Hello everyone and hope y’all had a terrific Saturday. We didn’t have a shoot scheduled today so that allowed us to catch up a bit from traveling the past three weekends in a row. Woke up bright and early today and quickly hop on the computer to catch up on some news and my rss feeds. After that, took the family out for breakfast before returning home to get work done. Was able to catch a few minutes of the US Open to watch Tiger finish off his day with some spectacular putting. The exciting news this year is that the US Open is being held at the Torrey Pines golf course here in sunny San Diego. Or at least it was sunny were I was today. June gloom was in full effect along the coast for most of the day, casting a marine layer that blanket the courses at Torrey Pines. However the sun did come out towards the end of the day, giving the tournament players a spectacular view of the setting sun. Speaking of setting sun, here is an image from Emily and Russell’s engagement we did last weekend.  We caught the golden rays of the sun as it begins to set, illuminating this patch of Lavenders with just creamy, soft and delicious lighting. Check back tomorrow for the rest of this series. We got some fantastics shots and can not wait to share with you all.

 I think most of us are always looking for ways to work smarter and more efficiently. Since I am traveling more often for destination weddings, I wanted an automated way to check in to my flights 24hrs ahead. With that in mind, I came across this site that allows you enter your name and confirmation number and the web program will automatically check you in on these airlines: United, American, Continental and Delta. Even though some of these airlines have assigned seating, getting checked in first before everyone else can get you first dibs on first class upgrades or assure that you board first and are guaranteed overhead luggage space. CheckinSooner is free for guest users and will email the confirmation printout to your inbox. Or you can simply get a duplicate printout at the kiosk in the airport.    I do realize that the one airline that can benefit the most from this service is mysteriously absent from this list. I think Southwest’s lawyers have been sending cease and desist letters to websites offering this service and is the reason why they are absent from this list. CheckIn4Me is one such service that is looking into the legalities of offering this service for Southwest travelers.  Please share with us if you have any other tips or tricks on airline travels.

It’s Monday and Apple’s developer’s conference begins this week with the traditional Steve Job’s keynote. The most anticipated announcement is the sucessor to the last years most hyped and Time magazine’s “Invention of the Year.” The new iPhone 3G features faster internet speed, a hardware based GPS and version 2.0 of the iPhone software all at a $199 price point.

Here at DavidHam, we are pretty demanding of our gadgets and gear. And though the iPhone in it’s current incarnation does have it’s shortcoming , there is no doubt that it is a very useful business tool that allows us to stay abreast of news and important communication while on the go. With the release of the SDK that allows third party developers the opportunity to create feature rich application to extend the capabilities of the iPhone even further, it will definitely make this communications device even better. July 11th can’t get here soon enough!!! That is when the new iPhone 3G is available for sale here in the US. Are you guys gonna buy one?

In other news…I’ve just got back today from an awesome engagement session in the bay area and can’t wait to share that with you guys. Plus other things that have kept me really busy in the last month. Traveling puts us a day or two behind and it adds up when you’ve been traveling back to back the last 3 weeks. At least there’s only remnants of the flu remaining in my body. :D

***update: news today shows that the announce price is already subsidized and that all iPhone purchase must be activated instore on a qualified 2yr AT&T plan. Furthermore, they increased the unlimited data plan for the 3G iPhone from $20/mo to $30/mo. I don’t think this is very good news for iPhone fans and certainly not good news for current iPhone users who want to upgrade to the new 3G device. :(