MacNessa.com
Because Girl Geeks Are Hot!

If there’s one thing I find really annoying, then it’s when manufacturers and retailers consistently refuse to listen to what their consumers want, and continue to produce their products with specs that are insufficient for their clients, forcing those self same clients to have to spend MORE money to bring everything up to spec.

What am I talking about? PC’s. Of course.  Not that you’d ever catch me buying one ever again. And I do mean EVER.  My poor mom, out of fear for trying something new (Mac) and out of a repeated indoctrination that Windows was the only way to go, has had to have Vista taken off her brand new laptop, and replaced with XP.  She even lamented at a local computer store that it was too slow (remember it’s less than 3 months old), so the techies decided to ‘help’ her by adding more laptop memory to bring her machine up to two gigs of RAM.

Let us consider for a moment that this is someone who runs email, an internet browser (yes IE, I know…I tried to sell her on firefox but no…) and Microsoft Office. Not a graphics application in sight.  So why the extra RAM? Because it cost her R500 plus installation. Does she feel happier about it? No. Does the machine operate any faster…? No.

PLUS, and here is the real ass-kicker, the want to make her BUY a new copy of XP to replace the Vista on her laptop because her old (defunct and no longer used desktop) computer which had XP on it only came with XP back-up disks.  Now the OPU did a Microsoft Licensing Specialist course a while back, and said he was pretty sure they were simply trying to rip my poor mum off, because theoretically with her shiny new (albeit no longer wanted) copy of Vista, her license key should be backwards compatible.

What as this whole scenario taught me?

Thank god I bought a Mac.  I will hence forth never again, ever again, even consider buying a PC. Not even a cheapo for gaming.

Mark my words. N-E-V-E-R.

As always on Macnessa.com, I occasionally feature a website that I feel will be of some use to my readers.

Since many of you are American, it makes sense that it’s often a site that is either based in the States, or caters to the United States public.  In this case it’s a job site.  With the current economic crises playing havoc with the job market, and retrenchments on the rise, I feel it is appropriate at this time to feature a site offering Atlanta jobs.

It is always useful when you find a job site that focuses on a particular geographical location, either for the people nearby, or for people looking to move to the area. Often the larger job finding sites are just too broad to search successfully for your desired position.

Happy Job Hunting folks!

Small plug post here.  Some of you may know that I’m currently developing a site called Photo Super Hero (as in .com), but its still bare bones at the moment.

What it is going to be, is a photo editing service for all you aspiring home users out there who maybe don’t have the time/knowledge/software to turn your budding photographs into awesome photographs. Now I’m not saying your stuff isn’t already good, but everyone out there knows that if you produce a photo without photoshop, it’s like cooking without butter, sure you could do it, but really, why should you? (Let’s just forget about being health conscious for a second okay!?)

Here’s an example of the kind of service the site will offer when it’s …finally… up and running.

At this stage I call it the “Angelina Jolie Airbrush”, but I’m sure I’ll think of something a little more suitable nearer launch time.

So here goes:

Find a subject, frame your shot, and shoot.

Voila cute baby!!  But the above mentioned cute baby, was bitten by a small, annoying, non-threatening spider during the night (I caught the bad ass mo-fo and smashed his ass into smithereens as well), and as a result, has a few red spots that frankly, I don’t need to remember when I look back at this photo.

Let’s go nuke the bastards okay?

Using a combination of the healing brush, and the clone stamp tool does the trick. Better already hey?

Now, let’s pump up the brightness a scoche.

Oy vey - who turned the lights on!? Let’s see where we are from the beginning…

With photoshop, it’s good to remember that small changes = big improvement. If you make too many changes too quickly, or great big sweeping contrasts, more often than not, you end up with a big pile of poo that looks like crap! Right, let’s see what can we do next…. aaah yes, here comes that airbrush baby!! I wish I could do this to MY skin right before I leave the house each day!

Now we’re getting somewhere! Using an inverted high pass filter, painted onto the face (and any other skin you might like to smooth out) allows this cherub to be portrayed with the milky sweet skin that I know he has in real life, but which doesn’t come across in the SOOC (straight out of camera shot) too well.

Now time to crisp up those baby blues!

A fairly simple process of zooming up close, and using the sharpen tool on just the iris (the blue part). If your cherub has beautiful eyelashes like mine, feel free to zap those too, just remember that when the boys get older, you might want to leave out the eyelashes, as it can make them look a bit girly

Right, so now the iris’s are sharpened, now let’s put some more light in them, to make them really pop.

