Adobe released today an update (version 11.01) for Adobe Photoshop CS4 which offers a number of fixes.

Couldn’t make it to CES 2009 in Las Vegas this year? Don’t worry! We were there and we have news, video and photos for you to check out!

Read all about the Macworld Expo 2009 happening in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Check out our photos and videos as well!

I’m very proud and happy to announce that Pixel Heads Network has been acquired by ProMAX Systems.

First of all a little history about Pixel Heads Network. Pixel Heads Network started as The Digital Media Dude back in late 2007 as my personal blog about anything related to new media and digital media creation. I was working full time managing an interactive media studio, so this has been, for the past entire year, a part time endeavor, balancing it with my full time job and my family.

Do you have an RSS feed for your web videos or podcasts? Want to make that content accessible to iPhone and iPod Touch users?

You can either go on and create your own site that is compatible with the iPhone or just head on to VenueM, a new startup that takes your RSS feed and quickly (and on the fly) converts it into an iPhone ready website.

SearchEngineWatch.com is reporting that YouTube will launch a new feature called HotSpots this week that will allow video creators to monitor how viewings rise and fall within a video.

On September 23, 2008, Adobe will announce when CS4 is coming out. No, it’s not being released on September 23rd, they are announcing when they will be releasing the CS4 suite. Still, this is exciting. I can’t wait. I love CS3 and I think CS4 is probably going to be a huge step forward, both in features and inter-application integration.

Yes, life is good. After Apple announced and released the iPhone / iPod Toch software update (version 2.0), I had a chance to install it on my iPod Touch (32GB) and play with it.

It’s amazing! You basically now have a ultra mini Mac on the plam of your hand. The iPhone 2.0 software install was a breeze. I ran iTunes, went to my iPod Touch home screen and clicked on the “software update” button. The rest was a simple updated.

The new MobileMe service was introduced by Apple (replacing the current .Mac service) on July 13th (along with the new iPhone and the new iPhone 2.0 software…all at the same time).

The transition, unfortunately, did not go smoothly. Many people complained of .Mac email outages in various locations around the world.

CNET is reporting today that YouTube will be adding pre-roll and post-roll ads to the videos that users uploads to their site.

If you are looking for someone (not something) then check out Whozat.com. The interface is pretty simple. You enter the person’s first name and last name (you can also enter a middle name and/or initial and some keywords if you want) and it will comb the following to search for that person:

Google introduced the Google Media Server, a UPnP driven application that offers a way to view any media that is indexed by the Google Desktop application on your TV or any other device.

Apple Released last night Pro Applications Update 2008-02 which includes updates to the Final Cut Pro and Compressor.

MySpace is launching the ability for third party developers to build applications using their API. Most of the other major Social Networks have done that already, with the most famous of all being FaceBook.com.

TechCrunch reported today that Instinctiv, a new startup, launched today and simultaneously announced their first round of angel funding.

The Associated Press reported today that Sony will offer a movie download service for it’s PlayStation 3 home console this summer in the U.S.

NAB 365 is reporting that American Airlines will let their customers test in-flight internet access on two flights beginning today for free (just for the testing period).

If anyone tells you we are not going through another .com era, tell them about Twitter getting a valuation of $100 million without a business plan (or any way to really monetize their service) and Veoh now getting another $30 million in funding, bringing it’s total funding to a whopping $70 million.

There are plenty of rumors (based on the Mac rumor sites) that Apple will seed developers an early build of Mac OS X 10.6 at this year’s WWWDC.

So now your feed can’t even escape the Google Ads. Looks like starting this week, Feedburner, which is owned by Google, will begin offering the ability to embed ads in your feed that are context sensitive.

Adobe announced via Adobe Labs their beta release of Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4 and Soundbooth CS4. You can go right now and download each of the applications to play with and try out.

I was reading a very interesting article on TechCrunch about Facebook becoming the next Microsoft (as in OS).

TechCrunch reported today about a new video player called DimP (Direct Manipulation Player) which allows viewers to scrub through the video by dragging the actual objects in the video instead of the timeline.

Techcrunch.com reported today that Facebook will redesign it’s profile pages with a cleaner design.

Check out the March 6th iPhone Software Roadmap movie here.

Electronista is reporting that Sony is in talks with Apple to install a Blu-ray for the Mac and also with Microsoft for their Xbox.

Microsoft doesn’t deny the Sony claims but Apple had no comment.

Want to read more about this? Check out the Electronista article.

Google announced today that their Google Analytics application will now integrate with Google Audio Ads. This means you can track your Google Audio Ads and how they correlate to your web site hits.

Please say it ain’t so! Microsoft Silverlight on an iPhone but not Adobe’s Flash?

Well, not yet (whew!!!!) Though Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that putting t on the iPhone is certainly “interesting.”

