February 2008 Archives (29 posts)
New Iron Man Trailer Rocks!
The new Iron Man movie trailer just came out and it looks awesome! Robert Downy Jr. as the lead character looks to be cast perfectly. His sarcasm, wit and endless one-liners, not to mention some incredible CGI will make this the “coolest” super hero movie of the summer.
Thanks to Rob at SUPERHERO TV for telling me about the new trailer.
Posted in Movies at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
Myron Cope was one of a kind
Yoi!
Pittsburgh Steelers announcer Myron Cope died yesterday at the age of 79. Myron was one of the most colourful sports announcers in the US. I’d put him up there with Harry Caray.
The first time I heard Myron was about 5 years ago after leaving a Steelers game in Pittsburgh. A bunch of us were in the car, stuck in traffic and listening to the post-game show. At the time, we had no idea who this whacky Myron was, but he made us laugh and laugh and laugh.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing Myron Cope say “Yoi!” or “that ain’t kosher” then you have to visit Arlin’s Myron Cope Sounds. My favourite sound clips are from Myron — In His Own Words. Myron was definitely one of a kind.
Posted in News at 4:08 PM | Comments (1)
Music industry needs to get creative
Last week I wrote about the struggling music industry in Canada. Today, the top executives in the industry met in New York for Digital Music Forum East where everyone is trying to figure where things are heading.
The music industry has changed a lot in the last 10 years and nobody seems to know where it is going except that Music 1.0 is dead. Sales are down and DRM on purchased music isn’t working so what’s next?
Flat rate pricing might be the way to go but forcing ISPs to tax their customers as The Songwriters Association of Canada suggested is not the way to go. The music industry needs to get “wildly creative with new business models”.
My guess is that whatever solution the industry comes up with, it will probably be used by other digital mediums — television, film and possibly books. The distribution of entertainment has been turned on its head the more digital it becomes. It will be interesting to see how things get resolved. I think that some variant of DRM on purchased music and video is the answer. Time will tell.
Posted in Music at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)
Dexter
Dexter is one of the shows that I’ve heard about through magazines and newspaper articles, knew was a good show but couldn’t be bothered to watch. It wasn’t until I looked at my brother’s Facebook page, and noticed that Dexter was one of his favourite shows, that I decided to give it a look.
I’m hooked. I watched all of season one last week until I was bleary-eyed. Michael C. Hall is fabulously creepy as the main character, Dexter. Erik King plays potty-mouth Sergeant James Doakes who can’t stand Dexter and suspects that he’s hiding something.
My other favourite character from the show is C.S. Lee as Vince Masuka. Lee steals just about every scene that he is in and provides plenty of comic relief to a dark, gruesome show.
Posted in Television at 8:26 PM | Comments (2)
Canadian music industry wants a handout
The Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) wants Canadian ISPs to tax their customer an additional $5/month to save the failing music industry. The SAC wants to make it legal to share music on peer-to-peer file sharing networks so long as they can tax us. The estimated $500 - $900 million they would collect every year would go to Canadian songwriters, music publishers, record labels and artists.
Does anyone think this proposal is ridiculous?
The SAC argues that:
- CD sales are down 35 per cent in Canada
- Torrents represent about $1.6 billion in lost revenue
- Only 2% of downloads are actually purchased via iTunes or other online services
I don’t doubt any of this information but is taxing Canadians $5 per month going to solve anything? The SAC is dreaming and needs and needs a dose of reality.
The iPod Tax
Canadians already pay an additional tax on rewritable CDs and cassettes. Just last month, the Canadian Copyright Board tried to push through an iPod tax that was rejected by the Federal Court of Appeal. Opponents to the proposed tax argued that it assumed all Canadian consumers were guilty of breaking copyright laws if they were purchasing an iPod or removable storage.
CTV.ca reported on the ruling back in January:
The proposed levies included a $2 tax on 1 GB removable electronic memory cards, $5 tax on digital audio players no more than 1 GB and an extra $75 on digital audio players more than 30 GBs.
What about the people that still pay for their music? Not to sound self-righteous but I actually purchase all of my music from iTunes unless they don’t sell the song I’m looking for. Is it fair to penalize a senior citizen like my father that pays for Internet service and doesn’t download music?
Movies and software
What about illegal movie downloads? I wonder if the SAC thinks the Canadian film industry should get a $5/month from every Canadian home. Should the Canadian software industry be allowed to collect $5/month off my ISP bill? What about American songwriters
The SAC are a bunch of morons to think their proposal would ever be taken seriously. There are too many groups that would be looking for a $5 handout if the SAC received one. Thankfully, our government isn’t dumb enough to fall for this scam.
