Macgasm

One of the hardest things to do when creating a video podcast is getting your content around the internet as effectively as possible.  I’ve been using tube mogul for a while and it’s doing an excellent job, but there’s a lot to be said about having a desktop application that lets you upload your videos, instead of having to navigate to a website.

Vimeo has decided that it’s time that they address that concern, and they’re giving us a desktop application to upload our videos.  It’s not in public beta yet, but you can request a beta copy by requesting it on this discussion thread. I’m pretty excited about this, and when you pair it with the fact that we’re working on a fully fledged video podcast, it starts to look super appealing for content creators.

Other stuff they’re adding to their service includes, advanced statistical analysis tools, larger videos, as well as better groups and channels. It’s an exciting time for Vimeo lovers, and it’s sure to bring back past users.  We’ll be monitoring the beta for you, and keeping you posted once we’ve taken it for a spin.

I love Apple updates.  It’s not because I get overly excited about security patches, it’s that there’s a slim possibility that some of my issues are going to be resolved.  I’m not sure why people are so negative about releases being so frequent.  The more software updates the better in my opinion.  It keeps us up to date, and that in and of itself, is worth the 10 to 15 minutes of updating alone.

Anyhow, the update information is as cryptic as ever, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t let every one know.  Go get your software update on in iTunes.

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

1. Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep
2. Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart
3. Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming

Props to Mr. Bracco for his lightning fast fingers.

I can hear you! Extracting audio from video files might seem like a hassle. There are many methods that are just that, but I’m here to show you a very simple way to save out the audio from a video file. First of all, you’ll need to buy Quicktime Pro. I KNOW, I KNOW! $30 might seem like a lot, but it is worth it. Trust me. Next, load your video file in Quicktime 7, and press CMD+E.

Now select the Export drop-down menu, and select Sound to AIFF.

Now press the Save button, and you’ll have the raw audio sitting on your desktop. You can now edit or process the audio in programs like GarageBand, Audacity, or iTunes.

Photo Credit: JoeRuny

I’ve really been into getting things done these days. It’s funny because I’ve officially just wrapped up my academic career, and now that it’s over I’ve got more time to sit down and try to figure out how I can be more productive.

One thing I really struggled with over the last couple of years was multi-tasking. It’s not that multitasking was difficult, it was that I pushed my multi-tasking so far that it became counter intuitive. When your entire dock is lit up like a Christmas tree with blue lights, you know you’re in trouble.

Sometimes we just need to Think. We need to be in one application, and we need to be able to focus on it. There’s a number of applications that we’ve featured in the past, most notably concentrate, that help in this regard. They assist you in focusing on tasks.

I’ve recently been using an application called Think, go figure, and it has actually become quite useful for me, especially when I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the windows I have open. When you’re multi-tasking over multiple monitors and a slew of spaces, things get a little chaotic.

Think has a simple concept, it fades out your desktop and background application windows, but leaves the window and application you’re working on in plain view. Plain, and simple… just the way I like it these days.

One thing to note here is that the application doesn’t seem to be fully patched for snow leopard. I don’t have any details on that in fact, but since updating to snow leopard it has seemed a little wonky. Just thought you should know.

Image Credit: bcymet

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In this episode, we talk about Prowl for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

[01.7 MB] [00:05:10] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

It seems like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was not pleased with Apple’s departure on Monday. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue wrote a letter to Apple that was screaming sarcasm. Here is an excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal:

“It is unfortunate that your company didn’t take the time to understand the Chamber’s position on climate and forfeited the opportunity to advance a 21st century approach to climate change,” Donohue says in the letter, which goes on to slam the leading proposal in Congress to limit U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions as one that “will cause Americans to lose their jobs and shift greenhouse-gas emissions overseas, negating potential climate benefits.”

This letter shows that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is aware of what it means with a big player like Apple leaving the Commerce due to their latest stance against environmental issues. Instead of writing this letter, why didn’t they write a letter or something about the 21-century approach that the Chamber plans to take against greenhouse gases, and how this would cause American to lose their jobs? The only thing this caused was for Apple and environmentalists to snicker about how this is starting to make you realize that your past actions are causing you present headaches.

We’ll see the next actions that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Apple will take.  Don’t forget the popcorn!

Image Credit: MyEyeSees

I’m not the tidiest person on the planet, but I’m far from a slob. When it comes to my Mac I try to keep things as simple and straightforward as I can, but sometimes duplicates find themselves piling up in locations I never would have thought possible.

One slip of a key stroke, or a double click of a file in Cyberduck, and the next thing you know you’re piling up random files and duplicates everywhere. It’s not fun, and it drives me absolutely crazy. I’ve mentioned the preference-pane hazel before, and it works wonders at automating stuff, but sometimes you miss things. You can’t set up rules to clean stuff up, if you don’t know there’s files that need to be cleaned up.

This is where TidyUp! comes in super handy. It’s far from perfect, but it gets your duplicates for you, and is even smart enough to make comparisons of files that seem unrelated, but are exactly the same. It lets you narrow down your criteria so you can focus on removing stuff that you’re looking for instead of scanning your entire hard drive and being completely overwhelmed by the amount of duplicates you have kicking around. It’s super user friendly, and helps you with slimming down your hard drive.

Word to the wise: sometimes you have duplicates for a reason, so you need to be diligent in making sure the duplicates you’re removing aren’t backups of something important.

Keep it efficient! Included in iTunes 9 is the ability to encode audio using High Efficiency AAC. This is a special audio codec that allows for very small file sizes with very little perceptible degrade in quality. You probably don’t want to use this for your music library, but it is a great tool for throwing up audio files with a small foot print on the internet.

To use it, go into iTunes Preferences, and then click the General tab. Click the Import Settings button, select the AAC encoder, and then choose Custom. From this window, make sure Use High Efficiency Encoding is checked. You can then configure the setting to your taste.

High Efficiency

Photo Credit: cesarastudillo