February 27th, 2008

Prosody

About 2 years ago I started thinking about a documentary on the relationship between music and speech - that in everyday conversations there was something happening that was, fundamentally, music based. I talked to some people, experts on the subject, it turns out, and I learned quickly that there are people that spend their lives studying this idea and that I was way over my head on this one. And part of what I’m thinking about has a name: Prosody. Prosody is defined as “the patterns of stress and intonation in a language.” Fair enough and encouraging that I was on to something. A few other projects came up in my life and I eventually stopped thinking too much about the idea but I knew I’d get back to it.

So, I’m thinking about it again and I’m going to start by pulling together all my notes and thoughts that I’ve collected over the years and put them in a blog to help find the story and connect with others who also think about this sort of thing, all from the musician and filmmaker angle. Check out the blog here.

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December 20th, 2007

ProCare Value

Well, earlier this year I started tracking the value of my ProCare account with Apple. Looking back on my entries, that was in April. I’ve been to exactly one session at Apple this year and the experience was ‘eh.’ So, technically speaking, I guess that puts my per session cost at $99/hour. Nope.
I thought maybe part of that was me being lazy about setting up sessions, but that’s not the case. I have the entry on my list (OmniFocus is awesome) and whenever I see it I stop and think for 5 minutes and get excited about the idea of going in to find out some cool new workflow tips….or some expert technical advice….and then I realize that my current (mostly free) online sources and books are so great that I don’t need the ProCare sessions at all. A bummer ’cause the sign-up process is very slick and the concept is great. Just not for the type of person who does their own research and just needs a trusted resource once in a while.

So, if you’re new to a product or can see yourself needing to get to intermediate level by talking regularly w/ an expert, this program is definitely worth checking out. If you do your own research and tend to dive in by yourself, look away.

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December 19th, 2007

son of the big, symbolic switch to mac

Been about 4 months since switching to the Mac fulltime. Here’s the setup now:

task windows xp os x comments
Email Outlook Mail Hated Entourage - bloated and stupid. Mail is a little on the simple side but I like it. I use an add-on call Mail Extender from the MailTag guy and it’s great. Hopefully the next Mail version is smarter.
Note Taking OneNote Curio Curio is awesome. OneNote is still king, in my mind. But Curio is right up there. Just less things to manage and fewer clicks to make things happen in OneNote.
Task Mgmt “Whats Next?” OmniFocus The Omni guys rock. I’m among the alpha testers of their new task planning app and it’s awesome. WhatsNext looked great but the developer put the project on hold.
Browser Firefox Firefox and Safari Mostly Firefox. Mostly out of habit but I’ve been annoyed by Safari for one reason or another in the past. Firefox can be a bit of a hog, though.
Office Apps MS Office MS Office and Keynote Keynote rocks compared to PowerPoint, I’m finding. And it plays nicely w/ it for all those ppt users out there.
Structured
Thinking		 MindJet MindManager MindJet MindManager I complained about the weakness of the Mac version but it still is a great app. I use it all the time to break things out in a logical way. MindManager for laying things out to think/type about; Curio for thinking/typing in long form.
Music Windows Media & iTunes iTunes Still don’t like iTunes but whatever. it’s fine now that I’ve added scripts to do what iTunes should do anyway (like search and add music from my laptop). Emusic released a new browser app that adds downloaded tunes to iTunes for me - that’s very nice. I still consider iTunes to be draconian and borderline hostile - even Microsoft-y, at times - but that’s just my past developer ire bubbling up.
Backup DataDepositBox Mozy Ok, I haven’t actually used Mozy yet, but it’s been installed since July and it seems very cool. And a friend loves it. I just know I’m gonna blow the freebie ceiling and I’m hesitant to incur another monthly cost. Gotta do it, though.
Anti-virus: AVG    
Photos Picasa   Nothing yet. iPhoto is like iTunes’ meaner, older brother. Screw that bossy, immature piece of crap.
Local Search Google Desktop Google Desktop and Searchlight Hardly use Searchlight but Google Desktop is in the top 2 most useful apps - the other one is QuickSilver.
App Launcher Start Menu (normally) QuickSilver Wow. If you’ve never heard of this, stop reading and download it now. Look at the demo and give it a try.
.net Coding ms web developer, iis, sql server Same via Parallels Not much I can do about .net development on OS X.
Code Editor ms web developer Coda by Panic Used Coda quite a bit. Like it a lot but coding on the Mac is still a bit weird for me. Good app, though.
App Manager Built-in AppCleaner True, deleting apps in OS X is just a matter of dragging them to the Trash. But, there are things like Preferences and supporting docs that you have to get rid of, too. This great little app manages all that stuff for you.
System Maint. ? Onyx  

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# Posted by tony to Apple, Productivity | * 6 comments | show comments »
June 10th, 2007

the big, symbolic switch to mac

2 years ago, I quit my fulltime tech consulting gig to concentrate on starting a film production company - something I had been slowly whittling away at for about 5 years. I shifted to part-time - 3 weekdays, tech; 3-4 days, film. This was a real step in the right direction for me. Looking more closely at my day to day habits, OS X was all I used for post-production (FCP, AE, Motion) but my primary cash came from my Windows-based tech development. I realized that one interesting metric of my progress was the software I used day to day.

I started with a G5 tower and an IBM Thinkpad. The IBM eventually died and I replaced it w/ a 17″ MacBook Pro running Windows XP via Boot Camp. I did that for about 6 months. Now, the time has come to move my Windows dependence from Boot Camp to Parallels. To me, this is huge - I do not like virtual machines for anything more than quick hits into a machine and I’ve been avoiding Parallels until I only had to run it a small percentage of the time. So, my daily workload says I’m ready for it, now. Cool.

For anyone interested in making the switch who also realize it’s not as easy as a 1-page ad (no matter how cool), here’s how things are shaping up for me.

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# Posted by tony to Apple, Productivity | * 3 comments | show comments »
May 23rd, 2007

ProCare Watch - Hmm.

Just got an email from Apple about ‘the new. And the improved‘ ProCare program. Apparently, they’ve added more programs to their individual training sessions - enough to warrant breaking the program into two separate sections: ‘ProCare’ and ‘onetoone’. It also seems that they will be selling each individually for $99/yr, instead of both for $99/yr. Oh, and there are now 2 cards.

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# Posted by tony to ProCare | * add a comment
April 22nd, 2007

ProCare Watch - Session 1

Date: 4/19/07
Current value: 1 hour session for $99
Category: Final Cut Training

Reason: Wanted to get more info on editing w/ hi-res stills in FCP and Motion, and get a handle on some HD workflow ideas.

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# Posted by tony to ProCare | * 1 comment | show comment »