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Took an extra day to get to me and now that I have the iPad I have loads to do to set it up ready for getting the best out of it. Love it already and I can see that we will need a case for it to protect it.
Write some more later….
The iPad must have started in China and was sitting in a warehouse in Piacenza in Italy. It is here we pick up the story. Next stop is an airport near Milan and onwards to Liege in Belgium. I suspect that it will be heading south in the morning to Barcelona.
Just saw that the iPad has got as far as Girona and slated as being out for delivery. I think I may be doing some playing this afternoon. I could maybe even do an unboxing video. Wicked or what??
Getting Closer!
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Author of the podcast novel Billybub Baddings and the case of the singing sword that you can download and listen to on your iPod or iPhone or whatever mp3 player. I listened to the story and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tee mixes the fantasy genre with the private eye, Sam Spade type novel based in Al Capone era, Chicago USA. I like the hats off to Bilbo Baggins in the name used for the title character and the humour doesn’t stop there. Billybub gets up to things you wouldn’t expect from a four foot one dwarf from another realm. Chicago doesn’t know what hit it.
“Chicago, 1929. There are a thousand stories in the naked city; and when you’re a dwarf at four-foot-one, they all look that much taller.”
It is The Era of Prohibition, where crime runs rampant in the streets and a city divided into territories serves as the ultimate prize.
Somewhere in this Underworld of Chicago, an enchanted weapon holds the key to ending The Gangland Wars. In the wake of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, only one is man enough to stand up against Al Capone…
…a four-foot-one dwarf named Billibub Baddings.
Get ready for The Lord of the Rings written by Mickey Spillane! Poking fun at the hard-boiled detective novel, Fantasy mainstays, and even the legend of Chicago’s 1920 underworld, MOREVI’s Tee Morris returns to the podiobook arena…and this time, he’s bringing a few friends along for the ride!
In the interview we chat about ways of writing, getting the ideas and the stories out there for the public to enjoy. Talking about getting an agent and a publisher and the effect of those things on your writing career. Of course seeing a Billybub is a character in the podcast novel we talk a little about podcasting and how it can be a way to build an audience and a following. J.C. Hutchins (Seventh Son) and Scott Sigler (Ancestor) both get a mention during the interview.
Tee is a Mac user and although we don’t speak much about hardware, Mac usage does get more than a mention. We both are so impressed with the excellent Scrivener writers software and highly recommend it to anyone that writes, either for a living or for pleasure. Keith the author of Scrivener will be impressed with what we have to say about the software.
Comments or questions are welcome.
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Co-Host on this show is Paul Scott. Paul has a blog The Mac Guy in which he answers people questions about hardware and software, seeing as he has a wealth of knowledge about Macs, he is the perfect person to talk Mac with.
In this episode I am joined by Paul Scott as a co host of the show. Instead of me interviewing Paul, which I have done already. We have me and Paul chatting about some Mac things, such as What you can do with a Mac Mini Server. Paul has recently set one up and I spend the time during the chat being a devils advocate. I ask questions about why anyone would want to set a server version of Snow Leopard when some of the functionality is already there in the ordinary version of Snow Leopard.
It has to be said thought that the Mac Mini with the server software installed on it and with an extra hard drive instead of having an optical drive is very, very good value for money. You really do get a lot of bang for your buck. Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server. This is big for small business: A special version of Mac mini comes with Snow Leopard Server preinstalled. It’s easy to set up and easy to run.
Small but powerful.
Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server features a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of memory with support for up to 8GB. It also has two 500GB 7200-rpm hard drives built in,1 so you can host wikis and websites, back up the data you need, and store just about anything.
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Second instalment of the interview with the inimitable Angelo Bell. Talking about experiences of making movies as an independent film director.
Legend of Black Lotus is a re-imagining of the story of Mulan. In his story, an Empress gives birth to a dark-skinned child who is prophesied to restore the war-torn kingdom to glory, but must endure the hardships of slavery to achieve her destiny.
