Jeff Carlson (.Thought)

New Article: Five Cool and Useful Techniques for iMovie '09 and iDVD

Peachpit.com has posted an article I wrote about iMovie and iDVD: Five Cool and Useful Techniques for iMovie '09 and iDVD.

And remember: You can download the iDVD portion of my book for free here (PDF).

My Seattle Times Review of the iPhone 3GS

My review of the iPhone 3GS is now live on the Seattle Times Web site, a day ahead of when it's scheduled to appear in print. I like the new iPhone quite a bit; Apple sent me a review unit, but I had also ordered one the day it was announced.

I skipped the iPhone 3G last year because the iPhone OS 2.0 software provided all the improvement I needed; I did buy one for my wife (see my TidBITS article "iPhone 3G: On the Line in Seattle"). But partially due to the fact that I write about Apple and technology for a living, and due to new features like the compass (which many people will tell you I need) and the improved speed overall, I decided it was time to move up.

Here's a link to some of the photos and videos I took to demonstrate the camera: iPhone 3GS Review Seattle Times. (I also discovered a bug: when uploading a photo or video to MobileMe, the first album it lists can't be deselected; so in my case, anything I upload goes into a password-protected album I set up for a photo client, which I then have to move to the album I want using the MobileMe Gallery interface on my computer.)

How Not to Write Article Leads

Macworld Editor Jason Snell (@jsnell) posted a quick series of "Editor's laments" today on Twitter that are a great reference for how not to start articles. If you've had any journalistic training, you should know these and avoid them, but I still see them all the time. (And as Jason posted them, I tried to think if I'd broken any of them. I'm sure have at one point or another, especially #3.)

I have more trouble writing leads (or "ledes" if you prefer that spelling) than any other part of an article; I trip up on writing conclusions, too. I'll typically run through a dozen or more leads when I write, sometimes rewriting the same ones over just to get my brain into gear. This always frustrating process is part of what inspired me to come up with TextRedactor for this year's TidBITS April Fools issue (see "FrownOnMyMac Fills New Mac Niches," 2009-04-01).

So, as you're struggling to compose that first paragraph of your next article, keep these "don'ts" in mind:

Editor's Lament #1: The dictionary definition lede. "Webster's defines baseball as a sport played with four bases and a ball..."

Editor's Lament #2: The "under a rock" lede. "Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the French Open final is Sunday."

Editor's Lament #3: The ol' if-then. "If you're a fan of pencils, then you'll love Virtual Pencil from the app store!"

Editor's Lament #4: The common thing that isn't. "We all know that when you're trapped in a bathysphere, you'll need to kill some time!"

Recover Erased Photos from a Memory Card

Have you done the bone-headed thing I did recently? I erased a memory card in my camera, and then realized I hadn't transferred the latest photos to my computer. Fortunately, they're easy to recover as I write about in an article at TidBITS: Recover Erased Photos from a Memory Card (2009-06-03).

I look at four programs that can get the job done, each with their pluses and minuses: Data Rescue II, Klix, Photo Recovery for Mac, and Image Rescue.

Download the iDVD portion of my book for FREE!

Click here to download the PDF (6.2 MB).

When Apple revealed iMovie '09 at Macworld Expo this year, I was thrilled to see so many new features compared to iMovie '08. (You can read my Macworld review of iMovie '09 here.) But that also created a problem: my publisher needed the book to stay within a certain page count to avoid increasing the price of the book—remember, this is a full-color book printed on good paper. I knew I couldn't fit everything into the book.

As it turns out, Apple made my job easier. iDVD wasn't updated at all, so I made the decision to do something unusual: I removed the iDVD section from the printed book and am offering it as a free download to anyone who wants it. That freed up the pages needed to cover all of iMovie's new and changed features (and, in fact, the book's retail price is lower than the previous edition, now $24.99 compared to $29.99!).

Don't worry, the printed book still contains all the essential information you need to use iDVD. I added an iDVD Overview chapter that walks you through the steps of creating an iDVD project, and the "Archiving, Encoding, and Burning" chapter is there, too.

So what's in the free download? More than 70 pages of all the ins and outs of creating and editing an iDVD project, including:

• Customizing themes
• Customizing individual elements such as buttons, backgrounds, and text
• Creating DVD slideshows
• Using the Map, drop zones, OneStep DVD, Magic iDVD, and more.
• A full index to the addendum, to make it easy to find the information you're looking for.

If you don't own the print book, this free iDVD addendum will give you an idea of what the book is like: easy, step-by-step walkthroughs of how to do everything, with lots of color screenshots.

The PDF also includes a deal in the back to buy the book at 35% off when you order directly from Peachpit Press!

