Jesse Rosten got his hands on $4500 worth of iPads and decided to do a photoshoot with them. You may be thinking that this is totally pointless and for stills I might have to agree that this is overkill but a single iPad could be used to add softlight to extremely low lit scenes; something a small strobe could never do. An iPad can also change color temperature to match the ambient light around it. I see this being used more for video that stills anyway. Don’t believe me? Well you can buy this light panel for $500 and I’ll stick to my iPad.

Microsoft says that Kinect is the next big thing for video games, a way to control both games and TV without touching a thing. This expensive future is now. It's amazing, but you can wait for it.

The Kinect sensor is a device that plugs into an Xbox 360 and uses a combination of cameras and microphones to identify and track the movements of a person standing in front of it, as well as enabling voice control of games and video running on your TV. Wave your hands to play a game? Get your posture corrected by a virtual personal trainer? Tell ESPN to pause? Kinect does that.

Ideal Player

Kinect's launch offerings have something for everyone, even those who don't play games, but, for now, Kinect is a device for people with extra money and — very important — a lot of room in front of their TV. A lot.

Why You Should Care

Kinect isn't just hype. It is technology that goes beyond the microphones and cameras we've seen attached to game console before. It is sci-fi technology that Microsoft will be spending a lot of money to support for a while. Kinect isn't going away, so you might as well try it at some point. You might just love it.

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Does Kinect really feel like something new? No doubt about it. The first time I used Kinect from my home couch to control my TV with simple hand gestures, I got chills. Sounds corny, but it felt like I was doing something extraordinary, just lifting my hand and using it to move a cursor around the screen. The fact that there is now a piece of technology we can hook up to our Xbox that can see whether we are dancing in time to Lady Gaga is amazing. It feels magical, except....

Does it work well? Or do you have to be in a lab to get it to operate right? Kotaku editor-in-chief Brian Crecente and I each used Kinects in our home with a variety of games for about a week before the November 4 launch. We've both had issues with some Kinect games not recognizing a gesture here or being slow to respond to another. We've each had the voice-control fail us once in a while, forcing us to repeat whatever we barked at the Kinect. He's had it worse, seeing some games simply break, like the time Kinect Sports didn't let him detach a virtual bowling ball from his virtual hand. But it is impossible to say if the flaw is in the Kinect hardware or in the games. Some games, such as Dance Central and Kinectimals, are polished and seldom show cracks. Others suffer. Such are the problems that happen at the launch of hardware and software. Only time can reveal where improvements can and will happen.

Is this basically the Wii all over again? Sort of. The Wii was a shock to gaming. Motion control was not mainstream, and Nintendo smartly introduced it to the masses with a small number of games that worked well with a small number of gestures. It succeeded magnificently because of that relatively conservative strategy. Kinect, on the other hand, is as ambitious as it is scattershot. Ignore the gaming aspects and Kinect still feels important as a viable new way to use voice and gesture to control downloaded movies through the Xbox's Zune channel or to watch sporting events streamed through the regional ESPN3. But the options for control input with gesture and voice are so broad, and the line-up of launch games so diverse, that Kinect fails to do any one thing excellently. There's no Wii Sports in the line-up. Is it the Wii again, though? Well... there's a workout game, a sports compilation, an arcade racer and so on... the imitation is shameless.

Does it replace the game controller? No. Some Kinect games feel like they'd be better with a controller. Others, like Dance Central, wouldn't be as fun. A comparison to a controller is apt, though, because gesturing to control a game feels as relatively convoluted and slightly slow as using a control stick. Kinect voice control, on the other hand, feels like it can be as precise as pressing a button. Buttons and control sticks together are a great combo; voice and gesture feel like just as terrific a pairing. This is the right Kinect combo, and it's a pity the launch games go so heavy on gesture and so light on voice.

The worst knock on Kinect seems to be that it needs a lot of room. True? Sadly, yes. You can play single-player Kinect games at the same distance you've held a wired game controller plugged into a game console. For multiplayer or for more dynamic dancing and workout games you need more space than you do to play four-player Wii Sports tennis, more space than you need to jam with a full group in Rock Band. Can you fit a pool table in front of your TV? You'll need about that much real estate, because the Kinect sensor needs to see you. Can't be too close; can't be too far to the side. Be it my Brooklyn condo or Crecente's more standard-sized Denver house, we both had to adjust our living rooms to fully enjoy Kinect. Those with cramped quarters could find Kinect to be a non-starter.

Microsoft says this is essentially a new console, that Kinect is a new platform. True? Maybe, but it's at least right to say that Kinect is launching the way a new console does: with raw potential and some half-baked execution. At launch you can discover wonderful details, like the fact that Dance Central and Kinect Joy Ride pause when you step away from your TV. But you can also find frustration at games that don't share the same methods for skipping cut-scenes or advancing through menus. Without a controller in your hand, you will feel less capable of figuring out what's wrong, of tapping a button with elevator-door-close urgency to remedy a situation. It's confusing to be using a Kinect on day one. You may fall in love with the voice control, as I did, but then switch from ESPN to Zune and discover that the former doesn't use the same voice controls as the latter. These wrinkles need ironing.

But the million-dollar question is: Is it worth $150? The Kinect comes with a full game, Kinect Adventures, which will take some of the sting out of the price. But it also comes with the inconsistencies described above and the lack of a killer app, the lack of a perfect game. At launch, Kinect merits a visit to your friend's house if you hear he or she has it. But it's not must-own yet, more like must-eventually own.

Kinect In Action

A Visual Guide to Kinect

The Bottom Line

It was ironic that in searching for an electric socket in which to plug my Kinect a week ago, I had to unplug my Wii. I now need to find a second socket. Kinect doesn't replace the Wii any more than it does an Xbox controller. It's not even a sure thing as a games platform, not until it has its first great game. But it doesn't have to be. If Kinect becomes nothing more than a replacement for the TV remote, it'll prove to be a winner. For its launch price, though, it needs to be more. If Microsoft keeps supporting it, and if its flaws can be patched and improved through software, Kinect can be revolutionary.

Kinect was developed by and published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360, released on November 4. Retails for $149.99, bundled with a copy of Kinect Adventures. Two Kinect sensors were given to us by Microsoft for reviewing purposes. We used Kinect extensively for the better part of the week. Came for the gesture control; were won over by the voice-control.

Kotaku has more reviews, hands-on impressions and video of Kinect in action right here.

Call of Duty isn't only enjoyed by businesswomen, construction workers, line cooks and hotel concierges—professional basketball players and late night talk show hosts love it too! Or so says the first, explosive Call of Duty: Black Ops ad.

Activision and Treyarch tap the star power of Kobe "Mamba" Bryant and Jimmy "Proud n00b" Kimmel to shill the next big Call of Duty game, hitting the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii next week. Celebrities, they spray 'n' pray, they spam grenades, they fire wild RPGs — they're just like us!!

We recently went through a few ways to break into a Windows PC without the password, and it turns out it's just as easy to break into a Mac too. Here's how to do it and keep yourself protected.

Just like on Windows, there are quite a few ways to break into a Mac, but many of them are variations on the same thing, so we're going to highlight the two easiest ways—one with a Mac OS X installer CD and one without—and show you how to keep yourself protected. Note that while these two methods will get you into the OS without knowing the password, you can always just use our previously mentioned "lazy method" with a Mac too—just boot up the computer with a Linux Live CD and start grabbing files.

How to Reset the Mac OS X Password

Both of the methods outlined below are ways to reset the Mac OS X password. While there are cracking utilities like John the Ripper or THC-Hydra, they're either complicated to use or expensive to buy, so we won't go into them here like we did with Windows (which has the very easy-to-use Ophcrack). Both of these methods assume the target computer is running Snow Leopard.

Method One: Use the Mac OS X Installer CD

If you have the Mac OS X installer CD handy, it's super easy to change the administrator account's password. Just insert the CD into the target Mac and hold the "c" key as you boot up the computer. It will boot into the Mac OS X installer. Once it does, head up to Utilities in the menu bar and choose Password Reset. You'll get a window prompting you to select the drive on which OS X is installed; so choose the drive you want to get into and select the user who's password you want from the drop-down menu.

Enter a new password for that user and hit the save button. That's it! When you reboot the computer, you can use your new password to log into the computer. Note that unfortunately, you still won't be able to unlock the Keychain, so if what you're trying to access has another layer of password protection, you won't be able to access it.

Method Two: Boot into Single-User Mode

If you don't have an installer CD handy, you just need to do a bit of fancy command-line footwork to achieve the same end as the CD method. Boot up the computer, holding Command+S as you hear the startup chime. The Mac will boot into single user mode, giving you a command prompt after loading everything up. Type the following commands, hitting Enter after each one and waiting for the prompt to come up again before running the next one:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
dscl . -passwd /Users/whitsongordon lifehacker

Replace whitsongordon with the user who's account you want to access and lifehacker with the new password you want to assign to that user.

If you don't know the users username, it should be pretty easy to run ls /Users at any time during single user mode to list all the home folders on the Mac, which usually correspond to the usernames available on the Mac. Note that, once again, this doesn't give you access to the OS X Keychain, so anything protected with another layer of password s will be off-limits.

