First is the holiday lottery. But not just a lottery but a really fun lottery. The world is buzzing about the upcoming President elections in the U.S. and we thought it would be great to play around this event. That is why we hold our elections. Below you see the official Template Monster Ballot – you have to vote for the design that you consider to be better for America-the-beautiful.

Then after the elections are over we count the votes and the ones who voted for the design that eventually became the winner become the participant of the lottery. The voting (and therefore participation in the lottery) is active through June 26th until July 9th 2008.

Everyone who participates in our lottery gets the free Icon Set. All icons included into this free Icon Set also relate to patriotic and 4th of July topic. Additionally, everyone who participates in the lottery has a chance to win one of the special prizes.

The special prizes are:

- 1 Gift Certificate giving the opportunity to get any product from Template Monster database for free.

- Two 80% discount coupons for purchasing any product from TemplateMonster database.

- Three 50% discount coupons for purchasing any product from Template Monster database.

In order to take part in the lottery one should vote for one design or the other. The design which gets the most votes becomes the winner. Check it out here.

Bugatti Veyron

Porsche 911

Lamborghini Murcielago

Other contenders were the Bentley Continental GT, the Cadillac Escalade, the Aston Martin DB9, and the Mercedes Benz CL.

What would you pick if you were given the choice?

A MacThemes Forum member earlier today posted this image with the following statement attached.

“This app is really running, and it’s so awesome. But it makes me want to buy so much more music on ITMS”

I’d love to see what Apple could have in store for us in the future with its Google/YouTube relationship. They’ve already done exciting things with the iPhone and the Apple TV together, I’m sure that wont be the last we see from the partnership.

Digg the original source.

iPhone in New Zealand. 11th July. 3G 16GB (Black). I’ll be there. Need I say more?

The Glenn Wolsey Show is something I’ve been doing for a while now, but haven’t put as much time or effort as I could, and should have into. However I’m extremely proud of the task I knocked off my to-do list today. I launched the official Glenn Wolsey Show website.

With the new website, I feel I’ll be able to keep a more direct focus on producing show content, as I have a perfect base to distribute it around the web. The official site will act as the launching base as the main area for viewers to catch the latest episode, however there are additional ways to watch:

Glenn Wolsey Show Official Site
Official Site RSS
YouTube Channel
iTunes Podcast Section

I’ll also use this post as a way to announce I’ve crossed 500,000 video views in accumulation from YouTube, Blip TV, and the iTunes feed. This is a huge personal milestone, which I’m expecting to double within the next 6-12 months. Now I have the tools in place to distribute content in an orderly fashion, I’m excited to do it.

I’ve also opened up the option to purchase advertising on the official show website, which are completely separate to the ads embedded on the show. To purchase a 250 x 250 ad on the website for your product, service, blog, or company - see this page.

It’s been an extremely busy week - with the launch of Desktop Vibes and an array of projects stirring close to launch I haven’t had a chance to take my foot off the floor.

Here’s a few things you can expect to see from me in the next month:

1. Brand new personal blog design.
2. Launch of a new web magazine, targeted at teenagers.
3. A new design for Desktop Vibes.
4. Content, and a lot of it spread over the three projects.

I never knew so much planning was involved in launching a project properly, although I’m enjoying every minute of what I’m doing at the moment. Future prospects continue to excite and energize me.

It has been a while since my last entry. I’ve barely had a moment to myself at home for two months, back and forth across the Tasman on a very regular basis has made I’d hard to get into any sort of realistic working routine. Now at home for another four weeks before I set off again, I’m motivated to put some ideas and thoughts I’ve been mulling over for some time into action. About damn time too.

What is the go with the blog. I’ve been thinking it over for some time now, and discussed my plans with ProBlogger Darren Rowse in Melbourne last week. Whats the go? Well, a few things actually.

Firstly, taking Darren’s advice I’m launching a new blog - Desktop Vibes. Desktop Vibes will be my new home for technological based content, the decision to move away from the name based domain name and move to something more standard has a few reasons behind it. This includes the ability to bring in guest writers into the fold, an easier and more structured path to building a brand, and the ability to write abut things I wouldn’t have normally done with the site attached to the GlennWolsey.com domain name.

Moving to Desktop Vibes for technological content and leaving this weblog for personal based entries will allow me to focus on the following:

More quality content
More specific niche focus
Ability to build a brand
Positions for guest writers

Please do head over to Desktop Vibes, bookmark both the site and the new RSS feed. I do still plan to keep content flowing through this domain, and have many planned changes/features for the future.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to pop me an email. While this hasn’t been an easy move to make, it’s something which has been cooking for some time now, and I believe the short term pain involved with result in long term gain, for both you and me.

