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  • Frustration with an Apple Product…It Had To Happen Eventually

    iMovie 08 was widely derided as a downgrade from iMovie 06, but given my previous video editing experience had consisted of once using Sony Vegas, I didn’t have a lot of preconcieved ideas.

    There’s a lot to like about iMovie 08. Editing is insanely simple, and it supports direct uploading to YouTube, a feature I’ve found myself using already. It lacks some features, like inline text shots, and not having a timeline and marking is a little annoying, but for most of the video I’m going to cut that’s not a big issue.

    My big issue is HD. My new Canon HG10 records in 1080p (or i…but 1080 something) so it’s “Full HD.” Importing isn’t particularly fast because the biggest flaw in the Camera is a USB2 connection instead of Firewire…I should have checked that pre-purchase, but it’s minor, it still takes amazing pictures. iMovie 08 imports the AVCHD file format (apparently earlier editions didn’t) and its just like editing any other video. The problem is then exporting to HD. iMovie doesn’t, at least it doesn’t for me. I can export it to a Quicktime .mov or mp4/ mv4 in HD, but I cant simply export it to a DVD, either directly or even via iDVD. I tried the mp4 export in HD and the quality was shite, .mov export sat for 30 minutes and hadn’t moved past 10%, so I gave up, which left me to export the file in SD to iDVD. It shouldn’t be this hard, and with HD camcorders soon to become the default in the market over the next few years (mine was the amazing cheap $850 US, with 40gb HD built in), you’d think Appple, which prides itself on ease of use for consumers, would cater to that.

    On a bright note though, once I got the now SD file into iDVD, the rest was plain sailing. God iDVD is a good program. The DVD intro I made in seconds was kick ass, and the burning wasn’t super quick on the MacPro superdrive, but it was reasonable enough. End result was great, SD instead of HD aside.

    Apple, please fix!

  • Obama Rocks

    This video was released a couple of days back, but in case you missed it

    My politics, if I were American, is probably soft Republican with a strong Libertarian bent, and yet every time I see Obama speak I’m overawed. I heard a Republican today on News Radio’s stream of NPR’s Super Tuesday coverage and he said that although he was Republican, he’d vote for Obama because the guy is just awe inspiring. I agree. America needs a change, if not for its own sake, but for that of the world. Although the many American readers of this blog my rightfully suggest that I have no place providing punditry on US politics, I’d remind you that when America sneezes, the whole world gets a cold. America needs new, fiscally responsible leadership so that the whole world can prosper, because when America is prosperous itself, we all benefit, no matter where we live. Pulling US troops out of Iraq and plowing the savings back into the US budget would be a great first step, and Obama promises this. It also helps that Obama is the most tech friendly of the presidential candidates as well. Make a change, and consider making history, you could do far worse, and indeed you have already done so in the last 7 years.

  • Monty Python’s Spamalot: Recommended

    spamalot

    I nearly bought tickets for Spamalot when I was in New York in late 2006, but I never did, and I’d regretted it ever since. Today I had the opportunity to see the local production in Melbourne.

    First, like all shows these days tickets weren’t cheap at $117.50 for A Reserve tickets, which actually ended up being Row Q at Her Majesty’s in Melbourne. I’d never been to Her Majesty’s before and it’s probably half the size of the Princess Theatre where most big shows end up in Melbourne. We were under the overhang, but only to the point where we could just see everything…one row back and we would have been screwed.

    The show itself was everything I expected. The absurdness of the original Monty Python genius is captured in a stage play that combines some classic Monty Phython movies, skits and songs with new material. The Australian cast are relatively unknowns (well B list in terms of leads anyway), but together they were first rate. The imagery combined with some clever visual gags had the audience in stitches. There were a few parts that may have pushed the boundaries a little bit; a whole number related to needing Jews in a Broadway play, complete with ethnic dancing and a huge Star of David may have been a witty take on a truth, or borderline anti-Semitic. The humor relating to gay coupling also pushed the edge, and although done in light spirit, could possibly offend the gay community at times, but certainly a lot less than any hard core God loving homophobes who hate any representation of gay coupling. All up it is perhaps PG rated, we took our 5 year old and he had a great time, but the language may make it unsuitable for some parents who don’t want their kids exposed to that…god botherers mostly.

    All up it was a splendid two and a half hours of laughter, music, visual serendipity and Monty Python stupidity. If you like Monty Python, or love a good comedy musical, you’ll enjoy Spamalot.

  • The Melbourne Rental Market is Insane

    I’m currently in Melbourne looking for somewhere to live. We’d have hoped to buy but there’s been 2 people through the Australind abode since it was listed, the property market is rooted in WA at the moment. The plan is to keep the house on the market another month, and if it doesn’t sell we’ll rent it out for 6-12 months until the market picks back up.

