This is the 21st century. Not so long ago, that number was synonymous with science-fiction. The world was changing slowly enough that it would take a century for things to become fully weird and enhanced to the point of seeming magical.

Now our science-fiction horizon has shrunk to a few decades. And even as I write this, new discoveries are made and technologies released that make the present amazingly fleeting and regularly spark flashes of wonders and magic in real-time.

However, with a shorter fiction span, our capacity for amazement has also diminished. We are becoming dulled by all this extraordinary stuff we get bombarded with on a daily basis and things that maybe should leave us in awe barely register as cool and not bad.

In the techie news these days, two headlines have caught my attention. The first one is the release by Google of its beta web browser, Chrome. That Google should take such an avenue is hardly surprising. The web has become a superpower, taking an increasingly central place in our society; anybody smart - and the Google team obviously is - would decide that to better control such potential, one needs to diversify (check), innovate to capture the attention of a bored public (check), become better at what they do than anybody else (check), and offer not only tools, but the entire toolshed, complete with a roof, power supply and lighting. In comes Chrome. Check.

Claiming to be faster-than-any-other-browser-period, Google’s newcomer also features the company’s now legendary searching simplicity and more important yet, it takes a very large step towards independent web applications and the eventual - by unavoidable - complete bypass of operating systems (yeah, you can read Windows here, and not so between the lines) in favor of a fully sustainable web-based environment.

Chrome is only in its beta phase, of course. Lots remains to be said and done and bugs are very present, like a major incompatibility with Window Blinds which for now makes Chrome useless to me. But Firefox is feeling the heat and will issue a 3.1 release that aims at countering Chrome’s speed advantage. In any case, make no mistake about it: this is History in the making.

Then there’s Google’s (yes, them again) Picasa Web Albums latest innovation. You might have heard of face recognition technology; if you own a decent and recent point-and-shoot camera, the odds are you’re using it daily, knowingly or not. It detects human faces in a shot and allows the camera to focus and expose selectively. Picasa, being an online photo gallery system, obviously doesn’t have a need for focusing pictures. Instead, the design team has chosen to focus on labeling, which after all, is one of Google’s major strengths (think of Gmail’s very convenient labels).

So how does face recognition technology come into play within Picasa? Easy. Upon first use, the site scans your entire collection of photo albums, searching for faces and patterns. The process takes a few minutes, after which you are served probable matches, in groups of 5 to 15 or so pictures, of the same person. (Granted, I’m not the ideal test user because my Picasa albums feature predominantly... the same person.) Still. It bloody works. So all I had to do for most of these groups of pictures was assign a name tag to them, new or chosen from my contact list (uh-uh, Google’s tentacles already span many an application). That’s it. Fast and efficient. And from now on, Picasa will analyze the pictures I upload and scan them for faces, which if found, will trigger a rectangle overlay on the head and a prompt to tag, suggesting probable matches.

At that point, I have to take a deep breath. This is like being inside science-fiction itself. We’re not talking about a high-end covert application, here. This is for you and me. Millions of you and me. And it’s brought to you by Google.

Which reminds me: when Gmail first came out, its very essence yielded much controversy; the fact that every single message you ever wrote or received would be stored online and search-able by Google’s sophisticated algorithms caused much concern about privacy. Then the storm passed, mostly because people liked Gmail more than they disliked the vulnerability it implied. It’s a sign of times. Our notion of personal privacy has to be - and is - changing because whether we like it or not, in a world ruled by information and communications, there can be no such thing as complete privacy. We just have to live with it. And better ourselves so that the fear of seeing our secrets exposed diminishes. In a sense, Google and the like are for modern society what the church was in the past: a strong motivation not to sin, or else.

Now let’s get back to Picasa, and let me be the devil’s advocate for a moment. Millions of users. Billions of portraits analyzed, tagged and associated with email addresses and further contact info... Need I say more? What an incredible database for Big Brother to tap into. Because let’s face it, criminals own cameras too. You rob a 7-Eleven, the security cameras record your face. Police can’t come up with a match, only being able to search through criminal records, official ID’s and whatever other sources they have. BUT. What if they could search the Picasa database???

Sure, I know, they can’t. Oh but wait a minute. The privacy policies of such online services as Google promise to protect yours, unless required by law or to assist enforcement of said law. Oops. Big Brother 1. Visitors 0.

Still. What a cool toy for those of us who will be geeks before being afraid.

