February 2010 Archives

I just stumbled onto this new program, TuneUp, from TuneUpMedia.com. It's an iTunes plugin that has a number of really cool features:

• The program will analyze your iTunes library and report back all of the tracks that have incomplete information and create a "dirty" playlist.  Incomplete information might mean the track is missing any of the data listed in the graphic to the right.


• Drag any of the "dirty" tracks into TuneUp.  TuneUp then analyzes the sound footprint of the track to determine what the track actually is and offers to retrieve all of the missing meta data for the track.  In other words, you could have a track in your iTunes library called "Track 09."  TuneUp would figure out what the track name, artist, album, genre, year, cover art, and actual track number on the album are and populate all of that data, replacing the "Track 09" with the real info!  That's rather remarkable!  But there's more...


• TuneUp will follow what you're listening to, offer videos of the track in a sidebar (just click to play the videos right there in the sidebar), a bio of the artists, tell you about the upcoming concerts for that artist in your area, even let you purchase the tickets, share related items about the artist from ebay, let you tweet what you're listening to.


• Other features too...

Today Apple sold its 10,000,000,000th (that's billionth) song at the iTunes Store—all in less than 7 years. The music industry can gripe all it wants, but Apple has made them a lot of money they would otherwise have lost to file sharing!

Today's Business Insider has this headline: Blockbuster Collapses: Shutting Down 500 Stores In Desperate Bid To Save $200 Million. I'm actually shocked they survived as long as they did. They ended last year almost $1,000,000,000 in debt.

By closing 500 of their weakest stores, they hope to reduce operating expenses by $200 million. They are also exploring other ways to increase liquidity and find new emerging distribution channels.

Let me offer them a touch of advice. Liquidate now and save everyone the misery to come.

Another gorgeous video, this one: an arial of a Norwegian Sunrise.

I just read this from a blog I follow and had a sickening realization:

You may have heard that I don’t do iPhone or iPad development at this time. That said, it’d be silly to not keep track of what Apple is up to with the platform they care for most." ...

[Source: Install Beta Developer Tools In Sparse Disk Images.] The realization:  Apple's core business has changed.  And I don't like it! A couple of years ago, Apple Inc. changed its name from Apple Computer.  I thought that was exciting.  Now I'm not so sure.  In fact, I'm very concerned.  Apple is no longer a computer company, and it's starting to really show. Apple obviously cares more about its mobile platform/OS than they do their laptop/desktop platform and OS.  I am not happy about that. Sure, I love my iPhone.  I doubt I will buy an iPad.  I prefer to work on machines with some significant horsepower and significant screen real estate.  And the iPad doesn't even have a camera?!  Forget it! I wouldn't care about the huge emphasis on the mobile platform if...

• Upgrades to software for laptop and desktop machines hadn't all but died in the last several years.
  • Cases in point:  Where is iLife 2010?  (Apple made a big issue of rewriting iLife 2010 from the ground up, but only for the mobile platform!)
  • Where is iWork 2010?  (Apple made a big issue of rewriting iWork 2010 from the ground up, but only for the mobile platform!)
  • What happened to iMovie on the iPad?  Where did it go?
  • When Apple finally came out with an upgrade to Final Cut Studio, the new feature set was anything but substantive.
  • Now there are rumors all over the net that Apple has laid off over 40 people from the Final Cut Studio software team.  This can not be good as it probably indicates Apple is abandoning one of the most powerful production tools it ever developed!
  • How many years have we suffered with Aperture 2?  Finally, Aperture 3 is released, but many users are reporting huge issues with the program's basic operability and stability.
• What of any significant improvements in laptop and desktop hardware?
  • Cases in point:  The "new" iMacs have been plagued with screen problems and shipping was completely halted for a time while the issue has hopefully been corrected.
  • It blows me away that I bought my 2 x 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon computer about 1.5 years ago, and today Apple doesn't even sell a machine as fast as this "old" computer!  The fastest machine on their site is a 2 x 2.93 Quad-Core Intel Xeon computer!  What's with that?!  Their hardware is getting slower?
  • Where's the innovation in hardware?  Apple has been the leader for years!  With many of the new HD DSLR and video cameras sporting HDMI access, why hasn't Apple added this to the hardware line up?  Instead, my computers today have fewer high speed data access ports than they did 2 years ago!
• One company control of my media access?  Increasingly my heart is saying, "Absolutely no!"

From time to time I whine about Apple's products.  Certainly, they make the best hardware for my money.  But I'm growing concerned that their core business has begun to seriously diverge from my core interests.  Give me faster horsepower!

Related articles

• Apple's Desktops to Disappear Eventually? (tastyslate.com)
• Is Aperture 3 sucking up memory? (macworld.com)
• Apple Looking to Bring iPhone OS to More Devices (mashable.com)
• Conspicuous by Its Absence (timtyson.us)

Apple has quietly been building a data center in Maiden, North Carolina.  It's apparently well underway.  What makes this of interest is that the explicit purpose of the enormous and secretive center has never been announced.