How to Protect Your Mac from Being Broken Into

Luckily, while it's pretty easy to break into a Mac, it's also just as easy to protect yourself. Just like last time, our main recommendation is encrypting your entire OS. Note that this does not mean use OS X's built-in FileVault tool. We weren't impressed with FileVault the last time we looked at it, and it turns out it's pretty easy to get past FileVault's protection.

Instead, we recommend you use our favorite free, open-source encryption tool TrueCrypt. It came out with a Mac version back in 2008, and it still works wonderfully at encrypting entire partitions and drives on your computer. And, since anyone wanting to boot the computer needs to know your TrueCrypt password, they'll never even get to the password reset stage—so all your files will be safe.

Update: As many of you have pointed out in the comments, I misunderstood a few things about both FileVault and TrueCrypt. FileVault is not easily bypassable, and while it won't encrypt your entire drive, it should keep you safe from the above methods. TrueCrypt cannot currently encrypt an entire boot drive on a Mac.

However, you also pointed out that there's another simple way to keep people from resetting your password, and that's using a firmware password. If you have a Mac OS X installer CD, you can boot up from it and go to Utilities > Firmware Password Utility and set a firmware password. This prevents other folks from being able to boot up your computer from another hard disk, CD, or in single user mode. Someone with bad intentions could still bypass it, but it would quite a bit of alone time with your hardware. So, for best results, you'll probably want to encrypt your files with FileVault and set up a firmware password.

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As always, these are just a few of the easiest ways to break into a Mac. Do you know of any others? Share them with us in the comments (don't forget to share their weaknesses, too, so we know how to protect ourselves from them)

For those of you who ever thought men were incapable of multitasking, meet the man who could possibly be the most efficient person in the world.. or the most dangerous.

He was spotted driving down a freeway at speeds of up to 60 mph with not only a book in front of him, but also a Kindle e-book reader. If that wasn’t bad enough, he momentarily stops to check his cell phone--no doubt he had an important message coming in. Enjoy the mayhem below.

Eyeglasses are scary expensive, and most of it is markup. You can save a whole lot with smart online shopping, but if you prefer hands-on (face-on?) time with your specs, Costco is the place to go.

Image via Muffet.

Consumer Reports did some shopping around, and their independent testers found that Costco won out not just in price—at a median cost of $157 per pair, compared to $211 at independent stores and $212 at doctors' offices—but in quality good that stood up to regular wear conditions. As for those of us living outside Costco's convenience range, independent stores were the way to go for service, know-how, and good frames, the magazine reports in its latest issue of CR Health.

Shopping for eyeglases: For cost and quality, Costco excels [Consumer Reports via The Consumerist]

Managing your personal relationships on a social networking site is difficult enough; but when you add coworkers to the mix, it becomes even trickier.

Whether you embrace Facebook's philosophy of public transparency or resist it, you cannot afford to ignore it. As for dealing with coworkers, consider following this one simple rule: Don't think about how to handle them in terms of Facebook; rather, think of how to interact with them appropriately -- and then apply that philosophy to Facebook.

• Just Say No: Why make things more complicated than they need to be? Avoid friending coworkers -- period. If you're concerned that you might offend someone, explain that your refusal isn't personal, but rather a matter of professional policy.
• Toe the Party Line (While on the Party Line): Facebook isn't a private phone call, it's more like a party line. Don't complain about your insufferable boss, your ineffectual coworkers or your demanding client unless you're prepared for everyone to know exactly what you said.
• Be Professional: Facebook postings aren't celebrated for their decorum, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be. Indeed, you should approach coworkers on Facebook with the same professionalism as you would in the workplace -- possibly even more, since you have less control over who views your comments online

Full list at HowStuffWorks.com.

Lee Morris of rlmorris.com and fstoppers.com explains how to wirelessly send pictures from any camera to an iPad or iPhone using the Eye-Fi Pro X2 SD card, My Wi, and Shutter Snitch. 

Fstoppers will be giving away a free iPad to one of their random twitter followers in December of 2010. Visit Fstoppers.com/​iPad to learn more details about this hack and the iPad giveaway. 

You can purchase the Eye-Fi Pro X2 card here: bhphotovideo.com/​c/​product/​676551-REG/​Eye_Fi_EYE_FI_8PC_8GB_Pro_X2_SDHC.html/​BI/​6857/​KBID/​7410

Just as the clothes you choose to wear, the food you like to eat, and the people you associate with say something about you, so does the camera system you buy into. The following observations are based on close association with the various groups of camera owners and from having belonged to each group at one time or another. Those who belong to the “lacking any sense of humor” or “offended at the drop of a hat” groups are strongly advised to read no further.

Canon owners
You appreciate the benefits of owning a camera system that leads in cutting-edge digital imaging technology and that offers a wealth of body, lens, and accessory options for every level of photographer, from lowly consumer to top professional. You will switch to Nikon.

Nikon owners
You appreciate the benefits of owning a camera system that leads in cutting-edge digital imaging technology and that offers a wealth of body, lens, and accessory options for every level of photographer, from lowly consumer to top professional. You will switch to Canon.

Sony owners
You believe that Sony’s innovations in consumer electronics and video technology, its leadership in digital imaging chip production, its in-body image stabilization, and its use of Zeiss optics results in a unique design synergy and products of exceptional value—because that’s what it says in the product literature. You also believe in astrology, UFOs and the Easter Bunny.

Pentax owners
You’re the sort of person who would buy a $1500 DSLR body so your stash of thread-mount, K-mount and M-mount lenses from decades ago (collectively worth $75.00 at a flea market or yard sale) won’t go to waste; either that, or you’ve never heard of a Spotmatic, Pentax LX or Takumar, you just think you look cool sporting a day-glo red camera that takes real pictures. You think people are laughing with you, not at you.

Olympus owners
You’re the sort of person who buys North Korean beer, Peruvian underwear, and French cars, not  because you actually like them but because no one else does. When people question your choice of camera system you respond that Olympus images have a certain “soul” and that photographs are what matter, not the camera. You have no friends.

Leica owners
You know that no other camera other than a Hasselblad gains as much instant respect among the cognoscenti as a Leica. Although this relieves the pressure of demonstrating actual photographic prowess, it increases the need to be familiar with the subtle differences in visual signature between an Elmar, Elmarit, Summitar, Summicron, and Summilux. You are either stinking rich, living in your mother’s basement, or one lens purchase away from a divorce.

Panasonic, Fuji, Samsung, Minolta, Yashica owners and et cetra should be relieved rather than offended that they were not included. Comments are welcome as long as they are civil. Extra points will be given for self-deprecation.

Engaging in social media is about being extremely open, creative and flexible. To stay competitive online, brands need to be investing in social media as a way to extend themselves to their customers.

While advertising and cultivating an image are still important, it’s interaction that creates loyal customers. Using social media to show customers that your business is connected to what they say, think and feel about your products can amplify your brand’s message.

We’ve compiled a list of five big brands that are most engaged in social media, and that go to extensive lengths to connect with consumers. Add your own thoughts on which brands are ahead of the curve in the comments below.

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1. Starbucks

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Starbucks is on just about every corner in the real world, and that’s the same strategy the company has taken online as well. When it comes to a web presence, Starbucks has made its mark on Twitter (), Facebook (), YouTube (), Foursquare (), mobile apps and with its own social network, My Starbucks Ideas. The company dominates the social media landscape, creating active and engaging profiles on a variety of platforms. And according to some reports, Starbucks is the most engaged brand using social media for a few years running.

Take a quick look at the coffee giant’s Twitter page, and you’ll see the company has just more than 1 million followers. The next thing you’ll notice is that there’s a lot of conversation going on. Starbucks is keeping busy responding to mentions, apologizing for bad experiences, and just carrying on some interesting conversations with its followers.

Meanwhile on Facebook, more than 15 million people “Like” the brand. And Starbucks is trying to make buying its product as integrated and seamless as possible. Take, for example, the Starbucks Card Facebook application it introduced this past April, which allows customers to manage their Starbucks Card accounts from within the social network. The company also recently announced that customers could now “Give a Gift” and credit their friends’ cards via Facebook, too.

That feature is an idea born out of their community site, My Starbucks Idea. The Seattle-based caffeine king wants to know what you want from Starbucks, and the company is listening. The site enables consumers to share their ideas and critique others’ ideas as well. Discussions are encouraged, and the community votes to see which ideas become reality. The “Give a Gift” idea was suggested back in 2008, and drew more than 42,000 votes. It may have taken some time for the idea to become a reality, but it shows that Starbucks is listening to its customers.

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2. Coca-Cola

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As one of the most universally recognized brands, it’s not surprising that Coca-Cola is the second most engaged brand according to Famecount. Just like Starbucks, Coke is active on Twitter, engaging in conversation with its 142,000 followers. Given that it has a worldwide following, it’s appropriate that many of the tweets are written in different languages. In addition to its overarching brand, each drink it produces also has its own Twitter page.

On Facebook, it’s somewhat astounding that 15 million people “Like” the soft drink empire, but the company has done a good job of keeping things interesting and interactive. The Page is a hub of all sorts of activity, including posting fan photos, videos and social good initiatives like Live Positively, where fans voted for America’s favorite park to receive a $100,000 grant.

