Jonathan Davies

In light of me entering the video arena, as previously mentioned, I am going to look at changing my setup dramatically. But before choosing I should really look at the way I use my mac at the moment. When I first bought my Mac, I wasn’t quite sure what I would end up using if for so I took the middle ground. I bought a reasonably powerful machine, but not too powerful; so that I wouldn’t waste my money too much if I didn’t use it to it’s full potential.

My situation is: I go to a boarding school. I’m there for all the week apart from most weekends where I come home, so I can earn money and take a break. Interestingly, I’ve realised that I don’t do to much heavy duty work at school. I take and edit photos at the weekend. The little video work that I have done before receiving the HV30 - I did at home. Most of the graphic design work I do at home - though I do do some at school as well.

Now lets look at what I do at school: I browse the web ALOT. I write, I write some more and some more. As mentioned previously, I do a bit of graphic design work and most importantly of all: I take my computer to a large amount of my lessons.

I’m an average user in the week, but in the weekends I tend to put my machine to the max.

I find this quite interesting and opens up quite a few interesting opportunities. Say that money is not a problem, and it sort of isn’t - I can wait as long as I need to or work as hard as I need to to reach goals.

How about I go for the sweet spot combo. The portibilty of a MacBook Air and the power of a Mac Pro. Now some may ask: “Why not just get a maxed out MacBook Pro?”. My answer: “I would end up getting a Mac Pro at some point anyway and on the point of the MacBook Air - It’s a fricken MacBook Air!”

Lets break this down. Say, in the summer I sell my MacBook Pro (to my brother) for X amount. I use that to buy the MacBook Air and “survive” for the few months it will take me to save up for a base Mac Pro and a 24″ Monitor. I can then expand it’s power in the future. So I will then have both the potibibilty I would like and more than enough power at school at the week and then in the end be able to come back to a Mac Pro at the weekend to edit photos and video.

I think it’s viable - do you?

And please don’t go on about… “why don’t you just get a MacBook, it’s cheaper and better”. Go ask all those thousands of MacBook Air owners out there.

As you may know, on Friday I got a brand new high definition camcorder - the Canon HV30, the successor to the bestselling HV20. I am working on a full review that should be ready sometime next week; but in the mean time here are a few quick fire thoughts that have struck me with my first few days of using the camera:

It’s a good size, to to big, nor small. It fits in my hand well, but also has plenty of room for those with bigger hands (I checked with my dad!). The controls are conveniently located so that they are easily locatable without the need of looking down after a while.

The video looks good, very good. I’ve just been recording at standard 1080i, I haven’t had a chance to take a look at the 24p or 30p (a mode which is new to the HV30) modes yet, and I am unsure of what difference that will make. I hope to shortly upload some 720p content - there isn’t currently a service that will do 1080i/pf for you to have a look at. Unfortunately the internet connection where I am currently located (away from home) is not suitable for me to upload any videos - so stay tuned!

Battery life is reasonable, So far I have gone through a couple of charges that each last just over an hour - which is fine, especially as most of the time I will have it plugged in to the wall; for the sort of video that I am going to be producing. But it is nice to know that it will last.

The Audio quality is “okay” - nothing to write home about but still bearable. Luckily I foresaw this possibility and ordered a Rode Video Mic to attach on top - it just hasn’t arrived yet…

Stay tuned for the full review and a couple of videos of the content!

With the advent of the software developers kit, people have begun to speculate as to what sort of apps will be be created for the iPhone/iPod Touch. I think that there are a few things that are a given, that we will end up having. The following is a list of apps that I think NEEDS to be transfered to the iPhone.

VOiP (Skype)

Many people said it would never happen, that Apple, let alone AT&T would ever let a VOiP client be installed on the iPhone because it obviously would take away from the royalties that AT&T get from users. However, not many people noticed that in the SDK event, one of the questions asked was “How likely will there be a VoIP?”

This was the answer given:

We will only limit over cellular — if you want to dev them for WiFi, that’s fine

This opens up an opportunity for VOiP companies like Skype to bring their product to the table. It would be especially useful for iPod Touch owners when around the house or in a wi-fi network.