Extended for one more day, every backer who joins Angelo on Kickstarter to help make Legend of Black Lotus will get a free download of Broken Hearts Club. Broken Hearts Club is a romantic comedy drama wherein an apathetic psychiatrist is force to treat and onslaught of melodramatic love-lost couples, and in the process uncovers the root of his distant behaviour that jeopardises his marriage.
For your free download, just visit his profile at Kickstarter . Once you join the growing list of backers you will receive an email, from Angelo with a special link for a digital download of Broken Hearts Club in addition to the perks associated with your donation!
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Angelo Bell is a writer, director and an independent producer in Los Angeles whose professional goal is to develop and create engaging and commercially viable, low-budget films. Angelo is an award-winning filmmaker with two best-in-festival wins for El Ride (as producer) and Until Next Time (as consulting producer and editor). In 2007, he set a record at the Los Angeles International Shorts Festival when four of his films were accepted.
I went to see the Knight and day movie at the local movie theatre in Platja d’Aro and enjoyed it thoroughly. But I have to say the screen writer should be shot. If I said to you that I was going to New York and I was looking forward to seeing the homes of the famous actors in Hollywood on the first day of my visit there and on the second day I will check out the cowboys out on the range in Harlem
You might think I was stupid or crazy
But then US writers think they can get away with having the Streets of Sevilla filled with the Bull running event which everyone knows – or nearly everyone knows – takes place in Pamplona.
The whole movie was a stringing together of action sequences that were well shot and made for a engaging movie as evidenced by the number of people that would agree with me that the time goes so quick while watching it. I think if the next movie I see is Shrek then it will be hugely more sensible than was Knight and day.
There is poetic licence and the suspension of WTF in the movies and things that have to be so for the sake of the movie but there are some things like the aforementioned Sevilla joke – that should not be messed with so that the film at least tries to have some credibility. That effort of trying – is what it takes for the viewer to have some hope of achieving the suspension of reality to be able to enjoy the movie by believing what is going on for at least the length of the film.
What do you think? Does it matter if the result is a very entertaining diversion in the cinema while stuffing yourself with popcorn.
YouTube has increased the limit allowed for the movies posted on there from ten minutes to fifteen minutes. Good news there seeing as I have sometimes found the 10 minutes to be too short for what I wanted to do.
The first part of the interview with Angelo Bell the Director of films such as Resurrection of Serious Rogers which is The Usual Suspects meets The Professional — a multi-layered neo noir thriller about an assassin who finds redemption in the eyes of a nanny; a drug addicted FBI agent out for justice, a military hero hungry for revenge and the mystery man who controls their fates.
Angelo also made the Broken Hearts Club movie which is a raw relationship drama which after airing at film festivals got broadcast as a series on TV.
Angelo is deeply committed to the independent film movement and supports other filmmakers with their creative endeavours. through his blog at AngeloBell.com. He has been quoted in the Filmmaker Magazine blog and writes about DIY distribution, crowd funding and film sales. Angelo’s articles and film reviews can also be found online at AssociatedContent.com, HubPages.com and Examiner.com.
We had a long chat so I have split this into 2 parts I will publish the second part of the interview with Angelo next week
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The Mac20Q interview is with Ross Craig from Canada. I talked to Ross before but now he has an iPad to tell me about too.
Today I got my hands on the iPhone application iPrompt. I have been using VideoCue to use as my teleprompter when I do the videos and I am talking into the camera. Video Cue works pretty well but sometimes when I want to stop it and then restart I can’t go back a bit to where I want to continue talking. I have to start again from the start of the text. That is the problem I need to address.