On Coca-Cola’s YouTube channel, the soda company launched “Unlock The Secret,” a viral video campaign featuring Coke’s inventor, Doc Pemberton. By clicking on bottle links in the videos, viewers are taken to the @docpemberton Twitter page, Coke’s Ahh Giver app on Facebook (which allows users to send a message to a friend delivered in video format by the Coke polar bear), and Coke’s Smilezier, a novel feature that allows users to record their laughter and listen to other people’s as well.

All of these efforts tie together Coca-Cola’s brand of happiness, and it’s created an interesting and original experience while engaging with consumers online.

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3. Oreo

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Oreo is the third most engaged brand according to Famecount, and for a brand that’s been around since 1912, racking up 12 million “Likes” on Facebook is a great way to prove that good products have real staying power.

For Kraft, makers of the delicious black and white cookie, Facebook outreach has been the main strategy. While other brands are engaged across the board, Oreo hasn’t leveraged Twitter at all yet.

The Oreo Facebook Page is a place to find recipes, videos, photos of fans enjoying the cookie, and games like Twist To Win for a chance to meet the Double Stuf Racing League (Shaquille O’Neal, Apolo Ohno, Eli Manning and Venus Williams).

The DSRL’s videos are the main focus on Oreo’s YouTube channel, including interviews with the athletes, commercials, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Check out Kraft Foods’ digital and social marketing lead Beth Reilly speaking on “how Oreo learned to fish where the fish are” in the video below.

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4. Skittles

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Skittles has an amazing online presence, starting with its website — a vibrant landing page that invites you to “Experience The Rainbow” by interacting with various features throughout the on-site experience. Users have opportunities to vote and post photos and videos while interacting with content. Keeping with the community theme on another site, Share Skittles is the place where YouTube videos of fans eating Skittles are posted.

While Skittles hasn’t quite figured out how to leverage Twitter, logging little more than 6,000 followers and producing some really weird tweets, more than 12 million “Likes” show they managed to figured out how to make use of Facebook.

The “Mob The Rainbow” feature was an innovative effort that strove to bring fans together to create something big. The first mob was a massive outpouring of Valentine’s Day greetings to a person who doesn’t get much love: a parking enforcement officer. Fans were asked to either make a card on the site or get the address and send one on their own — 43,037 cards were sent. Since the launch of Mob The Rainbow last year, fans have completed three mobs, with plans for a fourth one to “crash” an 85-year-old grandmother’s birthday party. It’s a brilliant way to engage the company’s audience with social good and keep its quirky image alive.

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5. Red Bull

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Red Bull is a brand that is associated with procrastination and the need for energy — last-minute studying, late-night partying, early morning meetings or classes, and the ability to keep you awake at almost any hour of the day.

With social media, though, the Austrian company has something more to offer than salvation from long work days and early morning grumpiness. With more than 10 million “Likes” on Facebook, it offers a really cool and interactive Facebook Page that appeals to the brand’s core consumer.

The Procrastination Station, featured on its Games page, offers high quality, engaging and interactive options for procrastinators, including a soapbox car racing game, a rock, paper, scissors game, and “Drunkish Dials” recordings — recordings of Red Bull drinkers who called the company’s toll free number, leaving “drunkish” messages. Yep, that’s what happens if you leave them a ridiculous drunken message — they’ll put it online.

Plus, they’ve run creative contests like 2009’s Red Bull Stash, where the company hid Energy Shots all over the country and posted clues on its Facebook wall. It was the company’s way of thanking fans when it hit the 1 million fan mark. Currently, the company has teamed up with San Francisco Giants player Tim Lincecum to create an ongoing scavenger hunt for 11 autographed baseballs hidden on the streets of San Fran. A picture of each baseball has been uploaded at a specific location and the first fan to arrive and check in with Facebook Places and the password “San Francisco’s Got Wings” wins the coveted ball.

The company has also done an impressive job on the mobile front with the Red Bull X-Fighters app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the Red Bull TV app, and the Red Bull BPM app that turns your iPhone into a complete DJ setup. All these apps are great extensions of the brand’s core product, and complementing the consumer’s lifestyle goes a long way.

With 500 million members and growing, Facebook offers brands and marketers direct contact to the largest pool of online users on the web. After all, social media is fast becoming more popular than e-mail on mobile devices and more convenient for news consumption than the daily paper.

In recent weeks and months, Facebook () has introduced and improved a number of on-site tools that sage brands and businesses can use to better market themselves. Even the simplest of tools such as “Likes” and photos could serve as a catalyst for a viral network effect. Of course, there’s also opportunity to be had with more calculated efforts around Place Pages, Questions and the New Groups.

New as these conveniences may be, they’re still rich with opportunity. What follows is a look at how these tools, mixed with a little ingenuity, can be applied to your marketing purposes.

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1. Bright Lights, Big Facebook

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Facebook Photos are likely a much overlooked brand utility. In recent weeks, the social network has added a slew of photo enhancements that Page owners should become keen on.

Especially of note is the ability to upload hi-res photos up to 2048 pixels wide or high. In combination with the lightbox interface and the removal of pagination (all album photos appear on a single page), photos now really pop on the world’s largest social network.

For marketers and brands, these upgrades offer huge opportunity; you can now use Facebook’s magnified photo product to better engage brand fans. Take a look at Travelocity’s Facebook photos for a prime example of this strategy done right. The brand employs its iconic Roaming Gnome in photo spreads — that are then posted straight-away to Facebook — every chance it gets.

“Thoughtful and engaging photos are a critical component to our Facebook Page,” says Joel Frey, Travelocity’s senior public relations manager. “When the Roaming Gnome attends an event like the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, our social media team definitely wants our fans to chuckle at his antics, but we also want them to imagine themselves taking a balloon ride one day and, hopefully, using Travelocity to help them turn that dream into reality. So we make sure we’re always taking shots that capture the entire scene and not just the Gnome mingling with his fans.”

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2. Focused Group Action

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Facebook recently introduced a New Groups feature for private, even secret, one-to-many communication channels. New Groups are like mini Facebooks — but with group chat and document uploading — which make them ripe for intelligent brands and marketers to employ to their advantage.

We’re not suggesting you run out and invite random Facebookers to join your group — that’s a terrible idea. But, we do see potential for several practical use cases, especially given that most social networkers call Facebook their online home.

Here’s a few that come to mind:

• Consumer Review Groups: Instead of hosting customer or product feedback sessions via your own tools, invite members to participate in private group sessions via the New Groups. It’s a win-win for both parties because participants will feel more at home in a familiar environment, which may make them more likely to participate and provide higher quality feedback. These groups won’t replace market research efforts (for bigger brands anyway), but they could help you glean insight in a much faster and more intimate fashion.
• Event Groups: If you host networking events, conferences or seminars, consider letting participants know prior to, or following, the event that you’ve created a group for further discussion.
• Live Chats: As noted above, New Groups feature group chat. Brands and marketers that maintain groups should consider inviting company figureheads to participate with customers and fans in live group chats. You could either schedule live chats or have a recognizable personality drop in unannounced.

Any marketers or brands employing these strategies need to remember to respect the online boundaries of Facebook members. As such, we’d recommend not inviting customers to join a group without their express permission.

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3. Riddle Me This

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Facebook Questions is another new product from the social network that can be molded into the perfect tool for brands and marketers.

The Q&A product lends itself to Page owners, who can respond to questions as their business (versus responding as an individual). Page administrators can also post questions directly to their Pages (), with the activity also showing up in the News Feeds of your Facebook fans. Clearly, Questions can be a marketing tool for soliciting organized feedback in a way that also exposes the business to larger audiences, should fans post and share their answers.

Facebook Questions should be used like any other Q&A tool out there — think LinkedIn () — meaning we highly recommend a soft sell approach. If you take to Questions to explicitly sell your product, you’ll probably be met with unresponsive Facebookers. If, however, you seek out questions to answer where you can demonstrate expertise, or post questions to your Page that resonate with fans, then you’ll be working to develop better connections with these individuals.

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4. “I Was Here”

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If your place of business has a physical store, then your job as a marketer is to improve foot traffic. Facebook’s Places is a potential digital tool for creating a tangible connection between your online profile and your offline venue.

Your goal, by and large, should be to inspire in-store customers to share the “I was here” message with a place checkin that gets distributed to their Facebook friends and posted to your Place Page. You’ll want to start by claiming your Place Page — one is automatically created once a Facebook member checks in to a venue. You can then encourage checkins via in-store signage or special checkin-themed events.

Loopt and SCVNGR also offer deep Facebook integration with the potential to loop location activity on those services back to your Place Page, as well as bring Facebook checkins to their apps’ audiences. You’ll certainly want to explore what these apps can do for your venue, but distribution and visibility are key here.

Right now, there is a clear disconnect between Facebook Pages and Place Pages, but we suspect that the two entities will eventually merge into one single page. Once this happens, you’ll have even greater potential to turn fans into venue advocates and vice versa.

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5. Just For the Like of It

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“Likes” aren’t exactly new to Facebook, but they are becoming increasingly more important buttons to brands and marketers. The more you can encourage fans and would-be fans to “Like” your Page and updates, the more distribution you’ll get. Distribution is nothing to scoff at either, especially given a recent partnership between Bing and Facebook that surfaces Facebook “Likes” in search results.

