Happy Monday everyone! So this Monday I wanted to just chit chat again about the love affair that we all have these days on the Intuos4. You see, I’ve been a long time Intuos user, but that’s only been in years – not really from a frequency standpoint. You see, a lot of what I did with the tablet was from a Photo retouching standpoint – for anything else that I needed my computer for, I would still feel compelled to bring out the mouse and do my work with. In the older versions of Intuos tablets, the mouse was this thing that usually got thrown aside during the unpacking process for me (tablet.. tablet.. tablet.. what’s this thing? Mouse? ich.. doesn’t work… Tablet.. tablet).

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only person who felt that way. As I started asking other people, the tablet mouse (which some lovingly referred to as the ‘soapbar’) was largely discarded.. something that people wouldn’t give a chance, based on the track record of its performance, and [frankly] because of the assumption that once you had the pen, you wouldn’t go back. This left stacks and stacks of mice unloved. This also caused a problem because it meant that I was either using a tablet, or using a mouse. Desk real estate is at a premium – I don’t like things too cluttered.. so I only wanted to keep one thing. Switching from a mouse to a tablet meant moving/unplugging things which even though it was easy.. was something I didn’t want to do. So the tablet came out less and less. That’s changed however with this new Intuos4

The Intuos4 has a new mouse, so older mice don’t work with it. Thinking I’d try the mouse again (and after assurances from Wacom “do it.. you are going to be surprised”), I unboxed the mouse, setup the tablet, and started to use it. Guess what. Not only did it work, but it worked just like I would have expected a mouse to perform!! While it sounds small, it’s something that’s very important to me. I feel that technology needs to assist people. The moment we start having to change the way -we- do things for a piece of tech, the less I’m apt to use it. With the tablet, I felt like I needed to sacrifice yet more desktop real estate just so that I could use something different – even if the tablet was ‘better’. By going back and addressing one small thing – the mouse – Wacom made me do something I haven’t done in a long time. I unplugged my Mighty Mouse, and put it in my drawer. Now the tablet is front and center, and my using the pen is only a small reach away- EXACTLY what the experience should be. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about all of the other cool things they’ve done, but they get a big Congratulations from me for focusing on the little things. This matters.

Twitter Background Tutorial
I have a tutorial I made on making a Twitter background that’s up today. Make sure you check it out by clicking on this link

Openzoom Rocks
Daniel Gasienica was watching a recent episode of LayersTV, when he stumbled upon my tutorial of using Zoomify for web work. Daniel however, is not your ordinary web watcher. Danie’s a Computer Science student in Zurich, Switzerland.. and is a person with the skills to take the Zoomify technology to another level. Enter Openzoom. In Daniel’s words, “Part of my passion for Openzoom is the promotion of the beauty of large photos on the web and giving people the right tools to publish them. Enabling people to publish their images means building tools that support and enhance the workflow they’re already familiar with>”

Make sure you click on the OpenZoom links to get to that site, or read more about Daniel’s motivations on his blog. Great job man.. way to swing for the fences there..

Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question: Who is the author of the Digital Video Reviews column on Layers Magazine, and on what page can I find that? (Clue.. you dont need the magazine to do this.. it’s on the site!)

The Prize:A copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 In Depth (3 disc set)
with Matt Kloskowski as well as a subscription to Layers Magazine! The discs alone are worth over 200 dollars! What are you waiting for!

OK.. have fun with the blog! We’ll see you guys back here tomorrow morning!