Southern Photo has been Brevard's and Central Florida's camera store of choice for almost half a century. Founded in 1963, they have been selling cameras and gear to professionals, artists and hobbyists alike while providing the best service and knowledge to their customers. With a new clean, streamlined, well-organized, modern look to their website, Southern Photo hopes to extend their high level of service to the Internet. Check out the new site and see everything they have to offer by clicking here.

Grezaffi Orchids has been specializing in Cattleyas in Brevard County for neary 40 years and is continuing to increase its over 2000 personally developed hybrids. Many of the finest Species and Vintage Cattleya Hybrids have been used in the development of many fine Grezaffi Orchid Hybrids. When they wanted to create a web presence for their business, they chose karlfranz.com to come up with a design that would would be tasteful and classy. Check out their new website here.

Nikon has released firmware v.1.02 for its D300 Digital SLR. The D300 has two different sets of firmware, A and B. This download upgrades the A firmware to version 1.02 only. This firmware resolves an issue which, in rare cases, causes vertical bands to appear in images captured at shutter speeds slower than 8 seconds.
To confirm your cameras current firmware version, press the MENU button and select Firmware Version from the setup menu. The camera's firmware version will be displayed.

To download for Macintosh OS X, click here.
To download for Microsoft Windows, click here.

The Challenger Learning Center is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 educational organization offering an interactive simulated space science experience for students, public and corporate groups.
Each of the over 50 centers world-wide are chartered through the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, founded in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1986 by the families of the seven astronauts tragically lost during the STS 51-L Challenger space shuttle mission.
Through scheduled team missions, the Challenger Learning Center promotes leadership, communications, problem-solving and critical thinking skills while supporting our country's goals of improving science, math and technology education.
The Challenger Learning Center approached karlfranz.com because the were interested in creating a new, "high-tech", and modern website that better reflected their business and educational goals. To see the result of this redesign, click here.

Nikon today announced their first full-frame digital SLR, the new 12.1 megapixel D3. The D3 is all about speed and sensitivity, twelve megapixels on a big CMOS chip means large photosites (8.45 µm pitch to be precise) and that adds up to base sensitivity of ISO 200 to 6400 with an additional two stop boost over that (up to ISO 25600). The other side of the speed story (apart from blistering AF and shutter lag) is that the D3 can shoot at nine frames per second with AF tracking or eleven frames per second without. Other headline features are a newly branded EXPEED image processor, a new 51-point AF sensor, color AF tracking, dual CF compartments (with UDMA support), an amazing 3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor with Live View (including contrast detect auto-focus), HDMI video output and even a virtual horizon function which can tell you when you're holding the camera perfectly level. The D3 will be available in November, at around US$5000. Click the "Read More" link below to read the official Nikon Press Release. Read More...

Nikon announced the new DX format D300 which also features a 12 megapixel CMOS sensor, 14-bit A/D conversion, EXPEED image processor, sensitivity up to ISO 6400 (with boost), the new CAM3500DX AF sensor (51 point), HDMI video output, UDMA CF support and last but not least the super-impressive 3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor with Live View. No ordinary Live View either as this one supports Auto Focus in two ways; using the current "normal" mirror-drop / mirror-raise but also contrast detect in the same way as a compact camera (although slower). The D300 will be available in November, at around US$1800. Click the "Read More" link below to read the official Nikon Press Release. Read More...

Nikon announced today a pair of new professional AF-S lenses. The first is the AF-S 14-24 mm F2.8G ED which promises to offer a huge field of view on the new FX format D3 digital SLR. The lens is made up of fourteen elements in eleven groups, two of which are ED glass, three aspherical. There's also a "Nano Crystal Coat" which features in all the lenses announced today, it's designed to cut down internal reflection within the lens which can be a particular problem with the reflective surface of a digital SLR sensor. The other is the AF-S 24-70 mm F2.8G ED a new slimline (by F2.8 lens standards) lens which will provide wide to just beyond standard field of view on the D3. Both lenses will be available this November, no pricing is available yet. Click the "Read More" link below to read the official Nikon Press Release. Read More...

In an internal memo by Martin Eberhard, Tesla's CEO and co-founder, Eberhard announced he will step down as CEO after a four-year reign. Under Eberhard, Tesla has grown from 2 employees in one laction to 250 spread around the world. He will continue with the company in the role of President of Technology and will remain on Tesla's board of directors. In the new role, Eberhard will finalize the details of the upcoming Roadster and will continue to focus on Tesla's leadership in its core technology.

Michael Marks has been named interim CEO of Tesla until a permanent replacement is found. Marks is the former CEO of Flextronics, the world's largest contract manufacturing company, and also an early investor and customer of Tesla.