If I am using the iSight camera in my Mac it is OK because I can have the computer right in front of me and use the up and down arrow keys to slow down the text in Video Cue and speed it up again so that It does what I want. But I prefer to use my Canon Vixia to record the video because of better quality and when I use the green screen I need to have some distances just right to make the chromakeying work better. So then I lose control of the text. My arms are just not long enough…
Seeing as I am always fluffing my words then I do need to be able to have this controlling function – so enter iPrompt. I have not used iPrompt in anger yet but I have tested it and it looks like it will do what I want – I think….
The only thing is the control of it again. I would like to put the iphone into a box thing that I will make that is like the proper teleprompter when the camera is pointed through a hole in back a box and there is a piece of glass at an angle inside the box. The front is open and what you look into – seeing only the scrolling text
The iPhone will go at the bottom of the box pointing up at the glass and with the glass angled the presenter is able to see the text scrolling right where the lens of the camera is pointing out . Of course the scrolling text in iPrompt has to be mirrored so that it is the right way for reading in the teleprompter. The way that I do it now the text is slightly below the lens on my MacBookPro and you can sometimes see that I am having to look just below the lens to the scrolling text from time to time. I could see that this iPrompt solution could work even better if I had a distance controller – there is something that allows wireless or wired control so that I could speed up the text or slow it down or just pause it and restart it when I am ready to move on. I have to find out more about what controllers I can use with this function of iPrompt. I think I will need that distance controller though if I – can – put it in a box as I have outlined already because the iPhone will be more difficult to get at – when it is set up inside the box
I have just upgraded to the latest version of Evernote and I like the changes – It looks better and it also has a thing called trunk – It is the Elephant reference again.
Trunk is there to show what other applications will work with or integrate with Evernote – like
Egretlist
A to-do manager that seamlessly syncs content with your Evernote account.
Seems like a good idea from Ever note – but then
Had a bit more of a look through and it seems it is a way for Evernote to make some affiliate cash by directing you to paid for apps on on the iTunes Store. Nothing wrong with that ….
Evernote have to get paid for what they do also.
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Academy & Emmy nominated Frederick Marx is either clever or lucky or both because he is able to follow his life’s passion and is able to live it every day. His mission as a filmmaker is “Bearing Witness, Creating Change.” Human change, human transformation – one story at a time.
There is ‘Hoop Dreams’ One of the most acclaimed and successful documentaries ever, HOOP DREAMS tells the story of Arthur Agee, William Gates, and their families over a four and a half year period, covering the boys’ entire high school careers as they pursue the elusive dream of professional basketball success. It is a three hour documentary following two teenage inner city Afro-American lads to play basketball professionally.
Frederick gives back to the film making community to with workshops and talks Speaking topics include:
The ‘Journey from Zanskar’ was a topic in the interview that Frederick spoke about in more detail. talking about the ordeals of travelling and shooting film out on the trail. He tells us about what cameras he was using and how he had to make do with other cameras when the main camera no longer was available to him. He got inside the lives of the people that were the subjects of the movie as should happen in a good documentary. The monks were able to tell their story to the world with the help of Frederick, who is clearly a talented and intelligent independent film maker.
I have to admit I learned a lot listening to Frederick and you will not be disappointed in hearing the podcast
Comments or questions are welcome.
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Recorded the one hundred episode yesterday and today. I was pleased that Chris Marshall came on the show to talk about his experiences with his Macs and his new iPad and how it fits in with what he is doing with his writing. Chris writes articles for a newspaper here in Spain and also makes an appearance on the radio talking about things to do with tech and living in Spain.
Chris still has his Harley thing going and him and his wife are keen to save abandoned animals mostly cats. Last time he was telling me that the animals get shipped to northern countries like Germany to get a good home.
The iPad is giving Chris the freedom to do some of his work away from the computer, things like checking emails, looking at the RSS feeds for the news that is of interest to the radio show. Seems like a perfect complement to a workflow that he has perfected using his Mac Pro.
I talk about using Scrivener compared to using Bean or Pages from iWork. I like the corkboard metaphor in Scrivener. Bean is a bit simple and pages has everything to be able to do Desk Top Publishing
Comments or questions are welcome.
