Archive for the “What's Up” Category

While it’s been quiet here the last few days at Diffusion (at michaelsmith.tv), I’m actually working on prepping 4 different posts all at the same time.  Everything has been in a state of almost being finished, but none of them are done enough to publish the posts.  Here’s a quick status report of what I’m working on:

1. On Monday I got ahold of a Harman/Kardon AVR 254 7.1 home theatre amplifier. Then Wednesday I bought new speakers to go with it. So I haven’t posted on it yet because it’s not fully set up.  Remounting the new 5.1 speakers is enough of a job but now I also have to find room for the 2 additional ones.  One of them is requiring me to run a wire under the hardwood floor.
2. That has lead to an article about 5.1 and 7.1 but I’m still researching it a bit. It may be folded into the same post as above, but again, still working that out.
3. The folks at Paint On Screen liked my bog on screens being overrated so much that they sent me a gallon of their product.  I’ll be testing it side by side with the white paint I’m already using.  We’ll be painting half the wall on Saturday, testing Saturday night, and then finishing the job on Sunday.  Will the $200/gallon paint out perform the $30/gallon paint?
4. The new Sony Webbie HD camera – unboxed and reviewed.  I’ll also be posting some actual .MP4 files so you can see for yourself if it’s good or not.  Surely it’s worth the low $200 price tag, but check the RSS feed to find out.

Apple has always often been the innovator. The company that sets the trends. We’ve seen it time and time again with the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone. And not just full products but also ideas and technology, like adopting firewire early or dropping floppy discs early, or integrating touch so well. Think about how the touch capabilities on the iPhone has influenced a plethora of copy cat products.

Some might believe that Apple innovated the GUI and the mouse. But they DIDN’T, they stole plagiarized those technologies during a visit to PARC, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. Some of Apple’s best innovations have been things that they’ve RE-invented. But Apple hasn’t really innovated anything since the iPhone – and that was years ago. Every MacWorld and WWDC since then has been mostly disappointing.

It’s time for Apple to “innovate” again. There are 4 products I saw at CES that Apple needs to look at, reverse engineer, license, or plagiarize. Read… »

The Macworld keynote is tomorrow morning and as everyone knows by now, it will be without Steve Jobs. Tomorrow the world will learn that Apple CAN announce exciting new products without Steve giving the presentation. It might not be AS exciting as hearing it from Steve, but the stock can and will go up when exciting things are announced. Overall this is a good thing for Apple, stockholders, and the Apple community. Apple needed to make this change – my reasons follow…  UPDATED…

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Happy New Year! About an hour ago there was a roar outside that sounded like a 747 driving down my quiet residential street. It was the constant and combined blasts of thousands of fireworks going off 10 to 15 miles away at the Las Vegas Strip. It was so loud that it could even be heard over the phone. My buddy David and I were discussing our predictions for 2009. At this late hour I can’t remember all of them, but here are a few to get the ball rolling. Jump in and add your own predictions down in the comments…

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I’ve been working day and night over the holiday weekend on my iphone app. I suppose normally I would just close my laptop lid in between sessions but this weekend I was trying to stay motivated to keep working. So my laptop was left on most all weekend. Two important points: One is that I’ve been using it in this configuration (pictured) with the extra keyboard and mouse.  Second is that I have a cat. And while I hate love her, she is a very annoying cat. Every few minutes she’ll try to either sit on my lap or on the keyboard and even as I write this I have to keep telling her to NOT WALK ACROSS MY KEYBOARD. I think she likes the heat it gives off and many times I’ve come home to find that she’s deleted stuff, moved files around, etc.  (UPDATED 12/2/08) Read… »

My wife chatted me a few minutes ago and asked if I was going to “lose my chip”.  It’s a joke regarding my recent commitment to posting something new every day on my site. The reference is of course AA and how you get a chip each week or month that you stay dry.  I admit that in the past I’ve struggled keeping up with things like this. But I’m on my 5th week and this past month has been good for me. I use the calendar (scroll down on the sidebar to the right) as a way of seeing my progress.  The text is green for each day that I’ve posted. Read… »

Today I installed a new comment system called IntenseDebate. It provides better functionality for comments, comment threading, reply-by-email, commenter profiles, reputation points and comment voting.  It should be a bit more fun than the old system.  To take full advantage of the new system sign up for IntenseDebate by clicking on Comments below.

Someone also recently asked about commenter avitars. IntenseDebate allows you to either upload an avitar to your profile there or use a gravitar.

So go ahead and click “Comments” below to see how it all works…

Wasn’t sure what I was going to post about today – and then look what someone gave me this morning…

I’ve got so many other things planned for my spare time over the next few months. This was the last thing I needed (even though I did ask for it).  I’ve been joking about this blog being like AA – today I get my 3 week chip – posted every weekday for 3 weeks.  But a new game could suck up my time like an uber-sponge and kill my posting streak.  What are my options here?

• Keep it shrink wrapped, like a procrastination time bomb waiting to explode. I’ll be turning on my Xbox around November 19th anyway.
• Loan it to someone and try to get it back at a later date.  Yeah that’ll work.
• Start playing, allowing it to consume my being, staying up until 3am every night trying to kill all my old friends.  That one sounds kind of good.  And if I don’t start now I’ll be way behind everyone else.
• or I could play just a little here and there, keep working on all my projects, and try to have some balance. ooohhhh, that’s how it starts…

I had originally intended to focus this blog solely on tutorials for After Effects, Final Cut, DVD Studio Pro, and other pro video topics.  But recently I decided that I needed to broaden the scope a bit.  I still intend on having tutorials as a section of the site and to offer advice and help here.  But it fits my personality more to keep things less formal and much more flexible.  In other words I’ll get to it when I get to it.  It’s my site so I’ve giving myself the freedom to do whatever i want here.  And giving myself some grace about things like spelling and grammar – and I ask that you do as well.  I’m not a professional writer but I have a lot of useful information and ideas that I want to make available.

So here begins my theme of “out with the old and in with the new,” which I’ll be blogging about for several posts.