There are a number of creative ways to solicit “Likes,” one of them being the more passive approach of posting stellar content that inspires action. You can also integrate “Like” buttons into your website, should you wish to complete the circle between Facebook and your business site. This might be a wise move considering “Likes” are proving great at generating referral traffic.

More aggressive “Like” tactics mixed with a little old school marketer know-how have been known to work as well.

Golden State Warriors marketing director Kyle Spencer, for example, employed an ingenious plan to up the “Like” count on the Warriors Facebook Page. Spencer took advantage of the basketball team’s preseason games and its e-mail database to engineer more “Likes.” He started an e-mail marketing campaign giving away free tickets to the team’s first two preseason games, so long as the recipients “Liked” the team’s Page.

The initiative paid off handsomely and fans even took to Twitter () and Facebook to voice their disappointment when the first offer sold out. The Warriors then re-upped the campaign for the final preseason campaign. “So in total, we increased our Facebook followers over 20% (73k to 88k) with just two e-mails,” says Spencer.

Windows/Mac: You can use our EQ filter method to silence the dreaded vuvuzela sounds in World Cup broadcasts, but if you're looking for an all-in-one solution, a sound engineer has whipped up some software that automatically cuts out just the right frequencies.

Simon, product manager at National Instruments (NI), wrote in to point us to a free bit of software he wrote up, which uses the back-end of NI's LabView software to automatically filter and cut out the frequency ranges where vuvuzelas, the celebratory horns that sound like disturbed locusts, or maybe angry bees, drone on endlessly during World Cup matches. Simon's software has an adjustable number of harmonics it can cover, so those with slower computers can lower the number for less latency, and others can cover the spectrum pretty thoroughly.

You'll need to insert your computer as part of the audio chain to use the software with a television or sound system, but this Vuvuzela Filter does all the hard work for you. It's written to run as a stand-alone package for Windows or Mac, but I had to install the free LabView engine to get it running on my own Windows 7 system.

It's a free download, and one that looks like solid relief for beleaguered fans.

World Cup 2010 - Filtering the Annoying Vuvuzela Noise [National Instruments]

Chase Jarvis RAW: 12 Tasty Photo + Video Tips

Thursday - 17th of June, 2010

95% of the gear I use to create high-end advertising images, videos, and commercials is the highest end stuff you can buy. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and production often comes together for much of the commercial work you see. This gear all serves its purpose, and there’s good reason for every single piece of it, but….

PROBLEM: I understand that, for a huge cross section of this community, this high end gear is completely outta reach. You probably don’t own a RED camera or a fleet of Nikon D3s’. You don’t have Fisher dollies and and a Digital Asset Manager to wrangle your data after every shot. So, for a long time, one request that’s regularly come up from this community is, that when I get the rare chance, to please feature some mid range or lower end gear, some more DIY solutions, and some ways to keep things on the cheaper side while still getting cool results.

SOLUTION: Not long ago, I shot the launch campaign for SanDisk’s new line of Extreme Pro cards, and SanDisk was kind enough to let me share the “making-of” that campaign, with tweets, Facebook posts and daily videos while I was creating the work. Was the first time anything like that had been done, and it was a blast. Well, we’re back at it and just wrapped another campaign for SanDisk (images will be sprinkled throughout summer and fall). No play by play this time, but there’s another interesting twist: It was part of my assignment to shoot images with a wide range of cameras and cards for them–from point and shoot cameras with standard cards, all the way to the top of the line Nikon gear with the Extreme Pro cards, and lots in between. Totally unique approach. SanDisk were again cool with me making a behind the scenes video, and this time they even provided me with a a clean slate and some vid budget to do what I wanted. So I figured, what a perfect time to deliver on a long standing wish to marry a wide range of gear with some inexpensive and effective DIY solutions to get some cool and unique photos and to manage data. That said, we baked that down into the above video, and I’m happy to present ChaseJarvis RAW: 12 Tasty Photo + Video Tips. If you’re a pro, this vid won’t make you salivate, but if you’re an aspiring shooter, you just might pick up a thing or two that could unlock your next great picture or video.

AND: I’d be remiss for not thanking SanDisk for again backing my desire to share the black box of photography with this community. Big ups to those guys. And I’d also be remiss if I didn’t let you know that they’ve got a contest going on right now, giving away several thousand bucks to inspire your best summer shots. Check it out.

Lots of behind-the-scenes photos, some snapshots, and…alert for gear freaks…and entire gear list after the jump

Here’s a shot of the talent on Mission Beach, San Diego. Sunset.

Yours truly setting up the remote Nikon D3s with PocketWizards using a magic arm.

Snapshot of Erik’s point and shoot attached to the skateboard. Good for shooting P.O.V. stills or HD video.

“Poor Man’s Dolly”. A Nikon D90 on a cotton hat, sitting on a skateboard makes for an impromptu dolly.

Sweet kickflip from Chad.

Fitting Brandon with the Contour HD helmet camera.

A fancier “poor man’s dolly” built with PVC and skateboard wheels.

Grabbing a p/s snapshot of talent behind the scenes.

Yours truly with the no-look skate shot.

And here’s the gearlist extravaganza…ng>

• Canon PowerShot S90
• Nikon D3S
• Nikon D90
• ContourHD 1080p with flat surface mount
• Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 AF-S
• Nikon 16mm f2.8 Fisheye
• Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S
• Broncolor Verso Pack
• Broncolor Unilite Head
• Broncolor P70 Reflector
• Nikon SB-800
• SanDisk 16GB Ultra SDHC
• SanDisk 32GB Extreme Pro CF
• SanDisk 16GB Extreme HD Video
• SanDisk 16GB microSDHC
• SanDisk 16GB SDHC
• Manfrotto Super Clamp
• Manfrotto Variable Friction Magic Arm
• Gtizo GT3531 Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs
• Gitzo 3780 QR Tripod Head
• Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceiver
• Pocket Wizard N90M3-P Pre-Trigger Motor Cord

Most of us have spent years building up our digital music libraries, along with tons of missing, mismatched, and incorrect tags on your music over that time. Here's a step-by-step guide for organizing your entire library, once and for all.

Your digital music library is huge. Even if you only have an iPod nano's worth of songs, that's still a good thousand tracks—and some of you likely have closer to four or five thousand (or more). Today's media players—whether on your desktop or portable device—rely on metadata to organize and display all this music. If your metadata is disorganized, so's your music player. Unless you just started building your library, or have been ultra organized from the get-go, you probably have plenty of problems with your tags—missing tags, disorganized iterations of the same artist (The Beatles; The Beetles; Beatles, The), and even some albums that have no information whatsoever. Everyone's problems are a bit different, but here's a systematic approach to getting your library into shape, from start to finish.

We've visited this issue once before, but that method only went over a few basic ideas, not to mention it used MediaMonkey, which is a solid tool but Windows-only. This how-to will help you delve into some deeper issues in your library, with software that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Below we'll cover how to fill in the large gaps in your metadata (primary tags like artist and album), then we'll dive into more specific secondary tags (like genre or year), and lastly we'll tie up any loose ends that still haven't been taken care of.

Filling in Missing Primary Tags with Jaikoz

The first order of business is to get any files with missing primary tags (such as artist or album) filled in so that you can fine-tune them along with the rest of your library later on. There are a number of tools that do this automatically, and while none of them are perfect, Jaikoz (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) does a pretty good job. It's not super consistent in which secondary tags (like album artist or genre) it fills in, but that's all stuff we'll fix in the next phase anyway—the important part here is getting primary tags, like artist and album, filled in where they're not, and Jaikoz does a pretty good job of doing this without any trouble on your part.

The downside is that Jaikoz is only a free trial, and as such will only let you save tags to 20 songs per session. Previously mentioned Picard, which also uses the MusicBrainz database, does the same thing for free, but it's much more difficult to use—so much more difficult, in my opinion, that I'd rather restart Jaikoz for each album than try to wade through Picard's process. If you're familiar with Picard or want to try it out, feel free, but I won't cover it here.

If you have more albums than can be easily tagged with a few sessions of Jaikoz, you're probably in deep, and it's worth paying the $20 for Jaikoz; if you're using iTunes, paying $10 for previously mentioned Pollux, one of the best automatic taggers around (pictured to the left), seems like your best option. So to reiterate: If you're going the free route, we'd use Jaikoz; if you're willing to pay, the premium version of Jaikoz is solid; if you're willing to pay and use iTunes, you probably won't regret Pollux.

Pollux is simple enough to use that we won't explain how to use it here; instead, we'll offer a little more detail for the free Jaikoz method.

Once you've started up Jaikoz and opened the folder on your hard drive containing your library, select the files that have missing artist or album information (remember, only select 20 at a time or the tags won't be saved). To select the tracks themselves, you'll have to select files via the leftmost column of numbers in Jaikoz (see the screenshot above)—otherwise you'll just select that tag. While you're going through this, select any tracks you might be unsure of, too—this is probably less widespread now, but back in the early days of file sharing, a lot of songs got out into the wild with the tags of completely different songs, so if you aren't positive that song from 2000 is the song it claims to be, you might as well throw it into the fray as well. Right click your selection and hit "Auto Correct". Jaikoz will do its thing and you should see completely filled in tags and album art in just a minute or so, along with a "C" in the leftmost column to show which tracks Jaikoz has edited. Hit the save button at the top of the window, close Jaikoz, and re-open it for the next batch of 20 that need artists or albums filled in.