Instead of begging for money and feeling sorry for itself, the music industry should work on a new revenue model. For years they ignored the online distribution model when they should have embraced it. Now they’re paying the price.
Posted in Music at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)
Flashing Lights
Film Junk has the music video for Kanye West’s latest single, Flashing Lights. At 2 minutes 47 seconds it’s short. The whole thing consists of 3 shots.
Spike Jonze co-directed this video which means that it is a little, different. I didn’t care much for the song Flashing Lights but having watched the video a few times, I can’t get the song out of my head.
There is a lot of buzz about the video. It ends abruptly. People want to know what it means. They want to know why Kanye is in the trunk of Mustang. A lot of questions and a lot of buzz add up to a great video in my books.
Posted in Movies and Music at 9:33 PM | Comments (0)
Law + Depp + Farrell = Ledger
Poor Terry Gilliam is a little cursed when it comes to making films — Brazil (1985), The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (unfinished), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009).
Heath Ledger filmed a bunch of scenes as the character of Tony in Gilliam’s upcoming film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Filming ground to a halt last month when Ledger died of an “accidental drug overdose” Ledger was one of the principal stars and had many scenes to shoot in Vancouver.
The BBC News is reporting that Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell will now play different incarnations of Ledger’s character in the upcoming film. All of a sudden The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus became a lot more interesting.
Posted in Movies at 12:25 AM | Comments (1)
Wicked awesome band names
My 8-year old son was listening to some music with his friend yesterday. They were brainstorming, trying to come up with some cool-sounding band names. Why? Because one day they are going to be in a rock band and they want to be ready.
Here are some of the wicked awesome band names they chose:
- Five Minuts Past Midnight
- The Chosen One
- Always Colour With Red
- The Bad Lands!
- Don’t Get Caut
- Get this!
- Explotion with BLOOD
- You Know Who I’m Run Like Heck!
I left the spelling mistakes in there. They might have been intentional if he wasn’t in grade 3. I find them amusing.
Before you recommend a child psychologist my son hasn’t been watching Rambo movies, yet. I suspect some of the names have been inspired by old AC/DC — Got Blood If You Want It.
Posted in Observations at 7:58 PM | Comments (1)
HD DVD has lost
HD DVD has lost the format war. There have been reports all over the web that Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD DVD. It will no longer manufacture HD DVD players.
The format war is over according to Ain’t It Cool News, now go buy a Blu-ray DVD player. Thanks to Ryan for the link.
The final nail in the coffin came on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc announced they were dropping support for HD DVD.
Update: Reuters published a confirming that Toshiba will halt production of future HD DVD players. They’re expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars from their HD DVD efforts.
Sony lost the Betamax/VHS format war in the 80s so winning the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war is a really big deal (not to mention that high-definition DVD will be billion dollar industry). Wired magazine thinks that downloads will kill Blu-ray but that’s just nonsense. Bandwidth isn’t exactly increasing exponentially or getting a lot cheaper. Until that happens, then Blu-ray has nothing to worry about.
Posted in Technology at 2:15 PM | Comments (0)
Movable Type is very slow on Dreamhost
My Movable Type installation is very slow on Dreamhost. I use Movable Type 4.0 to power this blog and it can take up to 30 seconds to publish an entry. Admin features are also very slow.
I’m too lazy to switch to another host and I don’t want to switch to Wordpress or Expression Engine — too much work. So a couple of Google searches gave me a quick solution.
Patrick Beeson had the answer I was looking for with his entry Faster Movable Type with FastCGI. I simply followed his instructions and within 5 minutes my Movable Type installation was running a lot faster!
FastCGI = Fast Movable Type
Switching to FastCGI on Dreamhost makes Movable Type fun much faster. You don’t need to be a hardcore web developer to speed things up either. It bugs me that I need to hack Movable Type make it work at a reasonable speed. I hope the developers at Six Apart are addressing the speed issue for future versions.
Posted in Web Development at 1:01 PM | Comments (0)
I need a Cocktail
Why do client emergencies happen on Friday afternoons? Guess who gets to pull his hair out and save the day. Again. This super hero stuff is getting tired.
I need a cocktail but I’ll have to settle on an upgrade to Cocktail instead. Run it once a week to keep your Mac running smoothly. It helps to prevent panic and mayhem in your operating system.
