Aviary: Online Photoshop is no simpler

For a last couple of weeks I’ve been playing with Aviary, a new online image editor, in the hopes of adding more realistic wings to my headless profile picture. Alas, after two weeks of intermittent experimentation I’ve met with next to no success. It appears that putting a complex image editing application online does not in fact make it any easier to use.

Created by the folks at Worth 1000 LLC, instigators of reality bending contest like Mate Angelina Jolie, Evil Twins, Semi-precious Moments and Gender Bending, I expected something a bit more fun to use. I will either have to relearn my old Photoshop skills (which were marginal) or pay someone in Poland to do the work for me, because Aviary does nothing to make image editing easier. I know thats not how its being billed but it is what I was hoping for.

You know its a bad review when…

Way back in december when people still cared about the prospects of Microsoft’s Zune, I commented on a CNN product review gone horribly wrong. At the time I didnt think it could get worse. Well I’ve been proven wrong. Its seems our British friends are putting their more refined use of the english language to work not in the creation of prose but in the more rarefied art of product bashing.

While looking into new phones I came across this review of the Samsung E900 in the Guardian (an excellent alternative to the crappy US newspaper fare). The review starts off with some self-effacing hilarity, moves on to snarky commentary and then quickly blossoms into full out bashing. Anytime someone uses the words “twittering handheld crapstones” to refer to your product, its not a good thing. I’ll end my musings with this sample of what rant is truly supposed to be:

It is lumbered with a bewildering array of unnecessary “features” aimed at idiots, including a mode that scans each text message and turns some of the words into tiny ani-mations, so if someone texts to say they have just run over your child in their car, the word “car” is replaced by a wacky cartoon vehicle putt-putting onto the screen. There is also a crap built-in game in which you play a rabbit (“Step into the role of Bobby Carrot – the new star of cute, mind-cracking carrot action!”).

Zune Gets Blasted on CNN

I came across this YouTube clip on Spicy Gadget Roll of a Zune review on CNN. All I can say is OUCH! Its supposed to be one of those normal softball reviews TV networks are famous for and it starts off well enough but by the end Soledad has her iPod Shuffle out and they are debating the problems with MS design. Its too funny, you gotta watch it: