The US are proposing an Act called the Orphan Works Act of 2008 which will take away the automatic copyright protection that photographers and artists currently have.

In the US, if you take a picture, or make a piece of art, you automatically own the copyright and before someone uses it for their own purpose, they have to obtain/purchase rights from you.

In essence, the new law makes it so that to retain copyright, you have to have the image registered in a database and, if it isn't found in the database, the person who wants to use it can then freely copy the image.

So billions of photographs must be registered in order for everyone to retain copyright. That is so unlikely to happen, all of the photographers will lose their copyright protection.

If you want to register your objection to this, please go to this site for specific details. If you live in the US, there is a form on the site that allows you to email your senator automatically. If you don't live in the US, the site provides contact details for key US representatives that you can fax.

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I recently bought the new Canon 450D - great camera, by the way - to augment our digital camera arsenal for an upcoming wedding shoot. The general approach we take with photography is to stick with Raw mode wherever possible as it gives us a bit more flexibility in the adjustment stage, particularly around the white balance, without as much damage to the image compared to using Jpeg.

The Raw image format is specific to each particular model of camera due to the nature of the image CCD layout, camera settings, etc. Photoshop eases the support for Raw by using a plug-in. Adobe keep updating the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in with the details of the latest and greatest cameras:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

They added support for the EOS 450D to Camera Raw 4, specifically version 4.4.

So where is the built-in obsolescence?

Camera Raw 4 is only supported by Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop Lightroom. It is not compartible with Photoshop CS2, which is the version I have, and Adobe do not add camera support to older versions of the Camera Raw plug-in.

So I now have a choice:

• Use Jpeg instead of RAW format when taking photos.
• Use Canon's Digital Photo Professional tool, supplied with the camera, to convert the RAW images into Jpeg.
• Spend £700 upgrading my CS2 suite to CS3.

Hmmm ... some choice!

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http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/

Just brilliant!

Oh, and if you want to read what the Independent thought of it: http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2537369.ece

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This is part of a series of blog entries that I'm gradually putting together about the holiday we just finished in Florida.

In previous visits to the Disney parks, we've made a point of getting our photo taken in front of the Tower of Terror. We've then purchased a print of the photo, and Disney have overlayed Mickey & Co standing in front of us. It has been a great way to remember the holiday, and to see the effect of the passage of time on my wife's sons as they grow older.

No longer, though, as that particular service has been replaced by PhotoPass. New to us, but not to more regular visitors to the parks, the service allows the Disney photographers to use digital cameras and assign a reference number to the photos. You then get given a card with that number on. Subsequent photos can be assigned the same reference, or you can get given a new card and then merge the accounts online.

I'd done some reading about this service ahead of us flying out to Orlando and I knew that our stay at the Beach Club Resort would include a free voucher for a 5"x7" print of a PhotoPass photo. So, we thought we'd try to make the most of the service and get photos of both of us that we could then enjoy afterwards.

As I've already mentioned, there is an online component to this service. It allows you to review the photos for up to 30 days after they were taken. You can also make some editorial changes to the photos, such as cropping, zooming in, rotating and adding "borders". The borders are the PhotoPass equivalent to what Disney used to do to the photos, i.e. they are overlayed graphics. Unfortunately, there wasn't the equivalent of the overlay that they used to apply.

The system is intelligent in that it has a set of categories for the photos. What I mean by that is that if you are looking at a photo of Winnie the Pooh, one of the borders will be Pooh's signature. Also, if the photo was taken in Epcot, one of the borders will be the 2007 logo for Epcot - the same goes for the other parks.

The online service does not allow you to save the images. The intention is that you order them, either as prints, or on a CD, in a book or as part of a video. To give you a flavour of the borders, though, here is the thumbnail of one of the photos that was taken:

Disney image 1

and here are the various borders applied to this image:

Click on each image to see it slightly larger ... although not much larger!

I mentioned the CD of images - this is quite an expensive option, running at about $120 USD, but it can store all of the photos taken, plus any that you have manipulated or added borders to. We ended up having about 60-70 photos taken over the five days we were in the parks. When we got home, I went through most of them, adding all of the four possible borders for each photo, taking the total up to about 320 photos. That brought the cost per photo right down and makes it a more reasonable proposition. The images on the CD are supposed to be full quality and include a licence for you to use them images for personal use, which I think is good considering you can overlay Disney copyright logos onto them.

If you want the prints or other items while you are in the parks, there are photo stores that you can visit. The terminals there are operated by the Disney photographers which leads to quite a queue building sometimes. The facilities on the terminals are greater than what you can achieve online. The online service enforces where the border goes, while the terminals allow you to reposition and resize the graphics.

