Adobe today has released a new version of Photoshop for all iOS based devices, in the process rebranding the old and limited functional Photoshop.com Mobile app for iPhone to Adobe Photoshop Express. This new version brings a new and improved UI, support for iPad, and a whole bunch of new features for the iPad version, which of course makes sense given the larger screen space of the device. One downside? It still lacks support for iPhone 4’s Retina Display, which is a big disappointment in my opinion. Anyhow, the official change log of Adobe Photoshop Express version 1.3 is as follows.

• Initial support for iPad
• New name: Adobe® Photoshop® Express
• Updated UI
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Features specific to iPad:
• Support for portrait and landscape orientations
• Redesigned Online, Edit, and Upload workflows
• Ability to work on multiple photos in sequence from within a single workflow
• Redesigned Organizer view with simplified album sharing
• Updated icons and visuals that make it easier to navigate and use the Editor
• Ability to upload to Photoshop.com and Facebook simultaneously

Adobe Photoshop Express for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is available on iTunes App Store as a universal binary. You can grab it for free via the download link given below.

Make sure you check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone and iPad.

Download Adobe Photoshop Express

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The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

Microsoft has been helping Adobe develop a sandbox similar to the Protected View in Office 2010. Adobe Reader Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader. In addition to working with the Microsoft Office security team, Adobe also learned from the Google Chrome team as well as third-party consultancies and other external groups that have sandboxing knowledge and experience.

Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be enabled by default and will ensure that all operations required to display a PDF file to the user are run in a restricted manner inside a sandbox. Actions not permitted in the sandboxed environment, such as writing to the user's temporary folder or launching an attachment inside a PDF file using an external application, are funneled through a “broker process,” which has a strict set of policies for what is allowed and what is not. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls, mitigating the risk of exploits that seek to install malware on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. In future releases of Adobe Reader, the company hopes to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information from the user's computer.

Adobe's products are almost as ubiquitous as Microsoft's, and since Microsoft has been taking security much more seriously ever since Windows XP SP2, it made sense for cybercriminals to target software which had so many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Last year, Adobe Reader took the crown away from Microsoft Office as the software with the most vulnerabilities. Brad Arkin, Senior Director of Product Security & Privacy for Adobe Systems, announced in May 2009 that a major Adobe Reader and Acrobat security initiative was underway: code hardening, incident response process improvements, and a shift to a regular security update schedule.

Microsoft's and Adobe's products compete on many fronts, but it makes sense for Redmond to help its partners in the area of security. The sandboxing approaches that Microsoft has pioneered in Office, including the sandbox for its search subsystem, the MOICE sandbox, and Protected View, are there to improve the overall state of security on Windows. The progress in security made by the Office team can thus be extended to other third-party applications for Windows, protecting the customers that Microsoft has in common with its partners.

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Microsoft has been helping Adobe develop a sandbox similar to the Protected View in Office 2010. Adobe Reader Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader. In addition to working with the Microsoft Office security team, Adobe also learned from the Google Chrome team as well as third-party consultancies and other external groups that have sandboxing knowledge and experience.

Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be enabled by default and will ensure that all operations required to display a PDF file to the user are run in a restricted manner inside a sandbox. Actions not permitted in the sandboxed environment, such as writing to the user's temporary folder or launching an attachment inside a PDF file using an external application, are funneled through a “broker process,” which has a strict set of policies for what is allowed and what is not. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls, mitigating the risk of exploits that seek to install malware on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. In future releases of Adobe Reader, the company hopes to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information from the user's computer.

Adobe's products are almost as ubiquitous as Microsoft's, and since Microsoft has been taking security much more seriously ever since Windows XP SP2, it made sense for cybercriminals to target software which had so many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Last year, Adobe Reader took the crown away from Microsoft Office as the software with the most vulnerabilities. Brad Arkin, Senior Director of Product Security & Privacy for Adobe Systems, announced in May 2009 that a major Adobe Reader and Acrobat security initiative was underway: code hardening, incident response process improvements, and a shift to a regular security update schedule.

Microsoft's and Adobe's products compete on many fronts, but it makes sense for Redmond to help its partners in the area of security. The sandboxing approaches that Microsoft has pioneered in Office, including the sandbox for its search subsystem, the MOICE sandbox, and Protected View, are there to improve the overall state of security on Windows. The progress in security made by the Office team can thus be extended to other third-party applications for Windows, protecting the customers that Microsoft has in common with its partners.

Microsoft has been helping Adobe develop a sandbox similar to the Protected View in Office 2010. Adobe Reader Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader. In addition to working with the Microsoft Office security team, Adobe also learned from the Google Chrome team as well as third-party consultancies and other external groups that have sandboxing knowledge and experience.

Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be enabled by default and will ensure that all operations required to display a PDF file to the user are run in a restricted manner inside a sandbox. Actions not permitted in the sandboxed environment, such as writing to the user's temporary folder or launching an attachment inside a PDF file using an external application, are funneled through a “broker process,” which has a strict set of policies for what is allowed and what is not. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls, mitigating the risk of exploits that seek to install malware on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. In future releases of Adobe Reader, the company hopes to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information from the user's computer.

Adobe's products are almost as ubiquitous as Microsoft's, and since Microsoft has been taking security much more seriously ever since Windows XP SP2, it made sense for cybercriminals to target software which had so many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Last year, Adobe Reader took the crown away from Microsoft Office as the software with the most vulnerabilities. Brad Arkin, Senior Director of Product Security & Privacy for Adobe Systems, announced in May 2009 that a major Adobe Reader and Acrobat security initiative was underway: code hardening, incident response process improvements, and a shift to a regular security update schedule.

Microsoft's and Adobe's products compete on many fronts, but it makes sense for Redmond to help its partners in the area of security. The sandboxing approaches that Microsoft has pioneered in Office, including the sandbox for its search subsystem, the MOICE sandbox, and Protected View, are there to improve the overall state of security on Windows. The progress in security made by the Office team can thus be extended to other third-party applications for Windows, protecting the customers that Microsoft has in common with its partners.

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

Omega Unfold Media Zone Trigger 1.0

You can create greeting cards, calenders, photo album pages, slide shows and even burn a slide show onto a CD for showing on a DVD player and TV. With Photoshop Elements 4.0, you have many options for presenting your edited and finished photos and pictures.

First you must have edited and decent pictures before you start in on this part of Adobe's Photoshop Elements. There's no sense in burning a CD or creating a slide show with your family photos or favorite pictures unless they look good. Use the editor or quick editor features to edit and put those finishing touches on whatever group of pictures you want to create into one of these many great photo projects.

I'll explain how to set up a slide show, many of the things you do in one of these types of project creations works almost the same for the rest. This part of Photoshop Elements has been made for an easy to use way to create these different types of projects.

Using the project creation page double click on slide show, a page will pop up with some settings of the slide show. The setup menu has several different settings that are shown on the small picture in the corner of the menu. The first is for the Static Duration, it is how long your picture will stay on the screen during the slide show. This does not include the time between the pictures when it is in transition.

Next is the type of transition or how it will go from one picture to the next. This transition type is shown when you click on each one in the small picture of the menu. The type of transition will be the same for each transition of your slide show.

The next will be the transition duration, how long it takes to switch from one picture to the next. This would normally be shorter than the static time. You can play around with these settings to see what looks the best for your slide show. There are some settings that you can include with each photo of your slide show or for some of them if you want.

The first one is called Apply Pan & Zoom to all slides. This means you can start with the whole image of each picture and then during the static time that the picture is on the screen you can pan around the photo and zoom into a part of the image. This could be used if you have a group photo with your child and wanted to tighten in on only your child. There are other times and uses for this feature. If you select to use this you can have each photo in your slide show do the panning and zoom or just set the beginning and end the same. The window that you set these features is easy to use and has a few features like use the start and end as the same, swap them or add another pan into the same photo.

The next several features are Include Photo Captions as Text, Include Audio Captions as Narration, Repeat Soundtrack Until Last Slide and cropping in both landscape and photo orientation. These will bring up other windows in your creation window work area for each feature. For the captions it will add either text or narration to your photos and the repeat soundtrack will help you setup a soundtrack to play during your slide show. The program allows you to record your narration right onto the slide show, but you have to have a microphone working on your computer to use this feature. You can also add wave files or audio to your slide show and have it run from the beginning to the end. Things like music or recording sounds that you download or record can be used and loaded onto the slide show.

Cropping merely allows the slides to automatically match to the orientation you wish to choose for your slide show. This will crop and automatically show the pictures in either the photograph or landscape orientations and show them without any black bars on the sides of the picture.

Once you choose what features in the slide show you want to be able to use, you click on OK and the program will go to the Slide Show Window. You first must add pictures for your slide show, click on Add Media. Then find the pictures in your organizer or in files that you want to turn into a slide show. You can get Photos and Video from both the organizer or from file folders on your computer, you can also get Audio in the same way. Once the pictures are in the creation editor, you need to edit each one according to how you want to display them as well as the order.

You can do various things with all the photos or individually. The various features you choose to be able to edit and use on the first menu are available here in the different side windows and can be used or unused according to your choosing. Play around with each one and use the various features and when you are finished with the editing of this part you can go on in the slide show. At the top of the editing window are buttons for saving the project and outputting the project to the format you want.

This is where you would go to put the slide show onto a disc or just save it, plus there is options to Email it or watch it on a TV if you have one hooked up to your computer. The settings for these various options are pretty easy to understand and are explained on the different pages for each option. Just click on the option you wish to do and follow the instructions and questions for each one.

