michaelmistretta.com

Recently, I have begun to think about the world we live in and the technology that we use. Everything is moving at such an incredibly fast pace that it’s a challenge even to keep up. Between computers and consumer electronics and TVs, it’s impossible to be on the cutting edge for long. With the advent of the Internet, people all around the world are connected in ways they never could have before. I just want to take a moment to set back and look at where we are. I want to look at the State of Technology.

When I look upon our world, the first thing I see is the “tech-spec generation”. We are the generation that looks at all the technical aspects of a piece of hardware or software. We have begun to devalue elegant, simple, and beautiful products. We are too consumed with the numbers, that we are missing the true value of the technology. Risking sounding like an Apple fanboy, I’m going to bring up the MacBook Air. Look at this device - thinner than my iPod, and perfectly thought-out. It is a marvel of design. From the backlit keyboard, to the magnetic latch, to the specially designed Magsafe adapter. But people complain. “It’s underpowered.” “It doesn’t have an optical drive.” “It doesn’t have an Ethernet port.”

Underpowered? Apple fit a dual-core processor in something as thin as a pencil! The majority of the people I know only use their computers for email, web browsing, IM, and maybe video chats. They want to organize their pictures, and they want to be able to type documents. And the MacBook Air does just that. The problem is, most people think they need a super-computer. I understand that many people with specialized careers do need the power, but the average consumer doesn’t. The MacBook Air is as powerful as the PowerMac G5’s of old - the same machines that they edited movies such as “King Kong” on. Technology has moved to the place where the tech specs don’t matter anymore. Sure, the geeks will compare and analyze and talk about the minuscule 50Mhz differences, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. We have moved past the numbers to a place where it is not a matter of what machine you have, but what you do with it.
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I woke up this morning to a surprise in my inbox. Jon-Michael Deldin had written me a rather lengthy response to a blog post I had written last week on learning to code. I love getting feedback from readers, especially 1000+ word emails written at 2:00 in the morning. Jon-Michael went into extreme detail on how to begin coding, and where to learn the languages. Take a minute out of your day, and read it through. You won’t regret it.

Hi Michael,

If I were starting from scratch today, I’d learn Python. It’s clean, and it’s easy to run (open Terminal.app: Type “python”). Once you’ve learned HTML, you can get started with building a Python site using Django, TurboGears, Plone, etc. With Python, you can do incredibly useful stuff like creating the world’s longest palindrome :P. Python and other high level languages are just gateways to other languages.

For Python books, check out Dive into Python (free download) and Thinking in Python (also free) while you’re waiting for your copy of either Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional or Learning Python to arrive. For book selection, avoid any quick start guides or teach yourself something in x days. They’re terrible and often leave you with a poor introduction to a language. O’Reilly books are good; most Apress books suck, with Beginning Python being an exception; Sam’s and Peachpit books are terrible.

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The other day I was sitting in my bed just surfing the web. You know when you get to that place where you’ve done all that you’ve had to do, and you just surf? You just go wherever the tide takes you? I love that feeling. Because it is in those moments that I see things.

When I began this year, I started fresh. New blog. New Camera. New Flickr account. Everything was new. And I didn’t want to fall into the trap that so many people fall into. I didn’t want to get to a place where I dreaded blogging and taking photos. I didn’t want to forget my blog, and leave it, like countless other abandoned blogs in the blogosphere. I wanted to have a presence on the Internet. An online home.

So what did I do? I made a commitment to blog and upload a photo each day. I thought that taking part in Blog365, and writing something each day would do just that. At first it worked. But slowly, I started to become a slave to it. I felt that a blog post every day was my duty, and it quickly began to lose its appeal.

While I was sitting in my bed that one morning, I pointed my browser to ShawnBlanc.net. I’d been there before, and I’d subscribed, but I saw it differently this time. This was not just a blog. This was a window into Shawn’s life. And then it hit me. That was what I wanted. That is what I was trying to achieve. I looked at my own blog, and saw the pointless, passionless words I was writing. I realized that I would not even want to read content like this. I knew I needed a change.
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If you are using a Mac for serious video editing, you’ve most likely moved past iMovie to Final Cut. After Apple announced iMovie ‘08, which was geared towards the first-time video editor, the most viable option for any amateur editor was to upgrade to Final Cut Express for only $200. I got FCE for my birthday this year, and it is miles ahead of iMovie. Of course it has a steeper learning curve, but at the same time it has power that iMovie can’t even come close to matching.

