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Archive | June, 2010

Compression Depression & the iPhone 4 (Updated)

By Kent on June 27, 2010 in Tech

Yes, I stood in line for hours. Yes, I’m a nerd. And yes, the new iPhone is awesome.

One of the biggest reasons I was willing to get up at 5:00 a.m. and trek off to the dreaded mall is the new camera features. Front and back, flash and high definition.

Which is all great. In theory. Unfortunately, I have run into two hurdles that are all but killing my iPhone video buzz.

Buzz Kill 1: Too Much Compression.

Videos shot on the new iPhone look great, on the iPhone. And it simply could not be easier to upload video from the iPhone to YouTube. The big, massive, honking problem is that somewhere between the iPhone and YouTube the video is compressed so much, it looks like something from the nineties. As in the 1890’s.

Here’s the way my test clip looks on YouTube.

That really couldn’t look any worse. In fact, I’d rather close my eyes than look at that.

So maybe we can improve things a little by working with the native video file. Here’s the way the same video looks on Vimeo, after I manually copied it to my computer and uploaded it.

Swimming from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

That’s a lot better, although it still looks a little grainy when you view it full screen (see the little icon with four arrows). Why in this age of infinite cloud storage and broadband do we compress video at all?

There’s no excuse for over-compressing it the way the YouTube process does. In a few years we’re all going to have the same dilemma we faced after initially ripping our CDs at 128 Kbps. Those who forget history, and all that.

All of this makes the iPhone largely unworkable as a camcorder substitute, particularly if you aren’t near your computer, because. . .

Buzz Kill 2: No Easy Way to Move Videos

Even if I was willing to forego the convenience of an immediate upload and work with the native video files, there is no way to easily move video files off of the iPhone when you aren’t in front of your computer. Sure, Dropbox lets you upload video files easily, but they are over-compressed before they are uploaded, even if you select the highest quality in the app settings.

32GB is a lot of space when you’re near home, but not when you go on a vacation. And plan to take your iPad in lieu of a laptop.

There may be a workaround for this series of problems, but I haven’t found it yet.

I’m still mourning my buzz.

Update:

It looks like the inability to upload videos in HD over the air is a known and much bemoaned feature deficit with the new iPhones. The man himself says we’ll be able to upload in HD “in the future.”

A commenter on the post above says that the Pixelpipe app will upload HD video to YouTube now, but I don’t have that app so I can’t verify it.

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The Number One Reason Why I Don’t Care if Apple Kills Flash

By Kent on June 22, 2010 in Tech

Comments { 1 }

Gangstagrass, Justified, and Remapping My Musical Genome

By Kent on June 20, 2010 in Music

Every now and then people do something so amazing, but so obvious in hindsight that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it first. The excellent Post Secret and Will Ferrell’s hilarious takes on drunk history being two examples.

When I watched the first episode of Justified, probably the second-best show on television (behind only True Blood), I was blown away by Long Hard Times to Come, the bluegrass/hip-hop mashup of a theme song. It was revolutionary, it was obvious, and it rocked.

Yesterday, I got an email from Gangstagrass, the group that does the Justified song, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their record and/or adding some songs to our radio station playlists, and including a couple more awesome bluegrass/hip-hop songs. The Justified song was not a fluke- these are mighty fine songs. In fact, they are genre-creating songs, at least for me.

I’ve always loved bluegrass. I thought my hip-hop era started with De La Soul and ended when Flavor Flav took to reality-TV, but maybe not. Gangstagrass is a musical Reece’s Cup, that makes both elements sound better.

Here’s the bottom line. I get a lot of requests to review records, but none of them so far have been as musically paradigm-shifting as Gangstagrass’s aptly titled debut, Lightning on the Stings, Thunder on the Mic (purchase @ Amazon). This is some ear-bending, genre-changing goodness.