Fill in Missing Secondary Tags with Mp3tag

If you have some albums that have at least one primary tag (preferably album) but are missing secondary tags (such as song titles or year), you can use previously mentioned Mp3tag to search for the rest of them. Mp3tag is technically Windows only, but works amazingly well in WINE both on Mac and Linux. Mac users unfamiliar with WINE should check out previously mentioned Winebottler, which will wrap it into its own, independent Mac app, with no extra configuration. Note though, that as a Windows program, it can't handle file names with certain symbols, so any file names with question marks or other non-Windows friendly characters will have to be changed—if iTunes organizes your files for you, this isn't a problem as it already does this by default.

Start up Mp3tag and open the folder in which your music is stored. Before you do anything else, select all your files and hit the save button for good measure. Mp3tag can read lots of different types of tags, but when possible, it saves all tags as ID3v2.3, which is the most widespread tag format for Mp3s—AAC files have their own tag format, so that won't change, but files with ID3v2.4 can give some media players problems, so I'd suggest it's a good idea to make sure you're using the best version possible. Saving all tags as they are will rewrite them in ID3v2.3, so you're starting off with a good base.

To auto-populate the tags of a given album, select an album and hit Tag Sources in the toolbar. You can pick anything you like here; but any should do just fine—I prefer Amazon.com, but MusicBrainz also has a very well-kept database. Both of these databases search by album, which is perfect. You'll be given a list of possible matches, from which you can pick the one you want to use. Hit OK and it will fill in all the tags it has. You'll have to do this separately for each album, so again, if you have a ton of albums to go through, you might want to just spring for Jaikoz or Pollux. But for a small to moderate number of albums, this works wonders.

Note that this will also add album art. If you have a lot of albums missing art, though, I'd recommend going into iTunes first and making sure that you've added all the art you can, since iTunes' "get album art" feature is quick and painless—but for albums that iTunes can't find, both Mp3tag and Jaikoz will automatically add art along with the rest of the metadata.

Batch Actions in Mp3tag

In some cases, there may be some things that auto-tagging doesn't fill correctly, or just times when you need to do something that isn't already provided by Amazon or MusicBrainz. This is where actions come in—actions let you define, via scripts or strings, exactly how you want Mp3tag to populate any given tag. We'll go through a basic example of how to create an action and how to use it efficiently, so you don't do any more manual work than you have to.

The example I'm going to use, because it's a popular one, is filling in missing "album artist" tags, which can cause problems for some media players—but everyone's situation is different, and you may have another batch action that you need to complete. Mp3tag is extremely versatile and powerful, and while I can't go through every possible scenario, this example should outline how to use Mp3tag's advanced features, as well as the most efficient way to perform manual batch actions such as this in the program, so even if you're doing something different, you can still utilize these strategies.

Even large batch actions aren't necessarily that straightforward—so the key is to work with the smallest amount of files possible. Say half of your music is missing the "album artist" tag. Most of these tracks have the same album artist as they do artist, but not all of them. The first thing we'll want to do is weed out the ones that do, so we don't have to muddle through them later and do them all by hand. The best way to do this is sorting your files by tag, using the top bar. Clicking on a column will sort the files alphabetically (or numerically) by that column. You can sort by multiple columns, too—say you wanted to sort by artist, and then sorted by album within artists. You would hit the album column first, then sort by the artist column—essentially going backward in the order you want them sorted.

In the album artist case, we want to sort by album artist, so we only have to work with the files that are missing the actual tag. Within this group, though, there are still files we want to weed out, such as compilations that often have "various artists" as their album artist instead of the artist of any given song. Compilation is not an ID3 tag, but iTunes does sort compilations into a separate folder—so by using "path" as our secondary sorting column, we can do all the compilations at once and then put them aside, saving them from being part of the batch action. If you don't use iTunes or a program that sorts compilations, you'll unfortunately have to do this manually later.

To do this, click on the path column, then click on the album artist column. Scroll to the half of your music missing the album artist tag, and then search for the block of files in the "compilations" folder. Select them all and go to the left side of the screen, where you can edit the tags. Under Album Artist, type in "Various Artists". This will populate that field for all your compilations. Afterward, you can click the "album artist" column again to re-sort, excluding those from the list of tracks without the tag. Now we can do our batch action.

Select all the files that are missing the album artist tag and go to Convert > Actions. Mp3tag has a bunch of "quick actions" built in, as well as a few more advanced actions—but we're going to create our own for this particular task.

When the actions window comes up, hit "new" and type in a name for the action group (like "fill in album artist"). Then click "new" again to add a new action to this group. For this action, all we need to do is populate the "album artist" field (called BAND in Mp3tag) with the information in the "artist" field—so our field will be BAND, and our format string will merely be %artist%. Hit OK until you get back to the main action window. Check your newly created action and press OK—Mp3tag should go through all your tracks and populate the album artist tag.

This is just one example of a batch action you can do, but the general strategy for sorting by multiple columns works pretty well no matter what you're doing—the idea is to change only the tags you have to in any given batch action, thereby cutting down the manual editing for those songs that just won't take via automation as much as possible. Depending on your particular needs, you can make an action to do just about anything. For more information on scripting functions and strings you can use, check out Mp3tag's great help page.

Fine Tune Small Errors and Mismatched Tags

The last thing you need to do is edit any tags manually that are still incorrect. This is where you'd fix any files that you couldn't fix with a batch action—following the example we've been using, one instance might be albums by one artist but feature other artists on them. You'll need to fix the album artist tag for these artists yourself—which requires scanning through your library to find them manually, unfortunately, and renaming the album artist to whoever it's supposed to be using the left sidebar of Mp3tag. You can also do this in iTunes, and in most cases just as easily—in fact, if you're an iTunes user in this instance, it's probably easiest to go into iTunes and see which albums show up twice or more under album view, a good sign that iTunes is recognizing them as by different artists.

This is also when you'll fix mismatched tags, such as the aforementioned Beatles example—unfortunately, unless you've bought Jaikoz or Pollux, this is all stuff you'll have to do manually, but like I said before: if there are more tracks than you can comfortably do by hand, it's worth the $10 to get Pollux to just do it all automatically for you.

via|lightroom lab

I picked up my iPad on May 28, which was the day that the iPad went on sale in most countries outside of the US. Today I’ll talk about how I’m using my iPad now, and throw in a few useful app suggestions, as well as covering what I’m not doing, with reasons why, and a few small areas that really need to be improved to make this little device the photographer’s Utopia, if it isn’t already.

(If you prefer to listen, there’s an audio player at the bottom of this post.)

Feel the Quality

The first thing you’ll notice when you hold an iPad, for those that haven’t had a chance to yet that is, is that it is the perfect size to just sit on a sofa and hold when you view eBooks or browse Web sites etc. The weight is enough to be able to feel the quality, but not enough to start to feel heavy while using the iPad.

Portfolio Viewer

Of course, the most obvious use of the iPad for the photographer is to use it to show your portfolio of images to others. One of the first things I did was sync my best shots to the iPad, just to see how good they look, and they look great! I had high expectation, and it totally lived up to them. The screen is 9.7” diagonally, with 1024 x 768 resolution at 132 pixels per inch, so it’s incredibly sharp.

MBP iPad Home Screen

The iPad Technical Specs state that the screen is Fingerprint-resistant, which I think must mean that fingerprints are easily removable, which they are. It’s misleading though in that these things do get covered in fingerprints. After you’ve washed your hands, and there’s no oil in your skin, they are fine for a while, but unless you wash your hands every time you touch the screen, there will be finger prints. I find though that when there are noticeable finger prints, a microfiber cloth like the ones we use to clean our lenses will clean the screen with a few wipes, and also, after you have washed your hands, you can easily remove the finger prints by just rubbing your thumb or finger over them a couple of times.

Don’t Resize for the iPad

After I’d simply copied my library of best shots to the iPad, I exported my current 44 image Nature of Japan portfolio to a directory on my hard disk, and synced that to the iPad. I initially made a mess of this though by trying to be clever, and resizing my images. Because the screen is 1024 pixels wide, I tried exporting my images with a maximum long edge of 1024 pixels. This of course though stops you from being able to zoom in on the images. This was actually how I had my portfolio synced when I met Marcus Bain, a great photographer living here in Japan, the day after I got my iPad. The first thing Marcus did when I showed him the portfolio is used the multi-point technology, where you place two fingers on the screen and then spread them apart to zoom the image, and of course, this doesn’t give you a sharp image if you have the photos resized to just 1024 pixels. Luckily I had my other images on there still, so Marcus could still have a play with them and check sharpness, but the first thing I did when I got home was re-exported my portfolio without any resizing.

I’m sure there’s an optimum size to resize images to for the iPad, but as iTunes will do all of the resizing and sharpening necessary to display images in amazing quality and give you a certain amount of zoom-ability, I decided to just export my images without any resizing at all. I can then use that folder of JPEGs for slide shows etc. as well so it really isn’t a big deal to have the full-sized JPEGs sitting on my hard drive.

