I can do a moblog just like Russell Beattie and Joi Ito, except in this case we used Takeshi's camera, he emailed me the pics and then I posted them.

Lunch today at The Linwood Grille was fun.

There's me in the left hand picture, and Richard and Takeshi in the one on the right.

Inside the new Macintosh 12" PowerBook.

The Motorola T720 comes with a plastic belt clip that I liked. It's the grey one on the left. Message board traffic warns against using this one, saying that the phone can pop out of the attached holster.

Oh no.

Don't want that.

So I went over to my Verizon Store and picked up a nice leather holster. This holster wraps all the way around the phone so there is no chance of the phone popping out. There is a problem though, the belt clip, shown above on the right, can't accomodate a belt!

If you hook the belt clip on a belt, the bottom of the clip remains open. So now instead of the phone popping out of the holder, the whole holder might fall right off your belt.

What's the deal with that! How can you have a belt clip that doesn't attach to a belt?

One other thing, the grey clip doesn't fit on the leather holster either.

Blah.

The Sporting News: 24 New Pictures of the Miller Lite Girls.
New pictures of the Miller Lite Girls -- Tonya Ballinger & Kitana Baker.

On PAX TV Tonight: The Book Of Days.
Wil Wheaton gets a book showing dates that people are going to die.

The Payload Channel [ an RSS XML feed ].
Adam Curry has this news feed that gives you links to home videos he's made.

I just watched Adam and his family get ready and go to the 8 Mile premiere. They were all talking Dutch. Very funny. And his wife is a very good dancer.

You've got to click the above link, and then copy all the XML code into your RSS Client.

(This) channel is a real-time rendering of an XML file in RSS. You can subscribe to (this) newsfeed using a number of RSS Client Programs , these are typically 'News Feed' applications, but new apps are being created every day to take advantage of this distribution method.

On the Mac I use NetNewsWire.

YESVIDEO: Tape to DVD.

simon extreme.

Like that old game from, like the 70's, only this one is for Mac OS X, and doesn't require batteries. Unless, I suppose, you're using a PowerBook.

Fun. I guess it doesn't even need instructions for those of us who never played the original version.

My first score was 1, my second was 5.

Beat that. :-)
via [ Joshua.com ]

Joe Millionaire: Evan Marriott To Get $1,000,000.

And what better way for Fox to make more oodles than to arrange a switcheroo at the end? Meaning: Let's give this guy a one and six zeroes and put the joke on the audience, not just the gals.

Oh, that would be great.

MacNN Review: Sorenson Squeeze 3.
It's a good one.

Hey, I wrote it!

The Kyocera 7135 looks like the smarter way to go for a new cell phone.

I wonder when Verizon will get it?

Beer Chan, The Beer Fairy.

I hope Beer chan be loved by everyone !!
It can be going to be a favorite of  your beer lover father !?

Davezilla found it. Must have been drinking beer in Japan.

Mmm... beer.

The Daily Show Writers talk and talk and talk and talk.

Prismiq is a techie thing to connect your PC, not Mac, to your TV to do stuff.

AlwaysOn seems to give you inside information about people and things.
Bill Gates is Currently beating Larry Ellison. Come on people. Let's get Larry some more votes.

CurlyFries.com gives you diagnostic information about the browser you are running.

So this is how they made that commercial with Michael Jordan, the young Michael Jordan, and the even younger Michael Jordan. They used Kevin Daley and a lot of computer processing power. I wonder if the Celtics would be interested in Kevin?

Trouble.

VERIZON: AIM Commands and IM Numbers for Verizon Wireless.

What'a the phone scoop?

Frank Sinatra's Mug Shot.
Charged with carrying on with a married woman.

The Other Network: Please come to Boston!

Let's Sing It!

The Miller Lite Girls are forced to pose with the Rulers of Dorkdom, Bob & Dan!

Wow. It's photowow.

Taking your photos, and putting them on a big canvas and doing stuff to them too.

Always fly in the best seat with Seat Guru.

I've had great luck with American lately.

Extra legroom.

Nice.

Dave Barry put his new blog here.

BBC AMERCIA: The Office with Ricky Gervais.
I love this show!