Inspired by a post on the Turning Gate, I’ve decided to give the good old Lightbox 2 and Greybox scripts a break and am now testing Shadowbox as the engine for all slideshows and web links on this blog. So far, the new script seems to be performing as well, if not better than the others and offers the added convenience of handling all media under one roof (I previously had to use Lightbox for images and Greybox for web pages.)

As usual, all images in an entry can be clicked on to enlarge and start the slideshow, which is then conveniently navigated with your left and right keyboard arrows; web links will open inside an overlay that avoids having to change windows, tabs or to reload or go back after visiting the new page.

I’ll be looking for comments and feedback, don’t be shy!

Abe was my first DSLR. She was a Canon Digital Rebel XTi (or 400D). Her name was a short for « Aberration chromatique », the French for, yes, you guessed it, chromatic aberration. Of which she didn’t suffer that much, but wasn’t totally free either. She succeeded to my trusted Canon G3 and has taken amazing pictures. For reference, Utah was shot with the G3, South Africa and most of my HDR with Abe. I loved them dearly.

A month ago, on a plane from Newark to Vancouver, a ride from here to there, a trip between longing and belonging, I had bought two photography magazines and spent most of the night - I was on a red-eye - reading about this year’s top-rated cameras and lenses. To my childishly excited surprise, the XTi had a new sibling, called the XSi, or 450D. Both magazines were reviewing it, and I soon realized that both reviewers had been charmed. My ears rose, my eyes watered and my tail wagged. So to speak.

I looked at prices. As it is happening in the computer field, camera designers these days are caught in a maelstrom of technological breakthroughs and exponential competition increase. As a result, prices are dropping like pigeon poo out of the sky while the technology gets better and more incredible every year. I soon figured I actually had a chance to upgrade to the new model for a minimal expense. I was hooked.

Less than a month later, I am sitting at home with Abetoo throning on the table next to me while Abe is on her way to Southeast Asia with some dude. Such is life. Abetoo is a black body Canon XSi with the 18-55 IS kit lens, and I’ve switched my old Sigma 18-125mm DC lens for a Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS. Now let me get something straight: I am a poor photographer, as in broke, and these are a poor photographer’s tools. I am very aware of this and remain humble about the distance that separates my gear from that of professionals. But I afford what I can and try to make the smartest moves possible, and I must say that this was a very sweet move indeed. Let me explain.

The XSi is the fourth generation of its kind. When Canon launched the first Digital Rebel, the 300D, it innovated by leaps and bounds and brought for the first time a reasonably priced DSLR to entry-level photographers. Since then, the market has gotten much more competitive with Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Pentax and Olympus all competing hard to appropriate their share of a very lucrative realm. The subsequent releases by Canon of the 350D and the 400D were received with mixed reviews, improvements having been modest and indecisive. The 400D was, however, one of the best selling DSLR’s of all times.

With the recent release of its 450D, Canon set the mark up once again and blurred the boundary between professional and entry-level cameras. Rather than cut their costs to a minimum, they decided to adopt many features available on their much pricier models in order to appeal to a more mature group of photographers. It has paid off.

The XSi is a little gem. It rivals its bigger and more expensive cousin the 40D in many areas and even beats it at times. Blessed by a new 12.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and the DIGIC III image processor, the new comer has already topped the 40D’s resolution. Its Live View modes have also been improved, and while the technology has by no means reached maturity, it’s quite a welcome and encouraging start. If you’re wondering what Live View is, it’s the ability for a DSLR to offer a live preview of the scene on-screen, the way all digicams do. For the longest time, I stayed away from DSLR’s for that very reason. I was so used to my G3’s rotating LCD screen that I couldn’t even remember the old days of framing through a viewfinder.

The XSi’s Live View is still raw and imperfect and yet was very much worth the wait. It offers a manual and two different autofocus modes. It’s not a feature I would use all the time, but it will, in some cases, prove to be invaluable.

Being equipped with an APS-C sensor (smaller than a full-frame sensor the size of 35mm film, compromising image quality slightly in exchange for space and cost reductions, and multiplying lenses’ focal range by about 1.6x), the XTi comes with an EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens that equals a 28-88mm on a full-frame camera. That’s ok. What’s really cool is the IS, Image Stabilization. Granted, it’s not top-of-the-line optics, but compared to the old kit lens, it seems to be better and most of all, the IS gains you up to 4 stops of usable speed!