Eberhard also discussed the progress of the Roadster in his memo and said that it should be ready for production as early as next month. There has been a delay in production due to a change in the design of the transmission and its supplier, according to Automotive News.

The Roadster, based on the Lotus Elise, could be available to customers as early as November. Tesla is still awaiting the results of crash testing and the EPA's range validation, but claims the car can go from 0-60 in 4 seconds and has a range of more than 200 miles. Sold through factory-owned stores rather than franchised dealerships, Tesla hopes to sell 1,000 of the $98,000 Roadsters annually. 570 examples have already been pre-sold.

In addition to the Roadster, 35 Detroit engineers are also working on the Tesla electric sedan, code-named the White Star. Tesla has already purchased land in Albuquerque, New Mexico to build a White Star factory, although ground is yet to be broken according to Automotive News. Eberhard said he hopes to see the White Star in production by 2010 and that Tesla may issue initial public offering as early as next year to fund the construction of the new factory.

Proton, parent company of Lotus, has entered into an agreement with China's Jinhua Neoplan Vehicle Co. that will see the Lotus Europa built in China. Production for the Europa will be at Jinhua Neoplan's plant in Jinan, China.

According to the China Daily, the two companies are also working together on producing a four-door sedan. Until now, Jinhua Neoplan had only been producing buses, but plans on producing 150,000 cars annually for the Chinese market as well as export.

Apple today unveiled an all new all-in-one iMac line featuring 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays encased in professional aluminum and glass enclosures. The entire new iMac line features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a new, ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing and iLife '08. The new ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard is just 0.33 inches thin at its front edge. A new optional Apple Wireless Keyboard is a compact design that, with Apple's wireless Mighty Mouse, offers a cable-free desktop. The 20-inch iMac now starts at US$1,199, $300 less than the previous 20-inch model, and the 24-inch iMac starts at $1,799, $200 less than the previous 24-inch model.

Apple also updated its Mac Mini line computers. The entire line now features Intel Core 2 Duo processors. The $799 model includes a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, SuperDrive and a 120GB hard drive. The $599 model includes a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, Combo Drive and a 80GB hard drive. Both models are available immediately from the Apple Store.

karlfranz.com is proud to announce its latest client: Accurate Logic.

Accurate Logic provides consulting, custom software solutions, and standard products for many industrial automation applications. With a comprehensive knowledge of various PLCs, robotics, vision systems, barcode readers, and labelers, they can design a solution to suit your particular needs. Please visit their new website at www.accuratelogic.com.

Apple has now joined the exclusive ranks of Sun, IBM, and HP as one of (now only) four companies to obtain the UNIX 03 certification. This means that, with the new OS, Apple has transitioned OS X from being a UNIX-based operating system to actually being the first real official consumer desktop version of UNIX. The certification is actually quite important for Apple and for the OS. The UNIX 03 certification means that Leopard conforms to the Single UNIX Specification Version 3 (SUS), a specification for how things like the shell, compiler, C APIs, and so on should work. This is important for Apple in the enterprise market as it allows its applications to be simply recompiled to run on other RISC-based processors and vice-versa. This makes it easier for companies to transition to Apple's XServe server hardware.

Early sales estimates are in and they are very impressive. According to market research firm Piper Jaffray, Apple sold about 500,000 iPhones from 6 p.m. on Friday through end of business Sunday night—300,000 more than the market research firm originally estimated the company would sell.

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster also revealed that ninety-five percent of buyers in San Francisco, New York and Minneapolis purchased the 8GB model. Also, about half of the 253 buyers surveyed were new customers to AT&T.

Business is good at Apple. Actually, it's fantastic. In its quarterly financial conference call with members of the media and analysts, Apple revealed that Q207 has been the most profitable in the company's history.

Apple's Mac Business
In total, Apple shipped 1.517 million Macs during the quarter, representing 36 percent yearly growth. This included 891,000 notebooks and 626,000 desktop systems.

Demand for MacBooks and MacBook Pros during the quarter was exceptional. Notebook sales grew 79 percent year-over-year and accounted for 59 Percent of Macs sold during the quarter. Notebook sales generated $1.354 billion in revenue.

Desktop sales accounted for about 40 percent of the Macs sold during the quarter, rising only slightly from the year-ago quarter in which Apple sold 614,000 units. Desktops accounted for $914 million of quarterly revenue. Read More...

Apple on Wednesday reported a $770 million profit for the fiscal 2007 second quarter on $5.26 billion in revenue. The profit worked out to $.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $4.36 billion and net quarterly profit of $410 million, or $.47 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

The company shipped 1,517,000 Macs and 10,549,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 43 percent of the quarter’s revenue, according to Apple.

“The Mac is clearly gaining market share, with sales growing 36 percent — more than three times the industry growth rate,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in a prepared statement.