Dec17
Category Archives: News
Dec14
iPad Orchestra Live Christmas Concert
Video of live performance by North Point Community Church’s iBand: Carol of the Bells, Rockin’ Around Christmas Tree, Feliz Navidad. 
Apps used inlude: SoundGrid ($2.99, Universal), NLog Free Synth (Free, iPhone), Melody Bell ($0.99, iPhone), Guitarist ($3.99, iPhone), iGOG ($2.99, iPhone), Bassist ($2.99, iPhone), Pocket Organ ($2.99, Universal), Saxophone Musicofx ($0.99, iPhone) , Percussions ($1.99, iPhone), Bebot ($1.99, Universal), Pianist ($3.99, iPhone) and I Am T-Pain ($0.99, iPhone).
If you like this, I would be grateful if you click the Like button. Merry Christmas!
Dec13
Remove Ping from iTunes 10.1
To defeat Ping and remove it from your left column:
Edit > Preferences > General tab, Sources: uncheck Ping.
Parental Control Tab > Disable: CHECK box to disable Ping
There is another setting where you uncheck “let others know what I bought using Ping” I think it was in the Apple Store interface. Did you find it?
Dec13
Apple Care – What I learned
Even though iTunes worked fine the day before when all I had was a tiny Shuffle, plugging in my new iPad it plunged me into a roller coaster ride that was so disorienting that I actually complimented Bill Gates before regaining my balance.
My big honkin’ desktop PC recognized the iPad promptly, but iTunes demanded an upgrade from 9.1 to 10.1. I complied while the iPad was still plugged in. I had to close iTunes and Safari partway through the software upgrade. Next time, I will unplug and close everything before upgrading because I learned that iTunes copies everything from the external Apple device to the PC, uses the PC to upgrade all the software, then re-installs it on the device. Lots can go wrong.
iTunes 10.1 kept crashing and removed the new $10 app I had just installed on the iPad the day before in the Apple store. Here’s what finally worked.
With no devices attached, open iTunes. Edit > Preferences > Devices. CHECK THE TOP BOX Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically. Notice the time and date of the last backup. Never restore from a corrupted backup, that is, something with time unknown or some other odd notation.
Next, plug in the device and MANUALLY transfer purchases from the device to iTunes. File > Transfer purchases. Now Sync the device to iTunes by clicking on the device name in the left column clicking the Sync button in the main frame on the right. After successfully syncing the current condition, only then do you ADD new material.
Adding photos: create separate iPad folders so that your original photo files cannot be seen or corrupted by iTunes. Keep each folder’s total below 40mb. If the transfer is balky, try smaller transfers. Small batches of photos on the iPad still can be accessed for an “all photos” slideshow.
Other notes Edit > Preferences > Advanced Tab > Keep iTunes Media folder organized
What are your iPad tips?
Dec12
OMG! Ten Hours on the iPad
At 8 am Sunday morning, Howard and I went to Best Buy to get a wireless router. I had spent a couple of hours yesterday researching what we needed.
We set it up, that took till about 10, then he went to the airport and I tried to transfer photos to start a vacation slideshow.
Itunes, which worked perfectly yesterday, required and update, then crashed repeatedly. I rebooted, restarted itunes, and it ATE the keynote application I paid for and downloaded yesterday.
Enraged and frustrated, I drove back to the Apple store and found the guy who downloaded it with me. He got it reinstalled but could not help me with crashing iTunes or failed photo transfer. He gave me the phone number for Apple care.
I had the guy on the line for 90 minutes. He gave up, too, after I uninstalled and re-installed iTunes and 5 other Apple programs. But I didn’t give up. Just a few more hours of work and I finally got 17 photos transferred. The problem was that the transfer file size I was attempting was too large. They never even asked the question.
Neither of the Apple guys have an iPad. They are both waiting for the new one.
This model came out last April. My prediction is that the new one will come out a year later, in time for graduation gifts. Or maybe even the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas January 6, just a few weeks away..