Now if only a clever software developer would create something for disorganized clients. I guess I better get back to putting out that fire.
Posted in OS X Software at 2:31 PM | Comments (1)
Indiana Jones IV Trailer
I don’t know. I’ve been waiting weeks to see something, anything about the new Indiana Jones film. I wasn’t blown away by this teaser like I thought I would.
I love the shadow that reveals Indiana Jones and his trademark hat at the near the beginning of the trailer. The “I’m getting to old for this” cracks were expected but this trailer is definitely lacking something. The ending is terrible. The musical theme ends abruptly and makes the whole trailer look like a sloppy hack job in my opinion.
The quality of the HD trailer looks fantastic. I can’t wait to see this film.
Posted in Movies at 12:46 PM | Comments (2)
Default Folder X saves you time
Default Folder X is one of those must have utilities for Mac OS X. I’ve always found the Finder to be frustrating when it came to saving files — too much clicking and drilling down through folders to where I want to go. Default Folder X saves you a time by letting you access your recent, favourite and open folders in a single click.
It’s hard to believe that Apple still hasn’t incorporated some of the features of Default Folder X into the Finder. Before OS X I used Now Utilities for System 7 all the way up to Mac OS 9 until it was discontinued. It crashed quite a bit but it saved a lot of time if you were doing production work in Photoshop.
Default Folder X just released version 4.01 and it is compatible with OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Macworld’s Dan Frakes has a nice video overview of Default Folder X if you’ve never used it before.
Posted in OS X Software at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)
Netflix chooses Blu-ray
Netflix put another nail in the HD DVD coffin by announcing exclusive support for Blu-ray high-definition DVDs. They’re going to phase out their inventory of HD DVD discs by the end of the year.
Blockbuster decided back in June of 2007 to only stock Blu-ray discs. I wonder when Zip.ca will jump on teh bandwagon and make an announcement?
Posted in Home Theatre at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)
Amy Winehouse should get her act together
Yesterday Keith Richards had some advice for singer Amy Winehouse who recently entered rehab:
She should get her act together… Apart from that, I have got nothing to say to the b****.
It must be nice, being a senior citizen and saying whatever you like. Seriously, I never listened to any of Amy Winehouse’s music until last Friday and I was impressed.
She’s only 24 years old and has a killer voice. If she can clean up her act and stay off the crack cocaine then she’s got a promising career ahead of her. A few hours ago she won five Grammy awards.
Get your act together Amy and stay off the crack!
Posted in Music at 2:52 AM | Comments (2)
Roy Scheider dies at 75
Best known for his role in Jaws (1975) Roy Scheider died Sunday in Little Rock, Ark.
The NY Times has an obituary.
Posted in Movies at 2:38 AM | Comments (0)
HDMI Monster cables are a ripoff
HDMI Monster cables are a ripoff. In fact, most HDMI cable that you see at Best Buy or Radioshack is over-priced. The Consumerist blogged about 80% markups on Monster cable after they saw an inventory list from Radioshack.
The inventory list apparently shows that Monster Cable has incredibly high markup pricing (based on the difference of wholesale and retail pricing shown on the list).
Many online retailers sell quality HDMI cable that costs much less than Monster Cable. I use Blue Jeans Cable which is way cheaper than anything Monster sells and it is just as good.
Gizmodo also advises its readers that Monster cable is over-priced:
It never pays to buy a Monster cable first. It doesn’t even make sense to buy the “marked down” $50 cable you can buy if you don’t want Monster. Go online, order your cables, and wait.
I completely agree with Gizmodo but what happens when you purchase a brand new HD LCD television or Blu-Ray DVD player from Best Buy? How many people really plan ahead and order their cable online and save bundles of money? I did.
When I purchased a HD projector I saved hundreds of dollars by purchasing my HDMI and component cables from Blue Jeans Cable. When I purchased a Sony Bravia HD LCD television I paid a premium for the HDMI cable that was slightly cheaper than Monster Cable called Rocketfish HDMI cable.
I wanted to watch the new TV as soon as I got it home so I was forced to purchase Best Buy’s, Poor Buy, over-priced HDMI cable. They know most people need HDMI cable or component video cable when they purchase a high-definition TV or DVD player. They also know that most people don’t plan ahead and purchase their cables online so they stock the most expensive, highest margin cable they can find — Monster Cable.
I never heard of Rocketfish but I can guarantee that Best Buy and whoever sells their products is marking it up by 50-80%. If you can plan ahead, purchase your HDMI cable online. Another good online retailer that Gizmodo recommends is MonoPrice.com in California.
