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Here is a good article at the iPod Lounge for Mac users who are interested in ripping your legally owned DVDs so you can watch them on your iPod. (They also give info for Windows users.) The article includes settings and information related to format. Handbrake, a great little application which I've used many times, is not completely intuitive. The step by step directions, presented by the iPod Lounge, along with some explanation of what the settings all mean and do is very helpful.

I'm in the process (this very moment, actually) of setting up a media server for the house that will provide access to all of the digital media content to any television or computer in the house. Regrettably, I can't find a single comprehensive solution to address all of the digital assets: TiVo, AppleTV, iTunes, Podcasts, Photos, the Verizon DVR, etc. I suspect that Apple has been developing this for the last few years, but that will probably be a completely proprietary solution.

And the thought of ripping all of the DVD content I own is just too overwhelming, especially when the new BluRay format is getting ready to pounce and make all of the lower resolution DVDs look less than desirable on the large HD flat screen TVs. And then there is the hard disk space requirement. For standard definition alone the space required is insane!

And then you have the issue of developing an affordable digital media backup strategy. I'm already dealing with a LaCie HD failure at the moment–a 1TB drive. When drives contain that much data, losing one is no small concern. And yes, they do die! This is the third hard drive failure I've experienced in 2008! That's a huge issue.

I have two 4 TB Drobo's with a network interface on the way to address the backup and redundancy issues. But what of catastrophic loss like fire or theft? I'm curious about off site backup. But .Mac, now MobileMe, limits backup capacity to 60 GB, which doesn't even cover my documents folder, let alone my digital media assetts: 20,000+ photos, then thousands and thousands of videos, podcasts, and music files...

I'm curious about Amazon's S3, with JungleDisk, which, as inexpensive as it first seems at .10 per GB per month plus bandwidth usage, adds up quickly when you're talking about terabytes of data. Redundancy is good but is also both very time consuming and expensive.

Then how do you fully and completely automate the backup/redundancy process? I certainly don't want to spend any of my time checking to see what new files have been added to iTunes to back up just those, etc. This must be completely and reliably automated.

Who has explored solutions? Has anyone found anything you really like that works well?

Moose Creek rushed noisily through the wilderness right next to my cabin at Denali Backcountry Lodge. In the areas pictured below it ranged between a couple of inches in depth to perhaps as much as 3 feet.

After dinner on August 22, at 7:11PM, I recorded this walk around the gazebo (1), across the first bridge (2), along the small island (3) to the second far more primitive bridge (4), along the second island to a third bank of the creek (5), and back again. At times in this podcast you can hear my footsteps. You can hear the rapidly rushing creek. My guess: if you stepped into these frigid, fast-moving waters, you would be immediately swept off of your feet and pulled down stream.

(1) (2)
(3) (4)
(5)

The air was cool--in the 40's. The smells were those of fresh forest. The sharp angle of the Alaskan sun was mitigated by the mountains. The sounds were of peace.

Click the icon below to listen to this podcast. Breathe. Enjoy. Relax.

I saw this photo and stopped my feed reading (would that be called, feeding?). The power of an image. But as I explored more deeply, the power of Gerd Ludwig's body of work displayed on his site gives pause to the rush of my beginning day. I highly recommend you take a visit. His galleries are powerful. I especially appreciated the Chernobyl photographs and the photo story on Russian pollution. Clicking the photograph featured in this post will take you to Gerd's work.

The Chernobyl photographs remind me of the Magnum Stories podcast series to which I subscribe in iTunes. Paul Fusco did a podcast with Magnum In Motion, Chernobyl Legacy that speaks to the Chernobyl horror that silently lingers on to this day buried in our world's shame. I highly recommend this work as well. I think we humans recklessly bluster forward full speed into areas about which we know too little, causing unspeakable harm to our fellow humans, be it Iraq, nuclear power, perhaps wireless electricity, environmental hazards, carbon poisoning...

At any rate, here is the bio from Gerd's site:

Gerd Ludwig was born in Alsfeld, Germany, in 1947. Initially he studied German literature, political science, and physical education at the University of Marburg, but interrupted his studies to travel in Scandinavia and North America while supporting himself with jobs as a bricklayer, sailor, gardener, and dishwasher. Gerd later returned to Germany and studied photography for five years with Professor Otto Steinert at the Folkwangschule in Essen, graduating in 1972 with a degree in Photo Design from the University of Essen. He co-founded VISUM, Germany’s first photographer-owned photo agency, the following year. In 1975, he moved to Hamburg and began working for Geo, Stern, Spiegel, Zeit-Magazin, Time, and Life, as well as photographing advertising campaigns.

Gerd re-located to New York 1984 and continued to photograph for major international publications. In the early 1990s, he signed on as a contract photographer for National Geographic Magazine, focusing on the social changes in Germany and Eastern Europe. This work resulted in the publication of his book, Broken Empire: After the Fall of the USSR, a ten-year retrospective published by National Geographic. Gerd is a veteran of the renowned A Day in the Life book series; he exhibits his work in galleries and festivals, such as the Perpignan Visa pour L’Image; occasionally shoots advertising; and has won numerous photographic awards, including the IPA’s 2006 Lucie Award for International Photographer of the Year.

Now based in Los Angeles, Gerd has photographed in over 70 countries across the globe. He continues to lecture at universities and photographic workshops throughout the world and, when not photographing for National Geographic, shoots advertising.

Source: Gerd Ludwig Photography - Profile

I was strolling through the woods today, enjoying the sounds of nature. I decided to record a short podcast of all of the birds singing their little hearts out. While recording this podcast presented below, suddenly, without warning, a wild beast bore down upon me, terrifying all of the birds. If you have a sturdy heart, can deal with sheer terror, then listen to the podcast. Otherwise...

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Unfortunately I didn't take my iPod with me as I was hiking around Point Lobos State Reserve. I would have been delighted to present a podcast of the fury of nature at that ocean-side spot. However, this podcast is a recording of the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach. I recorded it while taking shots of the surfers in the ocean. As this was pre-storm surf, it is significantly more sedate.

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Sea lions are loud, boisterous creatures. You can hear them "barking", with a couple of sea gulls, in this podcast recorded early one morning on Pier 39 in San Francisco.

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I didn't know that the street cars in San Francisco run on 3 tracks. One, in the middle, seems to power the car in some way and makes a noise. This podcast is a recording of that center track and the street car as it arrives, unloads/loads and then departs down the street.

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Click on the picture taken in Muir Woods National Forest to hear the sound of one of the creeks as it flows into the nearby stream gently nestled among the enormous and ancient redwoods.

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