Ravi, Stefan and I were interviewed on Kiss 108 this morning, about being the first ones through the new Logan Link between the Ted Williams Tunnel and the Mass Pike.

The picture shows Matt and me!

Flak Magazine: Super Bowl ads.
Flak Magazine: We review every single frickin' Super Bowl ad, in real-time.

Alana Davis: Carry On MP3, free sample from the Sony Commercial.

The Miller Lite Cat Fight girls recreated their bra-busting brawl Friday at the Super Bowl media center in San Diego.

The girls are Tonya Ballinger and Kitana Baker.

Uncensored version of Miller Lite Catfight Commerical over at iFilm.

And I thought the first one was good. This one is so much better.

Censorship is bad.

Internet is good.

Jimmy Kimmel Live starts tonight and Bill Simmons is writing for him.

Good luck Bill and Jimmy.

Evelyn: A Movie that must have been in and out of the theater when I blinked.

Bush Masking.
Bush Monkey or Not is back, sorta.

Motorola V600.
Now that's what I'm talking about.

Camera, Color, Bluetooth, Mutimedia Messaging and rich melodic sound.

Internet Home Monitoring System HM1000.

Random Weblog.
There's a new link over there on the right hand side of the page.

It's a link to a random weblog.

Try it.

Peter King from Sports Illustrated: Miller Lite Catfight Girls Spied At Superbowl.

The two Miller Lite girls came in. You know, the cat-fighters. And it's like the air was sucked out of this huge ballroom. Every eye in the place turned and stared at these plunging-necklined women.

Thanks Matt!

How To: Tota Lightbulb Installation.
Here are some step by step instructions on how to install halogen bulbs into the Lowel Tota Light Kit.

Tota-Light 2 Light Kit with Case at B&H.

Can a Human Being Fit on an IPod?

University of New Hampshire researcher Will Gilbert... has taken to carrying around the human genome on his iPod.

New That Comes To You.
Wins my award for most links inside a news article.

41.

Any they look like good links too.

NewYorkish

President George Bush said on Friday that New Yorkers who travel by subway may be "better prepared" for Iraqi biological attacks that other Americans.  According to the White House, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have found that New Yorkers who regularly take the subway are exposed to germs, bacteria, and airborne viruses that may potentially prove beneficial in the event of an attack.

via [ fimoculous ]

I'm playing iSketch.

Tackyshirt: Mac OS X training on DVD.
Check out The Dock Lesson when you get there.

Funny and cool!

Very funny.

I Want A Recount: Simon vs. Trista.
The ratings say that American Idol beat The Bachelorette. I want a recount.

I watched both. Don't these ratings people know about TiVo?

Hello TiVo, can you tell me how many people recorded The Bachelorette?

Dave Barry's Blog.
It's on!

Wired: Mitnick's 'Lost Chapter' Found 

A missing chapter from hacker Kevin Mitnick's recent book has been published on the Internet.

The chapter was originally slated to be the first chapter in Mitnick's new book, The Art of Deception, but was not included in the published version of the book.

Chapter One appeared only in about 300 unbound galley copies that publishing company Wiley distributed to the media several months before releasing the book, according to a Wiley spokeswoman.

The publisher decided to remove the chapter shortly before releasing the book.

Kevin Mitnick: Lost Chapter One.

Homepage Homepage is my homepage.

What you do is load up all the pages that you want to check out on a regular basis into Homepage Homepage, and put thier URL in your Homepage setting of your browser.

Then, everytime you click you Home button, you visit one of your favorite web pages.

Works great on Safari since the pages load so quickly. Not so fast on IE.

It's a great way to see what's happening on your favorite pages when you forget to go visit them in a while.

Macosxhints gives you more than just hints about OS X, they tell you exactly what to do to get more out of you Macintosh.

I'm #1 on Vivísimo Clustering Engine when you search for "miller lite catfight girls."

Gawker: NY Stuff.

No Pudge: Fat Free Brownies.

Taquitos.net.
Two guys on a mission to taste every chip ever made.

Program Note: Inside Edition.
The two Miller Lite Catfight girls will be on Inside Edition on Monday January 27th.

My Mac Just Told Me A Joke.

Ad Age: Busty Babes Brawling.

