Recently in Software Category

Tip of the fedora to Dan for this great idea.

Do you ever get tired of hearing the same music over and over again from your iTunes library?  Here's a possible cure.

Select all of the music in your music library.  Right click on one of the highlighted items and select "Reset Plays" to make the play count for each item "0." Create a smart playlist based on whatever criteria you want.  As the final criteria, add Plays is 0.  Click OK.

Now, once you have listened to an item in the playlist, it drops out of the playlist.

Dan syncs all of his music library to his iPod.  Every time he listens to a song the play count goes to "1" for that song.  When he re-syncs his iPod to his computer, that song drops out of the play list.  At the end of the year, he starts over.

Related articles

• Making the most of the iTunes Column Browser (macworld.com)

iTunes Home Sharing
With five computers in the house with two distinct music libraries among them, and with two AppleTVs on the network connected to sound systems, and with the new Apple Remote app for your iPhone or iPad (way cool app!), iTunes Home Sharing is really convenient and easy to setup.  With home sharing turned on, you can play music from any computer on any computer or AppleTV on your local network.  Even more:  It's a great way to have an additional backup of all of your iTunes media.

This post will overview how to get started with home sharing. It looks like it has a lot of steps, but each step is really easy.

1.  Click on the [iTunes] menu and select [Preferences].  (Windows users, I assume your preferences are in the same place as they are on a Mac.)

2.  In the Preferences window that comes up, under the [General] tab, make sure your iTunes [Library Name] on this machine has a name that will make sense to you when you see it on another computer.  If all of your iTune's Libraries have the same name, you will have no idea which one belongs to what computer.

3.  Under the [Sharing] tab, make sure sharing is turned on by checking [Look for shared libraries] and [Share my library on my local network].  Click OK.

4.  Click on the [Advanced] menu and select [Turn On Home Sharing].  (Once iTunes Home Sharing is turned on, this menu item toggles to [Turn Off Home Sharing].

5.  You will be prompted for your iTunes account information.  [Yes, you must have an iTunes Account to do this.  You can click on "Need an iTunes Account?" to learn more about setting up an iTunes Account.]  After entering your account information, Click on [Create Home Share].  Adding your account information does not make it possible for someone on another computer to use your account to purchase media from iTunes.  It just sets up the sharing feature.  I assume that you could have multiple home sharing networks if you used different iTunes accounts for each.  But a single computer could only be a part of a one network at a time.

6.  The screen then shows you some important information.  You must use the exact same iTunes account information when turning on iTunes Home Sharing on each of the other computers in your house.  And, notice that Home Sharing is only for personal use.  Now click on [Done].

7.  Now the computer you just shared appears in a Shared list on the left column in iTunes along with all of the other computers as you turn on iTunes Home Sharing on each computer you wish to share.

8.  The name of your computer's shared iTunes music library will not appear on that same computer, only the other computer's music libraries you are sharing on the home network.  Click on the name of one of the libraries under [Shared] in the left column to see some other really convenient options.  These options will then appear at the bottom of the iTunes window as shown below.  If you leave the [Show] drop down on [All items] you will see all of the items in the selected, shared iTunes Library.  If you select [Items not in my library] only the items that are not included in the music library on the computer you're sitting at will appear in the iTunes window.

9.  If you click on the [Settings...] button, the window below appears.  By selecting any or all of these media types, any of those items not found in that computer's iTunes library will be automatically transferred to the computer you're sitting at.  If your hard drive is large enough, this is a huge convenience for making certain you have an additional backup of your iTunes media files.

10.  Maybe you don't wish to automatically transfer all of a particular media type onto your computer, just a selected group of songs or movies or TV shows, etc.  By selecting [Items not in my library] and then [Command] clicking or [Shift] clicking on the items you wish to import to highlight them, the [Import] button grayed out in the screenshot in step 5 becomes active.  After selecting the items you wish to import, click on the [Import] button to add them to the library of the computer at which you are sitting.

There are many little apps for the iPhone that come in very handy for traveling, but this one really caught me by surprise!  The app translates printed text on the fly in real time.  It substitutes the words it sees in print with the translation.  It's rather remarkable, really—a new breed of language dictionary is born.

Check out Word Lens at the iTunes Store.  It's advertised as free and then works in demo mode.  You must purchase translation "modules" which are $4.99 and currently limited to English to Spanish and Spanish to English.  It really works!  I'm assuming other language modules will be released.

Related articles

• Word Lens: the iPhone app that will change travel (gadling.com)
• Words Lens For iPhone Translates Spanish To English (informationweek.com)
• Word Lens Translates Text With Your IPhone Camera (pcworld.com)
• Word Lens: Augmented Reality App Translates Street Signs Instantly (wired.com)
• Word Lens translates text with your iPhone camera (macworld.com)

Everyone knows that in 10.6 you can do a Quick Look on most files without opening them in the application that created them by simply selecting a file (one click) and then touching the spacebar. I love this feature and use it all of the time.  It was first introduced in 10.5.

But I didn't know that you can use the [Option] key to zoom in on the Quick Look and the [Option] + [Shift] keys to zoom out on a Quick Look and can even move around in zoomed images during Quick Look using two fingers on the Trackpad.

Nifty

Well, yes.  Naturally I watched Steve Jobs emcee Apple's Back to the Mac event yesterday.

