New software again

Yeah yeah, I know I sound like a broken record, "buy lightroom, buy lightroom". Yadda yadda.

Hey you know what, in my little business this is just about the only news I have relevant to what I do. Well, except for taxes of course. But that's nowhere near as fun.

Anyway, I'm a few days late but the full release of the lastest Lightroom 2.0 is out. If you're a NAPP member you can get the upgrade for around $85 and it supports multiple licenses so I had it installed on both my MAC and PC machines without any problems.

Once again, if you do any photography at all this is the program to get. The other night my uncle was in town and I heard him discussing this with my father. They had just returned from a 2 week long trip to the Canadian Rockies and returned with about 4000 digital images of their trip. Beautiful shots.

Both of them are somewhat like camera buffs. My dad was always somewhat of a good photographer since I was born. While my uncle just picked up a new Nikon D40 or something right before going off on this trip. They're all going off about whether or not they can fit my dad's 30-year old camera lenses on my uncle's new DSLR...

ANYHOO...they come back after this trip with all these photos taken with loving care on their fancy new cameras, and what do they do? They spend this huge discussion about which free software is better then the other to catalog and "fix" their images. They're using software that would require them to manually drag each photo off their camera one at a time, use multiple steps to do simple fixing tasks (permanently damaging the photos BTW), and then manually cataloging it. At this rate, I think my dad will have his 4000 photos ready for me to see by early 2010.

With the risk of sounding elitist....I say, look....if you can spend thousands of dollars on your fancy cameras, you can spend about $80 for a program that help you with the photos that come out of them. It'll save you countless hours, plus it's damn fun to use. It REALLY is, it makes some of my crappiest photos look somewhat half decent. No brainer.

Go git.

Little Lowe

Well, the cat's out of the bag for many of the closest people in our lives, I guess it shouldn't hurt to announce the coming of our little one next year.

How's that for fast huh? About a week before our move this little surprise news came into our lives. I think we're still in denial because my wife really isn't showing yet and there's no sign of any morning sickness.

One day a few years into the future, this little one might be looking back and reading this very post from Dad. I'll say this to you now, "Babe...I love ya. But you picked a helluva time to come"

More pics of our new home and recent small house party are up.

Tricksies

Illustrators can be pretty mischievous if you rub them the wrong way. Remember all those stories about Disney cartoonists who would put all these promiscuous hidden objects in the Little Mermaid cartoon?

Well, an associate of mine sent me the funny illustration above. On the surface it looks like 2 dancers....or does it?

Font Humor

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Here's a little font humor...whodathunk? I thought it was pretty cute. But the commentary for videos like this are pretty interesting too.

When you talk about font types, some designers (most?), are VERY touchy about it. I see some people have their favorite fonts and never stray from them for decades. Others are so good with their type they can recognize even the most obscure ones just by sight.

Me? Well, I think I have growing interest in it....I'm the type where I'd walk by a movie poster and try to see if I can recognize the fonts they used for it. But I'm not hardcore to the point where I need to argue with someone about why Helvetica is the best font ever.

Resolved?

Well, here's the latest about the 2 situations I ranted about late last week.

Roadrunner responded pretty quick after all and sent someone over to look at the connection the next day. In all fairness the guy who came was pretty cool...he checked everything, replaced my modem, and even gave me his personal cell number to let him know how it's performing over the next few days. The connectivity has been much better since he came, although he wasn't quite sure where the problem was isolated to. Overall I'm satisfied with this result. It only sucked that I had to get upset with them first before they pushed me ahead of the line to get someone over.

The connection still sucks here and there during the day mind you, but at least I know someone is looking into it for now. Only time will tell if this cable modem thing is for me. I liked DSL back all those years because it was consistent.

Bestbuy with the TV? Well, I ended up going down to pick up the TV myself. Not a big deal but still disappointing for a big company like them. However, I did write an email to them and their response was very polite and understanding. They apologized for the problem and offered a generous credit back to us for the problems with the shipping. Once again, satisfied.

In all fairness to these businesses, they resolved the issue. I've heard it said once that often a mark of a good business is not always the service they provide, but also how they handle problems when they come up. Fair enough...props to these guys so far.

Fake Nintendo art

I find some people very creative....or very bored. Perhaps boredom spawns the best artwork? I know it did for me when I was younger. I'd spend a whole night drawing some of my best pencil drawings because I had nothing better to do. It was either that or go outside and help my mom with the house chores. Yuck.

I digress.

Anyway, I can't figure out any Japanese to decide if this is just one guy's art or a collection of different people, but either way it's a creative way to recycle old Famicom game cartridges into new artwork. Sticking to the game theme these are all imaginary games.

I got a lot of crap stored around the house, but hell if I'll sit around recycling it into artwork. The extent of my home projects involves sticking a poster up on my wall. Hey! It takes some effort to make the tape even on the 4 corners...shut up.

You BASTAAAARDS!!

Will you allow me to rant a bit? Trust me, the language below isn't nice, close your eyes while you read this.

This won't be design related at all. Nothing really about business or anything either. Plain and simple, I need to bitch and ramble and there's simply nobody around right now I can offload onto. So you, my friend, my silent readers...are those whom I will subject to hearing my rants. You're my therapy.

I consider myself pretty patient. I understand sometimes people do the best they can with their circumstances. I also understand in our society we're all rushing around too much. We gotta slow down, enjoy the roses and not get all heated up over little things.

BUT (you knew there would be a "but" coming didn't you?), sometimes even I have my limits.

Let's take this first -- my internet connection over the last 8 years has been through DSL, you know, the one through the phone line. Honestly, not a problem at all....in all those years maybe it hiccuped once or twice but in each situation I contact someone and it's resolved in like an hour tops.