The EF-S 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS (equivalent to a 88-400mm on a full-frame!) is even more remarkable for someone like me who had never used IS lenses before. It focuses faster and more accurately than my Sigma did (which isn’t surprising since it is a Canon lens on a Canon camera) and a few nights ago, while shooting test pictures of boats on English Bay, I suddenly realized it was a half hour past sunset and I was still shooting hand held, full zoom, very acceptably sharp pictures (on the Auto ISO setting, which meant 200 to 800 ISO in the dim remaining light). Now that’s cool! So the EF-S 55-250 IS is just a very, very neat, extremely affordable lens.

What else? The XSi features many other new refinements, like 14 bits A/D image conversion, a larger 3.0 inch LCD with 170 degrees viewing angle, a dedicated ISO button on top of the body as well as in-view finder ISO reading, Tone Highlight and High ISO Noise Reduction, fast 3.5 frames a second shooting speed, auto ISO mode (not as perfect as Nikon’s but better than none), a revised, clearer and even more customizable menu display, a larger viewfinder, slightly improved ergonomics, spot metering, much improved battery life and excellent noise levels in the entire 100 to 1600 ISO range (of course by excellent I mean low!)

The downsides are few; Canon has decided to switch to SD and SDHS from the original Rebel line CompactFlash format, which means that upgrading implies new memory cards too. However with the rate at which prices are falling on these too, one can hardly complain. Same thing with the grip. Different solution. Mine hails from Honk Kong, but one gets what one pays for...

Also, the XSi is definitely built much, much less sturdy than the 40D. That’s both a blessing and a curse. If you are planning on abusing and banging your camera around, the 40D would be a better bet. However if traveling and mobility are your main concerns, then the XSi will shine. It’s incredibly light even with the 55-250mm and the grip mounted and will travel on your shoulder or in your bag barely noticed.

So for more pictures with the new gear, stay tuned.

Oh yeah, and Abetoo with her kit lens shows almost no chromatic aberration. Oh well.

Draw a salad bowl in your head. Throw in, at random, pieces of Google Analytics, Stacounter, ClustrMaps, Geoloc and Skype. Add dressing. Mix well. You’ve got Woopra.

New kid on the trendy block of web statistics, Woopra is another one of those applications that seem to explode into stardom nearly overnight. The concept hasn’t even emerged out of beta testing yet and already, it is the talk of the hour. The design team had planned to steer 250 beta testers into a controlled study; they now have over 25,000. Something must have gone right.

For someone who is currently using Google Analytics - the so far unchallenged leader of the pack - to track their web site traffic and statistics, Woopra will feel both familiar and weird. There are many similarities - after all they tap into pretty much the same data to render their stats - but there are also interesting differences. Let’s start with the interface; anybody familiar with Google products, and Analytics is no exception, knows that their engineers either favour plain, white backgrounds with minimal eye candy, or have something stuck... somewhere. Woopra is the opposite: total pleasure for the eyes, color-rich interface, dark theme. And just as I’ve now turned to Gmail Redesigned for a richer Gmail interface, Woopra hits the spot in the same tones.

Then there’s the very important fact that while Google Analytics and most other similar tools are web-based, Woopra is a desktop application. This has great advantages but also means that the host application needs to be installed on each computer one intends to track from. Worth mentioning, though: Woopra offers a minimalistic web-based mock-up of their stats readout accessible from anywhere online via your account.

Yet another noticeable difference between the two soon-to-be rivals, is the fact that Google Analytics remains very evasive when it comes to singling out individual visitors, concentrating rather on networks, keywords and general traffic. Woopra, on the other hand, approaches the issue like StatCounter does, offering very detailed information about every single visitor in a voyeuristic way that will probably appeal most to low-traffic site webmasters and bloggers.

And here we encounter the most significant difference yet: while Google’s stats are only updated daily, Woopra woops results to you in real time. Visitors to the site are reported just about instantly, and in that aspect, Woopra reminds me of Geoloc and its flashing dots. But things are now pushed one step further: the webmaster is able to initiate a live chat session with anybody currently visiting the site! Are you a blogger from South Africa? You notice a fellow SAfrican visiting your blog, in real time, and you send them a chat offer that appears in their browser, from the « webmaster ». If they accept it, a standard chat window opens up and you are live with your visitor. How cool is that? Maybe not unique, but now coming to the masses.

