As previously announced on this site, Adobe released earlier this week, Lightroom 1.3 as well as Camera Raw 4.3.

At the same time Adobe Labs offers a public prerelease of its Software Development Kit (SDK) Lightroom 1.3 export. This kit allow developers to enable communication with Lightroom 1.3 and 3rd party tools, web sites and devices. More plugins will certainly available soon on Lightroom Exchange site.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 Export SDK comes with two very useful plugins: 

• FTP Export
• Flickr Upload.

Once dowloaded and uncompressed, plugin modules have to be installed on your computer on locations where Lightroom can find and load them.

• Windows XP: ..\Documents and Users\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules
• Mac OS: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
• Windows Vista:..\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules

I just quickly tried the Flickr upload module and found it easy to use and indeed very convenient as it avoids to export files on a local folder and then upload them using Flickr Uploader page or tools.

Something tells me that these plugins will become very popular  

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8th of November: World Usability Day "Make life easy" 

Swiss UPA, the Swiss chapter of the Usability Professional Association proposes to ease access to free public wireless networks using a specific sign ((o)) that would help users to detect easy to use wireless networks. 

Today, before getting online using a wireless device, users have first to find an user-friendly wireless access point and then try to connect to it.

The user has to detect which wireless networks are available from his location and check if they are public and free of charge. Often wireless network names do not inform the visitor if the access to the network is free or not. The wireless access point might not be protected but once connected users are redirected to a page where they will be invited to purchase access rights.

Swiss UPS also highlight the fact that once connected to a free and public wireless network, it is not uncommon to reach an authentication page before getting access to the Internet. This procedure has 2 main disadvantage:

• Some authentication pages cannot be completed when using a Smartphone or a PDA.
• Some services such email, Instant Messaging, VoIP, etc… do not require the use of a browser and users cannot pass easily through this authentication method.

To make users' life easier, Swiss UPS proposes to include at the beginning of the SSID (Service Set Identifier which broadcasts the name of the wireless network) of public and free wireless networks the  following distinctive sign:  ((0))

Usage of the sign ((o)) is free and open to all individuals, collectivities and organizations which operate a WiFi network respecting  Swiss UPA usability charter.

More about Swiss UPA (in German), UPA International (English) and about World Usability Day

Source: Canard WiFi 

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Radar Networks, is releasing a free Web-based tool, called Twine, that it hopes will change the way people organize their information.

Twine website is a place where you can share any kind of information and knowledge such emails, bookmarks, documents, RSS feeds, contacts, photos, videos, product info, data records, and collaborate around common interests, activities and goals with friends, colleagues etc.

Once Twine has some information, it starts to analyze it and automatically sort it into categories that include the people involved, concepts discussed, and places, organizations, and companies.

Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter.

It still look unclear how Twine could make a real difference about organizing and sharing information but apparently a public beta version of the site may emerge soon.

Another question, Twine will be able to compete with what Techcrunch calls "the Google lethal social weapon", the project Maka-Maka.

Twine register form is available here.

More about Twine: Technology Review,  Read/Write web.

Tags: 2007, arc, art, blog, book, ces, facebook, find, free, google, HP, ia, im, knowledge, lan, language, LED, network, nomadcom.net, organize, pet, photo, processing, project, public, review, semantic, semantic web, share, sharing, social, technology, twine, video, w3c, web, web 2.0, website, wp, www