Now, I must confess that when Apple first introduced the huge change from iMovie HD (version 6 in 2007) to iMovie (version 7 in 2008) I made no secret of my utter disgust.  It was a huge, enormous step backward.  Apple quickly responded to the extreme customer dissatisfaction, because users were in an outright uproar, by almost immediately, within days, releasing an update with added features.  Everyone who had used iMovie HD continued to use it.  I don't know of anyone who actually used iMovie 7, which was less than featureless, even with the immediate update.

iMovie (version 8 in 2009) was a big step forward, though previous users of iMovie HD, myself included, had a difficult time getting into the new interface. which was conceptually nothing like iMovie HD (version 6 in 2007) and every previous version of the software.  Previous users generally didn't like the new interface introduced in 2008.  New users were not so encumbered.  Ok.  With this new version in 2008, there seemed to be some hope.  Maybe Apple hadn't made a huge mistake with this new GUI.

Yesterday Apple introduced iMovie (version 8) in iLife '11.  (Isn't all of this year versus version number thing so damned confusing?!  And then you have the suite numbers and version numbers for the pro products...  Jeeze!)  The new version now, in my mind, officially rocks my world.  So, from where I'm sitting, it took Apple 3 to 4 years to release a product that is absolutely better than iMovie HD.  You know, I guess I just wish this had been the version they released back in 2008.

iMovie '11, as I'll call it to minimize confusion, appears awesome.  I should be getting my hands on a copy of it today.  I suppose what I found most fascinating, even tantalizing about this newest version, is the movie trailer templates feature--a virtually bullet-proof way to make nothing less than stunning movie trailers.  From an educator's perspective, I see this a an excellent way to teach students to better articulate their quasi-innate understanding of the language of film production.  (The quality of the video footage used in the demo didn't hurt any, of course.)  But I will be interested in seeing how this actually takes off out in the field for common users and, more importantly, for students.  I see enormous, enormous, enormous potential here.

The new MovieMaker in Windows 7 is just about where iMovie HD was in 2007, although the interface, like most of Windows, in my opinion, is just flat out ugly as hell and grotesquely stark—the last thing a person who is being create needs or wants.  Now the latest version of the Windows movie production software appears to be in the stone age once again, eating Apple's dust.  Can't Microsoft do something innovative rather than just copy everything Apple is doing?!

I've been hearing the rumor mill whispering about a complete remake of Final Cut Pro, Apple's pro level movie-making software.  I immediately thought that if they did such a thing, I wouldn't even consider upgrading.  Now, having seen where Randy Ubillos has taken iMovie '11, I'm a lot more open minded.  This could be really interesting.

Oh, and sure, the new features in iPhoto '11 and GarageBand '11 were cool as well, but iMovie '11 was the product that just blew me away.  (I don't know what the new features are in the other apps in the iLife '11 software suite.)  Of course, iLife comes free on every new Mac purchase.  Existing users can upgrade, and Steve Jobs is right:  for $49, iLife '11 is the best software value on the planet!

What Apple has done in the past decade is nothing short of a miracle.  My heart is actually warmed by the fact that the marriage of brilliant engineering, meticulous design, and creative genius has produced the spectacular contribution that is Apple, Inc. And I want to further note that Apple is now a blistering financial success, with stunning sales records and profits in everything they are doing, even in an extreme depression—an American economy that is utterly in the toilet because of America's complete lack of creativity and innovation in everything except blowing things up and killing people.  The bulk of Apple's revenue is coming from completely new and innovative products that didn't even exist much more than 3 years ago.  Apple is a model for what America can do, what America can be.  It's about leadership that carefully nurtures the marriage of engineering, design, and creative genius!

Related articles

• iLife '11: The Best New Tricks in iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand [Apple] (gizmodo.com)
• Apple announces iLife '11 with new iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand (venturebeat.com)
• Apple Announces iLife '11 With New iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand (nytimes.com)
• Apple unveils iLife '11 with significant updates to iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand (edibleapple.com)
• Back to the Mac: GarageBand and iMovie '11 (nytimes.com)

You know, official declarations are often a bit slippery.  I'm about to issue one such declaration now:  I'm declaring the computer hard drives officially recovered, restructured, and now in the process of backing up both on and off site.  I say it's a bit of a slippery declaration because I will probably find small things yet undone even weeks from now—things you rarely use or think about.  We'll see.

The desktop computer now has two new 2TB drives in it.  One of those drives is the freshly cleaned and thinned system drive.  The 4TB Drobo is now working again (It was a catastrophic mess!) as an onsite Tim Capsule backup system for the desktop computer.  The faulty iTunes library disk has been replaced with a 1T external hard drive, and all of the files have been carefully (and tediously too, might I add) copied over through iTunes itself, thus recreating the entire iTunes library from scratch--to minimize future issues.

I'm guessing about one more full week before everything is completely backed up on and off site.  The desktop computer had over 2,000,000 files on it!  (My god.  I need to simplify my life!)  In the meantime, the 20+ MB internet connection feels like molasses.

It has been a horrid week.  But the treachery is now declared officially over!

Related articles

• Oh Horrid Tragedy (timtyson.us)
• iTunes bankruptcy, step one: The Great Purge (tuaw.com)

My main computer has had its 1T startup disk fail.  After nearly 24 hours of working on it, I at least have it running again.  I've had to take another 1T internal drive and make it the new start up drive with OS 10.6.x.  So far, I've had success getting all of my document files, my upgrades and installs files, and numerous supplemental system files off of the bad drive and onto the new startup drive.