Gangstagrass is a collaboration between Rench, a singer, songwriter and producer who has previously combined elements of honky-tonk, hip-hop, and trip-hop music (I am going to explore his other stuff via Amazon), rapper T.O.N.E.-z, who is featured on the Justified song, and some smoking bluegrass players.

So sit back on this Sunday afternoon and dig this little bluegrass, hip-hop, gospel gem.

Gangstagrass- Put Your Hands Up High.

I’m completely serious when I say that this record has single-handedly changed my musical genome. This is really good stuff. As a matter of fact, I bought the entire record from Amazon, burned it to a CD and put in in my truck, where it will reign supreme for the foreseeable future. Hell, it’s 98 degrees out there and I’m going to have to roll with the windows down, just so I can scare a few soccer moms.

Go buy this record. Roll the window down. Play it loud.

I am.

Comments { 7 }

Backing Up and Upgrading Your WordPress Installation

By Kent on June 19, 2010 in Tech

This post has multi-media content. Click here before proceeding (purchase this classic De La Soul record @ Amazon).

This is a new installment of my The WordPress Process series, documenting my forced march from the comfort of Blogger to the uncharted territories of WordPress. Parts 1 & 2 are here, Part 3 is here, Part 4 is here, Part 5 is here, and Part 6 is here.

As everyone knows, WordPress 3.0 was released this week. This morning, I upgraded my WordPress installation (which uses Woothemes’ excellent Canvas theme), easily and without a hitch. Here’s how I did it.

First, backup your blog. There are about a million ways to do this. Most ways are free and hard. So I went with not free and very easy: I paid $45.00 for Backup Buddy. Backup Buddy looks impressive, and more importantly, my pals over at WordPress Tavern really like it. I can confirm that installation and activation is a breeze and a full backup takes just a few minutes, even using the slower compatibility mode. Obviously, you never really know if a backup system works until you have to restore lost content, but Backup Buddy looks like a screaming bargain at $45.00. The installation, activation and backup process could not be any easier.

After that, upgrading was a simple as clicking the “Update Automatically” button on the WordPress Dashboard.

Wpveda has a good walk-through.

Note that the WordPress upgrade takes a little while. So don’t panic if the screen remains blank for a while. That is normal.

All in all, it took about a half hour to backup and upgrade my WordPress installation. So far, it works great.

Later I’ll cover the new features. I’ll also try to answer any questions you have about the process in the Comments.

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Tech for Grownups: The Blog That Will Make You a Windows Expert

By Kent on June 6, 2010 in Tech

Well, along with Newsome.Org of course. . .

Is Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows. No, not widows, grandma. That’s eHarmony. We’re talking about Windows. As in tech. As in that operating system that runs the computer you- and I- wish you knew how to use better.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people, many of whom still view the wheel as a mind-boggling and somewhat dangerous advance in technology, how much easier their lives would be if they learned just a little bit about their computers. As a result, I spend a fair amount of time looking for other people who can explain that for me.

If I was an alien, well, I’d go straight to Arizona and make all of those xenophobes watch this episode of South Park over and over. But if I was the sort of alien with a flying saucer, I’d kidnap Paul and my buddy Ed Bott and conduct other-worldly experiments on them by making them teach all of my relatives how to use their computers.

No, Gigi, not Bowser – that’s a Mario Kart character. Browser. As in to browse. No Sharon, your identity won’t be stolen the second you click on that little blue e. That sort of thing.

Then I’d have a lot more free time to play Words With Friends on my game-changing iPad.

Anyway, Paul’s site is a virtual classroom for everything Windows. In addition to a ton of very informative posts, he answers reader questions once a week.

“Dear Paul, I went on the internet yesterday and today my throat hurts. Do I need to update my anti-virus program? If so, should I use Google or Duncan Hines? Love, Aunt Anne.”

Paul focuses a lot on Windows, but his site covers all sorts of tech. It’s a must read for everyone, especially those who rely on me for tech support.