Archive for August 2005
Get your Phanfare swag
We’ve hung a shingle over at CafePress, so head on over and load up on Phanfare goodies. We’ve got trucker hats, T-shirts, thongs, bike bags, coffee mugs, bibs, dog clothing, and much, much more.
So if you know any slacker bike messengers who drink coffee, drool a lot, and own chihuahuas, you’re pretty much all set for Christmas.
So long, Ben
Just a short post to wish a fond farewell to our summer intern, Ben. Ben is headed back to school to do some more book-learnin’, but he will continue to stay involved with Phanfare when he’s not busy listening to rap music, or drinking highballs, or whatever it is the youngsters do these days.
Ben has been an absolute force of nature working on the much-anticipated Mac client, achieving more in the last three months than many men achieve in a lifetime. It’s fair to say that Ben lived in the office — in fact, he literally lived in the office. Our cozy workplace is a converted apartment, and Ben inhabited the loft upstairs.
In case you think this sort of indentured servitude comes cheap, you can’t imagine what we’ve had to pay in bribes to keep OSHA off our backs. But we’re actually pretty soft-hearted and indulgent with our employees here at Phanfare. For example, when Ben complained that the leg irons were chafing, we replaced them with a comfortable fabric neck leash, and only charged him cost for it.
So thanks, again, Ben, for the great effort. We’ll drink a toast to you when the Mac client ships, and you’re welcome to crash at our place anytime.
Phanfare Mac client on the way
The Phanfare Photo mac client has now entered what we’re calling “double secret pre-alpha” testing. The monkeys are going to need to bang on it for several weeks more, but in the meantime, we’re happy to share pre-release screens shots that highlight some of the cool new features of the Mac client.
- Notice the film-strip photo picker running across the top of the “edit photo” screen.
- The Mac client uses lovely transparent overlays to indicate that a photo is still uploading.
- Photos can now be edited via handy context menus.
- It’s a little hard to see in this screenshot, but drag-and-drop uses iPhoto style transparencies.
- Photo captions can be longer now, and the Mac client includes a spell check feature.
Please note that the interface will change between now and the final release. For example, a lot of the button icons are missing in the screenshots. But this should give you a taste of what’s to come.
Choosing a digital camera
The New York Times recently published a digital camera buying guide. Though it contained no earth-shattering revelations, it did provide a useful rundown of some of the often overlooked aspects of buying a camera. And it was the most emailed article of the day, so clearly it struck a chord.
Here, then, is our summary of the main points in helpful blog format:
- Pay attention to shutter lag and start-up time. The Achilles’ heel of many digital cameras is the lengthy delay between when you turn the camera on and when you can take a picture.
- 3 to 5 megapixels is plenty (3 for party snaps, 5 for 16 x 20 prints). More resolution does not automatically mean better pictures, just bigger pictures.
- Look for at least 3x optical zoom. Ignore digital zoom — it’s irrelevant. More optical zoom is always handy, but it will mean a bigger camera.
- Consider getting more than one camera. One camera will never do it all, and you should consider getting a pocket-sized for snapshots and something more powerful for the African safari. At the very least, you can save some money by sharing accessories such as memory cards between the two cameras.
- Use camera review sites for research. Some of the more popular ones are listed on the right side of this page. The Phanfare forum might be a useful place to ask for advice as well.
Introducing the Phanfare forums
Those of you who have written in to support @ phanfare . com know what kind helpful and speedy customer service you can expect from us. But we’re feeling a little verklempt right now, so we we’re hoping you could just talk amongst yourselves for a moment.
Introducing the Phanfare forum, a place where members of the community can get together, have some coffee and, you know, talk. Of course, the forum is also a great place to get hold of Phanfare employees, so we’re hoping that over time it becomes your first resource for any support needs, product feature requests, water cooler gossip, photography tips and tricks, product recommendations, etc.
We can’t spell forum without ‘U’ (get it? get it? I’ll be here all night, folks), so head over there and let us know what’s on your mind. I’ve optimistically seeded the forum with a bunch of categories, but we need your help. A new forum is an uncomfortably silent place, sort of like one of those couples you see in restaurants eating their food and not talking to one another.
So let’s get started. I’ll kick things off: digital photography is neither digital nor photography. Discuss.
Hello, said the blog
Greetings, fair Phanfare fans.
I present to you: Phanfare, the blog.
For your delectation, this space will serve up the latest news and announcements; tips and tricks on how to get the most from your digital photos and videos; items of general interest to the community; and whatever else strikes us as amusing when we’re taking a break during line shift changes down at the Phanfare factory.
Comments are open, and we welcome all comers. Over the next few posts, I and the other members of the team will be introducing ourselves and filling you in on some of the nifty features that are coming down the pike.
A solemn pledge: this is a PR-free zone. We’ve actually hidden our PR guy’s keyboard, so that he can’t do any damage here. (Although Steve happens to be an excellent amateur photographer, and he’s promised to let me publicize his Phanfare album once he gets it just the way he likes it.)
And before I forget, please subscribe to our RSS feed and then never come back to this web site again. Here’s the feed address:
Welcome!
P.S. If you’re at all confused by the terms “blog,” “RSS feed,” etc., have no fear. It’s all pretty simple, really, and we’ve put together a little tutorial here.
An Engineer 