I finally caved and got myself a new Iphone.  My P1i just didn't want to sync with my MacBook.  Yes, the Jalbum office is 100% apple except for a testing machine in the darkest corner of the office.

 One great thing about the Iphone is of course the Safari browser.  We're still waiting for Flash support of course, but I'm happy to tell you that many skins and even widgets work great on the Iphone.  There's even an IPhone Skin made by dminar.

Need some proof that widgets work on an IPhone? Here is most likely the worst photo ever posted on Jalbum zomed in to the widget bar along the bottom.  I was even able to post a comment using the commenting widget.  If any of you know of a good screen-grab app for Iphone I'd love to hear about it.  Got other IPhone ideas?  Post them here or in our forum!

Here goes nothing:

Jalbum user chero is sharing her fantastic trip to South Georgia, an Antarctic island. The trip starts from Mar del Plata on the coast of Argentina where you board the ship Ushuaia. The expedition lasts for 16 days and takes you to South Georgia, home of penguins, seals, sea elephants and other exotic animals.

"More than 50% of the island is buried under permanent snow and ice, with the highest peak reaching 2 934 meter. There are no trees, no permanent population, and the closest inhabited island are the Falkland Islands, 1 400 km to the west. To me, this remoteness makes it a paradise." says chero

The trip is presented in Chameleon blog mode which is perfect for displaying an experience like this. Visitors can easily follow each day of the journey, check out how it looks like.

If anyone is interested in this kind of trip, it's organized by German travel agency Colibri Hotels:
www.reiseberichte-welt.de
www.colibri-hotels.de

A few weeks ago we stumbled upon a CNET review of a new Desktop PC.  We were delighted to see that they are now using Jalbum as a testing standard to benchmark the performance of computers there!  It might be because we're free (the economy is tanking after all), or maybe because we're available on all major OS's (and even a few minor ones).  Whatever the reason, we're happy to be a new benchmark at CNET, and also one of their highest rated software downloads.

It also makes it easier for us to decide which new PC's we need to buy in the office!

FYI, the fastest way to make a Jalbum in their test of three low priced desktops is to get yourself an eMachines T3642.

Today skin developer alt released updates to all his immensely popular flash skins. The updates make these five skins compatible with the upcoming release of Jalbum 8.1 and Widgets. If you haven't tried these skins out, it's about time. I can garantee that you'll impress your friends! 

Skin: PostcardViewer

Skin: PageFlip

Skin: Autoviewer

Skin: TiltViewer

 This technique works very well with flowers in the late afternoon or early morning, when the sun is low in the sky. Set your lens aperture (f-stop) to the lowest number possible, which will give your image a shallow depth of field. Compose your photo so that the flowers or buds that are closest to your lens are the center of focus. Now shift your position so that the sun is just barely shining directly into the lens. Do not stare at the sun for too long, as it can do damage to your eyes.

After your photo is taken, you should see a beautiful "wash" of warm light throughout your image, as well as lens flare. In this instance, lens flare is an asset!

Thanks to professional photographer Mark Hemmings (www.markhemmings.com) for writing this photo tip.

Lots of photographers out there edit their images in some way before they show them off to the world.  There's certainly no shame in that!  Not everyone advertises the fact, however.

A search for "Photoshop" showed me that some people are proud of their Photoshop creations or manipulations and aren't afraid to admit it!

 Jalbum by Waltbros

Jalbum by Rosita

We're building a whole new help section for the site. The aim is to provide a help center that is easy to navigate so you can find answers to your Jalbum questions quickly. We are also putting together some video tutorials to go along with that. You'll see the first attempt below called "Publish your first Jalbum". It guides you through the steps to publish a Jalbum within 3 minutes. What do you think?

(The blog wouldn't allow me to embedd it, so it will open in a new browser window)

No, I'm not referring to bugs on our site (are there any?). Here are some Jalbums which bring us close to some spectacular, and sometimes scary bugs:

Jalbum by Konia2007

Jalbum by Kya

Jalbum by gertjan

Jalbum by jeromego

Jalbum by BittenByAZebra: "These are some images that I captured during election night 2008 in Times Square and Rockefeller Center."