This is so cool, a mixture of 2D and 3D in one

I am always annoyed when certain websites that we are used to change their interface.  For example you have a website like Facebook or YouTube, who almost daily are changing something cosmetic about their site.  Facebook is a great site for finding your friends and seeing what they are up to but some versions of it are just easier to use.  Facebook has a mobile app that is actually organized and easy to navigate, but it lacks some features that I never use such as invites to silly browser games like cafe world, or the infamous FarmVille.  Don’t even get me started on how convoluted the actual computer browser edition is….I mean do they even test these new changes on actual people.

YouTube loves to change its cosmetic appearance almost daily, sometimes even multiple times in one day, they are notorious for changing how their tool bars and other features that people are used to being in certain set places.  They also started randomly changing the display of my subscriptions in the sense of organization, instead of showing the newest videos first in the que they are now at the very bottom of the page.  YouTube has also gotten very annoying lately with its use of commercials and ads that either play before your video or even during.  I just the other day filled out a survey on YouTube that was asking me as a user if I can’t stand commercials on their site, now this is like a gas station asking its users if they don’t like the current price of gas…really YouTube, we know your ad revenue is important in keeping the most popular video hosting site from going under(VIMEO ftw), so why pretend like you might change your ways if we fill out a survey, and keep in mind this was like an ad as well because the only way to avoid the survey and watch a video was to reload the YouTube URL, or to fill out the survey and move on.

I think these companies need to start asking the users for input on how they change their ways, before they actually implement them, like maybe send us an email to our registered account and ask us to do the survey there instead of when we are full steam into enjoying their product if not they will start alienating their customer base.

Hi everyone I just wanted to point out that If you are living in the LA area and are looking for any kind of media related service, be it hair and make up, photography, or videography please send me an email.  Also do check out the links posted to the right of my blog space, they are for my very talented colleagues, what ever you may need I am more than confident we can figure out how to fulfil your needs.  In the very rare case that we can not provide what you need we will gladly hook you up with someone who can.

The idea of the cloud is taking off, but is it something that is dependable?  The whole point of the “cloud” is so that a user with multiple devices can have files stored on server space, be available on all of the devices that they own, it’s a great idea. Every five to ten years or the industry changes how we store our data.  Floppy disks, CDrs, DVDrs, when will they have a be all end all form of storage.  All of our media storage options for the last 20 years have been based on some form of magnetic technology.  Anything magnetic in nature has a tendency of degrading over time.  These magnetic based storage options, DVDrs and BLUrs all have a roughly 7 year life span, something I can personally attest to.  It is scary to look at a disk that is undamaged to the naked eye only to find that it being stored and not used, has resulted in your media full of unreadable sectors(errors).

There are ways of attempting to salvage data off of aging material, but the majority of the times it ends up not working.  I had a 1TB drive go down, I ran a data salvage program on it, after two days straight running on a 2.6ghz quad core processor, there was no data to be saved.  The only real safe way we have of preserving our data is to make multiple copies all the time in the hope that you will have a functional version when you need it.   I am familiar with the hassle, and cost factor that comes into storing massive amounts of data, being a photographer I am creating roughly 6gigs of data each time I shoot with my camera.  There is always the argument that I don’t end up using 80% of the files that I shoot, but I still keep all the images.  The cheapest hard drive storage to cost ratio that I have seen is 1TB for $60.00 that price plus a $15.00 outer shell so it becomes an external hard drive….total price per TB is $80 after taxes.

Now when it comes to the cloud, I would rather have the option of doing what ever I would like with my data.  With the recent cyber attacks on Sony and now Nintendo, it is proof that no data in this day in age is truly secure.  So I personally will not be storing anything on the cloud, I feel much safer being in control of things that I pay for or create.  Love it or hate it, its something to consider.  I am using apple as recent example due to their announcement with iOS5 utilizing the cloud.  Although Apple is not the first to use cloud services, they do have an industry setting track record(iPOD? bet you have one)

Things to think about

- What happens if all my stuff is stored on the cloud and Apple gets hacked?

- What do I truly own upon exchanging money with apple for goods and services?

- Apple computers rarely get viruses, does Apple have a security plan for the clowd?

Apple iOS5 and iCloud

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/apple-confirms-ios-5-icloud-launch-wwdc-2011/2011-05-31

History of Hard drives — Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive