The Mumbling Fernando

A quick post to confirm that the latest iPhone version 2 beta firmware (5a240d) does work with the Oxford University Wireless LAN (OWL). This means that in June when the firmware is publicly released iPhones and iPod Touch devices which are upgraded to the latest firmware should be able to get full internet access using iPhone’s built in VPN client.

If you’ve been brave and are already running the beta firmware, you can use the following settings to connect:

Hit

Settings->
General->
Network->
VPN->
‘Add VPN Configuration’

Select ‘IPSec’
Server: vpn.ox.ac.uk
Account: your university username
Password: your ‘remote access’ password (go to web registration if you’ve forgotten it)**
Group Name: oxford
Secret: can be found on this settings page (it will ask for your oxford SSO login)

Once you’ve entered all that, a VPN Option will appear in your main settings page next to your WiFi selection.

Turn the VPN Switch ‘ON’ and you’re good to go!

** I recommend you leave this blank, it will prompt you for your password each time you login

That’s right folks, adobe has released its first beta of the upcoming Lightroom 2 software! With Apple recently releasing Aperture 2.1 some of us in the Adobe camp have been itching for a batch of new features like brush based retouching and plugins. Although Lightroom 2 beta contains brush retouching (e.g. dodging, burning) it’s yet to show and support for third party plugins such as Noise Ninja (soon to be released for Aperture).

What do I need to know before using it?

As it is a beta, adobe and myself will warn you not to use it in a production environment and should purely be treated as a toy at this stage. There are a couple of major problems which stop you using it on a production machine:

• BAD – Lightroom 1.x catalogs will not import (although the final release will convert them)
• BAD – Catalogs created by this beta may not work with the final release
• BAD – Some develop settings and brush retouching (”localised corrections”) are not guaranteed to work with the final release
• BAD – Although there’s much better photoshop integration, your metadata may not transfer between the two perfectly
• GOOD – This beta will not touch your existing Lightroom 1.3.1/1.4 release (you can run them concurrently)
• GOOD – During the few hours I’ve used it, I’ve imported two thousand pictures and it has yet to throw an error or crash on me

Ok, so what’s new?

There’s a whole load of stuff that doesn’t work perfectly yet (check the release notes), but here are the juicy highlights:

• Dual Monitor Support!
• Better photoshop integration – files are no longer saved as TIFF/PSDs and are instead opened as ‘Smart objects’ keeping a pure non-destructive editing process even when switching to photoshop
• 10,000 pixel per side limit raised to 30,000 pixels – perfect for those large panoramas
• Direct integration with photoshop to create automated HDR/Panoramas without having to manually export
• Load several files into photoshop as layers in a single document
• Smart collections automatically created based on meta criteria
• Ability to save collections for specific modules, e.g. save one set for web, one for print

Develop Module

• Localised corrections – Big one!
  Allows you to make specific adjustments (e.g. brightness/tint) to particular parts of your photograph, rather than the whole image. This is based on brush strokes and masking.
• Vignetting tool has been expanded to provide a frame to adjust location of vignette
• More keyboard controls: try + – , . to increase/decrease and switch between various panel controls

Print Module

• Ability to arrange several sizes of a single (hopefully they’ll change this to multiple soon) photograph on a page to print at once
• Print to JPG – means you can now natively export your pictures with watermarks! Also means you can embed ICC profiles more easily.
• Print sharpening that actually appears to work!

So that’s about it, even though this is the first beta it does appear to beat Apple’s Aperture 2 in many ways such as having a totally non-destructive editing approach even with external photoshop editing. Although until we see plugin support Lightroom won’t have that ultimate expandibility that’s now available with Aperture 2.1.