I have now successfully copied the movie files folder, the music and pictures folders over to the newly purposed drive.  These contain literally hundreds of thousands of files representing hundreds of gigabytes.  Fingers crossed:  I don't think any of the files I copied over were corrupted.

The final step is reinstalling all of my applications.  I've reinstalled all of the smaller, simpler applications.  Now I've tackled the enormous applications that take hours and hours each:  Logic, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop Extended, etc.  This entire process will take at least a week!  Then I can have Apple replace the bad hard drive.

What a mess!  But again, I am soooo thankful for Backblaze, which is my off site backup service.  I know that even if I can't get all of my files off of the bad drive, I can get them from Backblaze.  I also have to extol the virtues of my password and serial number management system, 1Password.  I would be considerably more frustrated with the reinstallation of all of my software if I had to go digging around for my over 500 serial numbers.

And, as if fate has it in for me, my iTunes 500 GB music library drive, which had given me problems earlier and lost all of its data (and had to be restored from Backblaze!), is having issues again.  I just replaced it with a 1T drive, as it was almost full, which may have contributed to its issues.  So, while I've been reinstalling software on my Mac Pro, I've been painstakingly making certain that all of my iTunes data is recovered and properly installed through iTunes so it plays correctly.

Even with excellent backup strategies and serial number management, this has been a week in technology hell!  The silver lining:  my system folder has accrued a massive amount of needless, useless clutter through about 10 years of migration from older machines and upgrading the operating system and software.  Now it will be vastly less junked up with useless files.

Related articles

• Backblaze vs. CrashPlan: Mac Backup Smackdown, Round 2 (nytimes.com)
• Backup service Backblaze almost acquired by ... someone (venturebeat.com)
• Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage (backblaze.com)

Over the past 6 months or so, I have been getting more and more spam email at my main email address from Apple's MobileMe service.  At 6:00AM I already had 16!  Within 1 minute of deleting them, another arrived!  @Apple needs to get with the program here!  When the subject line has every pharmaceutical name in it, it should be too difficult to ID it as spam!  And I've forwarded as an attachment to spam@me.com enough of these things to fill up a server.  But the problem has gotten worse and worse.

I am so fed up with it I was ready to discontinue my main email address, which I've had for years and years and years!

Then, I had a bright idea.  Gmail has excellent filtering!  I have a Gmail address I have never made public.  Tah Dah!

I've set up a new email rule.  Now, until @Apple gets their act together with spam filtering, every time an email comes in to my main MobileMe email address, Mail automatically forwards it to Gmail and deletes the original from my Mail application.  I never even know the original arrived at my MobileMe email address.  Gmail filters out the spam, thank you Google!, and sends the real email back to my Mail application!  Now only the real, properly filtered email arrives in my inbox!

No more spam from the assholes that troll the interwebs!  The voices have stopped!

Related articles

• 11 Tips To Effective Email Management (celestinechua.com)
• Top 4 Freeware Spam Blockers That Actually Work (makeuseof.com)
• Gmail Filters Email Beyond Spam (webpronews.com)
• When did you last see SPAM in your inbox? [MakeUseOf Poll] (makeuseof.com)

The fact that this can be done, in total, from storyboard (if they had chosen to) all the way to upload to YouTube, on a $299 device, the iPhone 4, that also happens to make phone calls, is astounding. When Apple makes this all possible on an iPhone Touch and the iPad, they will rock the education market! Be sure to watch it in full screen.

I haven't posted much to my blog lately because I have been intensely busy, mostly with traveling, writing, and physical therapy.  And I have made some minuscule effort to avoid the computer as typing at the keyboard seems to train wreck my bad shoulder!

Recently, well, over the past several days, I used my Navigon application on the new iPhone as I traveled.  This application is awesome on its own.  On the iPhone 4, the app looks beyond gorgeous and functions with a level of smooth precision I had not noticed before.  I love it!

I use the app with the TomTom car kit.  I didn't give a second thought to using the car kit with my new phone, just assuming it would work fine.  Wrong!  The iPhone 4 is not as thick as the iPhone 3Gs, and this fact caused some connection issues.  Apparently the car kit needs the extra thickness to snap the phone firmly into the connector.  I even noticed a "rocking lever" that seems to need pressure to deliver electricity to the iPhone 4, which is not thick enough to press the lever.

The iPhone 4 appears to snap into the car kit fine.  But it does not get an electrical charge from the connector.  After some wiggling/pressing, each time I used it, I managed to get the phone to seat itself enough to get the charge.  Having electricity is essential as running a GPS app on the phone would otherwise very quickly deplete the battery.

I also noticed some wonderful updates to the Navigon application since last I used it.  I downloaded the panoramic 3D map information which adds more realistic display information.  And, for those who are not familiar with the Navigon app, I totally love how it implements highway signage information as you approach the signage.  It looks so realistic, just as the signs actually look when you arrive at them.  This feature takes so much guesswork out of navigating complex junctions.

The applications functions fantastically well in the background with the new multitasking iOS4.  And I also completely love the intuitive interface and GUI design.

On my recent trip to the Atlanta metropolitan area, I confess to finding the speed limit warning a bit annoying.  You can set the interval to 5, 10, 15, etc. miles per hour over the speed limit.  The application knows the speed limits and will say "Warning" while displaying an exclamation mark in a yellow triangle at the bottom corner of the speed limit sign indicating the actual speed limit.  In the top center I have the app showing my current, realtime speed.  This is invaluable information when traveling in unfamiliar areas.  But I knew the speed limits in the Atlanta area, had the interval set to 5mph, and the traffic was, as the traffic tends to do in Atlanta, speeding maniacally down the intestates.  So I heard "Warning!" every minute or so as I drove.  With my shoulder, I couldn't reach to adjust the interval while driving.

I'll have to update my TomTom car kit when they make one designed for the new iPhone 4.  But, I highly recommend the Navigon GPS application!

Related articles:

• On the road with the latest Navigon MobileNavigator (tuaw.com)
• Best iPhone Navigation Apps (brighthub.com)

Several years ago I discovered Todd Dominey's SlideShow Pro (SSP), which I use to present my photos here at tt.us.  (Check them out at timtyson.us/photos.)  Over the years SSP has evolved into a really slick, powerful, wonderful tool for managing both photo and video distribution.  As my knowledge and understanding of the various SSP products has grown, I would place this product in my list of Tim's All Time Favorite Digital Tools! It rocks!

In fact, since SSP had an export plugin for Lightroom, it was the deciding factor in my ditching Apple's Aperture and switching all of my photo management over to Lightroom--well, that and the horrendous performance issues Aperture 2 had.  (Now, I understand that a third party export plugin is available for Aperture.  But I haven't tried it.)

But SSP is Flash-based.  This now poses problems because Steve Jobs is having a spat with Adobe, and most people don't foresee Apple mobile products ever making use of Flash.  Sad, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Rather than focusing on the technology issues or the dispute, SSP is focusing on their customers' primary need:  finding excellent ways to share their work.  So they have announced a new component to their fabtabulous SlideShowPro Director:  a photo and video player that is built with HTML5, CSS3, and javascript instead of Flash!  This will allow content to display on the iPod Touch, iPhones, and the iPad!

Here is an overview of the new SlideshowPro Mobile.  I so love SSP!!

Related articles:

• SlideShowPro does HTML5, Flash (blogs.adobe.com)

Mac users:  Do you have the latest versions of iTunes (9.2), iBooks, and the operating systems for your iPhone and iPod Touch (iOS 4) and your iPad (iOS 3)?  If you do, you can do this...

You can easily place a PDF file of anything you can make a PDF file from (web page, documents, images, etc.) on you portable device.

If you make an alias of the iTunes application icon and place it in your ~/Library/PDF Services folder (where ~ = your user account), you can choose to print any document or webpage as a PDF directly to your portable device the next time you sync.

[Simply select the print command and click on the PDF button on the bottom left and then choose iTunes from the drop down list.  When you go to sync your portable device, be certain that, in iTunes, with your device selected, the "Books" tab is selected and you have checked "Sync Books."  Then simply sync your device.  Poof!  The PDF file(s) appear in iBooks on your device.]

I've tried this, and it actually works!  Nifty.

Other little scripts are available to do similar things with various twists.  Check out this link at Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.

Well, my iPhone 4 is supposed to arrive tomorrow!  I can't wait.

I downloaded iOS 4 for my existing phone and iPod Touch to get accustomed to the new operating system.  So far, the thing I like the most is Folders!  My application icons are all grouped in a way that makes sense to me.  Instead of having an insane number of panes through which I had to slide, I now only have 3!  This is a vast improvement.  Now, of course, I want more.  I've become such a visual person; I'd like to choose the icons for my Folders.  :o)

I also understand that a user can opt out of the iAd system, so Apple doesn't collect info about your interests, by visiting http://oo.apple.com ith any device running iOS 4 or later.  You should get a message, "You have successfully opted out.” if the process is working; otherwise, “Opt out not successful.” will appear.

Related articles:

• Apple's iOS 4 Available for Download [Video] (globalthoughtz.com)
• iOS 4 Update (slog.thestranger.com)
• iOS 4 Releases Today (apple.slashdot.org)
• Apple iOS 4 released to widespread criticism (v3.co.uk)
• Apple Launches iOS 4 for iPhone, iPod Touch (wired.com)

This is as much to help me remember this as it is to share the info with all humanoids on in interwebs...

This is the post production process I used when creating the Malaga Cove time lapse shorts.  After importing the footage from the camera into the computer:

1. QuickTime Pro 7 ›› File ›› Open Image Sequence...
2. Make sure images are in their chronological shot order
3. Select the first image and click "Open"
4. Select 24 frames per second and click "OK"
5. After the huge file is created, make sure you are displaying it at 100%
6. File ›› Export ›› Export: Movie to QuickTime movie [bottom left drop down]
7. Select "Options..."
   1. In the Movie Setting Dialogue, ›› Settings...
      1. Compression Type: Apple ProRes 422 (LT)
      2. Frame Rate: 24 fps
      3. OK
   2. Back in the Movie Setting Dialogue, ›› Size...
      1. Dimensions: Current [Make certain it is the full frame size of the original photos if you wish to pan and crop in Final Cut Pro.]
      2. OK
   3. Select "OK"
   4. Name the file and save it.
8. Create a sequence in Final Cut Pro with these settings:
   1. Frame Size: 1440 x 1080 [HD (1440 x 1080) (16:9)
   2. Pixel Aspect Ration: HD (1440 x 1080)
   3. Editing Timebase: 24 fps
9. Import your media and design your project — the fun part!
10. Once the project is completed in Final Cut Pro ›› Export ›› Using QuickTime Conversion...
    1. Format: MPEG-4
    2. Options
       1. Video Format: H.264
       2. Data Rate: I usually use over 4,000kbits/sec [The higher the number the larger the file size but the better the visual quality.]
       3. Image Size: I usually export three different sizes (three different exports): 1920 x 1080 HD, 1280 x 720 HD, and 640 x 360
       4. Frame Rate: 24fps

Related articles:

• Malaga Cove Sunrise (Time Lapse) (timtyson.us)
• Malaga Cover Time Lapse (Noon) (timtyson.us)

Well, Wordpress 3.0 has been available for download as a beta product until today.  It went alpha.  So I downloaded it having heard good things about its stability and usability.  I'm especially interested in exploring the merging of MU into the base installation.