Pixar or Not? Flowchart

Inspired by this great Pixar vs. Dreamworks illustration, I've created a flowchart that sums up Pixar versus all other makers of computer-generated movies:

Sampling Starbucks VIA, Instant Coffee

Several years ago, I was in Humboldt, Tennessee to attend a funeral. At the same time, I was at the end of a big editing project and needed to stay up late working in the hotel. The problem? This tiny hotel had no coffee in the room, and at 11 p.m. or so there was none to be had elsewhere. My wife an I embarked on a trip to find some, and because Humboldt isn't large, the best we could come up with was a large styrofoam cup of extremely old and burned java at a 7-11.

Yes, I was that desperate.

I'm reminded of that night not because of the quality of the coffee, but of its scarcity. I'm sitting in my office drinking what at the time was even lower on the list of acceptable caffeinated beverages: instant coffee. Only now, the coffee isn't bad at all. It's a packet of the new Starbucks VIA.

I'm drinking the "extra bold" Italian Roast, which is indeed bold but still smooth. It doesn't have that sharp, slightly chemical twang that I remember from the instant coffee my father would make as I was growing up. (He's since reformed.) In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the VIA's taste does come close to the cup of Starbucks drip coffee I started with this morning. Not as fresh-brewed, but not stale either, which is important.

That's also a downside: VIA shares the same over-roasted, slightly burned (but nothing like that pot in the 7-11) flavor that is characteristic of Starbucks. If you're not a fan of Starbucks in general, you won't be swayed by VIA. I find Starbucks to be tolerable, and that's largely because I can walk the same distance from my office in Fremont and get vastly better coffee and espresso at e.t.g.; a few more blocks of zombie shuffling in the morning offers a little bit of exercise and the delights of the Fremont Coffee Company and its across-the-street neighbor Caffe Ladro.

But I'd have no qualms about buying several packs of VIA to carry with me while traveling, or even to have while camping. Compared to most hotel-supplied coffee (even the packets you brew, which aren't instant but often taste like it), VIA is an improvement. It's decent enough that I'm now curious to try the medium-body Colombia blend.

VIA is currently available in Seattle and Chicago.

My Photoshop Elements 7 Book On Sale

I just received word from Peachpit that my Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide is part of a new VQS promotion that Barnes & Noble is running this month. It's available for 30 percent off ($20.99) in physical bookstores (look for a "stepladder" display), or $18.89 online if you're a Barnes & Noble member. In the meantime, I'm hard at work on my iMovie '09 book!

Love Love Love this Photo

Contemplating the Trees, by Kim Carlson

Maybe Bush Did Do One Thing Right

One of the more popular of my blog entries is "What Has Bush Done Right?" from 2004. I spent the entire slog through Bush's second term asking myself that question, and honestly never really came up with a good answer. Bush was a bad leader, an idealogue, and is, I believe, directly responsible for a lot of the mess we're in now. However, an article yesterday gave me a sliver - an extremely tiny sliver - of respect for the man: "Aides Say No Pardon for Libby Irked Cheney (New York Times).

Dick Cheney spent his final days as vice president making a furious last-ditch effort to secure a pardon for his onetime chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., leaving him at odds with former President George W. Bush on a matter of personal loyalty as the two moved on to private life, according to several former officials. The officials said Tuesday that Mr. Cheney’s lobbying campaign on behalf of Mr. Libby was far more intense than previously known, with the vice president bringing it up in countless one-on-one conversations with the president. They said Mr. Bush was unyielding to the end, already frustrated by a deluge of last-minute pardon requests from other quarters.

For a quick reminder, here's what "Scooter" Libby was convicted of:

Mr. Libby was convicted of four felony counts in March 2007 for obstruction, perjury and lying to investigators looking into the leak of Valerie Wilson’s employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence, wiping out the 30-month prison term imposed by a judge.

Since Bush removed the prison time, this isn't a big win for him, but I think everybody assumed that Libby would get a pardon. Cheney and others think Libby was railroaded, that he was made a scapegoat. But Libby's case exemplifies the problem of the Bush Administration, and Cheney in particular: there was no respect for the rule of law. Libby was tried, found guilty, and sentenced using the laws that Bush and Cheney promised to uphold. Libby broke the law, and his actions endangered America's safety. But Cheney thinks laws apply only when they're convenient. The article goes on to quote insiders who tone down the idea that Bush and Cheney are somehow fueding over this, but then wraps up with what I think is a good insight:

Kenneth L. Adelman, another Bush supporter turned critic who has called for a pardon for Mr. Libby, said he believed “Bush got it in his head that he did not want to leave office like Clinton did,” a reference to the disputed pardons that President Bill Clinton issued in his final hours.

For eight years, Bush and the Republicans did so much to distance themselves from Clinton, when they never needed to. I think Bill's ghost hung over them at all times, which is a nice image. So it's entirely possible that Bush did something right without meaning to. I'll take it. Goodbye Dubya, and an especially hearty goodbye to perpetually Cranky (and Paranoid?) Cheney. May you never be heard from again, unless it's in the context of legal action against you.