    That means having to rent in Melbourne instead of buying. There’s no polite way of describing the rental market here: it’s fucking insane.

    We rocked up to a 3×1 in Richmond that had a $500-550 list price (something around that mark anyway), the online listing looked great and it said spacious. It was so small I wouldn’t let dog live in it. One of the rooms was so small I wouldn’t have been able to stretch my arms out wide without hitting a wall.

    And the really not so fun part: there would have been 50, perhaps more people waiting there to inspect the property. Mostly early 20 something girls oddly enough as well.

    We cruised past a few other houses in Richmond, Prahran and South Yarra and have now decided that as much as we want to live close to the city, the rental side is just too insane (the buying isn’t great either, but I can live with that side more). Heading out a bit to the burbs in Balwyn, Balwyn North and Surrey Hills, where you get a lot more house for your money rent wise. Hoping to go through a few homes Monday before I fly back to WA Wednesday (first day back at school Tuesday for the boy) and with any luck I’ll sign up for one, get it, and be moved by the end of the month.

    Today I remembered why I like the odd drink…and don’t get me started on the traffic 🙂

  • I’m Not a Camera Whore, But Is That Wrong?

    I keep seeing people in photos with “famous” people and I realize that I have none, despite having met a reasonable share over the years, both in politics and tech. For some reason I just don’t feel the need to get a picture of myself with that person, and yet I seem to be fairly alone in that. Indeed, I seem to have a habit of avoiding most pictures altogether, which on some levels is a good thing, given the god-awful pictures of me speaking at Perth Podcamp (mental note: always tuck shirt in). The question is: am I alone, and is not desiring to get pictures taken of myself with the rich and famous make me some-what strange?

  • BART Clip

    I made this short video of the San Francisco BART for my son who still loves his trains. If you’ve got kiddies they might find it interesting, other than that paint drying may provide a more interesting alternative 🙂

  • This is a Fucking Joke, Right?

    The Melbourne God-botherer has a post on his blog about swearing. Here’s some choice quotes

    Blogging using cuss words has become a trend for some new bloggers hitting the scene, but I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m wondering is it really to any avail? I want to take this time on Problogger to analyze the pros and cons of putting the S-word, B-word, or any other X-word that might be whispered into your eat by that devil on your shoulder…..Your blog will have a friendlier, less hostile look. Saying a swear word creates a more hostile atmosphere to the sentence you have just said. This applies to blogging, as well. Keeping your blog friendly encourages people to enter and comment….I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t particularly enjoy swearing on my blog, Blogosis. I might throw in an ?¢‚ǨÀúa$$?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ or a ?¢‚ǨÀúI3!tch?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ every once and a while, but I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t overdo it.

    What, ass and bitch are swear words? What the Fuck?

    Ass (or more correctly arse) is something I sit on, bitch is a female dog 🙂

    The fact an entire post can written about swearing without actually swearing is a fucking miracle in itself I guess.

    Surely there’s more important things to worry about in the world than this…well, probably for some involved there isn’t.

  • 2Web Crew 14

    The 3rd come back show of the 2web crew can be found here.

    Our best show since we resurrected it at the beginning of the year. Great conversation, and I had to cut it off before it went over the hour.

  • Humility

    I’ve been tossing up this week how I should post about this result. To simply go out and boast about the result would simply make me out to be a complete and utter wanker, and I know some of you think that, but lets spend at least 30 minutes together and correct that perception.

    I am truly humbled that my peers would see it fit to vote for me as Australia’s top web celeb. If I was to be fair, I could probably argue about the distribution of the voting, and I’m sure I could find a way to dispute the results as well, indeed I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t find that angle. But having said that I hope that those who did vote for me knew that, that ultimately my word and honesty is hopefully my strongest qualities.

    I don’t always get it right, and in my 9 odd months at TechCrunch I’ve had my fair share of wrongens as well as hits. Like anything it’s a numbers game where you hope that you get it right more times than you get it wrong, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always get it right, be it at TechCrunch, or even in my past endevours. If I ever start forgetting that fact I’d only hope that someone will track me down and beat me around the head with a wet fish. The person who thinks they are always right is a flawed human being, ultimately we are all human and all humans make mistakes. What differentiates one person from another is that some make less mistakes than others. I hope that at 32 years of age (so compared with many in the industry, old) that wisdom is slightly the right/ wrong equation in my favour.

