I got an email today from Amazon about my Kindle.  Well, not my Kindle specifically, but Kindle Whispernet use in general.  Whispernet is the warm and fuzzy Amazon name for the Sprint 3g network.  This email tried to make me feel good by telling me that the personal documents feature now supports more formats, including DOCX and RTF files.  Groovy.  It then proceeds to tell me that the charge for sending these personal documents to my Kindle via Whispernet will now cost fifteen cents per megabyte.  While that really does not affect me, since I don’t do much of this, it will affect others who use Whispernet for RSS feeds. 

I already pay for many of the feeds I get, so this means little to me, but others who use it extensively, will be paying quite a bit for something that was originally touted as ‘free’.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a huge problem for paying for service, but, in this case, I think Amazon should rethink this.  The cost of the device alone – and the supposed reason why it is so high – should negate that charge.

I love my Kindle and use it every day.  One of the things I do use is the wireless internet browsing.  I don’t use it a tremendous amount because of its limitations, but I do use it.  I am waiting for the day when Amazon starts charging for that as well.  They would be foolish to do so.  No one will want to buy the thing if they know there will be additional charges for the wireless aspect, which is the big reason they cost so much.

One other thing that bugs me…where’s the third party development?  This thing runs embedded Linux and Java.  Surely someone has hacked it to allow third party apps.  Amazon should open it up and put out an SDK.  Just a thought.

Below is the text of the mail I got.

Dear Kindle Customer,

As someone who has recently sent personal documents to a Kindle, you might like to know about some updates to our Personal Document Service (via Whispernet).

Starting May 4, in addition to the existing list of supported file types (DOC, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TXT, AZW, MOBI, PRC), you can send RTF files to your Kindle email address for convenient wireless delivery. In addition to the existing experimental support of PDF, you can also send DOCX files for conversion. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle.

We have also modified the fee associated with sending personal documents wirelessly to your Kindle. This fee is now based on the size of your file. The fee for Personal Document Service (via Whispernet) is $0.15 per megabyte rounded up to the next whole megabyte.

If you would like to download your personal documents for free, or if you are not in a wireless area, you can continue to send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com to be converted. These documents will be e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login.

As always, you can also use our free document conversion service for any document you want to transfer over USB, and you will not be charged.

Please visit our Transferring Documents and Files to Kindle 2 help page on Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

Kindle Customer Service

So, the fruit company has a new series of commercials out, four of them, that are designed to counter the ‘find a laptop’ series that Microsoft recently put out.  One of the fruit company commercials, ‘stacks’, show “PC” looking through stacks of photos for a specific persons photo.  Enter smug ‘Mac’, who begins explaining the breakthrough feature of ‘iPhoto’:  facial recognition.  “PC” gets flustered and has a brilliant idea:  let ‘Mac’ sort the photos.  Geeze.  This commercial puts forth the notion that iPhoto was first to have this feature and that it is not on Windows.  Riiight.  Only problem is, the commercial is a lie.  Windows Live Photo Gallery has had the feature for awhile now.  And the commercial also neglects to tell you that it takes some work to make the feature worthwhile.

Admittedly, I’ve not personally used iPhoto, so the following is based solely on what I have read and heard from people who do use it. 

Apparently, no matter what software you use, you have to train it to recognize the face and it is not always accurate.  That said, it is pretty darn accurate as is.  The Live Photo Gallery has problems with faces that are at angles.  Using my own son, I’ve had to train it with several photos of him at different angles and glasses can throw it off.  My son wears prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses.  Both will throw off the recognition.  I had to use several photos of both types of glasses.  However, once that is done, it seems to be picking up on his face much better.

To make this work, you preview a photo and on the right side of the window, there's the ‘People Tags’ area.  You have several choices:  Add people tags, That's Me! and a list of known people tags, if any.  If the photo is of you, simply click the That’s Me! link and then click the highlight square around your face.  If it someone else who is not already listed, click Add People Tags and then draw a square around the face you want to tag then select the name from the list that pops up or enter a new name.  Otherwise, if the name is in the list, simply select the name from the list.

To see photos by person, on the left side of the gallery, under People Tags, click the name you want. If you don’t see it, then click ‘other contacts’ then find the name.  The photos will then filter on that tag and you’ll see all that it found.

This feature works well, but, as I said, it does take a little bit of work and you have to tag each photo.  I think the iPhoto feature works similarly, contrary to that commercial.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is very nice photo management application.  Best of all, it is free.  You do have to download it, but that is a very small price to pay for such a full featured application.  The facial recognition and the panoramic stitch feature alone would be worth buying.  That they are part of the application is a nice bonus.  And, so far, the minimal editing features have sufficed for about 75% of what I need to do with my photos.  Adobe Photoshop Elements takes care of most of what Live Photo Gallery cannot do.

As for the fruit company commercials…they are funny for the first time you see them.  After that, they just get old, dried up and shriveled…just likes apples tend to do.

Tuesday morning, sometime shortly after 11am, motorsports lost one of its finest writers and personalities.  David Poole was a writer for the Charlotte Observer and was also the co-host of “The Morning Drive” radio show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.  Mr. Poole was one of those writers who was not afraid to ask questions that others dare not ask.  His beat was the NASCAR scene and he covered it well but was never afraid to question the sanctioning body, any of its drivers or even the venues where the races were held.  Just this week, he was calling for a change to the racing at Talladega in the wake of a last lap crash that sent Carl Edwards car into the fence.  Seven people were injured.  Mr. Poole posed the question “how many” in regard to how many people get hurt before we care.  Those were the kinds of things he would question.

Mr. Poole was very much in tune with the sport that he covered.  He would argue his point and rarely ever retracted something he said or a point that he made.  There was good reason for that:  he was usually right.