Photos Currently Ordered by Creation Date

One thing that I noticed though, that I don’t like about the iPad, and I have raised an enhancement request with Apple about this, is that you can’t specify how images are sorted in the Photos application, which is the native image viewer on the iPad. I usually order the images in my portfolio in a pleasing or aesthetic way, and then when I export my portfolio images from Lightroom, I have a preset that will add a two digit number and an underscore to the start of the file name as it saves the images to my hard drive. This means that when you view the images sorted by file name, they are in your intended order. The iPhone actually orders images by file name, so I always have my portfolio in the order I want it on my iPhone.

So, I was surprised that when I cranked up the Photo viewer on the iPad, and saw my images in a totally different order. On closer inspection, it seems that the images are ordered by the capture date of the original digital image. Now, this of course is another way in which I’d like to view images. I have a whole bunch of folders that are just named by year, and these are more like a yearly photographic diary that I like to have with me, and this is great sorted by creation date, because it starts are January 1^st, and ends with December 31^st.

Apple are great at taking away confusing configurations and decisions from the end user, but on this occasion, I think we need a little more control. My enhancement request was for the ability to sort on file name as well as create date, and to have the ability to specify ascending or descending order. I also want to be able to do this by folder, and not a generic setting for all image folders on the device, because there are times when capture date is preferred. OK, so that’s negative point number one. Not a showstopper by any means, but I hope Apple decides to change this functionality, in the near future.

Handling Sub-folders Not So Graceful

One other negative thing about the Photos application is that when you sync from iTunes, if you select a folder to sync that contains lots of sub-folders, they are all displayed as one larger album on the iPad, even when you select the Albums tab in the Photos application. This is annoying because I want to display my best shots in their year folders, and have my portfolio shots in another folder. To make this possible, you have to go down a level in your file system, and tell iTunes that you want to sync each of the folders individually. This means that I can’t just say, OK, sync my Best Shots folder, and make sure that my yearly folders and my portfolio folder are in there. I have to select to sync each folder on the lower level by selecting each one of them in iTunes. I can live with this, but I’m not a fan of changing how I organize my computer because of conditions imposed on me from third parties.

Slide-Shows with Music

The Slide Show feature in the Photos app is pretty good. You can turn music on and select any track that you have synced to the iPad in your music library. There are also a number of transitions to choose from such as Cube, Dissolve, Ripple, Wipe and Origami. Wipe is probably the most orthodox transition, but these are great to play with, and the Origami transition can be fun, but I find the way it crops images to make its three image spread can be a little unkind to nature photos. Definitely worth having a play with this though.

Full Screen Image with Thumbnails Bar

When viewing an image full screen, if you tap the image, you’ll get a narrow thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen, and when you run your finger along it, it literally whizzes through your images as fast as you can run your finger along the thumbnail bar. You can also hold the image with two fingers, and turn it, and the image will rotate under your fingers, as well as expand and contract. This isn’t particularly useful, but it gets a good reaction when showing people how cool the iPad is.

Hold and Rotate – Cool But Meaningless

Pinching closes the image and returns to the thumbnail view, and then if you pinch the screen again, you will go up to the next album level. To open albums or images you can either tap them, or use two fingers, spreading them apart, and of course simple swiping on images and album pages will move you swiftly through the albums or images on the screen.

Rotate Images

Picture Frame

Before we move on from the display of photos, one other great feature is the Picture Frame. If you go to the Settings panel on the iPad, you’ll see an option called Picture Frame. In there you can set a transition and a few other settings, and you can also select to display all photos or specific albums, and then when you turn your iPad on when you see that slider that you have to slide with your finger to unlock the iPad, you’ll notice a little icon with a flower in it to the right of the slider. If you click this, you will automatically turn your iPad into a Picture Frame, and the images in the album you selected will start to display on the iPad, without you having to go into the iPad, select the Photos app, navigate to your album and then turning on the slide show. This is very handy if you just want to quickly show your images, or even set the iPad down on a table on a stand maybe, and just use it as a digital picture frame.

No Adobe Flash!

I can’t believe I have so much to say just about the Photos app! Let’s move on to some other great things that you have to check out. As I mentioned, Web pages look absolutely amazing on the iPad, as long as they are not Flash based of course. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about this, so I won’t go into detail, but basically the iPad does not, and from what we’re hearing probably never will support Adobe Flash. Sure, there are arguments that it’s a battery life hog and that there may be a few bugs in Flash, whatever. I personally think that it should just be supported, because if there were bugs, Adobe would fix them, like they always do, so I wish Apple would just get over this and give us Flash.

Web Sites Do Look Great!

Apart from that though, really, Web sites look amazing on the iPad. I have found myself doing more web browsing than ever before, just because I can do it from the sofa, sitting next to my wife, who I think is also pleased I bought the iPad, just because it’s keeping off my PC more than she could have imagined.

So Do Videos!

Videos also look great on the iPad. You can sync videos just like Photos, from the same dialog in fact, and if you have videos in your iTunes library, it will try to sync them to the iPad as well. The speaker on the iPad is surprisingly good for the size, so you don’t always need to use earphones, unless of course you’re annoying other people with the music or sounds coming out of the speaker. Some sites like Vimeo.com will dish-up video to the iPad too, so you can go over to vimeo.com/martinbailey for example, and check out my videos if you are looking for some video content to give a try. Currently though, the Vimeo fullscreen video button doesn’t actually go to fullscreen on the iPad. If you want to go true fullscreen, you have to download the video and sync it to the iPad.

Generally Very Pretty

The email client on the iPad is pretty good. I like the way, as with many apps, when you turn the iPad up into the vertical orientation, it automatically gets rid of the side bar, and just displays the email. If you get mail with graphics in the iPad does a great job of formatting those, as well as plain text email. The Calendar and Contacts apps are also nicely formatted. I think Apple has done a great job of really utilizing the additional screen real estate that the iPad has.

My Essential Apps

Evernote

I don’t use Notes on the iPad, as I have Evernote, which brings us to some of the third party apps that I don’t think I’d like to be without. The iPad is great for photos and mail, and web browsing, etc. right out of the box, but it really comes into its own when you start to customize it with your own selection of apps from the iTunes App Store.

Evernote is an application that basically allows you to create text notes, which you can type directly to the new note or old note that you are editing. You can also record audio notes, and attach them, as well as attaching photos etc. You can organize your notes into various Notebooks, and tag them, for easy searching later.

The beauty of Evernote though, is that all of the notes that you create are automatically synced to a central secure server, and then if you install the Evernote client on your Mac or Windows PC, or even your iPhone or many other mobile devices, you can continue to access notes that you made not only on that device, but on all of your devices. If you are on a PC for example, you can capture entire Web pages, or copy PDF documents or just about any document to Evernote, and have it available on all other devices, and there’s no need for any manual syncing at all. You can only display a certain type of document mind. The Evernote reader has to support it, but it does an OK job with Word Docs and Excel Files for example, and PDFs display OK, although not optimal for the iPad, but none of the PDF viewers really do a good job yet, but we’ll get to that shortly. Evernote have a free account, into which you can upload up to 40MB a month, and sync between all of your devices without paying a penny. If you find that you are using it a lot though, you might want to consider a Premium account for $5/month or $45/year. I have a premium account and have not regretted it once, especially now that I can get at all of my notes from an iPad too.

Dropbox

For syncing files between computers more than notes, another service that I use is Dropbox. Dropbox has a free service where you can sync up to 2GB of data across as many machines as you like, but if you want to go above 2GB, there are a couple of options. For 50GB, it will cost you $9.99/ month or $99/year, and for 100GB it will cost you $19.99/month or $199/year. I have signed up for the Pro 50 account, and I now sync my best images and all my eBooks and other important files across all of my machines to save me from having to sync them manually. And of course, there’s an iPad client for Dropbox that does a pretty good job at opening all the common file types. It will also give you a basic image viewer so that you can view your JPEG images, but it does not have a slideshow feature in the iPad version as of June 2010. The iPhone client for Dropbox actually has a very nice photo viewer though, so I’m sure it won’t be too long before this is added to the iPad version as well.

Twitterrific & TweetDeck

Tweetdeck in Vertical Orientation

There are some great Twitter Clients that have been redesigned for the iPad too. I have installed and continuously switch between two clients which are Twitterrific and TweetDeck. Both are free for the iPad at the moment, but Twitterrific has some ads at the top of the feeds right now. I will buy a Premium version when available to get rid of the ads. Tweetdeck has no ads and is still free too. I prefer the layout of TweetDeck on the iPad, but I prefer the way Twitterrific behaves for retweeting etc. They’re both great though, and I know there are a bunch of other good Twitter clients out there, but these are my personal favorites. Be sure to grab the iPad versions from the App Store when searching for these apps, as you can download and install the iPhone versions, and even use them, but they don’t make use of your nice big iPad screen, so I wouldn’t advise it.

We’re kind of going off topic here in that Twitter is not specifically for photography, but there is a pretty big community of photographers on Twitter, that are sharing a huge amount of useful information all day long, so if you are not already using Twitter, I suggest you give it a try, especially if you have just bought an iPad.

