Recently in Technology Category

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!

Jacob Bijani, Tumblr’s Creative Director, said “I always have to stop and think when setting a border radius in CSS, so I built a tool for it.” And so, Border-Radius.com was born. Easy, intuitive, interactive, practical, and gorgeously designed.

Yes, I've ranted about my AppleTVs world without end!  Well, apparently, one of them was just completely messed up:  the hardware was bad.  Naturally, it wasn't under warranty.  (I think Apple only has a 90 day warranty unless you spend the extra money on AppleCare.  I always do for computers but hadn't for the AppleTV.)

So, I bought a new AppleTV.  My god!  The thing actually works!  After having been plagued with sooo many issues for sooo long with the other device, I was fully expecting this one not to function properly either.  But it works well!  And I purchased AppleCare for this one.

The only thing that greatly annoys me with the AppleTV:  the largest hard drive you can get is 160GB.  That's ridiculous.  I frankly don't give a rip what Apple thinks, Tim thinks he should be able to store his entire media library on the AppleTV hard drive and not have to clutter up the home LAN with streaming audio/video!  This would also give me another backup for the media files!

I do love being able to stream nearly 10,000 photos and music on the large flat panel TV downstairs for parties—like the one held here at the house last Saturday night.  (BTW:  Bristol Farms does a great job catering!!)  My photos just look awesome on the big screen, if I say so myself!  :)

I've made myself stop wearing a watch.  My iPhone has a clock on it that auto syncs to the network.  And, as I travel so much, that comes in handy.  My iPhone is always showing the timezone in which I currently am located, unlike my watch which requires a manual change.  I've gotten comfy going without the watch.

But this watch, with tiny lasers to indicate the hour and minute hand, would be enough to make me start wearing one again!

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)

Related articles

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

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!

Something else just dawned on me about today's announced iPad: all that went unannounced. In fact, I'm concerned.

Where is iLife '10? One of the presenters mentioned that iLife had been rewritten from the ground up. OMG!

The last time Apple's software team re-wrote something from the ground up, they gutted it: iMovie!

What features will we lose? Will desktop machines even get an iLife '10?

Any plans for a new model iPhone this summer as seems customary?

I'm hopeful more news will trickle out from the mothership soon.

And I'm sorry, the word "magical" just doesn't work for me.

I love stumbling upon a cool technology trick.

Working out compression settings for video distribution is part art, part science, and a whole lot of witchcraft. Compression is just often difficult and can be very frustrating.

Well, tonight I learned that if you take a movie file that has already been compressed (select one, of course, that looks really good because it was well compressed) and drop it into the "Custom" folder under the "Settings" tab in Compressor 3.5 (part of Final Cut Pro Studio), Compressor will think about that file for a second (depending on the speed of your machine) and then create a custom preset of the compression settings used to create that finished project! And the description tag becomes the name of the movie project you dropped into Compressor.

Sweet!

Compressor reads the metadata from the file and figures out how the file was compressed and then returns those settings as a preset you can use for your own project compression. Now, even with good compression settings, if you have poor quality source video, you will get poor results. But the problem is often the opposite way around: you have a great project and can't get the compression output to serve a good finished product.

And here's another little tidbit: if you take a Compressor Droplet (a little preset "stand alone application"), right click on it, select "show package contents," open the "Settings" folder and drop the .setting file onto the "Custom" folder under the "Settings" tab in Compressor 3.5, Compressor will again create a custom preset of the compression settings used in the droplet.

Why would you ever want to do the later? You can't get to the setting details of a droplet any other way. So if you want to tweak them but don't have the original settings saved as a preset in Compressor, this lets you get to those settings as well as save the settings as a preset in Compressor if you choose. It's just one of those things you will never need until you do--and then you will be pulling your hair out trying to figure out how to do this. :o)

Thanks to Brian Gary and the helpful folks at rippletraining, just a few miles from my home, for these two helpful tips.

I use John Einselen's MediaboxAdvanced, from iaian7, on my site for the media shadowboxes. I love it!

I've had two issues that needed attention. This is a "note to self" on how I fixed them in case I do site upgrades that might break the fixes, and I can't quickly find the resources to these solutions.

