It doesn’t feel like it, but I’ve had my Mac mini for well over a year. I started using it as my primary desktop machine when I moved down to Chapman about half a year ago. I’ve had a lot of time to think about the system as I was mastering it. I think that my background in Windows and Linux gives me a unique perspective, although I think I may be part of a larger trend of Mac neophytes defecting from the PC.
I thought now would be a good time to sit down and air my joys and grievances regarding this interesting platform.
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A recent entry on Rex is Excited got me thinking about how people my age are using technology.
Rex writes:
I’m riding the bus down from school right now, heading home. I’m wearing my headphones, listening to a podcast on my iPod from O’Reilly, a discussion panel of non-techies about their experiences on the web. What I’d like to be able to do is to talk about this with someone here on the bus, but the problem is that the people here at UCSC are largely not ‘web people.’
I find this to be true with the students here at Chapman as well. Most of the people involved in the cool new (and often overhyped) stuff on the web are all out of school. So what about my generation?
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Many, including myself, thought the day would never come. As it turns out, the rumors about EMI and Apple brokering a deal to distribute DRM-free music through the iTunes Music Store held water. EMI has stated that their entire catalogue will be released sans DRM in May. However, this comes at a price of 30 cents extra per track, according to the Apple Press Release. In addition to the unprotected (AAC) format, the files will be encoded at 256 kbps, which is twice the current bitrate and better than CD quality.
This seems like a fair enough compromise to me, at least for the time being. Let me run the numbers on an album I think everyone should have, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
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I like how Avid Media Composer is the “industry standard” for nonlinear video editing equipment. Nice “industrial solution” you’ve got there.
Recent frustrations have prompted me to write an entry on Google pages. Figured I might as well link to it here and spread the love.
Wow. A summer internship at Creative Commons? That would be insanely cool.
I got my stuff together at the last minute and sent my application off. It may be a long shot, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
February 24, 2007 – 12:42 am
So I was messing around with Google Pages the other day just to see how well it worked. It’s actually not bad at all for a web-based WYSIWYG editor, although it’s a bit clunky in Camino on Mac OS X. (Not as clunky as Wetpaint, but more unpredictable.)
Pages is still a Google labs beta, so caveat emptor.
Anyway, as I was messing around with it I began to write a somewhat nonsensical rant about copyright law, which consistenly frustrates me.
It felt good to write but I don’t think it’s really very constructive, so I decided to write an essay about how copyright law has expanded in recent years due to the advent of digital technology, a subject I first heard about in a lecture by Lawrence Lessig (see the bottom of the essay for links.) I don’t know if it will interest anyone, but it’s becoming a good representation of what I’ve learned about copyright law in the past several years, and why it poses such a problem in its current state.
I was able to find some free content illustrations that I think work quite nicely.
Give it a read if you are so inclined. If you have feedback, please feel free to email me or leave a comment here.
January 31, 2007 – 5:04 am
I figured out how to do this a little while ago, and wanted to share it. This should work with any decent firewire DV camera.
First, hook up the camera to your Mac and turn it on to “camera mode” (Not VTR.) Start Final Cut Pro. Open the “Log and Capture” window and go to the Capture Settings tab. Leave the Capture/Input on whatever you normally use for your camera, but set the Device Control preset to “Non-Controllable Device”.
On the clip settings tab, you may wish to set your audio/video settings. I often deselect the video track so I can use my computer as an audio recording device.
Now name the clip in the logging window and check to make sure it’s capturing to the proper scratch disk. Press “Capture Now” and away you go!
January 30, 2007 – 3:31 am
Okay, so I sometimes feel like writing. I have a personal blog, but I mostly use that to post stuff for a few friends. I obviously never intended my personal blog to have a “general audience”, and I’m finding nowadays that its format and long history often stifle what I’m able to do with it.
I wanted a new place to write. I’ve set up WordPress for friends and relatives on several occasions in the past, so I figured I might as well set one up for myself, and here it is.
I’m still not quite sure what I’m going to write here. Whatever comes to my mind, probably. I still don’t care about “readership”, I’m pretty much just writing for myself, although if it interests you, all the better. As the title implies, this is a place for me to vent, and to get out whatever is on my mind.
Who knows? Perhaps someone will find it interesting.