Employing the plot line and visual cliches of a porno flick, this spot has sparked a national controversy -- which was, obviously, the goal of the "shockvertising" creatives who produced it.

Mmm... Beer.

Anil Dash: Diamonds are intrinsically worthless stones.

FARK: Hottie Swedish princess drafted to serve in the army.

Today's Dilbert Made Me Cry.

flakmagazine: Miller Lite "Catfight" ad.

Miller Lite, No. 3 and sinking further behind Bud Light and Coors Light in the light-beer market , has produced an ad so over-the-top smutty, it's likely to get in the Friday night rotation on Cinemax.

Hey, I don't have Cinemax!

Dave Barry's so-called blog.

Tatu on MTV.

Parents who were unsettled by Britney's sexual schoolgirl pout... might have a cerebral hemorrhage when they see the video for Tatu's "All the Things She Said."

Hey, they're just Russian girls who love each other.

Leave them alone.

So what if it, "rubs some people the wrong way."

My friend the Presurfer found a cool new drawing toy the folks at GE made.

Go play.

Cool idea for the World Trade Center.

DRUDGE REPORT 2003® - American Idol Wins.
Tonight will be a battle: American Idol vs. the Bachelorette!

Good thing I have a TiVo!

CONSUMER ALERT WARNING: Websters Universal Encyclopedia Dictionary.

Format: Hardcover, 2224pp.

That's a lot of pp!

My friend Ravi hurt his shoulder when he lifted this book onto a bookshelf.

Please, lift with your legs NOT with your back!

At least do some stretching excercises first.

The Unseen Gulf War.
Never before seen images from the Gulf War by Peter Turnley.

Hard to look at, but it could be a look into the future as well as the past.

Infiltration.
Going places you're not supposed to go.

Probably not such a good idea these days.

Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer: Dead.

Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer, who spoke on behalf of the WTO at the CILS conference in Salzburg on Oct. 27, and with whom many of you shared a pleasurable moment or two, has passed on. He succumbed yesterday, at 16:50 CET, to an infection thought to have been caught from the rotten pie which was hurled in his face after his Oct. 27 lecture.

Beware the pie.
via [ K10k ]

The Ten Second Films Competition.

The DigiCam Chronicles: Assignment Macworld .

Inside The Secret Government.

With TiVO you can PAUSE recorded TV!
I had a Futurama episode paused for about 4 hours yesterday.

It was on the TV all the time.

Like wallpaper.

It was cool.

Metafilter has a great post that compares the Miller Lite Catfight Commercial with the Star Trek Amok Time episode.

I just saw on technocrati that buffoonery links to me.

Thanks.

I like your link to a bicycle.

Exposing "Me": My Virtual Model.

Exposing "Joe Millionaire": The Modeling Shots.

Republican Babe of the Week: India Allen.
via [ The Presurfer ]

Doing Research On Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) For a Family Member.
Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) Workshop.

Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) has emerged in the past year as a prototypical neoplasm that responds to therapy directed against a single target molecule - the KIT receptor tyrosine kinase protein. Although GIST seldom responds to conventional chemotherapeutic agents, early experience with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, STI-571 (Gleevec, Novartis, Basel, Switzerland) has been extremely encouraging.

FDA APPROVES GLEEVEC TO TREAT GASTROINTESTINAL STROMAL CANCER.

FDA today approved the cancer drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) for treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). GIST is a relatively uncommon tumor, affecting about 5,000 people in the United States.

Dr. George Demetri: Gleevec and Soft Tissue Sarcomas.

This is an amazing new medicine, which sets a new paradigm for rational therapy of cancer. (Rational therapy refers to when an understanding of the basic biology of the tumor leads to a specifically developed approach in treating that tumor.) Gleevec was specifically designed to inhibit a certain over-active enzyme, which causes a type of leukemia called CML. That enzyme in CML is known as ‘ABL.’ ABL is a member of a family of enzymes called ‘tyrosine kinases.’ The key thing is that a type of sarcoma known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) has an overactive member of the tyrosine kinase enzyme family as well! That enzyme in GIST is called ‘kit.’ Importantly, Gleevec also blocks kit.

