Apple buys Proximity
Proximity is the maker of Artbox, a media asset management software package that catalogs all your media assets; movies, pictures, graphics and sounds. It integrates with Final Cut Pro already, and works perfectly with Xsan.
With Xsan cataloging using Proximity artbox and project level integration between artbox and Final Cut Pro, users are able to acheive streamlined collaborative workflow.
Artbox has partnered with all the big names in the video production industry: Apple, ENPS, Avid, Chyron, Discreet, Grass Valley, Omneon, Quantel and Sony.
This is a perfect match for Apple, and I’m sure they’ll develop Artbox into an ever better product. Apple don’t even need to change the name – “Apple Artbox” sounds just as good as the other names in their pro video portfolio.
(Screenshot: Artbox asset management)
Have a look at the screen shots or the tutorial video.
Thomas Hawk gets a Mac
Photographer Thomas Hawk buys himself a Mac. And the first thing I was thinking was: Now we’ll have lots of advice on digital photography and working with photos on the Mac. I think Thomas is a very talented photographer and an excellent writer too. And I’m always looking for advice on how to store/organize/work with digital photos on the Mac.
I’ve been testing Aperture for some time, and it’s an amazing program. But I like iPhoto a lot too. There are many features in iPhoto that Aperture doesn’t have, and the other way. So I find it difficult to decide which one to use. If I could have one wish for Aperture and iPhoto: Use the same database and folder structure. I don’t care which one, where or how. Just use the same database.
So that everything I do in iPhoto (tagging, easy picture manipulation like removing red eyes, putting together some calenders and books), also shows up in Aperture.
And when I do advanced editing/correction/tagging in Aperture, it should immediately show up in iPhoto. And be available in all apps that tap into the media from the iApps, like Pages, iWeb, Keynote, Comic Life, Disc Cover etc.
Jason’s new glasses
Hey, we all get to have an opinion on Jason’s new glasses.
I agree with msjenbee:
But what on earth is Andrew talking about?
Beatles on iTunes
Ok, so the big news on CNN today is that Beatles will be on iTunes soon. At the same time, BBC reports that the copyright in Britain will NOT be extended:
But an independent review is to recommend the terms are not extended, a well-placed government source has said.
Gee, let me think. So “Love me do” will be out of copyright in 2012? Out of copyright as in f-r-e-e? Hmmm. Better start selling…
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
4 minute preview now on Google Video.
After reading all the six Harry Potter books – a number of times – for my daughter, I consider myself quite an expert. I’m writing a longer post on what I think will happen in the final book. Coming up after christmas some time.
Harry Potter movies at Amazon.com
Talk to me with Plugoo
I’ve just registered and installed Plugoo here. It works like this (from the FAQ):
On your blog, personal webpage or e-sales site, you set up a Plugoo (very easy to do, by the way !). Visitors on your site can see the Plugoo and type a message in it to send it to you !
This Plugoo is directly connected to your Instant Messenger and forward you in real time all the messages your visitors send you. You answer to the visitor directly from your Instant Messenger, LIVE !
So if I’m online, you’ll see it in the box below. I’ll install it in the sidebar when it moves off the frontpage.
C-blogger
Apparently I’m a C-blogger. I can live with that!
Tynonym
Today Jason writes about “The Cupertino effect”, described as “… incorrect spellcheck suggestions that make it into finalized documents”. He links to this post at the Language blog.
Which made me think of a new word I’ve made up: Tynonym. I googled it and found only two hits, both of which I think is just spelling errors.
Tynonym: Definition
So what is a tynonym? It’s a word that you get as a suggestion on your mobile phone when you spell a word with T9 on.
As you may know, T9 is a system that most mobile phones use, that make it easier to type words faster. You don’t have to press “8-7-9-9-9-4-4-4-6-6-4″ to spell “typing”, but just “8-7-9-4-6-4″ and T9 figures out that it was “typing” you were going to write.
When I type “typing” with T9 on, I also get a second suggestion, the word “typhoi”. Which makes typhoi a tynonym for typing. Get it?
My built-in OS X dictionary doesn’t know typhoi, there’s no entry at Wikipedia, but Google has 3,200 hits and also suggests “typhoid”, which is a word I know. So T9 thinks I’m about to write typhoid but not pressed the final “d” yet.
Some other words and their tynonyms:
Dog. Tynonyms are fog, eng, doi, enhl, emi, foi and eni.
Cat. Tynonyms are act, bat, abu, cau, cav, acu and bau.
Mobile. One tynonym: Mobilf. ???
Web. Tynonyms are yea, wea, zea and zeb. Lots of odd words!
Sex. Tynoyms are sew, pew, rew and rey.
Apple. No tynonyms!
Microsoft. Ditto: No tynonyms.
Internet. Tynomyns are intermet (what is intermet??) and governet!