As camera’s progress, there is no doubt that the quality of image that they reproduce is becoming more lifelike. However, they are unable to reproduce life exactly, so it’s up to photoshop to help us to allow the person looking at the photo, to see the person AS we see them in real life. In this case, with bright happy eyes. So while purists out there cry ‘artificial’ I simply wave my paw (a la Dogbert) and say BAH!  Again, you will only want to use this treatment on the irises (blue part) of the eye, and reduce your opacity, lest you want everyone to think you have an alien child.

Now the finishing touches…

I’m obsessed with this technique at the moment and that is the ‘burnt’ edge look. I feel like it really makes the subject stand out in the photo, without too much interference with the subject.

Okay, let’s have one last look at where we came from…here’s before…and after together.

Now, tell me that *that* isn’t much better than the original?

Now tell me, what you would be willing to pay for a service like that to a single photograph. Seriously, would you consider paying someone to improve your photographs like this, on a photo by photo basis, or would you rather pay a small monthly membership fee which allows you to send up to x photos per month depending on the package?

I await your input with bated (though minty fresh) breath.

Here’s another picture of the same cherub with similar (and extended treatment).

All together now…awhhhhhh!

I think that this may just be one of the best inventions of the century.

Here’s a picture for you…

Yes, it is exactly what it says it is, a nifty little hand held, USB powered vacuum cleaner.  Just imagine how nice and clean your keyboard will stay when you use this baby on it once a day. Or once an hour for your Type A personalities out there. Me personally, I’d use it whever I felt the urge, which is probably whenever any foodstuffs breathed near my keyboard, or any dust shows its evil face, so probably about 3 times a day.

Plus you’re being totally energy efficient because this baby runs off your computing power. Just plug into your USB port and you’re A for Away.

Also, it retails for a measly $6.99 (at the time of writing this), so you can easily pick one up for next to nothing. I think that something *that* cheap, and *that* useful would be as fun and exciting to use as going on a las vegas mini-break!

Go here to see it for sale, and happy spring cleaning! (To all southern hemisphereans, otherwise happy fall cleaning to your northerners).

Other posts you might like:

The Ultimate Mac Office: Floor Decor

The Ultimate Mac Office: Desk

One of the things I do periodically, in order to save money, is review our insurance company. That is, the company that provides us with car insurance and household insurance primarily.  For the most part, I’ve found that keeping it all with one company is much cheaper than if we have separate insurance for each car, and yet another for household contents, all risks etc.

By reviewing our all risks policy, removing one item which no longer needs this cover as we’re selling it, I was able to also lower our overall household contents amount, which lowered our monthly premium by nearly R100. That’s a R1200.00 saving per year. Now in the current economic it might not seem like a lot, but I’m of the opinion that a big saving starts with a single cent, so I’m feeling like I scored big time!  Don’t remind me of course that insurance is really ‘money for nothing’ until you need it. I *so* don’t need to hear that.

I wonder if the same holds true for other countries? Do you find that just by phoning around for quotes you’re able to play companies off against one another?  I wonder, does everyone do this? Will John McCain be ringing around for quotes on Arizona auto insurance, now that he isn’t getting his promotion? Mind you, I suppose, that even being a State senator, he’s probably based in DC anyway, so he’d probably have local insurance, I don’t know.

Just a thought. Random blatherings at this time of night.

I’ve spoken at length previously about my ideal work environment.  I could talk about it everyday.

Just recently I remembered how I used to picture my ideal work environment as a house type environment.  This was before the days of the OPU and the offspring of course, so much of this is only really applicable to a singleton I suppose.
But anyway, I didn’t really think much about the type of work being done, other than I knew it was ‘computerized’ and ‘creative’.  So naturally that included the latest necessary hardware and software on the market.

There would be no dress code for work, sneakers, gym wear, bathing suit whatever blew my hair back would suffice, I considered this ideal.

The actual office would be a house type environment where you could put in your own hours.  If you were someone who programmed late into the night, great. If you wanted to work for two hours and then go and run on one of the company treadmills, while thrashing out one of your ideas in your head, or simply switch off while listening to your favourite music and re-energise, then great. If you’d already been working through the night on some ‘project’ then you could go and crash on your own assigned bed (kind of like Doctors working the ER).

There would be an endless supply of great healthy food constantly available by an in house team of chefs/caterers. Naturally, chocolate and entirely unhealthy soda would be constantly available too.

An in house masseuse would be available to supply in chair head/neck massages. You could sit on a big pilates ball in stead of a chair if you wanted to. (I actually had a job once where these two things were realities, but the masseuse was only available at head office in Brisbane, but I can’t tell you how happy that pilates ball made my back and butt!).

