1. Michael’s moon shots are SPECTACULAR! I love the whole gallery! Michael is understated about his photography on the show. These are incredible. I just love them.

2. I agree completely with Adam B (above) about cccleaner. I hear all kinds of whining about windows pc’s. I have had mine for 2.5 years without one slow down. But I keep it clean with cccleaner and a couple of other products. I think if folks load all kinds of gunk all the time without cleaning on a regluar basis, a machine is bound to lose some luster. I second Adam B’s comments about windows.

Use a FREE application called Ccleaner that will sort this problem out, and generally keep you computer tidy.
http://www.ccleaner.com/

With a little care Windows will run fast, fine and problem free. Not saying there isn’t a lot of room for improvement, but its not as bad a Macophiles like to make out

Although I work in linux, I don’t play much with it. By that, I don’t use a linux for home or image editing. There was a point when I wanted to go that route. At that time Photoshop did not work well with Wine (WINdows Emulator for Linux). Now it seems like there is a lot posted about getting CS2 to work with Wine (just search with google for cs2 and wine). I have been content using CS2 with OS X so I haven’t looked into in a long time.

By the time GIMP2 was released, I was well enough invested in CS2 that I did not want to invest the time with GIMP. That being said, I have heard many good things about it. There is also a mod out there which makes it look and feel a lot like Photoshop.

For those who are unaware, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free image editing program. GIMP runs on Windows, OS X, as well as Linux. It can be downloaded at: http://www.gimp.org/

–Michael

Mark

Congrats on scoring Alien Skin as a sponsor! I”m downloading Exposure right now … looking forward to checking it out.

I also appreciate the continuing series of excellent interviews on your podcast.

You guys asked for tripod suggestions. I’ve been using a Manfrotto 055MF3 magfiber tripod with a Markins M10 ballhead and have been pleased with the combo. The Manfrotto is, in my opinion, one of the best ‘bang for the buck’ tripods out there. Plus, the Manfrotto legs have snap-releases, which I find much easier to use than the twist-releases found on many other tripods. I know that Markins has recently released a smaller ballhead than the M10, I don’t know anything about it, but if it’s anything like the M10, I’m sure it’s a quality product, and it’ll be cheaper than the M10, which is a bit pricey. The reality with tripods is that to get a quality solution is probably going to cost you $700 or more.

Keep up the good work.

-Steve

Congrats on getting Alien Skin as a sponsor … what a great company to have on board. I love thier products, I’ve been a customer of thiers for a long, long time … I guess I better get Exposure and give it a try.