Here’s the best of what I shared elsewhere last week.

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Photography Skills
Yet another great collection of web resources from Smashing Magazine.

Canon 7D gatling gun shooting 8 FPS of awesome – Engadget Video
I frequently photograph people in dark settings. In particular at a local geek event with 5 minute talks (Ignite Seattle), I’ve got a short time frame to capture a good image or two. ANY edge will help.

Frankly, the higher usable ISOs will be of more use, but I can’t help but think of how nice that bigger buffer will be.

How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard – Lifehacker
I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Glad to see it’ll work with Snow Leopard.

Why your Web content will look darker on Snow Leopard – John Nack
Apple’s gamma switch from 1.8 to 2.2 explained.

How to Tweet From Anywhere in Snow Leopard
Handy little overview of creating a “Service” in OS X Snow Leopard that allows you to tweet or create a Facebook post.

My friend Andrew Chen has posted his thoughts on meeting people at conferences. Great list if you are in the mood to meet folks in your industry. Here are a few of the points:

1. Use pre-conference time wisely
2. Arrive early for some 1:1 time
3. Sit next to interesting people, and introduce yourself
4. Bring business cards, and ask for business cards

Some of these things might appear dead obvious, but you would be surprised how many people don’t follow them. Fact is, even if you are shy about meeting folks, other people are as well. Keep in mind, the main reason why people attend these events is to meet people.

Andrew, btw, just moved to Silicon Valley from Seattle. He’s an Entrepreneur in Residence at the VC firm, Mohr Davidow Ventures on Sand Hill Road. Sounds like a dream job to me! If you’re looking to get a company off the ground or join a startup, he might just be the guy to talk to.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be in Palo Alto this weekend and spending a little time in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday.

Read

It’s a Wiki, but Pretty
Wetpaint lands a deal American Express to help power their Executive Travel SkyGuide. The article sites Wetpaint’s leadership in the areas of ease of use and its general lack of ugliness.

Flickr’s Camera Finder
Looking for the perfect camera this holiday season? Let the wisdom of crowds decide for you! Instead of reading reviews, Flickr has exposed the most popular cameras being used by Flickrites. Being a bit of a gadget nerd, I’ve often wondered why Flickr had not created this before.

Yahoo! acquired Bix
Ok, this is a little old, but Yahoo! has added the contest creation site, Bix to their stable of social media properties. This is a fun site that should fit in well with the rest of Yahoo’s social media acquisitions.

Ok, I’m not that excited, but it does seem to be shaping up to be a decent player.

Zune Interface Walkthrough Video
Our pals over at Engadget have been getting down with their new video software. Gotta say the interface looks pretty nice. They’ve definitely taken a page out of some of the best 10 ft interface world.

First Full Zune Review
Gizmodo’s got their take on the Zune.

Zune Insider Blog
Want a behind the scenes look at the Zune from the development team? Zune Insider give some insight into their process.

Technorati

Today is launch day!

Vox Launches
Six Apart’s “blogging for the rest of us” product launched today. [via MicroPersuasion]

Zillow opens API
Wanna put home valuations on your site? Looks like Zillow opened up their API to Joe User (or at least Joe User that knows what to do with APIs). Developers, start your mashups!

(One complaint, tho. I know that Safari is a backwater browser and all, but at least lemme see the frickin’ API page in it. There is no technical reason why you’ve locked Safari users out.)

7 reasons why Threadless rules
Funny, I was just ordering t-shirts today. Heather got me the subscription for my birthday, which totally rules. This site really is the model for community run websites. The product is created by the community, voted on by the community, modeled by the community, marketed by the community – it might make you wonder what the company actually does.

(of course this link is from 37 Signals… is there a Chicago conspiracy going on here?)

The Facebook lesson
A post on the Church of the Customer focuses on how Threadless handled a mishap on the site that could have been a total fiasco. They contrast that with Facebook’s stumble a few weeks ago. A great lesson in building online community.

Social Networking sites: you don’t own the commmunity
Biz Hack follows up the Church of the Customer post with some great insight here. “Intent counts more than technique,” is the quote that stuck with me. Threadless handled their mishap upfront and honestly, Facebook didn’t. It makes people love Threadless even more.

Threadless on Sale
Last, but not least, Threadless is having a sale until tomorrow, so stock up on new duds.

Support my Threadless habit by clicking the link and buying a shirt!

Hands on with the Zune
A little fan boyish, but nevertheless, a first peak at the Zune player from Microsoft. Sharing sounds a little kludgy, but this is a 1st generation concept.

