I want a bike riding distance/speed app.

Use the built in psuedo GPS to gestimate how far I’m riding my bike, then use a start/stop feature that is hooked up to when I start/stop the music on the iphone to figure out speed over distance. Oh and give me a Google Map to link to showing how (not) fast I am.

I wish I wrote programs…any developers out there listening…Jim? ;)

Enter iMovie ’08. This new release looks to be an entirely different way of working with home movies and it should make life easier for the causal/home video editor. There are some tools, namely Final Cut Server, on the pro side of things that are similar to the new iMovie workflow, but nothing in the true consumer market. Gone is the standard timeline with tracks of video and audio, and now there is a project workspace where you just piece your movie together.

The new release is really exciting but I noticed a menu item in the new iMovie that could really change the game in rough cuts. Check out the photo above. There is now an option to export your project to FCP with the “Export Final Cut XML” command. What this does is allow you to export your project into a format that Final Cut can understand and have your movie instantly setup and ready for further refinement in FCP.

I’m dying to give this to some of the producers at my office as Final Cut tends to be way to bloated for the simple rough cuts they are preparing. Also, with iMovie ’08 there is nothing to stop schools from teaching simple editing with iMovie and then taking that project into FCP to teach the kids the essential finishing and audio editing techniques.

I usually yawn at every new version of iMovie as it means more work for me when I sit down to help users at the LAUG meetings, but with this version I’m actually excited to show people a new way of thinking about their home movies. Again, where’s that (office) credit card!?

Then last week Alex Lindsay of the Pixel Corps drops a new challenge in my lap…joining up with the Pixel Corps. The Pixel Corps is a essentially a guild for what they call “digital craftsmen.” Basically that boils down to providing access to software, training, community and everything in between for editors, compositors, animators and everything other kind of visual fx artist you can think of. I’ve been wanting to join up for years, but the steep 50 dollar a month price tag has always kept me from joining. As I said, that all changed last week when Alex announced that for the entire summer a pxc membership would be only 50 bucks! That’s four months of access to training on more than 50,000 dollars worth of software, how could I resist? So this past weekend I’ve been familiarizing myself with their forums and checking out boujou, which is an amazing piece of match-moving software by 2d3.

As I said, I’ve spent a large portion of the weekend screwing around with software that I’d never have a chance to learn without resorting to nefarious means. Now I can kick back in the comfort of my home office and immerse myself in the next wave of my education. I love having time to learn now that I’ve graduated from a institute of higher learning. As I’ve said before, college is about learning how to learn…you choose what to discover next.

If you are thinking about signing up for the Pixel Corps summer training use the code PXC50 on checkout to get the discount. Oh, and these people aren’t just academics or instructors as they’ve worked on everything from commercials to a certain little film entitled Star Wars. Not bad for 50 bucks, eh?

“For a young person, probably the hardest psychological adjustment to make when entering the adult world is realizing that “Nobody cares about you”.

I remember it well. And I didn’t like it. Luckily it didn’t last too long.

After all, once you’re over the initial shock, you start to realize that actually, yes, universal indifference to your own “unique blip of insignificance” is actually quite liberating. It somehow frees you up internally to pursue what really matters, instead of worrying about the endlessly tiresome, complicated and time-consuming drama of the Group Hug Brigade. Life’s too short.

Every young adult has to make this adjustment, unless they want to spend the rest of their lives drowning in a foggy sea of neurosis. And you know what happens when you talk to someone who’s old enough to know better, yet still has serious issues with it. You roll your eyeballs and tell them to grow up.

So, during the Edelman gig earlier today, I started thinking to myself, if this is something any healthy 22-year-old can deal with pretty easily, then how come so many large companies, with all those smart, talented people making the big money and the big decisions, find it so difficult?

“Hi, I’m a large company, and I’m going to blow $100 million telling you how great I am. I’m so great. I rock. That’s right. And you like me, too. You do. You like hanging onto my every word. Group Hug!”