My upgrade was not without issues though:  immediately after the upgrade the Wordpress version of my site was dead and the Admin login area was as well.  What to do?!  After a quick hustle or at wordpress.org's forums, I went in and disabled my plugins folder by using my FTP client to rename it and create an empty plugins folder.

Poof!

Everything worked again.  I added plugins one by one until I found the offending one:  Lifestream.  When I have a bit more time, I'll check for an upgraded version of the plugin.

[P.S.  It occurs to me that many of my readers at this rendition of my site may be completely unaware of the fact that I have been running a parallel site, testing it for compatibility and such.  This has been going on now for some time.  If you want to check out the Wordpress version of timtyson.us, just click here.

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I've found a couple apps for the Mac and/or the iPhone that are curious.

Xslimmer
This app removes the extra PowerPC code that makes your applications work on both the PowerPC chip and the Intel chip.  After the application is slimmed down, it will only work on the Intel chip.  Hello, I gave my last old PowerPC Mac away a year ago.  I only need my software applications to run on Intel machines.

Frankly, however, this scares the beans out of me!  So I tried it on just one application.  That application still seems to work just fine.  Even if it didn't I could restore the application since I chose to have it backup the original before it slimmed it.  (I don't know if that means it just made a copy of the code it removed and can add it back or if it backed up the entire application.)  But I confess to still being afraid to purchase the little $14.95 app and use it to slim down all of my apps.

The application will also remove unwanted languages from the code of the application to slim the application down even further.  I only need English.

Amazingly, if I were to slim down all of my applications, I would recover almost 3 gigabytes of disk space!  Maybe over time I'll try one app at a time until I get my courage up.

Air Video
I've heard about this app for the iPhone and the iPad before.  Today I bought it.  It allows you to stream video content from any of  your computers on the network to your iPhone or iPad.  I read excellent reviews of the application.

It was incredibly easy to set up.  It is amazingly easy to use.  Astoundingly, it will convert file formats on the fly!  In other words, I can watch an avi file from my laptop on my iPad in realtime without having to wait for it first to be converted into a format that plays on the iPad.

My only regret with Air Video:  that I hadn't purchased it sooner.  An amazing little gem!

Software Updates
I admit that I use technology more than the average person. Maybe I need to change that, because I am sick to death of sitting down to work at one of my computers only to be greeted with a bunch of software updates — which I always feel compelled to do immediately and be done with. Then, 5 minutes later I launch an application I need to use only to find that there is a new version available for download. Three minutes later I'm ready to get to work.

Only now, the new version has a damned bug in it and will not do what the old version did just fine. It crashes. I relaunch to try it again. The crash reporter comes up. I fill it out. I get so fed up trouble shooting software that I pay to own. Obviously these software companies do not test their work!!! Then the software crash reporter has to gather my system information. Well damn —that takes a good 5 minutes. And of course it will take a day or two (or week or month) for the support team to respond and then weeks before a software update is issued — oh god!!!! another software update. Hell!!!!! A half hour passes and I haven't accomplished anything! This pisses me off in a HUGE, HUGE way.

AT&T Has New Data Plans
AT&T is trying to get the message out that the new plans will save most users money unless you are a "data hog!" Well, let me tell AT&T something. I am a data hog. And I pay damned good money to be one too! Get off your greedy, stingy ass and stop trying to blame your customers, who pay for your service, for the fact that your service is crap! Instead, --novel idea here-- invest some of your profits in upgrading your network!

And AT&T wants you to believe that the new rates will save 95% of their customers money. Yeah, right!!! This year. Just wait boys and girls. How long before they raise the rates and make even more money off their already over-priced, crappy network?!!

I bought an iPad without 3G, because I refuse to give AT&T another penny of my money. I loathe this company! I use my MiFi from Verizon for my network access when I'm out of range of one of my WiFi networks. Screw you, AT&T. Verizon has a pervasive 3G network that works!

BP MUST Go Out of Business
I have never in all of my life seen a company CEO that is as arrogant, self-serving, calloused, and evil-hearted as the CEO of BP! He is tired of the oil spill and "just wants his life back?!" What a #$%@ing bastard!

What about the 11 people that were killed by what appears to be company negligence*? What about the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico? Watching the poor birds violently gasping trying to catch just one more breath to stay alive before their inevitable death is too heartbreaking. What we can't see are all of the different kinds of sea life that have been poisoned to death in the water by BP's oil, toxic chemicals, greed and negligence! And they are spending $7,500 a day to purchase search terms from Google to get their spin out as the top search results about this horrific environmental catastrophe.

These poor creatures have no idea what is happening to them as their flesh is burning, their eyesight is taken, and they painfully struggle to survive the impossible.

As far as I am concerned Tony Hayward and his company can rot in hell!

