Another set of shots that never made it to print. A few weeks ago we got a bit of a storm, causing trees to snap and fall, in this case, on a busy acces to the E19 freeway. Most of the debris had been removed once I got there, but seems appropriate to give some kudos to the local fire department.
© Gil Plaquet
© Gil Plaquet
An image that didn’t make it to print. This was one of those moments where I realize I really love being a freelance photographer: making money doing what I love, at a place I would be passing by anyway (a local record fair). #awesome, right?
It might be bad for my accident karma, but I just wanted to share this scene I passed by earlier. Looks like the truck grabbed the car by the side and dragged it along for a bit. If that’s the case, that’s one sturdy VW.
My upgrade to the Nikon pro line
Nikon just launched the D4 camera, it’s latest (and greatest) in it’s pro digital DSLR line. My D300 just turned 3 years and it’s starting to show. Autofocus isn’t responding the way it should and I’m under the impression that the right part of my sensor might have shifted (from dropping, motorbike vibrations, not sure) making it constantly, ever so slightly out of focus. So yes, I will be upgrading, now it’s just a matter of saving up the dough.
My move to the cloud
And I’m already a big part of the way there. iCloud with iTunes match, spotifiy, … More and more of my media is being streamed rather that stored. I’m looking forward to seeing extra features being offered on the iCloud platform: in-app services, hosting (hey Apple, where’s my iDisk?!) and a MobileMe galleries like service (I actually used that).
My 5th trip to the US
January is the month for booking cheap flights and that’s exactly what I did. The misses and I are heading West again with a stop at my aunt in Tucson, a visit to friends in LA and a whole lot more. We’ll probably be documenting the trip in true geek style. If you can recommend any pre paid data plans with good coverage on the West Coast, do drop a line in the comments.
This past monday, Apple gave quite a long keynote at The Moscone Center during WWDC ’11. Some desperately needed iOS features, lots of OS X lion and, last but not least, moving to the cloud. It looks like it are going to be exciting times to be an Apple user.
iOS as it should be
iOS 5 is going to be the most important update of Apple’s mobile platform to date. It might just be that my fanboyism isn’t what it used to be but some of the announced features are so blatantly obvious I don’t think they need a big applause during a keynote. Things like the new notifications with the “slide down from the top” feature. Granted, it looks great and will be super efficient, but can we all admit that it’s almost exactly the same as what Android has had since it launched? Taking a picture with the volume up button? I’m sorry, but my Sony Ericsson did that back in 2004. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all great features, but they don’t really induce a big “keynote” applause in my case.
Another long awaited feature is task management. If it works as good as it looks and integrates as seamlessly with iCal as they claim, it looks like I can say goodbye to the 25 euro I spent on Things for Mac and iPhone. I’m especially looking forward to the location aware notifications (eg: “Don’t forget the milk” pops up when you’re about to pass your local super market). I know, Android fanboys, hold your horses. I know this sounds an awful lot like Locale.
A rundown of some other goodies you can expect:
King of the OS world
The next version of your Mac’s OS has been talking to it’s iOS nephews. Lion will incorporate even more touch gestures for your built-in or external “magic” trackpad.Combine that with the new Mission Control that gives you a complete view of everything that’s happening on our and you’ve got yourself Exposé on steroids. More system apps (and I presume API will also provide it for third party apps) will have a full screen mode, keeping you focussed on the job at hand,. Be it writing a text in Pages, obtaining inbox zero in Mail or taking silly pictures of yourself in Photobooth.
A combination of a new feature called Launchpad and the Mac App Store you might already be using today is going to give your Mac even more of the iOS look’n'feel. Buying applications and browsing through them will feel just like you’re on the iPad. For me personally, it makes the OS feel a bit, well, childish I guess. I know the way forward is simplifying interfaces to be more efficient and accessible, but I’ll need to get used to it.
My favorite new features are Resume and Version. Whether you’re writing a text or editing a photo, Lion will allow apps to constantly save every move you make and provides the ability to browse through past versions of your document. Kinda like Time Machine but throughout the entire OS. After you’ve restarted the app takes you right back where you left off. Students are obviously going to have one less excuse to not get their papers done in time. Finally, I’d like to mention Airdrop, a nifty new feature that’s integrated into the Finder and allows you to transfer files to any Mac in your vicinity. You don’t even need to be on the same WiFi network. I’m interested to find out if they use WiFi or Bluetooth to airdrop (hence the name) an important business document securely into your collegae’s Download folder. Sharing files never was this exciting.
