How much time does a slow computer cost?

I've been using a 17" MacBook Pro for a couple of years now, it's still a great computer and it does everything I need it to do - largely internet based work, image processing, music recording, video editing and the odd email (no, they really are odd sometimes!)

I was pondering the other day, whilst muttering a technical curse in the general direction of my computer, how much time do "slow" computers cost us? Say for example, like me, you work from home and you have multiple clients relying on you for work output - then, if your computer stops for a minute once every half hour or so because you've asked it to do a couple of things at once, what that time over a week adds up to be?

Typically, I'm online anywhere between 7 and 9am, so let's just say 8:30am until 5:30pm shall we? I stop once an hour to get up and walk around, hug my little boy, make a coffee, and stretch my pins, so that's about five minutes in the hour, then I'd say half an hour out for lunch - but the rest of the time, I'm on the keyboard spitting out FB apps and content and competition tabs like there's more than one tomorrow. Let's 'do the math'

8:30 am - 5:30 pm is nine hours.

Nine hours less 45 minutes for sanity, less half an hour for lunch..

So, that's roughly 15.5 minutes per day that I'm begging my word doc to unfreeze, begging my lightroom to open (or close) without crashing, or swearing at Google Chrome (in pre 9pm language, thank you very much) ..just because it's Google Chrome!

That's 77.5 minutes per week.

You know how much an 8GB memory upgrade kit from Crucial costs for my MacBook Pro?

Description: 8GB Kit (4GBx2), 204-pin SODIMM Upgrade for a Apple MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (17-inch DDR3) MB604LL/A System Line total: $45.99

That's LESS than a billable hour.... Plus shipping... still less...

Where's the sense in putting up with lagging tech when memory is so cheap?

Now all UPS have to do is deliver it!

Tomorrow : Is it really 'lagging tech' or do we just expect more from our kit as days go by and web browsers suck more memory out of our little computers?

--Sime

Dear Metro ....WT*

Posting Michael Jackson's body, dead, on the front page? What did you hope the achieve? Here's what the very talented, exceptionally lovely Olivia Leisk had to say, and sing, about it all...

Metro, you really should say sorry... Who wants to see that? Let skeptics be skeptical and let dreamers dream.

*Unfollows Metro, bins App, Sings an old MJ tune*

-Sime

Why is it so expensive?

Pondering the two machines in front of me as I sit here at Terminal 2, headed to San Francisco... Just wondering why Internet is SO expensive?

$1 for ten minutes? $2 for 20 minutes... Telstra? Is that your fault or?

Social Media for Photographers - Part Three

I know I said we'd be talking about keywords and stuff like that today, but I've changed my mind... I have decided that I'd talk about what 'social' actually is, or, what it should be when done well...

• When you walk into a room, what's the first thing you say?
• When you answer the telephone, do you say "Buy our camera bags, they're awesome!"
• What about at a trade-show, do you bother with "hello" or skip straight to  "will that be cash or card"

...you say HELLO! just like a normal person [mostly] would do!

That's right... Social media is about being social! I know, it's hard to fathom in today's look down, walk quickly, don't talk to anyone society - but online (most of the time) you don't get beaten up for saying hello to a random stranger, infact, largely it's encouraged!

Social media for business is a little different, but not THAT different... You do need to find the happy medium based on your audience - and most audiences are very different... Let's take for example two of my clients (both photography related) - one has a couple of hundred thousand users, the other only has about thirty thousand, the large one is dominated by people that don't like much confrontation, and are generally quite timid, whilst the smaller network is full of working pros, they take whatever you give them, they understand criticism and critique for what it is. That said, applied to my little social model here, the larger group generally like to be 'fed' a certain way via the means we use [Blog -> Facebook -> Twitter -> LinkedIn] using NetworkedBlogs and how we feed them certainly wouldn't work for the smaller lot - they prefer more informative kinds of content, less basic, a bit more chewy...

