Today’s interview is with Adam Weiss who uses a Mac Pro that is a quad processor antique and also a MacBook. Not only that he has hackintoshed a Dell mini9, just for fun and using on trips where he can’t carry much. He says it is useful but very slow in use. Good as a portable storage device and quiet to use as a recording computer and works with the microphones he has.

Adam Weiss is a successful educational podcaster and podcast consultant, as well as a sought-after digital media strategist. An expert interviewer and communicator, he aims to show that digital communication is more about story, presentation, and technique than fancy gear and tech toys.

He is the creator of the award-winning Current Science & Technology Podcast for the Museum of Science in Boston, which he hosted for more than two years. He now hosts his critically-acclaimed Boston Behind the Scenes Podcast, and has profiled everyone from street vendors to senators and astronauts in his career.

Adam also provides consultation on social networking, living with technology, web design and best practices, and general digital media strategy. He has started working in the digital video realm recently, and has been a photographer for years.

Adam does video reviews in which he shows what you can do with iPhone applications. He films using a Canon 7D SLR camera that also does video. He tells me that the main restriction would be the length of the clip you can record and that it doesn’t do autofocus while in video mode.

Adam is a podcaster too working as a podcast producer and also as the host on a podcast. One of the podcasts is a nature – science podcast. He even helps other people out with their podcasts as a podcast consultant.

Today’s interview is with Adam Weiss who uses a Mac Pro that is a quad processor antique and also a MacBook. Not only that he has hackintoshed a Dell mini9, just for fun and using on trips where he can’t carry much. He says it is useful but very slow in use. Good as a portable storage device and quiet to use as a recording computer and works with the microphones he has.

Adam Weiss is a successful educational podcaster and podcast consultant, as well as a sought-after digital media strategist. An expert interviewer and communicator, he aims to show that digital communication is more about story, presentation, and technique than fancy gear and tech toys.

He is the creator of the award-winning Current Science & Technology Podcast for the Museum of Science in Boston, which he hosted for more than two years. He now hosts his critically-acclaimed Boston Behind the Scenes Podcast, and has profiled everyone from street vendors to senators and astronauts in his career.

Adam also provides consultation on social networking, living with technology, web design and best practices, and general digital media strategy. He has started working in the digital video realm recently, and has been a photographer for years.

Adam does video reviews in which he shows what you can do with iPhone applications. He films using a Canon 7D SLR camera that also does video. He tells me that the main restriction would be the length of the clip you can record and that it doesn’t do autofocus while in video mode.

Adam is a podcaster too working as a podcast producer and also as the host on a podcast. One of the podcasts is a nature – science podcast. He even helps other people out with their podcasts as a podcast consultant.

We talk about microphones and how you can get more credibility when out and about shooting video. Adam like to shoot using natural light where possible. Using a reflector is a good way to enhance your lighting. He is a FinalCut Express user like myself and doesn’t yet need to move to Final Cut Pro. It is possible to use Keynote to do some transitions and effects in his video.

One of the sponsors of the show is GoSim and they have a product that is great when you are travelling to other countries and you don’t want to get stuck with high roaming charges. I will be giving a try on my next trip away, for sure.

Adam recently lost his iPhone and was wishing that he still had his Mobile Me account. The ability to wipe the phone from a distance and perhaps even locate the phone would have been very useful. He has Qik and other video apps on his iPhone and is interested in the streaming of video

This interview started over at Video20Q blog and podcast and seeing as Phil is a Mac user it is only right that I publish here on Mac20 Q also. I have cut out some of the interview that was more specific to film making and if you would like to get the full skinny on Phil, then you can listen to the interview in full at Video20Q.

Phil is working with an older Mac at the moment and is aware that he will have to trade up to a newer Intel based Mac soon.

Phil made the film short ‘Honest work’ using his editing skills with FinalCut Pro on his Mac and the video is to be found on YouTube. Nice idea for a short movie. I actually like the was he did the titles at the start of the movie too.