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continue reading…Working at the campsite again for the summer so I will be on the summer schedule for the next six weeks. I hope to get 2 or 3 podcasts out each month still.
Also the lack of new podcasts has been due to working hard to learn more programming I found a good tutorial on Lynda.com for learning PHP and MySQL. For learning things like the basic concepts of loops and thinking like a programmer it has been good. I expect that the ability to hook into MySQL databases will be very useful too.
My wife has her MacBookPro and at this moment is using her crappy WIndows computer to do so form filling on a web site. Having to type quite a lot of words she has bot got used to the keyboard on the MacBookPro. The old HP keyboard is plain horrible but she is used to it. Have to give her more time on that one. I have been hoping to spend more time with her showing her some trick with the Mac but I have not been able to do that much either.
We have set up TextExpander for her. I got it for her yesterday and also Skitch – both applications are very useful and I know she will particularly love Textexpander when we have it set up more.
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I talk with Paul Scott about what he does with his Mac. We discuss the compatibility possible when you have to use some Windows apps on your Mac. I tell him about a friend that was using an older CRT iMac that had problems with file sharing and that now with the way things are we don’t have those problems. There are some PC users that can’t open some Windows files like the problem with some doc files.
Paul uses his computer to transcode audio files from one format to another. He has a MacBookPro and it is fairly new due to getting an older one replaced with AppleCare. Great the way that Apple looks after its Apple care customers like that. I have not used Apple Care yet myself – What about you do you use AppleCare.
Paul has a blog The Mac Guy in which he answers people questions about hardware and software, seeing as he has a wealth of knowledge about Macs. He uses BlogPress and loves the application MacJournal. While on a plane recently he was showing off his iPad in between being able to use it to make a blog post. The only difficulty was the fact he could not rotate a screenshot image. Did you know that you can get a screen shot by pressing the Home and Lock keys. Paul uses the iPad to VPN into his work computers.
Like myself Paul is learning Objective C and wants to work from home and have his dog as his office manager. He has the book Aaron Hillegas which I have also and he has the Objective C for Dummies book. He would like to go and have a week at the Big Nerd Ranch where you can go and spend a week just learning programming. They do those here in Germany too. I am using a book by Stephen Kochan about Objective C. Become and Xcoder at cocoalabs and cocoadevcentral are both useful sites to learn more. We lamented that we will perhaps to buy new books when Xcode 4 comes out fully and everything is changed
He uses the app Notebook as he can record audio during lectures and I tell him about Soundpaper that you can do the same thing on an iPad. He best free application is Twitterific. I inform paul about Ping.fm which is a useful site to post to numerous social networks and blogs in one foul swoop.
We talk about SEO and how I used it with the Amazing iPad site and also about where Paul gets his web traffic from. He gets it mostly from Google of course as Bing is still a bit new. We talk about SquareSpace the place where you can host blogs. I reckon it is too expensive there for what you get. With using GoDaddy I have unlimited domains and unlimited bandwidth and it is either cheaper or the same price as on SquareSpace where you can only use one domain.
Safari 5 is with us now and it has given us some new features like the Reader which works a bit like Instapaper. basically it strips out the crud from the web page and shows just the main information.
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In this podcast I am talking to Darren Hull who has landed himself a cool job after finishing his Fine Art studies in which he is photographing and videoing wood work products – And he has enough time also to do his own photography. Getting a job these days is hard enough . Handy if you can get one that you love.
On top of that he is going to be doing some portrait too. Quite a business man.
Darren is a Mac User so although we talk mostly about photography and video in this podcast I think it is still relevant as many Mac owners are into Photography.