Final Cut Express is technically the stripped-down version of it’s big brother, Final Cut Studio. Final Cut Studio at $1300 is designed for the pro editor, and includes Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Color, and Compressor. It is the one-stop suite of video editing applications that are meant for professionals. For the amateur however, all of that is overkill. Final Cut Express has almost all the features of Final Cut Pro, but comes without the rest of the applications in the suite.

Notice how I say “almost”. I’ve been searching all over the Internet for some kind of comparison of what Apple took out of Final Cut Express that is still in Pro. All I’ve found is the lack of support for some high-end video cameras, and lack of batch capturing from tape. However, that doesn’t seem like enough to differentiate the two product lines. Could FCE be Final Cut Pro without the rest of the Studio? If anyone could clear up the differences between FCE and FCP let me know. I’d be interested to see how they stack up feature-wise.

After writing about some photography tools yesterday, I decided to go out and buy a Wacom Bamboo tablet from my local camera store. While I have not used it extensively yet, I can already see that it is an amazing product. Currently, I am using it as a complete replacement for my mouse. My MX Revolution has been put aside for now, so I can test the Wacom Bamboo exclusively for a couple days. So far, I’m loving it

It is very easy to see the strengths of this over a mouse. Just opening Photoshop or ArtRage will allow you to select items and paint with such precision that would never have been possible with a mouse. At first I thought it would be difficult and clunky to navigate, however, I have found the opposite. For drawing, sketching, and handwriting this tablet shines. It has a small, portable form factor, and looks and feels great as well.

After I play around with it this week, I plan to write up a review on it’s strengths, it’s weaknesses, and what features I find myself using the most. For now, you can check out my Flickr set with some of the unboxing photos.

Photography can quickly grow from a small task, to a profession or a hobby that can require a lot of equipment, time, education, and money. I have already talked about the importance of having a tripod with you whenever you go out shooting. As I spent more time taking photos, and developed a post-processing workflow, I found three essential tools for anyone who takes photography seriously.

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I want to learn to code.

That’s right. I want to learn how to code things. Websites. Applications. Scripts. There are many different languages that I would like to code. I want to learn PHP, Ruby on Rails, AppleScript, and Objective-C. At the moment, I only know a limited amount of HTML. That is the extent of my coding knowledge. The problem is, I don’t know where to start. That is why I am asking your help. Where does one go to begin to learn coding?

Are there books or tutorials or walkthroughs that can take a beginner through the paces? Is there a certain method that you recommend? What language is the best to begin with? I really am clueless. I look at people all around me that are able to do so much through coding, and I want to learn. Where do I start?

Undoubtedly, the most debatable announcement at Macworld yesterday was the iPod Touch upgrade. Apple released free major updates to the iPhone and the AppleTV, but when it came to updating the iPod Touch, users were asked to pay $20. The upgrade for the iPod Touch would make it more like the iPhone. It would add the Maps, Mail, Weather, Stocks, and Notes applications to the iPod Touch, which originally didn’t ship with the device. However, all new iPod Touches come with the new apps pre-installed. The question is, why didn’t Apple include these apps in the iPod Touch from the beginning?

I don’t think that Apple is perfect, and I believe they made a mistake about the vision of this device from the beginning. They first envisioned the iPhone as a “phone” and the iPod Touch as an “iPod”. The iPhone was meant to include and iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator, while the iPod Touch was meant to focus music, photos, and videos like most traditional iPods had. However, when the iPhone and the iPod Touch were hacked, there was a clear message sent to Apple saying, “We want third-party apps”. I think Apple woke up and realized that these devices were not just a phone and an iPod. They were the beginnings of an entirely new computing platform.

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Today, Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld, and unveiled four new products. Some were disappointed. Others were in awe. But instead of going through each product individually, I want to look at the big picture - the overall theme of Macworld this year. Clearly, the theme this year was wireless. It was portability. It was moving away from the desktop computer as we know it.

At the beginning of this year, I predicted that we would see technology becoming more portable, as well as moving towards the living room. Desktops were to become machines only going to be used by content-creators and scientists doing high-end work. And indeed, in just the first two weeks of the year, we have seen the 8-core Mac Pros get brushed aside, for the announcement of the AppleTV 2.0 and the MacBook Air - the products that target portability and the home theater. What many considered a mediocre keynote, could possibly be the beginning of the next 5 years of technology. I want to talk about the three main themes that I observed from this keynote.

