I'm a metadata kind of guy, so I did a quick review of OS X OpenMeta. Links are below.
OpenMeta
OpenMeta applications
Alas, Apple hasn't played along, and Michael Tsai teaches us that OpenMeta Is a Hack. A clever hack, but too risky for me.
Outlook lets me edit subject lines (undocumented, there for 10 years, just click on subject line and type. Yes, there's no UI indication that it works. Yes, it works.) It even lets me edit sent or received email bodies.
These are killer features. Gmail doesn't do this, despite my many requests.
I didn't realize Eudora, a program I used heavily throughout the 90s, did the same thing ...
MailTags -Eudora lets you edit received emails, which I found handy for making notes and changing the subject line. I really missed this in Mail. MailTags doesn't let you edit the email, but you can add a note and change the subject line, and more. The interface is simple, there when you want it and out of the way when you don't.
So, what's this MailTags?! It sounds interesting, but I don't see how it changes the original subject line. I do see Google's partial IMAP implementation doesn't support MailTags metadata.
Jen Wieczner told a story of a friend lost, perhaps but for the sake of a waterproof phone case ...
When Technology Can't Save You - Jen Wieczner - Technology - The Atlantic
... four others, including my friend Tyler Lorenzi, 23, treaded water while the river swept them downstream. Around the same time their fellow sailors were pleading at the door of a strange residence, a tugboat found their overturned vessel and called authorities. Near a ship graveyard known as the Ghost Fleet, Tyler was eventually pulled unconscious from the James; he passed away in the hospital. Another sailor, Alexander Brown, 24, drowned. Tyler, a graduate of Northwestern University, worked as a research engineer for the National Institute of Aerospace, a division of NASA; Alex was earning a doctorate in engineering there.
I didn't know Alex, but Tyler was generous, selfless and warm, and gave hugs without hesitation ... He was dashingly handsome, strong in the way of someone who got that way by going about his regular business, with perpetually tan skin and flushed cheeks, the kind that mark someone who is comfortable outdoors and spends much of his time there...
... According to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which investigated the accident, none of the boaters were carrying cell phones on the fatal night, or at least none that still worked. After Tyler's death, I wondered about what went through the boaters' minds -- tech-savvy young people who worked and studied at NASA programs -- when they fell into the water: Did they immediately realize the gravity of the situation? Dependent on their technology on land, did they reach automatically for their phone before reality settled in? What must it have been like to realize that their means of communication - and hopes of rescue -- were quite literally dead in the water?
... Motorola calls its Defy SmartPhone "life-proof," because it's water- and dust-resistant; its new Brute flip phone is designed to meet military standards for "extreme elements," including "blowing rain," "salt fog" and liquid immersion. RIM, which manufactures Blackberry devices, says, "While it is possible that BlackBerry could work after being submerged in water, RIM does not recommend doing it," and adds that in a recent Yahoo News water test, BlackBerry did just fine.
Needless to say, iPhones are not water resistant. They are notoriously water sensitive [1].
You can, however, buy pouches for $10-$25 that will keep the phone working underwater. You can even use the phone in the pouch.
I tested a cheap one at home. Here's my Amazon review ...
I purchased and tested the Seattle Sports Dry Doc Digi Case. The Digi Case 02 appears to be the same case with different attachment device.
I filled the case with a paper towel and then submerged it for 30 minutes in 1 foot of water. The end of the paper towel was slightly moist when I recovered. Most phones, even an iPhone, would probably still be ok at that point.
It looks to me like a new Digi Case, carefully sealed, would protect against a quick dunk. This one is fine for keeping my phone in a non-waterproof bike bag or for insurance on a hiking trip that could involve a stream crossing. I would want something more robust (and more costly) if I were going on a canoe trip.
An iPhone is useable through the case -- the touch controls work.
For an iPhone 4 to fit best, it's probably worth removing any other case. Larger pouches work with a case on the phone.
[1] We inherited a friend's iPhone 1 after it visited a white porcelain bowl. It worked well as an iTouch for my son, save for the lack of a speaker. One day, after about 1-2 years of use, the external speaker started working. I do not understand this.
