OK, that takes the cake! A reader makes a stupid (not criminal) comment on an article and, instead of simply deleting that comment, an editor goes overboard to track the IP address and eventually gets the author of the comment fired.

The editor probably thinks he’s a hero; he was pretty proud of what he accomplished.

That raises a number of questions:

• Why was the offending comment published if it was offensive? Don’t they have filters that automatically reject these type of offensive posts?
• Why not simply delete the comment? The problem with most blog software is that once you post a comment you cannot delete it, even if you immediately regret posting it. So, the correct reaction is to simply delete the comment.
• If the commenter is a repeat offender (because you went to the trouble to track his IP address — which is probably illegal, as far as privacy issues are concerned), then block the IP address.

Offensive comments and spam are a fact of life if you run a site. No need to go overboard in your reaction. That was real mean.

[ Read the article at: Gawker.com ]

[ via Strobist ]

If you are having trouble printing accurate colors using Photoshop CS4 on the Mac, it’s because there is some kind of issue with printing accurate targets for profiling printers.

[ via BJP ]

Read Paul Melcher’s interesting article over at: Black Star Rising

In a report published this week by the American Society of Media Photographers, they reveal that the terms of service (TOS) for Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter may allow these social media sites to strip the copyright data that you have painstakingly added to the photos that you post on these sites.

[ Read the full article at: PDNPulse ]

Lots of people now use Flickr pictures to illustrate articles and even digital photography tutorials (giving the false impression they know what they are talking about).

Now Toyota U.S.A. has apologized to Flickr photographers for using (about 40) Flickr images without their permission in its 4Runner SUV ad.

[ via PDNPulse ]

Bob Atkins has an interesting article on how he used a Canon 500mm telephoto lens and a 2x multiplier to take pictures of Jupiter and its moons. If you already have this lens, then you’ve got to read this article.

[ Read the article at: Bob Atkins ]

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV

In Chinese, the number 4 rhymes with “death” and therefore considered unlucky and generally avoided. That is why you might have a hard time selling your house with one or more “4″s in the street number to a traditional Chinese family. But this superstition has, as far as I am aware of, not extended to electronic products. Canon has no problem with naming its product with the digit “4″ in it, as in “Digic 4″ and now the “EOS 1D Mark IV [Specs].” In fact, Tsunemasa Ohara, senior general manager, Photo Products Group at Canon Inc. states categorically in a BJP interview, “We don’t think 4 is unlucky.”

No, but perhaps “7″ (considered a “good” number by some cultures) is, as in the “Ghosting phenomenon” in the EOS 7D [Specs]?

[ Read the article at: BJP ]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

The future is clearly compact digital cameras with large sensors, like the Panasonic GF1 [Specs], pictured above. But, the first generation of such digital cameras face some real technological challenges and many are wondering why. To find out, Dan Havlik, PDN’s Technology Specialist, talks to representatives from Sigma, Olympus and Leica to find out what is so tough about putting a large image sensor into a small camera body — and what they see for the future.

[ Read the full article at: PDNGearGuide ]

Interesting article at Luminous Landscape on “The Fallacy of Judging Image Quality Online.” The gist of the article is that too many people are trying to judge the quality of a camera by pixel peeping online versus evaluating the prints it can produce.

“Customer Service” is a dirty word for most businesses. Sometimes, the blame lies at the very top and permeates down the whole organization; at other times, it is just one cog in the wheel that is not well oiled.

Sean Cayton gives photographers three simple “golden” rules that will ensure that customers spread their names and businesses by word of mouth in “Three Rules for Earning Good Word of Mouth for Your Photography Business.”