I mention a photographer in the interview called Dave Hill. He does some amazing pictures and I recommend you have a look at davehillphoto.com . I also mention Photomatix the HDR photography application and for some excellent examples you could do a search in Flickr for the guy that goes by the name of ‘Stuck in Customs’ I have a few good HDR photos in Flickr too. I used the tutorial put up by SIC to guide me when I worked on the picture that I took in Dublin by the canal of the ambulance rushing past. And also with the photos of the shack in the French Vineyard. It was late evening when I took those photos and the light was great although I had to hurry to get the shots.
Part of getting a good HDR image is to choose a subject and lighting that suits HDR. YOu want something that there is a large dynamic range there with some dark area and also places that will be washed out if you expose for the darker areas in a normal photo.
As I say in the podcast I like the more extreme images – I am not concerned too much with lifelike as I am keen to get an exciting looking finished image.
I had lifelike while I was there taking the picture, the artist in me wants something extra and I like bold and colourful. I really love the HDR.
Seems that I am spending lots more time lately with shooting video more so than with than taking photos and with my guest in this interview it is the same with that.
The latest cameras with the video capabilities are pushing many photographers in the direction of video too. Canon 5D and the 7D are excellent for video to the point that there is a huge buzz amongst indie film makers due to the quality of the images that you can get from these new DSLR’s. Canon also now have the T2i a lower priced version and even more photographers will be getting on the video bandwagon.
There was a big thing made out of the fact that the last episode of House was shot with the Canon 5D.
One of the things that is so good about video on the DSLR is the depth of field you can get especially with the prime lenses. There are all sorts of extras you can buy to make the DSLR camera more suited to shooting video as well as the variety of quality lenses available.
http://media.techpodcasts.com/mac20q/media.blubrry.com/mac20q/traffic.libsyn.com/spondicious/098_DarrenHull.mp3 continue reading…
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My wife wants a computer to do stuff in school, she is a teacher. For a long time she has been drooling over the MacBook Air – mainly because of it being light in weight. Many people have told me – that having owned one they think it to be underpowered and short of ports. I recommended the MacBookPro for her but she is not keen – as it weighs just over 2kg compared to the iPad at less than half that.
So Enter the iPad – Also low powered and fewer ports – but has the advantages over the Air by being lighter and much cheaper to buy. Another good point for the iPad is that when you switch it on it is instantly ready to do some work. We took a trip to Girona the other day to check out the iPad. There they had iPads to view but none to sell. I was delighted to get playing with one – trying out the on screen keyboard in the notepad application.
I would need time to get used to the predictive text ability because it was putting in words I didn’t want
You would think I would be OK with that after being an iPhone user, I was typing in English though and the iPad was dealing with Spanish – so that didn’t help. Looked at the Bento on the iPad and was not that impressed with its usability compared to the desktop version which I have – although perhaps I would need more time to research it . i have Bento on the iPhone too. I just expected more from the iPad version.
Loved playing with the photo app and thought that Safari on the iPad was OK – much better than on the iPhone. If they had, had an iPad in the shop we would have gone home with one for sure. Despite some reservations I have about how it fits in with what she wants to do computing wise. I just know that it won’t be long before I am getting kicked off my computers so she can do some video editing or to make a Keynote presentation which is undoubtedly going to be better on a more powerful machine with the full OSX operating system.
Already it has happened that my wife has been using ScreenFlow on my iMac to edit some movies – ScreenFlow is much easier than iMovie and when I have time I will show her FinalCut Express.
Blimey I will never get to use my iMac again…..
I suppose I should be grateful that I am getting her away from her Windows machine that is driving her nuts at the moment – The school where she works has only Windows computers too – and it is dreadful for the virus problems. I don’t think they have much in the way of a sys admin looking after them either.
