Category: Misc

My review of the iPod nano appears in today’s Seattle Times: Apple reinvents iPod mini. I’m a design geek, so when Apple releases a product this small and this wonderfully well-engineered, I’m hooked. That the iPod nano provides nearly all the features offered by the full-fledged iPod makes it all the more appealing.

A friend pointed me to an interesting iTunes development: Crookz, a video podcast (link goes to the iTunes Music Store within iTunes). This is the first I’ve seen of such a beast, though it’s not very surprising; the addition of music video support opened the door for any video. And in fact, there are others ...

Here’s an interesting special feature at the New York Times: The Digital Student. All sorts of information about equipping your college student. “When I went off to school, what you went off with was your clothes and a car,” said Myle Walsh, an importer in Midway, Utah, whose son, Makena, will be entering the University ...

The New York Times has an article in today’s issue about companies such as DriveSavers, which rescues data from dead or damaged hard drives: E.R. for Hard Drives. If all computer users backed up their hard drives, the data recovery industry would barely exist. But the routine, like flossing teeth, is practiced regularly by few. ...

My latest Practical Mac column for The Seattle Times talks about how I was able to get Timbuktu Pro working on my mother-in-law’s Mac so that I can control it remotely: Remote control makes tech support easy. Patty would have to describe to me what she saw onscreen, reading every error message or menu list ...

Geeky and cool: someone ripped a full-length DVD movie and encoded it in H.264, copied the 800 MB file to an iPod shuffle, and played it back via USB. Full res, feature-length film playing off iPod Shuffle

Macworld.com has just published my review of Final Cut Express HD. It’s a good revision, though less compelling for people who already use Final Cut Express and don’t plan on working in HDV. But I was happy to see that the iMovie support has improved: Final Cut Express HD also features improved iMovie project import, ...

My Practical Mac column in the Seattle Times today takes an overview look at Apple’s decision to shift to Intel processors: What’s in store for Macs with Intel processor inside.

Today’s big news was that Apple will be moving the Macintosh to Intel processors, a sea change for people who’ve been following the Mac. It’s exciting, interesting stuff, and I’ll be closely watching to see how they migrate digital video editing (a very processor-intensive task) to a new processor family. I’m slightly wary after having ...

What are students shooting? The wide-rangingCampus MovieFest recently wrapped up, and you can view nearly 1,000 movies online.