To make a photo album page, calender or any of the other types of creations in Elements, you simply click on that creation or project and follow the instructions. During the process of creating your photo album pages, calenders or whatever it always gives you the choice to edit each picture along the way and you can go to the editor to do any last minute adjustments to the photo you are using in the project. There are also options like buying a bound photo album or calender over the Internet from Adobe, the program will send the finished project to Adobe and for a fee they will print and finish the project and mail it to you. You can go to their website to find out the prices of this service.

Adobe's Photoshop Elements is a great program with all kinds of easy to use and convenient features. Creating projects such as photo albums, slide shows and calenders along with the simple greeting cards is easy to do with the features that comes with the program. Editing photos for better image quality and nicer pictures is easy during the process of creating these projects or you can edit them before you start the project. Many of the features are easy to understand and you will have lots of fun creating all kinds of gifts and personal photo treasures for you to share.

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Microsoft has been helping Adobe develop a sandbox similar to the Protected View in Office 2010. Adobe Reader Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader. In addition to working with the Microsoft Office security team, Adobe also learned from the Google Chrome team as well as third-party consultancies and other external groups that have sandboxing knowledge and experience.

Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be enabled by default and will ensure that all operations required to display a PDF file to the user are run in a restricted manner inside a sandbox. Actions not permitted in the sandboxed environment, such as writing to the user's temporary folder or launching an attachment inside a PDF file using an external application, are funneled through a “broker process,” which has a strict set of policies for what is allowed and what is not. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls, mitigating the risk of exploits that seek to install malware on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. In future releases of Adobe Reader, the company hopes to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information from the user's computer.

Adobe's products are almost as ubiquitous as Microsoft's, and since Microsoft has been taking security much more seriously ever since Windows XP SP2, it made sense for cybercriminals to target software which had so many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Last year, Adobe Reader took the crown away from Microsoft Office as the software with the most vulnerabilities. Brad Arkin, Senior Director of Product Security & Privacy for Adobe Systems, announced in May 2009 that a major Adobe Reader and Acrobat security initiative was underway: code hardening, incident response process improvements, and a shift to a regular security update schedule.

Microsoft's and Adobe's products compete on many fronts, but it makes sense for Redmond to help its partners in the area of security. The sandboxing approaches that Microsoft has pioneered in Office, including the sandbox for its search subsystem, the MOICE sandbox, and Protected View, are there to improve the overall state of security on Windows. The progress in security made by the Office team can thus be extended to other third-party applications for Windows, protecting the customers that Microsoft has in common with its partners.

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The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

Corel PhotoImpact X3

In my last article about Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4 I discussed the layer's of Photoshop that make it such a great image editing program. Layers are like pages that can be stacked on top of each other and can add to the overall picture your creating. Each layer can be seen as a part of the whole image and when you draw on one layer it's like drawing on a clear page of the stack of layers.

This becomes a great and easy way to edit parts of an image or adding things to an image without changing the original image. Other things that can be great additions and heps to your photography editing projects is the ability to edit pictures on a template so you can print out specific sized pictures according to the paper you can purchase.

For instance if you want to print wallet sized photos on Avery Wallet Sized photo paper 53283 you just download a template that has a gray square representing each of the nine photo spots that are on the actual sheet of photo paper. The template is a layer that you use while editing your pictures so that you align each wallet sized picture, 2 ¼ x 3 inch, on the sheet that you are going to print.

When you have edited and then positioned each picture on the page you then delete the layer with the template on it and then print the photos. You make sure of course that you use the correct settings for the paper, glossy and orientation is correct and that you put the page in correctly.

On my printer it prints with the page going down into the printer and the glossy side is facing you. Your printer may be different but by now a little trial and error on regular white paper would not hurt to make sure you are going to print correctly and that the settings are all correct. You can then hold the page you printed up over the blank wallet sized paper and get an idea if it is going to print correctly.

I have found some great add-ons and such for Photoshop Elements at About.com. Here is the main page of those add-ons and some others are accessible from that page.

Main Page for Add-ons and Templates:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshopaddons/index.htm

At this site you can search for Avery Print Templates for specific Avery paper and you can search by the number Avery has for each paper it sells:

http://www.avery.com/us/Main?action=software.BlankTPLHierarchy&catalogcode=WEB01&node=0

Entering the number 53283 will take you to a menu with four pages of templates on it. Selecting the bottom one will take you to a description page and you then click on the download button. A pop up will come up telling you how to download templates. I have created a file on my drive called Adobe to save all related files and things I use for this program. I also use this for my working save area when editing images so I know where everything related to this program is and it is on a drive that I regularly backup so anything I am working on is saved in case of an accidents and I lose my drive.

I have many templates and plug-ins saved and use them regularly for editing and working on photos and such. Of course I am still learning how to use all the different features of this program and am still finding all kinds of useful and helpful things about it.

