I thought I’d write about my technology roadmap so you can understand why I decide to change certain bits of technology after certain times. With new products and developments being announced so often these days, it is hard for many to keep up.

So here is the roadmap for my laptop, phone, and some other things too.

Laptop

Current: MacBook Pro 15″ (early 2008) purchased February 2008
Change every: 3 years
Next purchase: MacBook Pro 13″ after February 2011

I have decided to change laptop minimum every three years, because specifications after three years often improve enough to supersede the previous models. Also, I apply the rule that a laptop battery lasts three years under normal usage. That is 100 discharge-recharge cycles each year, totalling 300 cycles. By then, the battery would not hold as much charge as when it was brand new.

Mobile Phone

Current: iPhone 3GS purchased June 2009
Change every: 2 years
Next purchase: Next iPhone after June 2011

The majority of mobile service contracts have a two year duration. The telcos market to you every two years to change your phone to the latest models. Most mobile phone companies do not release phones on a regular schedule, so one has to rely on what is offered. The other option is to buy the phone and the plan separately (which I have done before), but sometimes that can be more costly.

Camera

Current: Nikon D80 purchased March 2008
Change every: 3-5 years, or until image quality deteriorates/equipment fails
Next purchase: Next Nikon dSLR

Fortunately, dSLRs don’t deteriorate as quickly as laptops and phones. This is because even entry-level dSLRs share design principles from professional-level models. As some photographers will say, “The body doesn’t matter, it’s all in the lens and your skill”. But even bodies become inferior to their successors, so one has to update occasionally.

Portable Music Player

Current: iPod (5G) purchased December 2005
Change every: When it breaks
Next purchase: iPod classic

I don’t listen to music from my iPod too much these days. It now comes from my iPhone or on the computer. But I do use it to backup all my music, photos and video.

Do you have any rules you follow when it comes to updating your technology? Share it with us in the comments.

Much, much more momentarily.

This is the second post about my photo processes. The first one was about where I put my photos. This post is about the work flow from camera to computer.

There are many different methods of getting photos from the camera to the computer, and then to libraries and backup systems. I’m based on the Mac, so this will be slightly different to that on a Windows based computer.

When I finish a shoot, I import all the photos into Aperture. It provides a lot of powerful tools to organise, tag and edit photos. The editing is quite basic, compared to Photoshop. I don’t own Photoshop yet.

Now, before I continue, I’d like to outline my philosophies for choice of software. If the operating system has a functionality that I need to use, I adapt my work flow to the constraints of that program.

All my photos are sorted (filed to delete, keep, export etc.) in Aperture. If there are any photos I want to export to Flickr, I use a plugin to do so. If the photos are “personal”, then the final collection of photos is moved into iPhoto. If the photos are of a concert, or “non-personal” they are exported as JPEGs onto an external hard drive, and the full Aperture project exported onto a separate external hard drive.

My Aperture library is not backed up by Time Machine, my iPhoto library is backed up.

The memory cards are erased by Disk Utility, and used with the next project.

This work flow will change when I get new hardware, which includes a custom built Linux based file server. Currently it works quite well for me, and I haven’t had too many problems with lost data, because I know where everything is at any time.

I’ve got a few posts lined up explaining my current processes for the post-production and publishing of my photos. This first post is about publishing to web, the next one will be about organization after shooting an event.

I don’t like Facebook’s photo facility. It’s optimised to serve junk. I think that there are so many bad photos there, in terms of quality. Sure, many of them tell stories about people’s musings over the weekends, but thinking about it, it is mainly junk.

Let me give you a quick rundown on how Facebook serves photos. They optimise every photo that comes in for web use, scrubbing out EXIF and other miscellaneous data. Although they claim that “your photos look their best”, for quality freaks like me, it is far from that. The photos are resized and sent out through content delivery networks (CDNs). CDNs have servers all around the world, and requests for files are directed to the servers which is geographically the closest. More info is in this Facebook blog post.

So instead, I upload all my photos to Flickr. Their system is designed for the sharing and presentation of people’s photos (and pro member’s videos). When I upload there, the photos are served their original quality, with all the EXIF and other information. Flickr also allows geotagging, descriptions, tags and the like. In my opinion, it has a far richer experience than that of Facebook.