Finishing Note: Do keep an eye on Desktop Vibes over the next few days for the official public theme release of the GlennWolsey.com WordPress theme. After hundreds of requests, I’ve decided to give something back to the community and make this theme public. Theme could be up as early as this evening. Buckle up, it’s going to be an exciting ride.

After a few hours, I discovered this glitch with the volume adjustment slider, which was presenting the volume change the same way as the Mac does in OSX. Check out the video for the interesting find.

Sharp wide open at f/2, super fast autofocus, a beautiful smooth depth of field at low aperture settings, and a perfect focal length for long range landscape/short range sports are a few of the areas where this lens really shines.

One of the things I’ve been most pleased with other than the sharpness wide open is the superb autofocus performance. When the lens is switched to focus at 1.6 meters to infinity, focus locks in at a rapid pace, perfect for fast moving subjects in the distance. When set to 0.9 meters to infinity, the 135L becomes a versatile lens allowing excellent macro and close up images to be taken.

The 135L has made me fall in love with prime lenses all again, the same way the Canon 50 f/1.4 did. While the Canon 24-70L is an excellent zoom lens, it never took this kind of effect on me or my images. The 135L will be attached to my camera for some time to come.

It has been my goal for some time now to attend a wedding as the main photographer, a goal I completed over the weekend down in Christchurch, New Zealand - a two hour flight from home.

Overall I found the whole process rather relaxed. My flight arrived in Christchurch the afternoon before the wedding, and I popped into the chapel before heading to my accommodation for the night to check out the lighting, and scout locations for the formal shots.

The morning of the wedding was super relaxed, however I found myself running between two houses shooting the preparation shots from both the groom and the brides sides. I must have swapped lenses dozens of times in the two hour period of shooting preparation shots, though I found myself primarily shooting with the Canon EF 135 f/2L and the Canon EF 50 f/1.4 under the harsh lighting conditions. The primes kept me thinking about composition and created a very ’smooth’ depth of field when shot at low apertures.

The chapel where the ceremony was held was very small, I used the Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L for shots of the wedding party arriving, along with the bride walking down the aisle. In saying this, the Canon EF 135 f/2L was a perfect focal length for most of the ceremony, and was attached the the camera for 90% of the time. I feel this could be a different story under different conditions (size of chapel/church), so a little extra focal length might come in handy in the future. One of the upsides of the 135L is its immense sharpness, so cropping is possible if more detail is needed to be pulled from images.

The most invaluable lens of the day was hands down the Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L. The versatility when it came to shooting portraits was invaluable. I enjoyed the ability to go from full-body shots to head-shots within a twist of the zoom. The only other way to provide similar versatility would be to have two camera bodies, one with a wide angle lens and another with a medium length telephoto.

If I was shooting another wedding down the line in the future, there are a few extra tools I’d like to pick up.

Canon Speedlite Flash

I didn’t think I’d be needing to use flash anywhere near as much as I did. I thought with my two super-fast primes, I could make use of available light. Although true, I found I used the flash for over 75% of the portraits as fill light to eliminate shadows on faces.

A Canon 430EX purchase looms in the very near future.

Wider Prime Lens

I shot the Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L at two focal lengths the entire day, 24 & 70. When shooting outdoor formals the lens was glued to the wide end - I found myself often wanting to shoot wider.

The Canon EF 14 f/2.8L looks very attractive for this use, bar the hefty price tag it carries. Of course the Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L must be considered, but I could see myself using the lens glued to the 16mm end - hence the want for the prime.

Extra Camera Body

While a different camera body mightn’t have created better images, it’d have made it a whole lot easier to capture the ones I did. Shooting with an aging Canon 350D wasn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when trying to capture focus for candid portraits when the action was moving very quickly.

Ideally, I’d like something which has a more accurate AF system, better performance above ISO 400, and something with two card slots for redundancy. The last thing any wedding photographer wants is lost images.

Overall, I was extremely happy with the images I managed to capture with the gear I had with me - I’m very excited with the results from the day, and I’m looking forward to the next wedding, whenever & wherever that may be.

The Final Figures

1419 frames fired using one camera body, two Sandisk 4GB compact flash cards, three Canon lenses, and 11.19GB of hard-drive space.

1066 Images - Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L
250 Images - Canon EF 135 f/2L
103 Images - Canon EF 50 f/1.4

While a switch to a MacBook Air may or may not be on the cards for various reasons, the decision turners for making the change (or not) will fall into its own post later in the week.

The increased use of Safari is also down to moving away from three desktop based applications (Mail, NetNewsWire, TextEdit), moving to three similar browser based Google applications - Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs.

After keeping a close eye on which applications I used over a seven day period, I came up with the above chart. Overall, it doesn’t really surprise me considering I spend most of my time on the computer writing, while listening to music, keeping an eye on email and RSS, while occasionally popping open iMovie to export video to YouTube and editing images in Aperture.

