Last year, we had a dedicated person to do all the post-processing work (selection, minor tweaks and uploading). But this year, due to budget-cuts, one of the photographers had to take that job.
And guess who got assigned that role?
I had brought my macbook, I had experience using Flickr and Lightroom (which the others didn’t), so half of the time, I was stuck at a desk in the festival office, going through hundreds and hundreds of photos made by the others. That also meant that I had to miss some concerts (due to the loads of work), but I also got to do some other cool things (like go on a helicopter ride over the city to photograph to festival from the sky )

Here are a couple of the photos I shot over the course of the 4 days:
(The rest will be up on Flickr during the next week)

We’ll start top left and go right and down from there.
- Calendar
- App Store
- Pages (for €7,99 you get Pages (just like on your Mac) on your iPad, I used this for all my writing)
- WordPress (I (co)author a couple of WordPress blogs, just like this one, and this app makes that very easy)
- Settings (placed top right so I can easily tap it with my right hand when hold the device)

- Gowalla (location-based social network, app looks great but I don’t use it that much)
- Dash Four (€1,59. Foursquare app, another location-based social thing on which I am rather active)
- Facebook (not an app, just a bookmark to the website)
- Tumblr (same as above, just a bookmark)
- Flightcontrol HD (€3,99. Awesome game in which you have to guide airplanes with your fingers )

- iBooks (from Apple, with in-app bookstore. Also allows you to add your own pdf-files, big plus!)
- Zinio (App for digital magazine subscriptions, with some free samples)
- Instapaper (€3,99. If you use Instapaper on your computer, this is a good app to catch up on reading)
- De Standaard (€3,99. App for Belgian newspaper De Standaard, yes it ain’t free, but it comes with 5 free newspapers (complete newspaper, if you decide to get the weekend edition, you also get all the extras. Without a subscription to the newspaper, you can access the news of the day and the best photos from the newspaper)
- Wide Angle (€2,99. If you like photoblogs like the Boston Big Picture, get this app. The images look great and flicking through them with your finger is a joy)

Then, onwards to the apps I keep in the dock:
- Mail (quite self-explanatory )
- Safari (for browsing)
- Echofon Pro (€3,99. For Twitter off course. This is the best twitter-app for the iPad I’ve come across so far (and before this I tries Tweetdeck, Twitterific and Osfoora HD). Plus, if you already own Echofon Pro for your iPhone, you get the iPad version for free)

- NewsRack (€3,99. My RSS-reader of choice, mostly because I already owned the iPhone-version and thus got it for free on my iPad. I like the interface, it has lots of sharing option and it syncs with Google Reader, what more could you want?)

- Photos (my photo-portfolio, this is a great way to show my work to others)
- iPod (music, because where would we be without that )

That’s what’s on my home-screen for now, these are the apps I use the most. If I discover any other things I think you should know about, I’ll get back to you

But the thing was (and still kinda is), the iPad isn’t available in Belgium as off today. The release was announced for ‘July’. That’s the WiFi-model, the 3G version wasn’t expected until September. And we all very much liked the 3G version .

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Apple launched the iPad in Germany. If you know your geography, you’ll realize that Germany and Belgium are right next to each other and that driving to a nearby German town to get one was very plausible.
So we started searching and calling stores to ask if they had them, if we could reserve any and when/if they were expecting them. And so we came across Gravis.de

I called them a couple of times but all they could say was ‘we’re expecting a shipment at the end of the week’. And the same the next week. So Manuel called and mailed them to reserve three, they’d call us when they were in and we’d have to pick them up that day or the next.

Another 2 weeks past, no joy. They hadn’t even confirmed our order….
So I gave them another call around noon today, to get things moving and such. The guy on the other end of the line told me that they didn’t have the 16GB model (which both Manuel and Davy wanted), they had been waiting on that shipment for weeks…But they did have a 32GB 3G model (which is the one I had planned on getting) at the store in Aachen. They had reserved it for someone but that person had neglected to come by and pick it up. He could ask the store to put it aside for me, but that meant that I had to go and pick it up either today or tomorrow….

And I went for it. I had already looked up the trains to Aachen a couple of weeks ago so I knew it would take about 2 hours to get there. At that moment, is was 13h30 and the store closed at 19h. I realized that I could even make it today….With no-one around to ask half-a-day off (with the boss and teamleader are on holiday), but with enough people in the office to get the work done, I went for it. (before she left, our teamleader had said we could do that, if everyone agreed and if we used a little common sense, so It’s not like I ran out of there without asking anyone )

I printed the train schedule, made sure I had the address and the phonenumber of the store and I headed for the train-station. 1 stop and 2 hours later, I arrived in Aachen and quickly found my way to the store (which was/is only a 4-minute walk for the train-station). They knew my name and my reservation-number and a couple of minutes later, there was an iPad on the counter for me. So I take out my Visa-card to day and the guy goes ‘Oh, but we don’t take credit cards sir’. I was chocked and almost yelled ‘Say whaaaaaat’?
Luckily, there was a bank nearby where I could withdraw cash. (all of this kind of in a rush, because I had to catch my train back home). 10 minutes later, I walked back into the store, payed and walked out with my iPad (I had hoped to be able to activate it in the store so that I could already use it on the way back but that didn’t happen, not enough time).