Sobees for Facebook

Continuing with the Social Networking (for Photographers) theme, if you use Facebook, you need to grab a copy of Sobees for Facebook. This is a great app that gives you a view of latest status updates from all of your friends, as well as latest images, links and videos. The People tab is amazing, in that it gives you a largish thumbnail of the profile photo for all of your friends. I was actually quite touched by this view, seeing all of my family and friends from around the world that I have connected with on Facebook. As I scrolled down I saw the faces of many of you that I know from the MBP Community as well, and it was just really nice. There’s a photos tab and an events tab too, that are great for seeing the shots uploaded from friends and events that are being planned. The Profile tab shows your own profile and all of your recent status updates and interactions. You can also scroll through Friend’s thumbnail and view their profiles too.

Reuters News Pro

Another loosely Photography related app that I want to mention is one that Roy Booth from the UK recommended on our Photography Forum, and that is Thomson Reuters News Pro. This is a great app for catching up on world events, as well as financial information such as Currencies, Markets and Stocks. The photography connection here though is that there is a Picture section, and in there, you have basically a screen full of thumbnails, and when you tap on them, you see a page that is mostly a photo from a current news event, with some text explain what the photo is about with a little bit of news to back it up. It’s a great way to view some amazing photography at the same time as catch up with world events.

Zinio

If you don’t subscribe to digital magazines with a company called Zinio before you get an iPad, you have to start to use them when you do. Zinio have their own reader for the iPad, as well as the iPhone and desktop computers, but one of the main things that I wanted to do on the iPad was sit and read my Zinio magazines, and here’s the photography connection. For a few years now, I have subscribed to magazines like Popular Photography, ShutterBug, American Photo and Layers Magazine. Zinio subscriptions range from a bit cheaper than the hard copy magazine, to ridiculously cheaper, and they are delivered to your computer or iPad as soon as they are released. There’s no waiting for the postman, and of course, no postage charges.

Zinio Library View

Rich Content & Interactive Magazines

Also, with the advent of the iPad, innovative magazines like National Geographic are now making their magazine more interactive, including animation and video clips, right there in the magazine. When my hard-copy National Geographic magazine subscription runs out in December, I’ll be switching to Zinio too. Not only is it a richer experience, with the clear type and amazingly clear and vivid photographs on the iPad, but the interactivity takes it to the next level, and no trees have to die to get me my copy! How cool is that!?

Zinio – Simply the Best

In my opinion, the Zinio Reader for the iPad is the only eBook reader at the moment that has got it right when it comes to the way you store and read books. You have a number of different ways to view your library of magazines, and then when you open them, you will see either a single page or a double page spread, depending on the orientation of your iPad. If you have it horizontal, you’ll see two pages, and you’ll see just one page, when the iPad is vertical. Of course there’s a little button on the side of the iPad if you want to stop this from happening, say if you are reading lying down or something. When you double tap or use two fingers to zoom on a page, you can zoom in even closer to the text for easy reading, although it’s possible to read most text without zooming. When you have finished reading a page, you just swipe in the direction that you want to turn a page, and the book will advance for you. If you touch the page, you also get a nice thumbnail bar, so you can visually search through the magazine and then tap on the thumbnail to jump to any page.

Layers Magazine in Zinio - Double Page with Thumbnails

I have tried a number of other PDF readers so that I can read some of the eBooks that I have bought, but so far none of them have this rich a reading experience. A few have come close, and some even offer double page spreads, which I really want when reading an eBook, even though I’ll probably zoom in to actually read the text. But the one reader that I found that does have double pages does not have a zoom function. They say it’s coming, but I’m not going to call out the name of any of the other readers I’ve tried until they get this feature right.

The Early Edition

One last application that I want to mention, because we photographers tend to keep track of a lot of Web sites and information, is Early Edition, which is an RSS reader with a difference. RSS readers are often relatively boring, and they just give you a list of the feeds you subscribe to, and when you click on them, you see a list of the most recent articles on the Web sites that you are subscribed to. Well, Early Edition takes those feeds and creates newspaper pages out of them, so you get a headline made from the latest post, then three more sections from the next three posts, and then you get six smaller sections from the next six posts, so you see the 10 most recent posts from your selected feed on the first page, and it creates multiple pages for feeds that have more than 10 recent posts listed. I’ll put a screenshot on the blog and in the Podcast to so that you can see exactly what I mean. Of course, if you don’t have a 3G version of the iPad, if you sync before you leave home in the morning, you can read all of your favorite feeds offline while you are on the train or wherever you’re going.

MBP Blog in Early Edition RSS Reader

Doesn’t and Won’t Stop There

There are a whole slew of other apps available of course, and we are only just seeing the start of what people are going to develop for this platform. I have touched on the main apps that have been developed or updated specifically for the iPad today. All of the apps that I bought for the iPhone, including our very own MBP Companion App for the iPhone work fine on the iPad, and there’s a little 2X button to even have them fill the screen. They’re usable, but I’m not finding them as aesthetically pleasing as iPad specific apps, and they generally don’t make good use of the larger screen size.

Other Areas to Note

Amazing Battery Life!

A few other things to touch on before we wrap up for today are that the battery life on the iPad is amazing! I have used it pretty heavily for two or three days at a time before recharging the battery. This is a good thing too, because most people don’t realize that you cannot charge the iPad from most current PCs USB ports, like you can an iPhone or iPod. Some Mac computers apparently have enough voltage on the USB ports to charge an iPad, but from what I gather, PCs generally won’t do this. I find though that I can get at least a day or two out of the battery, so I just check to see how much charge is left before going to bed, and if it’s down to around 50-25%, I’ll charge it overnight.

Soft Keyboard, OK

For typing email etc. there’s a soft keyboard that appears on screen, which is OK. I usually touch type, which means I don’t look at the keyboard when I type, and that is difficult, because you don’t have physical keys to rest your fingers on, but it’s not impossible. The more I type, the easier it’s getting to type relatively fast on the iPad.

Hardware Keyboard/Dock, Silly

There is a hardware keyboard from Apple for the iPad, but it docks to the iPad in the vertical position, which is a bit silly in my opinion. Pretty soon someone will design a keyboard that allows you to dock with the iPad in a horizontal orientation and then it will be worth considering. Because the iPad has Bluetooth though, I’m sure you can just pair up with pretty much any Bluetooth keyboard and use that if you want to. I really just don’t see me using the iPad as a production machine as such though. For me, it’s mainly about consuming information with basic interactivity.

Not a Mobile Digital Workflow for the Photographer

Some people may have been expecting me to tell you how to load your digital photos on to the iPad and manipulate them with various apps, and upload them to Flickr or your Web site today. If you were hoping for that, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I have literally no interest in doing that sort of thing with my iPad. As much as I love this little baby already, I do not consider it the best device for doing that sort of thing. It’s not that you can’t use the iPad for some basically image selection and upload to a Web site, I just don’t think I’ll ever do that. I want to embed meta data into the file, and do some color management before I upload it anywhere, so if I need to work with images on the road, I’ll take my Laptop PC. It’s just going to be so much easier on a laptop because it’s designed for this sort of thing.

You Need This Device!

So, in summary, and this is the part that you have to print out and show your partner to get them to agree to you buying an iPad…

Photographers are going to get more out of an iPad than most people. Especially for the online photographer that makes the most of Social Media and digital communication to further your hobby or business. Whether you simply want to show your images to family and friends, or you are going to take the iPad with you to show potential clients your portfolio, the wow factor when you show people images on this device is huge. So far, everyone that I’ve handed the iPad to, to view my images, has just said wow, and then their mouths drop open.

The iPhone was great for showing images to people, and because you always have it with you, it will continue to be so, but I am going to be carrying my iPad with me as often as possible too, because you never know when you are going to get a chance to show your images to someone, and the more you show your images, the more chance you have of getting assignments or selling prints etc. I really believe that an iPad will change the way we consume our photography related information, share our own ideas and information through Social Media, and change the way we interact with our clients and potential customers.

Sure, it’s only been 10 days for me, but this device has already changed my life. I’ll update you again in a few months, and let you know what new applications are available then for the photographer.

If you are sitting on the fence though, wondering whether or not you should buy an iPad, jump off the fence, and run to the nearest Apple Store!

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Podcast show-notes:

I’d also like to mention that there is a problem with the iPad in that it does not display the images in Enhanced Podcasts yet. I don’t know if this is a bug, or something that Apple did intentionally, because the images in Enhanced Podcasts are too small to be displayed full screen on the iPad, but it doesn’t work at the moment. I have provided feedback to Apple via their Web site, and I’ll update you if this situation improves, but for now, you won’t be able to view images in the Enhanced Podcast. The good thing here though is that the blog and my online galleries and Podcast page look great on the iPad, so you can go and follow along on the Web site while listening to the audio on the iPad, and this may actually be a better option for now.