I started listening to him a few years ago.  He, on a daily basis, would say something that either disagreed with or would simply tick me off.  There were days that I changed the station or played a CD because he had made a statement that just irritated the heck out of me.  And there were days that I agreed with everything he said.

I was never a big fan of his but I never stopped listening to what he had to say.  And on those few days where he was not on the program, I usually turned it to something else.

That he could stir such strong feelings in people, either way, is a testament to the type of person he was.  He was very funny at times and very maddening at times. But one thing you could count on, he was very passionate about the sport and he had one thing that many lack today: integrity.

Mr. Poole, you will be missed.

Thatsracin.com Story about David Poole

Digg has introduced me to many a worthless story and even more worthless headlines to get me to read a story.  In recent years, Digg has become a playground for what appear to be teenagers trying to get some publicity or, at least, appear older than they are. Whatever age they may be, there is no denying that the stories are often quoted out of context or made to be something they are not.  Many stories also try to show just how bad we in America can be.  Take, for instance, this eye catching headline:

How Many African Kids Could Celebrity Engagement Rings Feed?

Seriously?  I clicked on the link and read the ‘story’.  The site, Cat Walk Cat Fight, appears to be a major fluff site with posts like: ‘the secret of Coconut oil’ and ‘Prom makeup tutorial’.  I suppose a story about starving African children and one to ‘fix’ the problem is a conscience soothing piece.  I don’t know.  But, really?  Aside from the absurdity of the story, what the hell is wrong with help our own starving people first? I have no problem with aid to other countries, but we have our problems that everyone seems to forget about.  Hunger and homelessness are not unique to Africa or any other part of the planet including our own country.  It is here in the Richmond area and in ever major or minor city in the country.

Saying that the money spent on celebrity should go somewhere else is just stupid.  There is a reason these people get the money they get: the public.  As long as we pay to see or hear these people perform, they will continue with the extravagance.  And, know what? We eat that mess up.  We live vicariously through them.  And, we love it.  As long as we do, they will have million dollar rings.  So what?  Those same people, however, often give substantial sums of money and/or time for charity.  Some go extreme, some only do it to look good or just to say they did.  Others, like the late Paul Newman, it becomes a passion.  No matter the reason, though, they have the ability to a tremendous amount of charity work. 

What is more amazing, however, is this story made the front page of Digg.  Right along with a story about Atheists ‘trying to get their message out’, 8 OS X quirks Apple must fix for Snow Leopard and the usual anti-FOX News story.  It seems like the majority of ‘Diggers’ hate FOX News.  Some of the venom these people spew about FOX News is really pretty entertaining and, once again, underscores the age of these people.  Adults would use better grammar, spell things correctly and, at least, actually read or watch whatever they are railing against.  And there’s the big problem with the ‘social news’ sites:  many posters do not appear to have actually read whatever they write about. 

Digg has lots of potential, and I still go there, but it so far in the crapper now, I wonder what it would take to make it decent again.  And, yes, there is a bit of irony that there is a Digg button on this story.

• General Motors announced more cuts and the elimination of the Pontiac brand.  Earlier this year, GM had said it would curtail the brand, perhaps by selling Pontiac badged vehicles at Chevrolet dealers or reducing the lineup to just a few vehicles.  Alas, GM announced today that the brand will disappear altogether.  I have a soft spot for Pontiac:  the first real car I bought was a 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix.  I bought another ‘73 shortly afterward.  I loved those cars.  Big, fast and bad on gas.  The way it should be.
• For a few minutes today, New Yorkers relived 9/11.  Air Force One and two accompanying fighter escorts flew very low over the city, coming very close to the Trade Center site.  The flight was for a ‘photo op’.  While the NYPD, apparently, knew about the flight, not many outside of the department knew.  Many buildings went on alert and evacuated.  Mayor Bloomberg was ‘hopping mad’ that he was not made aware that the event would be taking place, saying he would have nixed it.  Just who thought this would be a good idea anyway and leaving the public blind-in NEW YORK CITY?  What the hell were they thinking?  I smell a lawsuit…
• Apple lays off 1,600 people from the retail operation.  That’s about ten percent of the total number of workers at Apple’s 250 retail stores.  Apple says they are not going to close any of the retail stores and acknowledged that expansion of the retail business has and will require a substantial investment in assets and infrastructure.
• Apple loses a patent infringement suit.  A US District Court ruled that Apple had violated a patent for “predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses” or, in plain speak, a method for high speed communication between a physical bus and the L1 cache memory.  Uh, right.  Anyway, Apple has been ordered to pay $19 million dollars to OPTi.
• Broadcom and Qualcomm come to an agreement on the years-long battles with each other.  Broadcom will pay Qualcomm $891 million, in cash, over the next four years.  $200 million will be paid before the end of June.  Both companies agreed to not sue each other over their intellectual property. This feud began in 2006.
• A billion apps sold in the App Store.  OK, I’m not one to call some one out for stretching the truth, but this is one ‘fact’ that I just have a hard time swallowing.  A billion apps ‘sold’ or, more appropriately, downloaded.  Now, does that figure include re-downloads as well?  Does it include the apps that Apple revoked?  given that there aren’t that iPhone / iTouch owners, how in the world did they arrive at that number?  And, anyway, just why do we care?  Why did I just spend five minutes typing this out?
• Geocities to shutter.  Yahoo! announced that Geocities will go the way of Pontiac and the dodo bird.  Geocities, if you do not remember, was the free web site hosting community with the very annoying Geocities bouncing box.  Did I mention it was free?

