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I love Souza’s deeply personal style of photography. I have no doubt he’d take similar photos of every other president – regardless of your feelings towards any of them, they are human beings after all – but there’s something just a touch more poignant about the shots he’s shown us of President Obama.

Everyone should have a copy of GraphicConverter on their Mac. It not only can open an incredible array of file formats, it has a feature set useful to many users of all skill levels. It’s a bonus that you’d be supporting a small Mac developer who has been around and creating great software for a very, very long time.

If William Gibson wrote a phone book, I’d read it from cover to cover. His is a seminal voice in fiction and someone who’s work I devour whenever he has anything published. This will be no exception.

Us old timers remember QT VR and how cool it was for its time. Sadly, another “cool” technology Apple either killed off or let die on the vine.

“Wipes the floor” remains to be proven and we’ll likely see something announced at WWDC in a couple of weeks but this article points out that Apple develops “in private” for the most part. Those who doubt Apple’s AI efforts seem to forget that fact.

If you or someone you know wants a beginner DLSR, you can’t go too far wrong with many of the cameras on this list. The important thing is to not assume the camera automatically takes good pictures. That’s the responsibility of the photographer. Learn how to shoot, learn how to use your camera and practice, practice, practice. That’s how you become a better photographer.

You know that old cliche you’ve heard about having to “walk to school in the snow, 5 miles uphill both ways…”? Next time you hear that, point the speaker to these kids. He’ll shut up quick.

Calling these “Ninja tips” is silly but there’s a lot of good info in this video. Next time you go out shooting, pick one or two of them and focus on getting that particular shot.

Zombie did a great job with this classic song.

Jawbone has three major fitness trackers: The UP2, UP3, and UP4. The company has struggled to sell the devices and was forced to offload them at a discount to a reseller in order to get the revenue it needed to keep the business going, according to the source.

The report also notes that Jawbone is trying to sell its speaker business, as well.

I really like cuckoo clocks and grandfather clocks. Always have.

Now 200 million of you are using Google Photos each month. We’ve delivered more than 1.6 billion animations, collages and movies, among other things. You’ve collectively freed up 13.7 petabytes of storage on your devices—it would take 424 years to swipe through that many photos! We’ve also applied 2 trillion labels, and 24 million of those have been for … selfies.

Google put together some of their favorite tips for using the service.

“I was trying to buy an AirPort Extreme today from the Beverly Hills Apple Store and an employee told me that Apple had asked for all of them back from all the stores,” wrote one anonymous tipster.

To verify the tipster’s claim, we contacted an Apple support representative who confirmed that Apple has pulled AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule stock from all U.S. stores. The base stations remain available to order online, while it appears the smaller AirPort Express can still be purchased both online and in stores at present time.

As noted in the story, it could be new FCC guidelines.

Talk about a blatant ripoff of the iPhone. I really do hate Samsung.

Shudder. This is a story to which I can definitely relate. That moment when you are forced to surrender your phone, your wallet, your computer, then hope that all your goods are there when you go to retrieve them after the security scan.

Two top Twitter executives — Jana Messerschmidt, the head of business development, and Nathan Hubbard, head of media and commerce — are planning to leave the company, according to multiple sources familiar with their plans.

Life as a Twitter exec seems short.

A company that persuaded a Texas jury to award $625 million against Apple for patent infringement is asking for more. It asked a judge on Wednesday to order Apple to shut down its popular FaceTime and iMessage features while the case goes to appeal.

I hate patent trolls. Something has to be done with these organizations.

The jury unanimously upheld claims by Google that its use of Oracle’s Java development platform was protected under the fair-use provision of copyright law, bringing trial to a close without Oracle winning any of the $9 billion in damages it requested.

I really wasn’t sure how this would go.

iTunes and services chief Eddy Cue proposed the idea of Apple bidding on media conglomerate Time Warner at the end of last year, according to the FT.

I’m not really surprised by this. Apple is looking for ways to enter a tight market, perhaps a purchase would be the right way to go. By the sound of the story, it was only a suggestion–Apple looks a lot of proposals, but they don’t pull the trigger on all of them.

The report also said:

The report adds that Apple plans to ramp up spending on original content to “several hundred million dollars a year” in order to better compete with rivals like Amazon and Netflix, both of which offer a growing number of exclusive TV series.

This also makes sense to me.

Messaging app Snapchat has raised $1.81 billion in funding, the company reported in a U.S. regulatory filing on Thursday, a sign that investor interest is strong despite concerns among some venture capitalists that the platform is struggling to attract advertisers.

Damn!

Interesting attitude. If I had a real job, I think I would appreciate this policy.

Someone please hand me a tissue. I think there’s something in my eye.

For some reason, elevators have always fascinated me. On the surface, they are just a box going up and down but there is so much science, engineering, technology, and sociology that goes on with that box.

The Hip are one of the greatest Canadian bands ever and the news that their lead singer, the charismatic Gord Downie, has terminal cancer, is a huge blow to Canadian music. I hope to be able to see The Hip on their last tour and show my appreciation for all the joy they’ve given me over the years.

There are a lot of Jazz albums that I really like—I’m a big Chet Baker fan, but I’m not a fan of the crazy, all over the place Jazz. This morning I got this new album of classic Rock songs done in Jazz–it’s amazing! Tony Miceli, Paul Jost, Kevin MacConnell, and Charlie Patierno do an incredible job with these songs.

John Marstall:

The approach involved creating the icon twice: once as a textured 3D model, and again as a stack of Photoshop shape layers. This seemed nuts — doing twice the work for the same result. Yet there are benefits. The freedom to scale up an icon indefinitely without rerendering is among them. But, more importantly, the Russian “double-drawn” method affords a much higher degree of control.

Pixelmator updated its image editor on Thursday with a smart Quick Selection tool, a Magnetic Selection tool, and a full set of retouching tools, among other things. There are also a host of improvements and bug fixes in the new version. Pixelmator also put together some new resources for users including: Pixelmator Retouch Extension Page, Magnetic Selection Video, and a New Pixelmator Tutorial Page.

This is one of my favorite apps.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) just released this report on aging technology still in mainstream use. The report is filled with horrifying examples of ancient tech driving US infrastructure. And controlling nukes!

I miss the lightning storms we had on a regular basis in Nashville when I lived there. It’s rare to get them here in the Vancouver area. This video of lightning shot at 7K frames per second shows us what the naked eye misses.

This is utterly brilliant and insane.