Maybe this is why so many companies find the whole Web 2.0, post-Cluetrain world so painful. Growing up always is, he said, rolling his eyeballs.” -Hugh Macleod

:)

Now I know this sounds like a hippy-type-way to provide net access, but think about how much bandwidth is waisted by having all of these wireless networks in a one block radius. There are at least 15 networks in range of my MBP and if it wasn’t illegal (according to my ISP) we could share a connection and get the net for pennies…but of course the speed would suck. Plus I wouldn’t want to share my connection due to my ISP’s capped bandwidth as I already eat up my allotment.

Now there is an alternative ISP in town, Lawrence Free Net, but I can’t get access to their service as I live in an apartment and can’t place a receiver/transmitter on my building. The idea however sounds great. Place a receiver/transmitter on your house and you get a Cat-5 line to do with as you please. The receiver/transmitter on your house then rebroadcasts the Internet signal to strengthen the network and expand the coverage. I’m not claiming that I understand everything about the service, their website offers little to no info, but I love the concept of the idea.

Anyway, just thought I’d toss this idea back out into the ether that is the interwebs and drop a plug from TWIM (This Week in Media) as well. If you are at all interested production/content creation on the web check this podcast out.

So when I read the news a couple of months ago that the company was up for sale I just about went into panic mode thinking that we needed to raid every store in the Lawrence (and maybe KC) that sold the notebooks and buy enough last forever (okay so at least for another year). However, it appears that the new company (a french one mind you) is serious about continuing the brand and the quality of the notebooks. Considering Société générale (the aforementioned French company) purchased the company for about $76,590,000 (around 60,000,000 euros).

Hopefully said french company realizes that the reason consumers love these notebooks is not because they are cheap, but because they are premium products. They cost anywhere from 10 to 20 bucks, but it is well worth it in that they are not only great to write in but make you feel good while writing. Maybe it is just some hipster-persona-poser thing but I feel like I write or come up with better ideas when sipping a cup of coffee and writing in such a beautiful notebook. I just can’t help it.

Here is a picture of the exterior of my small notebook as well as a sample page. The page interestingly enough was my checklist for setting up this weblog. Oh, analog and digital.

I can’t stress enough how great these notebooks are for writing, doodling, planning, scheduling or just jotting down ideas and concept for future use. So here’s to the frenchmen/women who purchased one of my favorite companies, and lets hope they understand the brand enough to not screw it up.

However, I think that this particular piece of commentary about advertising and innovation is a more than a little inaccurate and is nothing more than a pot shot at the industry. The following is a quote from his post:

“I’m fond of saying, when people in the advertising business ask me where my disaffection with that industry comes from, I tell them to do the math:

The Cuetrain [sic] wasn’t written by a Leo Burnett employee.
Movable Type wasn’t invented by McCann’s.
RSS wasn’t invented by JWT.
Robert Scoble doesn’t work for Fallon.
Techmeme wasn’t invented by Saatchi’s.

Advertising people are supposed to be in “the idea business”. But none of the ideas that have excited me in the last 5 years or so have come from Madison Avenue. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Nada.” -Hugh Macleod

I agree that there is a lot of hubris in the ad industry as a whole, and the term “creative” as a job title is more than a little off kilter. However, this sort of egoism is required when on a daily basis 1 out of your 1000 ideas is able to take hold and really accomplish something for your client and agency. Advertising people are still in the “idea business,” just not the ideas that MacLeod is interested in.

In response to MacLeod’s list of grievances with the industry I offer up my own list.

Let me preface this with the fact that I’m not a current marketing/advertising practitioner, but I have a degree in it and a large number of my friends are down in the trenches of the industry. I instead make educational software, it is much less stressful. :) Let me start by saying that I can’t argue with his first point in regards to The Cluetrain Manifesto as it is a great book and continues to be the gold standard, even 6 years after it was published. However, let me move on the points with which I disagree on.

Movable Type wasn’t invented by McCann’s. RSS wasn’t invented by JWT.

In regards to his second and third point, that Movable Type and RSS weren’t invented by the ad industry all I can respond with is that television, radio and magazines weren’t created by advertising professionals either but rather, where mediums with which to tell their clients stories….they were developed and invented by technologists, exactly how Movable Type and RSS came about.

Robert Scoble doesn’t work for Fallon.

