studio (mis)management software
so here’s the thing. we need studio management software. we should have started using it six months ago. up until now, our kinda’ cobbled together system has involved Numbers, Bento, Things, Gmail, Address Book, and iCal. it’s getting to the point where, because (not to toot our own horn) we’re getting more bookings than ever, and we need a cohesive system to tie everything together into one neat, tidy package.
there are a handful of solutions out there, that deal specifically with photography studios. but none of them… seem to fit quite right. i’ve started to run trials on a couple (ShootQ & Pixifi), but there’s just something missing. so i’ll just lay out exactly what i want in a studio management software suite.
- standalone software- we’ll call it The App. all this browser based nonsense is just tedious and a bit lame, IMHO. this is kind of the cinching point for everything else i’m about to ask for. web-based stuff doesn’t really have a bearing on some of the other things i want (unless they’re synced without my needing to do it manually).
- integration with iCal- i love iCal. it’s wonderful. and everything we need is in iCal. make The App that has hooks into iCal, so that the two can talk back & forth. i don’t need a completely different calendar system to add more stuff to. i want The App that works with iCal, so adding one thing shows up on the other (and vice versa), and can then sync to my iPhone/iPad/other computers without needing to keep a bookmark or another app on my phone around.
- integration with Address Book- regardless of your feelings about the recent Lion UI overhaul, Address Book is great for what it does. same thing with iCal; work to make the two play nicely, talking back & forth. if nothing else, and i have to export/import my contacts manually, make it easy. the one suite i’ve played with the most, Pixifi, allows for uploading of .csv files, but they have to be in a very specific data format (CRM?). um. what? just give me the ability to import a group vCard or a .csv file. don’t make this dumb.
- iPhone/iPad app- duh. and make it work like Things does. i have The App on my desktop running, i open The App on my iPhone or iPad, and the two sync over WiFi. bam. done. even better (and unlike Things), sync to THE CLOUD.
- don’t load it with crap i don’t need- i don’t need galleries or proofing areas for clients (thanks, Zenfolio). i don’t want to post my pricing online so that some wily character can get ahold of them. i don’t need a module for hosting workshops.
- make it work on a Mac- ugh. this is the biggest one. hire a team that can concentrate on both the Mac platform and Windows platform. don’t use Adobe Air or whatever other crap folks are using to make cross-platform “stuff.” it’s all garbage (see: Tweetdeck) and a massive pain in the butt to use. if my software needs updating, i don’t want to also have to update Adobe Air (again, see: Tweetdeck).
- easy product/price imports- one of the first things Pixifi asked me to do was to start manually entering in pricing. easy enough for things like albums and discs, but prints?? are you serious? we have different pricing for different reasons (military, wedding, normal shoots). Zenfolio allows me to export my prices to easily digestible files; why can’t i just import that? i wanted to cancel my trial subscription almost immediately when i made it to that section.
just make something that works. please. i don’t know why this is so difficult to do. and who knows– maybe i’ve missed something somewhere that has exactly what i want. right now, though, it’s just a garbled mess to sort through.
hey nerds! i need some help!
three years ago, when we started up this whole crazy LAP thing, the first thing i did was to see if the URL was available. sadly, it was not. since that time, we’ve lived with a truncated version of our name as our URL for the main site. for three years, it’s sat in the back of my brain, wondering if i should make contact with the owner of the domain name we want, whether it really mattered, etc.
a couple of weeks ago, i did my semi-annual check to see if the URL was still in use. and yes, it was. but i decided i would finally just bite the bullet and ask. her blog hadn’t been updated in ages and if memory served me correctly, the photos on the site with the desired URL hadn’t changed either. so i sent a nice email, explaining my intent, how funny it was that we both have a business in the same industry with the exact same name, oh, and what do you think about maybe… transferring your domain ownership to us? i politely explained how it didn’t seem the work had been updated very much and maybe, just maybe…
so i waited. and waited. i thought either 1) i’d really upset her and she was ignoring my email or 2) it got lost in a spam filter (it did sound kinda’ like a scam thing once i re-read it). well! lo & behold, she wrote back today. turns out, yes: her work had slacked off as it became less of a priority (it was a part-time venture) and that she was actually going to wrap up her time as a photographer to put full focus back on her main career. so she’s entirely willing to part ways with the domain name! hooray!
so… what next? i genuinely have no idea where to go from here. i’m willing to help step her through the process when she’s ready as she’s made it pretty clear she’s not tech-savvy in the least, but frankly, i don’t even know where to start. i know we’re on different domain hosting providers, so there’s a good jumping off point!
not cool
not everything works out like we want it to. it’s one of the most enduring, frustrating, and true lessons we’ve learned as a small business.
today’s lesson comes after a long-simmering suspicion that’s turned into (for me) outright “not cool, guys.” last year, we were so excited/elated/over-the-moon to be asked to photograph around UM for their admissions department. it was essentially a dream job: doing what we love for a place we love. the initial response was fantastic, with the promise we’d be back to do more, including off-campus work to showcase things to do in the area.
so we waited. and waited. and emailed. and waited some more. and emailed again. and nothing. at all. no word, no response, no idea what was going on. as of today, still no word.
we aren’t owed anything. we were paid for our work (at a highly discounted rate because of the subject matter and client), so this isn’t about us not being compensated properly or in a timely manner. this is, for me, a matter of respect for two very proud alums who happened to be in business with a service they needed.