High fructose corn syrup, a very common sweetener used in soft drinks and just about anything else that was sweetened by sugar, is worse than using sugar.  A recent study conducted by the University of California concluded that while people who consumed beverages sweetened by sugar or high fructose corn syrup would both gain about the same amount of weight.  However, those who consumed only the fructose sweetened beverages exhibited an increase in intra abdominal fat.  These same people also became less sensitive to insulin-which every one produces and controls the glucose level in the blood.) The level of lipids (fat soluble molecules) also increased.

Other studies have shown that for obese people, fructose sweetened beverages can have some very bad side effects such as an increase of triglycerides following meals where the beverages were consumed.  Risk of gout is increased as well. 

We knew that fructose sweetened beverages-as well as those using sugar-have also been linked to weight gain, but yet another study showed that while subjects who consumed the fructose sweetened beverages gained weight, they actually ate less.  Even so, they gained significantly more body fat.

The larger issue with fructose is that in humans, fructose does not fully trigger all of the hormonal systems involved in the control of food intake and metabolism.

From my own personal experience, I KNOW that fructose sweetened soft drinks do have an effect on your weight.  Several years ago, I was addicted to Root Beer, specifically Barq’s and Frosty.  Yeah, weird I know.   Then, I woke up one day feeling miserable.  I decided to lose some weight.  The first thing I did was cut out the sugary soda.  I started drinking more water and sugar-free drinks.  Problem was that I failed to do little else.  After a few weeks, I got a few comments from both family and friends.  “Are you losing weight?”  and “What kind of diet are you on?”.  Well, I wasn’t on a specific diet and was not doing anything in particular to lose weight other than cutting out the sugary soda.  I lost about ten pound over a couple of months.  I did later on go on the Atkins Diet.  That lasted about a year and I eventually lost about forty pounds, of which I have gained about twenty back.  I am working on losing it again.

I’m not advocating a ban on fructose or anything like that.  I think such crusades are a waste of time and effort.  The whole anti-trans fat campaign was ridiculous, though effective.  No, I think people need to be aware of the negative aspects of fructose and adjust habits accordingly.  There is nothing that is 100% safe, but there are things we can do to mitigate the bad stuff.

References:

• Science Daily: Soft drinks and weight gain
• Science Daily: Which is worse: fructose or glucose

Video Game Review

By Chase

Super Mario RPG is a classic role playing game that was released on the Super NES.  Nintendo recently released the game on the Wii Virtual Console.

I will rate each section on a scale of 1-7.

Graphics: 6

I don't expect good graphics from the SNES. They're as good as can be.

Plot: 6

Good plot. Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, but ??? steals his Keep. Peach goes flying to another guy. Mario meets Mallow and they defeat ????, who stole Mallow's frog coin. Mario and friends soon discover they must save the Seven Stars to restore peace and the ability to grant wishes. Things go wrong, and the plot is so twisted, you could be dizzy.

Battle System: 4

I love battle RPGs. The system in this is so confusing because you don't know the turn order. It's very annoying. That's why I took 3 points off, it's that bad.

Characters: 7

You've got Mario, the hero; Peach, the weak princess; Bowser, the "enemy"; Mallow, a crybaby cloud who thinks he's a frog; and the big guy, ???. There are tons more, but I don't want to start spoiling it...

Difficulty: 6

There are some HARD bosses in this game, like Bowyer, Smithy, Johnny, andCalimari. Very challenging. Some of them have backup with strong attack power. It's especially hard in the beginning when your party has so little HP. But keep levelling up and it'll get easier. Not much easier, though.

Items: 7

There are TONS of items in this game, and some are very hard to get. You can spend a lot of time searching for items. I personally love the Red Essence and the KeroKero Kola. There's normal Mushrooms to recover HP, Syrup to recover FP, Pick-Me-Ups to revive the fallen party members, and weapon items, like Mario's Hammer, Mallow's Cymbals, Geno's Finger Shot, ???'s Chain Chomp, and ????'s Frying Pan.

Fun Factor!: 6

I love this game. It's addicting. The battles pick most of the points up, because there are hundreds of battles. Even though the battle system is tricky, the battles are still fun. I personally like the items A LOT! It's the smaller aspects that I really like, such as the inns, the item shops,
and leveling up.

Overall: 6

Get this game. GET IT. You'll be playing non-stop! (AT least I was!)

Several interesting Windows 7 news bits came out this past week, including release dates-from Microsoft-for the RC build and a somewhat surprising new feature for the operating system.

April 30 and May 5 are the release dates for the ‘release candidate’ or RC build of Windows 7.  April 30 will be the date that MSDN and TechNet users can download the build and May 5 is the general release date for everyone else.  This build is expected to be the ‘final’ public release until the ‘gold’ version goes out to manufacturing and retail shelves.

The feature mentioned previously a virtualized version of Windows XP.  Available for the Enterprise, Professional and Ultimate editions, XPM, as it is called, will provide the new OS will 100% backward compatibility with XP software.  This will be boon to businesses who have a sizable investment in Windows software that, for many reasons, they cannot upgrade or replace. 

XPM will not be included ‘in the box’, rather it will be a download.  XPM is actually a specialized version of the Virtual PC application AND a full blown, activated copy of Windows XP.  You will be able to install applications directly in the XP environment and have icons put in your Windows 7 desktop and, presumably, the Application menu.  You will be able to start those applications from Windows 7 and they will run in the virtualized environment.  I am guessing this will work like Parallels on the Mac OS.

Clearly, Microsoft is gunning for early adoption of Windows 7 by business.  Businesses have been, traditionally, slow to upgrade from one version of Windows to the next.  Indeed, XP took nearly four years to become prevalent and Vista has yet to achieve any kind of meaningful penetration into the enterprise.  With this virtualized XP mode available, that will probably sway many companies.  It also helps that Windows 7 hardware requirements have not increased as is traditional with new versions of the OS.  In fact, the operating system will, supposedly, run on hardware designed for XP.  Well, so what, I bet I could run Vista Home Basic on them as well…doesn’t mean I should.  At any rate, Windows 7 looks to be the logical upgrade path from XP…for business, anyway.  Home users should probably just buy a PC with Windows Vista or 7 pre-installed.