To use the plug-in template you simply open the standard editor in Adobe Photoshop Elements, then click on File, New and then Blank File. A pop-up will come up asking what size page you want to work on. Enter letter sized on the pull down menu for preset and make sure your image resolution is set at 300 PPI for better image quality. On a letter sized photo you will not be needing to go any higher but if your printing or working on images that are bigger, a larger pixel per inch would be necessary.

The pixels per inch is how many little boxes that are the smallest parts of an image are in a inch are of the picture. To make up your image each pixel is a color that makes up the whole picture. When you import a picture in and zoom in very close you can see what I mean.

Your project now has one layer called background, this you want to leave alone and always work on other layers so you can go back and edit on the different layers and work easily with your projects. To get your template onto your page you simply click on the Place command on the File pull down menu. Find your template from where you downloaded it to and click on the Place button. Your template will pop up on the blank page over the background and a new layer will show up on your working windows to the right of your image window. The background will be locked and you can just leave it like that. To work on other things in your project you will need to click on the check mark that pops up above your help and working windows. The template will have words on it to remind you to delete the template before printing.

Now you will want to have pictures to add in, you can open your organizer to find them or find them using the image editor. What I would suggest is editing the images you will be using for your pictures first and saving them in a working file for ease of finding them. And then using Place in the File menu to put the pictures onto your project. Each time you use Place it will add the photo as a new layer, it might get confusing or crowded but you can see that each layer will be able to be adjusted on it's own and can be edited or deleted without touching any of the others. This feature makes this program a great way to edit parts of your project and not have to mess with others.

When working with your pictures on the template page, if you want to move or resize the picture you place you must click on the picture of the one you want to edit or move. If this does not work and you move or make a mistake you can always undo things with the Undo command under the Edit pull down menu or use Control Z to undo the last thing you did. layer that picture is on and then Select All from the pull down menu's across the top.

Once you have your page filled with all your photos you can then save it, I recommend you do this so you will have a copy to use if anything happens during printing or if you want to go back later and print something again. To print you must delete the layer for the template, do this by simply right clicking on that layer in your Layers window. Then click on delete layer and verifying that you want to delete the layer.

Then using the settings for your printer and the type of paper you are using print the page. Like I said you can print a copy onto regular white paper to make sure it works the first time and that you get the paper oriented correctly. Better to waste some ink and one page of regular paper than good photo paper.

There are also many creative and fun Add-ins and templates that you can download and experiment with. One of these is the different templates that add textures or effects to your photos. These are also available for download from the About.com website and come in a wide variety of effects and neat add-ins. A great many different layers are available here: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshopstyles/

Many of these are add-ons for text, pictures and image fun and are easy to use. There are instructions to use them along with the downloads. Experiment and use the different layers, plug-ins and add-ons for some great and creative fun with your Photoshop Elements 4.0. Adobe has made the use of layers and these additional plug-ins easy and fun.

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Microsoft has been helping Adobe develop a sandbox similar to the Protected View in Office 2010. Adobe Reader Protected Mode, a sandboxing technology based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader. In addition to working with the Microsoft Office security team, Adobe also learned from the Google Chrome team as well as third-party consultancies and other external groups that have sandboxing knowledge and experience.

Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be enabled by default and will ensure that all operations required to display a PDF file to the user are run in a restricted manner inside a sandbox. Actions not permitted in the sandboxed environment, such as writing to the user's temporary folder or launching an attachment inside a PDF file using an external application, are funneled through a “broker process,” which has a strict set of policies for what is allowed and what is not. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls, mitigating the risk of exploits that seek to install malware on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. In future releases of Adobe Reader, the company hopes to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information from the user's computer.

Adobe's products are almost as ubiquitous as Microsoft's, and since Microsoft has been taking security much more seriously ever since Windows XP SP2, it made sense for cybercriminals to target software which had so many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered. Last year, Adobe Reader took the crown away from Microsoft Office as the software with the most vulnerabilities. Brad Arkin, Senior Director of Product Security & Privacy for Adobe Systems, announced in May 2009 that a major Adobe Reader and Acrobat security initiative was underway: code hardening, incident response process improvements, and a shift to a regular security update schedule.

Microsoft's and Adobe's products compete on many fronts, but it makes sense for Redmond to help its partners in the area of security. The sandboxing approaches that Microsoft has pioneered in Office, including the sandbox for its search subsystem, the MOICE sandbox, and Protected View, are there to improve the overall state of security on Windows. The progress in security made by the Office team can thus be extended to other third-party applications for Windows, protecting the customers that Microsoft has in common with its partners.

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

I started smoking at my high school graduation.  There was a school sponsored party to celebrate, and someone offered me a cigarette.  I took it, because the person that offered it didn’t expect me to.  I didn’t know how to smoke, but I tried.  The next time I smoked was when I met a girl I liked, and she smoked.  She made fun of the way I smoked, and showed me how a real smoker handled a cigarette.  And so I smoked.  And smoked.  And smoked.