Gleevec 's New Successes Show Growing Promise of Targeted Therapies

"In contrast to extending a person's life two or three months, which is real progress with some drugs in some cancers, this drug and this targeted approach with other such drugs may well extend a person's longevity by years, and that is something to be excited about."

Novel molecularly targeted therapy effective for gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

"The way we do cancer research will change; Gleevec is like a "guided missile, specifically targeting the defect that makes the GIST cell cancerous, while sparing most normal cells."

Welcome to the Home of Gleevec.

GIST Discussion.

The Life Raft Group.

Go watch Brett Simon's film Switch Fish.

Now listening to: The Adam Ezra Group: Boston's new voice in acoustic rock.

Sentence Fragments.
Because I don't undertand what you mean.

The Everyman Photo Contest 2002: Copeland.

Chicago Tribune | Spiining the Globes.
The Golden Globe voters like two of my favorite shows!

Musical or comedy series: "Curb Your Enthusiasm," HBO.

Actor, musical or comedy series: Tony Shalhoub, "Monk."

Congratulations guys! These are two wonderful shows that I'm looking forward to seeing new episodes from.

Tivo report on the Golden Globes.
I haven't seen Minority Report yet, so I didn't know who Colin Farrell was, but he sure has an amazing Irish accent. Loved it when he said Sh*t on the pre show.

Bono was very excited to win the award for Original song: "The Hands That Built America" from "Gangs of New York". So excited in fact that he said Fu*k.

Wow, two swears in the same night on network TV.

Brad Pitt Is So Last Year! No, really.
My best Tivo moment was when my wife said that the shot of Brad Pitt, in the pre-show musical montage, was from last year.

Pause Live TV. Rewind. Slow Motion.

She was right. The clip they used was an old one showing Brad Pitt with a full beard. He was clean shaven this year!

Forgetting Peanuts.

It's interesting how art can lose its meaning in the face of popular adulation, a process repeated over and over in all creative media. In the case of Peanuts, I fear that the end result will be that its singular achievement, an eerie, witty rendering of the psychological mindset of its time, will be gradually forgotten. Snoopy, having lost his resonance to the culture, will become a denatured pop icon like Mickey Mouse, floating above the Macy's parade but no longer grounded in social reality.

Mmm... peanuts.

Get me a beer.

Boston Globe Online: 1st tunnel ride goes to transportation fans.
Ravi and Stefan were the fans, I was there to film it all!

...as dozens of hard-hatted construction workers and other project officials applauded in the cold, Jain, Economou, and friend Steven Garfield, who sat in the back seat filming the inaugural journey with a camcorder, headed into the tunnel.

Boston Herald: Tunnel vision rewards duo: `Pioneers' are first on Pike extension.

For history's sake, pal Steve Garfield was filming the ride

That's my shot!

Transportation Pioneers Declare 'Seattle or Bust!'
I filmed Ravi Jain and Stefan Economou as they became the first people to drive on the new connection between the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Ted Williams Tunnel.

Channel 7 in Boston used my footage from inside the car as we entered the tunnel, "That's one small push of the gas pedal for Ravi Jain...."

The story ended up being reported by AP:

Tunnel connecting Ted Williams Tunnel, Turnpike opens
By Associated Press, 1/18/2003 17:49

BOSTON (AP) A pair of self-described ''transportation pioneers'' were the first motorists to drive from Logan International Airport straight to the Massachusetts Turnpike on Saturday, when the new $6.5 billion tunnel connecting the two opened to traffic.

Ravi Jain and his passenger, Stefan Economou, circled Logan and the Ted Williams Tunnel for about four hours, spending $9 on tolls, waiting for the new road to open, before driving westbound at about 4:30 p.m.

Jain's car carried a sign reading ''Seattle or Bust,'' referring to the fact that motorists can now drive Interstate 90 from Logan to Seattle without leaving the highway.

The pair was also the first to drive on the Leverett Connector, the first portion of the Big Dig to open, in 1999.

''The sign made it easy'' for officials to pick them out for the honor of opening the tunnel, said Jain, who lives in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Did they intend on driving to Seattle after making their way through the new tunnel? ''We could,'' Jain said with a grin, adding that the opening was ''a great day for Boston.''