Mark your calendars for May 5 if you want to see what the new Windows release will look and feel like.

We miss you.

A few months back, there were two specials, on different channels, about how the Earth would be if mankind just disappeared.  Neither special offered up any reason as to mankind’s disappearance but, instead, asked the viewer to just accept that mankind had just vanished.  OK, I’ll bite, I thought.  Both programs were very entertaining and probably very accurate.  And it got me thinking for a moment.  But, then, I just moved on.  Well, the History Channel now has a series based on the special that they aired and it has me thinking again.  Scary, I know.

So, all three of the shows postulated that, after about two thousand years, there would be very little of our civilization left.  Our vast and great cities would be reduced to rubble and then overgrown with plant and animal life.  Our networks of roads would disappear in just a few hundred years.  Our large dams MIGHT make it a few centuries, perhaps a millennia.  Pretty much all that would remain are the same remnants of mighty civilizations of thousands of years ago:  the great pyramids, the sphinx, some of the great wall of China and, perhaps, parts of the Statue of Liberty that fell into the mud.  Basically, though, not much of today would survive.  Even our trash might be gone. 

Now, I’m putting my thinking cap on and breaking out some tall tales.  Assuming that the two thousand year mark is even close to accurate, how many times has mankind risen only to fall and have to start over?  There are tantalizing pieces of evidence for advanced civilizations when there should not have been any.  Stainless steel found among relics that are thousands of years old.  Trinkets that are shaped like aircraft coming from a time when there were none. Or, at least, we think there none.  Architecture on different parts of the planet dating from the same period and when the chances of such similarity would be highly unlikely. 

Two thousand years is a long time for us, but a blink of the eye in the grander scheme.  What if, say, ten thousand years ago, there was an advanced civilization on Earth.  They could very well have mastered the environment, air and sea and achieve a high level of technology.  Then, something catastrophic happens.  Civilization breaks down.  Once the infrastructure of a society breaks, it can be difficult to impossible to restore, depending on the level of the breakdown.  Eventually, if that infrastructure is not restored, that society will die.  We’ve seen this with the Romans.  Cities die out and the population scatters.  Without that infrastructure, education falls.  In one century, it is possible that technology becomes impossible to maintain.  Machinery stops.  Transportation is relegated to foot traffic and horse and buggy. 

Once the population leaves the cities, they will likely form smaller camps, tribes or villages.  After two hundred years, it is almost like the stone age again.  Slowly, however, those tribes begin to reform some kind of societal norms.  The artifacts of the previous civilization are likely to be destroyed, reused or otherwise lost.  A few may survive a bit longer.  Nature will reclaim much of it.  Without the knowledge and understanding of what was, the current civilization won’t care much about the past and will only be concerned with their survival.  Strange tales about the ‘ancients’ may live on for awhile. 

Five hundred years later, there isn’t much evidence about the ancients.  Curious remnants, a few tales, not much else.  One thousand years later, nature has pretty much reclaimed the once gleaming cities.  But, the descendants of that time are progressing nicely.  They have some order.  Small nation-states might begin to appear.  There is some sort of educational system in some areas.  Technology is still at the bronze age, but slowly progressing.  And so on.

For me, this is a terrific subject.  The idea that we’ve done this before is very intriguing.  Man is an incredible machine.  Our ability to learn, to adapt and keep going is astonishing.  Our planet is billions of years old.  Humans have inhabited the planet just a fraction of that time, but during our time on the planet, how many times has he fallen only stand up, brush off and move on?  Even if we’ve only been here just a few million years, that is quite a long time for civilizations to rise and fall multiple times.  It could very well be that those ‘ancient astronauts’ were really us.

So I was channel hopping through the multitude of so called ‘networks’ on my cable box and stopped here and there on what used to be my favorite channels.  And, before I continue, why do they call themselves a network?  They aren’t…they are ONE channel carried on cable and satellite.  A network would be many stations broadcasting some or all of the channel’s programming…then they would be a network.  I digress.

When I was somewhat younger, MTV would have been my channel of choice.  24 hours of music bliss. Ah, those were the days.  I look at MTV now and wonder where the ‘music’ is in ‘Music Television.’  Even VH-1, which used to mean Video Hits-One, has very little in the way of video hits unless you call the ‘I Love the <insert decade here>’ series a ‘video hit’.  I don’t.

During the ‘90s, the Sci-Fi channel was always on my television or, before my cable company offered it, on my VCR (remember them?) via tapes that my father would send me.  Back then, Sci-Fi actually did show science fiction oriented programming.  Now, thanks to one woman named Bonnie Hammer, there’s very little science fiction on the channel.  She’s managed to turn into a Spike TV clone.  Hell, there was more SF on Spike for a while than on the Sci-Fi channel.  Now that Battlestar Galactica is done and Stargate SG-1 is done, there is little reason to even check its listings.  Instead of great SF television or even mediocre SF television, we get junk like WWE wrestling (or whatever ‘league’ it is) or some abysmal ‘SF’ themed game show.  Cheap programming like the haunted house shows or a slate of really awful weather related disaster movies seem to fill up the programming day. 