Podcast Directory

Till Apple gets it’s act together this is a very open market. Especially if it could be made to tie into your iTunes library. People would gobble this sort of product up. With a similar look to the Wi-FI Music store, with previews, reviews added and maybe even a way to write reviews and tie them into the iTunes store.

The developer(s) who would create the store would defiantly have a lot on his hands, but putting it into place may hard and require a lot of time, which but then may be to late if Apple releases it’s own podcast client.

RSS Reader

Once again, an app that would most likely be a best seller. If it was created by someone who already has a desktop RSS client it would be especially useful if it synced with your iPhone client, not only what you are subscribed to, but whether they have been read or not.

I imagine that it would be something reasonably easy to put into place and could be write simple to build, what is good about this is that there is likely to be a lot of competition between iPhone RSS readers, all fighting for the top spot. This will keep prices low and the standards of the application high.

Photo Booth

Imagine the ability to do almost (I don’t think the iPhone is powerful enough to do some of the video stuff) everything that Photo Booth does on the Mac, on the iPhone. It opens up a new world of opportunities, especially as you don’t go around taking pictures with you iSight so you can use the Photo Booth Feature. With this app you would be able to have fun without the preparation, see the snap and take it.

I imagine with all the Quartz animations this would be a rather easy app to make. Though I’m not to sure on it’s marketability as a product. To me this seems like one of those apps which would have to be free to get a solid user base.

Twitter Client

This app is pretty much a given, in fact I can imagine there are going to be quite a few Twitter apps for the iPhone. The Twitter API is very easy to work with and you can probably expect people who have already created a client to be the first to get there’s going.

The guys at the Icon Factory have already promised that they are working on something:

Announcement: Yes, we have the iPhone SDK and yes, we’ll have something for you in June

But just because the leader in this realm has decided to make a product certainly doesn’t mean there won’t be competitors; if someone can offer a on the whole better experience with more features, as with nay app, they will become the leader.

I have been a fan of Comic Life ever since I got my Mac and I am very excited to announce the Plasq has very generously donated two copies of Comic Deluxe Life to be won (one Windows version and Mac version so nobody is left out).

So what is Comic Deluxe Life and what do you get with it?

Expand what you can do with your digital photos! With a comprehensive set of features, Comic Life gives you numerous ways to explore your creativity - liven up holiday snaps, tell a story, even create how-to guides. This award winning software is fun and useful for kids and…big kids!

And of course with the deluxe version you get the following improvements of the standard version:

Fonts: 40 instead of 7
Templates: 322 instead of 78
Styles: 180 instead of 78

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I will read all your comments and will decided which are the two most interesting ones - and of course if you do a post telling people about the competition on the blog your chances of winning might increase
The competition will end on Sunday 10th February at Midnight GMT - so good luck!

Do you have that one program that you need to run on Vista that you can’t go without? It seems a lot to pay the RRP doesn’t it? So why not buy an OEM - they are far cheaper and are exactly the same as the retail packages.
Continue reading…

Cool title isn’t it - not quite sure what it means at the moment; maybe by the time I have finished this post I will know. With the release of the iPod Touch, Apple has created another platform on which to sell music - this time though, it is mobile.

The inclusion of wi-fi was a very smart move by Apple. This feature had not been on the top of most people’s lists when expecting the sixth generation iPod, most of them wishing for just a widescreen, maybe touch interface. I don’t think that anyone would have expected them to release wi-fi if it weren’t for the iPhone; which really rolled up the expectations for it. The inclusion of wi-fi, of course, also gives us the opportunities of Safari  for web browsing and YouTube for watching those great free episodes of Heroes people doing stupid stuff.

The interface for the iTunes wi-fi music store (WFMS) is very clean and elegant. More so, if you ask me, than the desktop iTunes client. The form in which you preview a song; where a dial rotates telling you how much time you have left of the preview. For case and point about the ease of buying music. I takes me only three taps from the home screen to be able to buy something from the store. I am not sure of any online music store which is capable of doing that.

