Jessica Lee .ca

Calgary Small Dog Meetup via iVideo (iPhone 3G)

Harry & Stella went to a small dog meetup today.  They mingled with their furry friends and they are so tired now.  :-)

This video clip was recorded using iVideo Camera on my iPhone 3G. iVideo Camera allows you to record a short video on any iPhone (3G or even 2G with iPhone OS 3.1) just like you could do on iPhone 3GS.

Pros: 

• You can save your videos directly to your camera roll or "Photos" and share it via Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo or Twitter. 
•  It's only $0.99!

Cons: 

• You can only shoot a video of up to about 1 minute in length.
• It captures about 3 frames per second at a 160×213 resolution which is pretty low by today's standards.

Photoshop.com Mobile Review

Adobe’s Photoshop app for the iPhone (Photoshop.com Mobile) launched today and I downloaded it right away!

Quick Review:

• It has very intuitive basic photo editing abilities
• I can edit photos from my iphone or stored in the Photoshop.com account.  
• Editing is reversible and non-destructive, with the output saving to your iPhone Photos collection and optionally to your online account.  
• It would be nicer if it has more sharing functionalities like posting to FB or Twitter.

It's very easy to use.

Collection of editing tools and effects:

• Crop
• Rotate
• Flip
• Exposure
• Saturation
• Tint adjustments
• Easy to apply filters including black and white, sketch, soft focus, pop, border, vignette blur, warm vintage, rainbow, soft black and white and white glow.  
• Options to cancel, undo or redo an edit, and save the image. 
• Save and Exit: Simply saves the new pic to your iPhone Photos collection
• Save and Upload: it will also send a copy to your online storage. If you don’t already have a Photoshop.com account, the app will prompt you to create one the first time you try to upload an image. The account is free and offers up to 2 GB of storage, expandable of course with an annual paid storage plan.

This is definately one of my new favorites. Have you had a chance to play with PS Mobile yet? What are your thoughts? Are there other worthwhile or better alternatives out there for iPhone image editing?

Got My Facebook Username

I am JessicaLee on Facebook.  

It's easier to find me on Facebook now: http://www.facebook.com/JessicaLee

Cheers!

Social Media for Online Marketing Use

I start to meet more photographers in the social media communities.  But, there are still people asking me why and how.  Here's my collection of the Social Media FAQ:

Q: "Why should I bother to have social media profiles?"

Social media is more popular and more used than email according to Nielsen Media Research International.  My experience with social media conversation is that it happens more frequent than email conversation.  If you already have an email and participate in discussion forums or mailing lists, you should have social media profiles too.  You'd build a stronger relationship faster with the higher frequency of conversation. 

Q: "We are not celebrities, no one would care to follow what we are doing."

A few years ago, I started my blog for updating my family and friends only.  I didn't publicize it at all.  I even tried to hide it from search engines because I only want the people who care about me to see my posts.  You should not be thinking that no one would care to follow what you are up to.  You may not get as many followers as Ashton Kutcher or CNN on Twitter, but if you have something interesting to say, people will pay attention to you.  The point is that you want to build a relationship with the right people, not everyone.

Q: "What if people say bad things about me?"

If you worry about that, someone probably already said bad things about you.  :-)  We can't control what others think about us.  This should not be a concern at all.  You should just focus on building long lasting relationship with the right people.

Q: "I don't want publicize my information on the Internet."

If you are reading this post, your information is probably out there already. 

Q: "Where should I start?"

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Digg
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• FriendFeed
• Google Profile

The above list is just a suggestion.  There are other sites too. 

Q: "What's next?"

1. Publish the basics such as: your name, URLs and description

2. Connect with others, so your profile can be found

 

Q: "It sounds like too much work to keep it up."

At least, you should grab the profile before your competitors or cyber squatters take your name.  Just like there are domain squatters, there are also social media squatters.  It'll take more time and effort to get your name back if you don't secure it first. 

Please feel free to add your questions or answers in the comments.

Skype for iPhone was launched, but not in Canada!

"Chaim Haas, a public relations representative acting on behalf of Skype, said the application is available in every country in which the iPhone is on sale and in which Apple has an iTunes Store — with the exception of Canada.  Haas said this is because of patent-licence restrictions but would not elaborate except to specify that it is a patent issue related to Skype, not Apple."

This is frustrating!  Canada seems to be always at least 1-3 years behind in technologies and gadgets!

Many people on the net says "Just create an account on the iTunes US store and then you can download Skype."  It'd still work with our iPhones in Canada.  But, I just don't want to have a US iTune account! 

iPhone is not as popular in Japan, but they got their Skype for iPhone in Japan too!  It's just not fair!