So now, I move house, and find out my wife can get a discount off of Time Warner Oceanic services. "Oh! Why don't we just get everything together there?" we think. So I say goodbye to my trusty DSL service and opt to get the competing cable service with Road Runner. Really I mean it's like trading one giant corp for another, but frankly I don't care what the technology is or where it's from, I just need it to work.

Understandably, they can't schedule something right after we move. So we'll have a disruption of internet service for a week or so. OK, that's fine, we'll live. I zip past the details -- a week and a half later I'm "online". So far, this fucking Road Runner service has really sucked. Sometimes it can be as slow as a modem. Other times it's just down.

You call them? You get a half pissy technician who speaks to you like you're the idiot and they tell you it'll be another 11 days before they can send someone over to look at the problem? So even assuming everything is running fine in 11 days that will be a total "installation" time of over 28 days to get my internet back. ARE.....YOU.....FUCKING....KIDDING......ME!!??

Anyway, now I'm magically online again, but for who knows how long. If this keeps up I'm going back to the old devil DSL.

Next...

We needed a new TV. The last one we had, had gotten so bad we had to hit it like the Fonz for over the past year now. We figured we'd drag that one out as long as we could till we could move and get a new TV.

We order it from BestBuy June 30th because they had a good price. Great!

• First email: "We'll deliver this to you on the 6th"
• Second email: "Oh we'll have to reschedule this to the 12th" because it'll have to be shipped from the Mainland.
• Call on the 11th, "Oh the truck was delayed on the Mainland, you'll get it by Thursday"
• Call on Wednesday, "Good news we have your TV! Oh but you'll have to wait till next Tuesday to get it because we can't schedule a delivery"

AAAAACK ackakkakah! <--- that's the sound of me choking on bile.

I know. These are small material things. People once lived without TV or the Internet for long periods of time. (Like during the Jurrassic) But COME ON people....these are not small businesses. Why should these big companies be held any less accountable to sticking to their commitments and deadlines then the rest of us small businesses?

I want to wring someone's neck.

My doppleganger

I share the same name with at least one other guy in the world. There are not too many Raphael Lowe's in the world let me tell ya. Here I am, a Chinese guy with an Italian first name and a German last name. How cosmopolitan.

I digress.

Anyway, this other Raph finds me on Facebook a year ago and we made a couple of quick comments to each other and just added a link as friends. I know nothing of him other that he's in the UK somewhere, he seems very popular, young, and loves his motorcycles.

I find out today that he had a bad motorcycle accident recently that's left him with severe head trauma. He's not really responding to much right now.

I don't know what it is but I feel pretty bad for him and his friends and family. Yeah he's a near perfect stranger but if you can pray for a stranger, pray for that Raph out in the UK right now.

My tax deduction

Here's the new digs for my office. You know what I call this? My "tax deduction" Well, at least that's what all my business colleages and my tax guy tells me it should be called. I won't know yet until the end of the year. For now it's what I call "expensive"

Nah, but it's really great so far. For years now since I started Lowe Studio Inc I've needed a big flat table and then I find this one here at Inspiration for $340 for the whole thing. I lub it long time. Now my huganamic pen tablet that my brother got for me doesn't have to double time as my writing desktop.

My walls need some shelving space and some posters maybe. I got some toys I want to display. No not THOSE kinds of toys you sickos. I gots more of these anime type things along with a small group of Dunnies my brother and his wife brings back for me every time they visit. These are important things that no work desk should be without!

My wife's side of the office is more simple. On the other hand, she's got the window seat and a granite desktop. This table was in the place already when we bought it. We're not that bling bling yet believe me.

Not that shabby eh? I had my first honest-to-goodness client meeting here last week. It's a good place to hang out so far. Now if only I can get some work done.

Apple art

Now that I'm one of those guys who made the Switch, I guess I've got more then a passing interest in all things Apple all of a sudden. No no, I don't bash PCs yet...I'm just enjoying the new experience of a system that's running all nice and smooth.

Anyway, here's some artwork that combines art and computers together quite literally. For Apple fanboys you can send this guy your old Macs and he'll turn them into artwork. And he happens to be over in Melbourne Australia where my brother has moved to recently as well.

Crazy moving

I underestimated how stressful and difficult it was to move 7 years of my life to a new condo. Sure, I moved before, but either I blocked out how difficult it was last time, or this time it was especially time consuming because I now had a partner to work with.

I remember back in my previous moves, it was just a matter of throwing everything into boxes and trucking them over. Now? Nuh uh... we're talking about wiping everything down, getting everything washed, arranging contractors, organizing the help of friends, getting the place painted, etc. It's nuts.

On the other hand, putting time into our own condo certainly feels more rewarding then moving into a rental for sure. Let's see how comforting it will be getting that first mortgage slip?

On the bright side, we love the new place. My Mainland standards it still a lot of money to pay for a tiny condo. I think for the money we payed we might have a giant beautiful house in many parts of the country. Then again, from my place I can see the ocean from my windows, we're 10 mins away from the beach, 5 mins away from my wife's workplace, and half-a-block away from the neighborhood I grew up in. I know every detail about this area. It's bright and cheerful, breezy. And there's a small pool out back. Not too shabby for our first try.

Now just comes trying to unpack and settle down as soon as possible. Life needs to get back to normal as soon as possible...I think at some point we were super cranky with everything. I got so upset one afternoon I took a crack at punching a concrete wall. Unfortunately the concrete wall wasn't going anywhere. My hand still hurts now a week later.

It's all good. My new office is very comfortable and peaceful. Just what I need to get some good work done. I'll be ready soon!

Need work for mortgage payments!!!