we were so excited about this, to add this little tag to our names, to show off to our friends who are fellow UM alums, “hey look! look at this awesome thing we’re doing for a place we love!” now it just feels hollow, borderline like we were duped. we were made to feel as if this new relationship would be a long-standing one, where we’d come back when needed and continue to produce great work. now? part of me wants to remove the blog post we did about it because i feel like the sad girl who got a prank date from the popular kid and thought maybe it would go somewhere.
i have no idea what happened. maybe they found another studio to do the work, maybe they just don’t need someone to do photography for them anymore. maybe they’ve started using undergrads in the art department for photos. all of those situations are completely fine. if they came back today, or six months ago, or two days after the shoot and said, “hey, thanks for the work; great starting point, now we’re going another direction…” ok, fine. it would’ve stung a little bit, but at least there’d be an answer instead of complete silence.
i realize that this is a dicey thing to write about, but because of who it is and our previous relationship and ties to them, it burns that much more. and you should know why we haven’t shown off any more work from them.
that’s… an odd movie review.
so, i went looking to see if Netflix offered the Blu-Ray version of The Empire Strikes Back (they do), when i stumbled across this, the top review on the film’s page. enjoy.
As someone who believes that there are literally trillions of inhabited planets out there in the cosmic playground of outer space and that much about their origins and destiny (as well as those pertaining to our own planet) have been revealed and documented within the last century in a series of 196 Papers known collectively as The Urantia Papers (or The Urantia Book) that were authored by various Beings-Not-Of-This-Realm who were commissioned to bestow this epochal revelation upon our planet including translating it into the English language (since English is not the native tongue of either our local universe of Nebadon or our superuniverse of Orvonton or of the Paradise-Havona Central Universe of Divine Perfection which is the dwelling place of the eternal God and around which everything else and everyone else revolves in accordance with the superuniverse plans of evolutionary progress and spiritual attainment), I was predictably pleased to watch a movie that to me asked: Are we really all alone in the universe of universes with this vast enormity of wasted space encircling us like lifeless set decoration or are we rather a part of some gigantic undertaking that is fusing perfection and imperfection and blending science and religion into one creatively unfolding project that is beyond our mortal comprehension to fully fathom and that involves other living beings on other inhabited planets who are in the truest sense, our cosmic cousins? So when I gaze into the starry heavens at the countless suns of space, I marvel at how seemingly insignificant it would superficially appear that our planet is and yet just as many movies highlight the important role that faith plays whether in regards to believing in a Higher Power or believing in the existence of alien beings far removed from our galactic proximity, I do have faith that our sphere (Urantia) is just as precisely administered and just as lovingly fostered as if it were the only inhabited world in all existence.
so… there’s that. here’s a link.
BluRay? more like… AwesomeRay
i wrote this last night, set to publish this morning. just an FYI.
confession: until tonight, we did not own a BluRay player. not out of any sort of “whatever, new tech!” mindset; it was more out of, “well, maybe I’ll get my hands on a PS3″ sort of thing.
so happens, that my fam-in-law upgraded their theater system recently. included was a new BR 3D player, so they had no use for their old BR player. ta-da! we now have one. and of course, I’ve been trying to pick it apart all night. and I can’t. this… wow. i had an idea, but i had no idea.
first off: i am in love with our AppleTV. i love iTunes. i love renting and watching HD stuff from iTunes via our AppleTV. but i’m not dumb enough to think there’s not some loss in the compression that occurs to make it a deliverable, consumable format & size. par for the course. but it looks great. tonight, after i got the new player hooked up, i popped in a BR copy of The Dark Knight I had laying around (don’t ask). lots of dark (ha) and shadows and action, a perfect place to push this thing to its limits.
BLOWN. AWAY. seriously. mainly because of this one small scene…
yes, that’s a terrible photo, but it’s more for illustrative purpose so you know what i’m talking about. Alfred has just entered the closed off Wayne Enterprises secret hiding space for Bruce/Batman and is coming down the elevator. there’s a great reveal, as he moves from compete darkness into light. on a regular DVD, you’d start to see blockiness as he transitions from that dark into the light-filled room. same thing (but maybe less so) if I were watching an HD digital version. here? it just looks like film grain. beautiful, amazing, lovely film grain. am i looking through Blu-colored glasses right now? possibly. maybe a few months in i’ll start to pick at things a bit more (no, i can’t help it), but for now, i am just astonished at the image quality.
if there’s one caveat at this point, it is our TV. we purchased it back in… 2007? maximum output is 720p, and it’s a Westinghouse. it’s older. it can’t do 1080p (though it’ll do 1080i [read: useless]). it’s… smallish (37″, i think?). but it has served us incredibly well and at this point, unless Apple releases something mind-blowing as the rumor mills have been indicating, we’ll have it a while longer. there are some issues with image quality (slight smearing in high-action [mostly when watching sports on TV], blacks not as black as possible, etc.) that i know relate directly to the TV that i’m fine with. but whatever.
so anyway. i’m a convert now, i knew i would be. it’s just kinda’ funny how long it took me to get here. so i’m curious: i have some films/TV shows in mind i’m curious about renting or purchasing, but what movies do you think i should check out/rent/must-own in BluRay?