Look for the story on Boston TV Stations 4, 5, 7 and 56.

NECN has coverage online.

Watch for my Canon GL2 and hand enter the frame as Ravi gets interviewed on NECN!

Nude women spell No War.

Google's 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist shows that Otoha was the most searched for woman in Japan.

Goateestyle features Ryan as Golum.

Sound Art

To his right, mounted to wood on a wall, are tiny brass rods affixed with fishing wire to the keys of a 1930s Remington typewriter.

And next to that is a stainless-steel sink flanked by copper pipes and aluminum light fixtures. With a quick blow into an attached clear tube, it creates a medley that sounds like Louis Armstrong playing a horn inside his bathtub.

Go see my friend Ravi make music out of a telephone, an answering machine, and an amplifier.

Google Search: girls of beer commercials.
Off On A Tangent is #1 out of 22,600.

Mmm... Beer.

Google Search: hot girls.
Off On A Tangent is #5 out of 3,030,000!

Thanks again.

Yahoo! Search Results for hot girls.
Off On A Tangent is #4 out of 3,210,000!

Thanks for your support.

USATODAY.com - Miller Lite's 'Catfight' ad angers some viewers.
I'm mad.

It's not on enough!

Trista!

Duckboy and Company are featured on the pbs blogosphere.
via [ broomeman.com ]

Quicken: User Interface Woes.
When a dialog box opens up on the page isn't the standard action for the [Return] key supposed be the selection of the currently highlighted button in the dialog box?

At least that's the way it works on 10,000 other applications.

And another thing, the QuickFill window has columns arranged in a table format, shouldn't I be able to adjust the column width?

Samuel Adams: Special Light Ale On Tap.
If you go to Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain, you'll be able to test a Special Samuel Adams Light Ale On Tap.

This is not the same as Sam Adams Light Beer in bottles, according the the bartender at Doyles. This is a special brew that Sam Adams has delivered to Doyles as a test. They only got three barrels, so get down there if you want to have a taste.

I'll be sitting at the bar.

Journal of CleverNickName (129189).
It's Wil Wheaton's Journal at Slashdot.

Doesn't Intuit Hire Any Quality Control People?
TurboTax Woes: Part III
On the first video page the caption reads, "for an overview of what's new in TurboTax this year, play the video above."

Well I plated the video and it does not tell me what's new in TurbTax this year, it only gives me an overview of TurbTax.

That's not right.

The caption should say, "for an overview of TurboTax , play the video above."

This software is supposed to make my tax prep easier.

It's not happening so far.

TurboTax: Built for OS X?
Why do the on-screen tax guides prompt me for the Classic operating system?

The TurboTax box states, "built for Mac OS X."

I think they need to do some renovations.

TurboTax: Install Documentation is Wrong.
The installation instruction in the book should match the contents of the CD.

In the book TurboTax says, "select TurboTax Deluxe Installer" yet on the disk my only choice is "TurboTax Deluxe for OS X"

That doesn't match.

Also they have a folder called, "put in system folder". Why do they have that when the installer seems to take care of everything?

What is up with that?

The guy who broke that one old record player thingy.
Watch the video clip that features Chris Pirillo when you get there.

See how good you are at counting back change.

I'm usually happy when I go into a store and they count back change.

If they just count up, to what the register says, it's not the same.

.25, .75, $1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00, and 5.00 makes 10.00, and 10.00 makes $20.00, have a nice day.

iTrip is an FM transmitter that lets you play music, from your iPod, on the radio.

It doubles as a wine opener.

Not really.

Joe Millionaire is waist deep in it.

Ben James at blogtastic.com made this BlogBadge.

Cool.

Another button for my button museum.

Starship Exeter.

"In one of the best science-fiction "fan film" projects of all time, a pair of "Star Trek" fanatics have created a new episode in exacting 1960s style using their own actors, sets and props." - Julio Ojeda-Zapata - Pioneer Press

While watching my new DVD of the Boondock Saints, one of the characters says that the Rule of Thumb refers to the width of a stick used to legally beat your wife, of course I googled it immediately to see if it was true.

It's not.

The "Rule of Thumb for Wife-Beating" Hoax.

Also, I found out that there are plans for Boondocks II.