A major downside of the terminals is that they cannot access any of the images that you've created online. This meant that the only way I could order a Photo CD with my additional border-enhanced photos was online, rather than in the store.

A big plus of the service, although we only encountered it at Test Track, was that the cameras on the rides are linked into the PhotoPass system so you can have those photos added to your collection. One ride that we explicitly did not find this on was Expedition: Everest. I find it a bit strange that the newest ride isn't hooked into the system and it was a bit disappointing.

So we've ordered the Photo CD and it is on its way. Once it arrives, I'll write a followup piece on the quality of the images and the overall product.

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This is part of a series of blog entries that I'm gradually putting together about the holiday we just finished in Florida.

Microsoft's Tech-Ed convention was ending on Friday 8th June and the plan was to stay in Florida for another week, filling ourselves up on theme park goodness.

So what better way to start the holiday than to see the Blue Man Group in their new theatre at Universal Studios?

For the regular readers of this blog, you'll know that this isn't the first time that we've seen the Blue Men! Let's see now ... Las Vegas, London, New York, Boston and now Orlando!

Some people might think us mad to keep on seeing the same group but, for those who know the BMG, you'll understand that it isn't the same performance and, even if it was, the energy of that performance is just so WOW! that it is a great way to kick off the holiday :).

The BMG's theatre used to be the Nickleodean location at Universal Studios. As you can see from the top photo, though, they've done a great job of theming the building! The inside is just fantastic - a single layer of seats, rising up as you go more towards the back of the theatre. The second photo shows the area that you walk through to get to the theatre, while the one below that is little ol' me standing in front of one of their promotional posters, near the Universal globe.

This was the second official day of running for the show and, on the whole, it was a fantastic experience. There were a few glitches but nothing big enough to spoil the evening. I'd booked early enough to get poncho seats (row DD) so we had a great view of the stage. The poncho seats are the first few rows where you get given clear plastic ponchos to wear, just in case anything comes your way. I rather cruelly enjoyed watching some of the BMG newbies cringe in anticipation of something coming when it wasn't going to!

There were, for those who see the show regularly, a few new pieces. The "heads in TV sets" sequence had been changed from previous shows. The right-hand BMG changes to Floppie the clown and a dog's head, for a start, and it was nice to see this being slightly different. Another sequence that I noticed was different was the animation skit where the BMG came out on stage with glowing suits (a bit like the outfit worn for I Feel Love) with their own sticks.

They had also added a brand new skit (or new to me, anyway) where they got three people out of the audience and attached bits to their heads. They then proceed to "play" the volunteers as if they were causing them pain and the pain was audible to everyone. Fantastic skit - hilarious even if I haven't described it very well!

Speaking of "I Feel Love", they've made that the last piece, rather than Last Train to Trancentral. A bit different, but it works OK.

All in all, a great way to start the holiday, and a great location for them to be in. I hope that this is very successful for them.

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This is part of a series of blog entries that I'm gradually putting together about the holiday we just finished in Florida.

For the last five days of our holiday, we were staying at a Disney hotel - the Beach Club Resort, so I decided to add the Disney Dining Plan to the cost of the package. The way that the plan works is quite simple - each member of the holiday gets a counter service point, a snack point and a table service point per day in the package. Those points can be used up however you like and most Disney food locations participate in the scheme. For a counter service meal, you get an entree, a desert and a non-alcoholic drink. For a table service meal, you get an appetiser, an entree, a desert and a non-alcoholic drink. Gratuities are included as well.

Disney claim that you can save up to 40% off the cost of eating by using the scheme so I thought I'd try to do some sums to see if that claim is valid. It turned out to be quite tricky to do the sums, primarily because very few of the receipts had any values attached to them! Still, here is the working out that I've managed to do ...

The table service meals that we had were as follows:

• Monday: Liberty Tree Tavern (Magic Kingdom).
  This is an all-you-can-eat buffet. The receipt didn't have a value on it, but the WDW Info site reckons that this costs $27.99 a head. By my reckoning, tax seems to be about 6.5% so that comes to $59.62. Adding 18% gratuity from the net value ($10.08) brings it to $69.70.
• Tuesday: Le Cellier (Epcot).
  This is a really good steakhouse restaurant - and not cheap! The receipt did have a value on it and the meal that we had came to $96.40.
• Wednesday: Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater (Disney-MGM).
  The receipt for this meal came to $79.26 but doesn't show a gratuity so that would bring the effective value up to $92.66.
• Thursday: Garden Grill (Epcot).
  This is another all-you-can-eat buffet. The receipt value came to $69.70 including the gratuity.
• Friday: Cape May Cafe (Beach Club Resort).
  We kept the last table service points for the breakfast - another buffet. The receipt value was $47.29 including the gratuity.