Problem 1: Volume Inadequate on NonverBlaster Player (Solution Works)

I was having the same problem today and I tried making some changes in mediaboxAdv-1.1.7.js and it worked for me. I hope this works for you as well.

In the JS file, you can find the settings for NonverBlaster as below (seach for "FLV, MP4")

------------------------------
// FLV, MP4
                        } else if (URL.match(/\.flv|\.mp4/i) || mediaType == 'video') {
                                mediaType = 'obj';
                                mediaWidth = mediaWidth || options.defaultWidth;
                                mediaHeight = mediaHeight || options.defaultHeight;
                                if (options.useNB) {
                                preload = new Swiff(''+options.NBpath+'?mediaURL='+URL
+'&allowSmoothing=true&autoPlay='+options.autoplay
+'&buffer=6&showTimecode='+options.showTimecode+'&loop='+options.NBloop
+'&controlColor='+options.controlColor
+'&controlBackColor='+options.controlBackColor
+'&scaleIfFullScreen=true&showScalingButton=true&crop=false', {
                                        id: 'MediaboxSWF',     ...
------------------------------

You can set the default volume by adding [&defaultVolume=100] right
after [crop=false].
like this.

------------------------------
...   &showScalingButton=true&crop=false&defaultVolume=100', {
                                        id: 'MediaboxSWF',   ...
------------------------------

[Source: NonverBlaster default volume too low - mediaboxAdvanced | Google Groups.]

What doesn't solve the problem: uncommenting the global media options volume parameter in line 93 or adding a defaultVolume parameter to the NonverBlaster section of code at line 110.

Problem 2: MP4s and FLVs Not Playing

From your server, open up the mediaboxAdvanced javascript file in a text or code editor, and update the options to reflect your desired settings. Make sure you update the file path to the JW media player with the correct path to your server."

[Source: iaian7 » code » webcode » mediaboxadvanced.]

What he inadvertently left out: also be certain to update the file path to the NonverBlaster.swf file too!

You know what I love the most about the AT&T application that allows you to report a problem with the AT&T network? When there's an actual problem: a dropped call, a call that will not go through, no signal at all, etc., you can't get the network to work properly to use the application to report it. So you wait until you get to a location where you get functional service again. Therefore, when the GPS data is transmitted with your trouble report, it's not the location where the problem actually happens. So, I guess all of the areas around network problem spots get really good service! The problem spots don't improve at all.

At least $5 billion, and perhaps as much as $7 billion. That's what it would cost AT&T to match Verizon's current level of investment in network infrastructure and, presumably, match its performance.

According to TownHall Investment Research, AT&T (T) spent about $21.6 billion on its wireless network from 2006 through September 2009. Meanwhile, Verizon (VZ) spent $25.4 billion. That disparity in investment, says TownHall Investment Research analyst Gerard Hallaren, has caused AT&T's network to perform poorly compared with Verizon's, particularly as it struggles to meet the data demands of devices like Apple's (AAPL) iPhone.

Making matters worse, AT&T invests more in its wired infrastructure than in its wireless network. Though 57 percent of the company's operating income comes from wireless and only 35 percent from wired services, wireless gets only 34 percent of the capital expenditures, while wired receives 65 percent."

[Source: AT&T's Mottoes: "Profit Over Performance" and "We've Got You by the Calls".]

Building projection can be fun and entertaining, but the people at NuFormer Digital Media, a Netherlands company, are taking this to a whole new level with amazing 3D building projections. Check it out.

The walls (facade or sides) of any building can be used. The projection is a digital re-creation of the architecture of a building. Architectural features of buildings are often used to fantastic effect. Due to the impressive size of the projection a spectacular visual experience is guaranteed. There are no size limits whatsoever."

[Source: Projections on Buildings - Impressive.]

Yesterday afternoon I abandoned routine and went to see Avatar. This was the first time I have ever seen a 3D IMAX movie.

