Well today I turn 44!

The best that I can do for a birthday present during my self imposed spending freeze is to take the day off from the Mac, and go and have a long, long, long lunch at Al-rruz at the invitation of Ines and Juan-Carlos, ride the Fat Boy (not before lunch naturally) and take some pictures.

The best thing I can do is to be thankful that I will be spending it for the 16th year with Sands and the first with Moreno.

There are many ways to get information these days, especially notification of new application releases for the Mac.

I have been using prMac since it first launched and find it a really useful source of information, especially on which applications are available to review and how to get hold of the developers.

If you haven’t checked out how they may be able to help you it may be worth a quick look.

Press Release

Another question from Wayne.

Wayne’s Story

OK, currently, my workflow for a new movie or TV show is this: I convert into a mp4 h.264 file. This is for iTunes, basically. I then add metadata using Lostify or MetaX, because they only add metadata to mp4s and no other format. Now that’s all nice and handy, but occasionally I want to add chapters. There are two programs that I know of that add chapters easily. Metadata Hootenanny or Movie Chapterizer. Whenever you use these programs, though, it changes the extension of the file to .mov. So, that’s it for adding metadata afterward, can’t do it. Also by the process of encoding the file it will destroy any chapters you may have put in!

I have a feeling that this weeks picture may come in for some heavy (constructive) criticism!

I am becoming fixated on close up photographs these days, especially ones that use a part of the overall image to ’show’ the whole image. This was a bad subject to photograph in that a) the sun was making it melt, and b) Sands was wanting to eat it!! After a few attempts to get a good close up, and failing, I went for the picture below with the deliberate objective of cropping it in Photoshop. I am pretty pleased with the result, but more pleased with the way I ‘approached’ the shot. I remembered to check the histogram on the ones I took, and zoomed in on the camera LCD to get a ‘feel’ for how it would look.

I read The Secret River in a week, which is usually a good sign, but not in this case.

I had heard good things about the book, and Sands really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading it, but as I turned each page I found myself wondering what all the fuss had been about (in terms of the book not the subject matter), and when it would start to get ‘interesting’.

Encore CS3 ($799 as part of Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, Upgrade from $299) is packed with a rich set of creative tools for DVD and Blu-ray Disc authoring and SWF export to the web.

“Between Blu-ray Disc output and the ability to publish SWF content to the web with just one click, it’s now that much easier to get your work out there to a wide audience.”

Nate Gentner
Product manager, Adobe Encore

My Thoughts

Seems like it’s “Ask a question” time over here on the blog, which is fine with me as your questions always get me thinking, and your responses always teach me something!

This time Wayne has a question about iTunes and iPhoto on a network, which is something that I seem to always be ’struggling’ to work out in my own set up.

Wayne’s Story

When I wrote about the excellent LArobe Island Collection case from Be.ez’s I confessed to my addiction to bags, and the ongoing search I have for the ultimate bag.

Of course this is a search that will never be fulfilled, partly because that would take all the fun out of the task, but mainly because my own personal needs (and attitude) vary so frequently.

I recently borrowed a neighbours DVDR3320V Video Cassette Recorder & DVD Video Player/Recorder so that I could copy some VHS tapes to DVD. It worked, but in the way that smashing a brick into your mouth to remove your teeth works!

It was one of the most painful and unintuitive experiences I have come across – the classic technical manual written without the end user in mind. By way of example:

ThinkMac.net, the popular Apple and Mac enthusiast site is celebrating the 300th episode of it’s flagship podcast Mac Tips Daily!

The celebration includes a software give away to recognize the 300th Episode of the wildly popular podcast Mac Tips Daily!

Their contest theme is ‘Your First Computer’. ThinkMac is offering the chance to get nostalgic and think about your fondest memories of your first computer.

Entering simply requires telling them what your first computer was, and what your fondest memory of it is.

As if I didn’t spend enough time at the keyboard, I have just been accepted to write for both Gadgetell and Appletell – both paying gigs!

Not only does this help on the drive towards that Mac Pro, but it also takes me further into the world of writing more for a living. I know, a small step, but a significant one. I am viewing this as a long term commitment to provide an on-going contribution to my income, to enable me to explore other options in and around the world of blogging and content creation.

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