I didn't work out the additional cost of the dining plan when I was booking the holiday so I've had to do it using dates in July rather than June off Disney's vacation booking service but I don't think it will affect the cost of the plan. By my reckoning, it costs $389.90 to add the dining plan to a five-day package for two people. Adding up the five table service meals alone comes to $375.75.

Unfortunately, none of the other receipts we got for meals have any values on them. From memory, though, most of the counter service meals were going to cost around $25 for both of us. Adding up the cost of the meal at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, for example, comes to $26.74. Five counter service meals at that cost adds $125 to the spend, bringing the total so far to $500.75 and I suspect that is an underestimate because I've gone for an average cost. On top of that are the snack costs - we typically used the snack points to buy a coffee and muffin or something like that as a small breakfast meal ahead of the main lunch.

In conclusion, then, I don't have enough facts to be able to say categorically that the dining plan scheme has made as big a saving as Disney says is possible. That said, it has definitely made a saving of at least $100 over the five day holiday and, without there being much restriction on how you use the plan, that is a reasonable saving to have achieved. In future, I'd probably stay away from the buffet locations in preference of full menu locations as you get more value then.

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Dave Helmly at Adobe has written a great article about the workflow and experience of using the latest (yet to be released) versions of the video tools from Adobe to take HDV footage and create a Blu-ray disc.

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2007/05/working_with_encore_cs3_and_bl.html

It is very encouraging to see that the new software applications are going to make more use of multiple cores. The blog also gives an insight as to why only Blu-ray is currently supported. One can only hope that either the format war ends soon or more HD DVD burners become available and Encore is extended to support HD DVD as well.

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Dave Helmly at Adobe has written a great article about the workflow and experience of using the latest (yet to be released) versions of the video tools from Adobe to take HDV footage and create a Blu-ray disc.

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2007/05/working_with_encore_cs3_and_bl.html

It is very encouraging to see that the new software applications are going to make more use of multiple cores. The blog also gives an insight as to why only Blu-ray is currently supported. One can only hope that either the format war ends soon or more HD DVD burners become available and Encore is extended to support HD DVD as well.

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I'm lucky enough to be able to run a high resolution desktop - 1680x1050. As a result, though, the icons on the desktop look stupidly big, taking up about an inch or more of real space. So I started looking for a way to reduce the size and came across the solution.

Make sure there is nothing open on the desktop. Click on the desktop background. Hold down the CTRL key - you should now see a box appear around the first icon on the desktop. Whilst holding down the CTRL key, move the scroll wheel on your mouse backwards and forwards to make the icons bigger or smaller.

Unfortunately, I don't know how you achieve this trick if you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse ...

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(Click on any of the photos to view a larger version)

BA engine

The flight from Heathrow to Mexico City was pleasant, uneventful and, at 9 hours, quite long so it gave me an opportunity to try out the Nikon S10 point-and-shoot digital camera that we’d bought recently to use when my wife’s Canon SLR is a bit over-the-top.

We arrived in Mexico at about 8pm local time, or about 2am UK time, so we were glad that we had decided to book a room at the Hilton which is actually on-site at the airport.

The next day, we travelled by coach to Querétaro. The coach service is a bit like National Express, but on steroids! The seats are well padded, and recline! A packed lunch was provided, along with some music and a film to keep us occupied during the 2½ hour journey.

Querétaro or, to give it its full name – Santiago de Querétaro – was first occupied by the Spanish in 1531 and they allied themselves with the Otomí. The city is considered to be the cradle of Mexican Independence since the rebellion was planned here. Following the Mexican Revolution, the victorious forces assembled themselves in the city where, on February 5th 1917, they drafted the Constitution that remains in force today. The city was a host city for the 1986 World Cup.

Our hotel – the Quinta Santiago – has been a delightful place to rest at the end of each day. The staff have been very friendly and helpful. The architecture of both the hotel and the city in general is reminiscent of Spain, reflecting the heritage of the city.

The room we’ve been staying in has been on two levels. The lower level has the bedroom and bathroom, while the upper level has a living room area.

The wedding was between Deborah & Omar. Deborah is the eldest daughter of Pat & Marc. Pat is my wife’s best friend from college days; they later emigrated to Canada from the UK. My wife returned to the UK after a couple of years, but Pat stayed on, married Marc and has two lovely daughters.