Along the way, cigarettes became more expensive, going from less than two dollars a pack all the way to five dollars.  And lots of people that I smoked with when I was younger did a funny thing – they stopped smoking.  I was left with a silly saying: “Quitters never win, and winners never quit,” and a lot of time standing around by myself outside of buildings, holding cigarettes.

Now, I’m not saying that smoking was a bad experience for me.  I was never someone who smoked two packs a day, and rarely smoked as much as a pack a day.  I enjoyed my cigarettes.  They were a great way to take a break, to step outside, and to leave everything else behind.  Smoking also bothered a lot of people that I didn’t particularly mind bothering.  And I liked that.

And I wasn’t addicted.  I could stop any time I wanted to.  No problem.  I just didn’t want to.  I had this line of thinking down pat for years.  From the time I was 25 on I had no doubt that there was no wisdom at all in smoking, and no appeal to others, but it was something I did and I didn’t want to stop.  It was part of me, and I didn’t want to lose it.  It was part of my youth.  I was young and carefree and smoking couldn’t hurt me.

But the years passed, as they must, and I passed with them, as the fortunate ones do.  And one day last year I found myself in an extremely awkward position.  For one thing, I was out of cigarettes.  For another, I was having my 35th birthday.  There was no party going on, and there was no one else around with cigarettes, and I was starting to feel silly going outside and smoking and taking my little boy outside with me.  He was only four months old, and I wondered if he was always going to associate me with cigarettes.  That was a strange notion to me.  I knew that smoking wasn’t healthy, and I wasn’t even smoking socially anymore – I didn’t see anyone who smoked on a regular basis.  It seemed like the time was right.  I announced to my spouse that as a special birthday gift to myself, I was giving up cigarettes.  The announcement was received with all due respect and a small amount of caution.  It was actually the first time that I’d made such an announcement.

During the first week there were many times where I felt like a cigarette would have been appropriate.  There were the times where I had smoked for years – with my morning coffee, before bed, after a meal, or whenever I wanted to take a break from work.  And now I was doing without my cigarette.  It left me with a kind of hungry feeling for the cigarettes.

The second week I didn’t smoke, I was somewhat on edge, and likely to lose my temper with less provocation than usual.  I didn’t like that, and considered smoking again.  I resisted the rationalization, though, and the ill-tempered phase passed.  And  I still wasn’t smoking.

During the third week I started to have many hours pass in which I wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t smoking, and by the fourth week entire days were going by where I would forget that I was missing cigarettes.  After the first month was over, I knew I didn’t need the cigarettes any more.

Since then, I have had moments of temptation, usually when around some friend who smokes, while we’re all drinking, and it seems like this is the time when a cigarette would be perfect.  But I haven’t smoked.  I’ve had dreams where I’m out with friends, and suddenly I notice that I’m smoking and I feel terrible, and then think that a single cigarette isn’t that bad, but I still feel guilty about it, only to wake up and find that I wasn’t really smoking at all.

I should tell you that one of the reasons I quit smoking was because I had this awful cough every morning when I first woke up. This cough bothered my spouse more than it bothered me. The first few weeks after quitting, the cough was much worse, and I joked that I was healthier when I smoked. Now the cough is gone, except for a little bit of it some mornings.

I haven’t been noticeably healthier since I quit smoking, and I haven’t felt better than I did when I smoked.  But somehow, it seems like it was time to stop, and I’m glad I have, and I don’t see myself starting up smoking again. It’s been almost a whole year now.

Ever roll a cigarette or hey, how bout' a funny cigarette? They annoying small tracing paper rolling papers had always been a pain in the keester, and I usually left rolling cigs to the pros with little fingers.

Who would of thought though that Philosophy would adopt this tracing paper trend and turn it into a facial oil blotter? At first I thought these blotting papers were something special, that perhaps they came infused with some sort of drying ingredient that would dry the oily shine from my face making me look clean and refreshed.

I bought the blotting papers online at their site at www.philosophy.com for $10.00 and shipping. I assumed they would be something special, and in the summer months, when my skin shines the most, I also assumed that I needed them. Hah!

Philosophy's blotter papers are called 'The Supernatural'.

The blotters came in a small purse sized matchbook like compartment. Inside I imagined there were about 20 to 30 pieces of paper blotters. The whole concept however seemed fantastic, that was until I peeled one of the papers out of the compartment, and realized that I had just spent $10.00 on some God damn tracing paper! Thin frigging paper! Nothing special about them at all. God did I feel stupid.

In all efforts though to make myself feel better, I placed the small square on my forehead. After removing the paper I did notice the excess grease left behind on the paper, but I was not impressed, and here is why:

For one, I could get the same exact result by placing a sheet of tracing paper on my head, for literally a few penny's. Not only that could also get the same results by blotting a square of toilet paper on my head. 1 ply.

