Linked List: May 4, 2009

Monday, 4 May 2009

John Nack on the PSD Format 

Adobe’s John Nack:

Here’s what I think people want to know: Is Photoshop’s PSD format a goofy, antiquated piece of crap, and by extension is Photoshop slow, clumsy, and/or outdated?

No.

Windows Drops in Web Share 

Windows is down; Mac OS X and Linux are up. And IE continues to slide.

Kindle Deal Helps Sprint Nextel 

They’re still losing customers, but the loss rate is slowing and the Pre isn’t out yet.

Clipstart 1.0 

New $29 video file management app by Manton Reece, with built-in support for uploading to Flickr and Vimeo. The basic premise is that it’s sort of like iPhoto or iTunes for movie files — Clipstart makes it easy to import new movies from an attached USB camera or SD card, and once imported, Clipstart is optimized for tagging and flagging clips using the keyboard.

I’ve been beta testing Clipstart for months, and have my entire library of Flip (and Kodak Zi6) footage stored in it. Back before iPhoto existed, I used to store all my digital photos in folders by hand, using the Finder as the management tool. That’s what I was doing for Flip clips before Clipstart, and at this point, I can’t imagine going back. Clipstart makes it easy to triage new footage (tag the keepers, trash the junk) and to find existing clips in your library. Check out the screencast demo to see how simple and convenient it is.

Philip Bloom’s First Impressions Shooting Video With the Panasonic Lumix GH1 

Might be the best SLR-style video camera yet — the ones from Canon and Nikon don’t offer manual controls while in video mode, but the GH1 does. (Via Stu Maschwitz.)

Strategery, Risk-Like Game for iPhone 

Strategery is a beautiful $2 Risk-like strategy game for the iPhone. Lots of fun and the gameplay has a great feel. (Via Lex Friedman’s review for Macworld.)

Who Watches the Watchman? 

Christopher Fahey on the Detex Newman watchclock, a clever hundred-year old mechanical system that solves the following problem:

Let’s say you own a big building full of valuable stuff. How do you make sure that the night watchman patrolling your factory floor or museum galleries after closing time actually makes his rounds? How do you know he’s inspecting every hallway, floor, and stairwell in the facility? How do you know he (or she) is not just spending every night sleeping at his desk?