I don't get the Adobe Lightroom methodology

I like photographing, although I don't think I am not even on the par with amateur photographers, but it is a better way to waste time than laying on the couch watching The Simpsons or something (don't get me wrong, I love the Simpsons). I have a Nikon D40 to play with and I take a lot of picture of one subject just to experiment with different settings and compositions. I guess this is the way SLRs are supposed to be handled. Hence I looked into Adobe Lightroom as a way to import, organize, pick good shots and publish photos. Yes, I like Lightroom over Windows Live Photo Gallery - in the matter of fact, it's not even close!

But there are some things I don't get about Adobe Lightroom. First is the methodology that you never ever overwrite the original photos. I personally don't get this design decision. Lightroom offers me a great set of tools to manipulate and insert metadata in the pictures. But it is like I should only be allowed to use these great tools if I only use Adobe Lightroom. I have no easy way to immediately save my cropped picture over the original one. I probably have no reason why I would not like to overwrite the original picture. At least give me an easy way to save the modified picture into the same folder as the original one with a, for example, different name (picture1_mod.jpg). That is why I agree with the complaint made by for example KDern at Flickr forums.

The other thing I really don't get is why I am not able to out-of-the-box export my photos to Flickr. It is an other example of how Adobe wants me to only play with them in their sandbox. Come on, Adobe! Even its competitor, Aperture, has this feature built in. Yes yes, I know there are some extension that allow me to do this, but Flickr export integrated would probably give me better support.

Nevertheless, I will give Adobe Lightroom the 30 day trial period Adobe offers me. I like the overall feel of the user interface and of course, as you would expect from Adobe, Lightroom gives me more than enough tools to manipulate the photos.

Nokia swetting today? I guess so :)

Oh, and now that I mentioned WWDC in my previous post, lets see how it goes. Steve will probably launch the new 3G iPhone today. It has already, before its' launch, got widespread attention and worldwide delivery contracts announced. I think Nokia is starting to feel the pressure, since now Apple can start competing for real in the markets where Nokia has previously dominated with their E- and N-series smartphones.

But Nokia really needs to get their UI into this century! S60 3 feature pack 2 is horrible compared to iPhone's UI! If (and when) iPhone will have 3G, GPS, an application store with native 3rd party application and in the future even more enterprise specific features, Nokia really has to get its act together with that UI because it will eventually draw people to buy a iPhone, which is nice to use, instead of a old-fashioned S60 UI.

I will probably comment on WWDC afterwards.

Update:Yeah, so the 3G iPhone is here. Apple did a really impressive announcement to sell the new 3G iPhone (8GB) for only $199. "The price is a maximum of $199 all around the world". This is really impressive! But I won't hold my breath yet; Sonera will sell the new iPhone here in Finland and I just hope that there will not be a some kind of forced data plan for 24 month, like I would guess. If the new iPhone is 199e with no strings attached, I will buy it the day it becomes available. But unfortunately not Sonera nor Apple has said anything about data plan requirements.

And I guess Nokia will have a crysis meeting tomorrow morning ;)

Update: Well, I guess my first excitement is gone: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/06/09/iphone-3g-the-details-you-never-wanted-to-know/
Of course this doesn't mean that Sonera in Finland requires a similar data plan, but in this light I think it is a bit naive to think that Sonera wouldn't have a similar requirement for a data plan. After all, this is where Apple gets its' money!

Nothing to see here anymore, move along...

Nokia is doing great fanb...^Wcustomer service

I don't know about you, but usually when I think of Microsoft, HP or, say, Apple, I tend to think of large enterprises with very hush-hush relationship with their customers - and let's not forget about the "fanboys". We can read about the corporation and their products on their web pages and nice looking product ads and press releases will pop up once in a while. Oh yeah, and I am writing this on the eve of Apple's WWDC, before the event. I bet every single Apple fanboy is wetting their pants at the moment. I can understand them; Apple comes out and presents something new in Steve Job's great mass-like chanting on how everything is superb, wonderful and let's not forget great. "Boom".

But Nokia is doing things a bit different. Nokia has quitely openened Nokia Converstions. I haven't seen it mentioned in a lot of media, even IT centered. It is a Nokia web pages that aggregates and comments on things written about Nokia, and their products, in blogosphere. People get to interact with the giant corporation in a new way that I haven't seen before done by any other major company, let alone a IT company. I think it is Nokia's way of saying thet the company listens to the customers and fans and want to have a two way dialogue going on. Of course they will use the page to promote new things inside Nokia, but also show that Nokia follows trends; they talk about Twitter, social networking, blogging, Mac support and about a lot of other stuff that I don't normally see a "large stiff corporation" talk about. Also, they welcome criticue and try to improve things.

Of course, they will not talk about some things which is fully understandable. But I think this is a great way to interact with real users that in the end use the devices, services and software. Hope other companies would follow Nokia's example.