Skydiving (or parachute jumping, if you prefer) is freaking cool! And it’s one of these activities that look quite scary from the outside. But just like regular diving, it turns out to be different and much easier when experienced first hand.

The feeling is amazing. But I won’t kid you — when you stand on the edge of the plane, 4000 meters high, you start having some second thoughts But there’s that friendly guy behind you, pushing you out before you have a chance to rethink your situation. And then it’s pure adrenaline rush.

First part of the jump is free fall. You’re quickly gaining speed, settling somewhere above 200 km/h. Which makes your body freak out. And the skin on your face flaps like it was going to fall off. Just try sticking your head out of the car driving at similar speed and you’ll see what I mean.

The first few seconds of the fall are weird. It’s such a new experience, you don’t know what’s going on. But after that your body adjust and you start enjoying the ride. After about 50-60 seconds a chute goes off and everything slows down. Then you have about 5 more minutes of dangling your feet in the air and playing with chute strings, making it spin around.

Anyway, it’s a lot of fun and, just like diving, it really is safe. Try it!

And check out the photo gallery.

Here’s something for you, camera junkies. I might be late to the party, but I’m shooting RAW-only nowadays and it’s a blast! On several occasions I’ve managed to rescue photos that seemed beyond all hope. I never thought RAW stores so much extra data over what’s visible. Cool

If you’re on RAW diet too do check out Adobe’s Lightroom. It’s probably the most complete package for managing your photos. Perfect for sorting through thousands of shots and great for editing them. Version 2 just came out recently and it looks even more promising.

I also tried:

• ACD See Pro 2.0 - quite nice, but slow (lot of disk trashing, slow rendering of RAW files) and, what’s worst, its Canon profiles were very poor and it gave all photos a weird, yellowish and overexposed treatment
• Canon’s own Digital Photo Professional 3.4.1 - as expected here the colors were correct but it was too clunky and lacking in many areas
• Capture One 4.1 - very good software, close to Lightroom’s quality. What annoyed me:
  • weird sharpness applied to photos which I weren’t able to tame
  • same thing with a blueish tinting
  • leaving temp and data files in every directory it touches, aargh!

There’s one more software a friend told me about - DxO Optics Pro. It’s supposed to be a little miracle worker. It recognizes your camera, lenses and photo parameters and then does the best job to automatically improve the picture. It sounds almost too good to be true. And the noise filtering results I saw were impressive. I need to check out this one too, soon.

Photos from our vacation in Paris are up! It was a great trip and it looks like 10 days (well, 8 since first and last one were spent travelling) is more than enough to enjoy most of the city’s best.

Several tips for your visit:

• Norwegian airlines offer cheap and solid flights, at least from Poland
• Late June is excellent time to visit Paris - the weather is good and the city is not as crowded as in July/August
• To avoid waiting in lines at Orsay Museum or Louvre (and several others too) make a good use of Paris Museum Pass
• Visit Disneyland, you’ll have a perfect time (check out my photos). Make sure to schedule a full day for this. Buy your ticket at least a day earlier in Disney store on Champs Elysees and get to the Disneyland right when they open. Attack best and most crowded rides first (Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain), before lines start to build up. Read more tips in this excellent guide.
• Montmartre is the most charming part of Paris. With it’s architecture, narrow streets and hundreds of coffee shops and restaurants it’s as close to the Paris dream as it gets. Get your hotel there. My recommended location is anywhere in the area between Place Blanche and Sacre Coeur. Check Booking.com for good hotel offers. I stayed in Comfort Hotel Place du Tertre and Hotel Du Moulin and recommend them both. Good prices, perfect location.
• Climbing stairs at Eiffel Tower is not as hard as it may seem. It only takes several minutes to reach the first level, where you can rest as much as you want, and similar time to get to the second. From there you have to take the elevator to the top.
• Gardens in Paris are usually closed at 20:00 (8PM). When you hear someone blowing the whistle it usually means that they’re closing and you should be heading to the nearest exit. Yeah, I learned this lesson the hard way

I’m posting a gallery of my April’s diving trip. Just like previous times, we spent a week on Sharky boat, travelling from Hurghada to Marsa Alam. The weather was stormy and we lost one day of diving because of that, but at least we didn’t go down, like our neighbors, which is always good

This time I caught few photos of landscape near Marsa Alam plus several nice shots of local people we met on our return drive to Hurghada.

Also, underwater photos are all by Piotr Kedzia, our diving instructor. His camera is much better than mine, so I decided to use his pictures instead.

Enjoy the gallery here

While I’m on a roll, here’s another batch of photos! Taken last Sunday, when we were goofing around in Lazienki Park in Warsaw. It was the first decently sunny day this spring so it begged for some camera action. Take a look.

Here’s a batch of shots from another Red Sea diving safari that happened last December. Truth be told, the reefs were not as spectacular as on June’s trip but it was cool to finally be able to explore a bunch of sunken ships. Constricted space inside wrecks can be a bit challenging but the experience is amazing.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any shots from inside the wrecks. It was too dark so I didn’t even bother with the camera. Maybe next time. But I did catch some photos of Hurghada instead

Check out the gallery

It’s official! Orchid Games is a new name for my casual game development studio, which operated under a “temporary” label since september 2004. A new website with complete info about games we worked on just launched. Check it out at www.orchidgames.com

Kind of old news, but Super Granny 4 is out! It was released by the end of last year and I just added it to my games list. Well, that’s one more notch. With several more coming

I’ve finally managed to sort through and make a selection of photos from a diving safari back in June 2007. The goal was to reach southern parts of the Red Sea. We flew to Hurghada airport and then took a ride to Marsa Alam. Sharky boat was waiting there to pick us up for a week of diving, eating and blissful idleness.

Water was quite rough at times and after few days the waves were making me sick. I don’t miss that feeling, but spectacular reefs made up for that! Underwater caverns of Shaab Claudia were especially amazing. Malahi was also worth waiting for. And on the last day we had a special treat. Our guide (and boat owner - Nasser) spotted a bunch of dolphins swimming nearby and brought us right in the middle of them. I must tell you, it really is breathtaking to be among 40 or so of these bastards, squeaking and playing around you at arm length. I wish I had a camera then

Yeah, it was a great trip. Enjoy the photos and I’ll post more from a December’s wreck safari soon.

I recommend this interview by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. You’ll be treated to a rare chance of seeing Jobs and Gates sitting together, chatting about their past and future. The direct link leads to selected highlights, but it’s best to view the whole thing (you’ll find a list of 8 parts on that page).

Obviously these are both extremely bright and intelligent guys. And Bill, contrary to his common, media image, seems like a nice and friendly person. But what jumped out on me is the difference in how they speak their mind.

Steve just loves these lush, vivid stories and descriptions. He uses simple, carefully chosen words. And he prefers human, emotionally loaded expressions. Overall the impression he leaves is one of warmth and clarity.

Bill on the other hand speaks rather bland, with a mix of technical and business language. It’s valid and I have no doubt he can communicate his ideas effectively, but it doesn’t grab your attention as much. Certainly he speaks more to the head, while Steve goes straight for the heart.

I also think there was something about the way they use their voices. Steve seemed to me much easier to follow. If this was a printed word I guess he would be using much more spacing and shorter paragraphs than Bill Again, leading to more clarity.

You’ll find another perfect example of the differences in their presentation styles on the Presentation Zen blog. It’s a great article, highly recommended.