I felt like the biggest moron in the world. I had just spent a large sum of money on extremely small sheets of tracing paper, and they provided nothing extra to my skin. Nothing! Zilch, nada, not a freakin' thing!

I wanted to write Philosophy ad thank them for tricking their customers into thinking they were buying something that provided benefits to the skin. They should be more honest in their product description, which in my opinion should go something like this.

“We cut up some tracing paper into small sample pieces so you can stick them on to your face. We hope you don't realize that these 'Supernatural' blotters are nothing but tracing paper. These sample pieces of paper only cost us a nickle, but we packaged them into a cheap matchbook, and now we ask for $10.00. It's only fair. We do hope that you do not go out and buy your own book of tracing paper for only a few cents. Besides, how would big companies such as our survive if customers were to figure out or dirty little secret?”

Visit http://www.philosophy.com/web/store/prod_supernatural-blotting-papers for Philosophy's 'real' item description.

I really have been fond of Philosophy for their 3 in 1 washes, but I know now to avoid anything and everything else they sell besides their 3 in 1's. Most of their beauty items are over priced, cheap, and poorly constructed.

Overall:

I'm pretty mad at myself for ordering these cigarette rolling papers, thinking they'd provide something more than a piece of toilet paper could. The biggest rip-off I have come in contact with in a very long time.

Major League Manager Dies

James Gammon—the manager from Major League and a lot of other stuff—died over the weekend after a long battle with cancer. Everybody smoke a pack of Marlboro Reds and talk like him in his honor.

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. See you tomorrow morning.

Send an email to David Matthews, the author of this post, at david@deadspin.com.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 27, 2010
San Francisco

The Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) is honored to announce a new marketing partnership with Philip Morris (PM) that finally brings together the rugged sense of American independence with your most important choice as a consumer: your death. The message of “My Life. My Death. My Choice.” informs and empowers the consumer to choose, as their god given right, how they want to die. Philip Morris brings this message to the consumer to remind them that some rights are inalienable in life as they are in death.

“We’ve always said that the only two things in life that are unavoidable are death and taxes,” commented Michael E. Szymanczyk, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Philip Morris. “This campaign drives home that message where, if you are gonna die, might as well do it on your terms. Just like our Marlboro Men did.” According to Patrick B. Smelt, Chief of Marketing, “This bold message of independence and demanding life and death on your terms fits with the current zeitgeist of anti-establishmentarianism and post-post-modern rage at the repressive state demanding a healthier you and your environment.”

The BLF was honored to accept this exciting challenge. “We have no comment on President Obama’s health care reform, but many consumer of Philip Morris’s products do. We felt that this campaign picks up on a widespread rage that some nameless, faceless bureaucrat might give them cheaper health care, preventative treatment, and maybe deny them the sweet release we are all seeking,” said Rico T. Spoons, BLF Director of Offense as he idly drew a razorblade across his wrists. “This oppressive political climate and fascist approach towards health raises the comforting question of ‘how will you end it all?’ I like to think that we are just giving some poor folks a reminder that Philip Morris will always be there to help kill you.”

All former Marlboro Men, Wayne McLaren, David McLean and Dick Hammer, were unavailable for comment due to their rugged, manly choice of death by lung cancer.

The improvement can be viewed on Howard at Van Ness in San Francisco.

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Flavor and packaging break new ground, yet again, at Philip Morris with the introductory promotion of the latest menthol from Marlboro's line of 21st-century smokes: Marlboro 54s. The boldest new twist on the minty madness of smoking pleasure is more boldly displayed in the shiny forest green, golden-edged Flip-Top box of 20 Class A cigarettes than in the not-so-new taste.

(I wonder whether the Marlboro Man's been moonlighting with Cover Girl, in a kind of clandestine balcony tryst, exchanging color codes. Look how deeply the bold green sheen of the newest menthol grit in the Philip Morris line resembles the similarly-opaque quality of a well-painted set of acrylics!)

Unlike Marlboro Smooths, however, the 54s don't bring a stark change in the menthol mania; it's just another menthol, really. For menthol lovers, that's enough. We menthol maniacs are just happy to have more variety, and if there is anything to be said for the packaging, then the saying might be “the proof's in the package” (not the pudding, of course, because pudding has not been considered as any kind of additive to the present additives!).

As I have obviously digressed into the sweet nothingness of absent pudding, I may as well announce to my faithful following that I have officially and formally become a real quitter! Only smokers can claim, with any veritable hubris, that it is indeed admirable to be a quitter. Finally. After all my greatest failures as a human being, I can proudly (if not profitably, amid the rising costs of maintaining one's worst habits) quit something! The one time in my life when my dad would have been proud of me for quitting. Almost guilt-free!

The only guilt I suffer for becoming a quitter, at this point, extends to the retailers I hounded mercilessly for more product when the promos ran out! Just a couple weeks ago, two outlets owned locally by Griffin's made sure to stock certain lines of Marlboro, Body Shots, and Camel Snus because I made so much noise about the empty trays of my favorite addictive goodies.