Then there is G4.  G4 started out as a video game oriented channel.  While its target audience was the 15 year old boy, it did have a few worthwhile shows.  Icons was one.  Icons would focus on a person, console, game or game character and then present the history of the subject.  the Playground (I forget the real name) featured video game reviews by people who made and played the games.  There was a weekly news program that, while mostly fluff and hosted by pretty people, was sometimes informative and always entertaining.  Today, this channel has one gaming related program left and G4 didn’t even create it.  X-Play is the only program to survive the Tech TV merger fiasco.   Tech TV was a technology oriented channel that started out as ZD-TV.  Its programming ranged from tech talk shows to how to shows as well as news and a program called the Screen Savers which was loaded with very useful information and interviews with tech people.  Comcast, who owns G4, purchased Tech TV from Paul Allen and ‘merged’ the two channels.  That merger lasted for just a few months.  In reality, Comcast wanted the channel slot that Tech TV had since Tech TV was, potentially, seen in 40 million homes while G4 was cleared for less then 10 million.  Quite a boost. 

Even venerable channels like the Weather Channel are moving away from the formula that made them popular-all weather news, in this case-to more general channels.  Weather now has quite a few full length programs. 

Sadly, the days of specialty programming on cable seem to be numbered.  I realize that things change and time marches on and these channels must answer to some very powerful people: the advertisers.  If only there were a mechanism where by people could cheaply produce and distribute their own specialty programming where ten thousand people would be BIG…

While listening to my normal hodge podge of podcasts,  I heard  on one of the Mac podcasts-which shall remain nameless-one of the pundits postulate that one of the great things about their favorite computer was the fact that it ‘never slowed down, like those others do.’  Oh really now…hmm…well, actually…they do.

How to fix some common Mac OS X slow downs

Corrupt Preference Files

Apparently, just as with Windows, Mac OS relies on a program settings store.  With Windows, this is the registry.  With Mac OS X, it is a bunch of files called preference files.  If your computer slows down while running certain programs, it is possible that the preference file for the application is corrupt.  You can try deleting the file (back it up first, just in case) and then restart the application. These files will get recreated on the next run of the application after the preference file is first deleted.

Widget Overload

We all love gadgets, be it Windows, Mac or Linux.  Sometimes, we may get a bit carried away.  Since each widget takes up memory and cpu cycles, running many of them can really impact your computers performance.  Use the Activity Monitor to check how much memory these things are using and then remove those that you are not using or the memory hungry ones using the Dashboard control panel.

Insufficient Memory

One other thing I keep hearing on those podcasts is just how much better OS X is at managing memory.  It very well may be better than Windows, I don’t know either way.  What I do know is that more memory is always better, no matter what your operating system happens to be.  You can determine whether or not you keep running low of memory by using the Activity Monitor.  Click the System Memory tab and look at the chart on the bottom.  If it is mostly red or orange, you are running out of memory and should probably add more.

Keep Your System Software Updated

Finally, keep your system updated.  Like Windows, there is a built in software update mechanism in OS X.  Click on Software Update in the Apple menu.  You can schedule the updates to run automatically.  Go to the System Preferences and Software Update.  Click the ‘Check for updates’ and that’s it.

There are quite a few more tweaks and things you can do to speed up Mac OS X. I found a bunch of them on line.  The Apple Forums are a good place to start.  I did searches for “slow”, “slowdowns”, “system slowdown” and “system”.  Each search return pages of hits.  Like any good community, there are lots of good answers and some that are not so good.  I would have included links, but I have no desire to read an Apple cease and desist letter personally.

I cannot take credit for the four tips above.  I got them from various sites.   And, like Windows, I also found that disk defragmenting also seems to be a recurring theme even though I hear that that is not an issue. 

The point of this post is not to point out flaws or knock the O/S.  No, it was simply to show how similar issues affect all operating system and not one particular one.  The four issues I mention apply to Windows as well.  The terminology may be different, but the end result is the same.  And, no matter what you use, it is also good practice to review your system and perform some preventative maintenance.

Several months ago, I purchased the Digital Decor TV Picture Viewer from Target.  The device accepts a number of memory cards, including CF and SD cards.  It will play MP3 files as well as JPEG and Motion JPEG files.  It does an OK job with photos and is a reasonably capable MP3 player.  The device features component out for video and allows for video output of up to 1080i. It was this and the video playback capability as well as the very low price.  Target was clearancing them for ten bucks. 

After purchasing the device, I quickly realized that encoding video for the device was not going to be easy. For one, the MPJEG codec is difficult to find and when you do, you have to pay for it.  Worse, Digital Decor does not appear to have a web presence, so I could not find any information about how to encode video for the device.  I’ve spent the last few months, on and off, trying to do this. Well, finally, I think I have had a breakthrough.

While on vacation recently, I took lots of video with my Kodak digicam.  The camera takes videos that are supposed to be 720p, and I have no reason to think otherwise.  It does a pretty decent job as long as lighting is decent.  The problem is that it records the video in the QuickTime format.  I wanted to edit the clips together, but I did not have anything that would work with these videos.  So, I set out looking for something and found an application called Prism Video Converter.  This dandy little application comes in two flavors:  a free version and a ‘Plus’ version for $39.95 (during April, is half price.)  I downloaded the free version.

So far, I’ve not found a video that it could not convert.  It handles those MOV files from my camera, Flash video, AVI, WMV and more.  It will use whatever codecs you already have and will download those that you do not have.  It also uses FFMPEG for playback.  It is nifty little application.

Unfortunately, when I tried to convert to MotionJPEG and play back the file on the TV Picture Viewer, I just got the ‘format not supported’ message.  I downloaded trial versions of MJPEG codecs and none of them seemed to work.  I was about to just give up on the thing when I remembered that it did playback some files I had converted for my Palm Zire 31 PDA.  So, I dug up one of those files and analyzed it.  It had been several years since I used the Zire for video playback, I could not remember what I did.  I opened the video in Media Player and viewed its properties.  I found that I had used DivX to encode the file.  Aha!

