Goodbye Kin. Have you heard of the Microsoft brand of smartphone? It was to be the mothership’s answer to iPhone and Droid. The Kin is DOA, dropped by Microsoft two weeks into market.
Heard on the mini-microsoft blog was the possible best eulogy, the Kin may well replace Microsoft Bob as the all time worst M$ product.
The rumblings have started. With no apparent innovation on the horizon, the giant that brought us the tortures of MS Word and its horrendous implementation of monolithic APA rigidity followed by unblinking corporate dweebs everywhere, will apparently lay off employees as quietly, but quickly as possible.
Expect a lot of new MS experts to hit the streets with new upstart tech ventures and resumes soon.
I can almost hear Warren Buffet saying to “thoroughly evaluate the fundamentals of a company”. I wonder how much stock he owns or will have formerly owned in the future in MS?
I remember thinking, the first time I heard of Kin, “This is a terrible idea.” Now it’s going to have a terrible consequence for some people who may be facing the hard cold streets of Redmond soon.
From the capricious detractors who viewed him as General Betray Us to the ardent supporters, all senators on board voted in favor of confirming General David Petraeus to head up the war, excuse me, contingency action, in Afghanistan. How did the same guy move from betrayer of the country to a man who everyone hopes will save us?
The firing of a guy Obama never liked. Conveniently, General Stanley McChrystal may have simply fallen on his sword in frustration over the arduous ROE in the theater making way for Obama to take the Stan out of Afthanistan and to implement a somewhat masked reform of the rules of engagement and get something done in Afghanistan.
Photography of Orange County by photographer Dave Keys http://davekeys.com taken in Orange County of Fullerton, Brea and OC real estate. Views like this make Fullerton homes and Brea homes the envy…
I took this yesterday morning. Used Photoshop for HDR composition from two bracketed shots. Nothing much more than light level adjustments to highlight the San Gabriel Mountains.
Tired of those apps on Facebook? Farmville, Adopt-A-Pet, Zoo Animals and a host of other fishy, smelly, noisy and otherwise pesky apps on Facebook that some of your friends can’t help themselves filling your Facebook page with?
Get FarmVille Killer today. Guaranteed to stop Facebook Apps dead in their tracks before they get to your facebook page!
This product in development – somewhere, I hope!
No, I don’t want to adopt anything you found outside your virtual doorstep…
You know if you’ve tried shooting in low light and wanted to avoid washing out everything with harsh flash that you’re going to end up with either blurry photos or those reddish gold hues that come with pushing up the ISO toward that 1600 mark. Everything looks either pink or yellow or in between.
The information you saw when you took the shot is still there, but you need to use photoshop (or the free opensource Gimp) to extract it and suppress the reds.
Use plenty of layers and both tools, levels and curves to suppress the reds (curves) and bring out the light. Layers will allow you to accomplish much the same as HDR photography, adjusting separate portions of the photo to blend dark and light areas better.
Here’s a sample. In the original photo, the lights of the windows and areas near the outdoor lights are properly exposed but everything has that 1600 ISO red cast. The darker areas are invisible in the source photo but the information is there. After making adjustments in photoshop, the second version is produced. A free Dream Suite component by FX Studio renders the third version after making all the adjustments in photoshop for the second.
A test BBQ post for SEO purposes. Trying out some keywords on BBQ Accessories. Included is my cellphone video I made in August on cooking chicken. The method follows Ruth Chris Steakhouse’s approach to steaks. Start with a temperature as absolutely high as possible.
Regarding cleanup? I hate cleaning the BBQ Grill. I wish there was a BBQ grill accessory that did the job automatically. I know of a startup company I’m doing some work for, that sells perfect BBQ Accessories, actually just one. A grilling stone. (you can buy two) You can see from my video that my chicken is already trying to catch fire. The mess is inevitable. I sold a BBQ on craigslist two years ago and cleaned it with an electric drill with a wire brush attachment. That BBQ sold quick, but the cleanup took hours! A Grilling stone stops that whole process. I favor that. Easy BBQ cleanup.
