Archive for the 'Interesting' Category

Ringtones!

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on July 31, 2008
in Apple, Cell Phones, Interesting, Music and Tips/Tricks
. Comments

So, I helped Mike with getting new ringtones for his iPhone 3G without paying the ridiculous $2 per tone.  Well, the system I showed him works just fine, but only for the Mac.  I found an easier way that as far as I can tell works.  Unfortunately, I don’t have an iPhone 3G (yet) to test this, so I’m going to show you guys the video and have you guys tell me whether or not it works.

When I followed this procedure, sure enough, I have a 30 second snippet of a Bad Religion song in my Ringtones list.  I did this on iTunes 7.7.1, but like I said, I don’t have an iPhone to put the ringtone on to, so try it out and tell me if it works for you.

Now, I’m going to try to edit a song down with Audacity and see if it works that way too.  Hold on a sec.

Yeah, I did it.  Turns out though, that Audacity won’t output to AAC, so I exported the clip in MP3.  Generally, I export the audio as the same filetype and bitrate as it was imported.  Then I used dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert it to AAC and changed the filename to m4r.  Maybe the video’s method is a bit easier, but I like to have a lot of control over my ringtones.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

A whole lot of TV… in the new

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on July 6, 2008
in Interesting, Media, Movies, Technology and Television
. Comments

Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of TV shows.  Shows like 30 Rock, Eureka, The Office.  A whole heaping helping of shows that I’ve been told are good, but just haven’t watched for one reason or another.

Turns out that I really like them.  So, I decided that instead of watching them on a TV or getting the DVDs from Netflix, I would just watch them on my HTPC.  The first three seasons of The Office, I watched on Netflix’s Instant Player and the fourth, I watched on Hulu.com.  The first season of 30 Rock, I watched on Netflix and bought and downloaded the second season from Amazon Unbox.  I got the first season of Eureka from Amazon Unbox and am working on it as I type.

So, how many of you are slowly or even quickly moving to an Internet-based television experience?

If you could pay $2 per episode for all of the shows that you watch on a regular basis, would it be more expensive or cheaper than what you are paying now for cable or satellite service?  What would you think about a system like that?  Would HD be a must?  Should HD content be more expensive or the same?

Personally, I would love a system like that and I think that it would be less expensive than what we are paying now for satellite, but truthishly, I haven’t crunched the numbers.  I think that HD content should be the same price as standard def content.  Nowadays, every major TV show is shot in HD and then conformed to the old SD standards, so there isn’t any extra work needed to produce HD.  I think there is just this feeling of “privilege” that is surrounding and staining the true, blu potential of HD content.

Yep, that missing ‘e’ was intentional.  That’s for you, Kody.  ;)

WL.TV Spoof!

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 28, 2008
in Funny, Interesting, Media, Podcasts, Projects and future
. Comments

Sometime in mid-June, Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary TV will announce a contest to spoof his show.  Apparently the prize for which will be sick (his words, not mine).  You may ask, if he going to annouce the competition, how do I know about it?  Well, he pseudo announced it today (05/28/08) on his show.  It was real quick, you have to keep an ear for it.

I know several of you out there, specifically those Lexy and I spend many of our weekends with, would find this kind of project fun.  So, if you guys want to help write, shoot, whatever this, give me a shout and we will get this done and produce the BEST WL.TV spoof on the net, ever.

Good People Day

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on April 2, 2008
in Interesting, Media, Social Networking and Technology
. Comments

Starting on April 3, 2008, Gary Vaynerchuk wants to start Good People Day.

Let’s get this started. I don’t know a lot of people, but those good people that I do know who are not on Twitter, Pownce, or Facebook, you guys better be prepared for an awesome shout-out. It is getting done and I am jumping on this train.

Hey, quick Mac tip

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on February 8, 2008
in Apple, Computers, Interesting, Technology and Tips/Tricks
. Comments

I just watched an episode of Tekzilla Daily. Apparently, the fine folks at Tekzilla are releasing little one minute daily shows in addition to their weekly show. Today’s I thought was a rather neat trick in Mac’s OS X. Check it out and see if it could do you any good.

EDIT: This trick also works in Firefox and IE (and I’m sure other browsers and maybe other apps) on Windows machines, but it can cause some sites to go weird and doesn’t work quite like OS X’s feature. Almost as cool.