I updated my installation of DivX, started Prism, selected a small file  and then set the file type to .avi, set the encoder to DivX and then clicked the Video Compression settings.  I chose the HOME THEATER profile in the DIVX setup.  I then let Prism encode the file.  After a few minutes, the file was ready.  I copied it over to an SD card and put it in the TV Picture Viewer.  After selecting the video to playback, I waited for it to error out.  Surprisingly, it played.  My first few attempts resulted in stuttering video, but it play all the way.  I went back to the DivX settings and played around.  I got it play back fairly smoothly.  

One thing I found, though, is that the source video more or less dictates the profiles you can use in DivX.  For example, those camera movies restricted me to the 720p profile while some flash videos I downloaded (Rocky Jones, Space Ranger-black and white, mono sound) could use the mobile profile.

I think I will purchase both the Plus version of Prism and the Pro version of DivX to give me more flexibility.  Both will be useful in the video work I am doing, so it is a win win. 

I am hoping to get consistently good results.  The little device will allow me to watch video podcasts on the larger screen in my bedroom where I have no computer(!) or downstairs on the big screen there.  Plus, I also have a Digital Decor digital frame at work, so I could take those videos I shot at the beach and have them play on the frame.

If you have one these TV Picture Viewers and have gotten video to play, please let us know what you did.

Links:

• Prism Video Converter
• DivX

On August 12, 1977, the shuttle Enterprise flew, on its own, for the first time.  In fact, it was the first manned flight of any of the shuttles.  It was the first of five glide flights that were conducted at Edwards Airforce Base in California.

Arriving at Dryden in January of 1977 from Rockwell International, the Enterprise began a series of eight captive-carry flights with five of them unmanned and three manned.  A captive-carry flight meant that the Enterprise was mated to the 747 transport plane.  The flights proved the aerodynamic and handling abilities of the mated craft as well as orbiter systems.  The flights cleared the way for the glide flights.

On the morning of August 12, 1977, around 65 thousand visitors, about 900 press and two thousand ‘special guests’ all gathered to watch the flight.  The Enterprise was crewed by Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton.  The 747 was piloted by Fitz Fulton and Tom McMurtry.

At 8am, the 747 accelerated down the runway and lifted off with Enterprise mated to the aircraft.   The Enterprise was scheduled to separate from the 747 at 8:30, but conditions slowed the climb of the mated craft for nearly eighteen minutes.  At 8:48, pilot Fitz Fulton nosed the plane into a shallow dive.  Fred Haise radioed “The Enterprise is set; thanks for the lift.”  He then pressed the separation button which caused seven explosive bolts to fire, releasing Enterprise from the 747.

The airplane made a left turn while descending and Enterprise pitched to the right.  Enterprise was now in free flight.  Haise conducted several tests to see how the shuttle would respond.  He then began a 180 degree turn and then lined up with the runway. He kept up speed the extend the glide, but realized the the Enterprise was ‘high and hot’, it was going to land long.  Haise opened the speed brakes to slow down the Enterprise. 

Haise did successfully land the Enterprise.  The shuttle rolled across the lakebed for nearly two miles before it stopped.

Haise and Fullerton, along with Joe Engle and Richard Truly, made four more flights over the next two months. The flights not only proved the glide and landing abilities of the shuttle, they also provided important information about how the shuttle handled during low speed flight flight and landing.  The flights also helped to validate the digital fly-by-wire control system.

I was almost twelve years old when these test flights took place.  I still remember watching this first flight on television.  It was CBS, I think, that we watched that.  Being a Star Trek fanatic even then, I was quite pleased to see the REAL starship Enterprise fly, even if it did not have warp drive and looked like an airplane.  I just KNEW this ship would fly in space.  Unfortunately for me, the Enterprise never saw duty in space.  It flew these five flights on its own and was then used for a few ground based tests.  It was ferried around the country before finally arriving at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum annex complex.

Over the years, Enterprise was used as a spare parts bin.  Some of its remaining functioning computers were cannibalized and put in other shuttles.  In 2003, it lost part of its wings for testing the theory that foam from the external tank struck the wing of Columbia and put a hole in the wing.  This is what led to the loss of the Columbia and her crew.  The wing of Enterprise is till missing the piece used for testing.

When Challenger was lost, there was talk of refitting Enterprise and making her space worthy.  However, Congress authorized a brand new orbiter, the Endeavour, to replace Challenger.  Endeavour was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1991.

While Enterprise never flew in space, it was a vital part of the shuttle program.  I suspect Scotty and Captain Kirk would be just as proud of this Enterprise as they were of the starship Enterprise.

Links:

• Enterprise free flight

Continuing the theme of photo projects, I wanted to share a few more tools and techniques that I have been using.  These, too, are free for personal use.

PHOTOSTORY 3

The first thing I wanted to share is Microsoft PhotoStory 3.  PhotoStory is a free tool from Microsoft that is a slide show creator.  The slideshows can be published as videos that you can then share on the internet, view on your computer or burned to a DVD.  The latter option can be done one of two ways:  you can use an external DVD package to convert the WMV video file to an appropriate format and then burn it to DVD or you can purchase an add-in that allows DVD burning directly from within the application.

PhotoStory has a ton of features to let you customize your slide show in a number of ways.  It has a number of transitions including crossfade, wipe up, wipe down, fade in and out and more.  Special effects include sepia tone, black and white and others.  You can do the ‘Ken Burns effect’ which simply gives you the ability to focus on a part of the photo and do a slow pan in any direction. Using this capability, it is possible to make a whole slide show using just one photo.  However, it is better to use many different photos.

You can add narration to your story and background music.  PhotoStory has a nice feature where you can either use a pre-recorded MP3 track OR let the application create the music for you.   You can choose from many different styles of music and then set the tempo.  The effect can be pleasing or, depending on the settings, quite cheesy.

