Jason Thibeault's Blog: From My Pen, page 61

Having a Successful Startup

ReadWriteWeb posted a nice piece of Bob Metcalfe (the founder of “ethernet”) regarding what he thinks are the five critical attributes needed to make a startup successful:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2011/09/five-types-of-skills-you-need-entrepreneurs.php

From the article:

Be healthy.Are startups all about pulling all nighters and eating ramen noodles? Steve Jobs wasn’t like that in his early days, Metcalfe argues. You need to be healthy. “Don’t buy into this bullshit that you need to driv...

Are You a Creative Person?

A really great article on both the process of creativity and the traits of a creative personality. I have always considered myself a highly creative person. Not just with writing but within business. In fact, I have always been looked to as the “idea guy.” But I had never really seen such an accurate breakdown of the creative individual. And when I thought about myself against the traits below, I really feel like I understand myself a bit more (although I would argue one missing trait: parano...

How-To: Tips for Adjusting Photos in Photo Editing Software

Although the article below references Adobe Lightroom in particular, it applies to any photo-editing software (like Aperture 3, for example) that provides this kind of fine-grain modification:

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/ten-photo-editing-tips-from-a-pro/

From the piece:

1. Boost blacks to +5 points or so (in the Basics panel, under Color). Deepening blacks will add richness to the image.

2. Add a vignette to the image (in the Effects panel, Post-Crop Vignetting). Take the vign...

Photo: Creating A Window to the World

Sometimes it’s up to the photographer to create the vision that the camera can’t really capture. Such is the case in this beautiful photo of a bedroom and the Brooklyn Bridge:

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The details on the photo (and how the photographer made it) are on the NatGeo link below:

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/brooklyn-bedroom/

Photo: Creating A Window to the World

And the Oscar Goes To…

/facepalm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1244634/The-Chimpcam-Project-Chimpanzees-given-special-video-camera-make-film.html

To quote:

“Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.”

And the Oscar Goes To...

Adobe Announces Flash Media Server (FMS) 4.5

From the PR:

Adobe announced at the IBC 2011 Conference and Exhibition new releases of its streaming video solutions, including Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Flash Access 3.0 software.

Flash Media Server 4.5 adds the ability to deliver video content to Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices. Adobe Flash Access 3.0, a content protection and monetization solution, will enable content owners to deliver on-demand content with massive scale and strict studio-level security across a broad range of device...

Do You Really Have Free Will?

Philosophers have long debated this question: do we decide what we want to do or, in most cases, is it divine providence that guides us?

But the face-off between independent thought and divine guidance isn’t the real question. As science pokes deeper into the source of human consciousness, the question about free will is more a face-off between our belief that some “self” inside of us, our consciousness, enables us to make decisions and the chemical, self-servicing nature of our biology.

As hum...

Video: I’m Free, Free Fallin…

Whether you like Tom Petty or not (or get vertigo easily), the video below from National Geographic features a helmet cam view of base jumping in a flying suit. Wow.

Hadoop Gets a Big Push

For those of us immersed in the cloud industry, this is big news:

http://gigaom.com/cloud/exclusive-yahoo-launching-hadoop-spinoff-this-week/

It provides a heavy-weight’s backing to a core cloud technology. Hadoop provides a core infrastructure that will become more and more necessary in distributed environments to improve overall cost efficiencies of carrying out high-compute intensive activities.

Yahooooooo!

Import an ebook into iTunes

In this how-to, you will learn how to import an .epub format ebook into iTunes for synchronization to an iOS device (like an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch).

Note: This example uses iTunes on a Macintosh. Your experience may be slightly different (i.e., button names) if you are running iTunes on Windows.

First, open iTunes.

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After iTunes is open, select the Add to Library Option from the File Menu. This will open a dialog box allowing you to search your computer for the file to add.

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Find the .epub fi...