His advice to people that are thinking of doing film or video work is to get training first if you can but mainly the advice is to get out there and just DO IT. No point waiting around doing nothing because that will get you no where.

What Phil did was to buy the computer and software he needed to do the work he wanted which was to edit in TV and movies and learn how to do it well and found work from that. Excellent way to go.

Phil Holbrook goes by the name of Philontilt on Twitter and also has a web site called CreativeJinx. He works in the TV business editing footage and during his free time he makes films.

Phil runs a film festival entitled EgoFest Films and will be working hard on that up until February.

One of Phil’s’ films is ‘Honest Work’

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gary Rosenzweig pictured here in an English pub  (Mind you if he was doing it properly he would have a pint of beer in his hand) talked to Mac20Q about what he does with MacMost Video. He has been very busy producing Mac tips in video form for about 2 years and is doing very nicely on YouTube.

He was previously into making games with Flash and still might do the odd game. He has also made an app for the iPhone. So as you can see he is multi talented with the programming, podcasting with video, writing books, drinking beer and probably many other things too. He is successful in bringing in revenue from his podcasting, He has the links on the MacMost site and apart from one month doesn’t have the advertising in the videos.

Gary also has an Sony HDV camera which is plugged into his MacPro and he records live into Wirecast which comes from the same company as ScreenFlow. I was amazed that his preference for movie editing was with iMovie because it is so fast to do the editing. He could use FinalCut Express but prefers iMovie. He compresses the file at the end of it all with MPEG StreamClip. He uploads to Blip.tv and it will send the file off to YouTube which saves some time with the uploading. Naturally you will find Gary on FaceBook and Twitter.

He recommends that if you want to get into video podcasting and you don’t yet have a HD Camera then just shoot in standard def. move up to HD when you are able to. If you wait until everything is perfect then you will never get to make a podcast.

Gary admits to being a geek, and using terminal editor on his tiny netbook rather than using the Ubuntu that was installed. He was using EEE Ubuntu. He has been using as Mac for a long time though and was issued a Mac SE in 1987 when he was in college. It was a requirement to have a Mac there.

For a favourite application he has to choose between Garageband and iMovie, but was perhaps edging towards iMovie more. Gary does use Audacity and although it is a free application I would recommend that you use AmadeusPro, it looks prettier, more Mac like and I think it is more stable too.

He uses Fluid the custom browser application that you can use to make a web application for one specific purpose. I have it for FaceBook but Gary uses it for a Todo application. he is an iPhone user and use MocaVNC, Tweetie, Cycle Meter, and Scrabble plus other games. On the MacMost Newsletter he does a recommended iPhone app of the week.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Apple news has been fairly slow seeing as they came out, early in the month to say that there would be nothing more in the line up for the holidays. The rumour mill can take a bit of a break now until CES in January and then MacWorld in February. Still no sign of a tablet computer from Apple and even rumours to say that the thing was likely to be delayed. Amazing how you can delay something that was only a rumour in the first place. We don’t do rumours here on Mac20Q anyway.

I have spent loads of time watching video from Lynda.com to learn how to do video with FinalCut Express. Pleased I got it despite that fact that it is more work to do things sometimes that it is with iMovie. Well I still have iMovie there to avail of but there is no point in having FinalCut Express and then not using it because I have iMovie. There will come the video projects that need FinalCut Express and I want to know what I am doing for that. So I will have to just devote the time that is needed to the learning curve. I expect that after a while I will be so au fait with FinalCut Express that it will seem to be as quick, anyway.

One of the things that I struggled with, was the getting the video files to be a decent size for uploading to the web. I did manage to find some settings that still gave me the quality I wanted from the 1280 by 720 video but then this morning Matt Hillyer gave me information about MPEG StreamClip, an application that is so small, must be using the Quick Time conversion already on my iMac but gives the controls to do a better job. That is often the way with this video conversion utilities, I also have Videovangelist to try out. There is of course the tried, true and tested Visual hub application though. I did try MPEG StreamClip to convert a DVD but the result was even larger and the sound was offset. Took ages to do it and I had to delete the resulting file. I do like Matts’ work flow though for getting files from ScreenFlow to FinalCut Express and then from FinalCut Express to the web. One test I did today worked a treat. I ended up with a file about half the size and still good quality at the same resolution.