What else? Oh yes, the downside. Well, for one thing, how do YOU feel about having so much of your personal information revealed and possibly exploited by the webmaster of a site you are visiting, or getting a chat request by said webmaster when you wanted to remain anonymous? Not good? That’s too bad, because it’s been happening for ages. Woopra just makes it more user-friendly. Now what do I mean by personal information? Nothing worth killing for; your (approximate) location, browser version, operating system, screen resolution, language, IP number, point or web site of origin, keywords searched for, duration of your visit, and color of your socks. Well maybe not the color, but whether you are wearing one or two. But not your name, not your email, nor phone number. Not your secret goulash recipe. Nothing you haven’t flashed publicly on the web for years already.

Another problem is that Woopra, probably because of its unexpected and sudden success, is still only allowing sign-ups upon an individual web site approval process that is taking days and sometimes weeks. I waited 2 weeks for mine. Others wave waited for months. But hey, the thing’s still a beta, so I guess we can cut them some slack. And yes, I’ve found a few bugs, and taken a couple of notes of features I think might be important.

But really, in the end, Woopra is fun to play and interact with, or just fun to watch. Will it replace my Google Analytics completely? Time will tell. For now, I’m hooked.

After careful analysis of my many cramps, side aches, crashes, morale low’s, mood swings, mediocre results, motivation deprivation and various other technical factors, I’ve concluded that:

• I run more often in my head than out there;
• I run faster if I have something in the oven;
• I run much better to music and even better to certain specific beats.

Hence my recent problem: for most of those years, I have been running to the same repertoire of less than 10 songs, half of which I actually use most of the time. Sure, they are pretty darn goods song and the repetition probably achieves some kind of hypnotic effect but still, I think a change is in order because as it is, simply hearing one of those tracks in a non-running environment gets my heart pumping, my forehead sweaty, my feet longing for running shoes and adrenaline shooting through me like if an invisible finish line had just materialized.

For the longest time, I had been putting off adding songs to my playlist based on the simple fact that finding tracks with an appropriate tempo within my 1500 song library was a daunting task of trial and error. The thing is, I use some tracks for warm ups and others for the 2 most common speeds I run at (slow and super-slow), and they each fit within their own rather narrow tempo range - 82 BPM for the slowest, 83 to 85 for the mid-speed ones and 86 to 88 for the fastest, as it turns out. It’s amazing how a change of 6 beats per minute can mean the difference between life and death!

Well, yesterday I found a nifty piece of software called beaTunes, which analyzes your MP3 tracks’ BPM (Beats Per Minute) and saves the resulting value in the file’s appropriate field via iTunes. I left beaTunes run overnight so I don’t know for sure, but the whole (one time) process probably took a couple of hours.

Result? I can suddenly browse through my music library, click on a column header and sort all songs by tempo! Nirvana! Not the band, the state! I now have an amazing variety of new songs to chose from and can tailor my running playlists to my needs based on the speed or rhythm I want to be running at on specific routes.

Now of course Microsoft is always behind and the Media Player which I use to upload music to my MP3 device doesn’t support the BPM field. Duh. Why would Microsoft natively support anything useful or cool? Mais qu’à cela ne tienne, iTunes does, so I made my playlist in there and then used the open source iTunes Export to turn it into a WMP-compatible list, and I was done.

The MP3 player is loaded (I refuse to run with the iPod - too bulky, too precious) and eager to get a field test. So am I. The new Asics rock. My runs are mapped over at MapMyRun. For only cramps, now, I will fight those in the hand holding the player.

[Note: this post was originally written about BMP’s but to accommodate the rigid perfectionist mind of some readers, later adjusted to BPM’s.]

Less than 2 weeks ago, Mozilla released its latest marvel, Firefox 3. The new browser is sleeker than most and includes exciting new features like the Smart Location Bar and Color Management support. However an exhaustive list of all the cool features would take pages and I’ll leave it up to you to do your research. One thing I can tell you: if and when you switch to Firefox, you won’t come back, even if only because of its fantastic add-on architecture.

I’ve been having fun analyzing users habits and browser trends. It seems that Firefox users are generally much more aware of their browser’s capabilities and released updates, and to me that implies a different approach to the web and surfing. In other words, suddenly, I am thinking about tailoring my web design according to browsers in order to please a more targeted audience - and forgetting about the sacred rules of cross-browser compatibility, as it was suggested here. I wouldn’t go as far as dropping the ball completely for IE users and merely providing them with a laconic message like « Sorry. This site has been optimized for Firefox. Please switch browsers and come back later. » That would be fun, though. But I must admit that the bulk of my efforts with CSS and scripting is beginning to focus on Mozilla and forget about IE.

