SmugMug’s Craig Meakin downs a 7×7 for Windows 7 by Chris MacAskill

First, let me preface this by saying this is a great way to kill yourself, and that I rarely eat meat or cheese, let alone 7 patties and 7 slices.  Please go read this book and this one if you’d like to know how I stay skinny, healthy, cancer- and heart-disease free.  Except when Windows 7 isn’t driving our company mentally insane.

So our Windows 7 copies arrived today, and some moron (my brother) decided that SmugMug needed to have a Windows 7 launch party like everyone else in the world.  Except unlike everyone else in the world, we needed to eat 7×7s at In-N-Out Burger.  (Yes, that’s 7 beef patties and 7 slices of cheese on each burger).  And we needed 7 of them, which meant seven Smuggies.

So with the Birthday Boy (a copy of Windows 7) in hand, off we went to In-N-Out.  Dude taking our order explained they no longer make 7×7s (we’ve ordered larger in the past, I’ve seen photos of 100×100s), and that 4×4s were as large as they could go.  We begged and pleaded, then called In-N-Out corporate HQ for special dispensation.  No such luck – 4×4s are the max from on-high.

SmugMug builds their own 7×7 burgers at In-N-Out by Chris MacAskill

That’s ok, we can do math.  7 4×4s + 7 3×3s, plus a little manual dexterity, and we had accomplished our unholy feat:  Windows 7 with seven 7×7 burgers.  Better yet, 5 of us actually managed to eat the whole thing. (I even ate all 4 buns, alone among our triumphant victors).

Seven SmugMugs eat seven 7×7 burgers at In-N-Out for Windows 7 by Chris MacAskill

Whew.

The seven 7×7s race is on! by Chris MacAskill

Welcome to the world, Windows 7!

SmugMug’s Craig Meakin is in it to win it! by Chris MacAskill

Now, O Wondrous Wizard of Windows, can you please tell Internet Explorer 8 to get with the program?  It *really* needs a speed boost, support for rounded corners plus gradients, and by all means, JPEG/GIF/PNG favicons!  Thanks!

See all the SmugMug Windows 7 party photos.

One of my all-time favorite services, Animoto, has teamed up with SmugMug to make truly epic professional quality videos from both your stills and your video clips.  I’ve wanted this partnership since 2007, but Animoto’s had their hands full dealing with explosive growth, so it took us a little longer to sit in that tree together than we thought.

We had my good friend, Robert Scoble, over last night to demo for him, and you can see the video below (or click here to view it on blip.tv):

The really great thing about this is that it’s totally full-circle and tightly integrated.  Find your favorite photos on SmugMug, send them over to Animoto right from SmugMug’s interface (look in the ‘Buy’ button), make a video on Animoto, and then export the video straight back to SmugMug.

It’s awesome, our customers love it, our customers’ customers love it, and I know you will to!

Wow, Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Vincent Laforet has done it again! This time with Canon’s brand-new 1D Mark IV and a film shot at ISO6400. And SmugMug’s got it in all it’s full 1080p hi-def glory, of course.

UPDATE: Canon, whom I love, has requested that Vincent take the video down.  As a courtesy to both Vincent and Canon, we have done so, but hope to put it back up again as soon as they give us the green light.  Read more about it over on Vincent’s blog.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Related posts:

• Amazing Canon 5D MkII HD video footage!
• First 1080p video from Canon’s new 5D MkII – Amazing!