What I'm trying to say is identify and get to know your audience - create plates of yummy food [content] that they like to eat [read] and serve it hot, daily... Don't go overboard - if you feed them too much they may burst and that would be messy... if you don't feed them enough, they're going to starve... Find that balance and stick to it...

If you're 'not available to post' schedule something via Wordpress as we talked about yesterday, Wordpress is great for scheduling content, and if you use NetoworkedBlogs you can feed it out via your other social networks to make sure everyone gets enough of you...

• Know your audience
• Work out how often you should talk to them
• Find out what they like talking about [polls, comments]

...but the MOST important thing you're going to learn for today... IF YOU POST AND SOMEONE REPLIES, REPLY BACK TO THEM... If your audience are going to take the time to say something to you / your brand, be it bad or good, make sure you take the time to thank them for their comment / content... Try and get a feel for what they're like / what they are like from the way they  post or interact and be on their level. Let me give you a great example of how NOT to run a Twitter account!... 185,818 angry people... Say something, don't just stand there!? The same as getting on stage and saying.... nothing? [or is it?]...how many Tweets?

Then there's the classic "you will listen to what we have to say, you will like it, we will keep saying it!"  Now, I love Phil Jones Bass gear, I play bass and I have a PJB Amp / Cab... but what I don't love and what I've tried to help with is their social media... this is what they have currently..

Here... let me 'real world' that for you...

LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME

Tomorrow... is Saturday, I may well write something tonight and automatically post it tomorrow! Or, as most of you are reading this from work whilst trying to look busy, I'll just wait until Monday! Either way, have a great weekend...

--Sime

Social Media for Photographers - Is it important?

It's very easy to be using some form of 'social media' infact, it's probably harder not to be using some form of social media these days.

With so many platforms for us to communicate with, how do you know which one is going to suit you? how can you tell if you're going to get some return on your hard work? You spend all day photographing someone or something, you come home and edit the photos, and depending on what sort of photographer you are, you upload them to some sort of website for someone to see... Do you tell the world? Do you shout it from the hills? "Hey, look at my photos I took today, I'm awesome, hire me to take photographs for you!" ...or do you just keep quiet? If you're in this game for earning yourself a living, or at least some cash on the side, you're going to want to be telling as many people as you can, and you're going to want them to tell as many people as they can, too...

Typically a photographer starting out doesn't have a million bucks to put an ad on the front page of the New York Times, well... not all of them, anyway... So a good place to start is the web, and you don't even really need to have a website to be 'on the web' anymore... There are a million zillion options for people that just want to be 'on the web'

Some good ones are 500px which is a social network but all centred around a photo platform that works well. You can have 'friends' and you can blog, too. More on 500px in a separate post.

Flickr, being left behind, still good for letting people find you in search results when you use the right keywords and titles - make sure you fill in your profile with all the relevant details. More on Flickr in a separate post.

Twitter, whilst giving you minimal tools to display images, is a good place to find other photographers, and see how they're doing things, it's a good place to help get people to be more aware of you and your photography, what it shouldn't be is a place where you just tweet 'wow, I'm so awesome, go check out my 500px' over and over again... You need to treat it like when you walk into a room and introduce yourself.. you don't walk out, wait a bit, walk back in and do it again, do you? more on Twitter in a separate post.

Facebook, half the.. no, wait... more than half the world is on Facebook! 99.8% of them are there to poke each other, but there are a cunning few who are using FB to better other people's knowledge in their brand... Take ThinkTankPhoto for example, they're on Facebook and they're interacting, engaging and loving it... 3LeggedThing are doing the same, they're running give-aways, answering support type questions, having fun... Facebook is flexible enough that, if you know what you're doing, you can build up a great following and you can also find and follow others that will help to inspire your own creativity, both in your photography and your socialness..

But you can't just 'be on Facebook' and hope that you get work as a result... You can get work via Facebook, but like everything, you have to work for it... You can't simply sign up to Twitter and become Ashton Kutcher's friend... It doens't work like that... So, how do you do it? Well - that's going to kick on in part two... coming tomorrow

What? No Google Plus button? More on that later, too...

--Sime