Let me throw a few figures at you to illustrate my point. Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001, buggy and messing with standard compliance; it was simply a bad browser and soon started losing ground to the new comer Firefox. 5 years later, in 2006, Microsoft unleashed IE7, hoping to stop the fall of its Windows-native browser. It failed. IE7 still cannot compete with Firefox, even if it did manage to regain some lost ground. But what’s interesting to me is that according to Google Analytics stats, 38% of my Internet Explorer visitors are still on IE6, 7 years after it was released and 2 years after a newer and better version came out.

Let’s look at Firefox. Version 2 rolled out in 2006. On June 17th, 2008, Firefox 3 was released in its final version. Yet, my stats show that 36% of my visitors are already using version 3, less than 2 weeks after its release. What does that say to me? They know what they want. They know what they don’t want. They’ll do something about it. My web site had better be polished otherwise they’ll go somewhere else.

« Well, but Firefox users probably do not yet represent such a large share of the crowd, » you might think. Think again. As of today, 45% of my visitors are using IE, 42% are on Firefox, 8% on Safari and the rest is negligible. Wow. The gap has been bridged.

Watching the web evolve these days is plain and simple fascinating. You need to be alert. Things are changing so fast blinking at the wrong time will make you miss a supernova. I can’t wait to see what unfolds next. And all isn’t pretty on that front. A US telecommunications policy debate is raging about the future of Net Neutrality. Now that’s scary.

But then again, there is no doubt that the internet is the next Superpower, and Superpowers will fight to death to control it.

Well, I got sidetracked. Again. In the middle of posting pictures of the recent Victoria whale watching expedition with Marie, I drifted and have just upgraded the South Africa galleries [1] and [2] with the coolest eye-candy, a 3D photo browser called PicLens, by Cooliris. Now this is going to require a small effort on your part (so small, really) if you want to enjoy the full experience, but I guarantee that if you bare with me, it will blow your mind!

So what are we talking about here? Well, until now, I’ve used (and still do on the blog because implementation here isn’t yet an option) the awesome Lightbox 2 Ajax script to display my photos in a slideshow fashion. However, web-based applications are evolving fast and more than ever, it’s about user experience and 3D interfaces. That’s where PicLens comes in: you install a plugin to your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser and voila (voila, but as always, the plugin installation is much faster and easier on Firefox than IE. No sweat for you sorry Internet Explorer users though, it’ll just take a few additional clicks and maybe a browser restart); the plugin transforms each photo gallery into a super-slick 3D photo-browsing interface, completely immersive and fluid.

Now, for those of you who are really lazy and don’t want to install the plugin, you will still get a PicLens mock-up, but without the 3D effect which, I think, is the most amazing part of the trick. So be bold, install the little plugin, it’s a matter of seconds, you can always uninstall later if it doesn’t live up to your expectations. Convinced? Cool. (No, I’m not getting a commission. I just love the gadget!) Click on one of the browser links above to get the plugin and see you soon in the South Africa galleries...

I’ve placed an entry link at the top of each gallery (gallery links above) but once on the gallery page, the mouse hovered over the lower left corner of each thumbnail will also reveal a blue arrow allowing you to start PicLens on that image.

Once in PicLens, have fun! Drag the 3D wall with your mouse to navigate along it, roll your mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the wall, click on pictures to enlarge them, navigate in all four directions with your cursor arrows, double-click on an image to get the slideshow in full screen, it’s all very intuitive and mesmerizing.

And of course, if you install the plugin and have Picasa Web Albums, a Flickr account, or even Myspace or Facebook, or Youtube, it’ll work there too! And if you don’t have accounts, you can still do generic searches on those sites and get the effect! Or try a Google Images search.

In case I haven’t convinced you yet, you can watch a video of the 3D effect here. Yeah, I know, I’m biased.

You gotta love Web 2.0.

My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots, welcome to a new step in this blog’s sheepishly modest evolution. I have been blogging in the darks for too long, and even though it remains ideal for showcasing photography, I have decided to turn my back to darkness and ease into lighter tones again. Pompously, I named this template Rebirth as a wink to both the new look of the premises and recent events in my life. But with no further delays, I’ll take you for a walk around...