Howard was stunned at the beauty of the slideshow. I am glad to be able to write an Email even though I turned off my big computer at 6 pm, exhausted.
I do love it. I see now that it is not just the elegant hardware, it is also the apps. The Android apps do not really compare. Thanks to my brothers and sisters, nephew and niece for making this possible.
Nov24
The Two Great Classes of Society
Thanksgiving Day 1860 - Two Great Classes of Society
Click on the image above to see Winslow Homer’s cover for Harper’s Weekly for December 1, 1860.
According to the New York Times, in the left panel, “two overdressed, supercilious socialites peer through opera glasses from an ornate theater box.” In the right panel, “a boy scampers home to his widowed mother and invalid sister clutching a loaf of bread, possibly ill-gotten.”
The New York Times article describes what was going on around Thanksgiving, 1860:
As national disunion loomed that Thanksgiving, so did hunger and misery for many Americans. Still rickety from the depression of 1857, the stock market had begun to collapse almost immediately after Abraham Lincoln’s election; Wall Street worried that debts owed by Southern planters – many of them mortgaged up to their eyebrows – would become uncollectable. Northern textile mills, fearing a disruption in cotton shipments from the South, began laying off workers by the thousands.
I think we are moving back to a two-class society as depicted above. A few days ago I saw the movie “Inside Job” which brilliantly outlined how this recession is making the rich richer and the poor poorer (NYTimes review for Inside Job). Even more troubling, this storm surge which erodes the middle class is not going to stop. Nothing has changed except the rich are even richer this year than the 2008 financial meltdown.
I think we are moving back towards feudalism. An upper class of rich, educated, powerful nobility, and a lower class of workers without much education or political leverage; wage slaves living from paycheck to paycheck. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations and the wealthy can contribute as much money as they want to elections, without revealing their names or intentions, I realize that we the voters have done it to ourselves.
Do you think that the middle class is being eradicated by the financial system?
Sep28
Whole Foods Triggers Grocery Wars
Whole Foods just opened in our neighborhood, after being “on hold” for more than a year due to the economic downturn. The food ranges from glamorous to near-erotic. Prices are high. I have to unload my own cart. It is difficult to see what is being rung up.
Shopping at Whole Foods makes me feel slightly disloyal to my regular grocery store, Raley’s. Raley’s manages the shopping cart at the checkout stand. It seems so much more ergonomic and efficient. It is easy to read the checker’s screen, and the information is also available on the credit card screen. I like that they don’t charge extra for postage stamps. I like their prices and the quality of their conventional produce. I the low-turnover in personnel. They handle bananas better than anyone.
Will I be seduced away by the glamor of Whole Foods?
Jul22
Is TiVo Right For You?
A friend just received a big, honkin’ flat-screen TV as a gift, and she asked me if TiVo was right for her. She describes herself as a “software person,” so I explained that the the basic model is
TV > computer with remote control > Internet.
Everything else is software.
Tivo is a computer with a remote control. It accesses Tivo and NetFlix, and maybe some other things. Roku is a computer with a remote control. It accesses NetFlix and Amazon, and maybe some other things.
A laptop is a computer WITHOUT a remote control. It accesses the Internet. It can play YouTube, Hulu.com, ABC.com, CBS.com, USAnetwork.com, TV.com and so on. If you can connect it to your TV, you can play that stuff on your TV. It DOES NOT access Tivo, so you can’t get your computer to record first run TV easily. (It can be done, but it’s a hassle.) And you may not want to fill up your hard drive with that stuff.
A laptop DOES have a DVD player. You can play DVDs using your laptop if you connect it to your TV.
Tivo is not a laptop. It is hardware (a hard drive and a remote control) and software. The software allows Tivo to know all the programs on TV that are available to you, and to record (a) the ones you select and (b) the ones Tivo recommends for you. Tivo does the same thing with TV that Netflix does with movies. It tries to figure out what you will like, then it records it for you.
