Are you a budding photographer? Or perhaps you are someone that has been taking photographs in a fairly serious fashion for some time? Someone who has just decided to splash out and have moved to their first SLR? Or maybe you got your first digital camera last Christmas and have really caught the bug? However you started in Photography, if you are doing it in anything close to a serious manner you will soon realise that, firstly you are collecting an awful lot of photographs and secondly you’re going to need some way to touch up or manipulate your images.

Photoshop

Most people in this situation will normally will buy image software such as Adobe Photoshop CS3, perhaps starting with the entry level Adobe Photoshop Elements or even one of the free or online image manipulation applications first to see how things go prior to forking out the admittedly large amount of cash required for Photoshop.

Mice or Tablets
Unfortunately when you have used these applications for a while, especially the image manipulation applications, you (well at least I do) begin to find that the mouse gets a bit unwieldy. Have you ever tried drawing any sort of line thats not straight with a mouse and getting the results you wanted? Or delicately touching up the colour in a small area? Doing these things with a mouse can be frustrating to say the least and there has to be a better way. There is, it is called a graphics tablet, and while there is certainly a learning curve to overcome as you retrain yourself off your mouse, a tablet is what the majority of professionals use. If you are finding your mouse a pain it might be worth giving a tablet a go and while they can be expensive there are plenty of good value versions available. The well rated Wacom Bamboo Tablet for instance would be well worth a look. It is supported on both the PC and Macs and often comes with a software bundle as well and shouldn’t break the bank.

Do you use a tablet for your image manipulation?

In the last post we looked at the Sony Vaio TP2 Home Theatre PC a very stylish Media PC that would always look good in the living room. However there are a number of alternatives which may offer a better alternative in terms of system features that while perhaps not quite so stylish as the Sony, still have a set top box look that would fit right in beside the living room TV.

A very good example of this type of media PC is the Acer Aspire iDea 510 Home Theatre PC which sports a DVD player like look, but is able to give all the benefits of a normal PC . One important thing is that this device with the exception of the disk storage has been built using laptop technology rather than standard desktop components, this is means that it is very quiet which is an important factor when looking for a media PC. You don’t want to be turning up the volume just so you can hear the TV over the PC fans!

Like the Sony this device provides 500GB of storage, 1 GB of Ram and a Duel Core processor but it also provides dual TV - tuners allowing you to record two channels at once or record one channel while watching another. One other feature of this device is the vast array of input and output options meaning you would have little difficultly in connecting up to any input or output device. If there was one thing that was missing it would be probably be the lack of a Blu-Ray disc drive but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that in newer devices soon.

All in all a nice complete package that because of the PC capabilities will give you additional value than you would get with something like a Sky +, like the ability to manage music and photos, act as a DVD player & recorder etc. The included wireless keyboard would also allow you to browse the Internet etc.

There also seems to be some good deals around on this particular device at the moment.

Are you looking for a media PC?

The big tech news news this week is the joint launch by the BBC and ITV of Freesat a free satellite television service. Freesat is available to 98% of UK homes, including all those like myself when in the UK, that are unable to receive Freeview through a TV aerial. New users will have to make a single initial payment for a dish, set-top box and installation, but will not pay an ongoing monthly subscription.

So what with a free satellite service and the iPlayer from the BBC and the equivalents from ITV all giving the ability to download content, people are going to need something on which to save that content. For a long time I have looked at buying a media PC that was quiet enough to sit in the living room. Things like the Tivo have been available in the US, and we have the Sky + but media PC’s have yet to really take off in the UK. Things might be about to change however and I thought it might be worth looking at a few examples.

First here is one that would not be out of place in the most stylish living room, the Sony Vaio TP2 Home Theatre PC. Great looks, with a Blu-Ray disc player, a digital TV tuner, 2GB of Ram and 500 GB for all that digital content. The Sony is definately trying to redefine the PC for the living room.

In the next post I will look at another option with perhaps more substance than style. Do you have a Media PC? Is it a device whose time has come?

Following on from the previous post about memory, I thought we would have another look at flash drives. We have had a look at them before but now there are some very large capacity flash drives available which are becoming more and more cost effective.

Convenience of a floppy disk

OK so hands up how many of you remember floppy disks? How many have still got a floppy disk drive in your computer? Floppy disks are pretty much a thing of the past, although I do have to admit to remembering a time when they were one of the newest things around, but perhaps the least said about that the better! Things moved on and the writable CD appeared which while it was less convenient, it provided a lot more storage space. The thing about a writeable CD though was that they were nowhere near as easy to use as a floppy drive. It was much more of a process compared to the stick the disk in, drag your contents across, and away you go process with the floppy disk. Unfortunately CD’s were soon not big enough either as storage requirements where also increasing as we started hoarding digital content like music and photographs

Enter the flash drive

Nowadays the flash drive or USB stick have become the standard manual way of moving data from computer to computer or for the temporary storing of data. And they are great, we are back to a nice easy of capturing any data that you want to go. But of course storage requirements keep rising and I am finding that my trusty 1GB Flash drive is at times just not big enough. The good news is that there are some huge capacity drives available that while a little more expensive will not break the bank. Take a look at the Corsair 16GB Voyager USB Flash Drive for example which is what I am considering for my next flash drive. Very useful for travel.

How do you use your flash drive?

Hot on the heals of yesterdays post about the BBC’s iPlayer being released on the Nintendo Wii comes the news that iPlayer is available on the Playstation 3! However in this case its not official, but has been done through the enterprising efforts of a PS3 owner who wasn’t willing to wait for an official version.

iPlayer easy on the PS3

Apparently the owner did it as a demonstration on how easy it would be for the BBC to support the PS3, and according to his website required only small tweaks to make the Javascript and CSS to make it work. Meanwhile the BBC have said that they will get around to the implementing the iPlayer on the PS3, but that this would have to wait in line along with all the other plans for the player. However the fact that someone has manage to get the iPlayer working on the PS3 has so impressed the BBC that they have offered them a job!

So with the iPlayer reasonably imminent, and with Sony’s Blu-ray winning the DVD format wars, now might be a good time to invest in a new Playstation 3.

How do you plan to access the iPlayer?

One of the biggest ideas from a technology perspective to hit the UK recently has been the BBC iPlayer. After a slow start this technology has really begun to take off, especially since the ability to stream programmes rather than just download them was added. In fact the popularity of the service has grown so much that the UK Internet service providers (ISP) are now complaining about the strain that it is putting on their networks. Being based in Dubai where the available TV is generally very poor, I am extremely envious of the UK residents ability to access the technology. Especially since I am still actually a holder of a UK TV licence!

Future plans

However having now got the technology now more or less sorted out the BBC are looking to add incremental new features to the service over the coming months, which should increase the usability and appeal of the service still further. So the UK ISP’s had better get their networks sorted out!

Wii to become iPlayer access device

One example of this incremental approach is the fact that the iPlayer will soon be available on the Nintendo Wii, which has become the fastest selling games console ever launched in the UK. The iPlayer will be soon be a channel on the Wii with an early test version available from this month, followed by updated versions later in the year. If you do plan to use this service, you may find that a USB Datel Direct LAN Adapter makes good sense rather than relying on the WiFi, especially if streaming.

Do you use the iPlayer?