Photos Source: Caught in the Oil: boston.com

*See the 60 Minutes exposé

Related articles:

• AT&T says 'enough' to you data hogs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• AT&T Sparks User Backlash With End to Unlimited Plans (Update2) (businessweek.com)
• AT&T Sparks User Backlash With End to Unlimited Plans (Update1) (businessweek.com)

Well, after reports several weeks back that Apple had laid off a significant number of people from the Final Cut Pro team, I have been worries that Apple will either sell or even possibly eliminate Final Cut Pro. Now rumors are flying.

The first rumor indicates Apple will redesign FCP with an emphasis on making it more prosumer friendly and perhaps far less dedicated to professional video work. The FCP has been placed under the lead developer, Randy Ubillos, the man who, in my humble opinion, destroyed iMovie with his iMovie '08 release's new user interface and a sudden lack of features found in the earlier versions. Apple has now advertised for a senior visual interface designer for pro apps. Obviously something is afoot.

Amidst all the flurry of worry, Apple released a non-statement:

Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors, and we've never been more excited about its future," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told CNET. "The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome, and our pro customers are going to love it."

I was peeved about Apple's last FCP release. So few substantive features were added. Now we live with the threat of a whole new interface design, and, if iMovie is any advanced warning, a loss of important features. Jeeze!

Related articles:

• Apple refutes claim that FCP will lose its "Pro" focus (edibleapple.com)
• Final Cut Studio won't be dumbed down (tuaw.com)
• Apple to keep the 'pro' in Final Cut Pro (thaibrother.com)
• Steve Jobs responds to customer's email about Final Cut Pro (tuaw.com)

Even I have been growing increasingly wary of Apple becoming another loathsome, all-about-money, screw-the-customer corporation as it has experienced explosive growth and success in the past 10 years.  I've posted about some of these concerns before.  People seem to be increasingly sharing that concern.

It's appropriate that the Apple logo on the iPad is black. The Cupertino, California, company's image is taking on some awfully sinister tones lately.

 

For a company that made its name fighting for the little guy, it's a surprising reversal. In the past, Apple touted itself as the computer company for nonconformists who "Think Different." Now the company is making moves that make it look like the Big Brother it once mocked.

First Apple tightened its iron grip on the already-stringent iPhone developer policy, requiring apps to be made with Apple-approved languages, which disturbed some coders and even children.

A short while later, Apple rejected some high-profile apps based on their editorial content, raising journalists' questions about press freedoms in the App Store.

Then, police kicked down a Gizmodo editor's door to investigate a lost iPhone prototype that Apple had reported as stolen. Even Ellen DeGeneres and Jon Stewart have mocked Apple's heavy-handed moves.

Plenty of us love our shiny iPads, iPods, iPhones and MacBooks — state-of-the-art gadgets with undeniable allure. But it's tough to imagine customers will stay loyal to a company whose image and actions are increasingly nefarious. We want to like the corporation we give money to, don't we?

Here are five things Apple should do to redeem its fast-fading public image."

[Source: 5 Things Apple Must Do to Look Less Evil - ABC News.]

Here's the video of Ellen DeGeneres after getting a call from Apple.

Related articles

• Apple demands public apology for iPhone parody (go.theregister.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres gets a call from Apple (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres apologizes to Apple for iPhone spoof (edibleapple.com)
• Apple Isn't Laughing at Ellen's iPhone Commercial Parody [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres Says "Sorry" To Apple (geardiary.com)

My favorite ftp client for many years has been Panic's Transmit.  However, over time Transmit 3 developed some really hideous issues.  I threatened a divorce (and meant it!).  Well, Panic released Transmit 4 this week.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

1. Panic appears to have fixed all of the issues about which I grumbled so many times in the past.
2. Integrated Transmit Disk into the Finder, which, like ExpanDrive, mounts my server disk locations directly in the Finder window!
3. Places!  A complete redesign that makes so much more sense from a UI and functionality standpoint.
4. Transmit 4 seems much faster!  Maybe because the app is now 64 bit?
5. I'm loving the implementation of Quick Look!
6. I really like the rework of Sync.
7. There are numerous other things that could be mentioned, but these are the ones that, so far, really float my boat!

Related articles

• Transmit 4 offers new features, faster performance (tuaw.com)
• Transmit 4 gets new interface, faster performance (macworld.com)
• Transmit 4. More Than A Feeling. (macstories.net)

As with any first generation product, the iPad is not without its issues. One issue that I find immensely frustrating: the lack of keyboard shortcuts. I use them. I use them a lot! (Admittedly, most users probably don't.)

To have to take my hand off of Apple's iPad hardware keyboard to reach up and touch something is distracting to the workflow. I could cut a little bit of slack for third party developers, but none at all for Apple. When I want to reply to an email, I want to use [command] + R. When I want to send the email, I want to use [command] + D.

In this WordPress app, using the [tab] key to jump from one field to another crashes the application.

Clearly, lots of work needs to be done on this platform.

This time lapse, from yesterday, is better than my first because I used manual focus! :)

It's also more interesting because you can see the stars moving through the sky as well as the fog come rolling in off of the ocean during the night. You can even see the moving fog outside during the day! (Look closely. You can see it.) Because this is a time lapse, the fog appears to be moving very rapidly. The truth is, it was going down the street faster than you could comfortably walk!

The downside of the fog: during the day this caused variance in the brightness of the individual shots in the time lapse. I experimented with removing that with a filter that averaged exposure values over time. It worked amazingly well but dulled the fog's motion outside the window. So, I decided to leave it as shot.