.
Happy Birthday Johnathan!

Joshua wanted me to check into Priceline.com for Macworld, but I was already comfortable at the Marriott.

Now I have time to look into it more.

Have you used Priceline?

Kill Bill - Teaser Trailer - Large - Requires Quicktime.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
A book by my good friend Cory Doctorow.

Go download it for free.

You've Gotta Eat.
San Francisco is a great place for restaurants. While here for Macworld I visited a few that were first rate.


Joshua introduced me to Sears for breakfast. He kept telling me that were were going to go to Sears and that I'd really like it. I thought it was funny since the Sears in the Boston area don't serve food, but I went along and had a great breakfast. This Sears is a classic old time restaurant.

Mels drive-in was a great stop for breakfast. Mels Club Breakfast #1 with (2) eggs, special grilled potatoes, with sourdough toast was exceptional for $4.50. Mels has four locations in SF, we went to the one at 801 Mission Street.

At the Final Cut Pro User Group Meeting on Wednesday night, JC, Managing Director for the Woods Hole Film Festival, was kind enough to go out and get me a hamburger and fries from Mels, also good. Very good.

Puccini and Pinetti was a great find for dinner. Super Italian food served by a waitstaff that remembers yor name. It's at 129 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA.

Putting My FCP Movies on the Web Is Easy Now, I just press 'SQUEEZE IT'.
The Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite from Sorenson Media relieved me of a big headache. It gave me one button to push to get my Final Cut Pro movies ready for Web delivery.

Now, after making a movie in Final Cut Pro, all I have to do it press the [SQUEEZE IT] button and Sorenson Squeeze 3 takes care of all the tricky settings that I don't have either the time or inclination to learn.

The Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite includes Squeeze 3, Spark Pro for Flash, and MPEG-4 Pro (Windows Media Players and Real Players need a plug in to see these files). I'm going to take a look at Squeeze 3.

You know those really sharp movie trailers on the Apple.com web site? Well they were done with Sorenson Media professional codecs. When you get Final Cut Pro, there are Sorenson codecs built in to compress your video for web distribution, but they are not the same professional ones as those used by Apple to put up those cool movie trailers.

With Squeeze 3, now you can use the same professional codecs.

Going From Final Cut Pro to Squeeze 3
The Squeeze User Guide doesn’t explain how to get your Final Cut Pro movie ready to open with Squeeze 3. The user guide is a pdf file so I couldn’t search for help on this. The online help tells you all the input formats that are supported and this includes Quicktime movie files.

When I saw this I was confused since I usually have to select all kinds of settings when I export a Quicktime movie. I wondered why I would have to export a Quicktime movie, which I thought would degrade the image.

Then I realized that I needed to export a Self-Contained or Final Cut Pro Reference Movie. This way the file wouldn’t loose any quality before going in to Squeeze 3.

Here’s how you get a Final Cut Pro movie ready for the Sorenson Squeeze 3:

Create your movie in Final Cut Pro and EXPORT it.

You can choose a Self-Contained or Final Cut Pro Reference Movie. Here are the Self-Contained settings:

[File] [Export] [Final Cut Pro Movie]
Setting: DV NTSC
Quality: Hi Res (1)
Include: Audio and Video
[X] Make Movie Self Contained

To save space you can Export a REFERENCE MOVIE, just uncheck the self-contained box, and Squeeze 3 will find all the files and create its output from your original source movie files. This way saves space on your disk.

Next you open the file in Squeeze.

Open Squeeze 3, open up the self-contained or reference Final Cut Pro movie you just exported from Final Cut Pro. You can also drag your exported movie to the Squeeze Icon if you have it in your Dock or on your desktop.

You are then presented with Output Types and Preset Settings for your movie. These are presented as Icons on the top of the page. These Icons aren’t too easy to figure out since they don’t have any text underneath them. If you point your cursor on top of them they tell you what they do. I’d like to see this part of the screen laid out more clearly. I read the User Guide, but I don’t really want to have to refer back to the manual every time I need to choose an output setting.

After you’ve selected the type of file you want, you just press the [Squeeze It] button and Squeeze compresses the file for you.