I had heard good things about Avatar in 3D IMAX but really really wasn't expecting much. After all, I've seen a 3D movie before, years ago. I just wasn't all that impressed with it. In fact, it was so lackluster, I don't even recall what the movie was. I'd also been to (seen?) Terminator, a 3D experience at Disney's EPCOT, which, while great fun, was obviously less than a deep 3D immersive experience.

Avatar is in a whole new class of immersive 3D experiences. I had adjusted to the 3D glasses within 15 - 20 seconds of watching the first 3D preview and quickly got past the fact that I was wearing them.

Within a few minutes, I was "into" the movie. I mean, I literally lost the fact I was watching this movie on a 2D flat screen. The sense of real physical depth is convincing.

I actually caught myself, at one point fairly early in the movie, physically moving my body/head to see around an object in the movie so I could better see what was behind it! Such a thing is, of course, impossible. I was still watching a 3D image projected on a flat 2D screen. But my mind, my sense of perception, was so realistically convinced by the 3D technology that I perceived an actual 3D space. Intuitively I "knew" that I should be able to see behind an object if I just moved.

Amazing!

I fear that I am now "of an age" that doesn't thrill so easily from a movie-going experience. This was different. The artistic direction, the imaginative, creative visual design, the seamless and invisible integration of CGI were all compellingly presented in a truly artistic and visually stunning encounter.

Seeing Avatar in 3D IMAX is a must. This movie, in 3D IMAX, has forever changed what the movies are destined to become as an art form.

Another 3D movie was advertised in the previews that I will have to go see: NASA's 3D IMAX about repairing the Hubble Telescope. The trailer said NASA filmed the actual repair with a 3D IMAX camera. The clarity, detail, and 3D reality of the trailer placed me right there loosely tethered in outer space. I really felt as though I could reach out in front of me and touch the image. It seemed that real.

What will be next? When will our capacity to capture and display massive amounts of visual information become so great that we will be able to literally walk around in a movie projection, seeing it from all sides? (I would hate to be the camera director for that kind of project!) While interacting physically with the image, like on the Holodeck in StarTrek, currently seems impossible, or maybe not, perhaps a more complete sense of 3D projection is not.

So the iPhone controlled AR.Drone I blogged about earlier (last week) is real. They were showing it off at the CES last week. Here is a video with Robert Scoble talking about it. He say's he will buy one if it comes in under $500. (Jeeze, I guess I would too.)

You know we live in a different era when people don't know the names of their neighbors but get interesting messages from them through the names of their WiFi networks.

The new iType, which will be out mid year, is a full size keyboard and charging station for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Cool. I like.

The company will also offer a 2 octave full size piano keyboard for the devices as well.

I'm glad I went to university when I did. I had some of the most amazing professors!

In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make. The recession means their numbers are growing.

“When a tenure-track position is empty,” says Gwendolyn Bradley, director of communications at the American Association of University Professors, “institutions are choosing to hire three part-timers to save money.”

(Source: Strategy - Faculty - The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor - NYTimes.com.)

Your eyes glow hot pink (because your blood glucose is too high), and your clothes shimmer brightly in the night (because the air pollution is too high).

Jin Zhang, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, is developing contact lenses that change color with the user’s blood sugar level. This could allow diabetics to monitor themselves without frequent blood samples. "

(Via: Contact Lenses That Change Color To Alert Diabetics of Glucose Levels – Neatorama< .)

The Danish design firm Diffus created a dress equipped with LED lights and a carbon dioxide detector that glows as the CO2 level rises. It’s called the Climate Dress:"

(Via Dress Reacts With Lights In Response To Air Quality – Neatorama .)

Go ahead, check out the new footer at the bottom of my blog. I've completely redone it. What do you think?

Special thanks to the Creative Pony for letting novice users like myself use some cool code! She calls it Sliding Tabs. It is similar to cover view in iTunes that many readers here are probably familiar with.

Tim likes!

This is a clever idea that would have been cool 15 years ago when I had a Palm PDA. In fact, I wished back in the day that someone made one. Instead, I had to buy one of those tiny fold up keyboards like the one you see at the bottom of this post. I'm not too sure a laser keyboard will be a hit today with glowing touchscreen keyboards becoming so prevalent.

The Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB) is a revolutionary accessory (The only keyboard that operates in total darkness - see the picture below) for Blackberry, Smartphone, PDA, MAC & Tablet PC. The VKB comes with an elegant leather jacket, making it the perfect business / Christmas gift (and just what you want to take out of your inner suit pocket in front of your amazed business colleagues...:-)

In the size of a Zipo lighter and in an outer spaced 'enterprise' style, it uses a laser beam to generate a full-size perfectly OPERATING laser keyboard that smoothly connects to MAC's, Smart Phones, the new Blackberry (8100,8300,8800),Nokia N95 (Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition) and Any kind of PC and Most of the handheld devices (PDA's, tablet PC's)."

(Via I-Tech's Virtual Keyboard - A laser projected full-sized virtual QWERTY keyboard.)

Photo credit: Katsushi

The Silicon Alley Insider posted an article, 21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade. These are some of the things from their list that I won't miss:

• Glad to see the stylus go. The finger is so superior!
• Since I lived by Emory University in Decatur, I was able to get rid of dial up in the mid 90's! It's hard to remember those days. The sound alone was so annoying.
• Developing film: I would never, ever have developed the over 35,000 pictures I've shot since 2003! Ever!!
• I can't believe using a paper map inside a moving car was ever even legal!
• I ditched the landline back in the Decatur days as well. Remember paying a premium for all of those "features" just to get caller ID and call waiting. God I hate AT&T. And then there was/is the constant spamming sales/solicitation calling. Pay more to block it. Spammers, you can pay even more to get through the block... Evil!
• VHS tapes! I was always afraid my VCR would eat them, though I don't recall it ever did.
• Phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias... I'm getting a cold and had 2 prescriptions here at the house: one was a decongestant, the other an antibiotic. But which was which? I don't recall. So just tonight I had to look it up on the internet. I wondered to myself, "How did I live before search engines?!"
• I hated paying for 411! What a ripoff!! And then I would be driving and not be able to remember the stupid number to dial while driving the car!! I don't remember the last time I used 411. God, the iPhone is so awesome! Search, phone numbers, maps, touch to call...
• I hated buying whole CDs (for insane amounts of money: $14.95 - 24.95.and that was 10 - 15 years ago!) when all I wanted was that one track!
• Backing up your data on floppies or CDs? I adore BackBlaze--affordable, automatic, off offsite backups! Never worry. Just click "restore" in any browser, anywhere, anytime.
• Paying paper bills? Does anyone still use a stamp for those?? I hated paying bills!!!

They say the use of paper is on life support. I'm not so sure about that one. I've seen too many printers and copy machines about to burst into flames from over use. Maybe they are referring to newspapers, magazines, books: as a corporate business model, yes, probably. But I suspect we are making up for that decline in paper use on a personal level.

Photo credit: René Elhardt

We are entering a new age of cool! Apple's iPhone is a game changer!

The bike wheel contains all you need so that no sensors or additional electronics need to be added to the frame and an existing bike can be retrofitted with the blink of an eye. ...

By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, which can be mounted on the handlebars, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends. ...

The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life... The Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike."

(Via MIT’s big wheel in Copenhagen.)

If you want to actually do this, and interact with the 3D augmented reality as you see here, just check out this link. You will need to print out the page in step one. Go to the web address. And then hold the printout in front of your web camera.

It's actually rather amazing!

Of the 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010, this last one most interests me. I'll be curious to see where this takes us.

Finally: Real, Cool and Very Bizarre Online-Offline Integration Virtual worlds, games and avatars were just the beginning of the online-offline integration. In 2010 we'll see a greater push on this front as distance and physical walls will matter even less. Augmented reality -- already integrated into Yelp's latest geo-tagging enabled application -- will allow users to find relevant information and people depending on their location; Twitter360 will help people find each other, connect and see updates by location all while on the go through their mobile device. People will be able to scan products on shelves but process the sale online; you'll never need to ask for a business card again at events -- and you may actually get promotions and discounts that match your interests."

(Via 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010.)

I want to be able to aggregate my own information into the augmented reality space. I wonder when that will be possible.