The only thing holding me back from the MacBook Air at this current point in time? The 15% area on the chart dedicated to Aperture & iMovie.

Late Addition: I’m going to stick with the MacBook Pro - install a new internal HDD, and see what Apple has in store with the next revision of the MacBook Air. I’ll keep riding this laptop until I see a need to change, adding a 2nd rev MacBook Air at a later stage looks likely - however.

I wanted to do my own personal, “real-life” benchmarks to see how the three current Macs in my office compare to one another. Also, I was secretly hoping to discover an excuse to sell the Mac Pro, keep the laptop, and move to a one-computer work-flow. (Let’s face it, syncing sucks.)

Shawn is at it once again, today putting his new MacBook Pro up to the test against an aging 12″ PowerBook, and a powerful 2.66Ghz Mac Pro. His tests reaffirmed him of the decision to sell the Mac Pro, and go for a fully portable workstation.

I try out dozens of new applications each and every week, and get along well with a handful of software developers . Based on my experience with Macintosh software, I have my own standards and my own personal opinion on what makes a Mac application exceptional in its field.

My three points of consideration? Interface, simplicity and usability. Of course, an application needs to fulfill a suitable function, but these three pointers are what pulls me in to software and get me hooked.

I’m sure most of you have heard about AppZapper at some point or another. If not, AppZapper allows you to confidently uninstall virtually any application as easily as it was installed - just drag and drop. Drag one or more unwanted apps onto the main AppZapper window and watch as it finds all the extra associated files and lets you delete them with a single click.

The first thing which attracted me to AppZapper was not only the elegant ability to uninstall applications which has been carried out so well, but the complete usability and overall simplicity of the application, it immediately leaped into my dock and hasn’t left since, same goes with many other applications such as Delicious Library, Coda, MarsEdit, and Transmit. They are all so elegantly developed, with attention paid to both form and function.

Two standout examples of companies paying severe attention to detail are Panic Software with their lead applications Coda, Transmit and CandyBar. Along with Delicious Monster’s application “Delicious Library.”

Potential For Greatness In Form

Other applications, including DVD-ripping software HandBrake, have the potential to be amazing with some work on the usability and form. HandBrake is a wonderful application but it doesn’t come across as elegant and as easy to use as an application like AppZapper. Of course, it fills a much larger function than AppZapper and requires a large scale of features - which I believe could be carried out in a different manner.

Why is that? Because consumers want applications that are extremely easy to use. Austin Sarner, the developer of AppZapper, hit the sweet spot when designing it: he knew exactly what the people wanted and how to give it to them. AppZapper is so simple to use that it’s ingenious.

Companies like Panic and Delicious Monster have got all aspects right on design and user interface which in my opinion is a contributing fact to why they have enjoyed so much success. Form & function my friends. Pay attention to the vital details.

For a laptop, those other things are exactly what the Air is optimizing: Thin, light, and sleek. But what I continue to be impressed with the most on the Air is simply the build quality. The MacBook Pro has OK build quality, but the regular MacBook frankly blows in this department in my mind.

If you fall into the category of feeling your machine is fast enough to do what you’re currently doing, I’d strongly encourage you to take a look at the Air and enjoy somebody optimizing for other factors than just performance.

37signals employee David Heinemeier wrote an inspiring post on the MacBook Air, and its potential to be an only computer.

As much as I’d love to discard the MacBook Pro in favor of a lighter, thinner, and sexier MacBook Air - it really isn’t in my best interest to do so. The negatives of moving to such a machine far out-weigh the positive facts.

Although in saying, I’m looking forward to seeing how the MacBook Air develops in the Apple product line in the future.

Although I originally didn’t intend it to, the MacBook Pro now has become my primary computer. Which naturally leads me to the next logical question: Do I even need to keep the Mac Pro? The answer is no.

I don’t need the Mac Pro. The loss in horsepower is negligible for what I do, and the gain in simplicity cannot be expressed with words. I’m selling the tower and going back to being a one-computer consumer, and connoisseur of fine laptops.

Shawn Blanc, one of my favorite web writers is making the same switch I did last year. The switch from Apple’s powerful desktop machine the Mac Pro to a highly capable MacBook Pro.

Last year I sold my Mac Pro and 30″ Apple Cinema Display, making the switch to a completely portable setup. Months down the track, no regrets. I wish Shawn the best of luck with his move to the portable powerhouse.

The Tasman Sea At Dusk, On Board Pacific Star

I discovered an interest in many new areas of photography while away. Including candid, landscape, and architecture. While at home and seeing the same scenes each day I became accustomed to my surroundings, and my photography developed a very basic pattern to it. Visiting new locations really helped me open my eyes to other potential shots. I feel the getaway has been a huge help in terms of refreshing my photographic eye while opening up a different aspect I can put in-to action back in my home town.