First I chose Progressive and my two minute movie compressed down to 6.6MB. A progressive compression will download the movie to end users computer. When you watch this type of movie you see a progress bar and the movie will play up to the end of the bar as it downloads. If you have a slower connection, this way is a pain to watch a movie because you are always waiting for more movie to download before you can watch it.

If you are interested, the settings Sorensen uses as a preset are:
Video: SV3 Pro, 320x240, 1:2 fps, 360 kbps, Audio: MP3, Mono, 64 kbps

I also decided to produce a streaming file so I opened my Final Cut movie and clicked the button to select Streaming 300K. Streaming will start playing the movie when a user clicks on it with no waiting, it can't be saved to disk though.

This time Squeeze 3 compressed my movie down to 4.9MB and the settings it used were:
Video: SV3 Pro, 320x240, 15.00 fps, 256 kbps, Audio: QDesign Basic, 48 kbps

This compares to 8.2 MB when I used the Sorenson Compression included with FCP.

You can compress in Final Cut Pro using the Sorenson Codec, but it's a constant bit rate encoder. High motion segments need more bits to display them clearly but in constant rate you see distortion in the high motion areas.

Squeeze 3 is a variable bit rate two-pass encoder. The first pass takes notes on which areas are high motion and which are low motion. Then the second pass encodes the movie. This produces a cleaner movie.

There are more things you can do with Squeeze 3 if you have the time or inclination. You can crop your movie, add fade in or fade out, normalize the audio, and adjust image with adjustments like contrast.

All these options become available to you if you [Control] [Click] on the output file name. I’d like to see a more intuitive way to get at the options. There isn’t any indication on the screen that you need to [Control] [Click] to see and edit the options. You also use the same key sequence to remove an output file from your list of files to be compressed.

Squeeze 3 will de-interlace your video and provide video noise reduction if you have imported analog video that isn't the greatest quality. Sorenson suggests that you use Digital Video for the best quality.

One of the coolest features of Squeeze 3 is that it allows you to constrain file size to a certain # of KBytes. No more Compress, Wait, Check File Size, Compress, Wait, Check File Size nightmares.

As I compared the end results the file that I got from Squeeze 3 was a lot cleaner and smaller.

The file I created with FCP export had a lot of artifacts. Web video looks a lot better with Squeeze! A lot better.

I love this program. Just what Macintosh Video editors need if they haven't yet mastered the complexities of file compression for streaming web video. With Squeeze 3 I might never even care about the details! All I care about is great video distributed over the web at the touch of a button.

With Squeeze 3, that button is [SQUEEZE IT].

www.sorenson.com
(888) 767-367
Sorensonn Media
4393 South Riverboat Road
Suite 300
Salt Lake City, UT 84123
801-287-9400

Live, on tape, Macworld reports.
ezedia - Easily make websites with Quicktime.

Macworld Expo - Day Two
VIDEO TO FILM
At 8:00 Joshua and I went to the Loews Theatre to see a presentation on how go from Video to Film. We are emerging film makers and this information should come in handy to us.


Breakfast was promised, but we only got cookies, juice and frappachino. The juice was Martinelli's Apple Juice, a fine juice from California. The Starbucks frappuchino was low fat according to the label.

I only understood 10% of what was said in this meeting since they were talking a different language than I'm used to. All kinds of film acronyms were thrown around: CRT output, 2383, 3:2 mode, Symphony, speed adjusted, etc...

I'm told that http://www.adamwilt.com/24p/ has all the info and will get me from 10% understanding up to a higher percentage.

Based on the presentation I learned that when you film on video and plan to go to film you should:

- Not put any diffusion on your lense
- Use close ups
- Use static shots
- Follow the action, which will keep your object sharp
- Do not shoot out of focus


SHARON RUTTER - RULES OF ATTRATION
At the Final Cut Pro User Group Theatre, Sharon Rutter told us how she used Final Cut Pro to edit Roger Avery's Rules of Attraction.


She also confirmed that Carrot Top will be one of the people joining her in doing a commentary for the DVD which will be out on February 14th.

Sharon suggested two books by Walter Murch: The Conversations and In the Blink of an Eye.

