No, I don't have a Video iPod. That doesn't mean I can't convert stuff to play on it! Here's one of the most comprehensive online guides on how to do it whether you want H.264 or MPEG-4.

The Last iPod Video Guide You’ll Ever Need

-steve

Steve Jobs gave his keynote speech at Macworld yesterday. You can view the whole thing here. Among the things he introduced were the cool new iMac and MacBook Pro both with duel Intel processors. My only gripe is that Apple makes such good computers, my current Mac (almost 4 years old) works just fine, and I can't really see buying one of those 20" iMacs just yet. Damn you Apple, you make the computers too good! Well, there's always next year!

-steve

OK, so I bought myself one toy while doing some Xmas shopping. Found the Griffin radioSHARK super cheap. In the past I had used my old boombox and some software to record off the radio. Not the greatest, but it worked... sort of. Now with this, it's all hooked up through USB. No power cables needed. Tried it out this morning. It automatically recorded the KROQ morning show and dumped it right into iTunes. Sweet!

So now if Jerry ever gets a gig on a local L.A. radio station, I'm all set to record it! So when you comin' back Jerry?

-steve

Yup, the Video iPod is here.

It's pretty cool. Of course, it makes my 3 month old iPod outdated! It's ok. The video capabilities are brand new on this iPod. Only three hours of battery life while watching videos. I'm sure they will get even better and hard drive space will get even bigger on future models. I still wonder why they didn't go with a widescreen? As of today. Apple is now selling music videos on the iTunes Music Store for $1.99 with DRM. I wonder how many people realized that before today you could get all of the videos Apple posted for free with no DRM? Interesting. Now what I would like to see is a preset in iMovie to export the proper format for the new Video iPod. That will make it easy to create your own content for it.

With all this cool stuff coming out, looks like there's no stopping Apple now!

- steve

*Update - Apple has released Quicktime 7.0.3 with built-in preset to export MPEG4 files ready for the new Video iPods! Sweet!
*Update 2 - NO FIREWIRE support for the Video iPod!

Well Apple released the latest iPod on Wednesday. The iPod nano. Probably the coolest looking and coolest form factor yet for the iPod. Without a doubt, this thing will be a hit. There are a few caveats you should know about though...

• There is no firewire support with the iPod nano. You can still charge your nano through firewire, but you can only connect and sync it through USB 2.0. Not such a good thing if you own an older Mac without USB 2.0.

• There is no TV out support on the iPod nano. Although you can now store pictures on the nano, you can only view them on the nano's color screen. The only iPod with video out is the regular 20GB and 60 GB iPod with the color screen (formally known as the iPod photo).

• The headphone jack is located on the bottom on the iPod nano. Not a huge deal, but it means that none of the previous iPod peripherals will work with the nano. Not a big deal if you are new to the iPod. However, people who have invested in a previous iPod and peripherals might balk at spending more money.

If all of these items don't ruffle your feathers, by all means pick one up! It's a slick little toy!

- steve

Yup, yesterday it all came true. Apple is switching to Intel processors over the next 2 years. No matter, it's Mac OS X that's the jewel. As long as I can keep running that, I don't care what chip is inside the box! Lots of naysayers out there. But having seen this all before with NeXTSTEP and Openstep, it should be a pretty smooth transition. I think my current Mac should be able to last through the transition, and I'll need a new one right around the time the transition is complete. Hope there's some cool stuff out by then! For more info about the big switch check out Steve Jobs Keynote at the WWDC 2005. Now, Hoops and I will have to work on getting Cambridge to compile Animo for Mac OS X Intel! Heheheheheh....

-steve

OK, So I installed Mac OS 10.4 Tiger the other day. It's been two days now. I'm not all that impressed. The way I normally do searches for stuff on my own computer is by name anyway, so Spotlight really has not impressed me. I could have done without it. Dashboard = eye candy. Sure it looks cool, but how useful is it really? I found one really useful widget. It's called Marquee and gives you your local movie times in what looks just like a theater marquee! OK, so I like that one. You can do the same thing with ol' Sherlock, but it's really slow and a pain to use these days. Apple has let it fall by the wayside. Hoops and I still haven't been able to get Brewster online to try out iChat AV 3.0 the multi-video chat so I can't comment about that. Overall I'd say the system seems slower than Panther. So all in all, worth the $129 upgrade? For a few widgets? Nah... I would have rather simply paid around $29 for iChat 3 to try it out and kept Panther instead. I'd say anyone who wants the eye candy go for it, other than that, stick with Panther.

-steve

I never thought I would see the day. My brother Rick, a Wintel man through and through for as long as I have known him, bought a Mac today! I guess there truly is a first time for everything!

-steve