In a burst of foolish optimism, I volunteered to do some videos of our team pitchers and share them.
This turned out to be much harder than I imagined. It's one of those tasks where each step has multiple options, but only a few choices really work.
Along the way I tested and abandoned MobileMe's video gallery [1] and Karelia Sandvox [2]. I briefly considered then discarded Picasa Web album video sharing.
I did figure out a path that works. Two of 'em actually. I'll share the easy one first.
Use an iPhone. Take short clips. Don't edit. Upload. Share links.
The deluxe option assembling multiple video fragments from a Canon dLSR HD video camera into a one video for each pitcher, then embedding them in a web page.
If I ever do this again, this is what I'll do for the deluxe option.
This was the first time I used the new iMovie. I read a few pages in the surprisingly well done Portable Genius Guide to iLife (see [3]).
This is time consuming. It took about 10 minutes for each clip to create a movie and upload. An alternative would be to export as .mp4 (NOT default .m4v) then bulk upload overnight [4]
- fn -
[1] I'd not tried it before. Now I see why Apple gave up on the Galleries.
[2] Crashed on me during my video uploading attempts. Could be just bad luck -- pretty much every OS X app I use crashes sooner or later. Almost like 10.6.7 is an unhappy host OS. Still, bad timing.
[3] iMovie notes
[4] The settings to make this work are not obvious. I got decent results when I used Export to Quicktime, MP4, then set data rate to 4096, image size 768x576, Fit within size for crop, and "best quality" encoding mode in video options.
I've not seen this mentioned anywhere. Time to remedy that.
We have a collection of about 8 iPhone/iPod USB cables. The older ones locked onto devices. The newer ones have friction locks.
All of the old ones are in great shape.
Two of the three newer ones are damaged. The cables separate from the connectors at both ends.
Clearly, something went wrong. Looks like a manufacturing defect.
I wonder if it's fixed with newer cables.
My version of iMovie exports (09), by default, .m4v. (emphases mine)
The M4V file format is a video file format developed by Apple and is very close to MP4 format. The differences are the optional Apple's DRM copyright protection, and the treatment of AC3 (Dolby Digital) audio which is not standardized for MP4 container.
Google's Picasa service doesn't support .m4v ...
Video Upload Requirements : Video - Picasa Help:
... Uploadable Video File Types .3gp, .avi, .asf, .mov, .wmv, .mpg, .mp4, .m2t, .mmv, .m2ts ...
Neither does YouTube ...
Supported YouTube file formats - YouTube Help
WebM files - Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codecs
.MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files - Typically supporting h264, mpeg4 video codecs, and AAC audio codec
.AVI - Many cameras output this format - typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM
.MPEGPS - Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio
.WMV
.FLV - Adobe-FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio
Heavens, but I do hate video data standard issues.
It's the patents, it's the DRM, and above all, it's Apple. Data formats and DRM are at the core of Apple's great flaw -- a deep addiction to data lock [1].
[1] Pro video customers of Apple's Final Cut Pro are learning all about what Apple's data lock means.
Update 7/5/11: Two wikipedia articles on Apple's ProRes 422 and ProRes 4444 and these additional articles help capture the full horror of the 2011 state of video codecs -- and the complexity of the video editing workflow. There is nothing analogous to JPEG or even JPEG 2000. See also ...
I've been looking for a general purpose personal OS X website creation tool for years, ever since FrontPage effectively expired @2000. iWeb was a feeble contender but it died a year ago.
Yes, this is a terrible market.
My most recent trial was Karelia's Sandvox; I tested an earlier version in 2006.
Sandvox looked like a contender. It's been around for years and is being actively updated. It has a trial version.
It failed under 10.6.7. It had several weaknesses and one fatal error. The weaknesses were that it uses a proprietary database store (no native HTML edit) and that when I searched help and the web for "embed video" and MobileMe I found nothing.
The fatal error was that it crashed when uploading a page with several embedded videos to MobileMe. I got a classic "quit unexpectedly" dialog.
There's not much going on in this corner of the tech world. Anyone have something that works?