As much as I love Scoble he only has credibility in the technology sector so why should he work for Fallon as they aren’t attempting to influence anyone in the tech industry? How would Scoble be able to help Fallon with one of their clients like Brawny? Not sure.

Techmeme wasn’t invented by Saatchi’s.

Next up on the list is techmeme giving publicity to writers/bloggers, which is what Saatchi‘s does in the “real” world. This really isn’t a valid argument as Saatchi’s isn’t trying to influence the insular blogosphere which is what techmeme is currently syndicating. If somehow the PR world got turned upside-down with agents and casting directors subscribing to RSS feeds then there would be a legitimate grip…but for right now the argument is null and void. Why would an actor in New York want a write up in some technology based blog in Montana which could then be re-syndicated by techmeme? I don’t know…do you?

I would also like to discuss the quote that sparked this post by MacLeod in which Doc Searls states:

Whatever marketing becomes will start, I believe, as a technology trend.

I completely agree but what Doc said is nothing new as TV, Radio, the Telephone and the Printing Press where definitely not invented by marketers, but rather by technologists. As much as I love a lot of people in the Ad industry they are not gods, just people trying to solve problems for their individual clients and using various mediums to do so.

I agree that there are parts of the ad industry that are stagnant and a lot of people who are still clinging to the old ways of doing things, however there are plenty of people (link, link, link, link, link and link–my old roommate works for that last one) really thinking and I can only hope that some of the reasons MacLeod is fed up with the advertising can be remedied as the next wave of marketing online comes about.

One cannot look towards Advertising to come up with the next big-technological-thing, however you can look for them to create one killer way of apply that technology to delivering messages and telling stories for their clients.

p.s. Sorry for such a long post but while I don’t drink all the kool-aid the agencies put out there, I do feel the need to defend some of my friends from KU as they are hard working ad/pr people, fighting to promote their brands.

“There’s only one rule: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins. Period. Because you won’t die. Even though you feel like you’ll die, you don’t actually die. Like when you’re training, you can always do one more. Always. As tired as you might think you are, you can always, always do one more.” -Floyd Landis

Who can’t appropriate that quote to his/her very own passions…playing a musical instrument, learning new skills/tools, marketing, writing, editing, reading and biking? I love it.

Read the article. Via: kottke.

Update: Maybe I spoke to soon in regards to praising Landis. It appears one of his urine samples has tested positive for high levels of testosterone. Bummer. It seems like we can never really have a sports hero that isn’t tarnished somehow. If it is confirmed that his second sample is positive then this post might have to change a bit. Check out the article on MSNBC.

“On my blog, I’m backing up the only part of me that can be backed up. Once I’m gone that’s what will be left is my data, that’s it.” -Lisa Williams, Bloggercon 2006 Emotional Life Session.

To put the quote in a little bit of context, I feel that she is saying that her “data” is all of the thoughts, feelings, photos, impressions, ideas and personality that she pours into her blog and that it is one of the few tangible things that will remain after you, or Lisa, or myself are gone. That is a very powerful, and empowering thing to me.

I’d love to hear your comments as to how you feel about blogging and why you do, or do not, blog. If you don’t, and you’d like to start you can begin backing up yourself for free here, or my preferred solution…hosting your own weblog with this.

Let us know if you start one so we can all join in the fun.

Update: Long time friend of the site, Jim Di Gioia, has weighed in with his thoughts in the comments and his site with the immortal phrase “blog to be infinite”. Great stuff Jim!

Update 2: Lennea has chimed in with her personal take on what blogging is. Check out the comments to read more, or to post your own thoughts!

I’m not saying that our law enforcement officials didn’t do their jobs well, and root out what could have been a very lethal and dangerous terrorist cell…but why did it become a national story? I guess what I’m trying to say is why haven’t we seen the same type of national attention of all our law enforcement personnel’s successes in stopping terrorist.

Is it because this one really wasn’t all that serious, so why not make a good news-cycle about defending the country from terrorists with it…just a thought. Also, notice how the “target” was supposed to be a midwestern city (chicago)…take that one into consideration too. I’m not saying that this is a fake threat, but rather why is the government making such a big deal out of it.

Update: Jon Stewart feels mutually. Via: Digg.com