In the Summer, it would be completely acceptable to spend the heat of the day in or next to the company pool just a stones throw from your desk, and provided you’d be putting in the required number of hours into your project of course.  Your required work time would be a total number of hours for the year. If you’d put them in, and your work was good, then you’d be allowed to take the rest of the time off.

The company would have it’s own in house cinema style theatre, albeit a small one, but with seriously plush leather lazy-boy chairs, used for conferences, pump sessions, and of course ‘goof’ time with a proverbially endless supply of DVD’s for you to watch, for creative inspiration of course.  Now while this might seem stupid to some, and an invitation to lack of productivity, take something as mainstream as Top Gun. Go and watch it again, as a photographer, and then try and tell me you are not influenced by all those great tints and filters they use on their shots, fading to the horizon point.  It made me go through a purple/magenta/maroon sky phase for months.  The dog-fighting scenes will make you reinvent that whole ‘rule of thirds’ thing we’re all slaves to.

What if the company made it a priorty to make sure you went to see “Quantum of Solace” the MOMENT it was released?

What if the company encouraged dress up day on the release of a new Harry Potter movie? Tell me who hasn’t thought about hexing a colleague or co-worker, or felt the urge to thrust a wand (or a ruler) at a colleague and yell “FINITE INCANTATUM” at them when they seemingly won’t shut up?

Now that I’m a parental unit myself, with offspring to consider, I realize that while this day dream is not entirely cut out for those of the parental persuasion like myself, it can be achieved with added perks, how about awesome, stimulating in house day-care? How about apprenticeship/internship programmes for the school kids?  I.e. they get school credit for say a computer course requirement, by spending time helping on various projects?  Even my 3 year old has inspired me to new creative heights with some of his scribblings. What if the company allowed all the parents who worked there, to work on a rotational basis at taking the kids out on awesome fieldtrips?

What if this is the whole new way to work?

What if you could get a hair stylist to visit you at WORK, and not only do you get the time to make yourself over as and when you need it, but the company actually encourages it, knowing that you’ll project a better image, and work better because you feel better?

Okay, who’s with me on this?? I so want to work at a company like this!

So here we are again, talking fresh creative spaces for home (or office) work spaces. I just can’t get enough of this subject! Especially when stores like IKEA have such great offerings!

Feast your retina’s on this juicy floor rug.

Strib Rug IKEA

I mean can’t you just see it, reigning supreme on some bleached beechwood floorboards, sunlight streaming onto it through aluminium windows?  It’s a whopping W140cm by L200cm (and only retails for AUD$299) so it’s large enough for you to tumble off your chair onto, when you’re exhausted from all your creative work, and need to regenerate your powers by absorbing some sunlight.

If you’re me, you’ll probably have to boot your matching golden labs off it first, because being 100 percent pure new woolpile, it’s going to be one of the most coveted spots in the house.

Good thing it’s in your home office though, and you can keep everyone out because it’s YOURS!

Other posts you might like:

The Ultimate Mac Office: Chair

The Ultimate Mac Office: Desk

Ooh, I nearly forgot to mention, that this morning I bought one of these!  It’s a gift for someone, so alas, no not for me, but I will definitely be getting one to store my photos on in the near future.

If you’re in the market for some mortgage life insurance please click on that link for loads of helpful information.

Thankfully, not the monetary kind, and my iMac fund continues to swell satisfyingly!

However, I have a Monday 11am deadline on a bunch of photo edits that I need to do, and I’m seriously down with the flu. Not so much ‘down’ as ‘totally bloody flattened’ by it I might add.

What I’d like to be doing now, is floating on a lilo (air mattress for those of you unfamiliar with the ZAF lingo) around my green sparkling turquoise swimming pool, with no cares in the world, and being so thin that the handfuls of decadent Ju Ju Be’s that I’m hoiking into my mouth won’t make any difference.

But back to reality, a sick bubkins (yo-yoing fevers no less) and photo edits will have to absorb me totally.  Maybe the OPU can sort out the pool so that next weekend, barring rain and blustering wind as has become the norm of late, we can actually *use* our pool instead of looking at it like yet another job that needs doing.

Oh for a tropical holiday right now…

Yes, I’m looking for your opinion again, this time on moving companies. I’ve never done a big international move before. The OPU has done about 3, but this probably isn’t a topic of conversation that I’m going to raise with *him* right now, because at 20:45pm I’m not likely to get more than a grunt at this point.

So who would you recommend, that you’ve used? Where did you move from/to?  I’m basically looking for a reputable company, that doesn’t cost the earth (that leaves out most of the more popular brand names), but can ship a few personal items and odds and ends from little old South Africa to either Australia or New Zealand.  Destination right now is TBA.

Anyhoo, I’m just really interested in your opinions, cheers!