    I know that attention can go to ones head…put me in a crowd at a TechCrunch event where everyone wants to be your friend because you might be able to deliver for them with a post is a bloody good example. This is my 3rd trip to SFO and the Valley since I started writing for TechCrunch and it’s still thick with people doing just that. To be fair there are positives to the hardcore “networking” experience. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people, and no I’m not name dropping here because often its the relatively unknown folks that make the biggest impressions. I even enjoy my interactions with the PR ppl as well, but only on some levels because my background was in some form or another was nearly always PR and marketing related. Call me a voyeur but I love watching some of them work, its fascinating, and at the same time its borderline worlds best as well.

    My thanks to those who voted for me, and if I can ever return the favor, karma dictates that I should. I may be godless in my belief system but I still solidly believe that something in the universe balances out good and bad, that karma is in play. I’ve seen those who have wronged me, or more particularly my family in the past get their just deserts with time which is why ultimately I believe that what goes around, comes around. I only hope that despite my flaws and weaknesses that I can manage to put the balance in my favor in the future.

  • AT&T Makes Telstra Look Good, And a Good Travelers Tip

    Given when I first traveled to the United States in November 2006 I came home to a $998 Optus bill, I’ve been really, really shy on subsequent trips about using my mobile for anything. The roaming charges on Optus are insanely expensive, some calls are $2.50 a minute, and for memory it’s $1.30 to receive calls or similar.

    Given I’m State side for 2 weeks this trip (I’ve been here a week as I write this) I ventured down the pre-paid local sim card route. T-Mobile offered the best deal…but has no coverage at TC central in Atherton, which left me with AT&T only (of the 4 major telcos in the US, 2 offer GSM, 2 offer CDMA, the iPhone is GSM).

    First the travelers tip. I needed a way to divert my phone to a US number without the massive expense of Optus international. So this is what I did.

    1. Buy a Skype-in number for Australia. In my case it was an 03 Melbourne number as the wife is already there and I’ll be based there soon (we’re half the way through moving to Melbourne).

    2. Divert Optus mobile number to the 03 number. I think it was something like 25c/ min or less.

    3. Divert the Skype-in number to the AT&T sim. Skype charges about 3c a minute for the diverted call.

    Now the AT&T pre-paid card charges 25c USD a minute to receive calls, expensive, but it works out at about 50-60c a minute to take a call made to my original number, as opposed to $1.25 / minute or more if I just used the Optus sim on global roaming. Most importantly, the diverted call counts again my plan, where as internation roaming would be extra, so that 60c might be less that 35c/ minute in actual costs to me.

    Now back to AT&T. I’d been in one of their stores previously with Marty Wells of Tangler, so I knew it was going to be bad. It still was. Whereas a Telstra shop is always busy (at least the one in Bunbury is) and you often have to wait, but you queue for that, AT&T works on a door greater/ take your name basis. So you enter the store and the store greater puts your name on a list and you wait to be called. My trip this time took 20 minutes to be called despite the store not being that busy, it’s that slow. Buying the SIM card wasn’t that hard when I was eventually called, and I had a number.

    Nearly a week later and the pre-paid SIM has run out. I only bought $25 worth of credit and you pay 25c/ min for incoming and outgoing calls, that and data at 1c a kb…and of course with an iPhone it’s hard to avoid data.

    So I went to the AT&T Palo Alto store today. There’s a machine that looks like an ATM that allows you to top up your credit. I swipe my Australian Visa (debit) and nothing, wont work. Try again, nothing. I’ve just got enough for the min $15 USD top up so I feed the money into the machine, then wait…and wait…and wait. “Communications error” and a printed receipt saying I should dial through the number on the receipt for a credit. I didn’t want to wait 30 minutes to talk to someone directly?Ǭ† (this time it was really busy) so I left. Got back, dialed the number, entered the number on the receipt. “This is an invalid number”. Try two more times, same response.

    So I call AT&T customer service. I can’t emphasise enough how much further call centre “voice recognition” has advanced in the US as compared to Australia. 5 minutes of telling the machine what I wanted. Told the wait is 60 seconds, then 10 minutes later I speak to someone. After repeating myself 5 times (apparently my Australian accent is difficult to understand) I’m told that I’ve got the wrong department, and I’d be transfered. Get transfered to a message that says you’ve called out of hours, please call a special after hours number if you still need help. Called that number…it wasn’t AT&T’s number, unless I wrote it down wrong.

    So despite already having a credit I decide to try the website because I want a working mobile. Type my details into the website, they want the billing address for the Visa, I put it in and get an error message telling me I have to select a state, despite the drop down only offering “Australia -other” and trying to select it over and over and over again.

    End of the day I’ve got a useless phone until I call AT&T in the morning, so don’t try and ring me. I’ll also promise to never criticize Telstra customer service again. Despite there many failings, I’ve always been able to speak to a real person who could help me when I’ve needed it with Telstra (our home landline is with Telstra), AT&T on the other hand makes them look brilliant. I guess anything like this should always be in context, and now I’ve seen the worst.