Any success Marlboro 54s may gain remains to be seen because the effective promotions offered by the cigarette companies beat all coupons one may receive online or via snail mail. When those promotional periods end, I stop buying the product-no matter how good it tastes. The real success of a new product, lies in the demand maintained after the promo ends.

That is the deciding factor.

Will anyone buy the new Marlboro 54s when the price puffs up to the $4-per-pack, tax-laden rip-off level that will soon hamper all cigarette sales? Will the Snus sell when the price skyrockets back to the ridiculous $3.89 mark for 15 pouches of smokeless, spit-free nicotine-saturated gold?

Dunno. I quit.

The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.

“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates of respiratory infections,” notes Amy Sapkota of the University of Maryland, College Park. The presumption has been that smoking renders people vulnerable to disease by impairing lung function or immunity. And it may well do both.

“But nobody talks about cigarettes as a source of those infections,” she says. Her new data now suggest that’s distinctly possible.

If these germs are alive, something she has not yet confirmed, just handling cigarettes or putting an unlit one to the mouth could be enough to cause an infection.

The idea that tobacco might contain viable germs isn’t just idle conjecture. Several research teams have isolated bacteria from tobacco that they could grow out in petri dishes. Those earlier investigations tended to hunt for — and, when found, attempted to grow — only one or two species of interest, Sapkota says.

What’s novel in her study: She and her colleagues probed for genetic material from any and every bacterium in a cigarette’s tobacco. Under sterile conditions, the researchers opened up cigarettes and then performed a series of tests on the leafy bits. For instance, they isolated all of the ribosomal material and then homed in on its long, species-specific stretches known as 16S regions. These genetic segments were then compared to 16S patches characteristic of known bacterial species.

Sapkota’s team had 16S probes for close to 800 different bacteria and found matches to many hundreds in the four brands of cigarettes screened: Marlboro Red, Camel, Kool Filter Kings and Lucky Strike Original Red. These cigarettes are “among the most commonly smoked brands in Westernized countries and represent three major tobacco companies,” Sapkota notes. All were purchased in Lyon, France, where she was completing her postdoctoral studies.

Among the large number of germs whose DNA laced these cigarettes were: Campylobacter, which can cause food poisoning and Guillain-Barre Syndrome; Clostridium, which causes food poisoning and pneumonias; Corynebacterium, also associated with pneumonias and other diseases; E. coli; Klebsiella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, all of which are associated not only with pneumonia but also with urinary tract infections; and a number of Staphylococcus species that underlie the most common and serious hospital-associated infections.

Sapkota’s team lists many of these — including the most prevalent bacteria in the tobacco they studied — in a paper published early, online in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Some people have criticized the idea of infectious cigarettes, arguing that as tobacco burns, it would kill any germs present. But Sapkota is not so sure that’s true. The tobacco farthest from the burning tip might be a balmy temperature, from a bacterial point of view. And here’s “a really wild idea,” she says: What if the smoke particles traveling through the still-unburned part of a cigarette pick up some germs and then ferry them deeply into the lung, where they’re unlikely to be cleared? Wouldn’t that be the prescription for disease?

Of course, there’s also plenty of chances for a smoker to become exposed prior to lighting up. And, of course, the potential for highest oral exposure would come from chewing tobacco — and nasal exposures from snuff.

Sapkota, an environmental health scientist, plans to follow up her preliminary data to see which types of tobacco are most likely to host viable germs, and whether those bacteria are transported into the body, either during smoking or by the insertion of unburned tobacco products (including chewing tobacco) into the mouth.

Several thousand potentially toxic chemicals have been isolated from cigarettes. Sapkota says that it’s not hard to imagine that the number of germs hosted by tobacco products could rival that of the carcinogens and other poisons residing in or produced by burning tobacco.

How so, when she’s only found genetic material indicting hundreds of germs? Owing to the bacterial probes available when Sapkota began her tobacco work, she was only able to screen for 700-odd species. But newer probes on the market can now screen for the bacterial 16S genetic material of 5,000 or more germs. And if she used such huge batteries of probes now, she said she fully expects she could turn up at least 1,000 hitchhiking bacterial species in tobacco products.

Image: Flickr/alphadesigner

See Also:

• The Cigarette of the Future: All the Cancer, None of the Nicotine
• Philip Morris Tries to Engineer the Cancer Out of Tobacco
• Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean
• Anti-Smoking Drug Succeeds When Antidepressants Fail
• Darker Skin Linked to Nicotine Dependence
• The Inevitable USB Powered Cigarette

You wouldn’t think it would be worth the bother of trademarking her nickname, given the fact that about 13 of Nicole Snooki Polizzi’s 15-minutes are already over. The tiny reality star is following in the footsteps of fellow Jersey Shore castmate, The Situation (whose only situation seems to be a limited vocabulary).

