My background

Posted 25 October 2006

From late 2001 through November 2006, I was at Adobe Systems. I joined Adobe when it purchased Fotiva, a startup I cofounded two years earlier. My most recent work there was as director of a small research team that prototyped leading-edge features for future products and evaluated advanced imaging technologies for licensing. The features my team developed include the Flash photo gallery in Photoshop Elements 5 and Lightroom, the map view in Photoshop Elements 5, and the auto-stacking feature in that product. Other features remain in development, so I can’t disclose them.

Fotiva began as PhotoTablet, which I cofounded with Ken Rothmuller and Bernard Peuto to create a tablet-based appliance for digital photography. With venture funding from Stewart Alsop at New Enterprise Associates, we began developing the tablet in early 2000 but quickly switched to creating a PC application, PhotoJournal. Jim Heeger joined in early 2001 as CEO. At the end of 2001, we sold the company to Adobe, and PhotoJournal evolved into Photoshop Album, and then into the Organizer mode of Photoshop Elements.

For 12 years, from 1987 through 1999, I was a computer technology analyst, consultant, writer, publisher, and conference producer. I created the Microprocessor Report newsletter in 1987 and launched the Microprocessor Forum conference the following year. During the next decade, we added the Embedded Systems Report newsletter and PC Tech Forum and Embedded Processor Forum conferences.

Before starting Microprocessor Report, I was an independent consultant specializing in embedded microprocessor applications. I began my career as an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where I worked from 1977-1980.

I have always enjoyed writing. At Hewlett-Packard, back in 1978, I wrote a self-instructional text for technicians, titled Practical Microprocessors. While working as a consultant in the mid-80s, I wrote Microprocessor-Based Design, a textbook on embedded systems engineering. Between 1987 and 2000, I wrote hundreds of articles for Microprocessor Report, as well as for publications such as PC Magazine, EE Times, Electronic Business, and Nikkei Electronics Asia. (See Selected Writings.) More recently, I wrote books on how to make the most out of Photoshop Album (The Photoshop Album 2.0 Book) and Photoshop Elements (Organize Your Photos with Photoshop Elements 3).

My primary hobbies are photography and boating, which are combined in my web site, BoatingSF.com. You can more than 1,000 of my photos there. I’m currently shooting with a Canon 20D (and a Canon SD700 for casual shooting).