PhotoStory is one of my favorite tools.  Unfortunately, it appears that Microsoft is no longer developing the application.  It is still available from the Microsoft website and is free.

PHOTOSCAPE

Photoscape is nice application that has quite a bit of flexibility and packs a lot of power in a free application.  Perhaps the best features though, are the RAW to JPG converter and editor.  The editor has a cool little feature where you turn a photo into a comic book like panel.  You can choose from many different items and move them around the photo and add captions in speech balloons, just like a comic.  There are also ‘serious’ editing features such as color correction, cropping, various filters and more.

Photoscape lets you arrange multiple photos on a sheet and print a contact sheet or a package of photos that you can print and give away.  It includes a combine and a splitter where you can either combine multiple photos into one or divide a single photo into many parts.

The application is free and is available here.

INPAINT

Inpaint is nifty little application that has one purpose:  to remove unwanted objects or people from a photograph.  The effect can be quite good or really bad.  You need a photo of decent size and the object to remove cannot take up much of the photo.  However, it does work well.  Say you have a photo of a nice, tranquil beach, but there’s an oil tanker in the photo.  Simply use the lasso tool and draw an outline around the tanker and then select INPAINT->RUN from the menu.  The tanker will vanish and your photo is instantly made better.

Inpaint is a shareware product and costs $39.95.

Links:

• PhotoStory 3
• Photoscape
• Photoscape review
• Inpaint

I am getting the photography bug.  Over the last few years, I have spent a small fortune on cameras, software and materials.  I am learning the technical side of taking pictures and I’ve also taken to restoring old photos and taking photos that I thought were hopeless and making some out of them.  Sometimes I am successful and sometimes not so much but I always enjoy it and it is something that I can share with others.

Along the way, I’ve learned a few tricks and have passed a few on.  I’d like to do so again.

TILTSHIFTING

Tilt shifting is the process of taking a photo of something real and making it look like a model.  There are a number of ways of achieving the end result, anywhere from complicated tricks using a package like Photoshop down to uploading a photo to web site.  There is a really nice site, TiltShift Maker, that is super simple to use and can return some nice results.  Give it a try.  Photos of places taken from a distance will yield the best results.

If you want a bit more control, the effect can be rather easily achieved using cheap or free software such as Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop Elements or even GiMP.  For this discussion, I used Photoshop Elements 7.0.  Please keep in mind that my method is super simple and may not give you the exact result you want, but it will be close and I have some links for you to go to for more in depth instruction.  So, fire up your image editor and lets get going.

Open your photo and pick a section of the photo that you want to be the focal point. Use a lasso tool for tight control or the marquee selection tool and outline the focal point area. Next,  invert your selection using the SELECT->INVERSE tool.  Now comes the trickery.  You need to blur the inverted selection.  Select FILTER->BLUR->GAUSSIAN BLUR.  You will have to experiment with the various settings like radius and feather.  You should have a small amount of feathering to smooth the transition from blur to non-blur or you’ll have a rather sharp and unconvincing transition.  Once you have completed the blur process, you are essentially done.  Deselect and marvel at your creation.  Depending on the photo, the effect is rather striking and surreal.  You’ve managed to take reality and make it look like a bad ‘70s monster movie.  Isn’t it great?

FREE and Portable Image Editor

I saw this on Friendfeed a few days ago, unfortunately, I don’t recall who suggested this cool little piece of software.  Called Fotografix, it is a minimalist Photoshop-like image editor.  It is free and, best of all, is small-the whole thing is about 600K.  It does not need to be installed so you can run it from a thumb drive or other portable media.  The application is not perfect and has a few bugs, but it is stable enough to take with you and do some basic image editing. Download it here.

LINKS:

• Receding Hairline – Fake Models
• Tiltshifting Brighton
• Wikipedia entry on Tiltshifting
• Fotografix
• Tiltshift Maker application

Well, it seems not all of the computers washed in unicorn tears are squeaky clean now.  Symantec has discovered a link between a malicious file that was inserted into pirated copies of iWork 09 and Adobe CS4 for the Macintosh.  The malware found in the packages introduce a PHP script that runs as root.  The script can attack web sites and cause denial of services.  Effectively, a Mac botnet has been created. It features a peer-to-peer engine and encryption.

It is estimated that several thousand Mac enthusiasts (we dare not call them thieves, after all, no self respecting Mac user would stoop so low as to steal software) downloaded the infected packages. 

Now, just so I get this right, lets recap:  the operating system that is supposed to ‘safe’ has been exploited, but not by some stupid programming error or buffer overflow but from stupid users.  Oh, wait, lets call them naive because they aren’t stupid.  After all, they did choose the better machine, right?  Anyway, these same users, feeling nice and warm and fuzzy about what they were doing and what they were using stole….err, borrowed…some software over a p2p network to, presumably, ‘test’ said software before paying a bundle…err, a premium…for ‘quality’ work (read that pretty.)  Said software contained something nasty.  I guess the unicorn tears just were not powerful enough this time.  Now those machines are part of a larger p2p network that will be used in some, undoubtedly, nefarious ways.  Welcome to the real world.

I can already hear the howls from the ‘washed masses’ of Mac users:  “well, those people allowed the malware to infect the machines.  We’re still safe.  After all, we all know better.” Right. 

While I have to admit that reading about this did bring a short smile to my face, I quickly realized that this is no laughing matter.  Windows or Mac, it really does not matter as nothing will ever be totally safe as long as people insist on bending or breaking rules or, worse, just not giving a damn.

OK, so as is normal with me, I am a bit behind the times in the entertainment world.  Today, I overheard a couple of coworkers talking about something that happened recently in Great Britain.  They were talking about a woman who was performing for a TV show and was not what she seemed.  Indeed, that is an understatement.  Curious, I had find out what this was about.