Another advantage the WFMS has over its older sibling is the load time, because of its minimal use of pictures and of course, its size the WFMS loads in seconds -  a lot faster, for me, that the desktop version.

However like all products the WFMS does come with it’s disadvantages. You can’t (to my knowledge) get it to save your password for purchases so I find myself clunky putting it in each time - very annoying.

Another feature, which I can’t understand why they missed out was the ability to buy audiobooks and to download podcasts - as far as I can see and the iPod Touch has shown it is very capable of downloading content via iTunes.

In conclusion, Apple have released a very strong base to build on. With the few changes in the future, it could be perfect. I guess that is what what I meant by the title, it is flawed, but there is no reason for it to be. Apple could have easily put in those missing features - I am going to look into why they didn’t that is for sure.

Lately I have done   a fair few presentations and have picked up some useful tips that I would like to share with you, they may not necessary be the best for some people’s presentations but they have made mine really stand out from the classmates.

Drop Powerpoint

Though Microsoft have made some very cool improvements in the latest release of Powerpoint I don’t think it even compares to the interface and the abilities that using Apple Keynote, part of the Apple iWork Package has to offer. The interface is clean and simple and I will go into more depth when I publish a review in the next few days. Keynote gives you the ability to stand out from your average presentation and make people generally interested in what your saying - well that is if you aren’t talking utter rubbish.

Connect With Your Audience

Sure, everyone can stand behind a podium and read off word for word their presentation, it happens a lot and after five minutes I loose all interest, even if you are talking about something that really interests me. So hoe can you stop this? Well first write notes for yourself  - use bullet points not phrases, in the long run it will be easier for you to wing the whole thing off those brief notes and not sound like a robot.

Throw in the odd question to make them think, always ask a question then maybe show them a picture, or diagram anything to make it as much of a conversation with out them talking!

Go through you Presentation

I can tell as soon as someone steps up to do a presentation, if they have rehearsed or just glanced at the notes before hand. For me it makes or breaks the presentation, if you haven’t decided when to talk about and why that time is so opportune then you aren’t worth my time. If you have that joke you want to crack at the perfect time or that fact that you don’t think everyone knows then plan it; make it work. If you don’t you will end up making a joke that doesn’t even correspond to what you are talking about. By planning what you are going to say you will sound and feel far more confident.

Don’t read your own slides

One of my many (as you can see from this post) pet hates about presentations is when the person talks to you and reads exactly what is on the slide he has brought up.

Here is how to do it:

Only say what you have to say. 8 words to the maximum, the rest you can talk about. If you don’t do this then you’ll find that the people watching your presentation will read ahead and loose interest while you read out loud what they have said.

NEVER Give Hand-Outs before a Presentation

Never, ever, ever give out any piece of paper that basically sums up your presentation; if you do then what is the point in watching it in the first place, they will read it through and the little man in their brain will say “Done!” and switch off to the lights come up again and you walk off the stage.

So here they are, five things that I hope you do and don’t do when you do your presentations, please even consider them as you are doing them a real favour.

Do you have any presentation tips and annoyances that you want to share? Leave a comment or use the contact form.

OK Guys, I've been really busy lately and havent had much time to write any blog posts so here is a different one. You have £3000 or $6000 - now what do you buy and why? Leave a comment or use the contact form! 

I'll write what I'd buy later 

My Answer: It’s either Vienna (my RSS reader) or Mail. But I do have them set to open automatically so… I normally read all my mail then go onto the feeds, I don’t know, it’s just how I roll!

Here is what they said:

Summer Ordonez:
Gmail then Google Reader

Chris Leigh:
Vienna, quicksilver and virtue desktops start automatically - the first thing I do is open Firefox.

Mike Cohen:
Yojimbo. I keep all of my little notes, snippets, serial numbers, passwords, etc. in it. I have it open automatically. The first application I launch manually is usually Mail.

Thanks for commenting!