Here are iTunes App Store links for each application I mentioned:

Evernote: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/evernote/id281796108?mt=8

Dropbox: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/dropbox/id327630330?mt=8

Twitterrific: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/twitterrific-for-ipad/id359914600?mt=8

Tweetdeck: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/tweetdeck-for-ipad/id364153769?mt=8

Sobees for Facebook: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/sobees-for-facebook/id370382132?mt=8

Thomson Reuters News Pro: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/reuters-news-pro-for-ipad/id363274833?mt=8

Zinio Magazine Newsstand Reader: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/zinio-magazine-newsstand-reader/id364297166?mt=8

The Early Edition: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/the-early-edition/id363496943?mt=8

Win a Kata 3N1-33 Bag! http://bit.ly/mbpga2

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

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Audio

Download this Podcast

Listen right here:

Subscribe in iTunes for Enhanced Podcasts delivered automatically to your computer.

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

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Gallery

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.

Layers Magazine in Zinio - Double Page with Thumbnails

The iPad might not be the final destination for your images, but with Apple's Camera Connection Kit, it can be a great stop along the way. You can preview your photos on its large screen, build dynamic presentations with them in Keynote while you sip coffee at a cafe, or publish your favorite pictures online—all without cracking open a laptop.

Here are some ways enthusiast photographers can build a decent workflow right now using the iPad with the optional Camera Connection Kit.

Get your tools together

For photographers, the more internal memory your iPad has, the better. We'll be moving large files on and off of the device, so having a little extra memory gives you more flexibility. Along with the optional Camera Connection Kit, you might want a USB memory card reader for cameras that don't use SD cards, or at least the USB cable that connects your camera directly to the iPad adapter.

Use the iPad as a backup device

A big challenge for travel photographers is backing up their photos while in the field. You are the most vulnerable to losing a picture right after you take it. At that moment the shot lives only in one place: on your camera's memory card. For many photographers, the iPad can serve as a beautiful backup device. When you take a break from shooting, transfer the images from your memory card to the iPad. Now your photos live in two places.

Don't make the mistake of erasing the images off your memory card after transfer! This puts you back in the "only lives in one spot" vulnerable position. Memory cards are cheap. Plan on bringing enough of them so you don't have to erase images until everything is home, backed up onto a hard drive, and safe and sound.

Work with raw files

Amazingly enough, the iPad supports the same raw files that your Mac does. You can upload these files from your camera to the iPad and they will appear as regular photos in the Photos app, Keynote, and third-party applications. When you transfer the images off of the iPad to your Mac, they will maintain their full raw integrity. If you email them from the iPad, however, they will be attached as a converted full-sized JPEG instead of a raw file.

Because raw files take up more space than JPEGs, you will want to move them off your iPad as soon as possible. But what about those great raw shots that you want to keep on the iPad for sharing with others? There's a terrific solution called Raw+JPEG.

A Raw+JPEG workflow for the iPad

Most cameras that support raw files also have a setting called "Raw+JPEG" that allows you to capture a JPEG at the same time. The iPad recognizes both versions of the image and imports them as a pair. When you upload them using the Camera Connector Kit, you'll see the badge "RAW+JPG" on the thumbnails in the Photos app's Import tab. The problem at first is that this couple seems inseparable. The trick is to move the raw files off of your iPad to free up space, while leaving the JPEGs behind to play with. You already have two applications on your Mac that will let you do this: iPhoto and Image Capture.

When you plug the iPad into the Mac and launch iPhoto, the JPEGs and the raws will show up as separate files. Simply select all of the raw images for import by Command-clicking them. When the "Delete Photos on Your iPad?" message appears, click "Delete Photos." iPhoto will remove the raw files from your iPad and leave the JPEGSs behind for you to view, edit, or send along to others.

If you're not an iPhoto user, you can opt to let Image Capture handle the heavy lifting. Before importing files, be sure to check the box in the lower left corner by "Delete After Import." Then choose the raw files in Image Capture's import browser, select the destination (such as a connected external hard drive where all your other raw files are stored), and click Import. Just like with iPhoto, Image Capture will put the raw files where you want, remove them from the iPad, and leave only the JPEGs in the iPad library.

When I shoot with my Canon 5D Mark II, I can even set the size of the accompanying JPEG in-camera when I shoot Raw+JPEG. I choose the Small size, which is 2784-by-1856—still tons of extra resolution for viewing and cropping on the iPad, but not consuming any more memory than necessary. By comparison, if I chose the Large version of the JPEG, that resolution is 5616-by-3744—a bit more than I need for iPad use.

Manage images on the iPad

After you upload images via the Camera Connection Kit, you'll see two new Albums on the iPad: Last Import and All Imported. This is where your images go and the bad news is that you really don't have any options for moving them around in the Photos app to new albums.

The good news is that those two albums show up in the import photos pop-up menu for Keynote, Pages, and every other iPad app that lets you bring in photos. That means if I want to build a slideshow based on a handful of those JPEGs that I've imported to the iPad, I just open Keynote, choose a theme, add the photos I want from the import albums, and I'm done. Plus, I can export this presentation back to my Mac.

Back-up to the back-up

If something goes wrong, you will still have all of your original images on the camera memory cards that you've tucked away. In addition to the copies in your iPad, make sure that you have a complete backup of them at home before erasing and reusing the cards.

Step-by-Step: Derrick's recommended workflow

1. Shoot JPEG or Raw+JPEG.
2. Connect your memory card or camera to the iPad via the Camera Connection Kit.
3. Tap the Import All button on the iPad if you want all of the images. If you only want to bring selected shots in to the iPad, tap the images you want, then tap Import. Via a popup menu, you'll be presented with the options "Import All" or "Import Selected." Choose "Import Selected."
4. The blue check marks from your selected images will turn green as they are transferred to the iPad.
5. When you get the "Import Complete" dialog, tap the "Keep" button. (You want to leave the files on your memory card for the time being.)
6. On the iPad, tap the Albums button. You'll see that you have two new albums: "Last Imported" and "All Imported."
7. Play with and enjoy your photos on the iPad. When you get home, connect the iPad to your Mac and launch iPhoto. It will display the raw files and JPEGs separately (if you shot Raw+JPEG). Select the raw files only, select Import, then choose Delete Photos once the import is complete.
   If you shot JPEGs only, you may want to click on Keep Photos, letting you thin the shots you want to keep on the iPad itself at a later date.
8. All the images in the "All Imported" album on the iPad will be available for use via any application that can access images in the Photos app.

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, "[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want." Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, "The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law - requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense."

The courts, however, disagree. A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler's license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.

In 2001, when Michael Hyde was arrested for criminally violating the state's electronic surveillance law - aka recording a police encounter - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction 4-2. In dissent, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall stated, "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals…." (Note: In some states it is the audio alone that makes the recording illegal.)

The selection of "shooters" targeted for prosecution do, indeed, suggest a pattern of either reprisal or an attempt to intimidate.

Glik captured a police action on his cellphone to document what he considered to be excessive force. He was not only arrested, his phone was also seized.

On his website Drew wrote, "Myself and three other artists who documented my actions tried for two months to get the police to arrest me for selling art downtown so we could test the Chicago peddlers license law. The police hesitated for two months because they knew it would mean a federal court case. With this felony charge they are trying to avoid this test and ruin me financially and stain my credibility."

Hyde used his recording to file a harassment complaint against the police. After doing so, he was criminally charged.

In short, recordings that are flattering to the police - an officer kissing a baby or rescuing a dog - will almost certainly not result in prosecution even if they are done without all-party consent. The only people who seem prone to prosecution are those who embarrass or confront the police, or who somehow challenge the law. If true, then the prosecutions are a form of social control to discourage criticism of the police or simple dissent.

A recent arrest in Maryland is both typical and disturbing.

On March 5, 24-year-old Anthony John Graber III's motorcycle was pulled over for speeding. He is currently facing criminal charges for a video he recorded on his helmet-mounted camera during the traffic stop.

The case is disturbing because:

1) Graber was not arrested immediately. Ten days after the encounter, he posted some of he material to YouTube, and it embarrassed Trooper J. D. Uhler. The trooper, who was in plainclothes and an unmarked car, jumped out waving a gun and screaming. Only later did Uhler identify himself as a police officer. When the YouTube video was discovered the police got a warrant against Graber, searched his parents' house (where he presumably lives), seized equipment, and charged him with a violation of wiretapping law.

2) Baltimore criminal defense attorney Steven D. Silverman said he had never heard of the Maryland wiretap law being used in this manner. In other words, Maryland has joined the expanding trend of criminalizing the act of recording police abuse. Silverman surmises, "It's more [about] ‘contempt of cop' than the violation of the wiretapping law."

3) Police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley is defending the pursuit of charges against Graber, denying that it is "some capricious retribution" and citing as justification the particularly egregious nature of Graber's traffic offenses. Oddly, however, the offenses were not so egregious as to cause his arrest before the video appeared.

Almost without exception, police officials have staunchly supported the arresting officers. This argues strongly against the idea that some rogue officers are overreacting or that a few cops have something to hide. "Arrest those who record the police" appears to be official policy, and it's backed by the courts.

Carlos Miller at the Photography Is Not A Crime website offers an explanation: "For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man."

When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop.

Happily, even as the practice of arresting "shooters" expands, there are signs of effective backlash. At least one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed the right to video in public places. As part of a settlement with ACLU attorneys who represented an arrested "shooter," the police in Spring City and East Vincent Township adopted a written policy allowing the recording of on-duty policemen.

As journalist Radley Balko declares, "State legislatures should consider passing laws explicitly making it legal to record on-duty law enforcement officials."