Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

All posts that don’t obviously fit in one of the sub-categories go here.

iDVD

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[Mac shields up!] I created my first DVD last night, using iDVD that ships with OS X. Now, I’ve burned files to DVD’s before but iDVD makes it fun and easy to create a more finished product. Pick a theme, drag over your video from iMovie, your still images form iPhoto, pull some music over from iTunes… hit the burn button and you’re done.

iDVD

This first effort looks like it. But the next one will be better. I haven’t done much with DVD’s because it seemed like a cumbersome way to share media. But this was fun and the resulting DVD looks pretty snazzy.

Voice-to-text-to-blog?

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Planet Nelson points to Jott: “…is a free service (to the extent that your cell can call anywhere in North America for free) that allows you to dictate a 30-second message into your phone and then have it sent as a text email to a friend/colleague/self/offending politician/anyone whose email address is in your Jott address book.”

From Jott.com: “Using Jott, yoau can either Jott your blog directly or just jott yourself and post later. Better yet, your readers can listen to you too — a great way to connect?”

Blog with Jott

If I understand this correctly… a news reporter could be posting audio and text reports directly from their mobile phone to their blog. And given the evolving definition of “reporter,” this tool could be used by anyone, whether they went to J-School or not.

Update: Jamie at Planet Nelson Jott’ed back on this post. The voice-to-text was close. “Blogroll” became “blog rule” and “Gnomedex” showed up as “noon desk.” But pretty slick all the same.

One hundred million iPods sold

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“Apple today announced that the 100 millionth iPod has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.”

flickr back on top

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I’ve been using flickr for a long time. I fell out of love for a bit after Yahoo! acquired the service and the conversion didn’t go as smoothly as it might. But I’ve been making an effort to better understand and use flickr’s many, wonderful features.

Flickr Map is hardly new but I just never got around to playing with it until last night. The short version is, you can locate a photo on a map to show precisely where sit was taken.

For example, during my affiliate relations days in Iowa, I stopped by the farm where the movie Field of Dreams was filmed. I knew the farm was near Dyersville, Iowa, but couldn’t remember the exact location. So I checked Wikipedia and found the exact latitude/longitude. Plugged that into Flickr Maps and, voila! And I was able to zoom in close enough to see the shape of the ball diamond.

I now have about 500 photos in my Flickr account. Unfortunately, when I started saving digital images, I foolishly sized the images down (to save space). So my rez is poor on those older images. Alas.

But the organization tools on Flickr are pretty amazing. And –you knew this was coming– it works so nicely with iPhoto that uploading images is even easier than before.

Google Earth

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Just installed Google Earth on the MacBook and….oooh! Nice. Last time I looked at the app it had just come out and I was on a PC. Everything about Google Earth is better. The images have been updated and the tools are amazing. Here’s the smays compound:

 

iTunes adds Major League Baseball video highlights

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On Friday, Apple announced they’ll be offering Major League Baseball video highlights for the 2007 season on the iTunes Store. MLB video on iTunes will include a daily 25 minute MLB.com Daily Rewind highlight show and two weekly Games of the Week, featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues.

Customers will be able to download individual episodes of MLB.com Daily Rewind and each Game of the Week for $1.99, or purchase a Multi-Pass for a month of Daily Rewind shows for $7.99 or a Season Pass for every Game of the Week at just $19.99. [Podcasting News]

I’m not a baseball fan but I do love highlights (of almost any sport). And I’ll probably invest $1.99 just to see how these look on the Apple TV. (“I just don’t know what you’d watch on that Apple TV thing.”)

Regular readers know the company I work for has the multi-media marketing rights for 32 college athletic programs. I sure hope somebody is working on something similar for our schools.

iPods help doctors recognize heart problems

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Doctors can greatly improve their stethoscope skills and therefore their ability to diagnose heart problems by listening repeatedly to heartbeats on their iPods. Previous research has shown that the average rate of correct heart sound identification by physicians is 40 percent.

In a new study, 149 general internists listened 400 times to five common heart murmurs during a 90-minute session with iPods. After the session, the average score improved to 80 percent.

Apple TV: The price of simplicity

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Apple TVI spent part of the weekend playing with Apple TV. George came over Saturday and we had the thing up and running within 15-20 minutes. I won’t try to “review” this device because a) I don’t have the technical chops, b) I’m not a videophile or power user by any stretch and c) lots of websites and blogs have provided professional reviews.

And just for the record: Windows Media Center is light years ahead of Apple TV. Superior in every way. A different league. Cheaper, better, faster, taller… you name it. I have no experience with Media Center but happily stipulate to the above.

George described Apple TV as “your iPod on steroids.” A pretty good description. I liked this from a review in PC World:

“The basic rule of Apple TV content seems to be: If you can play something in iTunes, you can play it on Apple TV. That puts some limitations on users, but then, that’s the price of simplicity.”

The price of simplicity. Yes, I will pay that price. Gladly. And Apple TV does everything I wanted to do. And just those things. And does them beautifully.

When we turned it on, all of my photos and all of my songs and podcasts immediately transferred (wirelessly) to the Apple TV.

So I can now play my music through the TV speakers or the sound system speakers.

I created a couple of slide shows in iPhoto (with music from iTunes) and shoved ’em over to Apple TV. So easy that I’ll do this a lot more now.

Probably as much fun as anything was to put the music on shuffle and let Apple TV shuffle images from iPhoto. And, as you might expect, Apple does this in a very cool and visually interesting way. You’d have to see it.

Navigating the Apple TV menu is as easy and intuitive as… well, the iPod. No learning curve. Which also describes the Apple remote [far right in photo below].

Apple Remote

Bottom line for me: I will do a lot more with my music and my photos than I have in the past. Just as the iPod changed the way I listen to music (and podcasts)… Apple TV is going to change how I use my TV. Like the box says, “Now there’s always something good on TV.”

Mac Sliders

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Mac Sliders

My sources tell me that another long-time PC guy is very close to getting a Mac. If/when this happens, it will be the fourth person in my little world to step off the cliff. I thought it might be fun to keep a record here. Top row, left to right: smays; Phil Atkinson, Head of Learfield IT; Roger Gardner, Learfield President/CEO. If you decide to Get A Mac, drop me a line (and a pic).

Update: Bottom/left is Chuck Zimmerman (3/6/07)
Update: Clyde Lear (4/4/07)
Update: David Brazeal (4/18/07)

The truth about switching

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This post purports to be an “honest word about what it’s like to switch” to a Mac. It certainly mirrors my experience. My favorite was #13: “You’ll be amazed at how little there is to modify”

“I was the ultimate tweaker in Windows – registry entries, options, toolbar buttons – and was taken aback at how few things there are to tweak on the Mac. At first it seemed to be restrictive, but I’ve realized it has actually freed me to do things other than tweaking, like work on this website.”

If you’re thinking about getting a Mac, this is worth a read.