FINAL CUT PRO - REAL TIME EFFECTS
Turns out that my 667Mhz Powerbook doesn't support Real Time Effects anymore, if it ever did. All the experts at hte user group booth tried to determine why. I went over to the Apple booth and Michael Wong from the Final Cut Pro team at Apple told me that my computer won't support all real time effects.

STEVE JOBS WALKS BY
I saw Steve Jobs walk by and thought it was cool for him to be walking by. I went over to him and introduced my self. He was polite.

Cool.

Macworld - The NORTH Building Rocks!
After spending some time in the Final Cut Pro User Group Theater I started looking around the show floor.

The vendors here are so nice. They tell me that all the big companies are over in the South Building.

Less is More.
So I started off in a booth where a guy made a man disappear. It's this software called mokey. It actually takes a series of still images that you took on your video camera and modifies them to remove any object that you don't want in there. The guy at the booth is a riot and worth talking to.

Next I saw there nice handouts on a garbage barrel. They were high color printed on heavy stock. So I found the booth, #3840, and it turns out that they placed those handouts there for me to pick up. Nice marketing! These guys are AmericasPrinter.com and they'll print out business cards, and posters and all kinds of stuff for you. Go over there and touch all the paper. It's fun!

I gotta go back to check out the South building and get my hands on those new Powerbooks, so I'll leave you with a quick list of other booths that are good:

SLIMP3 - A very cool looking network mp3 player.
XtremeMac - A quiet encloseure
Primera Technology - A CD Duplicator and CD Burner all in one!
Dr. Bott - extendAir - Extends the new Apple Airport 250 and 500 feet
VRSHowcase - 360 degree panoramic photos from a single exposure using a mirrored doo-hickey.
CustomFlix - They manufacture and distribute your DVDs for you.
RadTech - ScreensavRz - Keep your Powerbook screen scratch free when you close your laptop. It's a screen cleaner too.
TackyShirt - Is producing a very funny series of DVD training videos.
EJ - A cool 33 1/3 disk that goes on your turntable to give you control of your Macintosh media. Party tonite at VideoSalon 8-12 150 FOLSOM ST. VideoSAlon is an open community of SF video artists and these EJ guys will be there too.

Steve Jobs likes looplabs.

Final Cut Express.
Apple just announced an entry level Final Cut Pro called Final Cut Express for $299.

Cool!

A great way to get people into professional video editing on a Mac.

FCP UG Network.
My video, God Damn Mistake, has been accepted for showing at the The Final Cut Pro User Group Theater at Macworld San Francisco January 6th - 10th.

I'm very excited about this, and will be in The Final Cut Pro User Group Theater Booth # 3740 on Tuesday 10:30-12:00, Wednesday 12:00-2:00 and Thursday 2:00-4:00.

Stop by and say hi.

\\ SONY :: METREON //.
Right near my hotel is the mega Sony store - Metreon.

It's a gadget lovers paradise. Josh and I went into the computer part of the store and overheard a Sony sales person say, "The Sony Vaio is the Mac of the PC world."

Blogging From Macworld San Francisco.
Well, I'm not actually at Macworld yet, I'm still in my hotel room. I'm going to watch Steve Jobs Keynote from the Apple.com web site.

You can only get into the keynote if you pay big bucks for the Conference sessions. I didn't get those. I just have an exhibit pass.

Celtic Crossing beats Irish Mist.
Up at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store, they've got Irish Mist for sale including a pair of glasses for around $23.

Celtic Crossing was on sale for about $12.99 so I bought it.

Celtic = Irish.

Crossing sorta = Mist.

Results of the taste test = Celtic Crossing is a little sweeter.

Celtic Wins! I don't need two more stupid glasses anyway.

Futurama Transcripts.

Penn Jillette At The Airport.

"Well, it's not really the right word, but freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it."

FARRAGO.
Thanks for the link. Cute kittens!

I went to see the Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers today.

It was SOLD OUT at the 3:45 PM showing in Boston. By the time we picked up our tickets and got into the theater, there weren't any more seats available and if there were I couldn't see them since it was so dark in the theater.

So we went way back to the top of the stadium seating and sat on the floor.

This is the view we had of the movie.

It's ok though, we stood some of the time.

It's amazing how fast 3 hours goes by when you are watching a great movie!