Pete White - 'World Famous' ImAFish -

Local Media Go Crazy Over Travel Photography

Pete — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:48:13 +0000

It's been a great week for our first book Travel Photography with the local media going crazy over it! We've been featured in our local paper the Shropshire Star and on local news website Shropshire Live.

Heres the story from the Shropshire Star.

(Click to enlarge)

The Book featured on Shropshire Live:

Read full story on Shropshire Live.

Travel Photography is available in print (£12.95) or digital download (£5.95) from the ImAFish Shop!

Blurb & Lulu - A Comparison of Self-Publication Services

Pete — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:39:22 +0000

After the publication of my book last week I've had a number of questions about how I went about getting it published. I'm using a print on demand service - therefore the book is only printed when ordered and no stock is held. This is great for smaller projects such as my Travel Photography book however the print cost per copy is higher as you cannot benefit from economies of scale. There are two major players in the print on demand market, Lulu and Blurb.

Lulu

Lulu offers a number of print on demand products including books, calendars, photo books and cook books. What Lulu provided over Blurb was a free ISBN number meaning that people could buy your book through shops such as Waterstones, WH Smiths and Amazon.

My problems with Lulu started when trying to upload my book. I had designed it using Apple's Pages application however Lulu did not support PDF's created this way (as far as I'm aware Lulu won't accept any PDF's created through Quartz based applications - even if the PDF is created through Adobe's Acrobat distiller, it is something to do with the way fonts are embedded into the PDF). I ended up uploading a 1.8 gig postscript file rather than a 300mb PDF to be able to print through Lulu.

When the proof arrived the print quality was poor, some parts were my fault for not adding images at a high enough resolution however ultimately it looked like it had been printed through an ink jet printer on the draft settings. Lulu do have another service just for photo book printing however this was a lot more expensive.

Blurb

I was originally recommended Blurb over Lulu because of the print quality issues however the extra options (such as an ISBN number) provided by Lulu were enough to convince me to try them first. Blurb have created their own book creation software called Book Smart however there was no easy way to import between Apple's Pages and Book Smart so I ended up recreating the book using this software. This was good in many ways as it solved many of the resolution/DPI issues I had with Lulu. Book Smart also handles all of the conversion/uploading when it comes to publishing the book.

Blurb like Lulu allows you to set your own price for selling a book however they offer no free ISBN number and no way to sell your book as an eBook. Annoyingly there is no way to print from Book Smart without Blurbs 'this is a proof copy' message all over the PDF. Therefore for the eBook version I sell on ImAFish I've had to go back to my original copy created in Apple's Pages.

Prices between Lulu and Blurb are very similar, my book costs almost the same between Lulu and Blurb (though the Blurb book is a couple of cm smaller). Both allow for sales in UK Pounds, Euros and US Dollars and ship worldwide.

If you are creating a text heavy book such as a novel then Lulu's extra features such as an ISBN number are a clear winner. If you are creating a portfolio or photography book then Blurb's superior print quality is much better however if you are like me stuck in the middle between creating a photo heavy based book targeted at a wide audience then its a simple decision between quality and audience - I chose quality.

www.blurb.com

www.lulu.com

Travel Photography - Digital Download Now Available!

Pete — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:50:46 +0000

Travel Photography - our great new book is now available as a digital download to read on your computer or eBook reader.

At the bargain price of £5.95 the PDF instant download is a great way to read the book.

Want to find out more about Travel Photography - then read the first 15 pages for free!

Buy now on the ImAFish Shop.

Travel Photography - My First Book Available Now!

Pete — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:39:43 +0000

Over the past couple of months I've been busy writing my first book, finally today it is available to purchase in print through Blurb (Digital download will be available soon).

The book is a collection of a number of places I've visited over the past decade. It is perfect for anyone looking to be inspired and amazed at what different areas of the world have to offer.

The book covers a number of destinations throughout the world including Las Vegas (Above) and Los Angeles (below).

A preview of the first 15 pages of the book is available.

A number of European destinations are beautifully displayed. Every photo included in the book has been taken on my camera.

You can purchase Travel Photography for £12.95 in paperback (Credit cards and PayPal accepted - all payments processed through Blurb).

West Midlands Archive Footage Website Launched

Pete — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:08:05 +0000

A new website has launched called WeVee with the aim of opening up West Midlands based archive footage.

You can edit clips together through the sites interface to create your own "WeVee's", this one is a nice example showing the changes in transport over the region:

Pros: Great tool for school kids, nice simple editing tools.

Cons: No easy way to download clips to edit offline.

Full press release below:

"WeVee is a new unique, online tool. It gives anyone the chance to view clips from the region’s fantastic archive collections of film and video, edit them to music tracks and make a short ‘mash-up’ (two and a half minutes max) as your personal take on the region’s history. Try out different effects by mixing the original sound of your selected clips to music.

This approach deliberately uses the latest digital technology as an incentive for the next generation to explore their region’s history. And that history will reflect the different communities, as well as the struggles and successes the region has experienced. The beauty of WeVee, thanks to our region’s archive holders, is the richness of the moving image archive. There is footage from as early as 1901 and as recent as just five years ago, so you can put quite different clips together, add a music track and effects and create your own WeVee. Initial trials have shown the process has a very personal appeal for children, students, parents and silver surfers, because you can use WeVee to say something about yourself, your home and locality and reference past events that mean something for you today.

The ease with which you can WeVee means you can have fun as you create and save, create and change, create and delete while playing with moving images from the past. It’s fun to WeVee, and at the same time it gives you a truly unique opportunity to marvel at how the region has been captured on camera. Cadbury’s have generously made some of their previously unseen archive available for the site. Other archive includes footage from the Staffordshire Film Archive collection accessing the heritage of the potteries and the Midlands Archive for Central England.

WeVee’s official launch is in January 2010. At this stage you’ll be able to share your WeVees, not just on the WeVee Gallery but across social networking sites.

In the meantime you can visit our website www.wevee.co.uk to register for updates and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/weveecreate

The project is supported through Screen West Midlands’ Digital Film Archive Fund with support from the National Lottery through the UK Film Council."

Google to Phase out Support for IE6

Pete — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:06:42 +0000

Google will be phasing out support for Microsofts eight year old browser starting in March. This is great news for anyone who has to develop for IE6 and for users who haven't found the benefits of a modern browser.

You can sign an online petition on the number 10 website to force the Government to phase out IE6 in its departments.

Full details from Google:

"In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team"

ArgosDeals.co.uk - New Website from the makers of ImAFish

Pete — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:14:19 +0000

Just a quick update this week as I've been busy working on my book. I've launched a new website that has all the best deals from Argos.

www.argosdeals.co.uk

Check it out for some great offers.

Cineworld - A Good Example of a Location Aware Website

Pete — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:42:02 +0000

Cinema chain Cineworld have put in some serious work into their mobile site over the past few months concentrating heavily on exploiting latest technology to improve usability.

The updated site fits nicely on the iPhone screen, automatically finds your local cinema and suggests others nearby.

After selecting a film you can click on a time to book tickets through the mobile site.

The improvement in using the mobile site over the normal site on the iPhone is huge and finding film times for your local cinema is much faster.

Moon at Sunset

Pete — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:19:20 +0000

I took this tonight at sunset from my back garden.

Best Motivational Posters Part 2 [NSFW]

Pete — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:00:19 +0000

Part 2 of our best motivational posters series. Read part 1 here.