t a bug with the Easy Gravatar plugin but rather a glitch in the Gravatar service. We should be back to normal now.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately with photos, whether it be screenshots or snaps I am taking of the various gadgets we have been getting. For the past few days I have taken some time to play with various photo manipulation apps. nothing on the size of photoshop, but smaller programs that do what I need. My desktops change very little form month to month, so this time I am happy to say my dock has some different icons thanks to my recent photo geared week.
OS: Mac OS X 10.5.2 “Leopard”
Wallpaper: Luxury Apple by Stratification
Menu Bar Items: iScrobbler, Time Machine, AirPort, Clock, Spotlight
Dock Applications: Finder, Dashboard, Mail, NetNewsWire, Safari, Adium, ecto, Yummy FTP, SubEthaEdit, iTunes, ChocoFlop, iPhoto, Wallet, VoodooPad, Trash
Widgets: iStat Pro, Calendar, Delivery Status, MacAdsensePlus
