When Bunnies Attack

I’ve come to a conclusion recently: there’s too many things going on in my life at the moment. It’s nice to be busy, but at the same time it means I’m always context switching. Instead of focusing on just 1 or 2 things I have my hands in dozens of projects. The end result seems to be that a lot is going on but nothing is really reaching completion. And sometimes it even means that by the time something gets completed the moment for opportunity to use/do it has passed. So I’ve resolved to whittle down the number of active projects to just one or two. That means I’m only reading 1 book at a time, finishing up a DVD, working on a side project, editing a batch of photos, reading a magazine, etc. Little stuff and big stuff alike, only 1 or 2 active things.

I’ve been doing this for a little while now and it seems to really work. Sure, not as many things are getting my attention, but there is a sense of things getting completed.

Apple’s latest iPhone update brings your phone up to date with version 1.1.1 and breaks all sorts of things if you were one of the people who decided to mod your iPhone. I think bricking is pretty harsh: there should be a complete restore of the phone back to factory state on iTunes. By disallowing your phone entirely back onto the network AT&T is really only further soiling their reputation.

However. Having said that.

Really, when you mod your iPhone, Xbox, or whatever you do take it out of warranty. You knew that when you circumvented the software. You knew that Apple products are usually a closed system. You knew you were not doing something sanctioned with the software. You knew the risks but wanted to try it anyways. Apple’s warranty, like most others, does include:

This warranty does not apply: (a) to damage caused by use with non-Apple products; (b) to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, flood, fire, earthquake or other external causes; (c) to damage caused by operating the product outside the permitted or intended uses described by Apple; (d) to damage caused by service (including upgrades and expansions) performed by anyone who is not a representative of Apple or an Apple Authorized
Service Provider (“AASP”); (e) to a product or part that has been modified to alter functionality or capability without the written permission of Apple; (f) to consumable parts, such as batteries, unless damage has occurred due to a defect in materials or workmanship; (g) to cosmetic damage, including but not limited to scratches, dents and broken plastic on ports; or (h) if any Apple serial number has been removed or defaced.

(From http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/.)

I wish Apple provided a proper SDK. I wish that the apps were based on open standards. But the reality is that iPhone users bought into a ecosystem willingly, accepted multiple terms of use and warranties, and understood that they could damage their hardware or render their phone incompatible with AT&T.

If what you want is the latest and greatest hardware, multiple carrier support, and an open platform: I challenge you to build your own phone. If you’ve reverse engineered the iPhone (or a Blackberry or a Treo or a ________) you pretty much know what’s required to build a phone. Go and design your concept phone, build a prototype, get someone to build it. You want something sleek and powerful? That design decision is in your hands. You want open software standards and a great user interface? Don’t complain: build it. With all the talent in the Web 2.0 arena you would think that people would be generally resourceful enough to build the most killer phone that ever existed. Multitouch, voice recognition and dictation, high resolution displays, slider keypads, normal earphone jacks, visual voicemail on the phone with a companion Web 2.0 website, any audio/video CODEC …

Why not have a contest and the winner gets a contract with some electronics manufacturer?

Finally, a new header. After the Chemical Brothers concert last night I was feeling pretty ill—I don’t think I drank enough water and the second drink had wayyyyy too much vodka in it. I spent most of the night reeling from that and so I missed heading out to see friends this morning. Having nothing better to do than lie on my bed semi-sick this morning I opened up Illustrator and started doodling. I’ve had a picture of cartoonish bunnies taped to my wall and I think it’s now time they came to life on the web…

Here I was so happy to finally being able to install a real non-linear editor (NLE) for video and with the $100 iPhone early adopter rebate I snatched up a fresh copy of Final Cut Express HD 3.5. I installed it, salivated through the tutorial DVD, and played around with the copious loops and titling options.

And then my pain began.

Firstly, I opened up FCE and then tried importing a bunch of my movie files from iPhoto. After all, iMovie was able to use them fine so FCE should be even better. Right? Um … er … no. FCE apparenly only works with DV and HDV video files. That means while it is possible to preview your files from your digital camera or SD camcorder you’re really up a creek when it comes to editing with them. Bagelturf wrote an extensive article on converting digital camera movie files to FCE formats. It’s not pretty but it seems to work.

OK, so I downloaded Squared 5’s Streamclip which looks to be the right converter software and I rerendered some of my video files as DV files. Yay. But now when I try to open up FCE it won’t load at all! It just initializes then quits.

Ugh! $300 and it’s that unstable? C’mon!

So, I’ve been reading tips on how to remove your FCE preferences, but the funny thing is that I don’t seem to have any of those preferences files there! I mean, really, where the heck did all those preferences files go!

As you can tell, I’m a little upset at the moment. When I actually pay for software I expect it to work. Maybe not perfectly, but at least it should -load-.

OK, so I followed FCPBook’s instructions and I finally got the interface to load up! Just to summarize:

• Quit FCE
• Remove your com.apple.FinalCut*.plist files from your Home/Library/Preferences folder
• Remove the Final Cut Prefs, Obj Cache, and Prof Cache files from within the Final Cut user data folders
• Repair any disk permissions with Disk Utility

I loaded a converted DV clip into FCE HD 3.5 and it plays now! Yay! But … the audio is now incompatible!!! It just goes beep-beep-beep-beep. Ugh.

——————–

Update at 2:36 AM:

After a couple hours of fiddling around and reading various websites I think I finally have this solved. I used the Easy Setup and chose “HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 720p30″, “Unlimited RT”, “Low” video quality, “Dynamic” framerate. You can import just about any video clip in but since the frame size is 720×480 this means you end up losing a little bit of your video if you recorded at 640×480. Once you load your clips in, select them and view their Item Properties. The Pixel Aspect needs to be changed to “NTSC – CCIR 601″ or whatever your Sequence’s aspect settings are—hold down Ctrl while clicking to bring up the dropdown menu to change this. Finally, if you use the “Image + Wireframe” View option then you will have some resizing handles on the clip which you can use to enlarge the clip so it fills the entire frame.

So I am on my way with a friend to go see Jonathan Coulton in concert at the Great American Music Hall… She drops me off at my car so we can move it into my garage parking spot. We caravan to the house and right in front is parked a car with its butt halfway into the driveway. We have a limited time to get to the venue and park, calling a tow truck to remove the offending car is not an option, and the owners are nowhere in sight…

I gauged the situation and such a brilliant thought hit me: why don’t I drive the sidewalk? I have a tiny car…

I got it on the sidewalk and just when I was lining it up … BAM!!! I rearended a tree. Ugh!!! My pristine little car now has a bruise. Worse yet there was visible fluid from under the car. I just hope it is water and not anything significant. I just want to make it through this weekend and then I can deal with car troubles on Monday.

I had a relatively small car before. It was a 2-door coupe. An RSX to be exact. 172.2 inches in length of happy driving experience. And yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t find a parking spot in San Francisco. I mean, c’mon, it’s a small car! Almost all of my friends drive decently-sized sedans and whatnot, so I felt I was definitely on the more petite side of things. But in SF, even a car as small as the RSX is overbearingly huge compared to those tiny little spaces between driveways. (Which, if you go over, can cost you a $75 ticket or a tow-away or both.)

However …

I think I can live with this. At only 145.6 inches, 26.6 inches shorter, the MINI easily fits almost anywhere, and I’m very surprised when it doesn’t. I’m 12.5″ smaller than the Kia Rio, 11.8″ than the Honda Fit, 9.7″ than the Scion xB, 4.4″ than the Toyota Yaris. Granted, the MINI is pretty wide at 75.8″, but still it’s the length of the car that counts.

I love it love it love it.