You can view full screen by clicking on the full screen icon in the timeline. (It only appears, in the bottom right, when you mouse over the movie.)

Notes to myself on workflow:

• To resize the finished video file, export from FCP with QuickTime conversion out of FCP at the desired size using H.264
• THEN export that file out of MPEG Streamclip at 100% as an mp4 file for the web.
• Otherwise MPEG Streamclip takes insanely f-o-r-e-v-e-r!

This will only be remarkable to me: a proof of concept—use the Canon EOS 5dMkII DSLR to create a filmic look.

I shot this using a 70 - 200mm f2.8L in native 24fps, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/50th, using the Vari-ND to stop the exposure down, shooting at full 1920x1080 HD resolution using the superflat profile. The short little clip was then imported onto my hard drive via ShotPut Pro from my FireWire 800 card reader. I used MPEG Streamclip to transcode the H.264 file using Apple's ProRes 422LT codec and then dropped it into FCP. (I know firsthand that FCP doesn't play well with H.264 files!)

(Unfortunately I had not yet downloaded Canon's free EOS Movie E1 import plugin for FCP which was released today. I'm eager to try it. Interesting post here about that workflow.)

I then did a little color grading in FCP, added titles and a short music clip, and simply exported the file using ProRes 422LT at full size. Then, using MPEG Streamclip to prepare it for the web, I exported the 1920x1080 (137.4MB) file to 720x405 while converting it to an mp4, using the H.264 codec, at 100% quality, with multipass and better downscaling. The exported file is only 5.4MB! Maybe one day I'll compare which delivers a faster QuickTime conversion export: FCP or MPEG Streamclip. (Everyone says it's the latter.)

I'm posting the finished product here. It's very short! The only thing special: it's a first for me, and it worked straight away!

Ok, this post will bore my mother. She will skip it.

You may find reading this post easier over at my developing WordPress blog as it uses color-coded and indented syntax structure that highlights the area of code under consideration and allows you to easily copy and paste the code from the page.

But I need to write this so I can remember what I've done when I transition my work blog over to WordPress. This post is about getting my favorite lightbox utility to work in WordPress and customizing it's appearance.

The lightbox is, of course, mediaboxAdv by John Einselen over at iaaian7. mediaboxAdv opens a significant number of file formats, including video and HTML "windows", in a lightbox popup on top of the dimmed web page window.

The successful implementation of mediaboxAdv via the Mootools framework in WordPress is provided by Cheon Nii, at CheonNii's blog. Cheon adapted the mediaboxAdv javascript into the Lightbox M plugin. (Fortunately Cheon uses enough English to make his download understandable for me. I couldn't figure out his native language to translate it.) WordPress has huge issues running Mootools as other plugins frequently seem to use javascript frameworks that conflict with Mootools. Cheon's plugin seems to get around this successfully and can be configured to only implement the javascript code on the pages that require it.

The totally cool customization solution comes from Enric, at Sonic Bite Desarrollo y Diseño Web. I used Google translate to translate it to English. He describes how to include a logo-styled image overlay in a corner on top of the lightbox popup. Great for branding. Nice touch.

The Process

1. Download and install the Lightbox M plugin.
2. Using your FTP client, open the mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js file (in wp-content --> plugins --> lightbox-m --> js folder)
3. At line 32 in mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js, add line 1 of the code below (lines 2 - 10 should already be in mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js. Roroland will become a div for the logo element.
   
   new Element("div", {id: "roroland"}).injectInside(center);
image = new Element("div", {id: "mbImage"}).injectInside(center);
bottom = new Element("div", {id: "mbBottom"}).injectInside(center).adopt(
new Element("a", {id: "mbCloseLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", close),
nextLink = new Element("a", {id: "mbNextLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", next),
prevLink = new Element("a", {id: "mbPrevLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", previous),
title = new Element("div", {id: "mbTitle"}),
number = new Element("div", {id: "mbNumber"}),
caption = new Element("div", {id: "mbCaption"})
);
    
   
4. Open the mediaboxAdvBlack.css file (or the mediaboxAdvWhite.css file if that's the one you are using in the Lightbox M settings panel) and add the custom div below. I just added mine to the bottom of the css file.
   
   /* custom div containing logo */
#roroland {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
width:100px;
height: 113px ;
top:-30px;
left:-40px;
background-image: url(../images/logo.png);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
    
   
5. Find the block of code below, in the same css file in step 4, and change it to the block of code in the lower code window. This comments out the css that would otherwise hide any portion of your logo image that extends beyond the boundaries of the lightbox popup.
   
