Daily Archives: Wednesday, 2nd April 2008
K9 Tales
Most of the time, I’m months behind with my Doctor Who DVD reports, but I think an advanced notice of this one is in order. Coming up in June, this set contains:
- The Tom Baker story The Invisible Enemy, which I recall as being lots of fun and containing some very unlikely stuff, in the finest tradition of the show. But it’s probably best known as the story which introduced everyone’s favourite “tin dog[1]“, K9.
- K9 and Company, the first Doctor Who spin-off, which starred Elisabeth Sladen, reprising her Sarah Jane Smith role, accompanied by K9 MkIII, sent to her by the Doctor as a gift. I haven’t seen it in ages, but I recall it being good fun, and it’s long overdue for a DVD release.
There are a couple more releases due before then, but I’ll talk about those when I have them.
Update: My review of this release can be seen here
Related posts
Weight Report – 2 April 2008
Mutter. Slightly heavier again today. Errr, insert standard set of vague excuses and good intentions here:
20 Worst Engrish ever
I have to give credit to the indispensable Look at This… for alerting me to this lovely collection of the 20 Worst Engrish ever. I’m particularly fond of the advice to keep a sharp blade out of children. 
Doctor Who – Series Four Previews….
With just a few days to go before we all get to see it, some lucky media types have had a preview of Doctor Who Series Four Thirty. Neither David Tenant nor Russell T Davies are commenting on whether they’ll be staying on past next year’s four specials, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s the right time for either or both of them to let on if they are leaving. Personally, I love David’s portrayal of the Doctor, and I’d like him to keep it up for exactly as long as he’s still enjoying himself. If that’s another two years, then we’ll have had four years[1] of a quite bloody marvellous Doctor, which compares well with previous actors in the role. If he stays longer, then that’s a bonus.
As to RTD, unlike some loud online people, I love how he’s steering the series. He understands that to survive in today’s multi-channel world, the series has to appeal to an audience well beyond the hard-core of geeks who cherished the show during its long absence, and has managed to make it do just that. He clearly loves what he’s doing, and like David, I’d like him to hang on for as long as he’s still having fun.
While there’s plenty of room for deeper, darker stories (and we’ve had a few), above all Doctor Who needs to be exciting and fun. And it looks like we’re in for another 13 episodes of fun. Over the next few months, we’ll be meeting Sontarans (boo!!), Donna (yay!), Martha (woo hoo!), Rose (yay, but how??!), Agatha Chrisite (cool!), more enemies and friends. Oh, and allegedly at least one Dalek (yay!!!!!!!!).
UK readers who haven’t already done so should set their recording devices and clear all schedules: BBC One, Saturday, 6:20pm. Be there!
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Beta 1
A quick look through my RSS feeds this morning alerted me to something very interesting, and potentially exciting[1]. Adobe have announced a public beta of Lightroom v2. 
For current Lightroom users, the beta will install alongside your current 1.3.1 version (you did get rid of 1.4, right?) without breaking anything. At this stage of development, it will not import existing catalogs, so you’ll need to import test pictures separately if you’re going to have a play. The beta will time out at the end of August, by which time, there will presumably be either a released version or another test version.
If you’re not a current Lightroom user, the beta is good for 30 days only, but current users can invite friends via the Adobe site. If you get an invite, you get the full test period. So if you want to give the new version of Lightroom a proper test before spending money on it, now’s the time to cultivate your friends. 
So, what does the new version offer? Lots, frankly. Lots and lots. Stuff I’ll be quite happy to pay for when the upgrade is available. Here are some of my highlights:
- Native 64bit versions on both Mac and Windows. There’s a separate download for the Windows version, Mac users on recent versions of OS X and Intel processors currently need to untick a box on the Get Info page to make it run as 64bit. This should improve performance on better specced machines. Nice.
- Possibly the most-requested feature: multiple monitor support. Have your image filling one screen, and all the tools on another.
- Selective editing: up till now, Lightroom has only worked on the whole image, apart form small spot corrections. Now you get dodge and burn tools that work in the usual non-destructive manner. Yum.
- Having reduced the number of times you’ll need to round-trip to Photoshop, they’ve made the integration with Photoshop much more useful. There will no longer be a need to create an intermediate file – it will open your image as a Smart Object and let you do all the clever Photoshop stuff to it. Or you can export sets of images to Photoshop’s HDR or Panorama functions.
There are some warnings to note about the beta:
- Work done may not translate into the final release version.
- It’s a test version. It may eat your biscuits, trash your images, kick the cat or call you rude names. It probably won’t do any of those things, but there’s not guarantee it won’t. Be careful, back things up, and all that.
But enough about that, here are the links you need:
Main Lightroom page – links to download the software and read the release notes
John Nack’s announcement and stuff, with more details about the new features and more useful links. He’ll be revealing more about Adobe’s plans for 64bit goodies soon.
Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips on the beta, with links for some training video stuff. That’s a site which every Lightroom user should visit regularly (or get the RSS feed, like I do…)
That’s all for now. I’ll be giving it a try over the next few days, and I’ll more than likely report my findings.
[1] To the kind of computer/photo geeks who like this kind of thing, that is.
