Results tagged “digital media” from Missing Manuals Blog

There are a ton of great apps out there designed to snag, convert and shovel big heaps of video onto your iPod and iPhone, and I talked about a few of them at this year's Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. Among my absolute favorites:

QuickTime Pro. Apple's own multimedia powerhouse lets you convert a ton of different formats into iPod-ready video with just a simple menu command. It's only $30 and well worth the price.

TubeSock. This nifty little app converts your favorite YouTube videos from the Web and save 'em right into iTunes, where they're only a sync away from going with you on your iPod or iPhone. There's a free demo version that converts the first 30 seconds of video, and the full version is only $15 -- much less than a single movie ticket and a small stale popcorn in most cities.

Handbrake. If you've got a DVD movie from your collection that you'd like to take along on your iPod or iPhone, this little open-source wonder will convert it into a Pod-friendly file quite nicely.

And even though I talked about these in the O'Reilly booth at *MAC*world, all of these programs have Windows versions as well.

Problem:
You're prepared to be stuck at the $&$^%#%@ airport for nine &#&$%%#^ hours when you remember you have a Netflix account and you can use your broadband wireless card to watch some movies to kill the time. However, you are on a Mac and you are told the following:

"Your system is not compatible with watching instantly "Your computer's operating system is not compatible with watching instantly. "Try again from a computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista."

The Answer:
Steve Jobs and Slingbox (The technology that Netflix is powered by) need to work out a solution to enable the growing marketshare of users who are switching to Macs to be able to get full value from services like Netflix's Watch it Now and the live streaming feature on DirecTV's SuperFan NFL package. Perhaps there could be a conversion through Flip for Mac that could accommodate this?

"Life is analog and the world is digital."

This is a phrase I often heard my previous boss, Andrew Nachison, say.

I have had many successes and failures in attempting to bridge the two. I found one way that I could chalk up another victory, if only Google would help me out.

I'd like there to be a way to list my contacts' birthdays and other significant dates (anniversary, parole dates etc.) into my Gmail address book, and have it automatically sync up with a layer in my Google calendar.

Please make this happen. I'm begging you Google. I want desperately to be the guy who remembers special dates in advance and not the guy who apologizes for forgetting.

Doesn't running Windows on my Mac mean that I'll be exposed to the nightmare world of viruses and spyware, just like the rest of the Windows world?

As a matter of fact, yes.

If you install Windows on your Mac, you should also install Windows antivirus and antispyware software to protect that half of the computer. The world is crawling with commercial programs that do the job; ironically, one of the easiest and least expensive is Microsoft's OneCare Live ($50 a year for up to three computers). There are also lots of free programs, like Microsoft Defender for spyware, and either AVG Antivirus (www.free.grisoft.com) or Avast Antivirus (www.avast.com) for viruses.

The good news is even if your Windows installation gets infected, the Mac side of your computer is unaffected. Just as Mac OS X can't run Windows-only software like, say, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, so it can't run Windows virus software.

Some people, therefore, run Windows naked--without virus protection (especially when using Windows-in-a-window programs like Parallels and VMWare Fusion). If a virus does strike, no big deal; they drag the infected copy of Windows to the Trash and just install a fresh one!

How easy is it to read long passages of text on the iPhone? That's a question I've been wanting to answer since the Holy Phone was announced this past January. I've long had a reading-related fantasy (trust me, this won't get dirty) that I could use the iPhone as a kind of auxiliary monitor. Stuff a few software-related how-to doc's onto the phone, and then perform the actual tasks on my main monitor. I don't know about you, but when it comes to reading documentation online I always end up printing it out since I can't stand switching back and forth between, say, Photoshop Elements and the info onscreen that's telling me how to use the histogram. Once I got my hands on an actual iPhone and saw firsthand the jaw-dropping clarity of its 3.5 inch 160 dpi screen, I couldn't wait to run a few tests.

I took a look at three different kinds of content: a book from O'Reilly's Safari online reading library, a Web site whose layout appeared especially readable on the iPhone, and a PDF.

The verdict? iPhone-friendly Web sites are the clear winner. Safari books take second place and are readable for about 10 pages or so at time. PDFs are as lame as ever on the small screen. Pictures, comments, and some suggestions after the jump.