The big question is: what do you want? I want to watch exactly what I want, when I want. Tivo records TV when it airs (remember, I go to bed early) and I play it back when I want entertainment (7 p.m.). For movies, I get ordinary DVD’s from Blockbuster or the library. And I go to movie theaters like the Roxy for independent movies, and the Rialto for major studio big budget releases.
If you want something different, you may want a different setup. I love broadcast TV. Some people only like movies. Some people hate going to the movie theater, they want everything in their living room. What do you want to see on this big honkin’ TV?
Jul19
Movie Rave: Inception
On Saturday I went to see “Inception” on the biggest screen in Santa Rosa. On Sunday I went back to see it again. As the NYTimes says, it lives up to its hype. If you liked The Matrix and The Bourne Identity, you will like Inception. If you haven’t seen it, you might want to stop reading here.
The NYTimes considered it a heist movie “one last big job,” but it is also a psychological thriller. When a wife commits suicide, the widower is burdened with guilt. The projection of his guilt invades his dreams and kills people there. But this team works in dreamspace. The projection sabotages the widower, just as guilt sabotages a life.
I thought the casting was good, but I would have made one change. As much as I loved Ellen Page in “Juno,” and I suspect that they need a very small woman to make Leonardo DiCaprio look tall, I think a better choice for Ariadne would have been Anna Kendrick from “Up in the Air” and “Twilight Saga.” The tightly-wound Anna would be an interesting counterpoint to the elegant, troubled Marion Cotillard.
I predict that this is the first of a trilogy from the immensely talented Christopher Nolan. I think the final shot of the spinning totem will be the opener of the second installment. The totem will topple and stop, reassuring us we are in normal reality. The kids will be slightly older, and Tom Cobb will learn just what a bad idea this inception was. Saito wants the energy company broken up because he cannot compete with their new system. The vertically-integrated power company that Maurice Fischer built has developed a breakthrough technology that can save the planet from global warming with cheap, plentiful, non-polluting energy.
But if Fischer’s company is broken up, the economies of scale are lost and the investment in the new technology becomes unviable. Saito holds on to his market share and the planet just gets hotter and dirtier. Cobb must undo the idea they so carefully planted to save the planet. Can he “unplant” the suicidal ideal in his wife’s mind, too? Is he falling in love with Ariadne? He can’t have both, which one will he give up?
And how is Robert Fischer, Jr. the son of Maurice? How can he be a junior if his father’s name is Maurice? Does he think that “Uncle Pete” Browning betrayed him, or betrayed his father? Has the power of attorney been appropriately transferred? There is a scene in the first movie that indicates that the legal matters of transition and succession in the Fischer corporation have not been completely taken care of.
I am very pleased to see that this movie had a great opening weekend. I look forward to seeing what Christopher Nolan has in store for us next.
Jul14
Disappointed with Fox’s “The Good Guys”
This is the new Fox comedy by Matt Nix who created one of my favorite dramas, “Burn Notice” on USA. I had great hopes for it and it is silly without being stupid, but I find myself losing interest. I think too much of Bradley Whitford’s intelligence seeps out. Let me explain.
Johnny Depp’s reckless pirate is said to be modeled on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. There is an untethered quality to his performance. Bradley Whitford seems to play Dan Stark with a tongue-in-cheek quality that undercuts the show’s premise of “unearned confidence” as showcased in the movie “Talladega Nights.” He needs to play it more as Lt. Col. Oliver North; brilliant, effective, amoral, ruthless, charming and irresistible. A loose cannon who can get the most astonishing things done. Ollie North was so charming that the ACLU got his felony convictions vacated, even through many Americans thought he was a traitorous drug smuggler and others considered him a national hero who saved Central America from communism.
It must be very hard to play a character with the emotional abandonment of Johnny Depp’s pirate.