My wife wanted to see how the bluetooth keyboard would work with the iPad but the guy in the shop couldn’t get the one he had there – to pair with the iPad demo machine for some strange reason. He tried many times with more than one iPad.
but probably due to other bluetooth conflicts within the shop. – No Joy
Have any of you had problems getting a BT KB paired up with an iPad. Talking of the keyboard thing she imagines that she would want to use the iPad on the sofa and use the BT KB there. I suppose the iPad could be propped up on the table in front of the sofa and the KB be on her lap. I wonder if the iPad would be too far away then to be able to read well while typing. I can’t imagine how you might have the keyboard and the iPad together on the lap unless you have a specialised holder for the 2 items – and even then it could be awkward.
I would give her my MacBook Pro but it has an English keyboard on it and she would need the Spanish Keyboard for the accents. A bit too much messing to swap the keys for Spanish ones also. Have to see how this conundrum runs. The best solution would be an iMac on her desk – or a Mac Mini and an iPad to go with it. for taking to school. Don’t expect the funds to run to that though seeing as all public service workers here in Spain have just had a pay cut of 5%. The banks that created the financial mess should be paying to put the economy right not the people at grass roots level just working to put food on the table a a roof over the head. – Oooh don’t get me started…..
This week I have been creating video for my Wizardgold business extolling the delights of trading on Betfair, so I have been stuck into FinalCut Express and enjoying doing the editing work. I get in a bit of income from the advertising on that site and the software sales so it needs some effort from time to time. I have one video on YouTube explaining this particular technique under 2.5 goals trading – which has been downloaded 37 thousand times – It would be nice to get those sort of numbers for the Mac stuff I do – I had better take some lessons from the talented iJustine – learn to dance in the Apple Stores – do spoofs of songs and wear silly wigs then post the resulting videos. I reckon I could manage some Dad dancing no problem. I am not averse to looking silly if it brings in a bit of cash.
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Really pleased to have another film maker guest on the show. Travis is just about to start shooting a horror – slash movie. Just before the interview I saw him tweet that he was covered in blood. Transpired he was doing tests for the film special effects.
He is friends with Julie and Jessica of Kingisafink and Phil Holbrook, I think it is great to see such a vibrant group of film makers taking advantage of social media. helping out with each others projects as well as moral support.
Like Danny Lacey Travis has been using the crowd funding Indiegogo to raise money for this movie he is about to shoot
which btw is called Danny Did It and if you want to help out with the film you still can – by going to his film company website and he is taking Paypal donations.
Many films wouldn’t get off the ground without this type of support so if you are in to horror send Travis a dollar or two.
Raymond Did It is a slasher film in the tradition of Halloween and Prom Night. When twelve-year-old Bryce Rourke is accidentally killed in a playground scuffle, his friends decide to blame Bryce’s developmentally delayed older brother for the accident. Raymond is taken to a state hospital while the true killer walks free.
Six years later, Raymond escapes from the hospital to seek bloody revenge for his brother’s death.
This is how it worked out with Indiegogo for the crowd funding.
$10 or more = Fan Contribution: A special thanks noted on the film’s website and Director’s blog.
$50 or more = Fan Plus Contribution: An 11 x 17 movie poster in either the theatrical or comic book design, signed by writer/director Travis Legge in addition to the aforementioned perks.
$100 or more = Friend Contribution: A DVD copy of the film upon the film’s release, signed by writer/director Travis Legge in addition to the aforementioned perks.
$1,000 or more = Family Contribution: A copy of the DVD signed by members of the cast and crew, a producer’s credit in the film, and a VIP invitation to the official wrap party in Rockford, Illinois at the end of June (travel costs not included)
Funds generated via donation will go to cover the costs of catering, location management, prop purchases, and transportation associated with the film.
The rumours are appearing on the very eve of Steve Jobs announcing a whole pile of new things at WWDC. One of the new things alongside a new iPhone is possibly going to be a new Safari.
What does Apple have on the horizon for Safari ? So far we have not heard anything and that isn’t a huge surprise, Apple is a very secretive company. The good news is that Safari is based on the open source WebKit rendering engine, so we can check out the list of feature enhancements added to WebKit since Safari 4 released with AppleWebKit/531.9.