I’ve been watching TV

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on February 6, 2008
in Interesting, Opinion and Television
. Comments

Lately, television has been taking a bit of a dive lately. Of course we all know the reason for that. The Writer’s Strike has been going on for a while now and I believe that it has successfully hit TV really hard. For example, the CHRISTMAS episode of House just aired the Tuesday before the Superbowl (January 29 if my reading of Google Calendar isn’t failing me). Wow. I understand the need to do a Christmas episode and similarly the need to stretch your season out as far as possible, but holy crap cracker, think about that. You are releasing a Christmas episode in January. Personally, they should have released it as the last episode of last year as that was such an interesting episode that it could definitely have worked as a “we’re taking a break” episode.

terminator_tscc.pngA show that I am slightly annoyed by is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. This show is mostly annoying me because I think they write the episode AFTER they finish shooting it. Slight exaggeration, I know, but the show has such terrible points of atrocious acting and the inability to keep a straight story. I just finished watching Heavy Metal which is episode 4. Now, I have voiced my biggest issue with this show to those few that I have talked in person with about this show. Well, in case you aren’t one of those lucky few that I have had the pleasure of having dinner with, here it is. Summer Glau’s character is Cameron, the machine that is sent back in time to protect John Connor. In the pilot episode when you were introduced to the character, you genuinely believed that she was a normal high school student. Personally, I was doubting the fact that she was a Machine when you first hear her talk and interact with John. Then as the show goes on, she becomes a Machine like we expect; stale and static in personality. Don’t get me wrong, I like the way Ms. Glau is playing the character now, but that first episode was kind of off-putting in comparison to the character she plays in the rest of the series thus far. The one thing that is constantly annoying about the show is that John Connor is a whiny bitch. He doesn’t understand what the fuck he is doing, but doesn’t give a shit because if things don’t go his way, he will either sulk and be a whinier bitch or put everyone in danger much like in the episode I just watched. Btw, I just got around to watching it today because it wasn’t released online until today. I have to watch it online due to recording conflicts. You put six people in a house with a single DVR and eventually you have to give up a show here and there. Now, the show as a whole is rather enjoyable and I will continue to watch it regardless of how bitchy and whiny John Connor becomes.

Another show that I am starting to watch and enjoy is In Treatment. This drama is about a psychologist and his patients and how his sessions with his patients influence his personal life. The show is on HBO every Monday through Friday. Each day is a session with a client on that particular day. Monday’s are Laura, Tuesdays Alex, et cetera. Every episode is simply the session with the client, so the complexities arise in the dialog between Paul, the psychologist (Gabriel Byrne), and whatever client(s) he happens to have that day.  Not a whole lot happens in each episode, just talking and two people interacting, but the way the show has played out so far makes it extremely interesting.  Maybe its Gabriel Byrne.  Maybe its that this show is about what my wife wants to do with her life.  I can’t really explain why it is interesting other than the interactions between the characters is so damned enthralling.  I definitely recommend this show if you haven’t started watching it.

Well, I think that’s about it for now.  I hope you all enjoy the nifty stories that share in the Google Reader widget over there to the right.

Pownce

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on February 3, 2008
in Interesting and Technology
. Comments

Check out Pownce.com.  It’s a new social network that has been in private beta for a while now, but just went public.  It’s a simple social network that is somewhere between Facebook and an instant messaging program.  Not so full of crap.  Something that I might actually use.  It revolves around sharing files, links, etc. but can also be used as a general communication tool between friends.

I am moogaman on Pownce if you wish to friend me.

Also, Moogaman is my name on my PS3 if you happen to have one of those as well.

I am a sucker for tech.

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on January 18, 2008
in Interesting, School and Technology
. Comments

Well, I’ll go into that, but I did tell you I would let you guys know how my classes are going.  Like I said, I won’t know how my schedule will really feel when I am working, but so far, I think things will go well.

I am taking four courses this semester.  For those of you out of the college mind-set or just plain don’t care, that is 12 credit hours.  It is on the low end of a schedule, but for me with work and life, it is manageable.  Those four courses are: Multimedia II, Screenplay Writing, Audio Production I, and US History From 1877.  The first three, I will much enjoy it appears.  The US History, I just want to be over.  I’ve taken enough history courses, I know it, I’m good.

Multimedia II is all about animation.  We are starting off with GIF (apparently pronounced ‘jif’ as in jiffy *shrugs*) animation which I am already a little familiar with, so that should be fun.  We will eventually move into feature animation, I’m presuming like on Family Guy or the like before the CG additions. This one, I am looking forward to, it should be fun.

Screenplay Writing is just that, a course about writing screenplays.  ‘Nuff said.  Should still be a lot of fun if I let my imagination run its course.

Audio Production I is going to be an interesting learning experience with some fun on the side.  I have to write, record, edit, and produce my own commercials.  I have done a little of this using Audacity, the open source audio editor, but now I’ll be using Adobe Audition 2 (yes, I know there is a 3, but colleges are cheap).  From what the instructor showed us, it acts enough like Audacity for me to be dangerous.  In addition to the software, we will be using a mix console and a bunch of other types of tech equipment.  I’m excited to play around with all this stuff.  Normally, I hate the sound of my own voice, but I will guarantee you that by the end of the semester, I’m not gonna be one of those people anymore.  If you guys are interested, I will post my audio projects here (and maybe the grade I got on them) and have you guys tell me what you think.