Some other stuff to look forward to:
Goodbye MobileMe, hello iCloud
MobileMe has always been one of those service that, if you use it intensively, is immensely useful but, if you don’t, feels like a total waste of money. Soon, everyone will be able to enjoy Exchange for the rest of us without having to pay for it. Mail, calendars, contacts, documents, photo’s, you’ll be able to sync them between you Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod Tocuh without having to connect one single cable. On top of that, you can see all your past Music, Book or App purchases on all of your devices and download them instantly. Those purchases don’t even use your 5 GB of free cloud space. You can even set things up to automatically download new songs or apps you bought on your Mac to your iOS device(s).
The thing that’s got me excited though, is iTunes Match. For $25/year you sync up to 25.000 songs (even the ones you ripped from CD’s or got through some other sneaky way). Wirelessly over all your devices. You’ll even get Apple’s 256 kbps version of the songs you own. When you get to a charger in a WiFi hotspot, just plug in your device and the Cloud will do the rest. My biggest concern is whether SABAM and the Belgian music labels are going to block this feature just like they did with movies and shows on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, … you get the picture. Only time will tell …
I had only been tinkering with MacOS X for a few days when I had my first annoyance yesterday. It might have been just my fault, but judging by the amount of Google result on this problem, I thought I’d just quickly write out my solution.
The symptoms:
- Server Admin takes 5 minutes to actually appear, before that it’s shown as “not responding” in Activity Monitor.
- Server has a working internet connection, but you can’t load updates or a web page in Safari.
- Overall, all computers in your network are taking forever to load web pages, almost looks like your ISP put you on limited bandwidth.
The cause (in my case):
- I had done a few consecutive installs of the OS to dial in the ideal settings. When you select some of the options under “What is this server going to be used for?”, the wizard starts up DNS service automatically. Apparently, this new DNS server is stored in your Airport Extreme base station.
- With every page you load, your computer goes knocking on your server’s door for DNS info which obviously isn’t there, resulting in a prolonged load time.
The solution (in my case):
- Open up Airport Utility > Manual Configuration > Internet and delete the local DNS server (10.0.1.x).
Your Airport base station will automatically reboot, relaying all updated DNS info to the computers in your network. Et voila … your at full speed and your server will respond normally once again.
I hope this post will help frustrated users restoring faith in their MacOS X server. If not, good luck looking for your particular solution.
Final Cut has always been a professional application, but it looks like the latest version of Apple’s video editing software is opening up it’s features and tools to a much broader audience.
The new version is called Final Cut X (as in ten) and was first announced and demoed last month during a big meetup by the Final Cut User Group in Las Vegas. It has been rebuilt from the ground up to support 64bit and, at first glance, looks like a grown-up version of the latest iMovie. It will be shipping in june and pricing is set at $299 (problably €299 for us Europeans).
When it comes to “look and feel” the gap between iMovie and
Final Cut has become really narrow.
Losing the pro look, making the pro feel more accessible
So, is Apple trying to make professional video editing more accessible or is the new layout just a more efficient workspace? I think a lot of pro users will miss the classic, grey, pro look at first. Personally, I don’t give a damn how the software looks, as long as it lets me do my editing in an efficient and intuitive way. Final Cut Pro X comes with a bunch of new features: things like a magnetic time line, compounding sequences to declutter your time line, auditioning multiple sequence options inside your timeline, background rendering and some great new tagging options will, I think, give editors a more efficient workflow and cut down on editing time. On the other hand, non-pro users will get the hang of the software way more easily and, combined with the fair price, have a larger set of tools at their disposal.
What about the studio?
It isn’t quite clear yet whether Apple revamped the entire Studio suite. I’m pretty sure DVD Studio Pro isn’t going to make it to this new version (just like iDVD didn’t in the iLife suite). But what about Motion and Soundtrack Pro? Will all programs be sold separately via the Mac App Store? Will there still be a physical box in stores? All of these questions will probably be answered when Final Cut Pro X launches. One thing’s for sure: the new “easier” look and feel and increase in features have made Final Cut Express completely redundant. Another app bites the dust.
Check back in about a month for my first impressions.
Thanks to a mac shuffle throughout the house (the misses got a new laptop), I found a new candidate in my never-ending search of a pet project. I decided to turn my old first generation white Macbook (FLASHBACK!) into a Mac OS server. I have very little experience with servers, none actually, so I’m curious to see how it’ll go along. The goal is to host my own portfolio/company website, as I’m (hopefully) going to graduate next month. To start it all off, I went ahead and registered www.gilplaquet.com (powered by Priorweb).
What I’ve done so for:
- Installed Snow Leopard server
- Installed Insomniax to keep the Macbook awake (for some reason that particular model doesn’t like waking up with the lid closed since Snow Leopard)
- Installed Sequel Pro for editing MySQL databases (I know, I know, real geeks do that stuff in Terminal)
- Exploring the server OS, probably ruining stuff all over the place
What I’m not sure about / would like to know:
- WordPress, Drupal or … ?
- Will Telenet start bitchin’ (I know they block port 80)?
- What are absolute essentials when running your own (Mac) server?