Geolocation API including suspend/resume. This has been in the iPhone browser since last year
HTML 5 draggable element implementing the current spec
HTML 5 Forms pattern and required attributes
On top of expected HTML, CSS, and JavaScript improvements, Apple will surely tweak the web browser again to build the most usable web browser.
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This week I have been getting stuck into the programming and learning about things like the if else , for and while loops and I dare say that for most listeners it would not be that interesting.
I have though during the last couple of days been trying to work out how to do for free – what I demonstrated in the last quick tips video screencast – In which I was using Hazel – A paid app – I made an automation of separating audio tracks and converting to AIFF ready for Amadeus Pro – I want to do as a free option as in using the tools we get free with Mac OSX.
That means Automator or AppleScript
With these there a few flavours of automation. You have folder actions, services, workflows, automator actions and the ability to save workflows as Applications.
The folder action is good when you want to drop files in folder and things will happen to them as if by magic. The Applications obviously can be used to open a file and do something with it
Services are workflows that you can get to from an application such as with finder with a right click on a file and the contextual menu will have the services that are applicable to that file or files.
You can also get to the services from the application menu item and again it give you the services that are available to that application.
Services was a new concept with Snow leopard and is trying to make automation all the more accessible. Then there is AppleScript – which can be run separate or can be included in an automator work flow or runs as an application.
The task that I worked out for Hazel to do for me automatically when the files were simply drooped into the right folder last week works great but not I am trying to get the same job done with Automator which comes free with Mac OSX. No point in spending money if you can help it. Hazel is worth the small amount it costs though and has a few other tricks too. So lets have a look at how it has been going with Automator.
There a number of ways to go about doing it and the first way that seems to present itself is using Folder Actions. This is like in Hazel where you just drop in the file to be automated and there is a certain amount of hey presto and you have your desired end result. In my case I am looking for a pair of AIFF files from the single .MOV file I saved into the folder.
What would be great is to have the Automator do the whole job in one automator action but I can’t seem to get that to work. So like in Hazel I have split the task up. I made one folder action to split the audio into 2 tracks then another automator action to convert those files to AIFF. So far so good, I can make that happen, although sometimes I put the starting file in the folder and nothing happens. The file just sits there festering and getting impatient to have something happen to it.
In Hazel there is a menu where you can start a process for a folder manually and it does the rest by itself. SO what I have done is to create a Automator service that take the first part of the automation and starts it with a file that is selected. When the two files are spat out of that process the second automator folder action takes over.
As I write this the first automator action which I set in motion by the service menu in FInder is still running 
as can be seen in the picture here the cog wheel is turning indicating that there is an action running. The action did the opening of the file with the audio splitter application and now is waiting for the next part because of a pause I put in the action. I told it to delete the starting file after 30 minutes and it worked.
I did also put in the action that it should quit the application used to split the audio, but that didn’t happen, so I will have to back to the drawing board on that one. I will get to the bottom of this. Funny thing is though that the way it works is a bit fuzzy. A couple of times I have put a file in that should have been worked on but nothing happened. tried again a little later and it worked. I would like to think it would be fool proof and work every time.
Here are the workflows so you can use them yourself.
Today there were queues for the iPad for the lucky few that either managed to get one via the courier and the pre-order process from Apple, or went to the local Apple Store to buy direct from the shop.. The lucky gits were then confined in some quiet place for the rest of the day so they could enjoy the iPad without any molestation from lesser beings. No I am not jealous at all. Honest !!
Really pleased for the people that got the iPad today, the likes of Gazmaz who was getting itchy and antzy while waiting for the courier to arrive with the iPad. I am sure Gary will be telling his story on the podcasts that he takes part in.