Port Douglas Coastline, Queensland Australia

Get out with your camera, venture somewhere new. Book a flight to a remote location, head out for a week long road trip. Simply head away from your usual surroundings and discover what’s out there - when you arrive back home, your eyes will have opened to many new photographic opportunities which didn’t appear before your trip.

Now - where’s that 135mm prime lens. I’m off for a walk.

As a Canon user there are two different relatively affordable variations of the standard 50mm prime lens. An f/1.8 and f/1.4 version. The f/1.8 variation is the lightest and the cheapest ($79 USD) of all three, it’s the perfect piece of glass to introduce an individual to primes lenses. I’ve owned this lens in the past and thoroughly enjoyed my first experience of inability to zoom. Owning the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 forced me to use my eye to its full creative ability.

Second in the line is the slightly heavier, and relatively more expensive ($329 USD) f/1.4 version of the 50mm lens. Advantages of this lens include a far more superior build quality, faster focusing, full time manual focus ability, and a larger aperture opening. I now own this Canon 50mm lens due to its advantages over its cheaper counterpart.

Also available is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM. This is the only 50mm prime lens in Canon’s line which features the “L” tag, as a luxury series lens. It features the most superior build quality of all Canon 50mm primes, and is one of two lenses in the Canon EF mount lineup which will open to f/1.2 (the other being the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 USM) - allowing in a significant amount of light.

Why Should I Invest In A 50mm Prime

I initially purchased the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 after hearing praise of the lens optical quality for its small price on photography forum Fred Miranda. Once in my hands, I discovered why.

The focal length of a 50mm prime is somewhat special, as it’s very accurate in terms of field of view to a human eye. Essentially, on a full frame body, what you see through your eye is what you get through the cameras viewfinder.

When limited to a single focal length, there’s only one possible field of view. This view rapidly sticks in your mind, until you know exactly what you’ll see through the viewfinder of your camera without having to life it to your eye. It’ll make you think about framing of images much more closely, and help you improve your eye for creating exceptional shots.

You’re made to think much more about the finder technical aspects of the image, such as aperture, ISO, shutter speed, and exposure. Changing the framing of your image will need to be done via your feet (foot zooming), giving you much more creative control over your image, rather than standing in one spot and either zooming in, or out.

While I believe that all photographers should have a general walk around zoom in their bag for general use, prime lenses will help you create better images, and help you develop your personal photographic style.

I’ve been mulling over this growing trend for the past few months, and kept an observant eye on not only how I’m using Twitter, but how my contacts are utilizing the service.

What I’ve found is that Twitter has become a tool for doing much more than just updating your friends with what you’ve up to, it’s also a great way to keep in contact with them using the direct message feature. Twitter is increasingly becoming more of an essential relationship and communication tool.

I pulled this following two paragraph quote from a weblog post entitled “Why Twitter Matters.”

By following people on Twitter and other microblogging platforms like Facebook, I’ve gotten to know people at a much deeper level than if I was just to read someone’s blog or socialize at a conference.

Short updates allow me to know a person’s favorite sports teams, restaurants, weekend activities, family adventures and the like. And by weaving together the pieces of someone’s life in this manner, I’m able to know them on a much deeper level. It’s actually quite rewarding on many humanistic levels.

From my point of view, this statement is very accurate. Most of the messages contacts post to Twitter are personal to a certain state, things that help you understand, and get to know a person better. People post thoughts which wouldn’t otherwise be published on their weblog or regular technology column. For instance, if I wasn’t following John Gruber on Twitter, I wouldn’t know that he “fell down the stairs 15 minutes ago”, or that his favorite Super Bowl commercial was the Audi’s R8 “Godfather”.

When I need to get a quick message across to someone and they’re on my Twitter contact list, I fire off a message to them via the Twitter website or via Twitterrific. While it restricts my messages to 140 characters, this essentially helps me stay blunt, simple, and to the point with my wording. Most of my personal correspondence with personal contacts is now routed through Twitter, not email as it was for most of the 2007 calendar year.

I’ve found I’m now corresponding with a lot more people than I was in the past, down to the fact that it’s more simple than clicking on Mail, creating a new message, entering an address, subject line, email, and clicking the send now button - and vice verca on the receptiants end.

While Twitter as a service is still new and developing, utilizing Twitter in the online life of a creative professional is well underway.

Aperture 2 gives photographers incredible tools to manage massive libraries, speed through photo edits, make essential image adjustments, and deliver photos online and in print using one simple, integrated workflow. Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, Aperture lets you get the most out of your photography.

Optimized for speed, while more intuitive and accessible, Aperture 2.0 has been released at a lowered price of $199 USD. I’ve been hooked on Lightroom 1.3 these past few months, and my entire 2006/2007 image archives are stored in a Lightroom library.

Could Aperture 2.0 sway me back from Lightroom? I’m looking forward to playing with it and passing judgement.