I was able to get an invite to the Office 2010 Technical Preview. I’ve installed it on a few machines now, and it’s quite slick. I use Outlook everyday quite frequently and although it’s crashed on me a few times it still seems to work pretty well.

The Microsoft Office Communications Server features all seem to work pretty well and I can see presence easily enough and am able to use the nice menus above names to Send Email, IM and so forth.

There are some nice additions to Outlook that I think were a long time coming like; an easy view for how full your mailbox is, nice calendar preview on meetings requests sent to you and and more.

Here are two screen shots to show Outlook 2010. The rest of Office hasn’t changed a ton that I’ve seen so far, but I’m just getting started with it.

Showing the basic layout with new ribbons that Office 2k7 had for everything but Outlook.

Ribbons and Inbox Shot.

Showing the neat Mailbox size indicator:

Mailbox size and more

I’ve been using Windows 7 now for a little while. It’s been pretty solid and I don’t have many complaints. I never let my desktop stay to standard for long so I decided to share with you my customized Windows 7 desktop. Which includes several graphic elements such as a custom designed wallpaper by me, custom colored 10 Ft HUD layout along with some color changed addons for RainMeter, and finally a color modified version of my Rockwell Text Icon pack. I have also included my Windows7 Theme for those using Windows7.

I hope you enjoy the different items in my desktop and can find some use for them.

Download here: WoodMess Pixel Junky Theme.

Please let me know what you think!

I was reading online an found this nice article I thought I’d share about tips for photography. Check it out over on Blissfully Domestic: http://blissfullydomestic.com/photo-bliss/eight-photography-tips-youll-love/

Since I recently came across the situation myself I thought I’d share with you a simple and easy solution for those of you using Ubuntu.

If you’ve recently had a need to convert downloaded FLV files to MP3s for use on an Audio CD or other situation you can easily accomplish this on Ubuntu. Simply open up a terminal windows and type: sude apt-get install -y soundconverter

Once soundconverter is installed, you can either just type soundconverter& at the terminal window or find it under the Main Menu Audio/Video and Sound Converter. It’s a great little tool that you can use to Add your FLV files to the application and choose your settings that you want to export as. Its that simple!

Hopefully this helps you out!

Randomly creating things with no purpose is what I seem to do now and again, and today was no exception. I came up with a promotion poster for a DJ or really any type of night club in just about a half hours time.

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As a photographer I have several different lenses in my bag at all times. Each lens has it’s own benefit and down fall. Wide angle lenses, great for getting in large groups, not so good for zooming in at distances. Each lens is unique to its purpose for the most part with a few lenses that serve as good general purpose lenses. In this article I will attempt to break down the different types of lenses every photographer should have in their arsenal. This goes for Studio Photographers and those who primarily shoot on site.

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Since this blog is about all things tech and design, I thought I’d take a minute to share my favorite online streaming site. I was introduced to IMEEM buy a good friend of mine over at www.GreenTeamTek.com Owner and founder of GTT Gabe Davis.  Gabe is a great guy and if you need a website you should checkout his compnay site!

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Yet another ThePixelJunky.net Wallpaper for your desktop.

1680×1050 Resolution for Widescreen Displays!

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The overhaul I think is now to the point where I want it for now. I am still having difficulties adding a side colum to this template, but that’s probably just cause Im horrible at CSS.

The theme for ThePixelJunky.net is based of the theme by Arcsin named GrungeSuperstar. I have modified it a bit from it’s original form as you can tell from the photo below of the original theme design.

If anyone has any tips on adding the column, please let me know!

In any case, I hope you like the new ThePixelJunky.net.

Thanks!

Rob Higareda

Over a year ago, my wife and I photographed a beautiful young couple on their wedding day. It was a bit rainy that day but still a gorgeous day. The couple had an amazing wedding and we were happy to be able to capture it

Fast forward a year or so,  and the  beautiful bride is now opening her own Photography and Design studio! How exciting! I am not one for being concerned with competition, my design and photography are secondary for me, they are a love and passion of mine but if someone new is coming into the market I am more than willing to offer my assistance as much as I can.  To me that’s what the love of photography and design should be about, sharing and growing as a  community, not butting heads and being a nasty competitor. So when I head Mrs. Ali Althoff was starting her own Photography and Design business I was eager to help spread the word, so here I am. With my limited readership hoping to help her out as much as I can.

Ali Althoff Photography and Design is based in Dubuque Iowa. Located at 805 Century Drive in the Lower Level. Ali will be offering a full line of photography service and some design services as well. The shop will be open for business on the 20th of January 2009 and from there on out will be open from 10-6 Tuesdays and Fridays, and Saturday 10-2. You can check her out on the web at www.alialthoff.com (Official website still in the works!)

Below you can see just a limited example of her photography works. Make sure to check her out online and if you have Facebook you can also see her sample works there currently at the Ali Althoff Photography and Design Page. Ali has a great eye and I’m sure will continue to grow and impress all of her customers.

Quick Sample of a Christmas Card Layout:

Here’s the run down one last time:

Ali Althoff Photography and Design

Apparently at CES they have announced that in 2009 they should be releasing up to terabyte memory cards for camera and get this Micro SD cards for Cell phones.

Check out more about this breakthrough at engadget!
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/sdxc-memory-cards-promise-2tb-of-storage-300mbps-transfer/

Looks like we need a bit of an overhaul now that WordPress 2.7 is live. Ill hopefully have a new design up here in the next week or two!

Adobe Lightroom is an incredibly powerful piece of software for editing your RAW image files. You can even use Lightroom to enhance JPG’s if you don’t have the RAW files anymore.
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I’m proud to bring you Wallpaper number 2 in the PixelJunky Wallpaper collection. This one is quite a simple setup of a wallpaper and should help for the minimalistic wallpaper lovers.

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I’ve always wanted to design my own tshirts, but have never been able to find a place online that will print them in a way that would make the shirts look professional in the end.

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