I have been struggling with internet all day today. First off I had no internet due the power being off yesterday from 5pm until about 10:30pm. The antenna on top of the hill didn’t get working again after the power came back so we had to wait until it was fixed and that was about 11am. I also tried to get the MiFi working – I got the MiFi a couple of weeks ago but I was waiting for the SIM to arrive from MasMovil. So I had the SIM and it took ages to get the Wifi end of things working but still no luck seeing as I had no 3G at the house for the SIM.
I still have to go out to a place where there is some 3G to test the MiFi properly. If I wasn’t so busy cleaning the house and doing that sort of things to be ready for a visitor that was due to arrive later in the day I would have been able to see if the Huawei miFi thingy would do what it is supposed to do. This is the MiFi that I was hacking into and jailbreaking a couple of weeks ago.
I did manage to get a bit of learning in with AppleScript and programming in general, won’t get much of that done for the rest of the weekend. Funny but I am sort of enjoying the programming even though it is super frustrating at times. Apart from the nitty gritty end of that I am thinking about possible applications to make. I am thinking about something in the education market for students and teachers. I would love to see technology being used to help people be the best they can be in a learning situation. I used to be a teacher and sometimes miss being one.
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Here I show you how to use the Mac application Hazel to automate a process. I have to take files I get out of WireTap Studio as .mov files and split the 2 audio tracks into separate files and then convert .mov files into AIFF files so that I can use them in AmadeusPro, which is my preferred audio editor. Does a much better job than Garageband for what I do with the interviews for Mac20Q.
I wanted to do this job in Automator and have it either as a service or as a folder action, but I was not able to get it to do what I wanted , I may have another try to see if it is possible with Automator or perhaps I can get it to work by using AppleScript. I have been learning AppleScript lately so I could have some success this time.
If you have any questions about how to do things with Hazel then please fill in the form below and ask. I will help if I can.
Comments or questions are welcome.
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In this episode of the Mac20Q Podcast I am pleased to say I was talking to a really decent chap from Southport in England. he works for an Australian company which is pretty marvellous seeing as he is based in the UK. Ah the power of the internet! After studying computer science he went on to work indirectly for Apple at an Apple reseller, fixing hardware and also working in sales. So Leon Walsh surely knows his way around the Mac.
We chat about how great the iPhone is and he tells me that his could be surgically implanted because he makes so much use of the device. he has plans to buy a iPad when he makes a trip to the US in June. Leon tells me that he has his iPhone jail broken and will be using the iPhone to provide the connectivity for the iPad when he gets it also. Seems like a good plan that, saves having to have multiple data plans to serve the various devices he wants to use. Having said that though he may buy one of the MiFi devices from the UK Mobile phone company ’3′ and jail break that as I have recently done because it could be extra useful when he is travelling to his place in Spain.
A favourite application of Leon’s is iTunes because all that you can do with it. I mention in my ramble too about how you can increase its functionality further by getting scripts from the Doug’s Applescript web site. I do that as part of my ramble about automating things with things like Automator, AppleScript and Hazel.
Leon and i talk for quite a while because as usual it is a friendly chat about using Macs generally and covering things like best free application, most expensive application and so on. Leon tells me that he loves using Garageband and also Logic because he is a keyboard player and a bit of a musician.
In the ramble I talk about how I made my first iPhone application, simple but I think an important first baby step of many steps in the process of becoming an iPhone and iPad developer. I was so delighted, I did a little dance because it took me a couple of attempts with the tutorial, I learned a few things on the way including the fact that a step had been missed out and I was lucky to spot in an accompanying picture on the site.
Do you have any suggestions for me to try to make for the iPhone or iPad? It could take me a long time but I do plan to eventually make it to the heady heights of Mac and iPhone developer. I have a couple of ideas already but more is always good.
Evernote has a new version of the application for the iPad and iPhone and many of the improvements are shown off better in the iPad It has improved tagging – keywording facilities. If you are not using tagging in your applications that support them then I suggest that you get into it. Last podcast I was waxing lyrical about how they were so useful within iPhoto, especially when combined with Smart folders
Comments or questions are welcome.
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