Two of my classes are held in a Mac Lab that just got all new Mac Pros, so they all have Leopard on them.  I am excited because I get to play with Leopard, but on the down side, I will rarely get enough free time to just sit and play with the OS when I should be doing my projects, but dammit, I vow I will find time.  What little I did play with it, though, I liked.  I just wish I had my own Mac so I could get down and dirty (platonic, of course) with it.  I guess I’ve always been a sucker for Macs and many of Apple’s products for a long while now.  Since my days editing a few episodes of a season of The Tying Bench on a Mac G4 with Final Cut Pro 3, I have been in a weird sort of love with the Mac OS.  I suppose this accounts for my want of the iPhone and my purchase of an iPod.  My work to convince my wife of purchasing a Mac for her and a separate Mac for myself is a long, arduous, and on-going process.  This also accounts for why I watch all of Steve Jobs’s keynote speeches as I can find out about.  The most recent, obviously, was at the Macworld 2008 Expo.  The keynote speech can be found here.  I will warn you that unless you have an hour and a half to kill, maybe you should go to this Engadget post that covers everything Mr. Jobs talked about in his keynote.

I won’t cover everything that he talked about, but I will say that I like the Macbook Air.  Personally, it isn’t enough of a machine for me, but I can definitely see how it can be extremely useful to those who could use that kind of portability.  In case you don’t know, the Macbook Air is a super thin notebook that is .78 inches at the thickest to .16 inches at the thinnest.  It houses an 80Gb HDD that is the same kind used in the iPods with an option to upgrade to a 64GB Solid State HDD (SSD).  This means you can essentially have a hard disk that never has to spin up.  As soon as the SSD gets power, it is ready to read and write data.  The option is expensive apparently, but very neat.  The screen is a 13.3″ LCD screen with an LED backlight and an ambient light sensor in the camera that will turn on the LED backlight for the full-size keyboard.  The LED backlights are cool because they will consume much less power than the standard backlight for an LCD, turn on and off much faster, and if done properly, can provide a much crisper, cleaner screen image.  The battery life Apple is touting for this thing is around 5 hours with the wifi card on and active browsing and use.  Personally, I will bet the life is actually around 2-3 hours, but I might be proven wrong.  The Macbook Air does not have an optical drive built into it.  The argument is that, really, the user won’t miss it.  If the use of an optical drive is really needed, you can buy a USB-powered SuperDrive for $99 or use the special software that will (and this is really cool to me) use the optical drive of another machine, be it Mac or PC, as the Air’s own drive.  I guess it kinda sets up a way that you temporarily turn an optical drive into a network drive.  Pretty cool, I think.  If I had $1799 to blow and had all I wanted in terms of computers, then I might get one.  I would really like one of the new Mac Pros with the dual quad-core Intel Penryn chips.  That would be sweet, but a super portable Macbook Air for classes would be super sweet as well.

The one thing that I don’t like that Apple is doing is charging current iPod Touch users $20 for the new software upgrades that will add more functionality to the Touch, but if you have an iPhone, you will get those same updates and more for… you guessed it… free.  One more reason to give the iPod Touch a middle finger and go with the iPhone. You could also buy one of the new factory iPod Touches that will have the new software, but really… why?  The iPhone does more and from what I’ve read, has better touch sensitivity anyway.

I think that’s enough for now.  I think my classes are going to go very well, I’m going to enjoy the majority of this semester and I’m going to spend a while wishing I had a lot more disposable income.  Though, I think a lot of us do the latter.

I hope the next keynote announces a 3G iPhone.  Lexy will have her hands full as soon as that is announced, I promise you that.  Though, at the rate Apple’s going, we may see a fourth generation cellular standard by the time the 3G iPhone arrives.  Especially with the 700Mhz spectrum auction coming up.

Stumble comes through again.

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on January 16, 2008
in Interesting and Technology
. Comments

I found this on Stumble:

[youtube rUSTXUis_ys]

Tony-cat kinda wants to make one just because.  That’s my new thing is referring to myself as Tony-cat on occasion.

I will go over how my classes are going when I actually get done with my first week.  I won’t really know how things are gonna go until I start work next week.  I’ll keep you posted… with a post. lol.

Do you live with roommates?

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on August 21, 2007
in Home, Interesting and Money
. Comments

Do you want to determine exactly what everyone should pay? Here is a simple online app that will allow you to take care of all of that stuff. I’ve set up a group for our apartment. I figure we can try it and see how it goes. If anyone else tries it, let’s hear what you think of it.

UPDATE: After looking around the ‘net a bit more, I found BillMonk.  This one seems a bit cooler because you can include your books, movies, etc that friends borrow.  You can also keep track of who owes who when you go out and one person pays for dinner or whatnot.  Help me make a decision.  Which one should we give a trial run at our apartment?