You can see the videos I produce on YouTube on the Wizardgold Channel.

Remember to subscribe to the Mac20Q Podcast on iTunes and even tell your friends about the podcast, or write a review of the podcast there, which will help promote the show. Thanks for those of you that have done that already.

You may leave a comment on the site here too. If you are on the home page of the site, click on the page for the single post and then scroll down to the form to fill in. Looking forward to hearing from you. Let me know if you would like to be featured on the show.

Bob has been a supporter of Mac20Q for some time and was telling me that he has listened right from the start of the podcast. Thanks Bob, good to have you along for the ride. He was the winner of one of our software giveaway competitions too!

A good chat was had and covered all the good stuff about being a Mac user. Bob is in the process of making a podcast about Bridge the card game. He started doing it as an audio podcast then decided to start again but with video. Makes more sense if you can see the cards, for this he has been using BoinxTV. I also have BoinxTV but it didn’t work on my iMac and when I looked at it working on the MacBook I decided that it was more for making Live TV programs with multiple cameras. I think I am better off using FinalCut Express or iMovie.

Whilst on the subject of FinalCut Express, I have still been working away to learn how to use the application and I am pleased that I am getting into it due to using Lynda .com with the excellent tutorials they have there. I also found FinalCutKing web site and there is a whole load of video tutorials on the IzzyVideo web site. All good quality stuff. I checked out YouTube also but the quality of the tutorials is much more variable and at the lower end of the scale.

I though it was funny that all the news sites have been talking about Applecare not being available to smokers because the filth that had accumulated in the machine had made it un safe for the technicians, Well smokers are disgusting creatures and deserve it if it is true. Blackened lungs and blackened insides of the computer. So there you go passive smoking is bad for computers too.

Back to Bob – he is certainly a die hard Mac user, having experience with Macs from the very early days, he did veer away during the dark days when Jobs was pushed aside but was happy to come back to the fold when Intel processors appeared in the Mac computers. Thanks to Bob for coming on Mac 20 Questions. I had a great time chatting with him and if you would like to be featured on Mac 20 Questions then why not contact me and we can make a date and time to record an interview.

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I have the Magic Mouse for a couple of weeks now and I have to say it is thumbs up all the way. I was listening to the Mac Geek Gab podcast this morning and Dave was going into huge detail about his experience with the mouse. One of thing he said was about the size of the mouse. It is not very high or thick, or tall and seems small, built for small hands. The comment was that Steve Jobs must have small hands. Well my hands are not that small but for me the mouse is a good size. I had suffered with some RSI pain for about a month prior to getting this mouse and now after using the Magic Mouse for a couple of weeks I now can shake hands with people when we meet without wincing. Definitely a big plus for me there.

Another problem that other people have reported is the tracking speed of the mouse, and perhaps needing to run a third party utility to get to work fast enough. Strangely I have not had that problem. I installed 10.6.2 before I started using the mouse, which could have been a factor with this, and the tracking has been good. I adjusted it to the speed I wanted in System Preferences and that was that. I am working with 2 screens on my iMac also and I can easily track the whole width no hassle whatsoever.

So if you have not had a chance to try one of these Magic Mouse rodents from Apple then I would say you should definitely jump in there and have a play at your local Apple Store.

FinalCut Express

I have been learning how to do things in FinalCut Express during the week and using Lynda.com to teach myself. It is taking some practice time to get my head around the roll, ripple, slip and slide tools but I am getting there. The training videos in Lynda are very good and makes the learning much quicker and in depth. Reading the PDF manual is painful in comparison. So far I have been working on one video with footage I took while at a friends’ horse riding school. I had some good shots in there and I managed to make a short movie with FinalCut Express without too much bother. I struggled with moving clips on the timeline and I still need to learn how to make the audio fade where I want it too. In this case I looked at the length of the audio required and opened up AmadeusPro to do the job for me, but it can be done in FinalCut Express.