As I’m typing this, I’m on a train back home. If all goes well, I should be back in Leuven at 20h34, which means I’ll be home around 21h. (I did already open outer box to have a look at the box itself, but other than that, I haven’t touched it )

Can’t wait to get home

- update -
Got home as planned, sitting on my bed and typing this on the iPad. This is quite an extraordinary device

I picked my color, I placed my order and 2 weeks later, there is was. And it was (and is) a really nice case. It adds a touch of color to the phone (well, more then a touch if you pick the bright green version like i did ) and it feels good when using the phone.

I got this case in March (i think, not sure) and I like it so much I shot a little video about it.
Why did I wait this long to write about it? Well, my blackberry was in the shop to be repaired and I felt i couldn’t really write about it without actually using it at that time

So I decided to make the jump to Android. (blame @rrradiogirrrl for getting me all excited )
The phone of my choosing: an HTC Desire

I can hear you thinking ‘a touchscreen? No keyboard?’ Yes…. (If you’ve read my previous writings, you’ll remember me swearing by physical keyboards when choosing a phone)

I’ve been using the Desire and all I can say is color me impressed. Really impressed!
Hardware-wise, the Desire is simple gorgeous. The screen is very bright, very colorful and sharp.
Software-wise, it runs Android 2.1 and has everything I need.

To be honest, I’m kind of doubting which phone I want to keep, the Desire or my Blackberry….(and me willing to give up my Blackberry, that’s a big thing right there )

——–

Think of Spotify as your new music collection. Your library. Only this time your collection is vast: 8 million tracks and counting. You can create as many playlists as you like from this collection – just drag and drop the tracks you want.

And because the music plays live, there’s no need to wait for downloads and no big dent in your hard drive. You can listen at any time, no matter where you are. Through your computer or your mobile phone.
———

I’d be down for some of that if you know what I mean

Spotify Open allows one to sign up for spotify for free, without the need for an invitation-code.
The catch? Open is only available in countries that already had Spotify (UK, France, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden). That’s right, no Belgium….

And here’s how we get around that
1) Surfing from within the UK
Navigate your browser to a UK-based webproxy site
(in simple terms, using this website will make it seem like you’re browsing from within the UK, which in turn will fool Spotify into thinking are ‘allowed’ to make an account)
I’ve used DaveProxy for think.
Browse to the proxy-website, enter ‘http://www.spotify.com/uk/get-spotify/open/’ in the URL field and click go
Once on Spotify.com, click ‘Get Spotify Open > Free to use’

2) Creating your account
Select the ‘Open’ option, enter a username, email and password for your choice.
Only trick here is entering a UK postal code, you can google for one for use one of these: N1 6DL or LS18 5AZ
Enter the captca-text, check the box to agree with the user agreement and click continue. Your account is now ready.

3) Download Spotify
Download and install the Spotify-application, log in and you’re set!

One more thing….
Spotify open is capped to 20 hours of streaming per month. How much streaming time you’ve got left is visible in the top right corner:

But that’s better then nothing I guess
Enjoy!

PS: If you want Spotify Unlimited or Spotify Premium, you’ll need a creditcard or paypal-account that’s registered in a Spotify-country. I’ll let you know if and when I find a way around this

PS 2: No thinkering with proxy-servers within the Spotify-application. I never entered one and it just works
Update – Added by @vromant:
Spotify will notice that you’re not in the UK when you’re using the service and will think you’re on holiday. They give you about 30 days (I think) to go back home and log in from there. So every 30 days you’ll need to use a proxy and log in or they’ll disable your account.

So back to using a proxy it is

During the album-presentation there were a could of guests: Tom Helsen, Milow, Anton Walgrave)
The day after the concert, I went out and bought the album, I really like it!

The track bellow is the first EP released from this album:

And these are the images I shot:
Enjoy

Later this week, I had a look at the footage I shot and was quite pleased. The only problem was: I only had about 45 seconds to work with. So yesterday, I went back to Brussels to shoot some more. Only problem: when I got the building where the exhibition was, the curtains were closed and when I peeked through I saw that it was gone. Quite the bummer indeed. But none the less, I got some extra shots for the video

I’ve uploaded both versions, the long and the short one, you can see them bellow and on youtube:
All video was shot with a Nikon D90, using a Nikkor 18-70mm and a Sigma 10-20mm lens.
Postproducing was done using Apple’s iMovie.
The music is ‘If you don’t go, I don’t go’ by Absynthe Minded (link takes you to the iTunes store)

The long version:

The short version:

This little experiment as though me a couple of things:
- think about which shots you want
- make a rough scenario (including the music, if you’re using any)

PS: Thanks to Frederic for getting me back on to the DLSR-video thing

I picked it up after the weekend and rushed home to open it. When I opened it, I was a little bit surprise….They had shipped me an RS-7, but the Brad was not in the package. Instead, there was a Joey J-2.

I emailed the Blackrapid Sales-department and they got back to me quite fast, they apologized for their mistake and said they’d ship my missing item as soon as possible.
They also said I was free to keep the J-2 if I wanted to, and since shipping to back to them would cost more then the thing itself, I think I’ll keep it