If you’re planning a home theatre or looking to upgrade your old television to a high-definition LCD or plasma set then figure out how much cable you need now and order it online. If you purchased standard RCA audio video cables to hook up to your new high-definition TV then you have no right purchasing anything with the words high-definition before it. If you purchased S-video cable for a better quality picture then read my previous sentence again.
You might be wondering if you should get HDMI or component video cable for your new television. Now we’re talking! You want to read an earlier blog entry where I talk about HDMI vs Component Video cable.
Posted in Home Theatre at 1:25 AM | Comments (3)
Hockey Fights
When you need a break from the daily grind, it’s time to head over to Hockey Fights and watch the big boys go at it. Special thanks to my blood thirsty friend, David Goldberg for the link.
Posted in Web at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
The Batphone
The Batman Phone inspired by the television series is so, so tempting. It’s a no-dial red desk phone with flashing light.
At $112 USD it seems a little extravagant but think of how cool that would be to have on your desk.
Posted in Technology at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)
How to disable Leopard’s show icon preview
Ever since I upgraded to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) the show icon preview has been driving me nuts. It is turned on by default for all Finder windows.
All of your document icons are changed to previews of their documents as shown in the screenshot above. I find these difficult to scan because the icons are so small. The colourful document icons for PDF, Windows Media and Word files are much easier to read.
To turn off the show icon preview in all of your Finder windows you need to change your Finder preferences. Select any folder and go to Finder>View>Show View Options (Command-J). You’ll see a window similar to the one to the right.
Make sure that Show icon preview at the bottom of the window is unchecked. To make this change for all of your folders, click on the Use as defaults button at the bottom of this window.
I overlooked this last step and kept changing the view options for individual folders instead of all folders.
You can also make your document icons larger in the list view which makes the icon preview easier to see but I still don’t think it is as useful as colourful document icons. You’ll just end up scrolling a lot more and end up looking at file extensions (such as .pdf and .doc) to figure out where specific files are.
Posted in OS X Software at 1:21 PM | Comments (3)
Fake Steve Jobs on the Microsoft-Yahoo merger
Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons) has a great analogy of the pending Microsoft-Yahoo merger:
The Borg-Yahoo merger won’t work. Here’s why. It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster.
The bizarre thing is that Steve Ballmer gave this analogy to Lyons about 10 years ago at a conference.
Try and find a story about anyone who is eager to see this merger take place. Nobody wants it, including a lot of Microsoft employees. I can’t see these two giants working together. The culture and philosophy of the two companies are polar opposites.
There is the hope that if Microsoft purchases Yahoo, that they’ll leave it alone. I like the scenario that John Gruber suggests:
But what if Microsoft does the unexpected and keeps Yahoo separate and distinct? On a vastly smaller scale, that’s what Microsoft has done with its Mac Business Unit. Microsoft created the Mac BU in the wake of Word 6 for Mac, which was, more or less, a direct port to the Mac of the Windows version of Word — and almost universally abhorred by Mac users. To succeed on the Mac, Microsoft needed a (relatively) independent Mac division, and so that’s what they created. Yahoo could be Microsoft’s independent web division.
Back in 1997 when Apple was floundering, Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple and signed a 5 year deal to continue development on Microsoft Office for Macintosh. Microsoft might have been able to purchase Apple back then but they knew it would never work (they also needed a competitor to keep the government off their back).
If Microsoft goes through with the takeover then I hope they leave Yahoo as separate division that can continue to innovate and thrive. If Microsoft took over Apple in 1997 then we probably wouldn’t have iPods and iPhones. I can’t help wonder what will die and never come to light if Microsoft attempts to assimilate the Yahoo!
Posted in Web at 9:34 PM | Comments (1)
After the storm
We had a lot of snow last night in Toronto which tends to make everything look nice and clean for a few days. Soon the dirt and salt will make everything look grey again. Soon you’ll be able to see the pile of gravel in front of our house that didn’t make it into the garage. Soon our renovation will be complete but in the meantime, I’m loving the new house.
Posted in Observations and Photography at 9:12 PM | Comments (0)
What makes a great portrait?
I prefer to shoot landscapes instead of people but I found Joerg Colberg’s blog entry, “What makes a great portrait?” to be an interesting read. Instead of giving us an opinion, Colberg asked fine art and commercial photographers, curators, editors and others to explain what makes a great portrait. A lot of people submitted photos with explanations that are really quite interesting.