In the Lynda training videos there are details on how to set up the preferences to work better. It seems the standard prefs are not the best for working with. If I had not got Lynda.com to work with I would never have found this out. There is always a gap it seems between the designers of software and the users, the lessons are from people that know the application inside out and that is a huge benefit. As part of my learning I have been watching the videos for Final Cut Pro also and there is a separate series that deals with LiveType, the application that deals with titling. I am quite impressed with that application.

I have noticed that there are some small differences between the Express application compared to the Pro but for the most part you can do all that you need in FinalCut Express. For instance one difference is the speed controls. I see that in Pro it is possible to have easing in and out of the speed of a clip or a selection of a clip, so that when ramping the speed you can do it with more finesse. There is no 3 way colour corrector in FinalCut Express, which I saw being used in tutorials on the FinalCut King site. So nothing major anyway and watching the tutorials for the Pro application are also helpful and not potentially confusing.

The first video I sent out of FinalCut Express is now on my channel at YouTube, if you would like to have a look,

See how you can set up active corners that will work with a modifier key so that it doesn’t just annoy you when you are trying to something in one of the active corners, like hit the Apple in the menu bar at top left.

I made this video with ScreenFlow to capture the screen and narrate, then I put it in Final Cut Express to set it up. It is really the first project I have set up in Final Cut so I was pleased that it went so well. I have been using Lynda.com to learn how to use Final Cut. It cost $25 to get Lynda for a month and I would say that with the quality of the screencasts it is well worth it. I have been doing the TrueType lessons as well as Final Cut.

I have been amazed by the capabilities of LiveType and being able to do some round trip editing between it and FinalCut Express. I have opened a Live Type section in FinalCut Express – gone in and changed it, saved it and returned to Final cut to see it updated ready for action.

Here is the Video and if you want to see in High Definition then go to the YouTube site to watch it in 1280 by 720

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today I am talking to a guy that nearly confessed to being a makeup guy, you know lipstick and blusher and all that, but did confess to being a geek. Unfortunately his wife is not a Mac person yet but he is working on her, I tell him to get out the thumbscrews. His son aged five though is a computer user with a laptop of his own.

David does have an iMac 20 inch model and is a recent switcher. He got drawn into the Mac world with iPods and moved into it with a white Macbook, he has moved on to a later model MacBook though. He is a firm believer in AppleCare. I have not had AppleCare on any of my Macs but he has got his moneys’ worth out of it.

We talk about Boxee and Plex, I don’t use those because I can’t get the best out of it because I live in Spain. I just wish I could use the BBC iPlayer, I may have to get something that will hide my IP address.

I talk about getting a satellite box from Elgato which will allow me to save things to watch later. He has a Sanyo Xacti video camcorder and loves using iMovie to make professional looking DVDs for the family.

He has his own podcast and is on episode 14 at the moment. He said the latest was going to be about Christmas presents for the Geek in your life.

David confesses to being an inbox zero type and also to having been outside the Milton Keynes Apple Store at 4am in the morning to get an iPhone. He uses Tweetie two and uses Brizzly which is a web based twitter client. There was a Twitter client in the latest MacHeist, Twitterific

Hooray I finally got my hands on Final Cut Express, Only took 2 weeks to get here from Birmingham to Spain. There is a chance that it was in the post office here for a few days because I didn’t get the note to say it was in the post office to collect. Often the post person is completely useless putting the post in the wrong box. Some of the house owners don’t check their post for months because they don’t live here – they live in Holland or Germany. Then when they do check and find a letter or whatever that is not theirs, they just dump it rather than put in the right box

Grrrr !!

Ah well I have it now just because I called to correos and asked if they had anything for me, or it would have probably sat there for a few more days or weeks. I still am happy to have saved 70 euro by buying off the Apple Store site in the UK rather than getting from the Apple Store Spain.

As soon as I had installed FinalCut Express I had to download a 180 mb  to update it to the latest. I will talk more about how it is going in a blog post and podcast.