The wedding was held in what is locally referred to as a temple. This particular temple is named after Saint Antonio. As seemed to be par for the course with the Mexican way of life, the previous wedding ceremony was overrunning, so we initially congregated outside, making as much use of the shade as possible.

As a Catholic service, we were surprised to see so many people moving around during the ceremony taking photos. It was quite a contrast to how services are conducted back home! Still, it did mean that there were plenty of opportunities to keep memories of the event.

The service was mostly conducted in Spanish, with the exception of a couple of points in the ceremony where the couple repeated sections in English, particularly their vows.

After the service, we made our way to Misión San Gil for the reception. The weather was gorgeous so we were able to enjoy the afternoon and evening outside. By comparison with other wedding receptions, the top table consisted of just the bride and groom. We had a delightful three course meal: a starter of cheese ravioli, followed by chicken in sesame seeds with mashed potato, carrots and broccoli, and a cheesecake desert. After the meal ... the revelries!

Congo!

After the more traditional wedding dances, we had some more unusual entertainment, including a congo that went underneath an archway formed by the bride and groom.

Throwing the bouquet

The bride then threw her bouquet ... and it was caught by her younger sister!

Next, the groom retrieved the garter from beneath his wife’s dress and threw it out to the single men, where it was caught by one of the younger participants.

We then had a traditional Mexican piece where the men carried the groom as if to a funeral, then throwing him in the air (and catching him!) and finally, dunking his feet in the nearest fountain.

The partying continued late into the night, with dances involving balloons, straw hats and wrestling masks ... although not all at the same time!

The next day was primarily one of relaxation and, for some, recovery after all of the alcohol from the previous night! After checking out of the hotel, we returned by taxi to Querétaro, trying to ignore the fact that the speedometer in the taxi wasn’t working and we had no way to judge how much over the speed limit the driver was going! 

Peña de Bernal

The following day was an excursion arranged by our hosts as an opportunity for more of us to spend time with each other after the wedding. The first destination was to San Sebastián Bernal, home of Peña de Bernal or Bernal’s Boulder. This is the second-largest monolith in the world (after Mt Augustus in Western Australia) and the third-highest monolith in the world (after the Rock of Gibraltar and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro).

The town was very quiet as most Mexicans visit it at the weekend. Whilst there, we bought some local items as presents for the folks back home. This has become something of a tradition for us – taking advantage of our various holiday destinations to buy more unusual gifts.

There were some beautiful flowers to be seen, as well as pomegranates!

After staring up at the monolith and deciding that we were all wimps and not going to try to hike up it, we drove on to Tequisquiapan – a town that has a name that is as hard to pronounce as it is to spell! Here, we had a lovely four course meal with choices for every course: chicken consommé or cream of spinach soup, paella or bolognaise cannelloni, chicken in breadcrumbs or steak, both with chips and salad, and finishing off with a small desert of cold custard or crème brûlée. What took us by surprise, despite having bought various local items at a very favourable price, was the cost of this meal. Just £5 per person! The low price of the food was not betrayed by poor quality, either. Each course was very tasty and a delight to eat.

We finished the day back in Querétaro where we sat outside a bar, enjoying drinks while listening to a local guitar player singing Beatle classics to us.

The following, and final full day in Querétaro, was spent doing some final shopping and walking over to one of the famous sights of the city - the aqueduct. Constructed between 1726 and 1735, the aqueduct of Queretaro has gained national recognition as the symbol of the city. Built of local sandstone, its 74 arches reach nearly 1,400 yards east of the city; the highest arch soars some 75 feet above current-day street level. The aqueduct brought drinking water into the city from springs located on what are now the outskirts of town. It was put into service in 1738, furnishing water to the convents and filling the public fountains, an event which occasioned two weeks of public celebration. Although it no longer carries municipal water, the colonial aqueduct is­ one of the most ambitious hydraulic projects of the colonial era in Mexico ­and is an imposing sight as it sweeps into the city from the surrounding hills.

Neither of us really knew what to look forward to or expect during this holiday. We knew we were going to Mexico, where we hadn’t been before or knew much about, and we knew we were going to a wedding, but didn’t know much more than that. The week has been filled with wonderful experiences – Querétaro is a wonderful town to visit. It is popular with Mexicans as a tourist location but is currently off the tourist map for almost everyone else. The wedding was delightful, from the experience of a Catholic ceremony, to seeing everyone so joyous and involved. The wedding reception was amazing and I don’t think we’ll forget all of the parts that went to make up the whole in a hurry!

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