If you own a DSLR then sooner or later you’re going to get asked to shoot a portrait. This article may give you some handy tips.
Posted in Photography at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)
SuperDuper Tuesday!
Finally! SuperDuper v2.5 has been released. What’ the big deal you ask?
SuperDuper is the best software on the Mac for making a fully bootable backup from a FireWire drive. Unfortunately v2.4 of SuperDuper wasn’t fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). I’ve been living without backups for over a month, waiting patiently for v2.5 to be released. Not a good thing when your livelihood depends on your data and backups.
At the moment, the SuperDuper website is running super slow. A lot of people have been waiting for this update and now they’re downloading it.
Apple’s Time Machine is great but what happens if your boot drive dies? You’d have to spend a full day reinstalling the system and possibly all of your applications. James Duncan Davidson has a great article on Restoring From Time Machine if you’re not feeling the SuperDuper love.
Posted in OS X Software at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
Ultrathin Apple Keyboard
My old Apple Keyboard was a little worn out. I gave it a thorough cleaning a year ago but some of the keys were starting to stick, the keys were dirty and the dust was building up.
I decided to replace the old keyboard with a new ultrathin aluminium keyboard from Apple. It looks and feels like a laptop keyboard instead of a larger keyboard that you’d use for a desktop computer but you get used to the feel.
I like that it takes up a little less space on my desk. The anodized aluminum enclosure also matches my Cinema display and looks very sharp on my desk.
I don’t like that the eject button is no longer in the top-right corner of the keyboard but the addition of a few new function keys is handy and saves a few clicks of the mouse such as pausing iTunes when the phone rings.
Posted in Apple at 4:14 PM | Comments (1)
Aperture or Lightroom?
A lot of people thought that Version 2.0 of Apple’s Aperture would be released at the annual PMA conference and trade show this week. It wasn’t and people are grumbling. What’s taking so long?
Photoshop Lightroom is Aperture’s competition and what I use or rather don’t really use. A lot of people love Lightroom and use it for all of their photography needs but I’m not one of them.
Rick LePage was at PMA this week and reported:
What I’m hearing is that neither Aperture nor Lightroom has taken hold with this crowd. At least three photographers I spoke with said that they bought both products, and that they aren’t really using either one.
I still prefer Photoshop CS3. Using Bridge and Camera Raw for my workflow suits my needs. I don’t see an advantage to using Lightroom at this point. Apparently a lot of photographers at PMA feel the same way:
This year, more people seem to be comfortable with the Photoshop-Bridge-Adobe Camera Raw workflow—thanks to the rock-solid release of Photoshop CS3 last spring—and there are real questions about Apple’s place in this market.
Apple says they are working on version 2 of Aperture and that it will have some great new features. I think it will have to have a lot of great new features if it will make it to version 3.
Posted in OS X Software and Photography at 10:00 PM | Comments (2)
Best Docs of 2007
David Dylan Thomas has a nice roundup of the best documentary films of 2007. Check it out.
Posted in Movies at 9:24 PM | Comments (0)
How long will the Blu-ray disc format last?
In 2002 I blogged about DVDs outselling videocasettes for the first time. In the past six years the standard DVD format has peaked and is in serious decline. Up next is the Blu-ray Disc format but how long will it last?
Videocasettes dominated home video for over 20 years. DVDs were the preferred home video format for just over 6 years. How long will the Blue-ray disc format last?
I’ve invested a lot of money in the standard DVD format and have a great collection of films. I doubt that I’ll upgrade many of these discs to Blu-ray. I think that would be a complete waste of money. Thankfully, Blu-ray players are compatible with standard DVD.
The next 10 years should be interesting in terms of the digital distribution of film. A lot of people think that Blu-ray will be the last disc format. In the future, movies might be sold on flash media or via the web.
I like being able to own a physical disc with liner notes. Having my entire film library on a server seems too risky. I think it will take another generation or two for people to get comfortable with the idea of having all of their digital data on a server or flash memory devices.
For now, I just hope that Blu-ray lasts for more than 6 years before it becomes obsolete.
Posted in Home Theatre at 9:18 PM | Comments (6)
Frozen Grand Central
Imagine walking through Grand Central Station and all of a sudden 200 people just stop moving. That’s exactly what an improv group did and they stayed frozen for 5 minutes. Watch the video and watch the reaction of people as they try to figure out what is happening around them.
Posted in Humour at 2:33 PM | Comments (1)