As most people know, the Fox hit “American Idol” is the American version of the British programme.  Simon Cowell is a judge on that show as well.  And, as you know, these types of show generally favor young, attractive people who can also sing.  On American Idol, there have been a few people who made it on the show and went quite far based more on their talent.  Well, that’s going to happen on Britain's Got Talent.

A Scottish woman, Susan Boyle, auditioned for the show.  She walks out on stage and is, nearly right away, laughed at and jeered by the audience.  The judges were also non-plussed by her appearance.  Simon Cowell asked her what her dream was.  She responded that she wanted to sing.  The audience laughs as does Cowell and the judges.  Then, she started to sing.

Boy oh boy…what a shock.  This woman can sing.  The poor sound quality of the YouTube clip could not make her sound bad.  The audience-judges included-were in shock.  Even crusty old Cowell smiled in approval.  Ms. Boyle could turn out to be one of the world’s best singers. Of course, we only heard the one song, but, man, she sure sang it well.  I’m not one who gets ‘goose bumps’ from listening to someone sing, but I did this time.  If you’ve not seen the clip, watch it, watch it now.

YouTube Link

I must be getting old and REALLY out of touch.  I say that because, among other things, I just don’t get the appeal of Stephen Colbert or that other dufus who people seem to want to get their ‘news’ from—you know, that person from the ‘Daily Show.’  I just don’t get either of them.  What escapes me even more is the amount of support these two get.  Take, for instance, the recent NASA travesty that Mr. Colbert is responsible for inciting.  NASA held an online contest to name a new module for the International Space Station.  Mr. Colbert urged his followers, err, viewers, to vote for him.  Well, it worked and Colbert’s name won.  Naturally, NASA didn’t want to bestow such a name on the new module.  NASA’s decision wrankled some feathers and, after some discussion, decided throw Colbert a bone and name a treadmill that is destined for the station after him.  In an announcement made on his show, Astronaut Sunita Williams said the stations new exercise tool would be called the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill or Colbert for short.   While this is amusing, and the attention given to the contest did make more people aware of the efforts going into the station, it also shows just how influential Colbert and the other guy are. 

I’ve tried to watch both shows.  I really have.  I don’t think either of them are particularly funny and they certainly are not ‘journalists’ and, thus, the ‘news’ they deliver is not really news although the other guy-and, yes, I know his name but I’m not going to say it-does make a half-assed attempt at delivering the news.  He fails, of course, because he has to bend and twist it and make it his own.  The problem, though, is that there is a large number of people, mostly teen and college age people, who take it as real news and are, most likely, incapable of differentiating the real news from his faux news.  Pretty sad. 

About that NASA contest…Unfortunately, I think they were wrong to not name the module after Mr. Colbert.  He did, after, win the contest.  NASA should have stuck by it and named the module the Colbert module.  Instead, NASA named it Tranquility, which is a nice name.  I really think they made a mistake in not following through.  The message they sent is:  “Well, we are just going to ignore the results and name it what we want.”  It will just deter involvement by people in the future.  I suppose, though, that it is possible that this was all a ruse and that NASA and Colbert were just trying to drum up some support and excitement over the space program.   Nah, I’m giving them both too much credit.

In the “it just gets weirder” department, Circuit City may not be completely dead and buried.  In a recent filing, Circuit City said that it had sold its brand, intellectual property and internet assets to Systemax, the same company that owns Tiger Direct and, last year, purchased what was left of CompUSA.  The price paid was about $6.5 million.  Circuit City will also get a share of the sales generated by the name.  If that is not weird enough,  CompUSA-which has maintained an online presence since the brick and mortar company shut down…well, shuttered all but about 23 stores, that is…last year.  Well, they are, apparently, opening about fifty new stores under the CompUSA brand.  Huh.  Well, here’s hoping that Systemax has more retail savvy than Carlos Slim had.  Best Buy needs some kind of competition other than Wal-Mart.

In yet another odd turn for my favorite little theme park that went out of business…the new owners of the former Hard Rock Park announced its new name last week:  Freestyle Music Park.  Freestyle happens to be the name of a park that the new owners are building in Russia, of all places.  (Before I upset my Russian friends, I mean no disrespect here, I just find it odd that THIS particular group of people would be building a park in Russia while trying to get HRP going again.)  Supposedly, the group had this name as the ‘b’ plan if they were unable to continue using the Hard Rock branding.  According to one story, Hard Rock International was going to continue the licensing deal but the alleged owners of the intellectual property rights to the park wanted way more money than they are worth…something like a half million dollars per year and 1.5% of the revenue.  At least one judge thought there was some merit to this crooked deal so the new owners decided to just rebrand the whole park.  Probably a good idea anyway.  Nothing wrong with ‘hard rock’, but the themes went over the heads of the parks main customers: kids and teenagers, many of which don’t know what the hell a ‘Led Zeppelin’ is or who the Eagles were.  Hell, I barely know myself…and I’m over forty.

This notion of purchasing defunct brands and resurrecting them is nothing new and has gone on for quite some time.  Names like DuMont, Philco, Polaroid and Westinghouse have all been purchased and reused a number of times.  No too long ago, I owned a DuMont color television that was made in the early Nineties.  The DuMont company went out of business over forty years ago.  Polaroid ceased being a legit company not too long ago and is now pretty much a brand name.  There is still a company attached to it, but it is not the same company that Edwin Land ran.  The thing that confuses me is the reuse of recently dead brick and mortar chains like Circuit City.  Why buy a brand that has so much negativity attached to it?  When I see the name, I still think of poor service.  I will continue to think that for quite a while, and, I’m sure, I’m not the only one.  Systemax is doing something right, though, if they are successful enough to open fifty new stores under the CompUSA name.  What do I know?