Thursday, June 14, 2007

Skitch is in Beta

I wish I could say that I've tried Skitch and I'm here to review it, but I'm afraid that I have to wait for a beta invitation just like everyone else. I wanted to talk about it anyway because, once again, it's a slow news day. Also though, I think it solves a problem I've always had and I'm sure is very common. So what is Skitch? I recommend watching their little 3 minute video. Granted, I haven't used it yet, but it looks so intuitive it makes my eyes want to pop out. It looks like everything a consumer level graphical application should be. It's drag-and-drop, and it saves without you having to tell it to, and resizing and cropping doesn't requiring finding some menu item somewhere, and all that good stuff. Even better: you can create an image based on what's on your screen right now rather than hit the "print screen" button and crop and all that jazz. And I do that quite a bit, which is why I say it's a problem I've wanted solved for a long time. Paint .NET is as close as I've come to a nice, free, lightweight image editor, but this one may take the cake. I guess I'm hyping it up, but I just love that it looks like it was totally designed with the user in mind.

In the past two days, there have been more than 1 million downloads of the Safari beta for Windows. Who are these people? They must be hardcore techies, or Mac users who have Windows dual booted. In any case, it looks like you can get all its special features via Firefox add-ons except for its improved search highlighting. I never knew it had a porn mode; I think that's pretty funny.

Kodak thinks that it may have dug up an old patent of theirs that would allow them to create cameras with better light sensitivity, which may eliminate the need for flash in their lower end cameras. This would mean no more red eye, if it was really possible. It doesn't look like it'll hit the mainstream any time soon, but will more likely see camera phones and scientific equipment much sooner. I don't understand how they're able to do this, but I'd love an ultracompact camera that didn't need flash, and would totally pay a premium for it.

This is kind of funny, eBay decided to stop using Google Checkout, so Google set up a party in Boston to coincide with this eBay seller conference to protest eBay's decision. Wow, what a childish move. I think that eBay was justified in subsequently pulling their ads from Google because I would not want to do business with someone who was being so unprofessional. It's like they were saying, "so you're not going to give us as much of your money anymore? Alright then, we're going to strongarm you into it!" Oh well, I guess companies have their stupid slip-ups every once in a while.


How cool does that Batsuit look?! That scan from EW highlights the updates to the Batsuit made for The Dark Knight, including the sharp things on his arms we're used to seeing in the comics, better material, and a movable neck. Rock on, Bruce Wayne. Rock on. We also have a shot of what we believe is the Joker car and pictures of the convoy that may be taking him to or from prison or something of that sort. Oh, guerrilla pictures; you gotta love them.

In further comic book movie news, Marvel's next project will be Captain America. Meanwhile, the Mulroneys have submitted their draft of the Justice League America script to the WB, and Zak Penn will soon start penning the script for The Avengers. And somewhere, a cash cow is being millked as we speak. Zak Penn had better not disappoint us! He negated X2 with that third abomination.

The newest Transformers poster looks really sweet, and there's a new clip online from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. No action, but it's still kind of neat.

If you want to take a look at how Ratatouille was animated, there's a little decomposition over here. Animation never ceases to amaze me because I'm a horrible artist.

The trailer for No Country for Old Men has hit the Interweb, and it's confusing and obscure. However, it has a great cast and people who saw it at Cannes seemed to like it, so it's probably worth our attention. Man, I haven't seen Josh Brolin in a film in a really long time.

Now for the 3x Thursday meme:

1. Are you, or have you ever been in a managerial type position? Do you/did you like it? What about it did you like or not like? If not, would you ever *want* to be in that type of position? Why/why not?
Not really, except for being an officer in a school organization, which is not the same thing. I would want to be in that position, but as a technical manager. I'd still like to be connected to the code that I'm helping manage, even if not directly, kind of like how managers are at Amazon.

2. If you've ever been in a managerial position, have you ever had to fire someone? What was that like? If not, have you ever been fired? What was that like?
N/A

3. At the end of the day, we're all employees, but would you rather be the Boss or the Employee? Why?
That's hard to say, I don't know. Being THE boss is a lot of work and responsibility, but I don't want to necessarily be a sheep. I'd really place myself somewhere in the middle, because I'd prefer to manage a small group of people.

By the way, this is my 700th post! W00t!

1 comment:

Jennyfer said...

Holy FRICK!

I can't waaaait till The Dark Knight comes out! Batman all the way!