PS Quick Tips: Spring-Loaded Tools, Bird's Eye View and More

Photoshop Tips: Spring-loaded Tools, Bird’s Eye View and Interactive Brush Sizing from Simon Abrams on Vimeo.

It’s been forever, but I finally decided to demo and upload some more Photoshop tips. In this video, I cover Spring-Loaded tools, Bird’s Eye View, and a couple of other quick tips that were introduced back in Photoshop CS4, but that may have slipped under the radar.

Snowmageddon II

Mobile Carriers Dream of Charging per Page | Epicenter

via wired.com

I'll admit, I was fuzzy on the whole Net Neutrality thing and what it meant to me, but this certainly helps to clarify the issue. Imagine being charged by your mobile carrier for each service (like Facebook, YouTube, Skype) that you use. As an unknown street philosopher once said: that's some bullshit.

Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free - Steve Wozniak - Technology - The Atlantic

What if we paid for our roads per mile that we drove? It would be fair and understandable to charge more for someone who drives more. But one of the most wonderful things in our current life is getting in the car and driving anywhere we feel like at this moment, and with no accounting for cost. You just get in your car and go. This is one of the most popular themes of our life and even our popular music. It's a type of freedom from some concerns that makes us happy and not complain. The roads are already paid for. You rarely hear people complain that roads are "free." The government shines when it comes to having provided us pathways to drive around our country.

via theatlantic.com

A great essay by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on what's at stake with Net Neutrality.

The New Family Time?

So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed this new cultural phenomenon lately where people seem to be spending an awful lot of time on their laptops and smart phones…

Okay, I’m being kind of tongue-in-cheek about it, but it is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. My wife and I were talking about it last night, and we both realized that when we’re at home, we’re mostly doing stuff on our computers, and then we go to bed (usually pretty late), and then we go to work, and the cycle repeats itself.

I’m kind of conflicted about it, because I really like being on my computer. It’s one of the things I do to relax and entertain myself. The problem is, I also happen to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day to keep the lights on, the upshot of which is aching hands and wrists, an aching neck, tingling forearms and other various afflictions that are so familiar to so many of us these days.

Besides the physical side effects, of course, there are the effects on our relationships, our concentration, our ability to learn and retain information. There are tons of books and articles exploring all of these questions, so I won’t delve too deeply into it here, except to say that at least we’ve started to talk about it in our house, which I think is a good first step. 

Anyway, for a while now, I’ve had the idea to start playing around and exploring how our online time is encroaching on our meatspace time via a series of photographs, so keep an eye on this space for more… I just need to check Facebook and Twitter first.