Now you might say “Hey Ben! Not everyone is on Flickr, but everyone is on Facebook!”. This is true. I completely agree that Facebook is the fastest way to share information with friends. Flickr is great for others to explore your work. I know that when I host photos on Flickr, I don’t get the intimacy of people’s comments/thoughts/feelings of my photos. However, I do get the “rich” experience I want which includes geotags, view statistics, and soon enough, critical appreciation. I am able to link Flickr photos to Facebook, so I can still show my friends.

To me, hosting photos on Flickr makes more sense. Although it seems like I am distancing myself from the social norm (well, at least the status quo), I think this issue will present itself better in the long term.

Any other thoughts?

I thought I’d show you how my social networks interact with each other. This might shed some light on how you might organise your social networks to best interact with your fans.

Shown below are my most used networks/services and how they interact with each other.

(Click to see bigger)
As you can see, I target my social services to multiple places. Delicious, Twitter and flickr are pushed to all places: Blog, universe (my website, and the respective service sites), Friendfeed (aggregator) and Facebook.

Facebook is special because it allows me to publish things to a limited audience, whilst being able to share public stuff with friends. This blog is also great, because it provides a front for these posts and all the services. All my stuff is public within each social network. All a bit simple really.

First of all, I would like to apologize for not posting for so long. It turns out that Year 11 is giving me a much larger workload now. But I will do my best, to post as many times as possible.Last Wednesday as you may have heard, Apple have released a major update to their notebook lines: MacBook and MacBook Pro. They have put in newer processors and offered larger hard drives in their notebooks. The day after the announcement, I ordered one low-end MacBook Pro. It’s going to be used as my main computer, as well as for my friend’s and my professional photography. Dad’s going to be pretty happy as well; he has a portable to take with him to the office when he needs it.It’s all going well in regards to technology. I am expecting to receive my new Nikon D80 next week, when mum comes back from Hong Kong. After this small glimmer of joy, it’s back to work. I have assignments to do. 

Well, I was up at 4am AEST this morning to follow the liveblogs of Steve Jobs’ Keynote at Macworld. There was a lot of anticipation for many of the rumours to come true. And one did.

There were (as I counted) six new things that were released today. They are:

1. Time Capsule: A networked storage device and wireless router in one
2. iPhone Software 1.1.3
3. iPod Touch update (that costs US$20)
4. Movie Rentals (Rumour come true) (US only (as usual))
5. Apple TV Take 2 (New UI)
6. MacBook Air (Rumour come true!)

This offering of products and software is very good. It brings features that are long overdue and new ones too. Time Machine over the network with Time Capsule is a useful feature. Movie Rentals are long overdue. I (and many other people) weren’t too happy with the $20 software upgrade for the iPod Touch. It should be free. Heck, could you copy the apps over via SSH from the iPhone? The MacBook Air (MBA) is a welcome change and also shows Apple entering another sector of the notebook market.

Gee. I can’t think of anymore to write about. If I have more, I will write more.

So, yesterday, I sent out an email to people who were in my address book asking whether they were in Sydney. As of the time of writing, only three people out of about 10 replied. It got me thinking, who reads their email?

As of lately, I’ve turned into an email junkie. I keep Outlook open all day, and I check very very often. I find that those people with desktop mail apps (Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird etc…) check often. Those who don’t use them check several times a week. The majority of my friends don’t check often.

I sometimes think that email is dead among teenagers (like me). They like to use their cell phones, talking and texting, not much computer. This is ironic though, as they also like to be on social networks (like Myspace). This leaves me thinking (again), What is the best way to communicate?

Is it email, IM, SMS, talking on cell phones/telephones? Tell me.

Well, over the next two weeks we will see loads of new tech stuff on the internets. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is on Jan 7th to 10th (effectively 8th to 11th for me down under). This is where everyone shows off their new stuff. Already the biggest news is that Warner Bros. Studios is siding with Blu-ray for their movie distribution . To make things even more interesting, the HD DVD group is canceling their press conference. (Engadget link). We should see lots of new things come out of this show. For coverage, go to:

• ces.cnet.com
• ces.engadget.com
  

But perhaps the show I am most anticipating is the Macworld Conference and Expo. This is like CES, but Apple only stuff. All eyes will be on Steve Jobs’ Keynote on the 15th January (16th down under). Many rumors have circulated talking about what may be released. I will be following along on several live coverages on the keynote at 4am on the 16th (Sydney time).

It is a pity that CES is not open to the public and that both shows are in America.