Obviously some of the tynonyms for the shorter words are only the first three letters of longer words. It’s also interesting to see whether a word is first in the list or not when you type it. Like “cat”, which was only second in the list, while “dog” were first. This will change from phone to phone and person to person as the T9 software (I think – does anyone know for sure?) notice if you choose a word further down the list all the time, and then move it up the list.
Your suggestions
Do you have some examples of funny tynonyms? Maybe tynonyms that mean the opposite of the word you’re trying to type? Post them in the comments below.
Finally: When I type “tynonym” on my phone, I get no suggestions. So tynonym doesn’t have a tynonym…
Boingboing passes 3 million subscribers!
Boingboing now has over 3 000 000 subscribers to their RSS feed. 3 million! Unbelievable. And well deserved. Still on my top10-list, even if I almost threw them out when there were a new mashup of a subway map every three minutes some time ago. 
Syncing Google calenders and iCal
Oh joy! Spanning Partners are soon launching Spanning Sync, which is a system preference for OS X that let you sync Google Calenders with iCal.
There’s a screencast showing how it will work. And it does exactly what I need it do.
Edit Google Calenders in iCal
So now I can make a shared calender in Google Calender, subscribe to it in iCal, edit it in iCal, and sync the changes right back to Google. Wonderful!
My next question is obviously if several people can edit the same calenders? I would guess this is possible.
But does Spanning Sync keep track of things, so if I edit a calender in iCal, and then try to sync it back to Google Calender, Spanning Sync will warn me if the calender has been changed between this and the last sync.
The screencast is also available at Google Video. And there’s a Google Group for discussion and feedback to and from the developers.
Xprove – online approval system for video
Xprove is a browser-based review and approval system targeted for producers, editors, and facilities. Clients don’t need additional software or licenses. You can have as many clients on a project as you like.
I guess you could send large files to a client with some of the many services that lets you do that: Upload huge files. But Xprove focuses on viewing and commenting on clips. Clips can have different states; “active”, “approved”, “archived”, “offline”. This is typically what a client might see at her end:
It’s a free 30-day test period. After that prices are from $15 to $40 a month for the different plans, depending on bandwidth and storage. If you’re not sure which plan covers your needs, try the nifty calculator to find out.
If you’re using Xprove and have any comments, I’d love to hear what you think!
Interesting online GTD system
Tedium is a new web-based GTD system. You can access your lists from a modern browser on all platforms.
Simple interface, but maybe too simple for my taste? Not sure yet. I think the tasks should have had more importance (in style), and the buttons under them be less visible. But I must admit they have great taste in colors.
It worked flawlessly in Safari on Mac and Firefox on Win XP. Dragging things around works and editing is fast and responsive.
Todos kan be tagged with tags, which can be used like David Allen the way David Allen
You can also set dates for tasks that need to be done before a certain date.
You can sign up for a free test account but I couldn’t figure out if it was always free, or if there was a fee after some time. Data can be exported out of the system. They haven’t got around to write an export feature, but they will send you your data if you cancel the account.
Try it out! I wish there were an offline system to go with it, but if you’re always online and trust Tedium to also be, this could be your next way to get things done.
Wikipedia entries for GPS
Today I saw this: Geocoordinates from Wikipedia for Google Earth. It has coordinates for Google Earth for 52 175 English Wikipedia entries. So when you tarvel around in Google Earth, you get lots of clickable entries from Wikipedia. Very useful!
Which reminded me of something I thought about this summer while driving around Norway with my family. Our TomTom ONE
Every time we approached a turn, the GPS told us which way to go.
Now, what if it could tell us about the places we approched? What if it worked like this: For every geographical place in Wikipedia, there was a condensed text-version, that took – let’s say 30 seconds to read. When you’re planning a route, your GPS searches Wikipedia for entries that are along the route, and downloads these condensed versions to the unit. Either if connected to a computer before going, or via a mobile phone when driving. A text-to-speech unit in the GPS unit then reads up these texts, like if a guide was sitting there next to you. Or, if bandwidth weren’t an issue, Wikipedia hosts 30-second mp3s with this information.
Would this be possible? Of course. Maybe not today, or next month. But as GPS-units get better processors and if Wikipedia adds the right tags, it would be very easy to do.
Top ten under-reported humanitarian stories of 2005
A little break from macs, web and the digital world: Medecins Sans Frontieres publishes a list every year of the Top ten under-reported humanitarian stories of 2005. Congo, Chechnya, Haiti, India, Sudan, Somalia, Colombia, Uganda and Ivory Coast. People dying, and (almost) no press coverage. There’s also a Flash version.
If you live in Norway, you can give money to Medecins Sans Frontieres by contributing when people are coming to your door today. See the official site of Leger uten grenser (Medecins Sans Frontieres in Norwegian).
Songbird
Songbird is a new media player for Mac, Windows and Linux, built on the same platform as Firefox. Beta is out now. Looks promising! Wonderful icons and website (let the world be beautiful!).
Watch the screencast to have an idea of what it does. I just imported the whole iTunes library. Wicked fast and no problems.