InfoWorld reported that Apple’s iPhone SDK delivered far beyond what developers where expecting.

The main feature is the ability to use an internal API of the iPhone to write native applications for it along with offering SQL Lite built into the iPhone so that date can be stored easily in the device.

Disney is launching a separate digital production unit called Stage 9 to create original online and mobile sereies. The first show, “Squeegees”, a comedy series about window-washer slackers, will be published on ABC.com and YouTube. There are 19 other planned online programs.

So I checked my LinkedIn profile this morning and wow! They completely redesigned their website.

The award winning film, No Country for Old Men, directed by the Coen Borthers, was edited on Final Cut Pro, MacWorld reported this morning.

PayPal recommends all Safari users to stop using Safari. Main reason: online fraud.

Keith Bachman, analyst with BMO Capital Markets, has cut his price target for Apple’s stock, stating that the iPods and iPhones were no longer “growth drivers” for the company. Bachman says that Apple’s 3 growth drivers, that is, the iPhone, the iPod and the iMac, has turned into one: the iMac.

According to the Financial Times, Apple currently has $18 billion sitting on their blance sheet. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer recently said in the Q1 conference call that they like having that “flexibility”.

This is from the “cool files” - City Inn, a hotel in the UK, has new iMacs in every room. Guests can now leave their laptops at home since every room is now equipped with an iMac that has iLife, Office apps and the hotel will let you use the iMac as a TV, internet radio and media player.

iLounge is reporting that the iPhone’s and iod Touch’s SDK will be delayed anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks. Originaly, it was scheduled for the end of February. The SDK would allow third-party developers to write native applications for those devices.

With a growing list of companies adopting Blu-Ray and dropping HD-DVD, it looks like Toshiba might have to give up on its format.

Apple released this morning Mac OS X 10.5.2., with over 60 fixed, enhancements and improvements.

Adobe announced today that they will discontinue their Adobe Stock Photo Service to “concentrate” on their core business.

Check out this great Landing Page Optimization class by CKI Studios and I believe co-sponsored by Google.

MySpace launched their developer platform (check it out)

You have to register to build applications, but you can browser through the “Learn and Play” section without having to register first.

eMarketer released a report today stating that the podcast audience for 2007 was 18.5 million with 6.5 million of those being active (downloading one or more podcasts weekly).

The outlook is for 2012 is that the podcast audience will reach 65 million with 25 million of those being active as described above!

Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited (yeah right) $44.6 billion cash and stock bid for Yahoo today.

Basically, Yahoo is desperate and I think this is Jerry Yang’s answer to Yahoo’s problem. Have Microsoft purchase you.

Man! I remember the days when Yahoo! was king! Seriously. Everyone wanted to work for Yahoo!. It was the darling of Walstreet. Look at it now.

You are missing out on a great opportunity to convert your web site visitors into customers by showing them exactly what your product is, how it works and what your customers think of your product via a great looking and sounding podcast that The Digital Media Dude Productions can produce for you.

Flip4Mac WMV Components, the software that lets you run Windows Media video files on the Mac using QuickTime, has been updated.

Celtx released today version .997 of their application. 

Apple released a bunch of updates for Final Cut Pro, Motion, Sountrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, Compressor, Cinema Tools, iPhoto and Tiger.

Yes! I’m jazzed! My TDMD Daily Tip Podcast has been accepted to iTunes. You can subscribe to it here:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=267060045

I watched the WWDC 2007 Keynote made by, of course, “Mr. I Only Wear Black T-Shirts and Jeans” Steve Jobs on my iMac last night (until 2:30am…I’m so dedicated).

It was a very uplifting, funny and energetic keynote. I like how this guys presents. He will be big one day! ;-) So, Mr. Jobs introduced many new things at WDDC 2007 (World Wide Developer Conference) .

Below is a short summary of some of the cool items (at least I thought they were cool) that was shown in the keynote.

Mac OS X Leopard
1) New desktop. More “3D” like. Full transparency on the windows (kind of like Vista).
2) 3D Dock With Reflections
3) Stacks – This is the ability to “stack” multiple items in your dock, kind of like you do with photographs in Aperture or Lightroom.
4) Spaces – You can open up applications, organize them by category and then create a space for those applications. Then you can create another space and open up some more applications there. Arrange your desktop differently there. Then you can switch between spaces. Neat concept. I can see myself having a “editing space” for when I’m editing and a “web development” space when I’m doing web design / development and then just switching between my spaces.

This is going to be a short blog. Regardless of what platform you like, you should watch these videos:

http://video.allthingsd.com/d5

This is classic and I think only once in our lifetime.

If you have been around computers for a long time (they talk about the Commodore PET and Radio Shack TRS 80….ah memories), then you will definitely enjoy these videos.

It makes you remember the good old days.

Enjoy!