SEO Tips for Promoting Your Photography Business

Besides taking photos, I manage a team of Internet Marketing professionals.  I normally do not publish any tips, nor advise on my blog; but, I was browsing some great photographers' websites and realize that most of them are unaware that simply publishing photos to portfolio website is hardly a part of strong online business strategy.   

I'd like to share some basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips that would increase your chances of increasing the visibility of your website on the popular search engines:  

• Use a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site.
  Put your company name at the end if you want to include it in the page title. It offers little or no search value unless you are a major brand name.
• Select good meta tag keywords that describe the site, more specifically your specialties.  The keyword ‘photography’ is extremely broad – more than 376 million references on Google alone. Think about your strengths, try to be more specific to your niche.  For instance, "abstract photography" search results in 170,000 references, "abstract tree photography" only has 7 results. The more specific you are, the better. For more keyword help, you may try the free tools at KeyWordDiscovery or SEOBook.
• Avoid ‘click to enter’ or ‘splash pages’ as the top level site page.  Also, avoid the website designs depending on HTML frames.   Splash pages are the main entry page with large graphic image or link that instructs visitors to enter the online site or flash animation with links to skip animation, and also a redirect to the new web page after the completion of the animation. You would really like the top level page to act as table of contents for remaining site. Splash pages lack anchor text and keyword rich text apart that search engines use to index your page.
• Never publish a website which says that site is under construction.  You don't want search engines to index your under construction site and lead people there.
• Several photographers have either no copy or little copy on their pages. Always design your site with the help of words that target audience types into the search queries.  You may want to keep the gallery and photo sections away from top level pages.  Search engine robots cannot tell what type of a photographer you are based on the images.  They need text.  Use captions with your images - place keyword rich captions with your images.  
• Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.  Images are, after all, the product. You have to pay attention to the text associated with the images to ensure that they too get indexed properly.  
• Always avoid Flash for the above mentioned reasons. Though you may have typed loads about yourself in the Flash based site, search engines would hardly be able to observe a single word of it. If it is a movie, the search engines cannot even retrieve the words from movies also.  I know this is a trade off for some people who use Flash instead of image files to try to protect their images from being copied. 
• Always have a check on the linked referrals – a link from the other page to your own website - it's best to have keywords which are in line with the anchor text of link. Google search engine always weights the Search Engine results pages towards anchor text of links to the page. For example, if your target is “blue bird photo” then link to “blue bird photo” instead of a “Click here” link.  
• Submit your URL to search engines – you could either do this manually or with the help of a free submitter service such as Submit Express or even seek help from a paid service firm.
• High page rank indicates high trust. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site would carry more weight.  Improve page rank by exchanging links with other reputable websites, directories and bloggers in your specialty photography area.  Search engine giants like Google favor relevant and meaningful anchor text while indexing on websites. In general, the more websites on which the URL appears, the better.  However, quality matters - one good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links!
• Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Calgary store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

Just remember this formula:

Strong SEO = Text + Links + Popularity + Reputation

Robotic Big Dog

Check out this cool dog! This is not Aibo from Sony.  The movement control and the balancing ability of this big "dog" is very well done!  Watching that video clip is like watching a sci-fi movie trailer!  

iPhone OS 3.0 Has Copy & Paste!

iPhone will soon have the ability to copy and paste text and images at last!!! I`m so excited about this announcement today!

This CNet Video shows Scott Forstall, Apple's Senior VP of iPhone software, demo the new feature.

Add me to your FriendFeed!

Keeping you in the loop:

http://friendfeed.com/jessicalee

Would you use Google Latitue?

Google Latidute broadcasts your location from your mobile phone and shares your location with your friends. It'd be easier to stalk your friends or family or even track your employees.  :-)  The quesiton is: would you use it?

To try it: "...just download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude (available for Android, Blackberry, Symbian S60, and Windows Mobile). There’s also an iGoogle gadget for use on your laptop or PC." Source: Wired.com  It's not yet available to iPhone users.

iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G
Originally uploaded by malteserus

Back - customized
Originally uploaded by malteserus

My new toy has arrived! :-D

I got the white 16GB version of iPhone 3G.  I even customized it a little.

My new toy - N95!

Nokia finally is cool again!

This smart 3G phone has bluetooth, Wifi (super useful), MP3, built-in GPS, 5 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics, TV-out feature and many more! Yes, it's easy to make a phone call too. It can even make internet phone calls.

The only downside so far is that it can do so much and thus the battery is not as up to par. I have to charge it daily.

New PC

Last night we used web cam to chat with Spencer online via MSN. It crashed the old laptop (which was bought in 2002). So, we bought a new PC laptop for home use - the VAIO® FE with Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology insid