Another point of view on Warcraft
A tale of someone who isn’t addicted to Worlds of Warcraft. I’m not addicted either. I’ve never played it :-).

Om on Steam
Mr. Malik today talks about the baby steps that the gaming industry is taking into digital distribution. Steam is the digital distribution arm of Valve Software, makers of the popular Half Life series, and recently they have started distributing other game makers’ games.

Games, while heavily pirated online, would benefit greatly from pure digital distribution as Xbox Live seems to be proving. Valve seems to operate a somewhat “locked box” model like the closed system of the Xbox 360 and presumably the PS3.

Midsummer Night’s Virtual World
Interview with the Indiana University professor, Edward Castranova, who won a grant to create, “Arden: The World of Shakespeare,” online game. The idea behind the game is to create a virtual petri dish to study virtual worlds. Castranova wrote the book Synthetic Worlds last year and is the head of IU’s Synthetic Worlds Initiative. This doesn’t sound like the next WoW, but the study should be interesting.

Turning Social Networks into Dollars
CNET talks today about how social networks are devising ways to make money from their users through targeted advertising.

Mac LightScribe Software
So, unfortunately, if you already own one of these drives, it doesn’t look like this will help, but LaCie has created the first software to create LightScribe discs on the Mac. LightScribe, is a technology for CD burners that can burn an image on the top of discs that you burn. Pretty cool stuff and finally available for the Mac.

PopSugar gets $5mm in funding from Sequoia
Blog network for “young, hip women” got a nice kitty from the folks at Sequoia. It looks like PopSugar’s main site has been growing a fair clip on their main blog (see graphic) and are doing a bit more than just blogging with a little bit of social networking thrown in. With women marrying and having kids later in life, this is a strong demographic that is under-served on the net.

UndoTV launches…kinda

Looks like Chris Pirillo and Leo Laporte are getting the band back together for one more show…or an online revival of the TechTV gang of old. The site also looks to be a hub for getting other folks involved uploading their own reviews and tech related content. Looks interesting, although, this could just be a channel on YouTube, so I’ll be curious to see how they differentiate the product.

Tailrank 2.0
New features detailed in the Tailrank blog, but here are the highlights: archives added, Entertainment category added, and the ability to expand and contract whole stories. Great upgrade for an invaluable service.

CNET and Reuters in Second Life
More services for the quickly growing virtual world. 900k members? Didn’t they just have 300k back in June? Wow.

Joining the Party, Eager to Make Friends
NYTimes reports on social media marketing by big brands.
[via Tailrank]

Taxing virtual worlds
So, do you think the IRS will set up a bureau in Second Life? [via Slashdot.org]

Berkeley and Google Video team up
Not content to get your lectures via podcast? Now you can watch your prof’s give lectures on Google (as well as talks, symposiums and more). I wonder what this does to attendance?
[via eContent

Two thumbs down for Amazon Unbox
Wow... so I never did my review of the service (actually, I never downloaded a movie), but this review pretty much seal's the deal. Old time computer smarty pants Peter Lewis gave Amazon's Unbox service a pretty scathing review in Fortune magazine. His 5 hour download experience alone makes you want to run to bit torrent. I wonder if their update has helped?
[via Paul Stamatiou]

iTunes sharing skills
Playlist magazine has some good tips on managing the sharing aspects of iTunes.

iTunes updated to 7.01
Fixes a whole bunch of stuff. Go get it.

Social Bookmarking Faceoff
Our friends over at RRW give us the skinny on social bookmarking in handy chart format. Summary – del.icio.us and StumbleUpon win the most users contest.

Why every startup should have a blog
Getting feedback, investors and partners top the list. I talked about other ways to market your small business a couple of weeks ago here.

Zillow adds community features
Zillow, that oh-so-web2.0 info porn real estate site, announced they are letting homeowners share improvements with the world. Zillow has been criticized for having wildly innaccurate estimates for property value, theoretically, this will help increase their accuracy.

Build your own Atlas Gloves
Here’s a bit of extreme nerdery, but I’ve got a keen interest in alternative interfaces. Link contains instruction about how to make LED gloves that create an alternative interface to Google Earth. I’ve not tested these gloves, but look like a great weekend project.

YouTube, Warner Music in ad share agreement
Warner Music will provide it’s entire music video catalog for YouTube users to remix and reuse. Warner will get a cut of all advertising associated with their videos and their derivative works. Sadly, for users, they get nil for there efforts. PaidContent postulates that this is the model for deals going forward. Still, this is a step in the right direction.