Related articles

• A First Look at Apple's Massive Data Center (readwriteweb.com)

• Why do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters?
• Why do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
• Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?
• Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
• Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
• Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
• You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
• Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
• If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
• If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

The National Geographic article about the results of the DNA study of King Tut is fascinating.  He apparently was frail, had malaria, a genetic walking disorder, and was the son of a brother and sister.

King Tut may be seen as the golden boy of ancient Egypt today, but during his reign, Tutankhamun wasn't exactly a strapping sun god. Instead, a new DNA study says, King Tut was a frail pharaoh, beset by malaria and a bone disorder—and possibly compromised by his newly discovered incestuous origins. The report is the first DNA study ever conducted with ancient Egyptian royal mummies. It apparently solves several mysteries surrounding King Tut, including how he died and who his parents were.

Source:  National Geographic

Related articles

• 'Malaria' killed King Tutankhamun (news.bbc.co.uk)
• First study of mummy DNA leads to all sorts of discoveries (boingboing.net)
• King Tut Died From Malaria, Broken Leg, Study Finds (huffingtonpost.com)
• Malaria, genetic diseases plagued King Tut (cnn.com)

I was having a perfectly good morning being all productive and everything. Then I headed on over to my RSS feed reader to catch up on "stuff." I hadn't cruised the feeds for a couple of days, so things were out of control—thousands of feed posts were lurking there demanding to be read.

I started with my personal reads and came across a video link from Ellison's blog to a short Valentine's film by some guy named zefrank. It was crazy funny! I laughed out loud. Who ever this Ze guy is, his sense of humor really resonates with me.

I wish he hosted his short videos on a traditional site that allowed you to embed them. I'd share some with you from time to time because, well... now I've subscribed to yet another feed! But, since he doesn't, check them out at the links.

I also liked several others, like this one. Now an hour of laughter has passed, and I'm blaming Elisson!

My life is blessed with some very wonderful, bright people of substance.  One of those is GG.  She recently shared one of her own quotations with me.  It is spot on!

"You believe of others what you know of your own heart."

I see that the old fashioned heart-shaped valentine's candies with messages on them have a new message:  "Tweet Me!"

Those who know me well know that I'm never just sitting around doing nothing.  So, I've received several comments from friends and relatives about having very little activity on my blog for the past week or two.  What's up?!

I've been insanely busy, primarily with exploring new technology platforms.  The fruits of these explorations will soon be evident here at tt.us!

As some of you may know, I use MovableType as my blogging platform here at tt.us.  (The husband and wife team that started what was to become MovableType (MT), basically invented blogging.)  I started using MT way back with version 2--when it was completely free.  I'm now using the latest iteration of version 4.  And, version 5 has been released.  MT is a solid and powerful blogging platform.  So naturally the question is:  time to upgrade?

Not so fast...

As I've said before, I just can't get enough of Philip Bloom's work. He even shares the link to the original HD file he shot (750MB) so you can compare that to the final edit—which, of course, is gorgeous.

I took the Canon out on the streets in the evening to test out it’s low light ability and to show this footage to the attendees on each day. I shot entirely handheld using just the Zacuto Z-finder optical viewfinder which gave me much needed stability and the ability to easily focus. I didn’t take the full gunstock rig out as I wanted to be really inconspicuous. I looked like I was just taking photos.

Using just one Zeiss 50mm f1.4 Nikon lens with a Canon Eos to Nikon adaptor for £20 off of ebay I managed to get some lovely shots. As 5dmk2 users out will testify shooting with this camera is hard due to the lack of manual controls, but having the nikon lens helped and I did the usual tricks to lock down the ISO. Generally keeping it no higher than 1250, occasionally 1600 but never higher as the noise levels would be unacceptable.

This was all shot 30p. Everything was converted to XDCAM EX 30p in Mpeg Streamclip to make editing easy. The first three shots use FCP smoothcam to give a slightly surreal look to them the rest is all handheld raw. As I said no grading. So I did the entire edit in 30p, exported as a complete movie, brought it into compressor. Converted to ProRes 422 25p at best settings and it looked great. Not just that but the music stayed the same speed and pitch. So easy!"

[Source: “Sofia’s People” Low light short on Canon 5d mk2 in 25p | Philip Bloom.]

I was saddened today to learn that Dr. Robert Thomas, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, with whom I worked closely during my time at the university, overseeing the Music Learning Center which he established in 1978, passed away in September, 2009.

Dr. Thomas was a kind, gracious gentleman with a distinguished, almost old world manner and a rich command of all things exquisite. He was a collector of fine art, both sculpture and painting, antique china, and furniture, to only name a few.

The world needs more people that exhibit the qualities Dr. Thomas exemplified. May he rest in peace.

On a related note, Professor Emeritus Eunice Boardman, also part of the powerhouse of music educators at the U of I during my doctoral work there with the late Charlie Leonard (who I've mentioned before), also passed away in 2009. To date now, most of the most influential professors under whom I studied, have passed away. I'm getting old.