Snooki has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She wants to gain the sole right to use the nickname Snooki, as she claims she will use the name for two purposes; for entertainment-related personal appearances, and on printed matter (namely books). I think a Colouring In With Snooki book would be a great idea, and I have no idea why she didn’t think of it sooner. Who this clown thinks will buy her book is beyond me, but she is going to try to make her claim anyway. The 22-year-old reality star paid $650 for the claim, submitted by an intellectual property lawyer with Buffalo-based firm Phillips Lytle.

Below are the SmokingGun.com February 7, 2010-filed Marlboro, New York, resident’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application documents.

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Introduction: Not all photos turn out perfect, even ask the experts. This is only one aspect of photo editing, and a simple one at that, perfect for any Photoshop beginner, or if you want to learn more techniques and tricks in this program. In this Photoshop tutorial, you'll learn how to brighten and whiten teeth to create the perfect, bright, and white smile on any portrait.

Step One: Open up your photo that you want to work on as a canvas in Photoshop. It's best to open it up as JPEG format usually. You can use a photo that's in color or in black and white. Make sure that enough of the teeth in the photo are clearly visible, otherwise you'll end up editing wrong areas. It's best to work with a portrait usually since the teeth can be a main focal point.

Step Two: Locate the dodge tool on the vertical menu bar. This is the main tool you'll use to create the perfect and beautiful smile on your photo. The dodge tool simply makes any part of the photo brighter.

Step Three: On the brush drop down menu, choose a “fuzzy” brush, if you work with a solid brush, the edges of where the brush didn' go over will be clearly visible, which isn't a good thing. Choose one that is an accurate size to work with. If your photo is larger, you'll need a larger brush. My image was originally 600×800 and I worked with a 14 pixel brush because it's size worked best for my photo.

Step Four: Select Midtones and a 50% exposure. This will be bright, but not too bright. Never start out with 100% exposure.

Step Five: Now go over the teeth with the dodge tool nice and evenly. If the teeth start to look too white, go back a step and drop down the exposure to about 30% or so. If you need to adjust the setting again, do so appropriately.

Step Six: After you've gone over the teeth, make sure they look even without any awkward spots or uneven areas.

Step Seven: Use the desaturation tool to edit out any highly saturated spots. Use a fuzzy brush with a 2 pixel radius and at about 25%. Saturated areas are speckles of bright colors.

After that you're done! Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the whiteness and brightness just right. Remember, the teeth should not be freakishly bright, but natural.

Important: Still using Acrobat or Reader 7?

Adobe no longer supports or patches for Acrobat/Reader 7 and earlier.

These versions and all previous versions are missing critical updates and users are recommended to upgrade.

For more information, see Adobe Support Policies.

NOTE: As described in Adobe's Supported Product Versions, Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.x and Adobe Reader 7.x support ended on December 28, 2009.

Read on to learn more about why it is important to keep Acrobat up to date.

Why Keep Acrobat Up-to-date?

Adobe Reader and Acrobat are an interesting target to hackers in some ways. These products have some browser-like capabilities, connect to the internet and interact with the file system.

I've previously written about how Acrobat can be extended via JavaScript to add all sorts of new capabilities. Indeed, there are a great many customers who take advantage of this.

Unfortunately, JavaScript can be used in some malicious ways. Hackers try to embed JavaScript in a document which could deliver a malicious payload.

To help you keep your software up to date, the Adobe Updater periodically checks with our servers and alerts you if a new update is available. You can also check yourself at any time by choosing Help—> Check for Updates.

It is alarming to me how many customers I talk to do not keep Acrobat up to date.

Quite simply, not patching is bad. You put you, your clients and your organization at risk by not keeping your software up to date.

Security Alerts

If you are in IT or just curious, you can sign up for the Adobe Security Notification Service.
The Adobe Security Notification Service is a free e-mail notification service that Adobe uses to send information to you about the security of Adobe products. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Security Blogs

Adobe has several Security-related blogs which are interesting reads, especially if you are on the geeky side.

The Security Matters Blog offers general insights about Adobe products and security.

The Adobe Reader Blog often covers security topics and will definitely be of interest to IT folks who deploy Reader.

Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has a blog that covers security across all Adobe products or interactions with operating systems and other tools.

Earlier this week, Adobe updated both Acrobat and Reader to versions 8.2 and 9.3. These updates offer major security features and are recommended for all users.

In a security bulletin released on Tuesday, Adobe cites “critical vulnerabilities” that could crash your apps or “…potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.” Definitely something you'll want to avoid. They recommend that anyone using version 9.2 and earlier update to Adobe Reader 9.3 and Acrobat 9.3 right away. Likewise, those using Acrobat 8.1.7 should update to version 8.2.

You can get all of the details and downloads from Adobe here. Get patching, folks. You'll want these older versions off of your Macs. As usual, we ask that you let us know if anything goes wonky after updating.

[Via PC Magazine]
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