24% of Gen Y reads blogs
Hmmmm… I think their might be something to this whole blogging thing. Marketers take note. [via MicroPersuasion]

Zune gets announced
Mostly stuff folks already knew, but it’s official – “WiFi, 30GB of HDD, built-in FM, a 3-inch screen and the basic music, pictures and video playback.” No word on price or street date. I’m digging the interface and the brown, but man-oh-man, why doesn’t anyone do 16×9?

How Odeo screwed up
Straight outta the “Future of Web Apps” conference, Om details Odeo’s CEO, Ev Williams, on how they have screwed up by not following their own rules. Words to live by if you are in the web startup game.

High on Vapor Fumes
Can I just mention how much I love John Gruber? His latest diatribe focuses on the Zune. (I still like the brown player)

CNET’s Alpha Blog
Normally, I link to new sites or news bits here, but I gotta tell you, CNET’s Alpha Blog is pretty cool and arguably one of the best unsung tech blogs out there.

My one beef – CNET, for god’s sake, give me a full feed. You can put ads in it, just don’t make me come to the site every day. I’d love to read you, but you’re only getting my attention weekly at best.

Skype 2.0 beta available for the Mac
I can finally use video Skype with all my PC pals. I knew the MacBook camera would come in handy for more than making goofy faces via iChat.

Zune launching tomorrow
The battle for your pocket (and pocketbook) is on!

Web Geeks show off new tools
Future of Web Apps conference started today.

What is pretexting?
I’ve only kinda sorta followed the whole HP fiasco, but here is Valleywag’s explanation of what the hell pretexting is.

New Influencers
Draft chapters of the new book Paul Gillin about blogging and the influence it has in the world. Paul wrote the book to “help marketers understand the changes that social media are creating in influence patterns in their customer base.” [via MicroPersuasion]

Apple Rumor Roundup Roundup
It’s “Showtime” for something from Apple tomorrow. Here’s a list of the prognosticators:

Wired Blogs – Wired has collected a brilliant set of mockups
TechCrunch
TUAW
Gizmodo
MacRumors
ThinkSecret
The Apple Core

Amazon Unbox beats Apple to the punch
Launched yesterday with Amazon front page hoopla. Now, all they need is a device that integrates well with the service. I’m planning a review of the service over the weekend.

TextExpander Review
Productivity guru and Mac nut, Merlin Mann’s review of this great productivity tool. Now, if I could just get some work done rather than goofing off with productivity tools.

RC of Parallels available
Now works with the Mac Pro and if you are super cutting edge both Leopard and Vista. This product gets better with every release. Great job, Parallels team!

Original Signal:Gadgets
In a hurry, but need a quick gadget fix. The guys at Original Signal are at it again with their gadget feed page. They offer up all the latest feeds from gadget blogs on the web in a convenient one page website.

How to be a Net video hit
SF Comical..err… Chronicle documents how to become a net star. Apparently, all you need is a cell phone.

Learning from your referrers
Pronet documents how to use web metrics to get to know your audience. Two words – Google Analytics. Seriously tho, stats are the name of the game if you are trying to build an audience.

Six Apart acquires Rojo
Six Apart adds to their arsenal an RSS aggregator and search engine. Haven’t used Rojo since an early beta and it seemed to only be designed for the uber-RSS geek, wonder if it changed?

Page views are obsolete
Some good analysis as to why page views aren’t the best measurement anymore due to Ajax, RSS and Widgets. Interesting read, but no real suggestions for alternatives.

YouTube directors ready for post production
These kids today and their “unedited” and “uncut” videos. They grow up so fast, treasure every moment.

Guba thinks money grows on trees
Last week they offered $.99 rentals and yesterday they announced an affiliate program. At $.25 for a new member, this program can’t last long.

Apple’s having a bad week…

Apple settles with Creative for $100mm
I’ve got no real opinion on this other than, it sucks for Apple to lose a UI/Look and Feel case twice, once for each side. Oy. Of course, I’d take Apple’s market share minus $100 million in cash any day.

Apple recalls 1.8 million laptop batteries
2nd largest battery recall in history. Sometimes lesser market share isn’t such a bad thing. God, I hope Sony is paying for all this. Apple Recall Page

AOL to offer pay video downloads
No big shocks here, but this space is getting crowded. Movie downloads will be priced between the now standard $10 and $20 marks. I think I need to do a roundup of these services real soon now.

Don’t Download This Song
Weird Al encourages file sharing with sarcasm. Ok, I know he’s done, but sometimes, you gotta love Weird Al.