Print Spooler Crashed/Hung? Windows NT/XP

Here's a little batch file I run occasionally when everything jams up. It restarts your spooler and clears your print queue.

@echo off
net stop spooler
del /f /q C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*
net start spooler

RSS in Plain English!

Apple Releases Safari 3 for Windows!

In a surprise announcement, Apple have released Safari for Windows!!! Finally a way to test on all platforms without owning a Mac.

Adobe Releases AIR

Adobe® AIR™ is a cross-operating system runtime that allows web application developers to use their existing web development skills (HTML, Javascript, Adobe Flash®, Adobe Flex™, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

Drobo Stroage...

A novel product that goes beyond RAID for storing your photos. Its the first 'storage robot!'. Watch the training videos by clicking the picture right.

Note: Because the format is proprietary, you will need a Drobo Chassis to read the individual hard discs.

Downloading a Blogger Blog, pt II

You can also use:

 http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01

Introduction to Color Management - Lacie

Lacie have kindly published some articles on understanding color management. I've republished them here as I think they're a great introduction to a subject that can seem frustratingly complex...

Part 1 - Introduction (pdf)
Part 2 - Human Factors (pdf)
Part 3 - Color Space (pdf)
Part 4 - ICC Basics (pdf)

Light Science and Magic, 3rd Edition

Another nugget from Strobist; this book is a must have for amateur photographers wanting to know more about light. And for professionals breaking new ground in their lighting repertoire. Flickr group, click here.

"The first book on photographic lighting that is worth using as a text. Light - Science and Magic is about principles, not cheap tricks or the authors' portfolio." -Pete Christman, Savannah College of Art and Design.

The older B&W 2nd edition of LSM is online at Google! If you're thinking of buying the new full color 3rd edition and would like to get your feet wet first then a read on...

Downloading a Blogger Blog

You can download a number of posts from Blogger with the following syntax:

   http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000

You can then use FireFox to "save webpage complete" to create a local copy of the specified number of posts.

Adobe Kuler - Easy Color!

This is a pretty neat community of color swatchers. By using Adobe Kuler you can create your own color palettes or simply browse ones created by other people. This is definitely a time save for the non-graphic designers out there!