First and foremost, you will have noticed the « Web 2.0 » feel. Unless, that is, you don’t have a clue of what Web 2.0 is, in which case you are still part of a vast majority. Well, let me reassure you, Web 2.0 is not yet-another standard or a another programming language or set of rules. There is nothing hardcoded to be learned, no syntax to master. Instead, we are offered a tendency. A trend. A direction. Almost a philosophy. Web 2.0 simply is the emotional result of over 20 years of web evolution.

The term was first invented in 2004 to describe the emerging use of the World Wide Web and web design as creative and collaborative efforts. Computer users are currently experiencing a migration from their computer-based applications towards a web-based community where information sharing and communications are leading us into a new era. Social networking, wikis, blogs and photo sharing sites are at the heart of Web 2.0. It has become possible to work exclusively online through the use of webmail, messaging and web-based word processors, photo-editors, calendars and the like.

In addition, Web 2.0 marks the end of boring text-only browsing and the appearance of pretty online interfaces that mimic desktop applications, enhancing user-interaction and once again promoting a communication exchange. Surfing the web is now less about reading passively and more about participating and providing input and feedback, in real time.

Of course, to support such improvements, new technologies are being developed and my favorite is AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. To keep things simple, let’s just say that AJAX blurs the line between static web pages and a dynamic information exchange between server and visitor. It for instance allows you, as my visitor, to drag and drop the right sidebar widgets - reordering them as you see fit, or to collapse them by clicking on the Mac-looking green icon, all without the need for a full page reload. It saves you time and makes me popular by improving your experience and allowing for a pleasant visit. Go ahead, try it! It’s fun, and it’s very Web 2.0.

I have kept some of the core functionality of the previous template such as Lightbox 2.0 for all slideshows, because once again it falls into the new trend and because it is just one of the best scripts out there. I finally agree with my « editor » that the photo thumbnails inside posts are too small and will from now on include bigger ones. The template I based this one on was initially created for WordPress and eventually ported to Serendipity. The credits are at the bottom of the page. I redesigned it to follow my inspiration, got rid of the elements that were too obviously Mac-ed and reworked the comment display system to improve a touch on what I had with the dark skin. You can still toggle the comment display instantly (without a time-consuming page reload) with a link at the bottom of each post, or chose to immediately reply or post if you are the first one to do so.

Should this one not be your first choice, the old skins are still available via the sidebar. If you re-arrange the sidebar widgets, your browser will remember your preferences and the next time you visit, it will all be peachy. I have tried to streamline the loading process and cut down a single page’s list to 10 entries. You should experience slightly faster loading times.

Any way, in the end, blogging is not about the envelope, is it? It’s about the content. Right. Well, this IS content, about the envelope. I hope you’ll enjoy both.

Of the many web thinggies keeping me interested in my screen these days, worth mentioning are the following:

• Firefox remains at the top of the pack, slick, fast, free, efficient and most of all, fun! If you haven’t switched yet, you’re falling behind. Its extension possibilities are far superior to anything else that exists right now and allow you to turn your web surfing experience into a cool ride, which it might as well be considering the time we spend doing it! And that brings me to the next topic:
• Gmail Redesigned, a new skin for the rather boring standard Gmail look. It’s basically new CSS for Gmail, running on a Firefox extension called Stylish. Very interesting new look, much darker colors, something I like as you’ll have noticed by the template on this blog.
• Splashup, an online photo editing tool that allows you to retouch or resize your photos on the fly, from anywhere with internet access. No need to have a computer with Photoshop installed, it all happens in real time on the web site, through a VERY slick interface that fully illustrates the power of the Web 2.0 trend and AJAX.
• TED, (no, not the dog!) the Technology, Entertainment and Design web site, featuring videos of talks given by some of the greatest minds of our time at conferences where they are challenged to give the speech of a lifetime in 18 minutes.
• MapMyRun, a cool training tacking site with incorporated Google Maps route design and distance mapping. I haven’t managed yet to embed a run map directly onto the blog because of a conflict between Serendipity and <iframes>, but below is the link to my standard, ever so beautiful Stanley Park run.

Once in a while, to change the routine or take a break from intense photo or design work, I’ll allow myself to Stumble for a while. Here are a few interesting sites discovered on my last ride...

A rather interesting awareness test. Read the final credits. Smart of them.
Some motivation if you feel like you are failing. I feel better now.
Very funny aircraft snag book entries. Ok, maybe you need to be a pilot to laugh at some of those...
Science-fiction meets the present at the hands of good writers.