   #mbCenter {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
left: 50%;
overflow: hidden;
background-color: #000;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
} 

#mbCenter {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
left: 50%;
/* overflow: hidden; THIS IS COMMENTED OUT TO DISPLAY THE LOGO WHICH PARTIALLY APPEARS OUTSIDE THE MEDIABAXADVACED LIGHTBOX */
background-color: #000;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
} 
    
   
6. In an application like Photoshop, create your logo image using a transparent background.
7. Save it as a png-24 file, preserving the transparency, with the name "logo.png" --without the quotation marks, of course.
8. Using your FTP client, upload the logo.png file to the wp-content --> plugins --> lightbox-m --> images folder.
9. Go to wp-content --> plugins -->lightbox-m and edit the lightbox.php file by adding a single line of code to the $lightbox_files = Array statement at line 26. We need to include the logo image in the array. If you used a different name for your logo image, change the name here accordingly. So, this block of code (notice you have to scroll down to see it all):
   
   $lightbox_files = Array(
'css/mediaboxAdvBlack.css',
'css/mediaboxAdvWhite.css',
'images/50.gif',
'images/80.png',
'images/BlackClose.gif',
'images/BlackLoading.gif',
'images/BlackNext.gif',
'images/BlackPrevious.gif',
'images/MinimalClose.png',
'images/MinimalLoading.gif',
'images/MinimalNext.png',
'images/MinimalPrevious.png',
'images/WhiteClose.gif',
'images/WhiteLoading.gif',
'images/WhiteNext.gif',
'images/WhitePrevious.gif',
'js/mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js',
'js/mootools-1.2.4-core-yc.js',
'swf/NonverBlaster.swf',
'swf/player.swf',
'lightbox.php'
); 
   
   should become this block of code (notice you have to scroll down to see it all):
   
   $lightbox_files = Array(
'css/mediaboxAdvBlack.css',
'css/mediaboxAdvWhite.css',
'images/50.gif',
'images/80.png',
'images/BlackClose.gif',
'images/BlackLoading.gif',
'images/BlackNext.gif',
'images/BlackPrevious.gif',
'images/MinimalClose.png',
'images/MinimalLoading.gif',
'images/MinimalNext.png',
'images/MinimalPrevious.png',
'images/WhiteClose.gif',
'images/WhiteLoading.gif',
'images/WhiteNext.gif',
'images/WhitePrevious.gif',
'images/logo.png',
'js/mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js',
'js/mootools-1.2.4-core-yc.js',
'swf/NonverBlaster.swf',
'swf/player.swf',
'lightbox.php'
); 
   
   
10. If you use a different name for your logo file, you must update the name in the background-image statement of the roroland div added in step 4.

Now, quite frankly, I don't like my logo image at all at the moment. I'll tweak that later. Just figuring all of this out to get it to work was challenging enough for one day.

Configuring WordPress for Implementation

• After doing the above 10 steps, make sure your Lightbox M plugin is activated.
• At the present time, I export a photo out of Lightroom at 1024 pixels wide, which, based on my visitors' stats, will fill most of my viewers monitors. [This means they will not see all of my logo image unless I adjust the css. Oh well... The world needs more giant monitors!]
• I went to the Media Settings in my WordPress Admin console (You get there from the left column of the Dashboard.) to configure the media settings.
• Since the main body section of my blog is 680 pixels wide, I use a maximum image size of 620. 620 plus a 10 pixel margin on each side plus the 20 pixel margin of the main text area (each side) equals the 680 pixel width of the body area. [Note to self: the 620 image size does not work well when embedded in an indented bulleted list (see below) as it doesn't accommodate the additional indentation.] I have the following media settings (Click to see full size image):
   
  
  
   
  
• I have the following Lightbox M settings (Click to see full size image):
   
  
  
  
  
• And these are the settings I use in the Upload/Insert dialog that appears when I place an image on the server and into a post.
   
  
  
  
  
• The only part of the implementation that is awkward, when placing a picture in a post, is having to copy the title="Top_Line_Title::Bottom_Line_Title" information from the HTML image source code into the hyperlink code as well to have the title also appear in the bottom left corner of the lightbox popup. You don't have to do this, but I really like it.
• I also write my titles in the format shown in the above step and here: title="Top_Line_Title::Bottom_Line_Title." to use both top and bottom lines of the title area in the popup window. The double colons do not appear in the popup lightbox but rather separate the title into two lines at that point.

Again, unless you are into such things, you will not have made it to the end of this post. But it has taken me weeks to sort through all of the weird variables and plugins that are out there for WordPress in my undying effort to figure out how to get the mediaboxAdv plugin to work—a must for my transition from MovableType to WordPress.

Now that I better understand WordPress and the whole media toolset it offers, along with so many other features, I am really getting into WordPress!! And a special thanks to John Einselen, Cheon Nii, and Enric for freely and kindly sharing their expertise with the web community. I could never have done any of this without their brains! You guys are Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

Philip Bloom mentioned, in his master class yesterday, a file utility I had not heard of before, one that seems brilliant to me:  ShotPut Pro.  This program will copy your media files from their source (camera card) to up to 3 locations simultaneously.  Brilliant!

I think that always having an untouched copy of your original media files and a working copy of them is always a bright idea.  This practice not only gives you the option of having an emergency backup of your files in case of drive failure or theft, but provides you with some measure of future-proofing your media files for later use—perhaps in projects using CODECs we don't even have today.

I also use BackBlaze to automatically and continuously sync all of my data off site.  The three important parts of that last sentence are:  off site, continuously, and above all:  automatically!  BackBlaze is a steal of a deal at only $50 per machine per year for unlimited storage!  I just do my work using my machines, and BackBlaze is always keeping my offsite backup up to date.

If you were doing professional projects, where setting up the shoot required a significant investment or was time sensitive (can't be easily repeated, for example), using locally redundant copies of the original media and off site backups is essential!

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.

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." ...

• 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!"

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)

How many times have I cursed the Caps Lock key. I've wished I could pluck if from my keyboard more than once.

Well... turns out, you can with a simple keyboard preference change!

Go to System Preferences and select Keyboard. In this window, click on Modifier Keys...

Now click next to "Caps Lock" and select "No Action". Easy!