Super Quickie News Stuff
Feb. 19
1:57 am
Hi Gang: I’m trying to wrap up my book by Friday, so in the interest of making that happen, here is an abbrevited news thingy:
- I didn’t get to field test the Jobo GPS this week like I had hoped. Maybe next week.
- Come to my Lightroom seminars in Denver and Portland, Oregon. (link)
- This photographer rocks (link)
- I finally broke down and bought an Elinchrom Beautydish.
- Go visit Zack’s blog (link)
- Just two days left to save $100 on Early Bird Registration for Photoshop World (link). PLUS: Scriv put together a new teaser with our football theme, and it’s pretty cool, so stop by the site and check it out.
- Jessica is working on a new cover for the CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks book, and I saw an early proof of it today. She’s rocks! It made me really glad that we decided to go with something completely new.
- Today would be a great day to back up your photo collection.
OK, that’s all I could come up with. Have a good one, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow when I have even less time to blog. 
If you find a case (or way to transport) that beauty dish- if it’s the 27″- please drop me a note. I’ve scoured everywhere and I’m still useing the shipping box it came in until I find something (that’s not expensively custom made).
Scott, I’m really curious to know how the Jobo GPS works out. I’m pretty much waiting to hear what you say about it for a drop the money into it. So any thoughts about it would be much appreciated. Thanks
Hi Scott,
I have been following your blog for several years now and I really appreciate all the wonderful work you do on behalf of us photographers with photoshop.
I have a serious concern I want to share with you. I had trouble installing CS4 Creative suite, and ended up having a long discussion with the Adobe tech department. In the process of trying to get help, I was sent to a person in India who could not speak English and as many of us have this problem, I won’t belabor the point. But after many delays I was finally transferred to a tech person in Portland Or who spoke English and as we were waiting for photoshop to upload, we had a discussion about the problem of out sourcing, especially with the economy and
unemployment – we need to give these jobs to people here. He also implied that it may not be long before all help for photoshop may go through India; Acrobat help already does. I plan to write Adobe of my concerns, but I am asking, no pleading with you, since you have direct connections with Adobe to ask them not to outsource their techincal help. It is already a nightmare and will only get worse.
Many thanks.
Time was customer service/product support was treated purely as a loss leader and rightly so. Its purpose was to keep the customer happy with the product in order to promote word of mouth sales as well as repeat business in addition to keeping the manufacturers fingers on the pulse of the customers (and by association, their own) growth requirements. Simple, common sense stuff right?
Then, responding to bureaucracy that built up in certain industries, outside sources started doing what often amounted to a better (more timely) job of providing support than did the manufacturers themselves but doing it at a price.
Not to be outdone and seeing it as a previously untapped source of additional revenue, manufacturers began ramping up the prices of supporting their very own products, This led, inevitably to outsourcing as a means of maximizing profits but often, in the end, having the opposite to the original intended affect of positive word of mouth and repeat sales.
Worse yet is the current crop of outsourced (offshore) support systems consists of people using scripts that render them nearly useless to almost anyone who calls in with questions related to all but the most mundane of issues.
I find it odd these companies have yet to see the value in returning support to those most uniquely qualified to properly provide it to the widest possible number of customers.
Yes it costs more initially. But not nearly so much as the lost customers and equally important negative word of mouth generated by them. Someone needs to wake up and once and for all, smell the collapsing economy.
They need to realize they’ve managed to butcher the cash cow.
Scott,
Congrats on making it 5 years in a row on top selling books!! I got your Lightroom 2 book a couple of weeks ago and it is a wealth of information.
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/scott_kelby_is_top_selling_us_computer_book_author_for_2008/ for a well deserved write up on you.
Mike
Today is always a great day for backing up photos!
Hi Scott,
thank you as usual for the advice!
I’m trying to access the link: http://www.kelbytraininglive.com/lightroom/
but it appears to be broken! Is it just me?
Cheers
Fabrizio
Just fixed it.
Hi Scott – the lightroom link leads to a missing page.
Go to:
http://www.kelbytraininglive.com/lightroomtour.html
I just fixed the link. Thanks for providing the correct one, Kasey!
Hey Scott,
Did I miss your announcement or have you just not mentioned it yet? I was over at Jeff Revel’s blog. He mentioned that your Digital Photography Book Vol. 3 is on pre order at Amazon. I have the first two. This will be added to my collection of Kelby books. When do you sleep? You are the man!!!
Mike
Scott -
I will be interested in your take on the JOBO photoGPS. I have been using one for a week, and think it works well. As a piece of hardware, it does everything it is supposed to, and is easy to use. The issue is that while the software supplied works well, it does not allow you to geotag RAW images directly. It writes XMP sidecar files that create a problem for me since I use Aperture. As a result, I have added another step to the workflow. I import the geotagged files and XMP files into Houdageo, and then remove the XMP files. Houdageo then writes the geotags directly to the RAW files. I am satisfied with this process for now, and it seems to be working well.
Dudley Warner
Scott,
I just signed up for your seminar in DC in May. Can’t wait for it.
I guess since it is the first one, we will get to see all the bloopers. Don’t be nervous now.
Hi Scott,
Totally off any subject, but check out The Pioneer Woman blog cooking section for a entertaining look at a food shoot for Southern Living magazine. Nothing heavy and serious, just fun to read.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/
Scott – Thank you for your wonderful blog and the wealth of knowledge that you provide. The guest blog is one of my favorite parts of your blog and I look forward to it each week. If I may, I have a request for your guest blog. I am not a professional photoographer and while I enjoy your professional guest I was wondering if you would consider a guest that was more slanted toward the non professional. More specifically would you be your own guest blogger and provide insight how to be a better non professional/studio photographer. Since I am not in the art or photography profession I am typically limited to weekend photo outings. Theses outings are usually coupled with some sort of family outing i.e. the beach, the park, holiday gatherings etc. It would be great if could share your techiques/thoughts on family, weekend and family travel (non business) photograghy.
I hope none of you are waiting on Scott to advise you to backup your stuff before you do so. This is just fundamentals for the digital darkroom.
In regards to the macbook trackpad problems that drive you crazy, in the system settings you can disable the trackpad if a mouse is detected, and you can enable it to ignore accidental input. I don’t know if this helps on the new macbook pros, I have just a regular macbook, and don’t have the same problem, but these settings help me for my uses.