- Marcelo
The Digital Media Dude
http://www.thedigitalmediadude.com/

There is a great new learning resource covering everything Adobe CS3 and it comes from Adobe itself.

Check out the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop located at http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

Currently, they offer eLearning videos on 13 of their products including Acrobat 8, Bridge, Contribute, Device Central, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Stock Photos and Version Cue.

You start out by selecting which product you are interested in, then select from a variety of topics for that product and finally you select what title you want to see.

If you create training videos, software training materials, or any other kind of eLearning, you should sign up for the eLearning industry overview webminar sponsored by Adobe.

I found this seminar in the following Blog entry by Silke Fleischer of Adobe:
http://blogs.adobe.com/silke.fleischer/2007/05/elearning_industry_overview_tr.html

The seminar will be this Tuesday may 22, 2007 at 9am PST and will last 1 hour.

Ok, so I think Apple makes some pretty cool computers. But here is my one great beef I have with Apple; they never tell me when they are coming out with a new machine.

I know what you are thinking. “Well, if Apple would tell you that they are coming out with a new machine, then you would never purchase their old inventory.” I understand that argument. But still, I hate Apple for screwing me all the time like that.

Last time, I purchased my iMac G5 and the salesmen told me that it was the latest version of the iMac and that I was going to love it.

Ok, so I did love it, but 3 weeks later my “new iMac” became “my old iMac” due to the new Intel Dual Core versions and a 24″ on top of that (I have the 20″).

So I was thinking of getting the MacBook Pro last month and spoke with a sales person and he told me that he didn’t know about any new laptop coming out pretty soon. I didn’t trust him and decided to wait and see.

I just upgraded (well, about 3 months ago) to IE 7 and I was just getting comfortable with it when I read a blog entry at http://internetexplorer8.net/ that Microsoft will release version 8 by the end of the year and will start doing upgrades to its browser every 12 to 18 months.

Not too much information about it yet, however, Adobe announced in NAB that they will release an “offline” Flash video player (e.g. like Windows Media or Quicktime) that will allow you to watch Flash videos (.flv’s) offline, just like you do today with Windows Media and Quicktime players.

The video will support live streaming, progressive downloads and protected (read “DRM”) videos. It will also support full screen mode.

It’s out! Apple did it. They announced the new Final Cut Studio 2.0 which includes the following products:

1) Final Cut Pro 6.0 (Editing)
2) Motion 3.0 (Graphics, Compositing)
3) SoundTrack Pro 2.0 (Sound Editing)
4) Color (For Color Grading - Correcting)
5) Compressor 3 (For compressing files to different formats)
6) DVD Studio 4 (For DVD Authoring).

I can’t write much about it now since I’m in NAB 2007 and I’m on my lunch break, however, I will write about it tonight when I get back to my room.

Ok, so I’m still on a “high” from last night’s meeting at the MGLA (Motion Graphics Los Angeles Group). This is the first time since I started going to the MGLA that it was so packed, I could not find a parking space.

Anyhow, let’s talk about what’s important, which is the introduction and demo of the new Adobe CS3 Production Premium Edition.

Adobe took over the entire meeting last night and gave, what I thought was, a fantastic meeting.

Three people from Adobe where there presenting. Steve Kilisky, Senior Product Manager for After Effects, Giles Baker, Senior Product Manager for Premiere Pro and original After Effects team member Dave Simons.

Adobe wants to take over desktop application development, not just web development. Their forey into this arena is called Apollo. What is Apollo? Apollo is a runtime you have to install on your computer that is cross platform.

Think of Apollo just like .Net, except it runs on multiple platforms (Mac, Windows and Linux) and instead of you using VB.Net or C# to write applications, you would use what you already know and love (that is if you are a web developer), web technologies such as Flash, AJAX, HTML, Javascript, Flex, etc.

What’s very cool about this is that you can code applications for the web that can go offline and be used offline in a desktop setting across platforms.

Wow! DRM, or Digital Rights Management is dead as we know it. On April 1, 2007 (It was not an April Fools joke, seriously), EMI announced that they will release their entire music catalog and video catalog without DRM. Apple also announced that they will be distributing the entire EMI library of music and videos DRM free through their iTunes music store.

They will continue to sell their regular DRM encoded library for 99 cents, but the new DRM free library will be $1.29 and will be encoded at 256KBPS (the DRM encoded ones are encoded at 128KBPS).

Hi and welcome to my blog! My name is Marcelo Lewin and I manage an interactive media department for a major home builder. We build websites, create videos, podcasts and lots of training on demand videos. I love interactive media and where the market is headed (the complete merging of web and video)!

Through this blog (and in the very near future, also podcast), I plan on sharing my knowledge of interactive media as I work day to day creating and managing different media projects.

I don’t claim to know it all, in fact, I know I don’t, however, I want to share my successes and failures with you so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes I make (and maybe learn something along the way).