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Macworld 2008. The one day of the year that Apple fans know that they will see some new Apple-ly goodness out of Cupertino. Steve Jobs and Apple attempt to keep the upmost secrecy. But there are many rumors floating around the dark corners of the internet. Here are some of my Macworld 2008 predictions.
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Imagination. When I was a child, that used to be the catch phrase. “You can accomplish anything you put your mind to”. “Your dreams can come true”. But that was when I was a kid. Not anymore. Now things have changed.

I live in a world of people who think small. People who dream small. I live in a world of average people doing average things living average lives. No more talk about dreaming. About imagining. About thinking big. I’m living in the world of adults. The world of hopelessness. The world of averages. Reality. And I’m already sick of it.

I don’t want to be just another person in the world. I don’t want to go along with the status quo. I don’t want to become just like them. The world thinks small. They think locally - not globally. They think in thousands - not in billions. Only a few, truly understand what it’s like to think big. To think beyond themselves and their houses and their neighbourhoods. To think outside their countries and their continents. To view the world from different eyes. To think different.
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Back in beginning of 2007, a couple of my friends and I started an Internet TV station called Cunning.tv. The idea was to have a technology channel where we could cover live tech events. One event that we covered that garnered a lot of attention was the September 5th, The Beat Goes On Apple Event. We had over 13,000 viewers, and got a lot of support from the Mac community from sites like Macrumors.

We’re excited to announce that we are going to be covering the Macworld Keynote live this year. Starting at 11AM EST on January 15th, we will be doing a rumor roundup, and going into the live coverage of the keynote at 12 EST. We will also be updating live with our twitter account. If you have a phone, you can receive SMS updates of all the new releases live.

I’m pretty excited about doing the coverage, and we’d be happy to have you join in the chat over at Cunning.tv.

When you hear the phrase “social network”, what do you think of? Facebook? Myspace? Maybe Twitter? One online service that I had never thought of as a social network is Flickr - at least not until today. Today, I discovered why Flickr is so addictive and fun, and why at the core, it is a social network, although it may not seem like that on the surface.

For those of you who don’t know, Flickr is a service that allows users to upload photos to the Internet for free. But underneath, it is a whole lot more. Today I discovered the true nature and appeal of Flickr - it’s a social community. And not just a community of plain text, but of pictures and images and stories. Like most social networks or communities, Flickr works on the basis of adding friends and family members as contacts. You can comment on people’s photos, watch slideshows, and get notified when your contacts upload new photos. Flickr allows you to stay connected with your contacts, and share your life stories with them.
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Every year, I find myself looking forward to the Macheist Bundle. Macheist is an event each year where you can win free Mac shareware by completing different missions known as heists. At the end of the event, a bundle of Mac apps is put on sale for a limited time. The apps themselves would cost over $400 if purchased separately, but you can get them all in the bundle for only $49. If you completed all the heists during the event, the bundle would cost you even less - only $39.

Now the bundle is obviously not going to be all things for all people. You may already own some of the apps in the bundle, or have no use for them. But the Macheist Bundle is a great way for switchers to get some great new software for their Macs, and even for long-time users to discover some new software that they’ve never heard of before. I bought the bundle as soon as it was released, and have receipt #67 to prove it. Not all of the apps in the bundle are appealing or necessarily useful to me, however, most of them are surprisingly useful, fun, and have found a home in on my Mac.

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One frustration that I’ve always had with cameras when shooting in low light conditions is camera shake. The problem is that in low light, the shutter must open for a long amount of time in order for the image to be exposed properly. The general rule of thumb, is that you shouldn’t shoot with a shutter speed lower than the inverse of your focal length. For example, if you are shooting with a 50mm lens - which I do quite often - you shouldn’t shoot freehand with a shutter speed lower than 1/60th of a second. When the shutter speeds get down to 1/20 and 1/5 of a second, the human hand cannot hold steady long enough, and your images will be blurry.

Now if you know a little bit about cameras, you will realize that opening the Aperture (which will result in a lower f/stop and narrower depth of field) and raising the ISO (which will result in noisier images) all help to expose the image properly, and reduce the need for longer shutter speeds. The problem is, lenses with very wide Apertures are very expensive, and cannot be used on a point-and-shoot camera. I read blog post after blog post touting the importance of tripods in photography, however, my main concern was the hefty pricetag. A tripod can easily add up to $200+, and was not a necessary investment in my mind.

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